The second expansion pack for World of Warcraft is due out in the second half of 2008, according to Vivendi. In financial details released today, Vivendi stated not once, but twice that Wrath of the Lich King will arrive during the second half of 2008.

Still no exact “yes or no” coming from the Blizzard camp on this though, so just sit tight until we get an exact release date.

Two other things were also revealed today, one was that as of March 31, 2008, the WoW subscriber base had grown to 10.7 million since January’s report of just a paltry 10 million.

The other thing that was announced, according to this, was that a Blizzard staffer hinted around that the Wrath of the Lich King expansion will include polar bear mounts. Nice.

Via: Shacknews; Image: Worldofwar.net

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Most excellent readers, today we present for you a report on the the most non-heinous Age of Conan Beta. While traveling through the lush underbrush of the most interesting of unreleased online games, Ron and Shawn contemplate the differences and extol the virtues of this soon to release dark fantasy world. Remember that the impressions recounted in the podcast are based upon impressions of a BETA and not final game code and as always may change prior to release of the final game.

We ran long so unfortunately there is no  Rant-n-Rave section this week for fans of that segment.

This weeks show is available by direct download here.

As always, you can get past episodes from our podcast page at http://podcast.filefront.com, and you can send your comments, questions, suggestions, or snarky comments to podcast@filefront.com.

File-N-Forget is also available on the iTunes Music Store.

I hate the “PC gaming is dead” discussion as much as anyone, save for maybe Jeff Green, so I do enjoy seeing the counterarguments that just slap proponents of “PC gaming is dead” square in the face.

Cue Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello, who has stated that the PC gaming market has in fact been growing for several years, even if the retail numbers don’t reflect that.

“I certainly recognize that the box-side [retail] of PC is soft. It’s been soft for some time,” Riccitiello said during a conference call Q&A with analysts.

“Frankly, if it were not for The Sims and World of Warcraft PC box sales, it’d be a pretty dismal sector.”

While that might be the case, it won’t stop EA from supporting the PC and its many new(er) revenue streams, such as online subscriptions.

“One thing EA tries to look at is the total business that’s represented by PC game software. And we’re seeing a growth business there. In fact, it’s been growing for several years.

“It’s just been categorized wrongly by looking simply at the box-side of the equation.”

Certainly the most interesting experiment of EA’s in the PC gaming space is Battlefield Heroes. You don’t really expect a major publisher that is mainly concerned with their bottom line to take a risk like they are with Heroes, but if it works out, it could signal a major change in the industry.

via Next Gen

With the Wrath of the Lich King expansion on the way for the World of Warcraft, Blizzard is preparing players for new content. The latest article focuses on The Nexus; an instanced dungeon for a party or 10/25 man raid.

The article gives the back story for The Nexus War. The author spins a tale of the blue Dragon Aspect, Malygos and his quest to stop what he deems the abuse of magic by the mortal races of Azeroth.

Determined to forestall a catastrophe, Malygos decreed that the world’s unbridled magic must be reined in by any means necessary.

Now Malygos uses the Arcanomicon to locate and tap into the ley lines, diverting the magical powers that course beneath the earth to his home base in Northrend, the Nexus. Once harnessed, the energies are focused through the Nexus’ ascending rings and blasted into the Twisting Nether. Malygos’s redirection of the ley lines has carried disastrous consequences, however, splintering the world’s crust and opening unstable rifts: tears in the very fabric of the magical dimension.

Players will be working with the red dragonflight, which is charged with preserving life.

The site has a number of screenshots from The Nexus as well as a short video showing off MOBs players will encounter in their assault upon the home of the blue dragonflight and Malygos.

via The World of Warcraft

Blizzard’s Jeffrey “Tigole” Kaplan, one of World of Warcraft’s Lead Designers, gives WoW players a glimpse of what lies behind the blue curtain for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Representatives from the MMOGamer, TenTonHammer and Curse all got the chance to submit questions to Kaplan for this podcast interview.

Most of the questions concentrate on raids. Kaplan talks about the duel raiding system for 10 and 25 man raids.

The goal with the 10 and 25 thing is not that we want to have sort of easy-mode, and that’s 10, and hard-mode and that’s 25, we do want to have two separate, clear progressions, and even within those we want to have easy 10 and 25 raids, medium 10 and 25, and hard 10 and 25. We want to have progression through those.

He speaks specifically about the with problems balancing everything out for the duel raiding system for the Four Horsemen; comparing it to Naxxramas.

Kaplan does talk about other aspects of the new expansion, touching on PvP content, item inflation (or building a bigger shoulder pad) and content for the average WoW player. You can listen to the podcast interview, or for those who prefer to read a transcription of the piece you can find it up on the MMOGamer.

Blizzard’s parent company Vivendi is suing MDY, Inc. the creator of the Glider bot program for the World of Warcraft. For those of you that are new to Glider, the program allows users to load their copy of the WoW client software into RAM making gameplay automated.

I agree with Vivendi that using Glider is “cheating” and bad for the WoW players and economy. However, fining Glider users $750 every time they load it is excessive. It’s the old punish the kids and the dealers can’t sell drugs argument really.

What really irks me is that Blizzard is arguing that WoW players using the program are violating copyright rather than the EULA. Translation, the users don’t own their copies of the WoW client they purchased. No, you don’t own that copy of WoW you bought on CD; you’re merely renting the license for it.

For a detailed explaination of how this is magically supposed to work, check out the article on MDY vs. Blizzard explaining why cheating at WoW may be rotten but it’s not copyright infringement on Public Knowledge.

Aside from World of Warcraft, the biggest MMO of 2007 and so far this year isn’t one you would name off the top of your head. According to the author of an article up on Eurogamer; it’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The piece goes on to defend the position that although CoD4 isn’t an MMO in the strictest sense of the definition, it does share many of the same gameplay elements that typify an MMO.

Call of Duty 4 proves that it’s possible to take some of the things that MMOs do right and distil them for a game that wouldn’t traditionally be seen as an MMO. The potency of the idea, even in this form, is obvious; the drive to play just a little bit more, because there’s a reward waiting just up ahead, is an incredibly powerful and addictive force for players

I can actually agree with the author on most of his points, and the idea isn’t one that hasn’t been presented before. The success of MMOs is changing the way traditional video games are being designed. One of the latest examples of this trend is the multi-player mode in RockStar’s Grand Theft Auto IV. I think we’re going to see the games industry moving ever closer to this formula as gamers demand more of a social element to their gaming experience.

via Eurogamer

Those who make the claim that PC gaming is dying or already dead might want to take a look at some new numbers that the NPD Group have released. The value of online subscriptions in the US from games like World of Warcraft exceed even Dr. Evil’s fantasies, to the tune of more than $1 billion a year. This number is based on data gathered from October 2007 to March 2008, which also reveals that 11 million people subscribe to online games every month.

“Now that NPD can estimate the value of the subscription market, it’s clear that there is a sizable chunk of revenue being generated by PC gaming beyond what is reflected in retail sales,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. Certainly, this bodes well for the PC gaming community and developers who remain interested in the platform. But, success doesn’t come easy; looking at the top PC MMOs in terms of subscribers in Q1 2008 show that there’s some extremely stiff competition at the top.

MMO/PC Games:

1. World of Warcraft
2. RuneScape
3. Lord of the Rings Online
4. Final Fantasy XI
5. City of Heroes

Gaming Websites:

1. Pogo.com
2. Realarcade.com
3. Bigfishgames.com
4. Gametap.com
5. Disney.com

Demographics were another area that was looked at by NPD, which show that MMO players are primarily males under the age of 35, while the majority of those on gaming websites like Pogo are females over the age of 35.

The problem with tapping this market, of course, is the significant investment it takes to even attempt to become a successful MMO. Coupled with the high risk of failure, it’s not likely that you’ll see every developer around trying to tap this market — at least not at this point.

via GI.biz

The fourth annual Games for Health Conference will be showcasing the expanding role of video games in the Health profession. Video game technology is being applied in the field for rehabilitation, training and to encourage exercise.

Some highlights of the conference will be familiar to most gamers. A new version of Activision’s Guitar Hero is being introduced, which will be used in the rehabilitation of arm amputees. The results of studies based on the “Corrupted Blood Syndrome” form Blizzard’s World of Warcraft are also being presented.

Attendees will have the chance to play training games like 3DiTeams and the K.I.C.K. (Kid’s Interactive Creation Kiosk). 3DiTeams offers emergency health care training to medical professionals in virtual worlds. The full press release follows the break.

Read the full article

Hey buddy, want some WoWcrack? You know you do. Its cheap too, and when I say cheap, I mean free. Follow me into this dark alley and I will give you the goods - make sure no one sees you and that you are not followed or else the deal is off. You aren’t packing heat or wearing a wire are you? Ok cool, let’s do this then.

All of my stuff is premo and pure and it is a new strain of WoWcrack sure to please even the most discerning of tastes. It is called Wrath of the Lich King and I have nine different types.

• The first one is an interview with designer J. Kaplan & Producer J. Allen Brack about what World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion has to offer.
• Next we have the first footage of air-to-air battles featuring vehicle combat.
• I also have an extended look at new zones (Northrend) and more vehicle combat
• Here I have the Howling Fjord which is one of Lich King’s two starter zones, including the Utgarde Keep instance and the new Tuskar race.
• Then I have this sweet bit of stuff that contains footage of the Borean Tundra which is the Lich King’s other starting zone, along with Howling Fjord. This clip shows both the Alliance and Horde towns, and the Nexus level 71-73 instance.
• Dragonblight is some really good stuff too where you can catch a glimpse of Wyrmrest Temple, the Nerubians, and Naxxramas.
• Like trolls? Then you will love Zul’Drak - the former troll empire has fallen on tough times. It’s not just for ice trolls any more.
• Sholazar Basin is the sister zone to Ungoro Crater. That crashed ship? Hemet Nessingwary’s. Good times to be had with this one
• Last but not least I have the Grizzly Hills where the Venture Co. has set up shop in Northrend, and so have the Furbogs (they live in the fallen, mini-world tree).

So what will it be then? You will take all of them? You are hardcore indeed my friend! Make sure you tell your friends about me, and as long as they are not narcs - I will do my best to supply them with more WoWcrack when it becomes available. In the meantime, if they need more information on my wares, they can check out previous posts on Wrath of the Lich King here. You can also get more of the goods after the break.

Enjoy my friend, but just be careful you don’t OD on all this WoW.

Read the full article

This week, after a slight delay of game thanks to rain and technology, the File-N-Forget podcast ignores the GTA IV release hype and instead focuses on two games that might interest folks who are not mindless GTA obsessed zombies. Iron Man the Game and Viking: Battle for Asgard. Sure Stephany dinged Viking pretty badly in her impression, but Ron quite likes it and talks about why.

The Rant and Rant section of the episode features Ron talking about how World of Warcraft can fail while Shawn bitches about bitchy women.

This weeks show is available by direct download here.

As always, you can get past episodes from our podcast page at http://podcast.filefront.com, and you can send your comments, questions, suggestions, or snarky comments to podcast@filefront.com.

File-N-Forget is also available on the iTunes Music Store.

KingsIsle Entertainment has announced its existence after being founded in 2005 and revealed that they are working on several online games. The studio is headed up by CEO Elie Akilian, previously the co-founder of Inet Technologies, and president David Nichols, a former senior VP at Midway.

“We founded KingsIsle with an approach that fosters ingenuity,” said Akilian.

“Our focus is in the online environment and will continue to be so in the future. We’ve pulled together some of the most creative minds around and given them room to push boundaries and create superlative entertainment experiences.”

“We’ll continue to build on that base of originality.”

I wouldn’t blame you for being skeptical, of course. Time and again we’ve seen games try something that is supposedly different in the MMO space, yet simply amount to a sub-par World of Warcraft clone that isn’t worth your time or money. (’sup, Tabula Rasa?)

The development of KingsIsle’s first game, expected to enter beta this spring, is being headed by Todd Coleman, who previously played a key role in the Shadowbane MMO. Another of the company’s projects is being headed by creative director Tom Hall, co-founder of both id Software and ION Storm. So there’s no lack of talent, it would seem, but we’ll have to wait and see if they’re able to capture an audience in the crowded MMO market.

via GamesIndustry.biz

The World of Warcraft Insider has an article on the latest expansion for the Burning Crusade; Fury of the Sunwell. The Sunwell is the culmination of the Blood Elf and Draenei storylines. It will the reveal the fate of the final member of the triumvirate of Illidan, Vashj, and Kael’thas. Players will also be introduced to a new “ultimate bad guy.”

World of Warcraft lead producer J. Allen Brack and art director Chris Robinson give players a lot of info on both Fury of the Sunwell and the Wrath of the Lich King. However the focus is on the evolving art style of the game and how it works with settings, scenery and architecture. They talk specifically about the style for the Sunwell and therefore the Blood Elves at the height of their power and the contrast with the style of the Northrend area. Items and armor for both these areas will be thematic and will be easily recognizable by players as trophies from a specific area.

For the full picture of the Sunwell and a preview of Northrend, check out the insider interview on World of Warcraft.

The former developer of Crackdown that is now at work on APB has wasted little time in making use of the recent $50 million investment that was made in the studio. Realtime Worlds has purchased back the global distribution rights for APB, which founder and CEO David Jones believes is critical to seeing the game all the way through.

“Owning the distribution rights to APB marks a major milestone in Realtime Worlds’ evolution into a premier online entertainment company,” explained Jones.

“By controlling the rights to APB we can ensure that gamers around the globe experience the revolutionary gameplay we envisioned when we first began creating the property.”

“We are excited about the prospect of having direct, personal relationships with our players, which is a dream come true for many development studios,” he added.

Jones talked about the success of online games like World of Warcraft and Runescape as helpful in garnering investors. “I think it’s given developers a different route they can take. I think it’s good to have some exemplars out there, as well as the one that everybody quotes, but then you can also look at what you might call the lighter casual titles, like Club Penguin, Jagex with Runescape – there’s a lot of stuff out there that’s doing really well in terms of online.

“So I think there are quite a few success stories out there, and in many ways they eclipse the studios doing the more traditional retail boxed product. Everybody sees the market has only just started, and there’s still a huge potential for growth.”

It seems like good news for gamers, as Realtime Worlds clearly wants to deliver on APB in every way possible. Given how great Crackdown was, I feel justifiably optimistic about how APB will turn out.

via GamesIndustry.biz

Its a shame to see a promising game begin to falter. Last week’s announcement regarding server consolidation for the recently launched Pirates of the Burning Sea MMORPG might not be the best sign that the game is doing well. Regardless it sparked a discussion between Ron and I about why MMORPGs fail today and thus this week’s Podcast was born. Then the topic moves to my recent trip to Chicago to meet with Wizards of the Coast about the future of Dungeons & Dragons. If you’re interested in more info on D&D 4E be sure to check out The Analog Gamer.

The rant and rave section of the podcast features a rant at a very special audience and Ron implores Sony to fix the horrible problems with the Playstation Store and its downloads.

This weeks show is available by direct download here.

As always, you can get past episodes from our podcast page at http://podcast.filefront.com, and you can send your comments, questions, suggestions, or snarky comments to podcast@filefront.com.

File-N-Forget is also available on the iTunes Music Store.

There’s good news for all of you that have signed the petition demanding that Uwe Boll stop wasting film. Blizzard is in total agreement. The “director” has admitted to being shown the door after proposing one of his infamous adaptations based on the World of Warcraft.

But if you’re not going to make a faithful adaptation, why make an adaptation at all? Apparently, the folks over at Blizzard wonder the same thing, since they practically laughed Boll out of their offices when he approached them about making a World of Warcraft adaptation, the director confessed.

“I got in contact with Paul Sams of Blizzard, and he said, ‘We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…especially not to you,’” Boll revealed. “Because it’s such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income, what the company has with it.”

I’m sure it was a case of open mouth exchange feet, but I can’t get over Boll’s inadvertent admission that it would have been a bad movie. Finally some honesty in Hollywood.

via MTV Movies Blog

Blizzard has clinched an agreement with The9 and Soft-World the insures China will be getting the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion. The9 handles Blizzards WoW support in mainland China while Soft-World is its contact for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. More details about the release of the expansion will follow at a later date.

via World of Warcraft

While this doesn’t help to peg a release date for the second expansion for World of Warcraft, we know that Wrath of the Lich King is at least in playable form. Blizzard staff and an extremely lucky select few (accompanied by a nice NDA, of course), are – right this very second, as I’m typing this and as you’re reading this – running around, killing things in Northrend that you’ve never even so much as dreamed of.

WoW Insider was able to confirm the news last week through anonymous sources. As I said, this isn’t indicative of the game being a certain number of months away from release. Blizzard rarely releases things too early, so don’t expect to see Wrath of the Lich King rushed out before the holidays.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t hope they do get it out by then.

Are you an MMO player? Are you fed up with gold farmers who inflate the in-game economy? A man by Antonio Hernandez most certainly is, but he’s taking more drastic measures than most players who go on swear-ridden tirades against those farmers and spammers. Hernandez is taking them to court and seeking to make the case a federal class action lawsuit.

As reported by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the lawsuit is seeking to ban IGE US from selling gold due to it hurting the game’s economy and ruining the game’s experience. As the first case of its kind, it’s difficult to really discern where this case might go, but it would certainly set a precedent.

“The real significance of this case is, ‘What are the rights of the [virtual world] community members when they go online?’” said C. Richard Newsome, Hernandez’s attorney.

The attorneys of IGE, meanwhile, argue that Hernandez and other players have no right to sue because they have no ownership or property rights within World of Warcraft. They also say the lawsuit fails to specificy actual damages.

Miami attorney James M. Miller, who is representing IGE, claims that IGE US is no longer in the virtual gold business, but one quick trip to IGE.com will have you seeing World of Warcraft’s name or logo scattered all around the page. Hell, even the first four words of the page’s title are “IGE, Buy WOW Gold.” What was that again, Mr. Miller?

As for Blizzard’s stance, they’re behind Hernandez. “We believe that shutting down gold farming and real-money transfer is in the interest of all World of Warcraft players and that a victory in this case would have a positive long-term effect on the online gaming industry as a whole,” said COO Paul Sams.

While it might seem like a silly notion to take something like this to court, I truly hope Hernandez wins the case. Even if this is a tactic to squeeze some money out of a situation that doesn’t necessarily call for a federal class action lawsuit, I would love to see companies like IGE shutdown and forced out of WoW and other MMOs.

via Eurogamer

By the Gods this man is bold and brazen!

THQ’s Jack Sorenson stated in a recent interview that World of Warcraft has basically peaked and other MMOs are about to get in on some of the MMO loving from gamers tired of the online behemoth.

Speaking to Eurogamer last week at Gamers Day in San Francisco Sorenson stated that:

“However long it takes World of Warcraft to go through its cycle there will always be people on it, probably always be millions of people on it, but does it keep at that peak? And I think that, I wish I could see the numbers, but my guess is that it probably already has peaked - but it’s still a great business. Who wouldn’t want that?”

He went on to speak about THQ’s upcoming Warhammer 40K MMO stating that:

“We haven’t announced a release date, but it’s certainly not imminent and we plan on doing a very high quality job. That’s certainly one thing that World of Warcraft’s proved: not only do you have to do it well, it has to be great from day one. There’s not a tolerance like there used to be, when Ultima came out… All those games were buggy and horrible, and eventually got there. You can’t do that anymore, which has lengthened the cycle for good-quality MMOs. Blizzard based a lot of their, let’s say, RPG characteristics on 40k, which was the original. There’s a lot of commonality there that just comes right out of what Games Workshop has developed - the fiction, and the rest of it is incredibly deep. I think if we’re true to that and do it at a high quality, then people will come. And they can certainly co-exist.”

That was straight from the horse’s mouth, not mine, and if you want to read the rest, click through the link below. I almost refused to touch this with a nice, clean, germ free 10ft pole but I figured you would hear about it sooner or later anyway.

Thanks: Eurogamer

DISCLAIMER: This is post was not intentionally trying to get hard-core WoW fan’s silk panties in a wad - it is only the news as reported so please refrain from bashing the author. The views and opinions of Jack Sorenson expressed in this post do not necessarily state or reflect those of the Gaming Today News Editors, their spouses, significant other, lovers, pets, imaginary friends, game characters, house-elves, multiple personalities, ancestors, neighbors, fifth cousin twice removed, or the evil monkey residing in our closets.