World of Warcraft - 60 Day Pre-paid Game Card Accessories

World of Warcraft - 60 Day Pre-paid Game Card Product Details

Released on 04/03/2005

• Blizzard's next MMO won't be a Warcraft sequel

  Everybody knows that Blizzard's working on a new MMO, codenamed Titan, but while the developer has yet to reveal any hard information on the game, the company's CEO Mike Morhaime has announced it won't be a sequel to World of Warcraft.
  
  Talking at the DICE developer summit in Las Vegas, Morhaime announced that the new game will cover new ground. (Thanks Ars Technica.)
  
  "Without giving away any details, we have some of our most experienced MMO developers, people who spent years working on the World of WarCraft team, working on this project," said Morhaime. "We're really trying to leverage all the lessons we learned through the years. Some of which we were able to address in World of Warcraft and others that maybe because of the design decisions we've made, you just can't address. So we're kind of taking a step back with all that knowledge to make something that's completely new and fresh. We're not trying to make a WOW sequel."
  
  According to Eurogamer, Titan's still a way off, and players can expect to get their hands on it in 2013. Yesterday, however, we reported that Blizzard will be shipping at least two games in 2012. Interesting!
• Blizzard's new MMO is already playable

  Psst! Heard about Titan? It's the code-name for Blizzard's new MMO, which the World of Warcraft developer is hard at work on. And guess, what? According to Gamasutra - thanks, Eurogamer - it's already up and running.

  "We're very confident in that product. It's an awesome one. We're playing it already," teased Paul Sams, Blizzard COO, when asked about the project.

  "It is a total ball to play. We think that the reach of that product is greater than anything that we've done before. We're very excited about that. I believe that it's the type of game that will have a very long life, much like World of Warcraft has. The thing that we hope will happen is that it will not stop World of Warcraft but we believe will eclipse it."

  According to industry rumour, the game is out in late 2013, but this being Blizzard, we wouldn't suggest setting your watch by that. The only other thing we know, as Eurogamer points out, is that it's not going to be a sequel to World of Warcraft, but something entirely new.

  Excited? You bet. Annoyed we have to wait? You got it.

• Blizzard working on unannounced game?

  You wait years years! for each Blizzard game to arrive, and all of a sudden the legendary PC developer seems to be announcing new titles all the time.

  Well, not quite all the time, but we already know that the Warcraft creators are working on a brand new MMO, codenamed Titan, along with the amazing dungeon-crawler Diablo III, and two further instalments for the dazzling sci fi RTS StarCraft II. Oh, and there are two more World of Warcraft expansions on the way too. And a Diablo III expansion, even though the game isn even out yet.

  Well now there seems to be another game on the way, if a job listing, spotted by Eurogamer, is anything to go by. The job ad in question doesn give too much away, but it is encouraging applicants to come forward to work for an "unannounced game title."

  Digging deeper, it turns out Blizzard after a "software engineer, tools," to join Blizzard's "newest game team". The developer adds that, "this is a key role in a new and exciting project within the company."

  Well, it looks like the developers are going to busy for quite a while, then. More news on this one when we hear it.

• World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta trial launches soon

  A select few World of Warcraft players will soon be given the chance to try out Mists of Pandaria, the newest expansion pack for the hugely popular MMO title.

  Annual Pass holders, press, fansites and opt-in beta testers are being sent invitations to try out the latest add-on, in order to help iron out the bugs ahead of its commercial release on PC later this year.

  In addition to providing feedback on performance, participants will be permitted to take as many screenshots and videos as they wish, meaning fans will soon be able to share all sorts of juicy details on the new content soon.

  Mists of Pandaria is the fourth expansion pack for World of Warcraft and introduces an entirely new continent, populated by a mystical race of martial arts-trained panda bears called the Pandaren.

  The new add-on allows players to play as the noble Pandaren and unlock a new Monk character class as they explore new areas, embark on hundreds of extra quests and train their characters up to level 90.

  Other fresh features include the all-new Challenge Mode and Pet Battle system, which lets players train up their vanity pets and pit them against each other.

  Published: 22/03/2012

• The Rise of Multiplayer Gaming

  
  

  It's hard to image there was ever a time when we couldn't assume our grimmest war-face, fire up our consoles and do battle with a global army of enemy combatants from the comfort of our armchairs. We're certainly come a long way from sitting hunched over our Commodores, battling as much for keyboard space with our siblings as we were on-screen! But where did it all start?

  Things really started to evolve in the 90s though when LAN parties were the in-thing for the hardcore gaming hobbyist. If the prospect of the violently seductive Doom wasn't enough to keep you up into the early hours by itself, there was no better way to bring the competitive minds of a whole generation of gamers together than by syncing up a few PCs and spending hours, even days, doing battle in the flesh.

  

  The blossoming Korean e-sports scene took the concept even further, and now commands a staggering national audience for televised championships. Blizzard's outstanding StarCraft series rules the roost in this domain, and not even the awesome sequel released in 2010 has put a dent in players' enthusiasm for the best-selling original. The competitive scene for StarCraft II is still buzzing in the West, and it's never too late to get stuck into a game that'll be around for years to come and still has two explosive expansions in the works.

  

  Then there's World of Warcraft, the game that really did change everything. Released in 2004, it arrived just at the right time as the mass uptake of increasingly fast broadband connections became the norm, unleashing a greedy clamour for the world of Azeroth - one so extreme that it saw Blizzard pull the game from store shelves at one point, their servers unable to keep up with the snowballing demand. It now enjoys a seven-figure subscriber count, and with three award-winning expansions under it's belt, there's more content for you to get stuck into than you'll know what to do with!

  

  While consoles such as the sadly-undersold Dreamcast teased gently around the potential for global gameplay, it was arguably Microsoft who broke new ground for console gaming with the launch of the Xbox LIVE service, putting a whole new world of gaming at player's feet - and long before PCs became a breeze to hook up for the living-room lounger!

  So while PC gaming might have dominated the early days of competitive multiplayer, it was titles like Halo 2 that brought the idea of mass gaming to the forefront of game design. While the single-player components of the Halo games continue to blow us away, the passion for Halo 2 was so extreme that players left their Xbox 360s running for days at a time to prevent the eventual switch-off of multiplayer support for all original Xbox games in April 2010.

  

  These days it's show-stopping blockbuster titles like Call of Duty that continue to change the way gaming is viewed and played online by the console crowd. For many, it's the only game they need to buy each year, and services like Call of Duty Elite are doing even more to add greater depth to the experience, allowing gamers to track, log and show off their finest moments on the battlefield.

  

  No-one can guess what the next evolution in multiplayer might be, but we're already seeing some extraordinary innovation in the likes of Nintendo's StreetPass, allowing gamers-on-the-go to make new friends without ever saying hello, and the awesome potential of the augmented reality features in the upcoming PlayStation Vita. One thing's clear, multiplayer is here to stay and the future can only bring us even closer together.

  Published: 25/01/2012

• The history of MMORPGs - Where it all began

  
  

  

  Console shooters had their derby match at the start of November, when Battlefield 3 challenged reigning champ Modern Warfare 3 for the hearts and minds of virtual soldiers across the world. On December 20th, a similar clash will take place, with stakes that are arguably even higher.

  That's when the Lucas-approved, Bioware-developed online role-player Star Wars: The Old Republic launches, offering the first serious challenge to World of Warcraft's dominance. And given that World of Warcraft has a population more than twice the size of Norway, and turns around enough money each year to dwarf most real world nations, it's territory worth fighting over.

  But where did massively multiplayer online role-playing games (or MMORPGs) come from?

  To answer that question you need to jump back to Essex University in 1978. It was here that two students, Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle, first took the early Dungeons & Dragons-inspired adventure games and adapted them to allow multiple players at the same time. They called their creation MUD, or Multi-User Dungeon.

  

  The game remained very much part of the academic and computer science subculture, until the mid 1980s, when commercial publishers made their first efforts at packaging the idea of playing online in a way normal game consumers at home could understand. One of the first pioneers, appropriately enough, was a Commodore 64 virtual world called Habitat, developed by LucasArts.

  The internet was still a basic and clunky thing, however, so these were little more than tentative toes dipped into online waters. It wasn't until 1991 that games we'd now recognise as offering true graphical online multiplayer experiences really took off.

  First off the blocks was Neverwinter Nights, an official Dungeons & Dragons game hosted by the rapidly expanding AOL internet service provider. It was crude by today's standards, with a basic 3D view in a small window and text inputs, but it was a genuine virtual world populated by other players. Other adventure game specialists, such as Sierra, quickly followed suit and released their own spins on the formula.

  

  In 1995, internet speeds were given a boost and data traffic restrictions lifted in the US, allowing this embryonic genre to really evolve. Meridian 59 was technically the first MMO game to take advantage of the technological freedoms, but it was the 1997 game, Ultima Online, that popularised the genre. Not only did it offer rich, varied gameplay, it boasted a colourful top-down game world to explore. It was Ultima's creator, Richard Garriott, who claims the honour of coining the term MMORPG.

  As player numbers rose, and with them the chance to make serious money from subscriptions, more recognisable names joined the fray. SONY's Everquest debuted in 1999, with full 3D graphics. Sega, meanwhile, brought MMO games to consoles, with the Dreamcast title Phantasy Star Online. Square's legendary Final Fantasy went online-only for its eleventh entry in 2003. Online role-playing was fast becoming one of the most popular game genres around, and just needed one final kick to boot it into the mainstream consciousness.

  

  Cue World of Warcraft. Released in 2004, this spin-off from Blizzard's fantasy themed real-time strategy series brought a speed and immediacy that previous titles, still clinging to the paper-and-dice role-playing roots and point-and-click adventure elements, had lacked. World of Warcraft was fast and satisfying, character classes were well defined, and progression brought more and more impressive powers and weapons into play. It had the depth and immersion of a true RPG, but the instant gratification of an action game. Needless to say, the realm of Azeroth was quickly filled with addicted fans.

  Since then, many have tried to topple Blizzard's billion-dollar behemoth from its MMORPG throne. Some manage to tempt a few subscribers away, but most eventually return, lured back by the vibrant community and regular world-changing updates.

  World of Warcraft has never faced a rival like Star Wars though. There are millions of fans around the world, who have long dreamed of fighting, working or just living in that galaxy far, far away and The Old Republic allows them to do just that. Will that be enough to cause a mass emigration from the realms of Warcraft? Who knows - either way, it's going to be fun finding out.

  Published: 07/12/2012

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