World of Warcraft patch 3.2 hits servers

As many gamers no doubt know, servers for developer Blizzard’s hit MMORPG, World of Warcraft, are going to be down a little longer than normal today.

The bad news is that gamers are going to have to find something else to do on their Tuesday besides waiting at their keyboards impatiently for servers to go back up.

The good news, however, is that when the servers go live again, they’ll be sporting the much anticipated patch 3.2. of the highly popular game

In addition to a brand new shiny dungeon, Crusaders’ Coliseum, that comes in six delicious flavors (5, 10 and 25 normal and heroic), patch 3.2 also brings a new battleground, class modifications, and more higher level loot that you can shake a stick at.

A lot of elements in the World of Warcraft game are receiving massive revamps in patch 3.2.

Druids get more character models; classes are being nerfed and buffed left and right; and players can now disable experience gaining (perfect for WoW twinks) and also earn experience by completing battleground objectives.

In addition to those revisions, several parts of the PVP (Player Versus Player) system are being revamped. Resilience has always been an important stat for PVP’ers, but now it’s more important than ever and will help improve the pacing of arena matches by making players harder to kill. There’s also going to be a new battleground for gamers to wage war on, and there’s also a new boss being added to the Wintergrasp raid, Vault of the Archavon.

Perhaps the largest change, however, that you can expect in World of Warcraft patch 3.2 is the alterations to the badge system.

To promote faster gear upgrading, Blizzard has decided that all heroic instances will now drop Emblems of Conquest, which can be redeemed for high level gear.

In essence, guilds will have a much easier time gearing up their raid members without having to farm older raids like Naxxramas over and over again for loot. That said, the new dungeon and new badges, Emblems of Triumph, bring a slew of even higher level gear.

As awesome as this new patch sounds, don’t expect to dive right in tonight or even tomorrow. World of Warcraft is infamous for its server instability following large patches, and I wouldn’t be surprised if servers still aren’t fully playable until this weekend.

For more details about all the goodies that patch 3.2 is bringing to World of Warcraft, I highly recommend you check out the full patch 3.2 notes and an in-depth analysis of them over at Wow.com.

As always, the guys and gals at Wow.com have done an amazing job of helping gamers get prepared for everything and anything that the patch has to offer. Check it out. You still have a good several hours before the servers should be up.

By Mark Fujii

Source: http://www.collegenews.com/

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Top Two Picks for Online Gaming in China

NetEase.com (NTES) and Perfect World (PWRD) are two online gaming companies that remain undervalued even in China’s hot economy. Online gaming has been a growing industry in China, but recent regulations may put a damper on growth, while several high-profile new releases could create a lot of competition between the industry’s major players.


Easy Profits for NetEase?

Despite posting a 54.7% increase in its net income during the first quarter, NetEase.com’s stock trades at just over 20x earnings. Meanwhile, the company remains well-capitalized with more than CNY6 billion in cash and short-term investments and no long-term debt, with several promising prospects in terms of game development down the road.

NetEase.com plans to start open beta testing of its in-house 3D MMORPG (massively multiplayer role playing game) Tian Xia Er (TX2) on September 20th, according to the game’s official site. Meanwhile, the company also submitted a revised version of its licensed 3D MMORPG World of Warcraft, which is extremely popular in the United States.

A Perfect Opportunity

Perfect World trades at slightly lower discount of around 20x earnings with net income growth of 36% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, the company also remains well-capitalized with over CNY1 billion in cash and short-term investments and no long-term debt, with several new projects under development that could prove to be successes down the road.

Perfect World expects to start closed beta testing of its 2D turn-based cartoon MMORPG (massively multiplayer role playing game) Fantasy Zhu Xian after about a month from the start of its alpha testing on August 6th. The company also plans to release one or two 2D real-time strategy games in late 2009 or early 2010, according to President Zhu Qi.

Troubles in the Sector

China’s Ministry of Culture has begun to crackdown on online games with themes that promote gang cultures, saying that they “undermine morality and Chinese traditional culture.” As a result, several leading web sites have already been removed or blocked, including two popular ones known as “Godfather” and “Gangster,” according to the agency.

Then earlier this week, Citigroup downgraded the Chinese online gaming sector to Neutral from Positive as it believes most of the good news on the sector has already been priced into shares and that new regulatory issues will be overhangs on the stocks. However, the firm’s top picks in the space also remain NetEase.com and Perfect World, given their cheap valuations.

Conclusions

Online gaming companies operating in China may see an increased risk of government regulation in the form of a crackdown on violence. However, the lure of an estimated 200 million players of online games could mean big profits for companies that play by the rules. Perfect World and NetEase.com remain two of the cheapest online gaming companies operating in China with great prospects going forward.

Source: http://sumfolio.com/

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Wonderland MMO, due out next year, targets teen girls

Teen girls may be upset that there's not really a Twilight MMORPG in the works, but perhaps they can find solace in the news that Wonderland MMO is on its way. Developed by Virtual Fairground, Wonderland MMO will be Flash-based and work in any web browser. It's based, of course, on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. There's no connection to the Tim Burton movie also due out next year starring Johnny Depp, but I'm sure the timing won't hurt things for the fledgling MMO.


Wonderland MMO will have a darkly romantic and mysterious feel to it, in contrast to many games aimed at teenagers. According to Ilja Goossens of Virtual Fairground:

* "We really want to create a different kind of online game experience for girls. There are already so much sugary sweet virtual worlds for this demographic or those that are just about shopping and buying things. We believe girls have more varied interests and preferences. Something that is clearly proven by other media such as books, tv-shows and movies.”

Wonderland MMO has been in development since 2008 and has a projected release date
of 2010.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/

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World Of Warcraft's U.S. Retail Sales Total 8.6 Million

Blizzard's World Of Warcraft has sold a spectacular 8.6 million copies to date, according to NPD data provided to Gamasutra.


Following the revelation that The Sims 3 sold more than 800,000 copies in its first month at U.S. retail, Gamasutra followed up with NPD to find out how well WoW -- perhaps the only retail competitor to The Sims series over the past few years -- has fared.

The NPD Group rolled up multiple SKUs of the massively popular PC online game and its expansion packs since its November 2004 launch to arrive at the 8.6 million figure.

No information on average sale price across all versions was provided. But presuming $30 for each unit sold (the core game currently retails at $19.95; expansion packs and compilations for as much as $39.95), it amounts to as much as $258 million total from U.S. retail alone.

The statistics provided by NPD included the base World of Warcraft, plus the Collectors Edition version, the expansion pack-bundling Battle Chest, and the two standalone expansions: The Burning Crusade and Wrath Of The Lich King.

Although the operator transition in China is likely to have diminished the userbase somewhat, Activision Blizzard's most recently-announced total of 11.5 million subscribers is the company's main moneyspinner.

Millions in the West pay $15 a month to play the game, which means hundred of millions of dollars yearly for Blizzard. World of Warcraft shows no signs of losing its massive lead in the subscription MMO market in the near future.


Source: http://www.gamasutra.com

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Blizzard Reveals World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

At its BlizzCon show, Blizzard Entertainment showcased an upcoming World of Warcraft expansion pack, Cataclysm, plus an updates on its venerable Diablo and Starcraft franchises.



Blizzard Entertainment rallied the faithful last week at its fourth BlizzCon 09 conference, wowing enthusiastic gamers with promised updated to its long-running Diablo and Starcraft franchises, along with taking the wraps off World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, an upcoming expansion pack for its widely popular MMORPG game.

First up: Cataclysm. Blizzard promises the third expansion pack for its World of Warcraft MMORPG game will turn Azeroth on its head as the dragon Aspect Deathwing sudden bursts forth from a long underground nap and begins laying waste to the face of the world. The emergence of Deathwing promised to alter the balance of power in the Azeroth universe, and create new opportunities for heroes—and villains—to emerge. As with previous expansion packs, Cataclysm will introduce new elements to the game, including two new races (goblins and worgen), the ability to advance all the way to level 85 (remember when level 60 seemed unachievable?), and massive alternatives to classic game zones in the wake of Deathwing's destruction. The expansion pack will also introduce new lands (including a sunken city), offer new player-versus-player and battleground zones, enable new race and class combinations, and introduce a new profession (archeology—watch out, Indiana Jones!) But when will Cataclysm be available? Blizzard hasn't said yet, but it's a good bet they'd like to have it available in time for the end-of-year holiday buying season.

Blizzard also updated fans on the forthcoming Diablo III, which will mark the company's first update ot the combat franchise in more than a decade, unveiling a fourth character class—the monk—in addition to the barbarian, witch doctor, and wizard. Blizzard also showed off Diablo III's new 3D graphics, but did not offer a release date for the game…some industry watchers aren't expecting it until 2011.

Blizzard also showed off the upcoming Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty real-time strategy game—another franchise loyal fans have been anticipating for years. Blizzard announced StarCraft II will offer infinitely re-playable single-player campaigns that don't just serve as a training ground for multi-player campaigns—which might be a good thing since Blizzard recently revealed that Starcraft II will not support LAN play, and will instead rely on its own Battle.net online multiplayer service.

by Geoff Duncan

Source: http://digitaltrends.com/

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