Warcraft Bible

With a worldwide user base of nearly 9 million active players, it shouldn’t really be a surprise to see that Blizzard has teamed up with a financial institution (First National Bank of Omaha) to offer World of Warcraft branded credit cards. Although I admit it’s an idea that never occurred to me until I read Blizzard’s announcement.

But it looks to me like they haven’t played this out to its logical conclusion.

With a WoW credit card, you get credits to apply to buying game-play time for your Warcraft account, instead of the usual air travel points or merchandise points. And of course, you get vivid WoW art on the card, a total of 13 designs to choose from, including at least one for each of the current races (my favorite is the Troll card).

I suppose those features will attract a fair number of Warcraft enthusiasts to switch to this credit card.

But what an opportunity missed… imagine if you could use your card points for unique in-game pets or trinkets! I’m sure the response to a promotion like that would be astronomical - probably 20 or 50 times as much interest as there is for game play credits.

I can’t see any reason not to do this. You get unique in-game stuff from rare WoW TCG game cards, as well as from the card game’s collector points system. Blizzard has given unique pets to those who attend events (BlizzCon) or buy Collectors’ Edition packages. So why not as an incentive on credit card accounts?

Just think about it. Wouldn’t you seriously consider switching credit card providers if you could get something as rare and cool as a Murky baby murloc pet, or a Picnic Blanket trinket(summons a full picnic setting, with working Hibachi BBQ, umbrella and blanket)?

More info: World of Warcraft Visa Card

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I’ve been seeing a lot of in-game chat about Lord of the Rings Online, all the usual questions and rumors, is it better than WoW, is everybody going to migrate to LOTRO and so on.

With the open beta phase (read: free) of Lord of the Rings Online nearing its end, I finally gave in, downloaded LOTRO, and spend a couple of hours taking a quick look.

And it’s about what I expected. Lord of the Rings in pretty much a clone of World of Warcraft, and about 70% as good. The basic interface is nearly identical, the quest structure is an imitation, the gear, inventory and crafting systems are strangely familiar. You can pretty much use the same commands and key strokes you use in WoW, and never skip a beat.

The “70% as good” has to do with details and refinement. The graphics are pretty good, and extremely similar to WoW, but the landscapes, towns and dungeons are less detailed and interesting. The areas and maps are just like Warcraft, but pathing and interaction with the terrain is relatively clunky… a lot of unproductive running around to get to some point on the map, without any obvious reason why you can’t get from here to there. Grouping works just like WoW, down to the loot rolling and on-screen layout. But group chat is very weak. And so it goes.

There are differences too, and some nifty features that WoW players will enjoy. The available races give you basically the Alliance side of WoW: humans, dwarves, elves and hobbits (replacing gnomes).

But the classes are completely different, and this will certainly make for a fundamental difference in play. LOTRO has Captains, Guardians, Champions, Burglars, Lore Masters, Hunters and Minstrels. There are (strangely enough, given the Lord of the Rings lore) no Mages or Wizards. No priests. It seems like Minstrels are the primary healing class. Lore Masters seem closer to Druids than to Mages. Guardians and Champions are equivalent to tanking and DPS style Warriors, respectively. And Captains are more or less Paladins. The big DPS class is the Hunter.

On the whole, the distinctive class structure is a really positive feature, at least from the perspective of creating an alternative to World of Warcraft. It should make for a different dynamic in groups (Fellowship in LOTRO, as opposed to Party in WoW).

And that is about it for the pluses, I’m afraid. Admittedly, this is based on a very brief first look, and entirely on the most basic aspects of play - after all, my LOTRO character is at level 7 (the initial max level is 50), and hasn’t had a taste of any of the game’s more advanced features. But what are the odds that the higher levels will somehow rise up to meet the standard of WoW? Not very good, I’d say.

I am curious to see what the higher levels of the game will look like. There are some promising features described in the PR for the game, such as Realm vs Realm play, regular world events, and formal tracking of first kills. So I’ll probably take time, now and then, to advance a character and try out more of this new, high-quality addition to the MMORPG genre.

But with nearly 3 years invested in WoW, three level 70 characters, and another five coming along past 60, I can’t see shifting much of my focus to LOTRO. Because the bottom line is: Lord of the Rings Online is a clone of World of Warcraft, and nowhere near its equal in design and play quality.

Who will want to play LOTRO? Some WoW old-timers who are truly burnt on Warcraft, and just need a change. Newbies who’ve never tried WoW, and won’t know what they’re missing.

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The battle between Blizzard Entertainment and un-official (unlicensed) developers of World of Warcraft after-market products such as game guides is heating up.

24-year-old entrepeneur Brian Kopp is suing the company for interfering with his auctions on eBay, where he was selling his “Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling and Gold Guide.”

Brian started selling the Guide on eBay in August 2005. Blizzard lodged complaints with eBay, citing violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (a piece of crap legislation if there ever was one). eBay eventually sided with Blizzard, and terminated Brian’s auctions.

Brian’s legal action seeks monetary damages for lost sales of the Guide, which he continues to sell privately from his own web site.

I can see both sides of this situation. Blizzard needs to protect its copyright, while players and the World of Warcraft community need (and are entitled to) after-market products to improve their experience of the game.

In this case, and generally with regard to gameplay guides, I side with the guide writers and publishers. Blizzard is shooting itself in the foot by trying to shut down enthusiasts who work at developing a richer game culture.

As it happens, Brian Kopp’s guide was a good product, offering great value for World of Warcraft players serious about the game. But I’m sure Blizzard wasn’t making a quality judgment. Some months ago, Blizzard (or rather parent company Vivendi Universal) shut down Germany-based GuideFox, arguably the best quality publisher at the time of WoW class guides.

(note: one or two of the GuideFox guides have started showing up on the market again, at the new Guide Bazaar site… worth a look)

I don’t hold out much hope for Brian’s chances in this situation, but I wish him luck!

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