Guild Wars 2: The Lost Shores, A Lost Opportunity?

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm release date officially confirmed. Collector’s Edition and Digital Deluxe Edition detailed

Blizzard has officially announced that StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm will be available from March 12, 2013.

It has also detailed Deluxe and Collector’s editions of the game. Heart of the Swarm Collector’s Edition will be available at retail stores for $79.99, while a download-only Digital Deluxe Edition will be purchasable from Blizzard’s own store for $59.99.Those that purchase the standard edition digitally or at retail will have the option to upgrade to the Digital Deluxe version at a cost of $20 for as long as the standalone Digital Deluxe version remains available.Here are the full details on both packages:

Digital Deluxe

• The Digital Deluxe version of Heart of the Swarm includes a full digital copy of the expansion along with the following in-game bonus items:
  • StarCraft II Torrasque: Crush the enemies of the Swarm with the indomitable Torrasque, a fearsome new look for your zerg Ultralisks.
  • StarCraft II Battle.net Portraits and Decals: New Swarm-infested Battle.net portraits and decals help you customize the look of your online profile and in-game army.
  • World of Warcraft In-Game Pet: The Baneling companion pet is bursting with enthusiasm and ready to explode onto the Pet Battles scene.
  • Diablo III Blade Wings and Banner Sigil: Grow zerg-like wings in honor of the Queen of Blades, and unfurl an exclusive banner sigil to mark your allegiance to the Swarm in Sanctuary.
• The Collector’s Edition of Heart of the Swarm includes the full version of the game on DVD-ROM and contains the following exclusive bonus items, in addition to the content from the Digital Deluxe version:
  • Behind-the-Scenes DVD and Blu-ray: Immerse yourself in the StarCraft universe with developer commentary, interviews with voice actors, and an in-depth historical retrospective on StarCraft’s eSports legacy narrated by key members of the community.
  • Collector’s Edition Soundtrack CD: Enhance your Heart of the Swarm musical experience with this collection of more than a dozen tracks from the game.
  • Heart of the Swarm Hardcover Art Book: This 144-page tome features never-before-seen art from the expansion, including early concept sketches and meticulous 3D renderings.
  • Zerg Rush Mousepad: This Collector’s Edition mousepad depicts the Terran Dominion holding out desperately under the onslaught of the Swarm.

Here’s the official blurb:”Heart of the Swarm features a new campaign continuing the epic story of Sarah Kerrigan, Queen of Blades, as she gathers the remnants of the zerg Swarm and plots her revenge against the treacherous dictator of the Koprulu sector, Arcturus Mengsk. It also introduces several new multiplayer units and features that enhance the acclaimed StarCraft II online experience.”

Earlier this month Blizzard released details on Heart of the Swarm’s clan system.

CVG UK

Mists of Pandaria suffers Wrath of the Unsatisfied Warcrafter

Well friends it seems the reviews are starting to ripple in on Mists of Pandaria and a few are not so good. As with all expansions, there are players who love them and those who do not. The below article by Tamoor Hussain for CVG UK shows a few examples of what people are thinking but remember, out of over 10 million subscribers, these are only a few hundred comments.

Blizzard is in a tough position with World of Warcraft. Eight years after launching the MMO, as the market shifts towards free-to-play, it faces declining subscription numbers. It’s latest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, released earlier this week with markedly less fanfare than its predecessors.

Everybody loves progress, but no one likes change, as is evident when looking at the game’s user review average on Metacriticand reading the scathing testimonials from disgruntled fans.

Mists of Pandaria currently has a total of 313 ratings submitted by users. Of them 114 are categorised as positive, eight as mixed and 191 as negative. The majority of these negative reviews mentioned an over-simplification of the game, which – ironically – has driven the design of World of Warcraft from the outset and has been a major contributor in the MMO’s overwhelming success.

“Can’t believe I bought this game,” says SCougar91, who gave the game a rating of 0. “The whole idea of it should have turned me off from the get go, but loyalty to the series made me want to try it. The game has become a simplistic MMO that requires very little time and effort to play, which is not what I’m looking for. A dumbing down of a genre is what were seeing here.”

Others have criticised the expansion for using the “same recycled old engine”, apparently expecting Mists of Pandaria to provide a significant overhaul.

“Crashy servers, terrible graphics and still using the same textures from 2004 which look like if they came straight from a nintendo 64 game,” writes Renoxzor, who also gave the game a 0. “The best part is having to relearn all your characters with every new patch, did you take a break to have fun outside, bad news… your gear is now outdated and you need to farm it again… Did you have the best gear from hardmode bosses? Bad news, it’s garbage, the first green drops will be a major upgrade… The only thing this paid patch brings, pandas, tons of pandas… only the male panda is unique, sorta… the female only uses the female dwarf model with a panda head.”

Some have attacked Blizzard as a company, referencing other titles such as Diablo 3 to supplement criticisms of Mists of Pandaria.

“Blizzard became a greedy, **** company. Diablo 3 was a spit in the face, and this is the last straw. I wonder how many times people gonna eat the same recoloured, casual turd?”

Company hate aside, other users make some salient points, you just have to sift through the hate to find them: “Blizzard creates good games. But at some point in the last 5 yeas they stopped caring for the playerbase and instead are only thinking profit and money. MOP is not a bad expansion per say. But its just not good enough in terms of 10 million subscriber based game that should be delivering content regularly and with full focus on improving every aspect of the game.

“Blizzard is not doing that. For the last 5 years most of the money they got for WOW has gone into other games they are making and WOW is suffering because of it. It has been left to rot – just like 8 months of last raiding tier in Cata goes to show. They didn’t even have an active Live content crew on the game to keep the subscribers intrested.

“Instead they created Annual pass so ppl could SUB for MOP beta. Just bad all around. Im playing and leveling – but the bitterness of how BLizzard is doing their buisness these days is hard to swallow”

On the one hand it might be a bit unreasonable to expect Blizzard to pour significant resources into creating sweeping changes for an old game on the decline, but on the other World of Warcraft is much as service as it is a game, one that asks customers to continuously pay for access. From this perspective should we be expecting more from Blizzard and its expansions, even if they’ve probably moved on to bigger and better things?

Mists of Pandaria Professions: Cooking

Are you one of those WOW players who love to explore Azeroth in search of unique recipes? Maybe you want to collect them all? Each recipe provides something unique to your player or group by raising certain stats etc.. or maybe you just want to get plain ol’ drunk, which is way fun also. Whatever the reason, cooking is popular, not only at home but online as well. Below is some great information provided by Blizzard about the cooking profession for our favorite fury friends..The Pandarens

Cooking: The Way of the Wok

by Nethaera Sep 24, 2012

The pandaren take their culinary creations seriously and their influence has changed cooking as a whole for all of Azeroth. Some of these changes are subtle, like the appearance of the cooking pane. Cooking recipes are more clearly organized based on what you’re looking to create, from expansion-specific recipes to holiday treats.

Cooking has become a slightly more individual affair. Feasts will still provide close-to-maximum food bonuses and are the most efficient way to provide for your raid, but the very best stat boosts are reserved for the cooks (and their customers) who put in that extra effort to create single-serving masterpieces. These food items crafted for individual consumption will provide primary stat benefits, and the more effort that goes into a particular recipe, the higher the value of the bonus stat it provides.

You’ll meet the Ironpaws in the Halfhill market in the Valley of the Four Winds on your epicurean quest. These are the culinary giants of Pandaria and as you complete quests for them, you’ll earn Ironpaw Tokens, which can be redeemed for Cooking rewards.

This new faction represents the best chefs that Pandaria has to offer, and you’ll be able to train with them to learn several different cooking specializations:

• Way of the Brew – It’s all about a good cup of brew and a little fun
• Way of the Grill – These recipes supply Strength bonuses
• Way of the Oven – These recipes supply Stamina bonuses
• Way of the Pot – These recipes supply Intellect bonuses
• Way of the Steamer – These recipes supply Spirit bonuses
• Way of the Wok – These recipes supply Agility bonuses

You’ll be able to specialize in any of these different Cooking techniques and any one will get you to max-level Cooking, but you’ll be able to master all of the ways if you so choose. While you can do all of them at once, the most efficient path to maximizing your culinary skills will be to focus on one Way at time. Of course, no great chef is worth a salt without some support in the kitchen. You’ll be able to summon an apprentice chef named Nomi who’s looking to learn the tricks of the trade from an accomplished pro. You’ll be able to teach her every day until she becomes an expert cook.

Cooking rewards (Ironpaw Tokens) will allow you to purchase a variety of items. These are earned by doing Cooking dailies, or by supporting the Ironpaw’s cooking school with the groceries that they need to teach their students. Here are some of the great new items available for purchase in the market:

• Heirloom Frying Pan, Rolling Pin, and Apron
• Pandaren Banquets  – These provide the best possible stats of all the banquets.
• Cooking School Bell  – Needed to summon Nomi
• Flippable Table – Unleash your rage
• Various exclusive ingredients that can’t be found anywhere else which are needed to craft banquets and the very best food items
• Small bags of other commonly used Cooking ingredients*

Have too much of any one ingredient? By taking advantage of the common-ingredient bags available in the market, you’ll essentially be able to turn in stacks of surplus supplies for a small amount of something you’re having trouble getting. While it does add a convenient way to buy Cooking ingredients from a vendor, this won’t be the most economical use of your resources. If you’re concerned about being able to harvest ingredients, we suggest you get to know the Tillers, who can also help you establish your own farm and grow your own vegetables.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg (lettuce), and there’s more for you to discover when you begin your journey into Pandaria.

World of Warcraft Optimizer taking forever?

 

Still at 1% ?

 

School and work have been taking up quite a bit of my time and I have not been to Azeroth in a few months, but in anticipation of Blizzard’s new expansion coming in 4 days (Mists of Pandaria), I decided to take a gander at how my favorite online game is doing.To my surprise I was greeted with a “Mist of Pandaria Optimizer” download page. I thought, hey no big deal, it says it could take anywhere from 15-60 min. well, that couldn’t be futher from the truth. It reached 1% after about 10 min then it disconnected saying it was my internet connection, but everything was fine with my connection. I left it on all night. When I woke up all excited, it had again disconnected. I almost cursed the screen (in fact, I think I did). I searched online frantically and read forums on Blizzard’s site.It seems I was not alone. Many people were experiencing the same thing.

I contemplated installing everything again and deleting WOW from my laptop but I just did not have the patience for that. I thought to myself that it just might be some sort of file that was erased by mistake. I remembered installing and using CCleaner recently and it said it was erasing certain files. was it possible it took away something this patch needed? Possibly, or possibly not.

I decided to re-install only my Cataclysm CD which took about 20min. When it finished, I was again prompted to install the optimizer. I nervously clicked the button. I thought to myself, If this did not work, I don’t know what I was going to do?

To my surprise and relief the bar went from 0% to 8%, then on to 40% in less than 5 min. After it was done, the game still needed updates, about 15.5 GB of updates. It took too long, my connection was doing like 30-40 KB/s, after yelling at the walls and my sister’s cat for almost an hour I realized I was on WiFi. Maybe, just maybe if I used a direct connection it would help a little? Just in case anyone wants to know, I have cable internet (Road Runner) with Time Warner) I proceeded to unplug my PS3 and plugged the cable into my laptop, rebooted my PC and BAM! That baby jumped up to 145MB/s. I finished the whole download in about 2 hrs and kissed the cat, who now hides in a corner looking at me with strange curiosity.  And to think I went through all this for a bunch of fury Pandas.