Tomorrow (04/01), I had something really fun planned from a couple weeks ago that I hinted at to you all. Unfortunately, it appears that the time for fun and games has ended.

On Friday of last week (03/23), I was alerted to a series of significant internet fraud related crimes that were perpetrated in an attempt to shutdown this blog.

Upon learning of the activities, I immediately contacted the appropriate authorities. Based on the evidence provided, the illegal acts were carried out with forethought and willful acts of malice that involved at least one individual. This week, I'm confident I know who the person is and I have been working with various third parties in an ongoing investigation.

Even after requests to cease the activity, the individual (possibly others as evidence points to at least two other persons involved) perpetrated yet another series of criminal attacks this past week. Given the sheer coincidence of the attacks (the dates), the intention of the attacks, and other strange things going on (like odd comments, hoaxes, and users trying to push me or provoke me into doing things), it appears that this has been planned for a very long time and there is some kind of elaborate and more sinister plan still at play that I don't want to be any part of.

This has become a very serious situation, and there have been direct death and threats of violence against myself and my family. Given the obvious mental instability of this aggressor, the crimes committed, and I've been told that they have access to private and confidential information, there are also concerns (as well as hints already) of violence and other plans of future malice.

For now, upkeep and maintenance of the blog will probably suffer as I need to re-prioritize.

I'm not sure when I'll be back due to these threats, but I'll leave the blog as is for now. I won't be checking/approving comments here, unless they are pertinent to the case, so please refrain from speculation.

I will still try to make some updates if I can. But they might just be for really important discoveries. Due to the automated nature of Blogspot and the constant (and variety of) attacks, if for some reason the blog is temporarily or permanently suspended, it will not be due to any legitimate reasons; it will be purely due to outside events.

Blizzard Trademark Activity

Blizzard just filed brand new trademarks for "Legacy of the Void" and "Heart of the Swarm". It appears to just be some re-organization, as they already had 3 trademarks filed for each game previously (ie, there were 3 HOTS trademarks and 3 LOTV trademarks for the game itself, merchandise, and online services.)

They have condensed all of the trademarks into 1 single TM per game now, so the old 6 trademarks will probably be cancelled shortly.

Blizzard also just received notification that their "Mists of Pandaria" trademark will be published in the Official Gazette on 2012-03-27 for others to see and oppose if necessary. This doesn't change anything though and it's a standard process, so don't try to use it to predict a release date or anything. :)

New Deus Ex Game in Development

On the trademark maintenance front, Square Enix has also just filed for a new "DEUS EX" trademark. It looks to be a partial replacement for the original DEUS EX trademark. In any case, they're being renewed for another 10 years which means there is most definitely a new Deus Ex in development right now!

Overpowered Classes in Diablo 3

If you've been following any of the polls out there, you'll probably know already that Barbarians and Wizards will be the top classes most played in Diablo 3.

Many gamers view these two classes as the ones that will be most overpowered.. the Wizard with incredible damage and kiting/escape skills, and the Barbarian being able to take a massive amount of damage. The perception is that both of these classes will be the best ones for soloing bosses.

Before you jump on the bandwagon, there are a couple things you should keep in mind; the beta won't tell you anything about how strong they will be later in the game (classes that start out seemingly the strongest end up being the worst), skills and damage numbers will be nerfed and buffed a lot, and Blizzard really doesn't like class favoritism and imbalance.

If Blizzard notices too many people playing Barbarians or Wizards, they'll find a way to balance everything out and "encourage" players to start playing the other 3 classes instead. And by balance, I mean nerfing the Barb/Wiz and buffing the other 3. In particular, the Witch Doctor (which the least number of people want to play.)

Something to remember when you're selecting a class.

Even though, to me, a Wizard or Barbarian makes the most sense for farming, I think players might be in for a little bit of shock when they hit Hell and Inferno.. maybe even Nightmare. I have a feeling that the Wizard will start out very powerful, but end up having a lot of problems in Nightmare/Hell. The Barb problems might be more noticeable (compared to other classes) in Hell.

The recent changes to the Monk (30% reduction in damage) are giving me the impression that they want the Monk to be slightly more powerful than the Barbarian, and the DH will replace the Wizard in power. And, I have a very strong suspicion that the Witch Doctor will probably be the best class for soloing bosses.. maybe even the most overpowered during initial launch.

This is all just in the beginning though, but the first few months will be very critical. You want to level as quickly as possible so that you can farm the best stuff faster than anyone else.

Most players will be creating Wizards and Barbarians, but you might want to consider a Witch Doctor (even if you don't like the class) if you're just interested in farming. They might start off more slowly than the Wizard, but I suspect that things will improve tremendously as the difficulty increases. :)

Miscellaneous Stuff

• There should be an update on the new Alpha Centuari game by/before Q3 this year. I'm hoping to learn something more about it within the next 4-8 weeks to confirm or get an idea of when it will be coming out though.

• Curious what kind of Google Searches the Blizzard headquarters team does? Here are some examples: "Metal Arms 2" Blizzard, South Korea delay, south korea diablo gambling, diablo illegal gambling, diablo gambling laws, mmo gambling law, blizzard leak, blizzard layoffs, blizzard mass layoffs, daeity, daeity blog, digital castration, Blizzard Payscale, Blizzard Pay, new wow hacks. And then there are specific stuff, like looking for the "new X" World of Warcraft hack or exploit.

• I've been thinking a lot about what I am going to write about when Diablo 3 finally comes out. I've discovered a lot of cool things in the beta that I'm hoping haven't been reported and will still be there in retail. The first couple months of release are going to be an excellent time to make some money and being a poor student, it's something I'm looking forwards to. Plus, it's going to be a lot of fun since I've made more WoW gold using paper and pencil techniques than anyone ever did using Auctioneer. So, I think that there will probably be some strategies that I won't be sharing right away. Some RMAH strategies I will probably discuss, there are some really critical things that haven't been posted publicly anywhere yet and I really want to keep them to myself for now. The problem is that once I post them, Blizzard will immediately fix it or make major changes. I can't think of any other nice way of doing it, outside of privatizing the blog.

Some of you have requested a post about the ME3 ending, even though I had thrown away the older one. I'll see what I can do. I don't know if it will be up today or not, but I do know that it will be titled "The Death and Return of Shepard."

I'm also preparing something on the latest WOW Annual Pass/Beta Access surprise. Apparently, though, I already wrote a post about it. :) I had no idea. This kind of thing happens to me ALL the time though. Unfortunately, it's as though I always have to be on the defensive when it comes to lies and slander.

Speaking of lies, I have something to share. Here's a pitch video from the old Ubisoft days for any fans of Prince of Persia here. As certain followers are aware, I'm a massive fan of the Prince of Persia games and used to talk about them all the time, but I think you'll appreciate this history. This was going to be called "Prince of Persia Redemption" but never made it much farther than the concept video. What you see was pre-rendered, staged and scripted. But still, it was entirely technically possible given the opportunity. Keen eyes may even recognize art assets that have been repurposed in other games and even some to come!



But you know, this video's got to be fake right? I make up this stuff all the time apparently and it's just another hoax video.

Despite the harassment and ridicule, I keep pushing forwards. I even shared this video link with some writers from Joystiq and Kotaku, but you've probably noticed that they just tend to steal content and claim as their own. They never even mention who directed them to the content. Supererogatory can be like that too despite everything I've given him.

Much of my knowledge about Blizzard layoffs and employment difficulties, for example, are stolen by a particular Kotaku employee who regulary follows the blog. It's disappointing that he only credits himself in these "discoveries".

And with that in mind, although there have been many pockets of Blizzard Entertainment layoffs over the past several months (many of which are customer support positions), one of the major "Blizzard 600" layoff dates has been confirmed to be scheduled for 04/28/2012 (which is a Saturday). Basically, Friday will the last day for most (Friday's are always a good time to do it.. less likely chance of "situations" since it's the weekend.) There is one group of 45, and another group of 155. So that's a total of 200 that are being laid off at the Irvine HQ office. Official notices have been sent.

Possible Site Issues Tomorrow

• There's a SOPA protest / blackout tomorrow. I don't think Blogspot is planning anything, but don't be surprised if something weird happens to this blog since IMGUR is going down (and some of the media here is hosted by IMGUR.)

Take Two Interactive

• The Max Payne 3 release date has been announced by Take Two. XBOX/PS3 on May 15 and May 18, PC version on May 29 and June 1. I won't be buying the game myself, so I don't really care.. but what I do care about is finding out what Rockstar Toronto's next game will be. With MP3 out of the way, we might finally learn more about what's been going on at Rockstar Toronto, and I'm hoping that they haven't given up on RDR PC.

• Take Two's Quarterly (ending Dec 31, 2011) Shareholder's meeting will be held on February 2, 2012. That's why you have been seeing a large quantity of news announcements and game releases recently. There should be a couple more announcements before the call too (stuff I probably don't care about). I'm not really expecting much on the call, but there should be some talk about GTA V and expectations for the year (which we already know what's coming out for the most part.)

• UPDATE (01/19/12): "There should be a couple more announcements before the call too (stuff I probably don't care about)."
  
  LOL.. and here's one of them now.
  
  BioShock will have a "1999 Mode" which is basically a harder difficulty level and it will include new "tweaks and features" (ie, a nostalgic UI.)
  
  This is what they're announcing to impress their shareholders with? This doesn't exactly fill me with much confidence. I'm getting the feeling that the Take Two meeting isn't going to go very well.. so, don't be surprised if GTA V gets pushed back.

Activision Blizzard

• Speaking of Quarterly Meetings, Activision Blizzard's meeting has not been announced yet but it should be very soon. They always announce 3 weeks (or less) prior to the meeting, and the meeting will be taking place likely on February 8 or 9. If a Diablo 3 release date announcement is made, it will be announced BEFORE this meeting. And traditionally, release date announcements are made on a Monday.

• During this call, they will also be detailing their forecast for the year. During a previous investor call (May 9 2011), Thomas Tippl said "Our outlook at this time does not include a new game from Blizzard in 2011. Should Blizzard not release a major title this year, we would expect, for planning purposes, to launch a minimum of 2 Blizzard titles in 2012." I'm expecting the minimum, and not confident that Blizzard will be launching 3 titles this year. It should be HOTS launched with Diablo 3 in 2012, but you never know. Whether it's HOTS or MOP, expect it's release date sometime in early 2013.

Other Stuff

• Star Trek Online goes Free to Play today.

• TERA Online's release date has just been announced today too. It's arriving May 1, 2012. TERA has the type of fluid fast-paced hack-and-slash type action that I am expecting in Titan actually. Unfortunately, the game is subscription based so I probably won't be playing it. If the game was developed by Turbine, I'd say that this game was definitely another free-to-play candidate, but this is En Masse/Bluehole and due to their fledgling status, I'm expecting them to be rather stubborn (to the end) in their business decisions. So, I'm not hopeful of a full F2P version for quite a while.

• Alcatraz just aired. I haven't watched it yet, but I'll probably be making a post about it after I do. I am fully expecting it not to do well though.

• I've been thinking about a post on overcoming content consumption through a new skills-based RPG leveling system (and how it's more important than items), rather than the standard RPG games that we have now. New information is fairly scarce at the moment (a few dozen Blizzard Facebook and Twitter accounts were locked down or deleted after some of my last posts), so I might bore you with anecdotes or find some other ways to stall for time just like Blizzard has been doing. :)

UPDATE: Layoffs Still Being Confirmed

• I don't know if you've still been following this or not, but there are still names from my original suspect list being terminated. Matt Milizia is the latest, who has finally confirmed that he is indeed no longer employed by Blizzard (probably given notice 4-5 weeks ago, depending on how long he was employed). Matt, as you might recall, was on that list with Paul Richards (who was also confirmed on his Blogspot account that he was terminated.) There's still two other names I suspect, but I'm still waiting for them to update another source to confirm if they are employed or not (unfortunately they abandoned their accounts, so it's difficult to say.)
  
  This was a conspiracy theory, remember? Blizzard couldn't possibly have laid off more than 1 person (John Staats) and there's no way a Facebook Profile update could ever mean a change in employment. :)
  
  Over a dozen names have been confirmed so far, but this is considered meaningless and completely unreliable:
  
  

UPDATE (01/19/12): Activision Blizzard Investor Call Announced

• Ahh.. there it is. Activision Blizzard will be releasing their Q4 2011 results on February 9, 2012.
  
  If we don't get a release date announcement on or by Monday, February 6 or we get the sense that there won't be an announcement that day, I think the game might be pushed back quite a bit more. :(

NA Beta Key contest has just been announced. I was hoping that this one would release all of the beta keys during the month of December, but apparently the Sweepstakes ends on January 23, 2012.

So this is a rather negative setback. It means that beta testing will most likely continue through February and I'm no longer hopeful for a release date during that time. Moving to late March now.. at least.

This news (and established timeframe) comes right after the weekend of Blizzard's major delay in the Korean GRB meetings. As you recall, they cancelled their Dec 21 meeting and postponed to a later day. Blizzard has 7 days to provide the missing information. It's 12AM SK time right now, and the original meeting of the GRB that would have given an answer would have been made in about 8-9 hours from now. :)

More stalling for time. I would LOVE to see what they submitted to the GRB. (I'm thinking it was just the game manual, a 6 page phamplet, and photos of gameplay.)

I've updated the "Just A Random Guess" post with the new timeline.

A couple days ago, I also updated the "Important Notices" page. And, I got rid of the "Content Submission" page. I also might get rid of the FAQs one too.. there's no point in keeping it around.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, I was thinking about potential character sales on the RMAH (something Blizzard is planning.)

You can login to any regional server to create a player, but your region-locked Real Money Auction House will follow you anywhere you go right? What if, when you bought a character, it was purchased on the server that you were currently logged into? So you could buy US-based characters while on a UK-server and that's where the character goes. :)

Players could use this for transferring their "toons" between regional servers.. for a cost of course. This leads me to believe that pricing for character purchases will be much higher than items and gold. For example, $10-$20 for a character purchase since it will act as the Character Transfer service as well.

I've finally added that "Essential Reading" list on the right hand navigation column.

It's a list of some of my favorite posts, and I'll be adding more to it later when I get a chance.

By the way, that "World of Warcraft's Alternative Revenue Streams" post was eerily prophetic. :)

During August 2010, here's what TOD considered for future services:

• Checking in-game mailboxes. Inventory, bank, character, and talent management through mobile.
• In-game chat with Guild, General Chat, Trade Chat, etc through mobile/remote.
• Integration with Battle.net to allow chat between accounts (e.g. SC2 and WoW players).
• Further integration with Facebook, linking the virtual world with your profile page.
• Depending on the success or failure of Cataclysm, we might see more non-vanity and game-effecting virtual items being sold. Elite hunter pets for sale? Change all vanity pets so that they can engage in special combat with each other (they level and grow) to sell even more vanity pets. This would be very easy to do.
• Guild Paid services for entire Guild Transfers or group/individual rates for multiple character transfers, realms transfers, renaming, and faction changes.

Here are some other revenue streams that will probable still happen:

• Reduced price structure of existing Paid Account services to attract more players.
• More "community" integration between Battle.net's games and then once you're hooked: paid premium services.
• More virtual pets, mounts, and special character customizations only available for sale (special hair cuts, glowing eyes, imposing skull faces, exclusive dances, flaming horns, jewellery, fashion wear, etc.) I think there would be many people who would pay $5-10 for bright glowing eyes.

I really like the idea of vanity aesthetics instead of the usual mount and pet only. Actually, I think Diablo 3 did something like this for the Collector's Edition.. Tyrael wings wasn't it?

And, here's one idea he had that would be perfect if Blizzard were to introduce it after the "Pokemon" Pet Battle system is implemented:

• Special virtual pets sold with very limited quantities so that people rush for
  the one-time-only "elite pet" or charity pets for those with a soft heart.

Blizzard take note!

This would be a great marketing item. A vanity (Pokemon battle) pet that's available in limited quantities and never to be sold again. Or, only available for a limited time.. that way, it encourages players to re-subscribe just to get the pet. :)

Blizzard (Italy) Confirmation Regarding Delay

Here's a very interesting post in the Italian (Battle.net EU) forums.

Basically, the users are talking about the delay of the game due to the RMAH, and a government in another region causing the delay of the game.

Then, Blue posts the following (translated):

"I can tell you that immediately after the delay of the game, it was decided that we no longer speak about possible release dates until we actually have an exact date with 99.99% confidence.

When we do finally announce the release date, you can be confident that it won't be delayed any longer. (Subject to natural disasters, emergencies, blah blah blah.)"

So, Blizzard has just confirmed what I've been writing about. They have no idea what the release date is yet, that it was put up in the air after the unexpected delay, and they don't know what the release date is because it's based on the decision of another government in another region questioning the RMAH. :)

* UPDATE:

Some more related information has been found thanks to our loyal readers. Here's the specific post, and it's full of interesting (new) information. I really like this Blue. :)

If you go through all of the blue posts in this thread, Zhydaris basically says that because of the Diablo 3 delay, the development team has been given more time to add new features and make changes that weren't supposed to be done until after retail.

Before Gold, there's another very important date, which they internally call the "Content Lock" stage. Simply put, that's the day that they finalize the list of features that are present in the game and complete before Gold.

Because the release date has been moved to an undetermined date, the development team can now add additional features like the Simple Tooltips (which were supposed to be added post-retail), and they can also add new features, new items, updated item affixes, balance skills, change graphics of items, etc. But, all of the changes they're making right now were supposed to be done after launch. :)

Having "more time now means having more content", even though the game was finished.

I talked about this before actually.. like how most player balancing, quest fixes, items, and tuning were done after the WoW Expansion Pack releases, and very little changes were made during the beta.

There's another really fun quote in there too. They are aiming for a global release (like what I speculated) and Zhydaris said that although older Blizzard games (region-locked) may have had regional legal issues, they did not impact other regions. But, he/she never denied that the current Diablo 3 (region-free) is being delayed due to one region. It was actually just like "Tom Chilton's denial"; "Well.. if you look at traditionally (or historically) how we've handled that.." Brilliant. :)

Top Posts on the Diablo Forums

On the major forums (especially the US), you'll notice that Blizzard has been addressing many concerns and questions on the forums.

They'll spend a lot of time defending the new Simple Tool Tips feature, they'll address questions about the Book of Cain delay, they'll talk about how "diablo looks like 2008 game", they get involved in troll posts, they'll keep talking about inferno being soloable, they'll talk to people who are refusing to use the RMAH (on strike), they'll talk about the RMAH or AH bugs, and they'll even address mass layoff rumors on the forums.

But, for some reason they're avoiding the TOP POSTS on the forum that ask if Diablo 3 is being delayed because of Korea.

They'll talk about everything else, even the RMAH, but they're not touching the subject of Korea approvals holding back the game. It's what they're not doing that interests me. :)

Oh, by the way, there are no current plans for Daily Quests in Diablo 3. Something that blue just posted.

Interplay VS Bethesda Progress

The Interplay vs Bethesda trial (fight over rights to Fallout) started yesterday morning, and the trial is expected to last 2 to 2 1/2 days. So, keep watching the headlines on DuckAndCover and we'll probably find out more about the battle either today or tomorrow.

I'm really excited about this. I've been leaning towards Interplay during this battle, but only because I still remember Interplay as the "Brian Fargo Interplay". Unfortunately, it's now the "Caen Brothers Interplay", and knowing their poor decision making skills, I'm inclined to believe that Interplay has just been performing a whole Dog & Pony Show. I think that their real intention is to hold the Fallout IP hostage after winning their legal battle, so that they can sell it back to Bethesda at a substantially higher price (or even sell to a competitor who might be interested in a post-apocalyptic MMO.) :)

I think they'll also sell off all of their other highly valuable IPs too. The next couple days will be very exciting indeed.

Why You No PayPal Blizzard??

Blizzard post regarding payment methods for Digital Downloads, confirming what I wrote the other day. (Thanks Ichigo!)

BlackReaper4: "PAYPAL,Paypal...EU can't use paypal to buy CD keys add subscription etc"

Nakatoir: "We are always looking into new payment methods to use, if a certain payment method is not available in a particular region, there is a reason for it. If we are able to make a certain payment method available, then we will try our best to make it so."

This is their standard response. And they say they're always looking for new payment methods.. and yet, they haven't changed in years. Regarding the "reason for it" (e.g. not using PayPal, even though they're partnered that their systems are fully integrated together), it's because they want players to be restricted to their own regions to buy games where they pay the most. Even for region-free games. So, I'm not going to be shocked if Diablo 3 can't be sent as a gift during the opening month, even though every other game can.

Blizzard/NetEase Rumors

Apparently, there's a rumor going around that Blizzard might be ditching NetEase (whose contract will be expiring next May) and they're shopping around for another service provider in China. (Thanks again Ichigo!)

Tencent, although very big and may have offered a handsome deal to Blizzard, has a lot of competing games, their own (and possible problematic for Blizzard) QQ Coins currency system, and current Chinese players prefer NetEase, so they're not the most ideal candidate. This rumor could just be a power play by Blizzard to update their NetEase contract for a better deal on Blizzard's end. :)

Blog Direction

Just a heads up that when Diablo 3 finally goes live, the blog will be taking a slightly different direction. I intend to focus on practical applications within Diablo 3.. specifically gold making strategies, even though they'll be rather difficult to make. I might take it in some interesting directions though that others might not have considered.. at least I'm hoping.

I'll still have some speculative or theoretical discussions about Titan and their future paid services though. Maybe even some progression into Guild Wars 2 once the game is finally out.

Diablo's New Anniversary

December 31st is Blizzard's "new" Diablo Anniversary, so you can expect something nice to happen that day. Apparently, it was just a coincidence that there was a ton of "Diablo News on November 30". November 30th just happened to coincide with Blizzard receiving a major update from the GRB. Still.. a very nice and convenient coincidence. (Those happen a lot here.) :)

The Blizzard_ANZ Twitter contest also ends on December 31, 2011 at which point the beta key winners will be announced. By then, the D3 beta would have been running for 4 months, and will be running at least another month (for a total of 5) for those beta key winners.

Jay Wilson originally expected that the Diablo 3 beta would run for 6 months ("six months before we release", quoted often by other blogs).. but that was for the FULL game. They changed it into the much shortened tech demo (a fraction of Act 1) that we see now, and planned on a 2-3 month release date so that they could release before Christmas. That's just how excellent the progress on D3 was, why they admitted to their intention for a Christmas release (the game was done), and how their plans were ruined due to the unexpected Korea GRB troubles.

This beta key contest is just another way to keep players busy and occupied until things get settled. (If things are approved by Jan 10th, they'll have a short beta period.) :)

* UPDATE: Bashiok later tweeted that they would have the anniversary activity during the following week, instead of on the anniversary day.

• City State Entertainment (which was founded by Mark Jacobs, former CEO of Mythic Entertainment) just registered some trademarks in the OZ universe: "MARCH ON OZ" and "WORLDS OF OZ".


• Lucasfilm Ltd. filed trademarks (first and second) for "RED TAILS". Looks to be mostly online social services, media, and toys for the new movie I'm assuming. Nothing specifically related to video games though.


• Paradox Interactive filed a new trademark for "DUNGEONLAND". Paradox is most well known for historical strategy computer games, and they're the ones currently developing that Salem MMORPG. Dungeonland is probably a new IP, and unrelated to Gary Gygax's (no relation) Dungeonland D&D adventure module.


• UBISOFT has more movement on the Assassin's Creed front. Live streaming and television series, books and comics, audio recordings and live action entertainment. Assassin's Creed: The Opera, anyone? :) With heavy investment into new transmedia, that would mean that the next AC is probably being developed right now. (I don't follow AC though, so this might already be common news; i.e. the new AC is already being worked on or announced already.)


• Nintendo of America has filed a new Pokemon Trademark. "PIKACHU" specific goods and services ("Candies, pasta or rice, breakfast cereals, pastries, chewing gum"). I'll keep my eye on this, this could be the first of a couple more registrations. There's probably some new Pokemon announcement coming soon. But then again, isn't there ALWAYS some kind of new Pokemon announcement coming soon?


• Taito has just filed for a new "DARIUS GAIDEN" trademark. So, if you're interested in those awesome arcade shooters, it looks like they're developing Darius Gaiden for the PC and/or consoles now too.


• World Wrestling Entertainment filed a new trademark for their new "WWE SHOWDOWN" game.


• Finally, looks like EA filed domain registrations for the new Command & Conquer "Alliances" game or social services. (e.g. commandandconqueralliance.com)
  
  Fusible beat me to it though, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Domain registrations are a lot harder to track without a paid account. :)
  
  The reason I'm referencing "social services" is because they also have "alliances" in the Red Alert, Tiberium, and Generals domain names. Perhaps "Alliances" is a new social service for all Command & Conquer games and future games, much like COD Elite. It's rumored that it will be revealed at the VGA this coming Dec 10th.

Blog trolls, that is, and why they're good for blogs.

Recently, I've come to the decision on changing my policy on trolls. It was due to one troll in particular.

He's been visiting the site for a really long time now, and was around when it was shutdown. In fact, he was the only person to leave a negative comment when the site went down. :)

Well I guess it serves you well. You underestimated me :))).

You have no clue who I really am :))) And that makes me smile.

Here are some other examples of his antics:

1. "lots of conspiricy"
2. "the industrial espionage of EA"."
3. "Did Blizzard rape the wife perhaps ?"
4. "You live in 1980 or in 2010 ??? dude. Do you sleep at night?"
5. "I don't care that some copies were bought on line. We live in 2011."
6. "players all screamed Blizzard murdered their mothers"
7. "The future lays with the mind of Rob Pardo"
8. "mmorpg.com site is collaborating with EA to kill any leaks by banning accounts for life."

He's from the Mechelen region of Belgium, he refuses to give himself an alias (I've asked him many times), and yes.. all of his posts are non-coherent ramblings. Insanity and early onset dementia will do that to you.

I get a kick out of every post he makes. In fact, whenever he writes something, all I can picture is someone sitting at their computer screen and doing this:

So, if you've ever seen me call someone "@prisoncharlie", you now know who I'm talking about; the insane Belgium guy. I'll point him out whenever he posts.

The reason he's so great for this blog (and why trolls are useful in any blog) is due to many reasons:

1. It's great entertainment.

@PrisonCharlie

Mmmm hmm mmm hmmm.. Yes, that's very interesting.

You seem to know a lot on the subject, and you are clearly highly intelligent and handsome. Please tell me more.

2. You don't even need to read what he says. Just agree with what he's saying and compliment him. He keeps coming back.

3. Normal readers like the entertainment, and keep coming back just to hear prisoncharlie's thoughts.

4. He visits A LOT, which drives up traffic.

5. If he complains on other sites about this blog, it just drives up more viewership! There's no such thing as bad publicity.

6. If you read his comments, within one of his insane posts you might see a certain word that triggers a thought, memory, or brainstorm. He can help further ideas for new posts. Just like this one! He gave me the great idea about how useful trolls really are to blogs. :)

7. All of his comments and mispellings actually increase the number of keywords on the site, giving the blog much better search enginge optimization and increased traffic. Nice.

So, if you're a blogger - take note.

* UPDATE:

Oh another idea!

8. It also increases search engine optimization by having common mispellings on your blog. It gives you a better advantage over other blogs especially since the average person mistypes or mispells all the time and large sites are reviewed and edited for content. It pays to have bad grammar on your site! :)

Alternative Title: "Bah. Cookie-cutter gaming sites."

Wow, some amazing new news! CAPCOM Trademarked "E.X. TROOPERS"

Nov 23 - Digital Castration

Dec 1 - First Spotted by Siliconera
Dec 1 - GoNintendo
Dec 2 - Joystiq
Dec 2 - VG247
Dec 2 - Feedthegamer
Dec 2 - Play.tm
Dec 2 - Gamenews
Dec 2 - Gamefront
Dec 2 - Gamingessence
Dec 2 - Play3-live
Dec 2 - Favoniangamers
Dec 2 - Digibutter
Dec 2 - Spaziogames

.. and a hundred more by tomorrow, plus the aggregators.

10 days might as well be a hundred years in internet time. So, consider yourself ahead of the curve. :)

Coincidentally, Siliconera (the gaming site that broke the Capcom news) was the same group that I had actually leaked the Blizzcon imgur link to in August (2-3 months before Blizzcon). It was about 1-2 weeks after TOD's email and I sent them an email to their tip line. They never emailed me back, and they never published the leak so I guess they didn't believe it. They really missed out on something big.

Real Money Auction House

RMAH testing has finally started.

(The EU announcement is still up, but the US RMAH announcement was deleted and Bashiok also deleted his Tweet regarding the announcement.)

They're giving players fake B.Net credits (50 Beta Bucks to be exact) and not using real money, like what I had mentioned last weekend. The money can't be used to purchase Blizzard store items, of course. :)

It's too bad they didn't mention a time frame for this testing (if you hear anything, let me know.) I would love to know when it will be ending, because future D3 players also need enough time to prepare their PayPal accounts for the new system. Hard to say if the PayPal announcement will be happening during the RMAH testing, or if they'll wait until it's completed.

Blizzard is using a $0.15 Listing Fee and $0.65 Successful Sale Charge for every transaction.

"These numbers are not final and are for testing purposes only; they're subject to change."

Still, this is what they're "anticipating" and these prices are very expensive. If $0.80 per sale is expected by Blizzard, apparently they're anticipating that items will easily sell for $10.00 to $50.00.

The number of free listings per week haven't been identified yet, but I'll find out soon enough. I'll update once I find out.

On this current system, minimum bids will be at least $0.90-$1.00 each, so that the users make at least $0.10-$0.20 profit. But there's also the Listing Fee to be really concerned about. $0.15 lost per failed sale is A LOT. So, it's not really worth the risk unless you sell items at a minimum of $3-$4 each.. probably more. Even $3 is really pushing it because you'll probably spend $3 in Listing Fee undercuts before it even successfully sells. There's a lot of risk and random chance involved here.

And also don't forgot about the major cuts that PayPal will be making into your profits. All of this needs to be considered very carefully by RMAH users.

I'm also really interested in finding out the Auction maximum durations. For a long time I theorized that they would want as many transactions as possible from players because of the large amounts of money they would make from every failed Listing Fee. So, I assumed that it would be much shorter than WOW. WOW offers 48, 24, and 12 hour auction lengths for example.. which are still very short for an auction, but with Diablo 3 I was thinking that they might reduce the duration on the RMAH even further.

* UPDATE:

Okay, looks like Blizzard has deleted both the EU and US versions now. All Tweets removed too.

Luckily, I made a copy. Here's the original page:

And here's the interface screenshot:

* UPDATE:

And.. looks like they're back up again.

"Damnit Tim this wasn't supposed to go up until next week! Everyone already knows it by now so we might as well just do it today. Thanks again, Tim. Metzen is fucking pissed."

PayPal Preparations

Although most countries have already had their User Agreements amended to include Blizzard's new "Micropayments for Digital Goods", some specific countries haven't been amended yet.

Singapore, for example, has an upcoming UA amendment effective December 22, 2011.

For micropayments you receive up to $3.99 USD, the buyer can reverse the transaction. Anything over $4 though will be very difficult to ever get a refund.

Considering Blizzard's anticipated fee system, combined with PayPal's UA, average items will probably be selling anywhere between $2-5. That's their belief anyways, players might react differently.

I was hoping for more of a penny system, but apparently this slot machine will be taking $0.80 per pull.

Looking For Clues

This is around the time when you want to start looking for clues on their website (or other media) about potential release dates. Blizzard likes to hint at release dates, if they have them planned that is.

In the RMAH screenshot, Blizzard gave themselves $223.32 Beta Bucks for example. Ooooo.. must be a 02/23 release date! :)

[January 1st is 32 days from now (when the picture was first posted), putting it on the very first day of 2012. Plus, 223.32 = 2 / 23 / 20+12. Perhaps the release date will be announced on Dec 31st to close off the 20th Anniversary or on Jan 1st as part of the new year. That would put the game release about 2 months away, which is normal timing. Sneaky.]

The Book of Cain probably won't have anything, unless the release has been planned for a really long time. Even though the book wasn't supposed to come out until after the VGA (when more lore is leaked), apparently many people have already received review or advanced copies.

Keep your eyes peeled on the website though for any new Diablo lore items that contain numbers or dates. (They might get more tricky with numbers though, since that's what players are looking for now.)

Blizzard first hinted at the Cataclysm release date on October 4, 2010. Remember Mekkatorque predicting a 12.7% chance of the Cataclysm? (Cataclysm came out on December 7, 2010). So, a hint was made a little over 2 months before launch.

Why You Should Never Trust Retail Store Release Dates

Hey, isn't that what I said too? :)

Other Investigations

Now that the RMAH testing is finally live, I wonder how much time is needed to fully test it. The Gold Auction House still has some bugs, but they've taken it offline. The beta has been going on for 3 months now, the Gold Auction House started testing 1.5 months ago.. would the RMAH only need 1 month of additional testing?

I'll have to think about it some more. I can't really see the RMAH taking 2+ months for testing, and the RMAH Testing announcement didn't make it sound like there would be any major server wipes. The success of the RMAH will determine when they make their release date announcement..

Other than that, a lot of my time has been spent on a pretty interesting investigation. Most of my time has been spent on it, and I'm still waiting for some more information to come in. So, if I don't post for a couple days, don't be surprised; I'm still working on something.

Easier Reading

• I'm changing the format of these posts to something like this, rather than making them bullet point lists and readers not really knowing what each minor post entails. For example, you might want to know more about Titan but you don't care that I had a random thought about why video game companies no longer say "Proudly Presents" in any of their intro cinematics (the last game I can remember ever doing that was Westwood's Red Alert.)


• And, if you want to make things easier for me, please create yourself an alias name when post comments. That way, I'm not always responding to "Anonymous". It's just one extra step (under "Name/URL" instead of "Anonymous") and you don't even have to put anything into the URL section. It's still anonymous, but now I can have a specific name to respond to. :)

What's Really Holding Diablo 3 Back?

(This one ending up becoming quite big, so I cut it out and put it into it's own post. I will post shortly.)

January 17th Release Date

On a related note, the January 17th release date is still predicted by some.

VoidTester alerted me to a post about one person's reasoning for the January release date.

The link I originally read (on the Battle.net Forums) wasn't too well organized, but there's a much better thought out and articulated post here (possibly by the same person, Druwin):

- Diablo 3 will be released on January 17th, 2012. Why? Because the free 30 days trial period of SWTOR expires exactly mid January.

- Diablo 3's release date will be announced in 2 weeks on Dec 10, 2011 during the Spike Video Game Awards. Why? Because a.) SWTOR launches 5 days later, b.) competitor BioWare also reveals their new strategy game during the show, and c.) Blizzard did the same with the announcement of WoW “The Burning Crusade” which, by the way, has once been pushed back from a late 2006 release to mid January 2007 as well – same situation as with Diablo 3.

- Amazon knows NOTHING. It’s all just placeholders.

- Selling of Diablo 3 merchandise has begun: Tyrael hoodie, SteelSeries mouse, pad, headset etc. The “Book of Cain” will be released on Dec 13, 2011 – 3 days after the release date has been announced during the VGA.

- I expect a big, final Diablo 3 stress test with a lot of additional beta invites starting mid December, when SWTOR launches.

(TBC wasn't announced at the VGA, though, they just released the intro TBC cinematic.)

* UPDATE (11/30/11): Confirmed. They're just going to be showing the full Diablo 3 opening cinematic at Spike VGA. Same as last time.

Still, they listed some pretty good reasons. And there are other favorable marketing cases for a mid-Jan release date (plus, it's in the beginning of the quarter), but this would be assuming that the game is fully completed with a working RMAH.

I believe that the RMAH is the one piece holding everything back though, and we'll know more within the next few weeks. If an announcement is made at VGA, it would be more likely for a Feb release date. That leaves a Jan announcement for early March, but there won't be any releases in mid to late March, since it's too close to the new quarter.. they would rather push it into the first couple weeks of the next quarter instead (early-to-mid April.) I think everything is going to depend on the RMAH testing schedule and government approvals (especially in SK.)

At this point, I'm going to say that January 17th isn't a likely release date and there won't be an announcement at VGA.

TitanGuru.Com Account Suspended

The TG site went down over the weekend, again.

This Account Has Been Suspended

Although I'm not advocating use of the website, you can still get their latest updates here on their Twitter page.

I don't recommend them because TitanGuru ripped off a large amount of new Titan details from this blog where it was discovered first. The site owner refused to acknowledge the real source and will not provide citations to his readers.. but they rather claim that "they came across it". Since then, they've been very careful not to mention this site or link back to it in any way (and deleting posts about it if ever mentioned). They still frequently visit this site for new Titan information, however, so that they can continue to claim it for their own. :)

If you're looking for Titan information, I would recommend this site (of course) or TitanFocus.info as better alternatives. As an added bonus, those alternative sites don't need to buy visitors or use paid botting services for FB Likes. So you know that the traffic is "honest" and visitors are only there for Next Gen MMO information and not gimmicky tricks.

Since TitanGuru still hasn't posted any updates on their Twitter or Facebook page today, you can probably assume that he just hasn't logged into the site since the Thanksgiving Day long weekend to correct the problem. It will be back up sometime later and it probably just went down due to quota violations (more than 100 visitors in a single day on that site is serious business.)

You're not missing anything right now. They haven't had any decent posts in a while, and even then, it was the stuff they got from here. They're not down due to releasing "HUGE NEWS!!", as some might suspect. It's down just for silly reasons, and they're not a site to ever find or have inside leaks.

• Electronic Arts has just registered a couple new trademarks called "BLACKED OUT". It's a video game, but I have no idea what it's going to be about.
  
  Moments later, two more Trademark registration came through. Another game called "SECRET ISLAND".


• It looks like Cameron Dayton has created a new online blog. Something to monitor closely in the beginning especially if he mentions anything Titan related. Right now, it just has all of the "hello world" blog template artifacts. I'm not expecting anything big to be revealed on the site, though.


• Apparently, we have an unofficial sister site in China now (http://daeity.blog.163.com/). The blog is translated as "Digital Harmony", so I don't know if it was a mistranslation from either side or if the name was just offensive and renamed. :) Basically, the blog owner is taking posts from here, translating them, and putting them up for Chinese readers. (163.com is owned by NetEase by the way.)


• On a Diablo 3 note, I've gotten a pretty good (new) quote from Jay Wilson regarding the comparison of Diablo 3 to gambling. :)
  

  IGN: Charles Onyett on IGN's PC team lovingly calls Diablo III the greatest slot machine ever made. Would you say that's an accurate statement?
  
  Jay Wilson: I certainly hope so.

  The "Greatest Slot Machine Ever Made" article is here, where he's talking about the feelings experienced from massive loot drops and being able to sell them. He's basically describing the same psychological effect and endorphin rush experienced during gambling.


• For that Path of Exile account giveaway, I think the contest will be an information seeking quest. Not a puzzle, or anything like that, but rather you go out there and find out something new that I can post here. You can use those "Gaming Leaks" post to help guide you, investigate forums, Twitter, personal blogs, Facebook, etc.. basically something with interesting gaming related information that no one else knows about (looking for Blizzard related things mostly). Or, finding a new source of information that can't be searched on Google and is therefore overlooked by many. If you find something, you don't need to write an article or anything about it.. I'll do that myself (if it's something I don't already know), but you'll still get credit (plus the account) for finding the information. It won't be a 1 or 2 day thing either.. I figure you would need some time to hunt around. I'll talk more about it next week, but you might as well start looking around now and see what you can dig up.


• If you're looking for anything Titan related (or you're a Titan blog owner), you should add Pior Oberson to your list of Titan artists. He's the Senior 2D (Concept) 3D (Game) CHARACTER ARTIST for Titan, and you can see all of his other Character-specific art in his portfolio. The one thing that Titan will be big on is a variety of characters, and it seems there's more focus on "people" than "monsters".
  
  His LinkedIn profile has him as a "2D and 3D character artist - traditional and digital art, lowpoly and highpoly" but it used to have "Concept and execution of highpoly sculpts and character models, realtime 3D characters, 2D character concept art" in relation to his specific job duties on the Next Gen MMO.
  
  His resume has also undergone a few iterations:
  

  Dec 2007 to present day - Blizzard Entertainment - Irvine CA.
  2D 3D Character artist.

  Nov. 2007 to present day - Blizzard Entertainment - Irvine CA.
  Senior 2D 3D Character artist on a nextgen MMO title a.k.a. TITAN + additional art on WoW : WoTLK.

  2007 to present day - Blizzard Entertainment - Irvine CA.
  Senior Character artist on a NextGen MMO title.

  So, you might want to pay close attention to his "highpoly sculpts" from 2007 and up.
  
  There's also a "30 Minute Sketchclub" blog consisting of Josh Singh, Paul Richards, Vadim Bakhlychev, Marc Brunet, Gino Whitehall, Pior Oberson, etc. All employees who were working on Titan. :) There are sketches there that they made during the lunchtime when not working on Titan (as well as many more developed 3D art pieces built at work or at home.)
  
  There's also Zach Baker, who was also on the Next Gen MMO team (he left Feb 2010). He has an article Looking Back at Blizzard. It doesn't provide anything useful or interesting though, but I figured it would throw it up here anyways. It's been sitting on the shelf for months, and I just never got around to posting it.

Looks like Blizzard is doing yet another archive of the entire site. :)

Daeity told me to expect this. Every once in a while, I'll see almost a thousand hits from 216.148.0.72 (Blizzard) viewing every single page in under 0.05 seconds each.

Typically, there's normal monitoring of certain posts, but every once in a while they'll use (what I assume) is a webpage downloader app to capture the full blog, check it for leaks, keep a record, give it to their lawyers, who knows. All of the exit links are captured as well, which is why I assume it's automated.

I thought you guys might be interested in knowing this sort of stuff, since no one else really writes about it.. although, I assume it happens elsewhere. Superegatory, for example, received MANY visits from Take Two for example during the GTA V resume discovery. :)

They're still doing the pull right now and they'll capture this post last.

(If you're reading this, check out this post here. It's a satire about Diablo 3 X1, but you might be able to pull some real ideas from it for your next expansion pack.)

It's probably going to be a quiet week here, at least until November 8th (when there will be a lot of big news items.) So, I'll be getting all of the smaller posts out of the way today:

• Unfortunately, both the Activision Blizzard and Take Two financial calls will be taking place on the same day at the same time. For the upcoming Activision Blizzard call, you can expect the same "Better than expected Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results" announcement. Even if there were poor results, they'll always be "better than expected". Mike Morhaime will talk about how successful Blizzcon was and he'll summarize all of the prior announcements (e.g. D3 CE, WOW Annual Pass, and the new expansion pack. Basically anything that makes the investors money.) I'm also eagerly anticipating the D3 Release Date (although, SC2 was announced just 3 days before the investor call in 2010). If there is no release date announced by next week, that probably means more technical difficulties and longer delays. He will probably also release the number of attendees during Blizzcon, which should be higher than what was announced on the first day.


• During the investor call, make note of Mike Morhaime's special wording of Virtual Ticket Live Stream viewer counts. :) He'll talk about the DIRECTV customers, but conveniently leave out live stream viewers paid directly to Blizzard. The DIRECTV viewer counts will probably be a little bit higher too than what he first announced during Blizzcon 2011. Masking direct live stream customers is a great way to show improved revenue actually. If I was an investor and there was an extra $20 million in monthly revenue, for example, I would have had no idea where it actually came from and I would assume that it was from subscriptions. This brings up an interesting theory; during 2011 when there were no new game releases, they couldn't hide lost revenue due to declining subscribers (so the information was casually mentioned during the call, but never officially announced.) However, during periods of major revenue spikes (e.g. new games sales or Blizzcon), their revenue figures can be massaged and subscriber numbers don't need to be brought up. So, will Mike Morhaime discuss subscriber decline or will it be left out next week? :)


• Assuming everything stays on course with the D3 release schedule, you should also expect a PayPal/Battle.net integration website and instructions in the coming months. It will probably be announced atleast a month before the release date, and will allow players to setup their "Cashing Out" account, integrate with B.Net, learn about how to use it, and start depositing money into their B.Net credit account in advance of the D3 release. You might see some signs of this if the webpage is taken down for maintenance in December, for example.


• The DC Universe Online website was down all day yesterday, pissing off a lot of players who wanted to try out the new F2P change. I guess they ran into some major problems.. I was hoping to get an account going myself, but learned too late that they provided a link on their Facebook site due to their technical difficulties. I'm in no real rush though.


• The new GTA V trailer had some nice visuals. With all of the enhancements made to GTA IV PC, though, it looks kind of bland. :) I'm hoping that buildings will be more explorable in GTA V.. in all of the others, you could only enter certain structures.


• NBC's Grimm finally aired. It turned out to be exactly as I had pictured in my mind. The original preview had already given away the entire story. The pilot episode was very bad, I hope it fails. And there were so many inconsistencies, like a small 2 block park that suddenly turned into a huge forest. Or the impossible TARDIS-like mobile home owned by the aunt; it's 4 times as big on the inside than it is on the outside, it has a steel floor but super creaky wooden boards when he walked across them, women won't weigh anything inside the mobile home (his girlfriend walked right in without making a sound on the impossibly creaky boards), and there's no vibration or shaking inside the mobile home when it moves (candle sticks, books, ornaments, etc all standing up straight.) I hope they have a new sound guy for the next episodes too.. it was terrible, and even the screams were the same clips used in a thousand other shows/films from 20 years ago.


• I'm hoping to make up a video about Grimm actually.. just need to find the time to learn the software.


• I also regularly watch Boardwalk Empire. Not on the top of my list, but it's something to kill the time. I totally didn't expect that knocked up mistress being discovered by Agent Nelson's wife. The guy was such a psychopath, I was half expecting him to wait until the child was born, kill the girl, and then surprise the wife with an "adopted" child that was in fact his own. She was so desperate to have her own child after all.


• Do you guys have any "interesting blog" suggestions? I'm having a hard time finding some really good blogs to read. Everything out there is the same old stuff, and it's awful boring. Where are all of the good blogs or sites? I pretty much only check up on Tobolds and Wolfshead occasionally (and Titanfocus now, of course). Tobolds feels like it's rushed though.. like he needs to make at least one post a day, so the quality suffers. Wolfshead I like, but he only makes an update once a month, and this last one was a 3 month hiatus. If I only made posts here once a month, there would be some amazingly huge articles. :) Is there a secret forum somewhere where people discuss really interesting non mainstream topics? Maybe someone should create one, with an elite invite list for people from differing fields of expertise or industry connections.


• And finally, some Titan related "blasphemy". This might be a good topic to expand on later, but here are some of my initial thoughts. Everyone is highly anticipating Titan, and Blizzard has talked about how great the game is to play. They always describe it as raising the bar and "next gen", implying that the game will be better than WOW. We all believe it, and I'm guilty of the same. But what no one is talking about is "what if Titan fails?" In all of the hype, I just forgot that WOW might just be Blizzard's most successful game ever and Titan will never reach the same heights. The one thing that Blizzard is really good at is making sure they release only great games.. it's a lesson they learned probably around 2000 and when Diablo 2 came out. If they had the same game design philosophy that they do now, they probably would have never started work on WC Adventures or allowed the Hellfire expansion pack. Starcraft Ghost would probably have still started development and cancelled though when they realized that it didn't meet Blizzard's quality. The same might happen with Titan. It's still in very early development, and if it doesn't meet Blizzard's level of quality standards, it could be scrapped, substantially delayed, or the game completely redesigned from scratch but still using the same game code ("Titan") so as not to scare their investors. Hell, for all we know, there could be 3 different Titan games currently being worked on. :) If it does get delayed, cancelled, or does not perform as well as WOW, the "TITANic: Too Big To Fail?" memes will be endless. What if it ends up being a kids game, or targets stay-at-home moms like Zynga, thereby alienating the bulk of Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft players? Maybe Titan was a bad choice in a code word for the game. Perhaps there's a curse? :)

Here's another interesting use for Google Alerts: finding out when someone steals credit. :)

(Mynsc, this is something to be prepared for on your own site. Don't be surprised if someone rips off information from your site, even blatant copy and pastes.)

On this blog, it's something that happens all the time. Taking credit for research or posts from here, copying and pasting "thoughts" and "opinions" as their own, and I've even seen gold guides ripped off from here, put into book form, and then sold as part of a gold making package.

Here's the latest from a blog entry on SC2SEA.COM.

It's not exactly that hard to link directly to the source either. Here you go.

This is what the original quote looked like:

What mynsc said at the top is the real deal, but thanks to everyone for letting me know to never joke around before we go live on the DTV feed....

Geoff and I were just killing time and joking around. etc. etc. etc.

And here's what Dox changed it to:

Kat Hunter herself stepped forward with the following public statement as well:

Originally Posted by Kat Hunter

Thanks to everyone for letting me know to never joke around before we go live on the DTV feed....

Geoff and I were just killing time and joking around. etc. etc. etc.

No links to the site, no citation, and clearly edited to not reveal it's source. Stay classy, Dox.

Here's the whole thing in full if you're interested:

By the way, Kat Hunter never did return to check on her comment or to see if anyone responded. It was sort of a drop in never to return PR paste. Pretty much exactly as I expected. :)

* UPDATE OCT 31, 2011:

Apparently, Dox took credit for yet ANOTHER post from this blog too.

Here's all he wrote:

Note that this is not officially confirmed by Blizzard yet, but the source is credible and I wouldn't create a thread about it if I didn't think it was true.

Diablo 3 will be released on January 17th, 2012.

He makes it sound like it's his own internal sources that told him this. :)

• "The Players Wanted It". I love it when Blizzard says this. Apparently, the reason for the new Pet Battles system is because players wanted it. Blizzard also said the same thing about the cash money auction house: players wanted it. Online only requirement and no mods for Diablo 3? Player want this because that's how it was in Diablo 2. Paid faction changes? Players wanted it. Create both factions on a PVP server? Players. Real ID? Players. Removal of Real ID? Players again. Character naming restrictions? Players. More restrictions? Removal of restrictions? Pandas? You get the idea. It's all completely true though.. it's like those commercials where they say, "Doctors agree that this is the best medical product." All they need are two doctors, who can have a doctorate in basket weaving, to promote the product. Players really did want these changes.. even if it was just 2 Blizzard employees who asked for it. Whenever they say "players want this", it's really "the business wants this." Why are the things that players REALLY want never done? Vanilla servers come to mind, and it's been a major discussion since TBC when there was no technical barrier.


• Bethesda has been denied their appeal in attempting to stop Interplay's development of the Fallout MMO. I'm actually hoping Interplay wins this battle, but not in the way or for the reasons you might be thinking. They have both been pretty sneaky on both sides, but in my opinion, Bethesda has been far more cruel during this war. I think that the Fallout MMO development progress has actually been very slow by Interplay on purpose, and they're really just holding the IP hostage. Bethesda's lawyers wrote that "Bethesda would be unable to recover in the event that Interplay enters bankruptcy." If this is true, then they should just purchase the entire Fallout IP directly from Interplay. (Interplay, of course, will be asking for a tremendous amount of "screw you" payback.) After all, Bethesda is not permitted to create any new Fallout game after their next standalone installment; the IP will automatically revert back to Interplay as per their original contract. I suspect that Bethesda is even more desperate now that RAGE (the possible Fallout replacement developed by id Software) wasn't received too well. What they should do is just make Fallout 5 a game with heavy next gen expansion characteristics, so that the universe can keep being expanded with new graphics engines and content in each expansion pack (or DLC). They just need to outlast Interplay. And, they should also buy the Wasteland IP from Inxile (for a much reduced price) and use that as their next gaming franchise line.


• Part 3 of that PC Gamer article came out. There was no more information on Titan, and no clarification of the first article which implied a possible Titan direction. Disappointing.

Yay! Blogspot Page comments are now visible again. (There are "Posts" like this one, and then there are special "Pages" like what you see along the top-right corner of the Blogspot menu page.)

From the looks of things it went down around the first week of October, and came back up within the past couple days. (Only reason I noticed was because someone posted a question on the FAQ page.) :)

You know, going over past comments (from well before Blizzcon 2011 mind you) was a very reassuring experience. It's too bad that Boubouille guy never actually researched any of that apparently. He was SO upset and angry about the leak, but unfortunately all of his arguments were predicated on assumptions and guesses. And, he only focused on ONE facet but conveniently left out the other imgur links, YouTube comments, paste sites, Blogspot comments, and all of the people who saw it before Blizzcon. He strikes me as someone who "does his research", so it was very disappointing that he was manipulating his people that way (he didn't tell them the full truth). I suppose followers will blindly follow their leader no matter what they say though.

Something still really bothers me though. Why was he so obsessed with this blog in the first place? He jumped in right away and acted very angry about the whole thing.. but there was no need for it. Real leaks and fake leaks happen all of the time, but why did he pick this leak specifically? There was something really weird about everything he was saying and it just doesn't add up. Why does the owner of one of the largest WOW blogs so interested in what comes out of this site? He's made it clear that he has been following the site for a long time too. What's all that about? I and many others know it was real, so why is he so insistent on trying to disprove it? I still feel like there's something else going on.

• I actually managed to sit through the entire 01x05 Terra Nova episode. Very family and touchy feely, and I don't think it's going to get any more interesting than it has already been. I going to place my bets on the mole to be that adult female actor pretending to be a teenager who lives with Taylor and is Josh's new love interest. I have no idea what her name or character's name is, nor do I care to learn..


• Once Blizzcon is over (and they announce ticket sales and virtual attendee numbers at their next shareholders meeting), I'll write something up along the lines of that old "Blizzcon Revenue and Costs" post. Should be rather interesting considering the price hikes.


• Blizzard is entering into a new agreement with AsiaSoft (in Thailand) to distribute their games in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. This is sort of a weird Gamasutra post too. They make it sound like Blizzard games weren't already available in those countries: "AsiaSoft will make these titles available in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, although the company did not indicate when the first games will be available." However, World of Warcraft is already played by many people in those countries (as well as other Blizzard titles.) Most of the players just connect to the Philippines servers for reduced lag, so this agreement might be mostly beneficial in that it would be bringing servers closer to the players. I don't think these new territories are going to have a major boost to subscriber numbers though, but I think it will encourage some new gamers to start playing.


• Those Blizzard Blade Servers just went up for auction. Apparently, there are a lot of folks who seem to think there's something of value they can extract from the servers.. I guess they're not aware that these don't have any hard drives in them, and it just has a plaque instead. These are the same ones that Blizzard had a silent auction for last year at Blizzcon 2010. But, they're even much older than that. I guess they've been pretty much sitting on a shelf for years now, and they have added the new plaques within the past few months.


• And finally, here are some classic reads from Blizzard that you might find entertaining. I guess some things change.. belief systems, morality, apparently laws...
  
  Selling In-Game Content for Real Money | 1/12/2005
  

  Not only do we believe that it is illegal, but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun.
  
  If you are found to be selling in-game property (such as coins, items, or characters), for real money, you will lose your characters and accounts, and Blizzard Entertainment reserves its right to pursue legal action against you as well.

  So, back then it was:
  
  "If you buy an item, that's ILLEGAL. You're breaking the law and it damages the economy and overall experience! If you do this, we'll call the cyber police on you.. consequences will never be the same!"
  
  Nothing has really changed, but now the attitude is:
  
  "Well, TCG Loot card mounts have been sold for a long time now, and we've been able to tell it hasn't had any adverse impacts to the game or economy - despite them selling sometimes for astronomical amounts of gold.
  
  It's no big deal. We're just providing alternative ways for players who don't want to spend real money on these items."
  
  I'm disappointed that they would change so radically and even try to justify it.
  
  And there was also these old posts:
  
  The difference in patch types
  
  "For World of Warcraft, we will also be adding new content on a regular basis, thus ensuring that there will always be new adventures, new locations, new creatures, and new items to discover."
  
  Content patches were officially supposed to be delivered on a monthly basis (like what Sony announced for DCUO). Within a 6 month period, Blizzard had already delivered 4 major updates and 9 minor (content) updates.
  
  What is contained in a regular content patch?
  
  "Each content update will also bring new quests, items, professions recipes, and continued class improvements."
  
  Just broken promises.. no big deal.

• I entered another Path of Exile beta key contest where I had a 90% chance of winning. I still lost. :)


• Apparently, it looks like those stupid Blogspot.com issues have been going on for possibly over a month now. I never noticed it until just last week though.
  
  Some comments had vanished, and there are certain pages/posts where users can leave comments on. There's no way to even tell that though as there's no mechanism that really monitors this sort of stuff.
  
  For the most part they're not that intrusive, but it's annoying that some of the comment conversations are gone. I have no idea when they're going to be resolved either.


• I've added a couple other service providers to my "do not trust" list. XS.TO is up at the top, and now I'm adding Pastebin.com and Pastehtml.com. I had put up some stuff on them a few months ago, but I guess someone clicked "Report Abuse" even though they weren't spam and just 2 letter words. I had set them to "Never Expire", but I guess they don't even review complaints, and just go ahead and delete them.


• And, you know prescription medication where there's an extremely rare probability (less than 1% chance) to get certain unwelcome side effects? Yeah, I got the side effects.


• Oh, I just got a jury summons too.