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'm switching gears here for a moment, because I really wanted to talk about Mists of Pandaria and one potentially significant upcoming change.

Two months before Cataclysm came out, TOD made a post about Cataclysm "Repeating the Past". His idea was trying to make items from Classic Dungeons (and the Dungeons themselves) useful or novel again, and in general, to get players using older dungeons again because they were practically empty with the introduction of new expansion packs. After all, it's a shame that all of that immense work had went into designing the art and media, only to be abandoned at the onset of the next expansion pack release.

"With scaled gear, you can still have the same old equipment look (with or without a slightly different name) but with different stats scaled for the player. They've already been doing this experimentation with heirlooms, so it shouldn't be that hard to do it with old instance drops."

Remarkably (maybe even suspiciously) clairvoyant of the new Transmogrification system, wouldn't you say? That post is also relevant for another issue.

Transmogrification is one of Blizzard's latest attempt to get players revisiting classic dungeons, and to bring in diversity and novelty once again to the game. But Mists of Pandaria will also be introducing (maybe) a new fix to correct the power creep issues and to make all older items, dungeons and quests viable and even fun again.

Blizzard is calling this "The Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria". It's an older post and you've probably read it already.

All of the discussions I've seen about this potential update is "Me me me. How does this effect me?" They want to talk about it's impact and how it affects players. No one is talking about WHY they're doing it. Even Ghostcrawler never fully explained why they're doing it.. only that "because the numbers are too big" and that "users might not like it."

So, what are the real reasons then? We know that the change must be financially motivated.. so what are the reasons from a business perspective? That's what I want to talk about. :)

A Quick Recap

Blizzard wants to fix the power creep issue through two "options":

Option 1

The first option was Ghostcrawler's "Mega Damage solution". It basically means following the same route they've already been taking, but to change the appearance of the big numbers because they take up too much space on the screen.

In regards to these "big numbers", Ghostcrawler wrote;

"Now there are some very real computational limitations. PCs just can’t quickly perform math on very large numbers, so we’d have to solve all of those problems as well."

I hope no one actually bought this. He's talking about "big numbers" like 150,000 instead of 20,000. We're not talking about calculating monster prime numbers that are 2^32,123,456-1 digits long. It sounds like an old man trying to describe these new fancy com-pu-ter ma-chines. :)

None of this really matters though. He kept this part of his post really short, exaggerated the issue, and tried to shrug the whole thing off as a ridiculous "alternative option". This means that he has no intention of even considering this and the team has already set their sights on the Item Squish option.

This is like when you go to your parents and ask them for something ridiculously overpriced, so that when they say no, you can "reluctantly settle" for what you really wanted in the first place.

The "Mega Damage solution" is not really a serious option.

Option 2

This is the Item Squish. I trust that you already understand what they're planning on doing.

Basically, they're going to take gear stats and "even everything out" so that it's a consistent power growth from Vanilla all the way to Mists of Pandaria without any major "bursts" in item power. The term "Green is the new Purple" will no longer apply to future expansion packs.

They want to make growth rates more like this:

Fig. 5. Item level vs. character level before and after ‘squish’. Brown = vanilla. Green = BC. Blue = LK. Red = Cat
And, of course, users are split on this potential update. Mostly because players will feel as though it's a major nerf.

But, it's not just the players and their items getting the "nerf", mobs and bosses will also be adjusted accordingly. You'll still be healing and damaging at the same percentiles as normal, but you'll just see smaller numbers on the screen.

However, they will be making it so that soloing old content will be much harder, but you'll receive viable awards based on the difficulty level. Because there will be a marginal difference between level 85 and 90, you can still run CATA dungeons (and even WOTLK dungeons) for gear that can be used in level 90 encounters.

Everything in the game will be changed relatively, and they want the entire game back to how it was with "expansions" within Vanilla (ie, major content updates like dungeon additions).

Understanding The Problem

I think it's a very good idea for the Item Squish, and it's something they should have done a long time ago. They probably started to realize the implications by late mid-late WOTLK.. it definitely wasn't during TBC. :)

What it comes down to is a problem of content consumption versus our need for growth.

Blizzard spent a lot of time building dungeons, raids, instances, and scripted events. During Vanilla, most players on average had visited all of the dungeons/raids and rather frequently. They consumed the content slowly, at the pace the Blizzard preferred.

Once TBC rolled out (and follow up expansion packs), there was no more need to visit old dungeons, and they would just skip ahead to end game content. Older dungeons didn't need to be visited anymore, especially with players carrying you through pre-raid or end game content. Dungeons, raids, and capital cities became ghost towns. (Something that wasn't a good impression for new players, which is why they made capital cities central quest hubs again.)

Since players grew faster than they could consume content, Blizzard was (is) always under increased pressure to produce new content for us.

And, there's a finite limit to the amount of content they can provide for us before it just become recycled garbage. Everything needs to be slowed down, from player growth to player consumption to content creation to creative process and resources.

It was really fun in the beginning, but they burned through so many ideas (i.e. dungeon designs, art, audio effects, encounters, mobs and bosses) that they're now realizing that they need to start saving up this content for future use and not allow it to be consumed so quickly.

There's also the issue of creative burnout, something also experienced in the music and book industry. The video game industry is not immune from writer's block. If things move too quickly, and they don't keep filling up their "creativity pool" (for future expansion packs and games), then their games start getting repetitive or boring, and they have to resort to common world objects for creative inspiration, like using every kind of animal as a race, mob or boss. I can't remember.. did they already do a Cow Boss, Lobster Boss, Bird Boss, Snake Boss, Tiger Boss, or Panther Boss? :)

More to come..

The SK Game Ratings Board was originally planning on having a hearing this Dec 21st, but it's been pushed back due to the lack of data and documents provided by Blizzard.

The GRB review process started on December 1st (or possibly the day before), and according the article, after 16 days of reviews and investigations, they had asked Blizzard for additional information.

So, Blizzard Korea was probably contacted this past Friday (Dec 16) for the information and media organizations found out about it today (Monday).

Kim Jong Il died shortly after hearing the news about the Diablo 3 delay. He had been experiencing significant stress over the past several weeks, due to the multiple release delays, causing great mental and physical strain and finally accumulating into a fatal heart attack after hearing the devastating news of another delay. Kim Jong Il was planning on creating a Barbarian, because he felt that the class was the most overpowered and godlike.

And also, coincidentally, Dec 16 is the same day that Bashiok finally addressed the delay concerns by being very ambiguous, not denying anything, and just confirming that there is a delay and to be patient.

It's unfortunate that Blizzard was not fully prepared for this review considering the seriousness of the issue. They explained that they weren't expecting this to happen because they've never had problems like this before from their other (non-RMAH) games. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if certain details were left out.. like the metagame gambling nature of RMAH item selling. :)

Based on what I could translate, it appears that the "additional material requested period" is 7 days from now, at which point they'll undergo their investigation process again. So, it's still a couple weeks away.

So, on the bright side.. it looks like they were making some pretty good progress, and the decision was closer than we think (this year.) Unfortunately, because Blizzard did not provide enough information, it's been delayed, pushing it all back to probably the original early-mid January expectation.

So much for a Dec 31st announcement.. I guess it'll just be a major beta invite, pictures, and game information.

I wasn't going to talk about this subject on the blog but it was requested. So, here are my thoughts on the whole SOPA/PIPA situation. :)

What I Want

• I want SOPA to pass and I hope it's used to the extreme.


• I want to see Facebook, YouTube, search engines, blogging sites, pirating sites, forums, legitimate torrent sites, music and movie sharing sites, file upload/sharing site, photo and storage sites.. everything.. censored and shutdown.


• I want to see the government force people out into the streets with crowds of other people complaining loudly about this injustice, instead of complaining silently in front of their computer screens.


• I want the world to see the decision makers of this legislation (those in the government, corporations, and anti-piracy organizations) for who they really are; incompetent and archaic dinosaurs desperately struggling to halt progress, stop change, and to hold onto monopolies and dying business methodologies just so that they can pad their own wallets at the expense of their country and the scientific advancement of the human race.


• I want them to first start destroying entrepreneurship so that no new businesses are ever created in the US, and I want them to make it extremely difficult for the rest of the world.


• I want them to stifle creativity and innovation, and send us all back to the dark ages.


• I want to see the looks on their faces when new and existing businesses fail, the entertainment industry incurs substantial revenue loss, and people stop buying games, films, and music.


• I want to read the newspapers: "PROFITS DOWN", "LESS THAN EXPECTED REVENUE", "SELLING ASSETS", "STOCK DOWN". I want to see millions laid off within the entertainment industry. It'll be a fucking tragedy.


• I want to see the looks on their faces when they realize that piracy and freedom of ideas/information was actually the reason for their highest profits.


• I want this all to happen that so that, finally, there's undeniable proof (it's an actual fact.. it really happened) that piracy has actually benefited the entertainment industry this entire time. And, finally there's indisputable evidence that all of the anti-piracy organizations must have been lying about and manipulating all of their research and statistics this entire time.


• I want these SOPA supporters (RIAA, MPAA, ESA, Gov, Corp, etc) to embarrass themselves and never to be trusted again. They'll plunge the planet into the greatest economic and scientific crisis ever seen.


• I want everyone to realize that these people are SHITTING on the memories of our veterans, soldiers, and forefathers who fought for freedom and peace in our nation. They're just mean old men with old ideas who are destroying freedom out of incompetence, greed, or possibly dementia. I want them to be remembered as the worst people in history. I want their families to change their last names out of embarrassment and fear.


• I want to see these people try to talk their way out of this: "Profits aren't down because of this.. there MUST be another reason!"


• I want to read the headlines when all of these politicians, record labels, entertainment industry, and anti-piracy organizations leading the charge are the first against the wall when the revolution comes.


• Then I want to see some real change.

So, what should we do?

The entire entertainment industry needs a wake up call.

Yes, that's right.. you heard me: ALL OF THEM.

There are no innocents. Just because they're not listed as a "supporter" for SOPA, it doesn't mean they don't want it to happen or they're not supporting the initiative. Many companies pulled their names out of SOPA/PIPA/MPAA/ESA/RIAA "official support" purely because of the Public Relations opportunity.

Even with billions in revenue, they won't even lift a finger or even raise awareness on a single forum post. They all need to be brought to their knees so that they don't just sit around and do nothing (or they only get involved for PR purposes). They've all been on the side lines for too long, and they have the resources to fix this issue.

It's easy to do too, you just need the numbers.

Stop buying new video games and DLC. Stop buying new music. Stop going to the theater. Stop paying for films or streaming videos. Cancel your subscriptions.

All of the major entertainment leaders are heavily invested into infrastructure, manpower, IP, advertising budgets, and investments. They need this regular income to support the rest of their business and by lowering their revenue even by 20-30%, you can devastate them.

So, stop purchasing any types of NEW entertainment (e.g. games, movies, music) for even two quarters (6 months) and watch what happens.. stocks tumble, investors lose faith, they lay people off, they sell off assets, investors get even more worried, the cycle continues. Scare the shit out of them. They should be begging you for your financial support.

Your entertainment doesn't need to stop, you can just put your money into other forms of entertainment:

• Start playing indie games like Minecraft, Terrari, Space Pirates and Zombies, Trine, etc. If it looks like an independent, but they have a major publisher, skip them. Find some good games, get your friends playing them.


• Freeze new purchases, and just play older games instead. Break out your old gaming systems, buy older systems/games from pawn shops, get a new movement started.


• You can even purchase big games (but slightly older) from Bargain Bins or pawnshops. Major publishers actually hate that. They want you to buy new stuff. So, it's very important that none of their newer titles sell.


• Stop paying for music, and instead start listening to indie bands and songs. The same goes for independent (free) films.

The corporate machine is more delicate than you might think. Just stop feeding it, and things break down pretty quickly.

When all of this falls apart, perhaps those in power might even have an epiphany:

"If this is what happens when information is censored and intellectual property is protected, then the opposite must be true. So.. in a world without censorship, anti-piracy outfits, patents and intellectual "property" there will be major scientific advances, cures for every cancer, inexpensive goods with inexpensive production, new ideas, new innovation, better entertainment, better games, better movies, real competition rather than monopolization, and even more prosperity."

But they didn't get into their positions by being deeply insightful thinkers unfortunately.