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Former WoW Team Leader: “This won’t stop. WoW gamers are leaving for good. “ Mark 'Grummz' Kern acknowledges explosive leak and writes about failures of AAA culture and why World of Warcraft is dying.
[Editor’s note: On July 11th, an anonymous user claiming to work at Blizzard posted a massive letter about the state of the sinking ship that is World of Warcraft. People generally seeing the leak as authentic now have even more reasons to hold that belief, because Mark Kern, the former team lead for the celebrated classic era of WoW, has reposted the leak and commented that it rings true. He also in reply posted his own perspectives and experiences and elaborated on what’s happening at Blizzard.] Supposedly this is Blizzard leak about the current state of WoW. It may not be legit, but the attitude described about monetization and how…
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Love in a time of Warcraft Sarah found herself cast as the Yoko Ono of WoW, being blamed for the dissolution of what has been a successful raiding guild.
I played No Man’s Sky with an astronomer to separate its science fiction from facts An infinite gaming world, but is any of it based on scientific fact? We sat down with one of the world's leading astronomers to put No Man's Sky under the intergalactic microscope.
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Blizzard employee reveals demoralization & drama inside “out of touch” company in massive leak Chaos and widespread demoralization inside dev of the formerly "too big to fail" MMO World of Warcraft.
An anonymous user claiming to work at Blizzard yesterday posted a massive letter to 4chan about the state of the sinking ship that is World of Warcraft. The letter shines a light on the demoralization happening inside the company as well as blaming “social justice” and a “too big to fail” mindset for choices made there in relation to World of Warcraft, which is leaking players like a sieve. The letter is generally thought to be authentic among the thousands of gamers who have discussed it on 4chan and social media like Twitter. Former WoW team lead Mark ‘Grummz’ Kern also reposted the letter and said it rings true based…
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Rise of the oversensitive gamer Easily offensive? Or easily offended?
Why Super Mario Bros. 3 is still a masterpiece Before Mario had a World, he had the biggest stage on Earth – and played the part to perfection.
“You are not a real gamer” The phrase has become a joke and a cliche - but when someone says "you're not a real gamer," what is it they're really saying?
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A history of griefing: gamers who ruin your day for kicks Sometimes it’s purely for fun, sometimes it’s to make a point, and sometimes it’s even to make a profit.
You’re in the zombie nightmare of DayZ and about to be eaten by one of the charging undead when suddenly a helicopter appears. Its pilots – and simply owning a helicopter lets you know they’re big shots – gun down your pursuer and offer you a lift. What you don’t know is that instead of flying you to safety, your destination is the tiny, featureless Schadenfreude Island some 15km off the main coast of Chernarus. The only reason they’ve saved you is for the amusement of knowing you’re condemned to stand there until you waste away, and that they were smart enough to fool you. Griefing: it comes in many…
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The craziest things people ever did to persuade parents to buy video games Kids can be very creative when they want something.
The best JRPG you’ve never heard of The SNES was the home to a lot of classic Japanese RPGs, but this one is in danger of being lost to time.
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Meet the whale who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on the MMO Black Desert Online "I love how we just casually talk about spending almost the entire cost of a full ride at Yale university on a video game."
Heedun yesterday posted a YouTube interview with Estimate, the whale who has spent $160k in microtransactions on the MMORPG Black Desert Online. Estimate is very open about the fact that he’s paying to win and gives the us lowdown on the whole thing. Watch this video on YouTube Useful timestamps: 04:30 How much he spent in the game 07:30 Why he P2Ws 14:00 Regrets 17:58 P2W in Other Games 24:00 RMT in BDO 30:30 How to P2W “he’s not a whale, he is a f**king leviathan” – YouTube comment.
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Why Blizzard’s decision to crack down on porn memes for Overwatch is odd Plenty of other game franchises have similar adult content floating around.
Former WoW Team Leader: “This won’t stop. WoW gamers are leaving for good. “ Mark 'Grummz' Kern acknowledges explosive leak and writes about failures of AAA culture and why World of Warcraft is dying.
When nightmare mode isn’t enough: 5 ways to add difficulty to your game If you haven't sent a controller hurtling through the air straight into the middle of your flat screen TV, you aren't being challenged enough.
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Gabe Newell reveals he was an undercover World of Warcraft gold farmer Just for research, you understand.
Gabe Newell got the idea for the Steam Workshop during his time working as a gold farmer in World of Warcraft. Speaking to Edge Magazine, Valve’s CEO said he managed to bring in a decent hourly wage – and worked out a concept that would help some people make significant amounts of money. “We were always used to thinking about games as entertainment experiences, but then we started thinking of them as productivity platforms,” says Newell. “As a sort of proof-of-concept, I decided to be a World of Warcraft gold farmer for a while. I was making $20 an hour farming gold. I was making what was a spectacular wage for…
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RIP Konami console games, 1983-2015 With Konami moving away from mainstream gaming and onto pachinko and mobile, it's time for a nostalgic look back over its best games.
Before Old Kratos, there was PSP Kratos How Ready at Dawn humanized Kratos a decade before the recent God of War did.
The sex is the saddest thing about GTA V (NSFW) Grand Theft Auto V is an incredible, incredible video game. So why is its sex so terrible?
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Returning to Runescape, over one decade on We’re going back... back to the browser!
Back in the distant past of 2004, when Avril Lavigne was still in her heyday and Green Day made me feel like an American Idiot in spite of living on the English south coast, I started playing my first MMORPG. I was around thirteen years old, and I remember being introduced to the wonders of Runescape during a lunchtime spent quietly hidden away on a school library computer. It was a MMORPG that ran entirely in-browser, and as such could be made to work on our ancient and technologically-limited school computers. Someone in my class had been passing around a proxy server access file on a flash stick, meaning that…
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Why you pay what you pay for video games We can often feel short-changed when it comes to buying video games, especially in the UK. So what exactly determines what you pay?
The state of health Nobody wants to die. But were games more fun when we still could?
Gaming’s most persistent myths and urban legends, debunked From blowing in cartridges to Lara Croft nude cheats and the secret Windows95 devil program. I’m sure you believe in at least one of these falsehoods.
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Destiny 2 is practically impossible to play if you’re a parent Bungie can do hunters, titans and warlocks alright, but it really struggles with the parent class.
I had a baby nine months ago. As you might expect, this has significantly changed my relationship with video games, at least temporarily. It has made the Nintendo Switch my favorite console of all time, because I can play it both on the big screen on the occasional evening and in my hands during naptime/train journeys/stolen moments hiding in the bathroom whilst my partner deals with the baby. It has also drastically reduced the time available to me to play games — which, given that it is literally my job to know about games, is a smidge inconvenient. Most of all it has erased my ability to join in with…
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Paypigs revolt after glitch reveals “cute goddess”‘ real face — and age "Her Royal Highness" Qiao Biluo's false online representation tricked Chinese men out of oodles of cash, and now they're trying to charge it back.
Four reasons you’re wrong about Pokémon Red and Blue The original Pokémon games aren’t particularly interesting or special, they were just the first.
The sex is the saddest thing about GTA V (NSFW) Grand Theft Auto V is an incredible, incredible video game. So why is its sex so terrible?
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Love in a time of Warcraft Sarah found herself cast as the Yoko Ono of WoW, being blamed for the dissolution of what has been a successful raiding guild.
Heidi met John playing Final Fantasy XIV. They were part of the same Free Company, and would often help each other out with quests. Getting to know each other, the pair soon realized they had plenty in common, and began to spend more time together. “Seeing his name light up when he logged on brought a huge smile to my face,” says Heidi. John later tells me that he spent weeks carrying his laptop around at work or college on the off-chance she signed in. Eventually, John drove from Tennessee to North Carolina to meet Heidi in person. They spent a week together in which time they realized they weren’t…
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The 11 hardest survival simulators Casuals, stay away. These are the survival games that make staying alive difficult.
Back on the flight deck: an interview with Wing Commander’s Chris Roberts Why he got into game development, why he left, why he's ready to come back, and much more.
What survival games could learn from real-life survival stories If you’ve idly wondered about the everyday lives of your little survivors, Ernest Shackleton’s failed Trans-Antarctic Expedition may prove a treasure chest of enrichment.
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The story of Second Life’s long-abandoned Duran Duran universe No ordinary world.
The stories of Second Life and Duran Duran mirror each other in a strange kind of way. At their height, both enjoyed immense popularity, and both have slowly slipped out of the spotlight in recent times. Linden Lab’s life simulator was released back in 2003 and boasted a million regular users in its prime. Duran Duran, meanwhile, emerged when the New Romantics ruled the airwaves, and their albums went triple platinum. These days, neither commands the headlines they once did. In a way, it seems prudent that these two former titans of pop culture would sooner or later cross paths, and the Duran Duran Universe, an official Second Life world dedicated to the band, was the result.…
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10 anti-gravity racing games like WipEout and F-Zero While futuristic anti-gravity racing games aren't extremely popular these days, there are still a few good titles that you might have overlooked.
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The World of Warcraft legacy server that is no more In closing Nostalrius, Blizzard finds itself the bad guy despite having the law on its side.
World Of Warcraft is a living place. With each expansion it sails onwards, leaving old players behind as new ideas, faces and philosophies keep the 11-year-old MMO current. However, some players would prefer to step back in time and wander the world they knew, like revisiting the street you grew up on. Until April 10, Nostalrius existed to do just that. It was the largest private server running WOW patch 1.12 – the final build of the base game, free from expansions and adulteration. Nostalgia was so strong that 800,000 people registered Nostalrius accounts, and 150,000 were active players. This took place without the approval of Activision Blizzard. The Battle.net…
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The psychology behind your backlog of unplayed games As games become ever cheaper and ever longer, we must necessarily accrue ever bigger piles of unplayed titles. Feel bad about it? Psychology can explain.
The largest ever MMO battle—3000 players!—was an accident Someone forgot to pay rent, resulting in a space battle involving over 3000 players and $300k worth of the game's currency gone forever.
No, game journos, Grand Theft Auto doesn’t make you sexist False interpretations of already worthless and pseudoscientific studies. But hey — narrative.
