Posts tagged cataclysm 
The Daily Grind: Should new expansions include old expansions?
When Cataclysm launched, a friend of mine who hadn't played since the days of Vanilla World of Warcraft wanted to join in the fun, but when he saw the cost of catching up -- nearly full box prices for The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, on top of Cataclysm itself -- he balked and ...
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm post-mortem reflects on success, failure, and lessons learned
World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion is over a year old now, and Mists of Pandaria is looming just over the horizon, which means that it's time for a Cataclysm post-mortem. The infamous pony-promiser Greg "Ghostcrawler" Streets took some time out of his day to set aside the nerf bat and ...
Achievement Unlocked: A look at the Guinness world records of online gaming
We're just over a month into the new year, and already we've got plenty to look forward to: The Secret World is expected to hit in April, TERA will follow shortly in May, and Guild Wars 2 will be out... sometime this year (we hope). But before we all start looking toward the future, let's take ...
World of Warcraft's patch 4.3 to be last major update until Mists of Pandaria
World of Warcraft's lead quest designer, Dave Kosak, let slip in an interview today that the recently released patch 4.3 will be the final major content update to hit Azeroth until Mists of Pandaria goes live. This is obviously a notable discovery, since it either means that Mists of Pandaria ...
Blizzard seems to think that Cataclysm was too linear
Designing MMOs is often the art of shepherding players in a given direction while at the same time giving them a sense of freedom. Even in a themepark environment, players want to be invested in areas, to have reasons to come back and explore and go off of the rails should they want to. World of ...
World of Warcraft is going down in Europe... in price, that is
Reports of the demise of World of Warcraft have been greatly exaggerated, but the price of the game is falling. This isn't entirely unexpected, but the game's two more recent expansions have just seen a significant drop in their EU prices, with Wrath of the Lich King dropping to €19.99 and ...
World of Warcraft's holiday sale includes $10 sparkleponies
The holidays are here, and you know what that means: holiday sales! Blizzard is joining the fun with a number of (rather good) deals. The World of Warcraft Battle Chest, which includes vanilla WoW and The Burning Crusade, is on sale for a measly $5 US. Wrath of the Lich King is on sale for $10, ...
A look back at a cataclysmic year for World of Warcraft
It's been a big year for World of Warcraft, especially considering that the MMO behemoth is currently hitting its seventh year of operation. Considering its nigh-ubiquitous nature in the MMO sphere, it's hard to imagine that there was a time without it. And this past year of the game almost ...
The Daily Grind: Will Pandaren lure you back to WoW?
Blizzard Entertainment is taking a gamble on its next expansion, Mists of Pandaria. World of Warcraft is still on top, but since Cataclysm it's nevertheless taken a beating. Some players attribute recent subscriber losses to games like RIFT; others blame it on natural gamer fatigue. Still others ...
The Guild Counsel: A look at Race to World First
As MMOs grow in popularity and age, they're being seen as a serious subject of study. And as they gain acceptance, we're beginning to see more exposure on paper and in film. Recently, we looked at the documentary The Raid, a portrayal of one guild's progression through World of Warcraft raid ...
