Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, MMO industry, News items

When you think of a rapidly developing Asian nation, fast becoming a global superpower and now harnessing the potential of supercomputing, what's the first purpose for this supercomputer that comes to mind? Hint: think video games, not war games. Regardless of your first thought, we're betting you wouldn't have guessed "World of Warcraft"... but it's true.

China's World of Warcraft servers are run by The9, who own Blizzard's distribution rights in the country. "Earlier this year, The9 boasted of hosting more than one million World of Warcraft players online at the same time.To support the complex calculations required to create the game's graphics, The9 owns more than 10 supercomputer systems," Ashlee Vance reports for The New York Times.

Continue reading Shall we play a game?

Shall we play a game? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, EverQuest II, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, Launches, New titles, The Daily Grind

Over the last week or so we've been asking you how you've managed to decide between the big releases hitting the MMO genre these days. Last week's Lich King launch, followed by this week's launches of EverQuest 2: The Shadow Odyssey and Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria seem like challenging decisions for the fan of the MMO genre. We're not going to ask you how you picked, though, because we think we know how you decided which game to play. Like Codex and Zaboo up there, you hang out online where your friends are. At least, we think you do.

So our question this morning is, first, do you decide which MMO to play based on where your friends are? Second, how important are other people to your continued MMO gaming? If your friends weren't playing the game they are, would you be? How much does the directly social nature of massively multiplayer games affect your gameplay? Let us know, and good luck making those hard choices!

The Daily Grind: How important are friends to MMO gaming? originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, Events, real-world, Guilds, MMO industry, News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds

Among the people President-elect Barack Obama has appointed to his FCC agency review transition team are Net Neutrality advocates Kevin Werbach, assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, and Susan Crawford from the University of Michigan, who teaches communications and internet law. Werbach, as it turns out, is a World of Warcraft player, according to Wagner James Au at GigaOM.

Werbach has written about MMOs on his blog (back in 2006), that games "provide an incentive for people to develop new software and ideas for collaborative production. Many of those ideas will translate to other group activities, including those within the business world. I think MMOGs will be, at minimum, a significant testbed for these new technologies, because users see a direct benefit and are willing to experiment with new things." Werbach plays in two WoW guilds, one started by a friend, and the other is comprised of academics whose interests or work focus on virtual worlds.

While Werbach is more of a traditional MMO gamer, Crawford is a fan of Second Life, judging by what she's written on the virtual world in the past on her blog. At the very least, it's a positive sign that individuals connected with the FCC and its policies really understand how people are using technology to socialize, collaborate, and play.

Obama's FCC transition team includes MMO gamer, virtual world resident originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments