Rob, our group herbalist and alchemist, had a kinky story from last weekend play in WOW.  It appears that some kids have figured a work around to get honour points.  Honour points comes from killing an oppsoing faction player and they are two main factions in WOW, the Horde (Orcs) and the Alliance (Humans). 

Below is the email sent to me describing theat bizzare experience:

Dogkiller: hey

Me: yo!

(And I'm thinking? Do I know you? And what kind of name is Dogkiller? Doesn't sound very savory)

OK.  What is going on here?  This is an attempt to gain honour points by creating an opposing charcter and than going to solicit a willing party to be killed.  What happens is Rob agreed to it?  The Humans, friends of the propositioner, would come and kill Rob, who would willingly stand by and get killed.  They would gain honour points.  By doing it by the graveyard, Rob's spirit would appear immediately by his body and would resurrect almost immediately to be killed again.  At 25S every 1 minute or so, it translate to a lot of money.  This is a work around the rules of the game.  Its sic but innovative ;-)  Unfortunately, we will have to report Dogkiller to the GM (game master).   

I now have an emerging group of players in WOW.  We are not yet a Guild but we function much like a guild, which means that we work towards the better of everyone in the group.  The outcome is that we share our resources.  One of the resources is potions as we have a lunatic herbalist who is harvesting and making potions well above his level (the herbs he needs now are in very dangerous areas for him).  Let me tell you, these are FINE potions, which enhances the users attributes such as +4 to strength or +250 to armour.  The list goes on.  

We have been the beneficiary of the diligent work by our herbalist and alchemist who is also very giving because he does not take the drugs he produces (the secret of success for real life drug dealers? LOL).  With these potions, however, we can now take on higher level opponents.  In WOW, when you level, as in going from level 20 to level 21 as an example, you gain +1 in Strength, +1 in Agility etc....  Now imagine a potion that gives your character +4 to strength.  +4 is not a lot until you put it in the context that it takes 4 levels to gain a permenant attribute of +4 strength.  I have often bragged about how much higher the level of mob I am taking down - last count 5 level higher.  On a normal setting without the potions, I can take down a mob that is 3 level higher than me.  If it is 4 level higher than me, I will die before I kill it.  With drugs, I can do as high as 5 levels up!

Now, Stu and I, the two major beneficiary of Rob's deligent hardwork and his designer drugs, cannot go out without drugs anymore.  We are addicted.  If we go out without the potion buffs, it feels like we are going out naked.  The drugs makes us perform better - above our capabilities.  It is not hard to see why drug abuse in world class atheltes is rampant.  Once you use it, it is hard to walk away.  Drug addiction is a reality of WOW just like the real world   The funny conversation between Stu and I when we play together is asking each other for drugs - ROFL.  "Do you have an armour hit?" our favourite drug.

It's a bit late but here is an interview with the WOW developers.   I am just cruzin through the levels  but I am keeping an eye out for the endgame.  The endgame is not achieving Level 60 (the highest rank).  It is achieving Honour (by destroying the enemy depending which side you are on, Horde or Alliance) and conquering the Dragon   The Interview illustrates that there are parts of the game that cannot be experienced successfully without embarking on a Herculean effort to mount a 40 person raid (four groups of ten people).  I have a tough time organizing 5 or 6 - LOL.  And, you better hope all members are proficient with their character, which brings me to WOW characters. 

It appears that a character takes on a life of its own in terms of persona.  I do know one of our group, Stu, plays a female Undead Mage.  Stu had started with an Orc Warrior to level 19 before he started a Mage.  Why?  Because he is just not a warrior.  He hated that role and played it because he thought we needed a TANK (someone who goes to the front of the attack and takes the brunt of the attack while the others fight from a distance - a dedicated healer is usually allocated to look after the TANK's health).  Well, it just was not fun for Stu.     

With the female Mage, even though I know its Stu, I still treat the character as a female and accordingly all the things I do for the gentler sex I do for her.  Stu agreed that his female Mage gets a lot of help from the male characters.  Often, I too find myself stopping to watch a female battle a mob to make sure she does not get into deep trouble.  Its wired and creepy for me - LOL.  But hey, Stu has 3 daughters ranging form teens to University.  He can play a female if he wants to.  All dads with daughters are part female as we gain a real appreciation for the finer points of being female.  Enough said on that.

And than, its the Horde or Alliance question?  More than once when asked why they played the Alliance instead of the Horde - because the Alliance look better.  Alliance are humans, elfs, gnomes and dwarfs.  The men and women on the Alliance side are very good looking.  More than once I have stopped to look at a female character and said "WOW!"  Picture small Dwarf goggling a hot human female - LOL. 

Ultimately, there is a relationship between who you are and your character in WOW.  I have played a variety of characters like the Druid, Mage, Rogue, Hunter and Shaman.  I avoided the warrior as I think it is a very uni-dimensional character as in slash and burn only.  I avoided the Priest as I do not see my self as a goody goody heal everyone type of guy as I like to do some slash and burn myself.  I have to say I like the Shaman the best.  What does that say about me?   

There is no right or wrong in what people pick as a character in WOW.  It takes a group effort to complete some of the more challenging Elite quest.  Just like in the real world, its team work and exploiting strengths and weaknesses.  One person's medicine is another person's poison - right? 

It was only about a month ago when we found out that World of Warcraft (WOW - as it is affectionately known by the players) have reached 3.5 million subscribers.  Yesterday, Red Herring reported WOW reached 4 million subscribers   Oh yeah, baby!  Spread the word...  It is worth a read as they are now talking about all the money Vivendi is making. 

Another website that is good for MMOG data is here.  Somewhere on this site are data related to the behaviour of MMOG over time.  Yeah, subscription tends to decline over two years after the initial ramp-up in the first year.  The most successful MMOG was the Korean Lineage, which accounted for the Lion share until WOW came along.  There are at least 3 version of Linage since the original, which attracted millions of subscribers.  It was a time when Ultima and than Everquest emerged in North America as the MMOG that was the BUZZ ....   It was a time when we learned that cyber assets had real value when people were selling virtual gold and homes for tens of thousand of dollars.  It was a time that gave birth to new companies like IGE, which most people considered the eBay portal for cyberwares.  But, the King is here now and its WOW!  It is all the more impressive given the quality titles that existed before WOW and their ability to transcend past MMOG success by setting yet another standard in gaming - this time in the MMOG world (last time Blizzard single handedly redefined and ignited the RPG genre with Diablo).

There are probably thousands of blogs of WOW players recording their experience much like me.  Someone should tabulate this and make a book ....  I have a manual, which I paid C$40 for, written by a couple of beta tester and sponsored by the developers (where else would they get all the stats?).  It is a valuable resource for me but I find the stuff you get from IGE through thottbot and service to be more timely.  Flicking through the manual is a bit of a distracttion.  And really, the wisdom of the book is by a couple of players.  There are now thousands of insightful tips on the Net.  

Like I said before, word of mouth is the best advertising.  Do you see WOW being advertise on TV like some of the console games?  What is driving the subscription growth?  People like me who talk about WOW to everyone they know that have an interest in gaming.  I can say that I personally have got 5 more people to play the game.  Where is the comission?

Ok.  My last point.  There is a service for US$500 you can get a Level 60 character in 21 days.  It is specially tailored for you - your character.  Someone will play it until it reaches Level 60 in 21 days.  What is the point?  I just fail to see it.  Why would anyone do it?  The whole fun is playing the game.  What do you get out of it?  There is no way some rich newbie can use a Level 60 character effectively.  I don't get it????  But, I guess that is what makes this world so wonderful - we are all different - I guess .... 

In today's Internet age, the buzz is all about on-line advertising.  Look at Google and Yahoo and .....  We have forgotten the age old success recipe of "Word of mouth" advertising.  There is really nothing more powerful than someone you know selling you a product or service that they have enjoyed.  And.... my point?

OK.  It's about WOW.  I when to the Rogers Cup with a friend who has a couple of teenage boys.  Knowing I am a gamer, I talked about what is great (word of mouth advertising).  I told her that her kids should try it.  She said that her boys are aware of it because all their friends play it and they are asking her kids to join them.  Well, I must have impressed her kids as the game they really want to play has now been endorsed by their mother's friend (me).  Last night, they got the game and started the wonderful experience of WOW   This is the best example of "Word of mouth advertising."  WOW is now the world most successful MMOG.

I met with a CEO of a very interesting tech company today.  He knows I am a gamer and strangely enough the conversation drifted to WOW   He has heard of it and his kids play it!  No doubt, they are also actively recruiting their friends to join them just as I am recruiting all my gaming friends to join me.  Money cannot buy advertising like this. 

And finally, another example of Word of mouth advertising is "Go Daddy."  Go Daddy is a private company providing Domain Name Service (DNS).  If you want an Internet name you have to register it with someone like Go Daddy or your local friendly ISP or the thousands of cheap DNS out there.  Go Daddy is considered the World Number 1 DNS provider with about a 16% market share.  As I asked someone who got a website a few weeks ago who they used, they said "Go Daddy."  "Why? Go Daddy?" I asked.  Because someone they know recommended them - the service is good and the cost is low (hard combination to beat).  While Go Daddy had a very controversial ad in the Superbowl and their second ad was pulled in the Superbowl after the first showing, it is the word of mouth that is driving their business.  In a world where there is very little differentiation, Go Daddy has stood up head and shoulders above their competitors.  Rumour is that there is an IPO in the works

I caught this post today from The Inquirer, one of my fav gossip portal.  Apparently, a young boy playing WOW to 3 AM in the morning made a post, which was read by his WOW playing Mom.  It appears that Mom is a Level 59 and son is a Level 57.  Whew, that is a lot of time in WOW   It gives me something to shoot for in family building.  That is gaming Nirvana.

No major updates on WOW gaming experience.  On Sunday, I was playing with a couple of characters doing a quest on the Barrens (Raptor Horns).  We were all standing around this hill surrounded by Raptors.  Every so often, a roving group of centaurs would come around to keep us on our toes.  The other two players must have been sleeping (typically they are manging their stuff and as a result not paying attention to their environment).  I saw them and tried to help but I was way to weak as a Level 17 Orc Shaman.  So, I ran to avoid certain death - both got killed.  After that, I asked them what they thought they were doing?  One said he was in China and the other said that the baby needed to be fed - LOL!  It turns out he was a Dad looking after a 3.5 month old baby while playing WOW    Hey, that's just like me! 

My son is Diablo and my daughter is Warcraft.  I remember telling my wife to sleep while I look after our 3 months old son in the middle of the night.  When he cries, I will be right there.  Here was my son in his bassinet and me playing Diablo at 3 Am in the morning.  It looks like a very typical situation for new Dads after last Sunday.

Here is an advice for those who might want to try WOW.  Do play with a number of characters from all the different races in the game befoe determining which character to Level to the max.   The game feel is very different.  I started a Dwarf Hunter last night and I am regretting not having tried this before I invested so much time on my Undead Mage, which I cannot leave.  I also like the Orc Shaman much more than my Undead Mage.  Alas, I have to complete a job and that is a Level 60 Undead Mage. 

It has been at least a week since I rant about WOW.  I was camping last weekend so I did not get a chance to play.  But, I took my WOW manual with me and read up on the "do" and don't."  Well, one of the "don't" is not to push yourself on a schedule to complete the game because it is just too big.  The "do" is to try and enjoy the game and to play a couple of characters at the same time, which was what I was doing in the last two weeks.

On the way to camping, here is a conversation between my wife and I in the car.

Wife:  I talked to Brenda (wife of my WOW buddy who lives in the same building) yesterday.

Me: Yeah ...

Wife:  Brenda said that he was asked to come to dinner last night and he said that he was busy feeding his pet.  Brenda than told him that maybe he should feed the real pet first.  Than Brenda asked me if I knew that you guys have started brand new characters.  Is that true? 

Me: Ah... yeah.

Wife: But, I thought you told me that you were going to take it to Level 60 and that would be the end?

Me: Yeah.......  That's the plan but the server we were on was down.

Wife: So, what does that mean?

Me: I am still going to finish what I have started as soon as they fix the problem. 

I am lucky I have an understanding wife (so does my buddy but it is easier for them because they do not have any kids).   Yes, WOW is experiencing some horrific network problems.  Last night most of their Realms (servers) were done.  As I have said before, scalability is a major network challenge in the Internet world and WOW is facing the biggest problems from their success.  Will the subscribers leave if this continues? 

As for WOW, I am building an Orc Shaman who is now Level 16.  The game play is so different than the Undead Mage.  The whole game experience changes.  This is part of making the game replay value very high, which is not good for people like me.  Last night as all the servers were done, I logged on to one of the few ones running and started yet another character in a different race class - the gnomes.  She is a Rouge and what a fascinating character to play.  The Rouge is a fast multiple attack with extreme stealth (ability to come right up without being notice and than WHAM).  Oh yeah, I had fun.

I did get back to my Mage and achieved Level 27 last night   Ah... satisfaction grin - that was two week since I got to Level 26.  This weekend is dedicated to my Mage   I am going to just enjoy the game and not get to caught up on levelling. 

Finally, here is an interesting article on mugging and robbing on another MMOG called Linage II, the second largest MMOG in the world from Korea. 

I first took note of Korea's entry into the digital world in 1999 when news of their on-line gaming community being the largest in the world.  Linage is a Korean MMOG, which today enjoys close to 3 million participants. 

This week Korea announced their entry into the VOIP world with a splash.  They have implemented a 07 dialing VOIP prefix to all Korean land-line telephone numbers.   Korea is reported to have above 70% penetration of broadband, which is a hugely amazing numbers.

The World Cyber Games (affectionatley know to gamers as WCG)  staretd in Korea and is now touring the world.  Last year, this event was held in LA.  It is in Singapore this year.  The professional gaming industry started in Korea where the top gamers are paid large sums of money and treated like rock stars. 

The gaming nation had some very sad news today.  A 28 year old man died after 50 hours of continous on-line gaming.   Let's hope he was not playing WOW.

Not disclosing too much, I found out last night my RABID behaviour on WOW is nothing at all compared to an Alcatel engineer.  Apparently, this guy has taken a 5 week vacation to play WOW - ROFL!!!  I have done many years ago but it was only 4 weeks and it was only the weekends (total all weekend gaming with Diablo).  But, the 5 weeks is not the kicker.  This guy actually met a woman from playing WOW.  They had teamed together and kept in touch and than later met and than spent time together travelling.  WOW!!! Now this is what I call and ALL SINGING ALL DANCING GAME - Wooooohoooooo! 

The carnage of WOW on the gamers' life is well documented on the Net.  It is kinda of sad.  I did read one yesterday on how he has had enough of the stupid game.  He is quitting his Level 51 Paladin.  He noted that he is looking forward to planning a real weekend in the real world.  My advice to him would be to play a different character and get a different view of the game.  Than, return to the Level 51 Paladin when he feels refreshed.  This is what I am doing ;-)  Each type of character requires a very different approach.  My Mage is a long range melee type.  I am playing a Tauren who is a warrior with range capabilities.  The style is very different, which makes the game interesting.  But, the end game here is to develop a Level 60 character. 

On a side note, I just recieved an email with a URL to

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Yeah, way too much gaming for me these day and way too much ranting about WOW.  But hey, that is what's on my mind.  So here comes more ....

Mogrey (my buddy's gaming name in WOW) and I went to Best Buy to pick up a Logitech headset for C$50 and off course the C$40 WOW manual last weekend.  We installed Skype and got it up and running perfectly with the head set.  Than, we booted up WOW and went into gaming heaven.  We can here the game and chat with voice.  It was as though we were in the same room.  

After a heavy melee where everyone got killed, fingers start to point.  "You ran away and there were 4 of them on me!" Mogrey cried.   "Don't you read the chat!"  I said "RUN!""  As a Mage, I stand back and have a broader perspective on the situation.  The Mage is the heavy artillery of the group.  I could see 5 or 6 guys running towards our group.  Well, that is no longer a problem   This weekend I just yelled over the headset "Get the FUCK out of there!!!" and it worked.  Oh yeah, this is gaming at its BEST.

You see, Mogrey lives in the same condo building as me.  He was the one that got me into WOW.  And, it is killing him to see me get ahead - LOL.  WOW is like a marathon of gaming.  We did start our characters on Dreanor Realm together - except I am level 26 and he is level 23.  That is about 5 days of casual playing of 3 to 4 hours a day job to catch up.  We started in another Realm, Greymane, which is a NEW server to address the huge latency problem, this weekend and I am now a Level 10 Tauren Shaman and he is a Level 7 Tauren Hunter.  His goodbye comments to me last night on Skype, "I am going to be home at 3 and I am levelling while you are working - LOL.  And, your family is going to be back and you won't be able to game anymore like a madman."  Yeah, but I don't need sleep like you.  I only need 5 to 6 hours of sleep  ROFL (rolling on floor laughing - wait till he see my Level 10). 

For what I have to say about Mogrey, he can be perceptive too.  On my last weekend comments - I need to get to level 30 by Sunday night, he said "This is not Diablo.  Diablo is a paperback.  This is an EPIC story and you just cannot finish it that quickly."  He was right. 

I did not enjoy last weekend of gaming.  I had a goal and it was not achieved.  I had gamed all weekend with the exception I went out to Best Buy to get my headset - LOL and dinner with Mogrey and his wife.  That was it.  The entire weekend was spent gaming to my heart content.  I balanced it out with the though I be camping with my son in the wilds of Algonquin Park next weekend.  I have now accepted the fact that I will not be able to finish this game anytime soon.  And you know what?  I am enjoying it a lot more

Below is an excerpt form an article published in the Economist. 

“It's just a generational divide,” says Gerhard Florin, the European boss of Electronic Arts, the world's biggest games publisher. “It's people not knowing what they are talking about, because they have never played a game, accusing millions of gamers of being zombies or violent.” Digital natives who have played video games since childhood already regard them as a form of entertainment on a par with films and music. Older digital natives now have children of their own and enjoy playing video games with them.

This is an interesting chart.  Most of my gaming partners/buddies are well over 40+ years of age.  We represent the 43% of the market. 

It is not hard to figure out who is how old when you game in a multiplayer environment.  The kids are the ones running around (LOL).  The old guys are the ones who move purposefully   And, just chat and you will figure it out right away from the conversation. 

For those who play WOW, Blizzard is looking for beta testers.  You will need to have at least one Level 60 character.  You can work from home in the wee hours of the morning.  Sounds like a great job, eh? Vince?  He has 2 level 60 characters   - way too much time on the game,dude.

As for me, the weekend was suppose to be a WOW fest because the family is at summer camp.  That was the plan.  But, I ended up helping my WOW buddy finish a quest I did in 20 minutes but it took him a full day of gaming.  We had to do the quest 3 times to get it right.  This is one of the game interesting dynamics on partnership.  When someone help you to get what you want they are investing their time for you.  When you achieve what you want, are you willing to help them get what they want?  Usually, that is the right thing to do.

My character is now Level 26.  I had plan on reaching Level 30 by last night (LOL).  That was a grand plan.  But, I did manage to complete my first Elite Quest - Pyrewood Village.  This was the village where my buddy and I was taught a lesson on Elite Quest.  We got killed twice in no more than a minute of melee each time.  I return with a bunch of players ( 4 or 5).  It was one of the best battles to date for me.  When the group works, it is a sight to behold.  Everyone knows their duty, which is protect me the Mage  cause I have the BIG GUN (big HP on the fireball).  At the end, we were in a room with 6 or 7 attackers.  We were overwhelmed by surprise.  The battle ended with my Mage casting an ice storm (area spell that covers the melee scene), which destroyed all the baddies.  One of our team died seconds before the battle was won.  As a result, he did not finished the quest.  We waited for him to get back.  He asked us if we would help him finished the quest, which mean we would have to hang around and repeat the challenging situation one more time.  We all said "Yes."  There is a sense of camaraderie, which is always a GREAT FEELING.  

The raging success of WOW is continuing to bring servers to a crawl.  Last night, network response was above 500 milliseconds.  Do you know what that means?  It is like walking through a ghost town where there is no one but you.  It means that you die if you happen to be in a melee situation, which happened last night.  You cannot interact with the gaming environment.  Draenor Realm, which is my server,when down at midnight.  It came back up around 1 PM.  When exactly, I am not sure. 

From a technology perspective, this is an ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING problem.  Imagine 3.5 million subscribers logging on all at once ....   Statistically, which is how we manage everything, the traffic ebb and flow is critical in managing the resource requirements.  And, how are the servers and apps (WOW in this case) architected to minimise network and application latencies under load is ABSOLUTELY NON-TRIVIAL.   These folks, IMHO, is one of the most exciting work in technology.   As the Internet grows, the solutions here can be applied everywhere.  This is critical problem of the new world.  For those who solve it - the world will be at their feet.

In the last few weeks, World of Warcraft have been experiencing huge network problems.  Latency, measure of response time in the network, was reaching over 400 milliseconds, which makes the game unplayable.  Yesterday, a new patch was downloaded and play seem to be a bit better.  Now, if you were paying almost C$20 a month, this is not an acceptable situation. 

WOW have seen their subscriber rate shoot up to over 3 million.  WOW is now the world largest MMOG with 3.5 million users.  At US$15 a month for on-line fees (on top of the US$40 for the game itself), that is US$50+ million a month, or US$600 million a year, on top of the US$140 million from software sales.  WOW is less than a year old.  But, lets not be jealous.  This is a 3 to 4 year project that is paying off in spades!  These folks deserve the rewards because it is one great game

Blizzard, the developer of WOW, is own by Vivendi.