De-Analysing Blizzard’s Add-On Policy
Blizzard Entertainment’s new add-on policy has been discussed by everyone from Lum to Slashdot. The number of developers directly affected by the change is small, since only a few add-ons are popular enough to be considered commercial ventures. The policy is more significant because it changes a lot of established conventions, and goes to the heart of how Blizzard embraces (or increasingly, shuns) the talent within its player community. This article is an attempt to analyse the real motivations behind the policy, and highlight the apparent contradiction in policy between in-game add-ons and web-based services. Read more of this article »
Exploration is Dead. Long Live Exploration!
Something happened at the start of July 2008 that only happens once every 2 years. For a brief period, everything about the world was not public knowledge. A handful of people worked day and night to fill this chasm of information. To document everything that was suddenly new and uncertain. Meanwhile the world filled up with hardened veterans, many of whom seem to struggle with, well, everything:
“How do I get to Northrend?” – Well, perhaps that new harbour or zeppelin tower that’s been built might give you a clue?
“Where’s Dalaran?” – Did you try riding to the end of the road and then looking up to see what’s blocking out the sun? (Dalaran is pictured right.)
The world is, of course, the World of Warcraft. And the 2-yearly occasion is the start of public testing of the latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King: The only time a significant proportion of the game world changes.
What’s alarming is that these questions are not from new, inexperienced players. These are from people that have already played the existing game for months or years. They clearly want to know, but seem to have lost the basic ability to explore the game world themselves.
This article explores the concept of “exploration”, and tries to explain how one of the most complex virtual worlds ever created has become popular among players that are not natural explorers. Read more of this article »
Map of World of Warcraft Online Communities
Michael Zenke’s MMO Blogipelago map [via Tobold], based on the famous xkcd map of online communities, inspired me to create a map for World of Warcraft (WoW) online communities. Click on the map for a larger image with links:
This article explains the logic behind the map. Read more of this article »
Platform Azeroth: Why Information is Broken
This article explores why the best information in World of Warcraft (WoW) is not available from within the game. It considers how to better bring information into the game environment.
Analyse this:
Above is a World of Warcraft screenshot, showing an in-game browser. This is not a feature of the game. The “Knowledge Base” is technically a support database written exclusively by the game’s developer and operator, Blizzard. However, an enterprising hacked called Vladinator noticed that this in-game database took its information from a specific webserver. The Knowledge Base could therefore be re-directed to a different webserver: In this case a server that shows information from Wowhead, a third-party site that contains reference material on almost every item, quest, and thing in the game.
Blizzard was quick to block the hack.
This article attempts to explain the utterly illogical structure behind these events. It builds on some of my earlier comments about the use of micro-transactions for in-game education (“Learn2Play”). Read more of this article »
BarCamp: Living on Virtual Fish
For those that missed my BarCamp Scotland presentation, “Living on Virtual Fish”, you can view it on SlideShare:
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The following articles loosely correlate to each of the talk’s sections, and provide more depth and explanation:
- Learn2Play, the new Real Money Trading?
- Adventures in Online Advertising
- Thoughts on a Socio-Economic Environment based on Nothing
Adventures in Online Advertising
This article summarises what I have learnt from introduction of advertising onto El’s Extreme Anglin’, a guide to fishing in the World of Warcraft (WoW). It introduces internet advertising with discussion of the earning potential, cashflow and ethics. The article then provides a series of case studies on specific topics, such as iteratively improving revenue, altering placement, cloaking, use of text or image adverts, and seasonal variations over Christmas. It should offer a useful introduction for those attempting to monetarise medium-sized websites.
El’s Extreme Anglin’ – 2007 Retrospective – Part II
This article continues my observations on running El’s Extreme Anglin’, a World of Warcraft (WoW) fishing guide, with a look at some of the trends in usage during 2007. You may also be interested in part I of the 2007 retrospective, which contained some observations on aspects such as thought leadership, quality and links.
