WoW Gaming Zone

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Lore, Leveling, Classes, Making money, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

On to part 2! This series of questions spans August and early September, and we'll keep moving forward this week.

Hoops asked....

How much gold roughly would you get from questing 70-77 (until you unlock the flying mount)? I was wondering if it would it be worth farming money beforehand or would the money from questing be enough.

Elizabeth answers: I'm not 77 yet, so I can't exactly address the question as asked, but I can tell you that I've made about 400g leveling from 70 to 72. That's just from questing, vendoring trash & unneeded greens -- and it includes some stupid deaths, plenty of repair bills(I blame Dalaran for many of them!), and training a couple of professions (35g to train a primary profession to the next skill level and 100g to train a secondary profession to the next skill level).

Allie adds: I finally started keeping track of how I was doing gold-wise while leveling. On the beta I leveled a lot through instance runs because the demand for healers was so high; on the live realms I've leveled mostly through questing. Between 70 and 76 so far (remarkably fast for me but my guild starts raiding next week) I've made somewhere in the region of 2K gold after training, repairs, professions, etc., mostly through questing and keeping my bags as open as possible to sell vendor trash. As Elizabeth observes, that part's key; Northrend vendor trash and greens sell for a LOT.

Continue reading Ask A Beta Tester: AABT's greatest hits, part 2

Ask A Beta Tester: AABT's greatest hits, part 2 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Making money, Wrath of the Lich King

Unfortunately, as of this writing, Blizzard hasn't yet released actual numbers for Wrath sales last week (we were expecting around two million, but we'll see what they say eventually). But that won't stop us from guessing -- the list of top ten games sold last week in the UK is out, and Wrath... is number two.

That's right -- Activision's own Call of Duty: World at War beat out Wrath for the number one spot, but before you start worrying whether WoW has lost its charm, don't: not only was Wrath an expansion pack (expansion packs obviously don't sell as well as standalone games, sequels or otherwise), but the Call of Duty game has already outsold its prequel, the extremely successful Call of Duty 4, by a 2:1 ratio. Unfortunately, we don't have numbers yet, but all indications are that, in the UK alone, Wrath did almost as well as a game that outsold last year's best selling game. That all make sense?

If not, hear this: Blizzard made a lot of money last week, and pretty soon we'll hear how much. Even more amazing, Activision Blizzard, who owns Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and World of Warcraft, accounted for a full 25% of all UK game sales last week. The merger has already paid off.

Guessing at early sales numbers for Wrath originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News items, Arena

In a (not so) shocking announcement on their website, The Championship Gaming Series revealed that they will be ceasing all operations immediately. The International gaming series, which expanded to every continent except Antarctica this year, is shutting down after only two seasons. The professional gaming league, which aimed to promote eSports in a flashy, televised format, was patterned after professional sports leagues with player drafts, team managers, and city-based teams.

The CGS featured five games during its two seasons, Counter-Strike: Source, Dead or Alive 4, FIFA 07, and Project Gotham Racing for Season 1; with FIFA 08 and Forza Motorsport 2 taking up the latter two slots in Season 2. Although not included in seasonal coverage, the CGS also recently promoted World of Warcraft Arena tournaments, with Europe's Nihilum winning the 2008 Championship. Arenas were also included in the CGS-run College Gaming League. A full statement from the league can be found on their site.

Championship Gaming Series folds originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Expansions

The New York Times has an intriguing story up about supercomputers around the world, and, as we've heard before, some of the most powerful computers ever created are being used... to run World of Warcraft. The9, which is the company that Blizzard has licensed the game to in Asia, runs more than 10 supercomputer systems, hosting at least a million players online at a time. Some of the other tasks listed for these supercomputers include flight simulations and animation rendering -- the same type of computer that designed the wing of the plane you're flying in might have calculated just how much gold you should have after repairs.

I have a personal note to add to this one, too, though I have to be fairly vague.

Continue reading The supercomputers behind World of Warcraft

The supercomputers behind World of Warcraft originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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