Today Blizzard announced plans for this year’s Blizzcon 2009 Convention in Anaheim, CA. The two day event will take place on Friday, August 21st and Saturday, August 22nd.

To read the entire press release, head to Blizzard’s site.

It is way too early for me to make any predicitons on what they will be showing off, or what new games they will be announcing, but with the fact that Blizzard will not be attending E3 this year, I’m sure much will be in store for all Blizzcon attendees.

They have not released any information about when tickets will be going on sale, but they have mentioned that the convention will be explanding from 3 halls to 4 in the Anaheim Convention Center, which leads me to conclude that they will have many more tickets available for sale this year that last year and hopefully can avoid a similar ticket fiasco which prevented me from going last year.

I am going this year though!, as long as I can save up for the airfare and the hotel. (Thanks to a very awesomely connected friend I will not have to worry about getting the tickets the normal way.) So anyone with any recomendations on hotels, please pass the information along.

I should start brainstorming costume ideas. I could reuse my NE Druid (caster form) costume from a few years ago, or wear my NE Druid Cat form hoodie-costume from this past Halloween, but I think I will think up something new. I think it may be hot in California in August. Just a hunch…

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a Murloc pet.

It is now illegal to sell World of Warcraft, along with many other MMOs, in Australia. This is due to a lack of Australian ratings being put on the games, such as our “E for Everyone” and “M for Mature”. Laws require all computer and console games to have a rating put on them in the same fashion as movies.

You can read more on the issue here on WoWInsider, and more extensively on Massively.com.

Let’s hope they get the situation all sorted out soon, so our beloved game can continue to grow all around the world.

Well it seems as though my in-game WoW harassment has stopped, or is at least in a lull for the time being.

Unfortunately for me, this hasn’t been the first time I have had to deal with harassment in the game, although the only other severe incident I have had to deal with bordered more on sexual harassment, and was taken care of when the offender eventually left the server.

I can also assume that, as a lot more people on the server know me, and know that I’m female, that this will certainly not be the last time I have to deal with harassment. Unfortunately for us WoW Ladies, this is something that most of us have to deal with at some point, and on some level, while playing this game we love.

So I have decided to put together some tips on how to deal with these types of incidents.

Get acquainted with Blizzard’s Harassment Policy.

This is probably something good for everyone to look at, whether or not you are being harassed. You may, unknowingly or not, say something that may offend someone, which can result in your account being banned. It covers everything from Racism, Violence, Religious Views, Gay-bashing, Drugs, Spamming, Advertising, and in my case, spreading Real Life Information. It also covers not just things said, but “Zone/Area Disruption”, which covers blocking NPCs and spell spamming, among others.

Screenshot. Everything.

If its questionably, screenshot it. Yes, the GMs of today can look up everything you do, ever, but having some kind of record for yourself is valuable. Especially if you have to remember when something happened. And, unless you have changed it somehow, the screenshots get saved with the date in the name of the file. Also, there are many add-ons that will let you keep track of whispers. I currently use HeyFu for FuBar.

Put them on ignore.

Putting someone on your ignore list should be a first line of defense. Immediately putting someone on ignore will put a stop to the harassment, at least temporarily. A determined harasser will log onto other alts. Immediately put those alts on ignore as well. Do not give in to demands to remove a person from ignore. Your ignore list is no one else’s business.

Tell your Guildies.

If you are in a guild, tell your guildmates that it is happening. Chances are, as guildmates, they will have your back and will do whatever they can to protect you. Ask that in case the harasser contacts them that they let you know, and they screenshot it as well. I wouldn’t recommend that you say it in Guild Chat, but rather one on one with the people you trust most in the guild. Word will spread, but it doesn’t have to be a big deal.

Tell your Guild Officers and Leaders.

If the harassment is happening within your own guild, let an officer or the guild leader know immediately. Their main role as a guild leader is to lead, and to make sure everyone is happy. A lot of Guild Leaders forget this, but it is still a fundamental role to make sure everyone gets along and everyone is treated fairly.

Open a Ticket to a GM.

As soon as something crosses the line of making you uncomfortable, report it to a GM. Every single time something happens, report it to a GM. If you do not report it, nothing will ever happen. Don’t think of it as a last resort. Chances are you are dealing with some teenager who doesn’t truly understand the repercussions of what they are doing, and will not stop on their own. And after all, you are paying these GMs salaries with your monthly fee, so get what you are already paying for!

Keyword: “Ongoing Harassment”

If the harassment doesn’t stop even after being reported to a GM, open another ticket every single time that it happens, using the words “Ongoing Harassment”. This will let the GMs know immediately that this is a more severe and serious issue, and will hopefully stress the importance of this matter.

Change your name.

If someone has you on their friend’s list, you will still show up even if you change your name. But it may be something to consider, especially if someone has been spreading information about you across guilds or the whole server.

Be careful where you blog.

Be careful about where you write, and also about what you write. Harassment is never anyones fault but the harassers, but limiting how much someone knows about you in any one place is something you can do to lower the chances of it happening to you. When you apply to a guild, don’t go into more detail than you have to. If you blog about WoW, only tell your most trusted friends from Azeroth. Keep your profile on forum sites limited. Also remember that you can keep Myspace and Facebook profiles private to friends only.

Call the police.

If harassments become threats, or if personal information is spreading like wildfire, Blizzard GMs may suggest you contact the police. You have a right to safety online and in game, and sometimes you need a higher power than just a GM. There are people out there who will not take no for an answer, no matter how hard you or a GM tries. There is also the threat of your WoW account being compromised if too much information is leaked. Or worse, a credit card. This should only be used as a last resort, but for some, it is the only thing that will stop the harassment.

If you are worried about your account being compromised due to personal information being leaked, purchase an Authenticator from the Blizzard Store. They are unhackable, unless someone physically steals the authenticator from you and knows all your account info. For only $6.50 it will give you peace of mind that is damn near priceless.

If you are being harassed in game, don’t be afraid to do something about it.

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If you have any other tips, please let me know and I will add them!

I know WoW isn’t for everyone, but I would hardly call it “demonic”.

Check out this gem one of my guildies found. There are thousands of things I could say, but there really is no way to better put it than the way he puts it himself.

Please note his equal hatred of Harry Potter.

Help. I don’t know what else to title this post, other than “Help”. I need help from the greater WoW communities of Bloggers and the WoW Twitterati.

I have been having a problem in WoW. Not with gear, or a raid, or anything actually having anything to do with the game itself. There is a player on my server that has been spreading personal information about me around the server. As in, full name, birthday, address, my cat’s name (wtf?), and I’m sure other juicy details. I do not know this person, have never been in a guild with them, have never grouped with them, and I have never talked to them until I was in Naxxramas for a 10man with the guildies.

Some other run must have wiped, because people started talking in general chat. (Yes, Naxxramas general chat.) Someone said something about one of my guildies, so I light-heartedly defended them. I don’t remember what I said exactly, but that doesn’t really matter. It was nothing mean, I know that. So then they say something about me being a girl and calling me by my full name IN GENERAL CHAT!!! Now my first name isn’t that hard to figure out from my character name, but my first name is a less common variant of a much popular first name that many people think of first. Then he whispers me my LAST NAME, and ok, I am PISSED. Then he tells me the town I live in. WTF?! After that, I put him on ignore, and wait until after the boss we are on to write up a ticket to a GM.

He is in a guild I applied to and never heard back from. He whispered a guildie of mine and told him my birthday (which idc, because that member is my friend on facebook…) and then told him that he got it all off of my application. I never put in my birthdate, just age. I never put in the town I live in. Here, see for yourself:

Quote:

1. Your Name, Character Name, Class, Race, and server you currently play on:
Kathoid

What is your age?:
24

Provide us a link of your armory profile with you logged out in your PVE gear and with the spec you use in raids:
*removed*

List your previous raid experience in this game both pre BC and BC:
BC- Bits and pieces of everything but Sunwell.

Wrath – Naxx- I’ve seen everything but not all on the same difficulty.
Winterspring raid heroic
Sartarion normal and heroic

What days and hours do you most frequently play WOW?:
everyday. after 8pm server.

Do you have Vent and a mic? You dont necessarily need a mic but you need to be able to listen to instructions:
Yes and yes.

Do you have any problems with having to sit out a raid from time to time? Sometimes we have to stack the group with a certain makeup to make things work.:
Depends on the situation but generally speaking, no.

What guilds have you been in previously and why did you leave?:
*removed*

Is there any current members of our guild that can vouch for you?:
Im not sure on everyone who is in yoru guild, but I just did a /who and I have been in a few raids with *removed*.

Thank you for taking interest in *removed* and good luck with the application.

Guildlaunch, the site their guild website is on, has my birthday in my profile, but I am pretty sure that isn’t able to be seen by everyone. That still doesn’t explain how he knows the town I live in, or my cat’s name, or any of the other stupid things he knows. I deleted my Myspace, several old blogs, and anything else that I thought was questionable. (I have yet to figure out how to delete guildlaunch.) I removed a few friends on Facebook, too, not that had anything to do with this, but now I am paranoid.

And even if they are some amazing internet slueth with nothing better to do with their time, one fact stands out: This is blatantly against Blizzard’s Terms of Service, right there under the Harassment Policy. And I quote:

Real-Life Information and Threats

This category includes both clear and masked language which:

• Refers to violence in any capacity that is not directly related to the game world
• Releases any real life information about other players or Blizzard employees

If a player is found to have used such language, he/she may:

• Be given a warning for releasing general personal information
• Be temporarily suspended from the game for real life threats and/or releasing detailed personal information
• Incur further real-life repercussions depending on the severity of the threat

The GMs aren’t doing enough, in my opinion, because of the fact that they haven’t fixed the situation so that it does not happen again.

Yesturday I had two more people whisper me, one was telling me to take the first jerk off ignore. The other was someone else sending me more personal info. I submitted another ticket after that. Today I had 4 people whisper me with again more personal info about me. I opened another ticket, which is still open.

I never get to actually talk to a GM, they just clear my ticket then email me. The first was the form letter response, the second time I got a real email, written by a real person, telling me basically I should consider calling the police. And the guy still isn’t banned, because he is still asking people to ask me to take him off of ignore. Which I’m totally not doing. So, WTF, Blizzard?? He is still no banned, still harassing me, and still spreading personal information about me. And they still get to play.

But the thing that is more troublesome than all of that is, is WHY!? I can’t figure out what I did to make this person so mad. I don’t know them. The only thing that I can come up with is that my old Guild Leader has gone completly crazy and has convinced someone to harass me until I leave the server, so that he can have his guild back. Not like that would even happen, they don’t like him, either.

I’m just not sure what to do at this point. I really can’t afford to pay for 30 people to transfer to another server, nor would they want to leave. I don’t want to leave. The GMs aren’t being helpful. And I doubt this jerk has my credit card info or actual street address, so what could the Police really do? I’m so confused.

Help?

I found a link to a very interesting article on the social news website Digg.com today.

The article talks about a conversation (not an interview) had with a job recruiter over lunch, where blogger “Tale” off-handedly mentions he previously spent a lot of time playing MMOs, to which the recruiter responded that “employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players” (source). Keep in mind, however, that this conversation took place in Australia. Also keep in mind that this just what one person said in a conversation over lunch.

The Digg.com link is found here. The article is found here on Tumeroks.com. The actual forum post where the story on Tumeroks came from can be found here.

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What do you think?

I have mixed feelings.

I can understand where someone uninformed about WoW, or any other MMO(RPG) for that matter, would be coming from. There is certainly a lot of negative news out and about on what we all consider our favorite past-time. From kids being hospitalized from playing too long, to people trying to lure kids through MMOs, to our supposed “addiciton” to the game… the list goes on. The media thinks all games are bad, and if you don’t have some point of personal reference, you will probably believe what you see and hear on the news.

But what I can understand is that any person with any sort of extreme addiction, whether it be gaming, sex, drugs, or collecting garden gnomes, would probably not be a good employee due to their distraction and desire only to take care of feeding their addiction. Now I haven’t done studies, and I’m not great with numbers in general, but I am sure that the percentage of WoW gamers who fall into what I call extreme addiction is a very, very small percentage of us 11.5 million WoWers. But the actions of what just a few extreme individuals do should not reflect upon millions of people.

I feel that WoW is capable of teaching many different things that are useful in the work place.

The call it “World” of Warcraft for a reason. Much of the game and it’s systems are modeled after a real world. There is trade and an economy, including a very vast currency and banking system. There are “foreign relations” to deal with. There are certain roles to fill, with much learning and research along the way. There are social interactions, and social pressure to deal with. And one of the most basic, but most important, is just simple problem solving skills.

Through the banking and currency systems, you learn how to make money and how to save up for important items, like a car. With the vast trade and Auction House systems you learn the value of items, and how to interact with merchants. With “foreign relations” you learn about different feuds going on in the world and how to deal with the opposing faction.

You learn how to interact with your guildmates, which is a lot like interacting with coworkers. You learn the importance of different roles, with everyone from the coffee go -getter to the CEO, and how everyone has a place and has to work together to get the overall goal accomplished.

And no matter what class you pick or what level you are, you are constantly dealing with problem solving. Every quest is a problem to solve. Every instance and raid is a problem to solve. The more you do, and the higher level you become, the better your problem solving skills are. Whether it is getting 20 talbuk hooves or making 20 copies for your boss, its a quest, and there are rewards and reputation to be gained.

Not to mention other things which have less to do with game mechanics. Things like, a lot of us know a lot about computers. We are good with sitting in front of screens all day. We know how to type, somewhat, and how to use a mouse.  These are very basic skills that a lot of business need these days, however small it may seem to us.

Personally, WoW has not negatively impacted me at work. WoW has made me learn more about computers in general, which has helped me quite a few times at work with trouble shooting problems on our computers. (We do have a “computer guy”, but he is only in once a week.) I also work in a place where technology in general is very important to the advancement of my current workplace, and the industry as a whole. Gaming has had a bit of a spot-light on it in my industry lately.

Now, where do I work? Saying all the things I just said, you might be surprised to hear the answer. I work in a library. (Please get the “sexy librarian” image out of your head… I don’t have my MLS.) While Libraries and Gaming deserve its own blog post, or posts (plural), or possibly its own blog altogether, I must say this.

Many Libraries across the country (and possibly other countries?) have begun to do many things having to do with gaming. Some are loaning out video games. Some have purchased Wiis to have gaming nights for both young and old alike. Some host gaming tournaments. I may have little to do with gaming at my job currently, but as my small town Library plans to expand in the coming year, also comes the chance to add Video Games, or maybe just a Wii, to our ever expanding catalog of books, movies, and music we already own. If that is to happen, I certainly feel that I would be a big and very important resource.

And yes, my boss knows I play WoW.

What are your thoughts on this article linked above, and all the things it leads you on to start thinking about. I certainly spouted more than my fair share above.

Unsurprisingly, World of Warcraft has reached yet another massive(ly multi-player) milestone: 11.5 millions worldwide subscribers now play the game.

To read Blizzard’s press release on the matter, please go here.

I find this exciting news, as it means that Wrath has brought back many old players, and that many more new ones have started playing the game. Assuming this is not a half million more teenage boys from the last milestone, I welcome this news.

Onward to 12 million we go!

If you would like to start playing the game, or know of someone who does, let me know and I would gladly do the Refer-A-Friend program to help you get started leveling. It would, of course, let me get that Zhevra mount I have been drooling over for many months now, but I will gladly repay you with helping your character level, and sending you many screenshots of me and my Zhevra, galloping through Azeroth and right into your heart. (Ok, that was entirely too cheesey, I think the Holiday “cheer” is getting to me.)

I found this link on digg.com. Thought you would all find it humorous.

see more pwn and owned pictures

Courtesy failblog.

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch and are an Avid WoWer, listen up!

For all you “Humans” who don’t spend all your time glued to Azeroth, Outlands, or Northrend here is a fun little WoW related App. Time for you to check out this App out – it’s called “Warcraft Characters” and is available on the App Store now. It will pull character information off the Armory and display it in very iPhone friendly fashion so you can proudly show off your character to your friends and brag about your full set of T4 or that awesome staff you just got! (Or look up some noobs profile and laugh at their crappy blues!) You can also look at your stats, reputation, items, and arena team info, too.

Now you just have to remember to always log out in your best gear and not in some embarassing outfit.

Available for download now, or check out the developer’s website for more info.

<3 Kathoid