World of Warcraft Message Board older than one year ago

The Make-A-Wish Foundation has received an $800,000 donation from Blizzard Entertainment. Well, technically, from Blizzard's customers, who dropped $10 on the World of Warcraft "Moonkin Hatchling" in-game pet. According to the foundation, the donation was based on "50 percent of the total sales during November and December 2010" of the little bear-bird.

Blizzard also welcomed two Make-A-Wish kids to the studio on April 29, "World Wish Day," to tour the digs and meet the development team. A similar promotion a year ago, featuring a Pandaren Monk, raised $1.1 million for the organization.

#watchthis The purchase of hordes of Moonkin Hatchling pets by players in World of Warcraft has resulted in a donation of $800,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Blizzard, the company behind the game, gave half of the money it made from the sale to the charity and granted the wishes of two of their fans by giving them a tour of the studio (see their visit in the new Blizzard-made video here). Blizzard's previous WoW charity pet, a Pandaren Monk, raised just over $1 million. More »

Do you have a mobile telephone? Nobody here at RPS has one, seeing as our preferred method of communication is bellowing at one another down long drainpipe-like devices of Jim’s own creation (the nagpipes, he calls them), but on the off chance you do have a mobile phone, and you play World of Warcraft, Blues reports that Blizzard has now started offering a week-long free trial of it’s World of Warcraft Remote service for “Android and iPhone”. Remarkable! You can get phones in your eyes now? I must consider getting one.(more…)

#worldofwarcraft Between now and July 31, anyone purchasing the latest in-game World of Warcraft pet will see 100% of their proceeds donated to the Red Cross' Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief effort. More »

#gamingappoftheday Gameloft has finally turned its uncanny game mimicking powers of World of Warcraft, Blizzard's immensely popular massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, and the result is a surprisingly enjoyable iPhone MMO with a great deal of potential. More »

#worldofwarcraft In December of 2010, 18-year-old Alex Trowell of Idaho was on his way to visit his 12-year-old World of Warcraft girlfriend in New Mexico. Alerted by the girl's mother, New Mexico police called Trowell and had him turn his car around. More »

#interview World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion brought the forces of Ragnaros the Firelord to Mount Hyjal, threatening to destroy the all-important World Tree. Now, the Horde and Alliance take the battle to the Firelord. Blizzard's Cory Stockton talked me through the upcoming 4.2 patch, from the Firelands dungeon to the new legendary weapon casters will be drooling over. More »

#worldoftrollcraft The Zandalari tribe once sided with the Alliance and Horde against their troll brothers in Zul'Gurub and Zul'Drak. In World of Warcraft patch 4.1, their sympathies have changed. More »

#speakuponkotaku Commenter ValeriaHeart is looking for suggestions for a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game to play with her partner that isn't World of Warcraft in today's episode of Speak-Up on Kotaku. Won't you help her? More »

#lovecraft Dating sites are always looking for a method of matching people up with dates they'll actually like in real life. But World of Warcraft may already have found it. More »

#mmo Cutting-edge trendspotter The New York Times today tackled the phenomenon of MMO-facilitated romance, noting that the subscriber base for World of Warcraft is six times that of Match.com. More »

#neveralone And no, I don't mean literally speaking with them. Eww! Reality! I mean chatting with them, as the official World of Warcraft Mobile Guild app now supports a remote chat feature. More »

It's time once again to save on a seemingly random selection of nine games -- the Amazon Gold Box is loaded with game deals today. The Deal of the Day is Starcraft 2 for $39.99, but if that's not the craft you're after, you can also pick up the World of Warcraft Battle Chest right now (until 10AM EST, at least) for $18.

Hints for upcoming deals suggest that savings for Dragon Age and Kingdom Hearts games are on the way, along with Bulletstorm. Find the full schedule, with hints, after the break.

#ruhroh The FBI now is raiding homes looking for World of Warcraft gold farmers. The party van showed up March 30 at an apartment shared by two University of Michigan students (building pictured), who say the feds have got the wrong suspects. More »

#thatstheticket Blizzard has cordoned off two fleeting moments in time next month in which fans can attempt to spend $175 per ticket to attend the annual celebration of all things Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo-related in Anaheim, California. More »

#makelorenotwar Here's an exercise in patience: a World of Warcraft player has managed to reach the maximum level 85 without killing a single thing. For a game built around the idea of, well, killing things, that's quite the achievement! More »

#gainfulemployment Gold farming is the practice of harvesting crap in online worlds with the aim of selling it for real-world money. Most developers frown on the practice, but that's not stopping an estimated 100,000 people from doing it. More »

Sure, it may get old being hassled by semi-English speakers in World of Warcraft selling their virtual gold for real-world cash, but were you aware they were doing their part to bring economic parity to the globe?

It's true! A new report from the World Bank says that gold farmers in China and Vietnam bring money into their economy at an even better rate than farmers of cash crops. The study estimates that 98 cents of every dollar made from gold farming stays in the nation where the work was done, an impressive number compared to the 7 cents made from the coffee industry.

By cutting out middle men, poorer countries are using the $3 billion virtual goods market to funnel cash from the West into their own impoverished nations. Plus, you don't have to spend time combing Winterspring for Thorium Ore. Everybody wins!

#farmtomarket An analysis by a World Bank initiative recommends that gold farming - you read that right - is a substantial growth opportunity for developing nations' economies, and that NGOs - bureaucrat speak for do-gooder agencies - begin connecting the rural poor in these nations to gold farming enterprises under a fair-trade modeling. More »

#playoffbeard It speaks volumes for the popularity of World of Warcraft that you can see a thing like "Official Reebok Hockey Jersey" and know that not only is it a real thing, but that there'll be plenty of people who will buy one. More »

For like, the hundredth year running, Blizzard has kicked off this most dishonest of days with an overwhelming salvo of fake additions to its current and pending titles. Take, for instance, the Diablo 3 "Horadic Cube" app, which possesses the power to combine your phone's applications into super applications. Or how about the new Kinect functionality for StarCraft 2? Not since Dance Central: The Krump Imperative have we seen such feverish flailing.

The best of the bunch is clearly the World of Warcraft update, which not only adds a new, pitch-black dungeon, but also a "Dungeon Helper" named Crabby, who assists you in navigating the game's instances. Go get acquainted with your new crustacean cohort -- but we wouldn't suggest letting Clippy find out. That dude's jealous as all get-out.

#comics Wednesday = new comic books here in the United States of America. Many new comics are junk. Let me tell you about a few ones that are not, some of which are even about video games. More »

Just saw this over at PC Gamer- Blizzard has announced that the 4.1 patch for World of Warcraft will, in addition to updating the Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman instanced dungeons for level 85 players, be giving players some encouragement to hurry up, put on some big boy pants and join a guild already, because there’ll be extra experience points and gold to be had. Details after the jump. (more…)

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/21/blizzard-pro-cannibalism-diablo-3-could-eat-into-world-of-warcr/ While Blizzard cofounder Frank Pearce is unexpectedly bullish on EA's prospects with its Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO - and of course Blizz's own next-gen, untitled "Titan" MMO - he sees another potential product that could cannibalize his massive World of Warcraft audience. "I think even a shorter-term concern is whether or not we might see cannibalization of WoW players from Diablo 3 when we launch it, because it's a similar type of experience," Pearce told Gamasutra. "Not exactly similar, but it's that RPG feel."

While Diablo 3 currently has no release date - it's possible it may not make it out this year - Pearce said "it's better we cannibalize them ourselves than let someone else do that, because if we cannibalize them ourselves, they're still a Blizzard customer." And that, ladies and gentlemen, is maybe the only kind of cannibalism that we can endorse.

#likewow Known for its shameless copies of popular games, Gameloft takes copycat gaming to a whole new level with Order & Chaos Online, a massively-multiplayer World of Warcraft clone for iOS. More »

Earlier this week, Gameloft revealed a new MMORPG intended for distribution on the iOS App Store -- a first for the French copycat developer. Not a first, however, is the game's concept and art style, which more or less directly ape Blizzard's behemoth, World of Warcraft.

As seen in the game's first trailer, Order & Chaos Online pits the forces of Order against those of Chaos in a massive, multiplayer setting. The forces of both sides, it seems, are on vacation from Azeroth ... and they like vacationing somewhere very similar to home. Gameloft hasn't given its first mobile MMO a release date, but does say it's "coming soon" to the iPod Touch, iPad, and iPhone.

#china When we told you about Joyland, a Chinese theme park that, ahem, borrowed certain elements from games like StarCraft and World of Warcraft, we had our concerns. Turns out Chinese construction crews care not for our concerns! More »

#fanart Those little Murloc rascals from World of Warcraft get a Starcraft marine upgrade in Jorge Jacinto's most recent fan art mash up. More »

#mmo I played the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic this past weekend and thought it felt a bit like World of Warcraft. More »

#video In the wake of the natural disasters that hit Japan, a young woman named "tamtampamela" uploaded a video on YouTube. In it, she says that the earthquake and tsunami were God grabbing Japan by the shoulders and shaking the country, saying "Look, I'm here". More »