7.3.5 Highlights
- Leveling Changes
- 4 Backpack slots
- Ulduar Timewalking
- New Silithus
- Horde and Alliance Epilogues
Community Highlights
Unkillable / Untargetable in PVP by HazzBazzy
Another NPC Under SW was found
[ Compilation ] The 6 creepy naked races placeholder actually in the game
An amazing Auction House guide by Advanta
Games Connecting People
Seeing as how it's the ending of the holiday season for some people, and we are moving into the new year when new games hit the digital and physical shelves for our consumption, one has to take a step back once in a while and see how fortunate we are as to how far we have come as a gaming community.
So today, we are going to step all the way back to a time when some of you may not have been born yet, some were in High School or College and just getting into this whole Computer thing. Lets time travel back to 1989.
For those who are unfamiliar with the technology at the time, a BBS was run on telephone lines. The more phone lines a sysadmin had, the more concurrent people could be on the BBS at the same time, otherwise they would get a busy signal and would have to call again. Why is this important? Imagine turning on your computer and hooking it up to the phone line, and then dialing a sometimes long distance phone number just to see what is going on in another city, with like minded people. But also imagine that the BBS you are connecting to only had a single phone line, but had a couple thousand people who sign in every day. You might have to wait a while to get in, but you could do it and you wouldn't complain too terribly much.
Most people did not have access to anything like the internet, thus you were left to Dial-Up BBS'. So you get in, and you check what we would soon refer to as email, and we lovingly called it Fidonet. You would be able to send messages to other users on the Fidonet, and every so often (sometimes once a night), the BBS' system would connect to a main server and communicate all incoming and outgoing messages, to be ready for the next round of users.
But that was text, and was extremely informative, but had no bite to it. Enter Door Games like Trade Wars 2002. You would be able to log in, take over a space station and even find other players ships in space. If someone logged out in the middle of a sector, their ship was there until they logged back in. While it was there, you could attack it and take all their cargo. Amazing thing about that is when the BBS had more than one line connected. You are now in a multi-player strategy game, not unlike playing Civilization with friends. You had a connection with this person in the game, and you would communicate through Fidonet or the local message board, to create corporations and gangs basically to take over entire sectors in the game.
L.O.R.D. had its own hitch to it. There were certain areas of the game that if you paid money, or stumbled upon a random section of a forest, you might encounter someone inscribing a message on an outhouse (message list), and you could communicate or kill them in some respects. So you always logged out in the Inn, never in the Forest, and always make sure you had the best weapon and armor equipped. One of the best tricks, was when someone would create a module for the game that allowed you to rename your weapons and armor. You could rename your Dragon Slayer Sword to "Cracked Stick". Then someone who would bribe the Inn Keeper to see who they could slay and take money, they would see your gear but get annihilated by the renamed weapon.
Without multiple lines, it was never real-time communications like we have today. In today's world of gaming, communication has never been easier. From the straight up creation of Discord and the likes for actual voice chat, Video conferencing with Skype and even built-in chat systems like Blizzards Battle.net and Steam have created on their platforms, it has never been easier to communicate with teammates and organize events inside of video games in real time. No more waiting for 24 hours to see if someone is going to help you attack Sir Chancealot in the Inn.
I guess what is next, is we all get implants and no need for cell phones anymore. It just is thought of and sent... imagine the horror some of your friends will experience from your thoughts in that system HAH!
So as you are shopping In-Line or On-Line for that next gen title, just think about how you communicate with them in the game and look back at the way it used to be. Games have always been a way of a certain facet of society to communicate with each other. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. But it was always a push to more real-time communications. Faster methods to relay information about a game matter, or your work schedule so you could both sign into a BBS at the same time to go hunting in Trade Wars.
Imagine if you were suddenly thrown into 1989 and had to deal with communicating in that way when you are in the thick of a raid in WoW or Destiny 2.
Happy 2018 Everyone!
Gaming News From Around the World
- New House of the Dead was announced.
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