MMO Weekly 21/10

21 Oct 2008 at 12:13:15 by Jeff Hollis

Hello, my fellow gamer-geeks, and welcome to the latest edition of MMO Weekly. This time around we explore all the latest news in MMO gaming. This includes weird news, quirky news, oddball news, eccentric news, and just plain old boring newsworthy news. Quite frankly, we don't really emphasise that part. It's just not as much fun...

Among the more curious stories to leak out this week was Sam Raimi's apparent interest in making the upcoming WoW movie. We've known for some time that the movie is in a holding pattern, but we've not been told the specifics. Now, the director of the Spiderman movies (as well as cult favorite Army of Darkness) has expressed his knowledge of WoW, and how he thinks it could be turned into a truly great film. Of course, he feels the movie would really need to find the right director.

The very idea that Raimi may be hinting at something is certainly intriguing. However, since Raimi routinely uses the same actors in every film, the possibility that Bruce Campbell just might be cast to play a sarcastic, shotgun-toting Thrall is enough to give geeks everywhere coronary failure.

Have you ever seen a WoW CM do a facepalm? Here's the technique: first, post a question on the official forums. Next, make sure you post as your main character, so you're easily traceable. Third, ask a question about how to hack the game, brutally violate the EULA, and start a private server. Instant facepalm!

From the multi-boxing hall of fame comes this story of a young man who found playing one WoW character a bit too boring. He spent a few dollars, bought a few computers, and now plays 36 accounts at once. He estimates that, on the day Wrath of the Lich King is released, he'll have to spend $1500 on the expansion for each of his 36 accounts.

You'll probably remember the story of the Argentinian Terror Gnome from last spring. A group of young men were hanging out in their village, talking about fishing. Then, from nowhere, a shadowy, gnome-like creature appeared. It crab walked across the road, threw rocks, and the boys fled, screaming like little girls. Thankfully, one of the boys had a cell-phone, and filmed the gnome's terrifying antics. That is, before the boy joined his buddies in screaming and running like a little girl.

Well the gnome has struck again. This time, the boys are hanging out in the street, dancing with one another. (I'm not trying to be culturally obtuse, but is guy-on-guy dancing somehow cool in Argentina?). Suddenly, in the distance, the dancing boys see a shadowy figure emerge. It's got a pointy hat. It crab-walks. It throws rocks. Most horrifying of all, it RUNS TOWARDS THEM. The boys, even the one filming via cell-phone, run screaming from the scene like little girls.

So if you enjoy videos that feature 1) gnomes, 2) the village dwarf in a pointy hat, 3) bigfoot's little brother, 4) Argentinean boys dancing with one another, or 5) watching teenagers scream and run away from a 40 cm tall dwarf, then these two videos are for you.

The NPD sales charts came out this week, and it seems that some seriously old-ass games are selling like hotcakes. This includes WoW (four years old), The Burning Crusade expansion for WoW (which is two years old), and the WoW Battle Chest, which is a combo of the two titles.

Of course, WoW isn't the real story here – it's the biggest, most popular game in the world. Far more interesting is the fact that the NPD sales charts include Warcraft III (six years old) which was also on the top-sellers list, coming in 13th place. Even more bizarre, Starcraft (10 years old) got 17th place, and Diablo (12 years old) got 16th. Variants of these titles also appeared on the NPD list, meaning that of the 20 top selling games in the US, six were made by Blizzard.

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