Blizzard announced yesterday that their mobile app for guild chat and auction house went free to all active subscribers. This change is coming a week ahead of the pre-Mists of Pandaria 5.0.1 patch (which is on Tuesday, August 28th).
The service before (for the last 2-4 years) cost $3.00 a month on top of your WoW subscription(s), but now is totally free with any 1 subscription. The full quote is below:
It’s now easier than ever to stay in touch with your guildmates and access the World of Warcraft® auction house… wherever you go.
Starting today, all of the features that were previously part of the optional World of Warcraft Remote subscription service are now available for free to all World of Warcraft subscribers. These features include:
Remote Guild Chat – Stay in touch with your guildmates on the go using your mobile phone.
Remote Auction House – Bid on items, create auctions, and collect gold via your mobile device or through the official World of Warcraft website.
We hope this change will make it easier for players to stay connected to each other and to the game, and we encourage everyone to try out these powerful tools for themselves.
Click more to see all the features included in the WoW Remote app, with links to downloads. Continue Reading
The five-volume Warcraft: Legends series has been out for a good while now, with the first book released in 2008 and the other volumes coming out over the course of about a year. But I had not yet had the chance to read them, and they actually had been off my radar for quite some time until last week when Cryptozoic announced that it had acquired exclusive rights to distribute digital versions of Blizzard’s extended universe manga.
Along with that announcement came the promotion of offering the first volume of Warcraft: Legends for free via the new Cryptozoic Comics app for iPhone and iPad. I jumped on that opportunity, and although it’s a bit belated, wanted to share my thoughts on the book for those of you also pondering the acquisition of free goodies while they’re still gratis.
Legends offers a diverse line of four unrelated stories set in various stages of the Warcraft universe.
The first story, Fallen is a collaboration between Richard Knaak and Jae-Hwan Kim. The first part of the Trag Highmountain story, Fallen follows up from the Sunwell Trilogy. The tauren Trag, who readers were first introduced to in Warcraft: Shadows of Ice, finds himself reborn as one of the undead after defeating the Baron Valimar Mordis. Mordis who had stolen the orb of Ner’zhul from the scourge and raised a frost wyrm, ultimately intending to spread the will of the forsaken. Trag crushed both the Baron and the orb — but in doing so cursed himself to undeath. Continue Reading
Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure for the iPad and other iOS devices by Osao is a platformer that has you collect items while exploring a jungle to find mysterious treasures that turn the main character, Pixe, into various jungle animals. Using their powers, she can gain new abilities that allow her to further explore areas. Continue Reading
I’ve been a fan of card games since a very young age, from Go Fish to Solitaire to Cribbage. But none have held my collective interest through the years more than Tichu. It’s a trick-based game, a variation of a similar Chinese card game, but fully copyrighted as being created by one Urs Hostettler. While not widely played in the United States, it has gained a small following and (ironically enough because of where I just moved), also has a dedicated community of players in Germany.
For me, it started back in my college years and the development of interest in what my circle of friends liked to call “cheap-ass games,” such as Munchkin-Fu, or for the super-cheap, games that only required writing your own cards on pieces of paper. Somehow through that flurry, someone discovered Tichu — which can be played with a regular deck of cards plus 4 jokers/other random cards that become special cards that make the game unique (a briefer on gameplay will follow below).
I was immediately hooked. The game usually is played with four people, and there were many, many nights in school that included three friends sitting around a table for hours at a time and having an absolute blast playing this fun strategy game. The more we played, the more we refined our strategies and realized that there are many different ways to play based on your own style.
Anyhow, it’s been five years since those happy times, and until recently the opportunity to play Tichu with other advanced players had become rare. And as already detailed, my current situation in Germany has been somewhat boring . While still lacking most of our stuff (which should be in customs by now) and without internet to appease my entertainment needs, I turned to my iPhone and found something to quell my thirst that was released only last month. While the official Tichu app ($2.99 on the iTunes app store for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch) has a few downfalls, overall it is quite satisfying.
And for all of you scratching your heads and wondering what this Tichu game is all about — the app also comes with a great tutorial feature to guide you through your first hand. If you like card games and want to learn a new one that requires a lot of strategy and has so many nuances in gameplay, this is a great way. Then you can teach your friends!
In this first episode of the video version of Pocket Hound, I show off Shift, a unique puzzle platformer by Armor Games.
It was made for the iPhone / iPod touch, but this review is on an iPad, where it also still looks pretty good, albeit a tad pixelated. As of the review date, the game (with extended levels and soundtrack) is available in the app store for 99 cents, and online for free at the Armor Games website. Check out the video to see how it works!
If you were as rabidly anticipating the new version of the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad software release, iOS4, as I was, you’ve probably already upgraded your device. But, what do you do if the upgrade sours? Your iPhone crashes and is not functional? Or just as bad, you have a software fluke and your authenticator serial changes, effectively locking you out of your account? If you follow some simple security measures, you can avoid these problems entirely.
The first thing you should do (and have already done) is write down your authenticator serial number. This is a number unique to your device that’s used to generate the codes. If you have the serial number, you can call Blizzard and have the authenticator removed at any time . Store it in a safe place. I put mine in a Google Document, where I will probably never erase it and I can always access it. This way, if my phone gets lost or destroyed, or if I accidentally uninstall the authenticator, I will be able to save it at any time.
To find your serial number, follow these steps. Continue Reading
The game already has been rebooted so many, many times. Prince of Persia, originally developed by Jordan Mechner and released in 1989 for the Apple II has since been ported to platforms including Atari ST, the PC (via DOS), Sega CD, NES, SNES, Game Boy Color and Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network and most recently as an unlockable in the Wii version of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands.
So it makes sense that, in conjunction with the release of the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie in May (throughout most of the world in early and mid May, but only in the US this past weekend), Ubisoft would release another version of the retro game for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Unlike my last glowing review of Doodle Jump, however, I’m left a bit more conflicted on this one. I was excited to play the classic game that’s been the source of some excellent sequels. But perhaps it remained a bit too loyal to its original incarnate. Read on to find out why.
Itching to use the new mobile auction house? Do you have a character on Cyclone or Bloodlust battlegroups? Well, you are in luck! Check out the list of realms added to the beta:
The World of Warcraft Remote Auction House beta test is now open for business! The Remote Auction House is a new service in development that lets players access the World of Warcraft Auction House from the Armory website (http://us.wowarmory.com/auctionhouse/) or the Mobile Armory app for iPhone and iPod touch (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=321057000&mt=8). Players can browse their characters’ local Auction Houses with the same search functionality available in the game, as well as see the real-time status of each of their current bids and auctions.
As we’d mentioned previously (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22748781945), certain features of the Remote Auction House will be premium-based. Once the beta test is complete and the Remote Auction House is live, players will be able to subscribe to a new service called World of Warcraft Remote (http://us.wowarmory.com/wow-remote.xml), which will allow them to buy items; post items for sale from a character’s bags, bank, or mailbox; collect gold from their bids and auctions; and more. During the beta test, players can try out these features for free, and each World of Warcraft account will be able to perform up to 25 transactions per day. (Please note this limit will be increased at launch.)
The list of realms eligible to participate in the beta test is displayed below. If your realm is not on this list, please check again soon, as we plan to eventually open the beta test to all realms.
Update 5/20 – The supported list of realms has been updated to include the Bloodlust and Cyclone battle groups. Continue Reading
Blizzard announced yesterday that their mobile app for guild chat and auction house went free to all active subscribers. This change is coming a week ahead of the pre-Mists of Pandaria 5.0.1 patch (which is on Tuesday, August 28th).
