world of warcraft

Some might argue that those who play World of Warcraft are, well, in their own world.

However, if you saw last night's presidential debate, you wouldn't imagine that a martian would find those two gentlemen entirely conventional.

How odd, then, that the Republican Party in Maine believes that being a level 68 orc rogue girl should disqualify someone from candidacy for the Maine Senate.

And yet, as Politico has unearthed, the Maine GOP has actually issued a press release and is preparing a mail piece declaring that Colleen Lachowicz has a "bizarre double life" that makes her a highly questionable human.

Oh, come now. It's not as if her name is Lash-o-Witch and you can hire her at $100 per hour -- as you can some politicians.

Still, her alter-ego as Santiaga, the orc assassination rogue, seems to frighten her opponents. … Read more

World of Warcraft fans rejoice! Blizzard Entertainment released a trailer for Mists of Pandaria -- the highly anticipated expansion pack for the addictive online game -- yesterday at Gamescom 2012 in Cologne, Germany.

The trailer reveals the opening cinematic sequence to Mists of Pandaria. Described as a lost continent shrouded in fog, Pandaria is inhabited by a race called the Pandaren. The upcoming release is the fourth expansion pack of the uber-popular game.… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- A preview from Jeff's interview with Jay Chandrasekhar and Kevin Heffernan. Their new movie is on iTunes, on-demand, and in theaters today.

- A real Jurassic Park might be hitting the Middle East.

- World of Warcraft is losing subscribers and Activison's stock is paying the price.

- The truth about winning Olympic medals and the subsequent taxes.

- Watch CNET Update every week day and follow the show and Bridget on Twitter!… Read more

Like every year, PC gaming will likely get lost amid the retail and console-focused hullabaloo out of Los Angeles next week. Nintendo will tout its crazy new console/handheld hybrid; Microsoft has the Xbox-as-entertainment center and a new Halo and Gears of War to flog; and Sony will be talking about, you know, Sony stuff (and maybe the acquisition of a cloud gaming service).

Huge, PC-specific game announcements rarely happen at E3, but here are some of the current PC-specific topics bubbling under the surface.

Minecraft on the Xbox 360Mojang Software's Minecraft debuted on Xbox Live on May 9 … Read more

World of Warcraft creator Blizzard has said it's "looking into" crafting an iPhone version of its time-destroying MMORPG.

Senior World of Warcraft producer John Lagrave told Eurogamer the world is "evolving toward" gadgets like the iPhone. "It would be foolish for any game developer to not be looking at that," he said.

Confirmation that Blizzard has its eye on a mobile future will be welcome news for WoW addicts who currently have to stop playing to do things like take the bus or go to the bathroom.

Read more of "Blizzard 'looking into' World of Warcraft on iPhone" at Crave UK. … Read more

There's sour news out of Irvine, Calif., today, as Activision Blizzard subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment announced that it will reduce its global workforce by 600 employees.

The company noted that 10 percent of its staff cuts--or about 60 people--were actively involved in game development.

Blizzard was quick to point out that the World of Warcraft development team will not be impacted by the staff reductions.

The company's massively popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game has struggled in the past year, slipping from 10.3 million to 10.2 million subscribers through the end of December.

Read more of "Blizzard laying off 600" at GameSpot. … Read more

The online video game World of Warcraft is in the news again, this time for its potential to help boost certain cognitive skills--specifically spatial ability and focused attention--in older adults.

Researchers at North Carolina State University's Gains Through Gaming Lab tested the cognitive functions of 39 60- to 77-year-olds and then broke the study's participants into an experimental group, which played the MMORPG for 14 hours over a two-week period, and a control group, which did not play WoW at all.

It turns out that the adults who played WoW for two weeks improved their baseline scores, with … Read more

A game like World of Warcraft requires several thousand servers to operate the hundreds of online realms within its ecosystem. Earlier this year, Blizzard Entertainment auctioned off several of those server blades "used during World of Warcraft's early days."

A Reddit post brought up the subject again recently, and contains a few pictures of a server blade used for the European server Sunstrider from February 27, 2005 to August 24, 2010. There's little doubt that countless gamers spent thousands, if not millions, of hours playing during that time frame. A special clear enclosure reveals the innards of the server, which contains 6 gigabytes of RAM (DDR-400MHz). It did not come with the original hard drives. … Read more

Online role-playing games, typically of the massively multiplayer variety, have a reputation for wreaking havoc on real-world relationships.

Now, researchers can back up that notion with survey results and can pinpoint the problems that result from such gaming. The survey, from researchers at Brigham Young University, is set to appear tomorrow in the Journal of Leisure Research.

The findings confirm what many gamers know all too intimately--perhaps having heard the message delivered loudly in words with four letters. Three-quarters of spouses of online gamers wish their partners would put more time and effort into their marriages than they put into … Read more