Some interesting news today (found via Wonderland who linked to Gamespot, who referenced the original BusinessWeek article, which I won’t link to because I’m not a fan of content that you need to sell your soul to read): Shawn Fanning, creator of Napster, is turning his talents to online gaming social networking.

This is quite interesting to me personally, as my non-WoW time is spent as the Web Director of a new social networking startup that plans to incorporate a 3D MMORPG-type environment for use as a social space as well as a game environment. Virtual worlds, virtual personas, and the dynamics of relating to online friends in a game environment are what I originally signed up to write here.

And with that, skip to the (possibly) boring stuff…
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On this “Super Patch day”

May all your mods be updated and all your talent choices be the right ones.

Days before Patch 2.0 which, amongst other things, will do away with our honor system and as such with DK penalties, it was bound to be a hot few days of Alliance and Horde alike griefing Civilians. Well, Alliance. And not for lack of trying, I assure you.

We’re not quite sure on channel #ktwow on freenode (irc:irc.freenode.net/#ktwow) why it is, but both sides agree it’s either another remainder of Horde world planning as an afterthought or yet another Blizzard bias. The problem, you see, is that Horde can’t do squat in Alliance starter areas, whereas Alliance can… well… obliterate most of the lowbie zones.

Here’s some of the obvious ones:

- Civilians and quest givers in Alliance starter areas are usually unattackable. That means “you can not attack this target”. Civilians and quest givers in Horde areas are usually not protected (there is ONE civilian in Sen’Jin Village who is, and she has no relevance to the game),

- Sentinels and Mountaineers can see through stealth. Deathguards and Grunts can not. This means I could sneak my 46 rogue (with no points in MoD) into the Valley of Trials and Deathknell without any problems. My 60 Druid with +stealth enchant to cloak, +stealth on boots (Nightscape Boots) and 5 points in Feral Instinct did not make it into Coldridge Valley or Shadowglen, the NE starter area. When I made it in, after killing the guards, I was picked and attacked by every Sentinel or Mountaineer, even when stealthed and far off.

- Speaking of Sentinels and Mountaineers. I had little problems outrunning Grunts and Deathguards. When I attacked a Civilian, one or two would spawn, I could sprint or simply run, shake them, restealth and return. Sentinels and Mountaineers (as well as the South Shore guards) move at about 130% speed and have intercepts. Spawns are usually in the four to six range, as well.

With 2.0 and the removal of DK penalties the last of the reasons not to grief lowbie areas has been removed. While I never was and never will be a fan of the DK system, it stands to see how Blizzard will react - either by making all lowbie quest givers unattackable as the Alliance ones already are, or by making them all easily killed and evening out the imbalances in protection to allow Horde to retaliate in kind.