Pandaria Dungeon Hero

 

I hadn't done three of the Mists of Pandaria Heroics so I queued up and did them. The DPS output the PUG members were giving was very impressive and the fights didn't last long at all.

 

I couldn't say how Where's My Air Support? was done, I was just focused on healing during the event.

15k Achievement Points

 

Just noticed that I am over 15,000 Achievement Points now!

 

The achievements Once Bitten, Twice Shy (10 player) and the Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher  from Monday pushed me over.

Game Dev Tycoon - Burning Crusade

 

 This is something I didn't get around to posting until now. The ending to my Game Dev Tycoon game where I made World of Warcraft.

 

After the Thrall and Jaina's Painting Adventure for the Nintendo DS fiasco, subscriptions of World of Warcraft MMO were at an all time low (1.5 million subscribers, nearly half the number at launch).

 

After Painting Adventure was released, the team were given some training then rest. Once back from vacation work started on an expansion for World of Warcraft called Burning Crusade. After a year the game was finished and it was released. The staff assignments for making the expansion were identical to the settings used during classic WoW.

 

 

Burning Crusade got a 9.0, not a 10, but that would do. It boosted subscribers up to an all time high of 3.8 Million.

 

The team were given vacations and training over the next year. The next expansion would be Wrath of the Lich King and it had to be better. After the team was back from their vacation and training, work began on Wrath.

 

Then I went bankrupt.

 

 

Then Zynga purchased my company and IPs. Now that is just rubbing salt into the wound!

 

So what when wrong? Costs of keeping WoW online and costs making the expansions exceeded the income I was making from subscriptions.

 

Subscriptions were down because I think the two year development cycle seemed too long and the fans grew disinterested with the game.

 

 

 Unlike real-world WoW, you can't have two teams, one doing patches during an expansion and the other team developing the next expansion. You got one team with no patches to add content, only expansions  So that means I need to release expansions at a much quicker rate.

 

The first year of the cycle was just training with a vacation at the start and the end. The training was so that Wrath of the Lich King would be an improvement over Burning Crusade. The vacation was to give the team a rest after making Burning Crusade then a rest to be ready to make Wrath.

The second year was supposed to be 50% Development. 50% QA.  That is the game would be made in the first six months then the bugs would be fixed in the other six months. Then the game would launch bug free.

 

I went bankrupt during QA. Active subscribers were down to 1.57 million people at that time.

 

So what did I learn?

1- Cut back on training and QA so the development cycle is only a year. So maybe 2.5% Vacation, 50% Development, 40% QA, and 7.5% Training.

 

2 - Don't make a Warcraft Themed Painting Adventure game for the Nintendo DS.

 

1 - Be willing to pull the plug on an unprofitable game haemorrhaging money, killing a company that used to have a billion dollars.

 

 Complete Simulated History:

 

Simulated World of Warcraft Started = Y50 M11 W4

E3 - 2,47 million visitors

Simulated World of Warcraft Released = Y51 M11 W3

Average Score = 10/10 

 

WoW Year 1: Game Year 52

Simulated Q1: 2.76 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 2.10 Million Subscribers

Painting Adventure Started = Y52 M6 W4

Simulated Q3: 2.67 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q4: 2.27 Million Subscribers

Painting Adventure Released = Y52 M11 W4

Average Score: 4/10

 

WoW Year 2: Game Year 53

Simulated Q1: 1.50 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 1.47 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q3: 2.33 Million Subscribers

Simulated Burning Crusade Started = Y53 M9 W4

Simulated Q4: 2.27 Million Subscribers

 

WoW Year 3: Game Year 54

Simulated Q1: 2.03 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 1.47 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q3: 1.17 Million Subscribers

Simulated Burning Crusade Release = Y54 M9 W3

Average Score = 9/10 

Simulated Q4: 2.80 Million Subscribers

 

WoW Year 4: Game Year 55

Simulated Q1: 3.80 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 2.97 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q3: 2.90 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q4: 2.47 Million Subscribers

Simulated Wrath of the Lich King Started = Y55 M12 W1

 

WoW Year 5: Game Year 56

Simulated Q1: 1.53 Million Subscribers

Simulated Q2: 1.57 Million Subscribers

BANKRUPT - Y56 M8 W1

Scheduled Wrath of the Lich King Release = Y54 M11 W4

 

The real world World of Warcraft information can be found at statista.

In real WoW's 5th year (2009) in Q2 they had 12 million subscribers.

 

Winner: Real World version of World of Warcraft.

Loser: Simulated version of World of Warcraft.

Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player)

 

Back in January I did most of the achievements for the Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player) meta. The last one I needed was Once Bitten, Twice Shy (10 player).  I never could be the Vampire. 

 

Today I went into Icecrown with an agenda: To get the last achievement Once Bitten, Twice Shy (10 player) and the Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher!

 

With Azadelta's help we made it to Blood-Queen Lana'thel, I became a vampire. After killing the boss I gained the achievement!

 

Countdown to Warlords of Draenor (51 weeks to go)

 

With Warlords of Draenor announced, it is time for me to get my bucket list of things to do before the new expansion. Nothing like a deadline to motivate someone!Here is a list of things I will be doing for the last half of the Mists of Pandaria Expansion!

 

Important Stuff to do:

● Get Holy Item Level to over 553 (515/553)
● Do Siege of Orgrimmar (Wing 1 or 4 completed)
● Get Holy Spec Shield instead of Holy Spec Offhand (Complete)
● Finish Legendary Cloak Quest line (Chapter 2 of 5)

● Proving Grounds: Proving Yourself: Silver Healer

 

Old Raid Stuff to do:

● Finish Shadowmourn Quest line
● Glory of the Icecrown Raider (25 player) (5/17)
● Glory of the Cataclysm Raider (6/24)

● Get all Classic Raid Pet Drops (7/12)

● Get all Burning Crusade Raid Pet Drops (2/10)

● Get all Raid Reps (0/3) (Hydraxian Waterlords; Avengers of Hyjal; Shado-Pan Assault)

Misc Stuff to do:

● Get all Pristine Archaeology (10/28)

● Do [The Longest Day] Achievement
● Get all Darkmoon Mounts (1/2) (56/180 Tickets) - Swift Forrest Strider

● Get all Argent Tournament Mounts (7/15) (900 Tokens)
● Nat Pagle Friendship to Best Friends (6/64 hand-ins done)

Jewelcrafting Recipe Collection:

● 11 Burning Crusade Recipes - 1 Aldor, 6 Sunwell, 3 World Drop, 1 Dungeon Drop

● 4 Wrath of the Lich King - 4 Vendor (16 Wrath Tokens)

● 65 Cataclysm - 2 World Drop; 58 Vendor (170 Cata Tokens)

-23 Rares = 69 Tokens; 11 Epics = 44 Tokens; 3 Meta = 12 Tokens; 9 Rings/Necks = 45 Tokens;
● 2 Mists of Pandaria Recipes - (from Serpent's Heart or Ancient Guo-Lai Cache).

Mini Contest for Mini Monk Winner

There were three Haikus entries in the contest. There were all good, but there can only be one winner!

Write a haiku about how awesome Garrosh Hellscream is!

I am the Warchief!
Hellscream's eyes are upon you -
Show them no mercy
- Navi

Son of Blademaster
Forever In Thrall's shadow
History will judge...
- Xyn

Mag'hari Orc, strong
A warrior, proud, Warchief
Victory or death
- Luxy

The winner is Xyn.

Xyn's haiku may not glorify Garrosh Hellscream, but it doesn't denounce him either. I feel it has the strongest imagery of the three.

Mini Contest for Mini Monk

 

I gained a Pandaren Monk Pet code inside a graphics card box. Since I already have this pet, I thought a quick giveaway of this extra pet is in order.

 

The contest? Write a haiku about how awesome Garrosh Hellscream is!

 

Best Haiku in the comments gets the pet code to do whatever they want with it.

 

Deadline in a week. Have fun.

Edit: I think the code may be restricted to US and Oceanic servers.

Birthday Comic Gift!

Luxypie, co-creator of The Faily Frostwolf gave me this awesome birthday comic with cake! But server maintenance got in the way!

 

In the top panel left to right: Xym, Azadelta, Faithy, Navi, Luxy

Bottom panel: McTacky & some peeps

 

Thanks Luxypie! That TARDIS cake looks great! Sorry I wasn't there!