Forthcoming Cataclysm launch for World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft,Worgen and Goblin ,

Dec. 7 is the official release day for “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm”. Blizzard entertainment has already opened “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” for download pre-order. The boxed retail set does have extras not accessible via download. “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” comes with a specialty pet if you purchase it in a retail store. Article resource – World of Warcraft Cataclysm release includes Shale Spider by Money Blog Newz.

The date that wow: Cataclysm’ could be launched

The newest expansion pack for “World of Warcraft” is ready to be launched Tuesday. At 12:01 a.m. on December 7, the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” expansion can be released. Anyone who pre-purchases the digital download will be immediately turned on to the “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” the moment it is launched into the world. You can purchase “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” with a physical copy if you’d like. Dec. 7 could be when this is available.

What ‘world of Warcraft: Cataclysm’ benefits are

”World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” is fairly cool. “WoW” is updated a lot with it. You can then choose 2 brand new races of characters too. Worgen and Goblin are these races. The races aren’t new as they have been within the game for a while. This is the first time the races can be played though. The story behind “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” includes a disaster that directly effects the Goblin race. The Horde has the Worgen in it although they’re an Alliance race. They’re just one of the things going on in “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” though. There is a lot more of brand new stuff in “World of Warcraft” with the expansions with a level cap at 85 now, new backgrounds and 2 locations being revamped totally.

Brand new pets for the ‘world of Warcraft: Cataclysm’

There is a reason why you might like to get the boxed set of “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” rather than playing it as shortly as it is released. The collector’s edition of “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm” includes an exclusive pet family. These animals are available to “tame.”. There are a lot of different looks you can choose for the Shale Spiders in “Cataclysm.” They are fairly cool too.

Citations

World of Warcraft

worldofWarcraft.com/cataclysm/

€30 million worth of industrial grade virtual goods reported stolen

Cyber-thieves have stolen approximately 30 million euros worth of carbon credits circulating in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), authorities revealed yesterday. The carbon credits are entries in a distributed database maintained by EU states. Companies access their credits by logging into their online user account. Crackers used phishing-style attacks to obtain login credentials from companies, and transferred credits to other accounts.

This sounds familiar. Here’s an interesting exercise: let’s compare EU carbon credits with the virtual gold of the online game World of Warcraft. See if we can find a difference.

• Both credits and gold are elements in an abstract system of rules, implemented as a computer program. Neither have any shape or function outside this system.
• Both systems have a certain group of participants, and each participant has a “user account”. Each credit/gold coin belongs to exactly one user account.
• Both credits and gold can be transferred between accounts, but creating new ones is not possible; only the operators of the system can do that. Both are thus artificially scarce.
• Both credits and gold can be exchanged to national currency by selling them to another participant who finds them so useful as to be willing to pay money for them.
• Because of the above, both are targeted by cybercriminals who attempt to steal them through phishing attacks.

ETS credits are clearly the industrial version of game currency — industrial grade virtual goods. Funnily enough, it seems from the news coverage that ETS has worse cybersecurity than WoW. Those who set up new virtual economies would do well to learn from their predecessors in the game industry.

Virtual Worlds for Kids: new issue at Journal of Virtual Worlds Research

Journal of Virtual Worlds Research has published it’s issue on the booming teen/tween/children’s virtual world market. The articles are also listed below.

Meanwhile, the Researchers’ Toolbox issue has been split into two parts. My co-authored paper on data collection methods will apparently be published in the second part, which is supposed to come out this month.

The journal suffered from delays in the publication schedule last year as it underwent an editorial transition. But I’d like to thank the outgoing editor, Jeremiah Spence, for his contributions, and wish success to the incoming editor, Yesha Sivan.

The editorial team for this issue includes: Sun Sun Lim, National University of Singapore Lynn Schofield Clark, University of Denver, USA Editor′s Corner Virtual worlds as a site of convergence for children’s play Sun Sun Lim, Lynn Schofield Clark.

Peer Reviewed Research Papers

Beyond Being There: A Grounded Investigation of the Value of Virtual Worlds for Remote Family Interaction
Lizzy Bleumers, An Jacobs

Virtual Epidemics as Learning Laboratories in Virtual Worlds
Yasmin B. Kafai, Nina H. Fefferman

Who’s Watching Your Kids? Safety and Surveillance in Virtual Worlds for Children
Eric M. Meyers, Lisa P. Nathan, Kristene Unsworth

Making Sense of the Virtual World for Young Children: Estonian Pre-School Teachers’ Experiences and Perceptions
Andra Siibak, Kristi Vinter

A Framework for Children’s Participatory Practices in Virtual Worlds
Terhi Tuukkanen, Ahmer Iqbal, Marja Kankaanranta

Research-in-brief Papers

Penguin Life: A Case Study of One Tween’s Experiences inside Club Penguin
Diana Burley

Virtual Junk Food Playgrounds in Europe: Advergames in the UK and Hungary
Arhlene A. Flowers, Katalin Lustyik, Emese Gulyás

Think Piece

Growing Up with Neopets: A Personal Case-Study
Stephanie Louise Lu

Impact of Cataclysm on Warcraft Gold Farming

A quick, and unscientific, summary of the impact of the recent Cataclysm expansion on gold farming in World of Warcraft would be that it simultaneously changes everything and changes nothing. At a micro-level it changes pretty much everything – all of the specific locations and in-game activities that gold farmers would have learned are gone or different, and they are having to re-learn the good spots and specific actions. But at the macro-level, it looks like business as usual: gold is still being farmed and sold just as it ever was.

We can get a bit more of an insight into what’s happening by looking at the virtual currency exchange rate: if Cataclysm was causing an in-game shortage, that would likely lead to WoW gold appreciating against real-world currencies.

Comparing the January 2011 rates to October 2009, there has actually been a depreciation of around 11%: where 2,000 gold earlier cost an average of US$8.35, now it costs an average of US$7.41. This therefore looks like a dog that didn’t bark: the currency is not deviating from the pattern of depreciation that has been seen ever since gold farming began (associated with competition in the market and discovery of better (i.e. quicker and thus cheaper) ways to farm gold).

Looking in a bit more detail, though, suggests something slightly different. In the 14 months since October 2009, WoW gold has depreciated 11%. In the 14 months prior to October 2009, it depreciated by 58%. We can also compare WoW gold with other virtual currencies. Taking a basket of FFXI, LOTR, EVE Online, and EQ2, their currencies depreciated against the US dollar an average of 51% during the period Oct 2009 – Jan 2011.

So that suggests there may have been a Cataclysm effect – significantly slowing the “normal” process of depreciation; possibly reflecting a supply-side impact on gold farming, for example, in the need to build up post-expansion knowledge about gold farming sources and methods.

One final snippet comes from looking at prices for power levelling. This also has been subject to depreciation over time, albeit at a slightly lesser rate than the currency. From Oct 2009 to Jan 2011, however, prices for levelling seem to have appreciated by about 20% (e.g. levelling from 1-60 rose from an average US$69 to an average US$83). That could reflect either increased supply side costs in having to learn the new levelling paths and/or growth in demand from new players wanting high-level characters but in either case it again suggests some sort of “Cataclysm effect”.

Does anyone else have data or experiences to share on this?

New Year, New Numbers

Broken down in terms of some interesting numbers, Ted Sorom has laid out a year in review summary of the virtual goods industry at TechCrunch. Perhaps most interesting figure is that $7,300,000,000 is the expected global revenue for virtual good sales from 2010, although the number of virtual hotdogs eaten by NPCs in Ravenwood Fair is a close second.

The full article is available at TechCrunch.

This is, of course, a somewhat diverse and limited set of measures. It is also one that includes everything from the sale of digital game software to the sale of goods within the games and other environments themselves. However, it offers a glimpse not only into the size of the virtual goods industry, but some of the many features, goods, and values that are currently available for considering these economies.