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With quite a few World of Warcraft addicts here at GameSpy HQ, we’ve been having some fun since the Burning Crusade beta test kicked off last week. After taking my mage out and clearing most of the initial zone, Hellfire Peninsula (read our report here), it was time to get serious and venture into the first dungeon of the expansion: Hellfire Citadel. Located right in the middle of the zone, HFC is split into a few different wings, two of which players will able to access right off the bat: Hellfire Ramparts and the Blood Furnace. As part of our ongoing beta reports, here’s what we found.

LFG!

The first step in hitting Hellfire Citadel was getting a group together, which gave us a chance to try the still-in-testing “Looking For Group” (LFG) system. The interface allows you to add your name to a list of players looking for a particular dungeon, quest or instance; the system currently populates the dungeon list based on your level, and the quest list based on what quests you currently have in your log. There’s also a “Looking for More” (LFM) panel, where you can browse players and groups trying to round up more people. Here’s a look:

The “Looking for More panel is probably the most useful aspect of the system so far, since you can browse the list and send tells in advance to make sure the group will be a good fit. In its current form, the system is still a bit lacking, and we’re expecting more tweaks in the coming weeks, but it’s already far better than the global LFG chat spam that plagues WoW at the moment, and a good step towards the bulletin-board-like LFG system WoW players have been in need of forever.

The Citadel

Sitting right in the middle of Hellfire Peninsula, Hellfire Citadel contains four separate wings. The first two, the Ramparts and the Blood Furnace, are immediately accessible 5-man dungeons, while a third, The Shattered Halls, requires a key from the final boss in the Blood Furnace and has level 70 elite mobs running around inside it … so it’ll be some time before we test that out. Entrances to all three instances can be found along the pathways of the upper wall, while a fourth dungeon, a level 70 25-player raid instance, has an entrance at the base of the rear wall.

The Ramparts

For our first run, we started with the Ramparts, which we already had a quest for: “Weaken the Ramparts.” At this point in beta testing, it’s both a fairly short and fairly easy wing, populated with level 60-62 mobs grouped 3-5 at a time. With any bit of crowd control, like a mage sheeping, it’s almost trivial, save for a few big pulls.

The first half of the dungeon is just a long, narrow outdoor run with the first boss of the instance, Watchkeeper Gargolmar, patrolling the end with two guards. The elites in this area currently have some abilities that will annoy melee classes, like disarm, demoralizing shout and mortal strike, but are otherwise easy enough to drop. Gargolmar is a straightforward boss, but makes some entertaining sound effects when he dies, which players seem to be getting a kick out of (and we’re hoping Blizzard does more of in the expansion).
Article Source: www.gamespy.com.

TIME is currently running a 2008 retrospective, including a section on notable passings which pays homage to a pair of influential gaming figures.
Everyone who follows gaming knows Gary Gygax, of course. Of the D&D creator, TIME writes:
A college dropout from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Gygax was one of the creators of a game that transformed popular culture… Dungeons & Dragons sold millions of copies in the 1970s and 1980s and laid the cultural groundwork for movies such as The Lord of the Rings, video games like World of Warcraft and a generation of fantasy writers and fans…
Also mentioned is Carnegie Mellon prof Randy Pausch, who founded CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center and is best known for his inspirational last lecture, which was later expanded into book length. From TIME:
He could have canceled the lecture. He was, after all, dying of pancreatic cancer. Instead, Pausch, a computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon, delivered a wise, funny talk on the great themes: Captain Kirk, football and how to live your life. Pausch also showed us how to die: calmly, gracefully and gratefully.
Article Source: www.gamepolitics.com.

Can playing World of Warcraft make you a better citizen of the real world?
Perhaps.
A study by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Constance Steinkuehler found that WoW players were more likely to listen to and reason things out with their fellow Azeroth residents.
Steinkuehler spoke on the benefits of digital worlds at a museum in Madison last night. As reported by the Capital Times, her remarks included:
Learning how to navigate [the online world's] diversity is “in the big scheme of life” about citizenship, she said…

Video games… push social norms and practices because those things are necessary to succeed at highly complex MMOGs like World of Warcraft, Steinkuehler said…
 
Her work included analysis of message boards where World of Warcraft players get together… She found that 65 percent of the discussion was “evaluative” vs. 30 percent “absolutist” — “My idea is right and not open to discussion” — and 5 percent “relative” — it’s just opinion and no one is right.

In contrast, she said studies have found that the U.S. population is only 15 percent evaluative, 50 percent absolutist and 35 percent relativist…

Steinkuehler likened the efforts of gamers to President Obama’s neighbor-to-neighbor tool where, for example, volunteers surveyed their neighborhoods and updated the campaign’s database.
Article Source: www.gamepolitics.com.