Headline RePLAY – 3.20.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Blizzard acknowledged that Star Wars: The Old Republic impacted World of Warcraft’s subscription numbers, World of Warcraft may go mobile and Capcom is on the hunt for Street Fighter X Tekken hackers.  


In a rather candid discussion with Eurogamer, Senior World of Warcraft Producer John Lagrave acknowledged that Star Wars: The Old Republic impacted the MMO’s subscription numbers.

“Of course people are trying Star Wars—our development team are trying Star Wars!” Lagrave told Eurogamer. “I’m one of the few people who’s still playing it actually, but yeah we’ve seen a dip in subs. It certainly has to at least be attributable to The Old Republic, but it’s also attributable to people who want to wait and get Mists of Pandaria, so it’s not surprising.

Lagrave dismissed any ideas for World of Warcraft to switch from a subscription business model to free-to-play. However, the senior producer is open to extending the level cap for the free trial, which currently stands at level 20.  

While Blizzard has not released any new subscription numbers since The Old Republic’s launch in late December 2011, the company has begun an aggressive campaign to re-enlist former subscribers in the form of a buffed up Scroll of Resurrection program.

*Source: Eurogamer


The full World of Warcraft experience may be coming to an iPhone or mobile devices near you. Already there are some parts of Blizzard’s behemoth MMO on mobile devices like access to character sheets, the Auction House and guilds via the World of Warcraft Armory app.

Except it’s easier said than done, Senior World of Warcraft Producer John Lagrave conceded.

“Here’s your platform [iPhone], you’ve got to put an interface, what do you do? So yes we have [looked into mobile] and we always are,” Lagrave told Eurogamer. “Maybe we’ll stumble on the great way to put WoW on the phone - maybe we won’t, but we're certainly looking into it.

“We won’t do it until we think it's decent,” the senior producer continued. “But it’s interesting and the world is evolving towards that little handheld device—I’d have fun on it, that’s absolutely the case. It would be foolish for any game developer to not be looking at that and we’re not - we don’t think—we’re foolish!”

“When we have an epiphany, everyone will know,” said Lagrave. “But for now, no epiphany!”

*Source: Eurogamer


All forum user Razum wanted was to sit down and play Street Fighter X Tekken online, which was promptly ruined when he encountered Blanka—a DLC character that wasn’t even supposed to be available yet. Apparently, hackers were unlocking DLC characters and using them in online bouts. Capcom is vowing to track down and ban the hackers.

“Yes, we’re seeing news of this. Quite ballsy for folks to be taking hacked Xbox 360s on Live where they are detectable,” confirmed Christian Svensson, Capcom’s senior VP of strategic planning and business development.  

“In any event, we already have opened channels of communication with MS on these issues Friday night,” reported Svensson. “If you can capture screens or video of this in action (as some have already) we're working on bans for boxes and accounts with MS for haxxors.”

When the thread devolved to mockery at Capcom, Svensson closed the thread and resolutely said, “We’ll catch them ourselves.”

*Source: Capcom-Unity

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