World of Warcraft : gaming

Gamertrainer.com Goes Live

Gamertrainer — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:35:01 GMT

CLEVELAND, OH – August 20, 2008 – Gamertrainer.com, LLC, a leading provider of console and PC gaming skills training, announced the launch of its website and service, Gamertrainer.com™. The website serves all levels of gamers from novices to professionals and features tips, guides and hourly private lessons provided by highly skilled instructors or “Gamertrainers™.”

“Gaming is now one of the fastest growing forms of entertainment in the world,” said David Williams, co-founder and president of Gamertrainer.com, LLC. “You have all age groups playing and many adults are picking up controllers and playing online for the first time. As these new gamers enter the market a real skills gap can occur, causing frustration and driving them away,” said Williams. “Our trainers help fill that gap, whether your goal is to win more online in Halo® 3, get started in World of Warcraft® or to finally beat your neighbor in Guitar Hero® we have trainers available to help you.”

All training sessions take place over online services like Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE®, Sony’s PLAYSTATION®Network or PC based servers for games like World of Warcraft. Booking a training session is easy with an on-site calendar showing all the days and times available by game. Customers can book, purchase and complete a form describing exactly what they would like to learn and within hours they are contacted by their trainer and are ready to go. “One of our goals is to fill a very underserved niche – the beginner gamer” said co-founder Bill Bates. “Take World of Warcraft, for example. For every World of Warcraft veteran there are thousands who have tried it and given up, unable to get past the myriad of choices, acronyms and terminology seasoned World of Warcraft players take for granted. Our World of Warcraft trainers help people get past the learning curve quickly and on to truly enjoying the game experience.”

Gamertrainer.com provides private training sessions and training gift certificates for both experienced and beginner gamers on all the major platforms (Xbox360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and PC) and a growing list of games including:

• Battlefield: Bad Company™
• Call of Duty 4®: Modern Combat™
• Guitar Hero® III and Rock Band™
• Halo® 2 and 3
• Madden NFL 09
• Rainbow Six® Vegas 1 and 2
• Super Smash Bros.® Brawl
• World of Warcraft

About Gamertrainer.com, LLC
At Gamertrainer.com our goal is to help anyone become a better gamer. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just picked up your first controller or you’re a frustrated gaming veteran, we have a trainer that can help you “Unleash Your Game”. For more information visit www.gamertrainer.com

SK Gaming Live Stream featuring the world's highest DPS

Zyuu — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:27:28 GMT

This Thursday at 8pm CET (2pm EDT) SK Gaming will have their fourth World of Warcraft live raid together with Joost, who is the world's argueable highest dps'er.

The focus of discussion in this fourth show will mainly be about the upcoming expansion Wrath of the Lich king plus the Hunter, Rogue and Warlock class focuses. We will also attempt a new world record in DPS on Brutallus, hopefully we will succeed this week!

We also have 2 new players in the studio which should definatly be interesting Point of views with High DPS:

Munken a BM hunter with the highest recorded Brutallus DPS in the world.

Zkygge a combat rogue with mainhand warglaive, famed from several SK movies.

How to watch

1) Download the latest Joost client
2) Search for "SK WoW does Sunwell" in the client or click the direct link when the show is live.

Teaser for the show

WWI: Best Part About Gaming Conventions

Zyuu — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:41:29 GMT

Kody, resident Content and Community Manager here at Curse, recently posted a recap from WWI 2008 and a few hours ago he made a blog entry where he go over what's the best thing about Gaming Conventions.

primarily learned that there's a huge misconception with gaming events. Many people steer clear of them simply because they have this idea that it's a "gathering of nerds" or whatever. That couldn't be farther from the truth, and it annoys me to no end to see people trash something they've never actually bothered exploring.

This is very true. Going to a Gaming Convention, such as WWI or Games Convention, is an outstanding experience. You get to know a lot of great people and its so much more than just gaming and "nerds".

Kody continues and I can't have said it better myself:

The best part about the conventions isn't even the convention itself -- it's what happens afterward during the nightly parties while the convention is still running. Getting together with a bunch of gamers you know and having a good time is what these things are all about, and seeing Blizzard Entertainment getting involved, enjoying themselves, and generally being more rowdy than the gamers are is absolutely awe inspiring. I won't recount specifics other than to say that Monday morning at around 5:30AM, myself and around 8 or 9 WoW Arena players who were invited to WWI were sitting in the lobby of their hotel after a long night of sleepless partying and general mayhem, only to hear music come from the nearby piano.

Have you attended to a Gaming Convention before, or do you plan to? Well, if you're still thinking about it, hopefully this gave you some more to take into account. It's an absolute blast and the silly misconceptions that exist can't be further from the truth. You just have to experience it and get your own impression. Blizzcon and Games Convention is coming up, check them out! Furthermore, who knows, maybe we will see you there?

Read the full blog post by Kody, don't forget to share your thoughts in the comments below!

Addiction to MMOs shameful according to doctor

Zyuu — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:07:32 GMT

US doctor says being addicted to MMOs is more shameful than 'x-rated' material addiction.

Addiction to MMOs can be a very serious thing, but on the other hand some doctors tend to take it a little bit too far. It's the same with the whole debate about video games turning people into violent beings. That couldn't be further from the truth if you ask me. I've played all kind of games since I was a little kid, everything from Doom, Command & Conquerer, Quake, Crysis, Bioshock, Age of Conan.. the list goes on. Point is, I'm still the same person. I do not run around the streets with an axe, nor do I try to kill people in class and/or school.

There's usually other more serious underlying issues that are a big part of the problem. Perhaps a player wants to escape the real world and do so with the MMO they play. I've done this myself, (changing from the "videogames being violent" debate to "MMO addiction" again) -- escaping reality by playing MMOs too much. While I might have been somewhat 'addicted', it was never hard for me to stop. I know of those who really can't stop playing (as in, won't admit they are addicted) and being addicted to games is very real (be it MMOs or something else). I also think it's easier to get addicted to MMOs due to the social aspects of most of them..

..You tend to build up a network of so-called friends and you usually join a guild where you get to know people and play together. All of a sudden, this "game" becomes more and to some it might be the only social aspect in their life. Yes, some of you might think "sad", but let's face it, we're not all having a perfect life, or even close to one.

The doctor in question, Dr Jerald Block spoke of Internet addiction and several of the cases he had to deal with - The Boston Glove.

Dr Jerald Block said The computer gamers tend to be harder to treat. People feel a lot of shame around computer games. Whereas, it's socially acceptable to have a porn problem.

This is interesting, I don't see how it's any more social acceptable to have a "porn problem" as he put it. Actually, to be frank I would be much more embarrassed if I was addicted to porn instead of World of Warcraft. But hey, that's me.

Eleven million play World of Warcraft - It's not strange that people get addicted. It's the same with using social network sites like Facebook. There was an article I read a couple of days ago that went over how some employees threatened to quit their jobs if Facebook was blocked at their office. WoW is a "social" game, if you want it to be. There's tons to do together with other people, across the whole wide world. Online.

Now, going back to what I was briefly mentioning, me having played MMOs to escape reality? Well, that's something I did many many years ago by playing EverQuest and later Lineage 2. I got to know a lot of nice people -- many whom I've since met in real-life and keep in touch with regulary. So I can totally see how it can become addictive, it's just a matter of waking up and realizing you need to balance your life and not just play, play and play. Real life will catch up with you eventually!

Dr Block also said As a society we understand that porn is something people do, and you can see a psychiatrist and get treated for it. But gaming is hard to describe to anyone else.

So these people can't explain their situation to friends. In fact, it's hard to give you an example of what my clients talk about, because gaming is enormously complicated.

It shouldn't be too hard to explain the reason why you play an MMO for example. At least not if it's for the social aspect and the feeling that you achieve something, when you feel that you're not doing too well in the real world. Both those points are major reasons I believe people get addicted to MMOs, they can do things in the fantasy world that they can only dream of in the real one. And no, I'm not talking about killing dragons per se. I mainly refer to the fact that they can lead a guild or group with 4 other people (hell, 39 other people if they want to and raid) and socialize, kill stuff together and have in general a pretty good time.

Like the Southpark WoW comedy, "Make Love, Not Warcraft", Stan's dad explain to a co-worker how he's a might warrior in WoW and just a regular worker in real-life.

What are your thoughts on gaming addiction dear reader? Especially MMOs, but it goes for any game. Like I previously said, MMO addiction is probably more common than being addicted to other games.

Kil'jaeden down by SK Gaming

Zyuu — Sun, 25 May 2008 06:14:50 GMT

SK Gaming recently downed Kil'jaeden as the first guild in the world. Kil'jaeden is the final boss of Sunwell Plateau.

Loot was:

Full Kil'jaeden loot table

Weapons

Armor

Misc

M'uru down, New items, Video: What Else Is on? 2

Zyuu — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:15:58 GMT

M'uru was killed by SK Gaming yesterday. We hope to have more news about Kil'Jaeden soon. No promises though.

World of Raids spoke with Mekon from SK Gaming:

Without doubt the best designed encounter Blizzard have made since Naxxramas. M'uru / Entropius is the hardest non blocked fight ever made no question. It is perfectly tuned, you cannot make a single mistake and need a flawless strat. It's a really fun and intense fight that allows all classes to play an active roll rather than sitting and spamming.

I'm really not sure how many guilds are capable of killing it, the amount of dps you need is crazy and the healing is soo tight because you cant use many at all. I'm really proud of everyone in the guild and the effort they have put into this, it was well deserved. Looking forward to the race on KJ now!

Loot

Full known loot table of M'uru

New items discovered that are likely to drop off M'uru

What Else is on? 2

What Else is On? 2

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First sponsored professional WoW team

Nimloth — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 02:41:46 GMT

Team Pandemic Announces Expansion into World of Warcraft

Maumelle, Arkansas - March 18th, 2007 – TeamPandemic, LLC., one of North America's hottest professional gaming teams, would like to announce their acquisition of a World of Warcraft division. The team will be made up of seven individuals from the legendary Notorious guild from the Tichondrius server. The team is currently competing in the official Blizzard 5v5 Arena tournament under the name "Power Trip." They are currently in first place playing within BattleGroup 9 (Bloodlust).

The decision to add a World of Warcraft team was one that the Team Pandemic has been pondering over for some time now. When Blizzard announced their official 5v5 Arena tournament, the team started scouting out for a team. After looking at over 50 possible combinations, Team Pandemic has chosen this group of players from Notorious because their potential in the PVP sector of World of Warcraft has no limit. With 8.5 million current subscribers to World of Warcraft and Blizzard's flawless track record in competitive gaming with titles such as Starcraft and Warcraft 2/3, the future for competitive gaming in World of Warcraft is a reality.

Mark Dolven, President of TeamPandemic LLC, had this to say: "I am very excited to see the Team Pandemic brand expanded in to the World of Warcraft universe. The group of guys that we have been able to recruit are the best in the business. We cannot wait to see what they accomplish for themselves as part of our teams. We will provide them with every tool they need to become the best World of Warcraft team in the world. The sky is the limit for these guys."

Jared "Iamvhell" Coulston, one of the members of the new Pandemic World of Warcraft Division, had this to say: "Joining Team Pandemic gives us the opportunity to grow as both a team and individuals to reach our goals of proving that we have what it takes to both participate and be successful at a tournament level."