Every day, millions of gamers play online RPGs. And every day, their rich fantasy lives are shattered by an all-too-common problem: Dumb names.

Hi, Lunaea. Thanks for the effort.

You’ve seen it in your MMO of choice, I’m sure: The guy at the auction house named Spydormann. The female mage named Magicwitch. A dude LFG named WellHung. A hired killer named HiredKiller. These people have made the commitment to immerse themselves in a world crammed with fantastic detail, and they complain loudly when its virtual reality does not live up to their standards. Why, then, do they intentionally ruin it for everyone around them with a stupid moniker that breaks that suspension of disbelief they just paid to support?

I’m hoping it’s just a case of people not knowing how to make an interesting name that matches their virtual realm. If that’s the case, I have some suggestions that will work for both medieval fantasy and science fiction games, online or off:

Change a letter. Start with your middle name, then swap a vowel or three. A double-swap on David yields Divad. Amanda, replace all the A’s and you’re Emendi. Still not hitting? Pick any letter in your name, look at your keyboard, and move one key to the left or right. Terry becomes Terru; Sarah is Satah.

Drop a letter. Daniel becomes Danil. Steve is now Stee. Taylor, meet Talor. Not enough? Use the above, then drop the last letter.

Anagram it. Rearrange the letters in “Dan Amrich” and you get…um, “rancid ham.” But you also get Archimand, which is my go-to name for any wizard I create. Try shuffling all the letters in your full name; if it’s not quite right, change or drop a letter as above.

Abbreviate it. Just as Jennifer Lopez is J-Lo, you can use the same first-letter-first-syllable trick, or the first two syllables. Dan Amrich becomes Danam; Robert Kotick becomes Arkot. Don’t like how your name works out? Try a teacher or a friend’s name instead, or swap in your mom’s maiden name for your last name.

Go international. Scandanavian and Gaelic names often put vowels and consonants where American gamers don’t expect to find them. As a result they can sound exotic if not downright alien. Not unusual enough? See the above steps.

Use a name generator. Available in sci-fi and fantasy flavors. Weapon of last resort, but better than HiredKiller, Spydormann, and WellHung.

Do your part. If you want to live in a fantasy world, at least show that world some respect. Because the rest of us are tired of seeing Laserguy and Hárrýpöttèr wherever we go.

UPDATE: Thanks to @AngeloAlcid for this Penny Arcade comic that totally validates my entire outlook!

In the quarterly earnings call today, Activision’s bigwigs got on the horn and told the investors the good news — money was made from January to March of this year. The news wasn’t quite as eventful as last time (thankfully) and you can read the complete transcript if you like, but for gamers, there were some interesting bits worth noting:

What Was Said: Escalation will launch for PS3 “later in the quarter.”
My Take: Specifically, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said it would be launching “later in the quarter, and hopefully the [PlayStation Network] situation will be resolved by then.” Also, CFO Thomas Tippl noted that PlayStation Network’s outage may affect next quarter’s earnings. Details were not offered on exactly how much, but I think this was just to set expectations. The PSN outage’s effects will likely be felt for a while.

Escalation is coming for PS3 and PC. After that? They're still mum.

What Was Said: A new Call of Duty game is coming out later this year, but no title was named.
My Take: Last year, Activision said a COD title would be coming in 2011, so this is more a reassurance, but for anyone hoping to hear the name of the game or details about it, none were offered. “This year’s Call of Duty has a very high bar to exceed,” Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick acknowledged. Eric noted that this year’s game “has exceeded every internal milestone.” The suits promised we’d hear more details soon.

What Was Said: Blizzard has not confirmed a game for 2011 — but that means we should get two in 2012.
My Take: If you’re an investor, you want to know what’s coming as well as what isn’t. So if Activision and Blizzard don’t expect Diablo III to make this year, they have to say that. Blizzard Entertainment CEO Mike Morhaime said Diablo III  just went into internal beta, and there’s an external beta planned for Q3. But, as has always been their credo, Blizzard is not rushing anything to market. “I want to be clear that we do not have an official release date or window yet,” he said. “As always, we will not compromise the quality of the game in order to hit a window.” Remember that Cataclysm and StarCraft II both came out in 2010, so two in a year from Blizzard is not unheard of.

Eruptor from Skylanders lives on all platforms, apparently.

What Was Said: A few new Skylanders details were mentioned.
My Take: The game made its debut at Toy Fair, but it was only shown to attendees on Wii. Eric mentioned that Skylanders is also coming to 360, PS3, Wii, handhelds, mobiles, and the web. The “web world” was mentioned before but the specific hardware platforms were not. Eric also said the game will come with a starter pack — the game, the portal that lets the toys interact with the virtual world, and three toys that let you play the game from start to finish. Additional toys will be made available later, and they’ll be priced at less than $10 each. The game is due out for the holiday. Hearing Bobby describe it as “one of the biggest investments we’ve ever made in a new intellectual property” and hearing these details, I am a little more interested.

What Was Said: Beachhead’s project is kind of a big deal. 
My Take: Eric said that Beachhead, the studio he announced on the last call, is creating an “all-new connected digital universe for the Call of Duty franchise. This platform will include a suite of services and content plan that will unite and ignite the community like never before. The platform will support in-game integration and bring online experiences and console play together for the first time.” He said it is ”an integral part” to the game in development, and also noted the Beachhead project has been in the works for two years — so clearly, this was percolating long before they actually announced the studio that is steering it.

What Was Said: Activision is STILL not charging for COD multiplayer.
My Take: While answering a follow-up question about Beachhead’s project, Eric clarified one more time for good measure: “While we are attempting to deliver new, incremental experiences [...] we are not attempting to monetize or take any experience away that currently comes as part of the value proposition of buying the game.” In other words, when it comes to charging for MP, no still means no. Bobby added: “Very importantly, our community of COD players is one we celebrate. You will see a lot of new services and capabilities that will be provided free of charge to all of our customers.” This rumor, of course, has been addressed definitively before.

Wipeout In The Zone will be Activision's first Kinect title

What Was Said: There are two Kinect games in the works for this year.
My Take: In addition to namechecking licensed games based on Transformers, X-Men, Spider-Man, James Bond, and Bakugan, Eric noted that Wipeout In the Zone as Activision’s first Kinect title for Xbox 360, and that the Cabela’s hunting franchise will expand “this year to include all-new peripherals and a brand-new Kinect experience.” I hope I get to run (in place) for my life from a rampaging grizzly bear!

What Was Said: Activision’s goal: Fewer games, better games.
My Take: “The best way to achieve success is to provide gamers with the highest possible creative quality,” said Eric, and later reiterated with the phrases “fewer, better franchises” and “fewer, better opportunities” during the call. Bobby took a historical look at it: ”This year, as in the last few years, we expect only a handful of franchises are likely to generate the vast majority of industry profits as players continue to grativate toward the very best entertainment experiences.” In other words…fewer games, better games.

What Was Said: StarCraft II’s expansion will be revealed soon.
My Take: Mike said Blizzard expects to show Heart of the Swarm, the first StarCraft II expansion pack, to the press later this month. Keep your eyes on your favorite PC gaming news source for that one.

First Strike had a major financial impact. You probably guessed that.

What Was Said: Digital product revenues were up 30% over this time last year.
My Take: That means “Activision sold a lot of DLC” — thank you, First Strike! (Actually, Eric did thank Treyarch and the rest of the Activision team for their hard work; he later noted that the community’s passion was “truly humbling.”) First Strike sold 1.4 million units in the first 24 hours, and sold about 20% more than the MW2 Stimulus Pack; it’s still early, but so far, Escalation is selling the same 20% over Resurgence. As for the overall 30%, I would also suspect the ability to download Cataclysm directly might add to this number, but when asked, Mike Morhaime noted that Blizzard doesn’t release the split between retail and digital when it comes to their games. But I am mentioning this here at the end because everybody seemed bullish on the idea of digital content on the call, so it might be something to watch.

There was more info, lots of it financial, but I thought this was what mattered most. If you have any further questions or clarifications, hit me below in the comments. I’ll tackle whatever I can from my notes.

Since Escalation comes out next week and I’ll be playing Black Ops next Friday night, I had hoped to do a PS3 event this week, but obviously, that’s not in the cards. However, it creates a good reason to have our first guild night in World of Warcraft.

As you might know, there is a One of Swords friends-and-fans Alliance guild on Doomhammer-US but we haven’t done too much with it yet. I want to run some Arathi Basin battlegrounds or perhaps a dungeon or two, so let’s aim for that this Friday, April 29 at 6pm PST/9pm EST. Patch 4.1 just went through and it includes a new Guild Finder feature. 

There's no level restriction to join the guild -- level 1 characters are welcome

Basically, hit J to go to the guild menu, search for our guild based on your interests (hint: we are listed for Questing, Dungeons, and/or PvP), then send a request to join. You will still have to be online at the same time as I am when that request is approved, but if we’re planning an event at a specific time…that makes it easy. Everybody who wants in will be approved as soon as we all log in Friday night.

You may also insult Hugh to be accepted

Battlegrounds are level-restricted — my main character, cleverly named OneOfSwords, is currently in the mid-30s, so anybody who is level 30 to 39 will be able to play in my group easily. I hope we can put together another group in the 20s for people who haven’t quite gotten that far (we only have one level 40 at the moment).

So…let’s give it a shot and see how it goes. I don’t have a voice chat server, so don’t forget to /g in your chat window to talk to fellow guildies. Hope to see you there!

Careful podcast listeners probably heard Hugh accidentally mention plans for an official One of Swords World of Warcraft guild. This is something we’d been talking about quietly for a while, since several people have said they’d like to play with us. I am already an altaholic, so I figured this might be fun. I went looking for a PvE server that was located in the middle of the country that would minimize lag issues for anyone interested. And we found it, with an bonus in-joke.

When I was the EIC of the WoW official magazine, I hired Hugh to write a story about the lore of Doomhammer, the mace that Thrall wields. He wrote the story…and the story got bumped. Then got bumped again. It finally was printed, roughly a year after he wrote it, much to our collective surprise. So…no brainer there. We’re setting up on Doomhammer-US.

I have formed an Alliance guild there called One Of Swords, and even though I didn’t really want to call my character “Oneofswords” too, I did anyway, for a simple fact that Kat pointed out: If I didn’t claim the name, someone else would. Kat is “Celticat” and Hugh is “Disterbakov.”

No, that's not Devon. But the resemblance is striking.

This is purely a social guild. Do not be tempted to transfer your high-level characters; do not change your WoW lifestyle. We’re not going to be doing serious raiding; we’re not going to be requiring attendance. Be whatever you want to be, do whatever you want to do — do not worry about what kind of tradeskill we need or what kind of character we can use. Play for fun and we’ll all get together. Ideally I’d like to do Playing With Swords events every so often — you know, “everybody show up at this time and we’ll run Battlegrounds for a few hours together.” Or maybe, “hey, let’s go run this instance or dungeon together, for fun.” That’s about as far as it goes. It’s a way to have a public WoW presence without messing up my existing vibe.

Wanna join? Cool, you’re in. Just send me a note in-game or use the Guild Finder and look for us. I’ll work out a time to invite you in.

Well, that’s what I get for expecting a boring investor update. All kinds of info came out in today’s conference call — some good, some bad, and some that are sure to be slightly mangled by the rumor mill. You can read the full transcript yourself, but if that’s a bit daunting, here are the facts that matter if you’re a gamer:

What Was Said: First Strike DLC will come out on PlayStation 3 on March 3.
My Take: Huzzah! Glad there’s a firm date. PC gamers, look for it “later in the quarter.” As I hear more info, I’ll report back.

What Was Said: Call of Duty is coming to China with a free-to-play microtransaction business model (but not this year).
My Take: That’s all that was said; no details. But microtransaction games — like, fantasy MMOs where it’s free to enter the dungeon, but you can buy bits of armor and weapons if you want to upgrade quickly — are very common in China and South Korea, so this sounds like a case of making a game to fit the audience. If you’re a gamer in those territories, this news probably isn’t too surprising, and if you’re not a gamer in those territories, it doesn’t affect you, as you won’t be playing it. This is being built for China, where games like Call of Duty: Black Ops are not available for sale in stores. You get that, they get this.

What Was Said: A new studio, Beachhead, is being formed to work on online COD stuff.
My Take: Beachhead is, according to Bobby Kotick, “focused solely on the development of an innovative new digital platform and social services for our Call of Duty community.”  Eric Hirshberg says the platform has been in development for over a year and features “in-game integration.” Remember, Activision says it will “never, ever charge for the multiplayer” of COD games, and they really can’t go back on that — this will have to be something different. And just from that tease, it sounds like it is.

What Was Said: Something big will be announced at Toy Fair.
My Take: Eric Hirshberg spoke of “an all-new gaming universe that brings together the worlds of toys, videogames and online play in a way that I believe to be unprecedented.” It’s expected to launch late this year, and an announcement is coming at Toy Fair…which is a few days from now, so we won’t have to wait long. [Update: He was talking about Skylanders.]

What Was Said: Someone dropped the name “Family Guy.”
My Take: When talking about licensed franchises like Transformers, X-Men, and Cabela’s, Activision COO Thomas Tippl mentioned the phrase “Family Guy” among them. So…guess we’ll hear about that soon? I’ll poke around.

What Was Said: True Crime: Hong Kong is cancelled.
My Take: After the teases and glimpses we got last year, I was looking forward to seeing how this game would turn out. But it Activision says it’s a quality issue. “To be blunt,” said Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg, “it just wasn’t going to be good enough.” As a fan of quality games, I support this; if you don’t want to win, why enter the race? The developers, United Front Games, are independent (they did ModNation Racers for PS3 last year) and I’m interested to see what they do next.

What Was Said: The Guitar Hero business unit is going away.
My Take: When something is very successful, it’s not unusual to see companies restructure to cater to that success. GH was super hot for a while, so they created a special business unit for GH games. Now it’s cooled off, so there isn’t much need for a dedicated arm of the business to cater to it — time to reshuffle again. That does not mean Guitar Hero is dead, as some people have said, but it is taking at least 2011 off, and quite possibly more time. GH will remain an Activision franchise and the existing titles will still be supported [Update: I'd reported that DLC was still in development, but I was wrong. DLC development has been stopped too -- nothing past February. The source of my confusion is here.]. Mostly, the business unit thing is more an internal hierarchy/flowchart thing and won’t have a direct impact on gamers.

What Was Said: Headcount is going down.
My Take: That’s the nice way to say “there are layoffs.”  Eric Hirshberg and Thomas Tippl said it’s due to the restructuring and it impacts about 7% of the company’s global workforce, or around 500 people. I work with some of the folks who are leaving and I’m very unhappy about it.  It’s always unfortunate when people lose their jobs and, of course, it’s never done lightly — but it’s also worth noting that you rarely hear anything when people are hired back on. Thomas Tippl noted that they are also hiring up in other areas, so it might actually even out by the end of the year. If that happens, it’s not likely going to be reported.

That’s basically all the important stuff that I heard and all the details I was able to gather. Again, now that there is a transcript of the call online, you can read the original for yourself. If you have questions, I have my notes and a recording of the call, so I’ll try to answer below.

A few months ago, Activision pledged its support for President Obama’s Change the Equation initiative, which aims to raise the bar for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in America. This is something that I was very happy to hear about — I think educational charities don’t get nearly enough attention, so to see Activision Blizzard up there pledging support alongside other big companies like Google, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, and Epic Games (crossing my fingers for Gears of Math!) made me quite proud.

Right now there’s a video competition going on, where all the supporting companies get to show how they support STEM — or in the case of Activision developer Vicarious Visions, how STEM supports them. VV used its experience developing Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock for the Wii to illustrate STEM’s importance to the kids who visited from a local school:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you liked that, give it a Like on Facebook and/or YouTube. That’s how the contest works — you vote!

I have made no secret of the fact that my brain is wired for words, and the reason my career is writing about videogames instead of making them is because I do not have the necessary math and science aptitude to do that — I’ve tried. I’m actually jealous of people who can blaze through math problems and visualize complex programming relationships in their heads. I’d hope that future generations of geeks like me will have what it takes to reach their game-creation goals, and it really does start with a better background in STEM.

UPDATE: Kotaku’s Owen Good did a nice piece on this, and interviewed VV’s Karthik Bala to boot.

A few weeks ago, the Spike Video Game Awards nominees were announced. Activision and Blizzard games were up for a bunch of them. Saturday night, the show played out live, and several Activision Blizzard games did bring home the hardware.

Treyarch‘s Call of Duty: Black Ops won Best Shooter and Woods took home Character of the Year, FreeStyleGames won Best Soundtrack for DJ Hero 2, Neil Patrick Harris won Best Performance By a Human Male for his work on Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions, and Blizzard‘s Starcraft II won PC Game of the Year, plus Tricia Helfer won Best Performance by a Human Female for her work as Sarah Kerrigan.

Obviously, congrats to everyone who won — stiff competition this year, not that there’s ever an easy year. I’m curious to see how the AIAS awards play out in a few months.

The nominees for the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards were announced today, and Activision racked up an impressive 20. Call of Duty: Black Ops leads the Activision stable with seven nominations (the overall leader for the awards: Mass Effect 2, with 10, and Red Dead Redemption just behind it with nine) but I’m obviously happy to see many other games from this year get recognition (yay Blur!). The full list is available at the official VGA site, but these are the Activision nominees:

Call of Duty: Black Ops

• Game of the Year
• Best Shooter
• Best Multi-Player
• Best Song in a Game (Won’t Back Down by Eminem)
• Best Performance by a Human Male (Gary Oldman as Sgt. Reznov)
• Best Performance by a Human Male (Sam Worthington as Alex Mason)
• Best Performance by a Human Female (Emmanuelle Chriqui as The Numbers Lady)

DJ Hero 2

• Best Music Game
• Best Soundtrack
• Best Song in a Game (Replay / Rude Boy Mashup by Iyaz & Rihanna)

Blur

• Best Driving Game
• Best Performance by a Human Female (Danica Patrick as Herself)

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

• Best Soundtrack
• Best Song (Black Rain by Soundgarden)

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions

• Best Adapted Video Game
• Best Performance by a Human Male (Neil Patrick Harris as Peter Parker / Amazing Spider-Man)

James Bond 007: Blood Stone

• Best Performance by a Human Male (Daniel Craig as James Bond)
• Best Performance by a Human Female (Dame Judi Dench as M)

Goldeneye 007

• Best Song in a Game (Goldeneye by Nicole Scherzinger)

Transformers: War for Cybertron

• Best Adapted Video Game

Additionally, Blizzard Entertainment was nominated for Studio of the Year for its work on StarCraft II. Justified!

The VGAs take place December 11, and if you visit the official site, you can vote for Most Anticipated Game yourself.

Major congratulations to all the teams — it really is an honor to be recognized for your work with a nomination.

Today Activision hosted a conference call for its investors to discuss second-quarter earnings (Q2 games included Shrek Forever After, Blur, Singularity and Transformers: War for Cybertron, plus some of the Call of Duty map packs — Stimulus on PC/PS3, and Resurgence on 360).  I always like to listen in because interesting info crops up during these calls.

The news that matters to gamers was that True Crime: Hong Kong has been pushed to 2011. As with Blur and Singularity — both of which garnered decent reviews after delays — I’m actually happy to hear a game is going to get more time to be as good as it can be. COO Thomas Tippl said there will be more investment in the game as a result, so that’s good.

Call of Duty was of course a topic — you might be shocked to hear that Activision thinks it will be a big hit. During a question about the COD map packs and the reaction to their price, Tippl said “The success of the map packs speaks to the value we are providing.” (Honestly? He’s right — people who bought it did like it, and people who didn’t buy it are no doubt happy as well.) Bobby Kotick added, “We have gotten a large benefit from this very large install base. A lot of that learning will be incorporated into the functionality of Black Ops, improving the quality of the multiplayer beyond anything people have ever seen.”

Tony Hawk: Shred was also mentioned, noting it will offer skating and snowboarding, and “improved controls.” I’m very happy to hear that. (I’ve seen a tiny bit of those new controls and I am even happier). I am expecting something more on Shred soon.

The Bungie deal was also name-dropped; Tippl noted that Bungie’s team has what it needs and is up and running, building what he would only term as its “new universe.” I don’t think we’re going to hear anything but fleeting teases for a while.

In addition to saying the WoW: Cataclysm beta would soon expand to accomodate more players (currently it contains “tens of thousands”), Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime noted that, while StarCraft II is not part of the Q2 sales period, it moved 1.5 million units in the first two days, and an expansion pack is tentatively slated to appear before the end of the year (but “as with all Blizzard games, it won’t ship until it’s ready”). SCII will join Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions in Q3, so adjust the line graph on your fridge accordingly.

Isn’t better when I actually leave all the mind-numbing financial stuff out?

I didn’t want to say anything about the Real ID thing — Blizzard’s plan to link your real name to your forum posts — but now that Blizzard has said, “Okay, we won’t do that,” can I just throw one more log onto the fire? And this is a personal opinion.

Every negative I heard people cite about linking real-world identities to forum flamewars, I understand. The dangers of real-world stalking are real. The fact that unbalanced people might seek revenge in meatspace is all too plausible. All it takes is one nutcase and the media will be awash in headlines about “The WoW Killer” or something stupid like that (and they won’t be talking about a rival MMO). Opponents to the program, you had me at “But…” This implementation had some major downsides, and they were ultimately deemed too huge to proceed as planned. So Blizzard changed course.

Somewhere along the way, though, I think people lost sight of why Real ID really exists. When Mike Morhaime introduced Real ID on a conference call a few weeks back, it was explained with a much more altruistic angle — and that’s what the Real ID page says, too. “Forming and maintaining meaningful relationships with your friends on the service” is a truly noble goal, and when I say “I like Real ID,” that’s what I’m thinking about. It’s not just about accountability for nasty forum posts, though that’s clearly a benefit, and one I strongly support. I see Real ID as a statement about the gaming culture as a whole and its place in society at large.

Do you treat your online friends with any less respect than you treat your face to face friends? If so, why? And what’s stopping your online friends from becoming “real world” friends? In most cases, I’d bet a nickname is the only real difference. But if we can lower that barrier, I think gaming will continue to mature — when we treat each other with real-world respect, the skeptics can see there’s more to gamers than just flame wars and headshots. Real ID, for me, has the potential to validate online relationships and to remove some of the fear and misunderstanding that comes from unclear or guarded communication. That’s why I was eager to sign up for Real ID as soon as it went live in WoW — it could point the way to a major, positive cultural shift. If you’re going to dream, dream big, right? In the meantime, I am already enjoying that benefit of connecting with real world friends across different servers — which is Real ID’s ultimate goal.

So, as the takeaway from this very heated week, I don’t think the problem is Real ID — it’s the way Real ID can potentially be used (and, I should point out, was not ultimately used). Yes, this technology, like any other, can have negative impact. But you don’t throw away technology; you just use it differently. Blizzard announced a plan to use technology one way, then changed their mind about it based on feedback. It worked, but I don’t think people had to go to the extreme lengths they did to get their point across — I think people were raging against a machine that was already listening all along. Accountability and rational discussion seem to be the internet’s white whales.

But for all the negative reactions, I just hope people don’t discount the positive things this technology can bring, with time and more discussion and thought. There is more to Real ID than this idea. Don’t encourage the caveman to smash the frightening television.

And now, a public service announcement from OneOfSwords.

Another friend had his World of Warcraft account hacked this week. The thieves made off with loot from the guild bank as well as his personal gear. The Blizzard support staff was very helpful and informative; they traced the IP to a known Chinese gold farmer. Our stuff is being restored as we speak. But, of course, it sucks to be violated like that, and it’s needless work for Blizzard besides.

Sadly, this is the third person in my very small casual guild to have their account stolen. Each time I have asked them, “Well, you were using the Authenticator, right?” And each time they said, “No.” And then I start yelling obscenities.

The Battle.net Authenticator was created to solve this exact problem. Passwords are flawed because they are created by humans. It’s easy to create a password that is not secure. They can be guessed; they can be cracked with brute force. So, Blizzard created a way to add an extra layer of protection to keep the bad guys at bay. Their weapon in this epic battle: a keychain. Or, better still, a free iPhone/iTouch app or an Android app.

Best as I can figure it out, here’s how I think it works: Every Authenticator features one half of a random number generator. The keychains use six digits; the app uses eight. There’s a big black box somewhere deep within Blizzard that runs the other half of that RNG. No internet or wireless signal is needed; those two RNGs just are forever in love and forever in sync. So when you log into your Battle.net account to play a game, you enter the digits from the Authenticator along with your weaksauce human password. If that RNG matches the RNG on Blizzard’s side, you win. What’s more, there’s a bribe on the table to get you to use the Authenticator. You get a free in-game pet — the Core Hound Pup — as a reward for . He’s cute, in that weird molten-lava-dog way. He does tricks.

The Core Hound Pup

I have been using the Authenticator since it came to iPhone. I have never had a problem with it. It was free. If you don’t have an iPod Touch, iPhone, or Android device, the keychain is cheap — a whopping $6.50 — and the biggest problem is that it’s not in stock as often as people want it to be.

But it works. And since I have now properly chastised my guildmates for not using it, I urge every WoW player reading this to get on board and install the Authenticator right away. Get this going. It will save your account, your guild bank, and your sanity.

This has been a public service announcement from OneOfSwords. Now, back to losing Wintergrasp.

In my house, Sunday is WoW day. Kat and I play World of Warcraft with our friends and family in the afternoon and I always look forward to it. As if I needed to thrust more of my opinions on you, I recently was invited by the freshly redesigned Fraggs.Net to write an editorial, and I was feelin’ my oats about WoW when they asked.

Wanna lose Wintergrasp? Join my server!

After years of playing multiple alternate characters to run with various different groups of friends, my main character hit 80 and I’ve been trying the so-called “endgame” content — Battlegrounds, Heroic dungeons, and Wintergrasp. Two of those three are currently driving me nuts for a very simple reason: Lack of teamwork. Too many players, I find, know how to play the battle and assume that everybody else plays and thinks like them. There’s no communication until the battle is lost, so on my server, there is rarely any victory. I think it’s a serious social problem that affects a lot of players, so to affect positive change, I did what I always do: I whined about it.

My suggestion for their headline was “How Not to Win at World of Warcraft” but I got edited, so I’m usin’ it myself! :)

I started playing World of Warcraft at launch in 2004, took a year off, came back to it, started too many alt characters, and was the official magazine’s first Editor-in-Chief. And then I finally hit level 80 Sunday night.

It may sound silly to people who don’t play WoW, but hitting 80 was an important milestone. I celebrated with a glass of mead for extra geek cred. I have eight characters on this server, and I play different ones with different people, but this one was my main. Kat got her main character to 80 about an hour before I did, so we got to level together.

A few people have asked me why I play WoW, and, well, that’s really the reason. It’s not about the story, even though it is an incredibly detailed fantasy universe, and I do like the drama; it’s not about the gear, even though there are plenty of toys to acquire and oodles of enemies to slice and dice. It’s about the social aspect of the game, and the fact that I get to play with my friends and family. For me, jumping on once a week and being able to voice chat with my brother-in-law across the country or the friends I left back in San Francisco while we slaughter the indigenous residents of Azeroth wholesale is well worth the price of a subscription to me.

That social aspect is also one of the main reasons Kat plays. A lot of people have asked how they can get their significant other interested in games, and it’s something we discussed on the podcast. But Kat’s always said that it’s the social aspect that she likes. Nearly all her go-to games — Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Left 4 Dead 2, Borderlands — give her the chance to play with other people whose company she likes. Even when we played Civilization II, we played the single-player game as a co-op challenge, hovering over each other’s shoulders.

So that’s partly why it’s such a big deal for me to finally hit 80; it was never about mechanically acquiring new weapons and slaying spiders. The appeal of World of Warcraft is partly due to the people at the Blizzard who make the game — but I’d argue it’s also the people not at Blizzard who make the game.

When Blizzard opened the World of Warcraft pet store last year, there was much discussion and debate. “They’re trying to rip us off even more!” cried the critics. Others shouted back, “It’s an optional luxury purchase!” I stayed quiet, because there was nothing in the shop I really wanted to buy.

Until today. When I saw the Celestial Steed, I wanted it immediately. I mean, look at it. It’s just totally freaking awesome.

Hi-ho, Invisihorse, away!

The in-game mount — which features constellation-like bone structure and translucent wings — costs $25 of real money. But what is not immediately evident is that all of your characters get the mount. It’s bound to the account, so any character you now play or will play in the future on any server gets that Celestial Steed as a ground and flying mount. If you gain Artisan Flying, the Steed goes faster.

As I will sometimes publicly admit, I have 13 WoW characters across five servers. Eight of those are on the same server, split between Horde and Alliance. I’m probably swapping between three of them at any given time, depending on which group of friends I’m running with that day. And when Cataclysm comes out, I will no doubt start another character and check out the new stuff.

For me, this entertainment purchase is absolutely worth it. I’ll have it on all characters, anywhere, for as long as the game shall live. I know some people think it’s stupid to buy something virtual, an object that “doesn’t exist” — but when I think of how I want to spend some of my entertainment budget, other WoW stuff makes less sense. A WoW hoodie costs more. I wouldn’t be caught dead with a Horde wallet for the same price. And I already have this keen hat. The mount is no less functional than any of the above — it gets me places in game and makes it far easier to navigate the world. Plus, it will work in the post-Cataclysm original realms when the expansion comes out.

So I happily waited in the online line to get a Celestial Steed for my wife Kat, and then I got back in line to get one for myself. It was about a two-hour wait in both cases (regardless of the seven-hour counters that are being screenshotted). I think we’ll be very happy with our matching mounts.

$25 and I don't have to feed it? Better than a dog. You can't even ride a dog.

I’ve made my peace with this kind of DLC — I figure, it’s there if you want it, and doesn’t break gameplay if you don’t. What’s your thought? Am I totally silly and finding new ways to rationalize throwing money away, or does this kind of thing make sense to you?

This week, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions Associate Producer Kevin Umbricht talks about the game’s big coming-out party at WonderCon and gives us some hints as to what’s in store for the rest of the year. (He also busts me for a comic-related Freudian slip and explains why he is glad Gwen Stacy is dead.) Plus, Kat and I talk about cheap XBLA games, free MW2 sessions, pop-punk-emo, our fantasy lives as Transformers, some misinformation about Blizzard, our fantasy celebrity love interests, and why Blur is bigger than ever before.

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Special Guest: Kevin Umbricht, associate producer, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions

Soundtrack: Yameen – available on iTunes, Amazon MP3, and all online music stores

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