A few weeks ago, we first talked about Dr. Edd Schneider and his take on how World of Warcraft and other MMOs could serve as English teaching tools. English is of course the language of business and, with the wide scope of WoW and other MMOs, this idea could just work.

After that, not much has been said about it...until now. Gamasutra was able to interview Professor Schneider and learn more about bridging the language gap by using WoW and other MMOs. When he was asked what inspired him to start connecting American and Chinese players, he candidly replied that it was all about marketing at first. But then, he had a nagging thought...

games are supposed to let us play together, then for a lot of MMOs they split everyone up on servers. I think that's totally asinine. If you play WoW, wouldn't you like to play against the best players from China? Everyone would say "yes." What we're hoping people are going to do is say, 'Let's make an ESL-friendly server. Tell the Americans that not everyone is going to have perfect English, but they're going to want to learn."

So with that thought in mind, he proceeded with the project. He assigned one of his classes to teach some students of Chibuo High School in Shanghai by using any game. The students chose WoW, Scrabble, and other casual games. And that subject was a hit with the Chinese students. Now, they are planning on putting together a summer camp - Asian kids would be taught to learn English. He continued by saying:

We're also looking to connect high school students in America and China. That way they could develop long-term relationships. They could start in ninth grade and play in the same guild until they graduate. As for what games we'll use, we're still trying to decide. There are a lot of Korean games that are totally free so I think that's what we'll go with. That way it's not a money thing.

Let's just hope that game developers would find this appealing and would lend a hand with this project.

 

Yesterday, we reported about that April Fool's prank about The Black Temple Attunement. Just in case you didn't catch that report, players are required to catch a fish called Djakar (you'll need 520 in fishing), turn in 500 Badges of Justice and 100 Marks of Honor, defend a city from the Illidari invasion for six hours and pay the damages done to the cities. April Fool's joke? Yeah, we hope so too.

Anyhow, this next tidbit is no April Fool's prank. Over at the World of Warcraft European site, we have uncovered some new info on the new Priests of Baa'ri faction. From the site, we found out that this draenei order has close ties with the priesthood of the Temple of Karabor, which is now known as the Black Temple. Now, they are looking for new allies to help them reclaim the Temple of Karabor from the grasp of the Illidans.

As for the faction rewards, the Priest of Baa'ri could be willing to sell to you patterns to craft holy resistance gear of all armor types, a new type of spellthread with +healing and holy resistance, and an armor kit with holy resistance. They could be willing to do that but that would depend on how friendly you are with them. Check out our link below to know more about this faction.

We first gazed on World of Warcraft's Azuremyst Isle last January. The place is of course the Draenei's starting zone and back then we didn't know that this place is such a beauty that one could only wish that something like this really exists (and we know that there are a lot of scenic spots in this world). Here, judge for yourself.

Now, ain't that grand? This was featured at WoWInsider's Around Azeroth segment. This shot features the coast of Darkshore and that boat would be taking you to Azuremyst Isles. Ywain of Eonar submitted this picture and it was also mentioned that before The Burning Crusade was released, riding this boat is dangerous - players who try to ride it are killed. How could something so serene-looking be so deadly?

 

Over at the World of Warcraft European forums, some questions are brewing regarding some Arena Tournament rules. Shadowish brought up two valid inquiries that you guys may also find useful. First, he asks why some countries with WoW-selling retailers are not eligible to participate. The guy is from Israel and it seems he to wants to join the Arena Tournament.

His second question is about Section C of the Arena Tournament. He said (verbatim):

this part is abit counfusing here there are a few places stated as not eligable but the reason they are writen is becsue they are a part of the eligable countries? Also if I do play on an eligable region like an EU english server does this mean that I can participate or am I still unable becsue my country isn't in the list of places blizzard stated that its leagal residants can participate?

Thank heavens that Ommra and his dancing Tigerlily-lookalike avatar is on deck to answer these questions. The Blizzard poster said that:

While we would like all World of Warcraft players to be able to take part in the Arena Tournament, there are various legal factors leading to residents of some countries, states, and territories not being eligible to participate. These factors include but are not necessarily limited to:

• Requirement to have purchased a copy of a game and/or pay a monthly fee to participate
• Limits on the monetary value of the prize offered
• Requirement that a contest sponsor (Blizzard, in this case) have a company presence within the borders of the country, state, or territory in which the participants reside

For more information on who is eligible for the Arena Tournament, please visit the Ruleset page. We appreciate your understanding in those cases when eligibility has been limited due to these or other factors, and we will continue to work to include as many countries as possible in all of our competitions.

Blizzard, the brains behind World of Warcraft, is expanding into Austin, Texas - the Cradle of Gaming. Apparently, the Irvine, California-based company would be setting up a customer support center in the city.

The Blizzard office in Austin will be housing game masters, quality control, I.T., and human resource folks. A Blizzard rep also mentioned that the Austin office "is all in-house Blizzard people. It’s not going to be made up of third party providers".

This move by Blizzard confirms a recent report in the Austin Business Journal which mentioned that Blizzard is setting up house in Austin. This was so because the company has secured a 46,000 square foot office building in the Northeast Austin area and that they are planning on employing 500 people. To that, Blizzard replied that the 500-employee figure is just a tad too much and that they will simply hire people as needed.

Before you go out to search for the mysterious Azeroth and Outland locations, Traproot from the World of Warcraft forums has a very basic question to ask - "Why isn't there a DVD version of WoW/WoWBC?". He mentions that re-installing both WoW and The Burning Crusade at the same time is  such a pain since you have to go through 9-10 discs. Other posters are asking the same thing, so thank heavens that Blizzard poster Drysc cleared the air and said:

The Collector's Editions contain DVD's, so that's a possible solution if you can find a copy. You can also create your own DVD by copying all of the Tome files into a single directory and then burning the contents of that directory as a DVD. Instructions on how to copy those files can be found here http://www.blizzard.com/support/wow/?id=aww01635p but the burning portion you'll have to figure out yourself with whatever software you use to do so. I believe you can also still obtain demo discs from some retailers, for the original game only of course, for a dollar or two.

He also adds that "when creating your own DVD from the CD's you already own, as I outlined and linked to, the game installs exactly the same as it would if you had the Collector's Edition DVD. Seamless."

It's been quite a while since we've given you a healthy serving of World of Warcraft mods. So to pick up where we left off, we're giving you three WoW mods for your Outland and Azeroth travels, but in case you don't know what to do with them, we suggest you read up on our past article. Our WoW mods for today are AtlasLoot Enhanced v2.03.03, HealPoints v2.4.1, and BGSoundAlerts 2.

Let's start with the AtlasLoot Enhanced v2.03.03 from Daviesh. This map enhancement mod is a plugin and it needs a host mod to work. For this one, a host mod in the form of Atlas or Alphamap should do the trick. Here's the patch notes for this release:

v2.03.03

• Magtheridon fix for non-english clients

v2.03.02

• Fixed outland maps included with Atlas 1.8.6

After that map enhancement mod is a class enhancement mod - Eridan's HealPoints v2.4.1. This is a healer benchmark add-on which is similar to TankPoints for tanks. Designed for healers so as it would be easier for them to choose the most optimal gear. It would display all your needed basic stats and a few advanced benchmarks - PowerPoints and EndurancePoints.

Then we move on to BGSoundAlerts 2 by Klishu. This battleground mod will add vocal (spoken) sounds to important events in the Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley, and Eye of the Storm battlegrounds. Check out our link below to know the events currently supported by this mod.

Download: AtlasLoot Enhanced v2.03.03
Download: HealPoints v2.4.1
Download: BGSoundAlerts 2

It's been quite a while since we talked about Play.d - the free, monthly games magazine. Now, we're pleased to tell you that the folks behind it have unleashed the sixth issue - complete with a new look and new website. In this issue, you would be able to read Tim Lewinson of Relic and Luke Smith of 1UP.

Lewinson talks about the history of Relic, Company of Heroes, community support, and his views on Gears of War. You would also find a Relic competition featuring exclusive prizes. Luke Smith, on the other hand, talks about the transformation of 1UP and why he used to play World of Warcraft every day.

There are also reviews of titles such as Final Fantasy XII and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. and previews of Halo 3 and Half Life 2: Episode 2 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360). Check out the screens to know what your grubby hands would be getting, and if you decide to get it, just click on our download link below.

   

Download: Play.d Issue 6

 

Feeling a bit dazed and confused about how many rotating players are allowed for you to have in an arena team? Well, you're not alone in your confusion as a lot of people have been asking about it - to the point that Blizzard poster Nethaera had to clarify some stuff regarding Arena teams. So to avoid any confusion, we give the floor to Nethaera. He says:

You can have double the number of players. So for a 2 v 2 team you can have 4 people on your team. Two of those would be the benchwarmers. In order for the alternates to get arena points though, they would need to participate in (I believe) 30% of the matches.

So the breakdown of how many members on a team is the following:

2 v 2 Team- 4 players total
3 v 3 Team- 6 players total
5 v 5 Team- 10 players total

How you work out who to put in and when is strictly up to you.

There, that was pretty concise and clear, right? Anyhow, be sure to keep checking us out for more updates, clarifications, and mods of World of Warcraft.

After giving you a huge serving of World of Warcraft collection mods, we think it's about time that we go back to the basics. So what mod goodies do we have here for y'all? As a way of going back to the basics, we have here three simple Interface bar mods, which were all created by mod author, Flickor; and all of them starting with the letter 'p'. Here we go.

First off is the pBar - a small mod to easily hide the mainbar. With it comes some easy commands - /pb (shows the mainbar), /pb h (hides the mainbar), and /pb help (displays help in chat window). Flickor gives his props to haste for helping him with the code.

Next up is the pMinimap. This one will easily hide the minimap, with options to show it if it's needed. If it's shows, you could see it in the top-middle of the screen. Again, it has some easy commands - /pm (shows the minimap), /pm h (hides the minimap), and /pm help (displays help in chat window).

The last of them is pScroll. This is made specifically for those people who wants to remove the buttons on the chatframe and be able to scroll in chat with your mouse, without having to use those larger mods out there. The only problem with this one is that it has an 'easy script' so it can be broken. If that ever happens, just do '/console reloadui', and you're all set again. Again, Flickor thanks haste for helping him out with this one.

Since all of these 'p' mods are itsy-bitsy downloads, we have compiled all three of them so as it would be more convenient for you. With all that said, the download link's down there. Enjoy!

Download: [WoW Interface Bars mods: pBar, pMinimap, pScroll]