By Quintin Smith on May 5th, 2011 at 12:19 pm.
Do you have a mobile telephone? Nobody here at RPS has one, seeing as our preferred method of communication is bellowing at one another down long drainpipe-like devices of Jim’s own creation (the nagpipes, he calls them), but on the off chance you do have a mobile phone, and you play World of Warcraft, Blues reports that Blizzard has now started offering a week-long free trial of it’s World of Warcraft Remote service for “Android and iPhone”. Remarkable! You can get phones in your eyes now? I must consider getting one.
World of Warcraft Remotes retails at $2.99 per month and offers a couple of features at present. The first, Remote Auction House, lets you not just check on your auctions, but bid, buy and create auctions without your character needing to be at the in-game auction house, as well as being capable of notifying you while you’re in an important meeting that you’ve been outbit on those Leggings of the Winged Serpent. It also gets you the “unique ability” to re-list expired auctions.
The second, Remote Guild Chat, offers… remote guild chat. Which sounds nice.
To give the free trial a shot, simply download World of Warcraft Remote onto your phone this very minute. Do we have any long-term users out there?
05/05/2011 at 12:27 jon_hill987 says:
No Symbian love? It is well ahead of iOS and only just behind Android for user base.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Mobile_devices
05/05/2011 at 12:38 FalseMyrmidon says:
Why would you waste time developing something for a dying OS?
05/05/2011 at 12:38 Boozebeard says:
probably because it’s a terrible and dead operating system.
05/05/2011 at 12:42 Rii says:
The US-only numbers paint a different picture. And I imagine the Euro numbers are similar.
I don’t think Blizzard really cares about Symbian’s strong showing in Nigeria.
05/05/2011 at 17:14 Synchrony says:
symbian has about a 12% market share in europe and its dropping fairly quickly and most of that usage is in Italy and Spain, which don’t have that high of a player base for wow.
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/38347/ios-massively-outshines-android-europe
05/05/2011 at 22:04 theunshaven says:
To begin with, I was entirely bemused that someone had built WoW capable applications into a Sybian.
Then I realised my error! Ahhahhah… *Ahem.*
You have to admit though, that’d be pretty weird.
05/05/2011 at 12:28 Rii says:
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
05/05/2011 at 12:29 konrad_ha says:
“This is the end, my friend…”
05/05/2011 at 12:31 ran93r says:
This office needs nagpipes!
05/05/2011 at 12:44 Inigo says:
Ha, ha! I love April Fool’s D…
Oh Christ.
05/05/2011 at 12:48 Teddy Leach says:
My first thought was that it was an actual remote control that you could wave around in front of your monitor.
05/05/2011 at 12:47 Teddy Leach says:
So it’s an extra subscription on top of your normal subscription for something that sounds kind of redundant?
Admittedly, I don’t play WOW, but it SOUNDS redundant.
05/05/2011 at 12:57 Kdansky says:
People pay for getting the game played in their stead already. So yeah.
05/05/2011 at 14:01 pandora says:
But it is mobile redundancy.
05/05/2011 at 12:49 McDan says:
Eye-phones: they’re basically a HUD.
05/05/2011 at 13:47 Berzee says:
Eye-Phones: my vision is augmented.
05/05/2011 at 13:05 Land says:
It’s actually quite useful, but as soon as the free trial is over I will stop using it. Having to pay extra for this on top of your regular sub is just ridiculous.
05/05/2011 at 13:07 icupnimpn2 says:
I’m developing a Super Mario Brothers app for mobile phones that lets you sit at the title screen whenever you want. It’s got everything but the gameplay. Who needs that?
05/05/2011 at 13:10 zipdrive says:
3$ a month????
05/05/2011 at 13:23 Baboonanza says:
I could get 3 RPS subscriptions for that!
05/05/2011 at 13:24 Starky says:
Indeed
Bliz want more money from suckers?
Well they won’t get any from me.
Indeed
(Though I don’t play wow[any more], or own a android/i phone anyway)
05/05/2011 at 13:38 KauhuK says:
If I remember correctly the first I heard about such “service” was in news of Guild Wars 2 having the same kind of phone program (or app, as they call it) in the future.
05/05/2011 at 14:03 yougotnick says:
Yeah, Guild Wars 2 announced this first so WoW implemented before GW2 launched. ArenaNet also alluded to their service being free…
05/05/2011 at 13:50 cpy says:
This crap is not selling well, so they’re started trials. Great! I’m not buying this!
05/05/2011 at 14:03 Raiyan 1.0 says:
Yo dawg, we heard you like WoW, so we put WoW in your phone so that you can WoW when you drive and FUCKING KILL YOURSELF BECAUSE FOR THE LOVE OF CTHULHU WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PAYING FOR THIS?
*Sigh* I’m sorry for my lapse in civility. I’ve let the RPS readership down…
05/05/2011 at 14:05 lethu says:
EVE Online will be offering the same kind of app… for Free. The vision of masses of gold can clearly change a man…
05/05/2011 at 14:14 Chakawi says:
/Facepalm
05/05/2011 at 14:30 ThinKyX says:
In the future they have realy eyephones :
05/05/2011 at 14:46 abhishek says:
I don’t play WoW anymore but I imagine that this kind of service would have been pretty handy to me a few years ago when I still did. Ideally this should have been a free value added service to regular subscribers, but if not, a one time 3$ payment for the app would work too. Charging an extra monthly subscription for this sounds iffy. Then again, I bet most reservations towards paying extra for this are based on not wanting to pay out of principle rather than really caring paying an extra 3$ a month.
05/05/2011 at 14:56 davidgilbert says:
I’m confused as to why guild members can’t use e-mail to communicate with each other, and the auction house function while nice doesn’t seem essential. Not worth the monthly fee IMO even as a casual WoW player.
05/05/2011 at 15:10 Ginger Yellow says:
When I played WoW I used the (free) app without the subscription. It’s actually quite useful. You can track your auctions (though not bid or collect) and you can check for upgrades to your items (it tells you where they drop too).
05/05/2011 at 15:47 cjlr says:
Why, one could even play WoW with this active at the same time.
Truly we live in the future.
05/05/2011 at 17:40 Ginger Yellow says:
No, you can’t. You can’t be logged into both WoW and the Armoury at the same time.
05/05/2011 at 16:02 trjp says:
I think it’s hilarious they charge for this – when they already charge you to play the game anyway…
The cynical part of me thinks this will mostly appeal to people who make a job out of the game – and there’s plenty of those. My old guild master was the worst/harshest boss I’ve ever had, when I met him years later in real life he was surprised I wasn’t his best mate! :)
05/05/2011 at 16:17 Warth0g says:
05/05/2011 at 16:18 Warth0g says:
Don’t play Wow so admittedly this is really none of my concern, but this is insane. Anyone who stumps up a sub for something so minor – when they’re already paying a sub for the game – should be shot. It’ll just encourage similar greed by other developers. So do us all a favour, and stay away people…
05/05/2011 at 17:05 f4Ri says:
What ArenaNet will offer for free Blizzard charges 3 bucks a month for. Food for thought…
05/05/2011 at 17:53 Hmm-Hmm. says:
It’s interesting to see what people will swallow (and pay for readily). Especially when it regards a well-established game like World of Warcraft. I guess Blizzard realises they can get away with millking (a decent percentage) of their target audience for things nobody would epect to have to pay for when it would regard a different game.
05/05/2011 at 18:47 Pointless Puppies says:
It’s the wonders of brand loyalty.
05/05/2011 at 18:57 neolith says:
This is a new low.
06/05/2011 at 04:07 Dances to Podcasts says:
It’s almost as bad as hats!
05/05/2011 at 20:59 Jigsaw says:
Looks interesting …trying it out now. 3$ / month is not that much …. let’s see what it can do.
05/05/2011 at 22:18 trooperdx3117 says:
Come on guys dig deep, if we dont pay for this how are blizzard going to afford their yachts, rockets cars, solid gold house ans champagne jacuzzis! Some people are just so inconsiderate
06/05/2011 at 04:32 DCCTV says:
It’s not micro-transactions and these sort of payment models that I have a problem with, it’s that the cost is always disproportionate to the costs of gaming as we’ve become accustomed to them. If you want “everything”, it’s going to cost you less to buy a full retail game with all the addons than some of these “F2P” games by a long shot.