'World of Warcraft' on an iPhone… For Real?
posted by arn on April 25th, 2009 12:32 AM EDT in Rumors, Upcoming GamesMost of you have probably seen World of Warcraft-on-iPhone claims/videos/mock-ups before, but this time it looks like it might actually be true.
Someone posted this YouTube video of World of Warcraft running on an iPhone:
A few interesting things to note. The game is running in the Vollee client, an application from a mobile company whose main purpose is to develop software to allow mobile 3G phones to play CPU intensive PC applications over the network. From an interview:
Through the VolleeX engine, we can take full PC games, MMOs or even virtual worlds and stream them to any 3G enabled handsets. This means that you can now access games or full persistent online worlds right from your mobile handset. It's a real step forward for mobile games as you can now have meaningful connected experiences on your handset.
Vollee's first public demonstration of the product showed off Second Life on a mobile phone. Vollee has announced a partnership with ActivisionBlizzard making a World of Warcraft port a possibility — one that people have been speculating about for some time. And as a final piece to the puzzle, Vollee said back in 2008 that they will be supporting the iPhone.
When questioned about the functionality of the app, the poster of the video claims it's a "fully working app."
So, there you have it… a very convincing video (or a very intricate hoax).
Thanks MICHAELSD
OMG!!!!! Probably wouldn't be good for raids but for casual play WOWWW!!!!!!!!!!! (literally
)
I am not a fan of WoW at all but this looks like, if its real (which i think it is, it looks pretty real to me), could open doors for a lot of other MMOs to be made and/or ported
good try! almost made me to reopen my acc.
i wish they would port other games for the itouch….i dont care for wow though
Oh, [edited] was my fake name for my Yahoo account. MICHAELSD was the name that I wanted you guys to go by. Pretty interesting video. That was a lucky find on my part
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thanks. noted.
It's even more interesting that this is running over ATT's current 3G network. The final app is probably going to run really smoothly over ATT's updated 3G network and over wifi.
Woah, that's sick! Too bad I quit playing about a year ago.
I'm a bit confused with the bluetooth thing. Is it running on the beta 3.0 update?Please don't post anything disrespectful to the reply of this comment.
That is a feet- and if they actually do release that so many people will just get an Iphone for that. i wonder what it would cost.
So this is just a glorified VNC running over network to a home pc? If so, I'm not very impressed.
It's more than just VNC. Vollee developed a special interface that runs on the iPhone for the game that collects information from the WoW servers, then the gameplay part shown is streamed from a special instance of the game running on your computer and is compressed through Vollee's servers so there's lag that's less than a second. So Vollee develops a special interface, creates playable controls, and compresses the video so it looks smooth. There's no way that this could be playable over VNC. Over wifi this will be really smooth.
how can u not be impressed to see WoW on an iphone… thats ignorant lmao
I think this is real because Vollee has a partnership with Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft and they have also been able to port Second Life to mobile phones.
How much bandwidth does this use? We don't have an unlimited plan offered in Canada….
Neither does the U.S., it's capped per month with AT&T.
not really, you're not going to hit the usual 5GB limit with an iPhone app.
arn
Yeah, but if you consider how addicted some people are to WoW and that this app is using the most bandwidth that it can whenever it's running, you've got a good chance. You can probably reach 1-3GB after playing for about a hundred minutes, depending on your area and how it adjusts the compression (it probably adjusts it depending on your speed, so in NYC where you get a 150 kbp/s or lower speed the game will run and look terrible, but in NJ where you can get a 1MB-1.5MB/s speed, the game will run smoothly over 3G, but it'll use a lot of data.
Yeah it's easy to rack up data usage, especially those of us who's iPhones are the only internet access we use. I wouldn't have time for an MMO but there are plenty who would and that would sky rocket usage for some.
I just checked my usage and I'm at almost 2.5g for the last 3 weeks. Yeah an MMO would fnd it pretty easy to reach the AT&T cap.
Don't forget the iPhone/iPod touch has a battery guys, people aren't going to be playing WoW for hours on end with their iPhone, running this would probably sap your battery entirely in less than an hour. I think this is more of a "line-waster," or quick AH/Mail checker, not necessarily an actual medium to play the game for long periods of time. (and if you are in a position to play for long periods of time, chances are you're computer isn't too far away) So I really doubt the bandwidth cap will be an issue.
-aj
http://www.vollee.com/ is down, and it appears as if the company may be dead… the news of this project originates as far back as like… july of last year… is any of this still relevant anymore? Is the company still alive?
i wouldnt be surprised if the reason the website is down, is because everyone is trying to access it.!
site was live as of March 30th based on Google's cache.
http://dev.vollee.com seems to work.
i hope this would work on an ipod touch
Pretty sure this is a hoax. Look at the edges of the screen on the iPod, and see the blurring. Also, notice how the z-axis never changes (the screen is always perfectly flat with the camera, because it would be easier to fake that than to skew the image on screen…)
I can't see any blurring around the edges of the Touch/Iphone being used. I went and did a Google search for Vollee and besides there website link, video's for 2nd Life come up. If you watch those YouTube videos they look very similar to this one. I think this is a pretty legit video and Vollee has already proven they can make MMORPG's playable on smart phones like the Iphone.
Looks to be real to me – I mean, seriously, it's believably choppy enough. If they wanted to pull off a hoax, why not go all the way and make it super smooth with sound effects.
This looks very polished!
However this will only work for some casual things like visiting the auction house or low-level grinding. Standard WoW Interfaces have 50 buttons and/or shortcuts and more…
omg! Why oh why does this have to happen? Now we're going to hear reports about people burning their hands because they've been on their iPhone too long, let the game die already :eh:
Let the game die already? LMAO. The game is far from dying. But you keep on dreaming, bucko.
you bet, the jonas brothers are still alive and they can't even sing! Why should the life of medicority be contained to only music?
Give me Lord of the Rings Online, and I'm sold
I'll be picking this up asap whether or not its exspensive.
wow (pun intended)
At first I was thinking great sample, totally unworkable beyond lvl 5 THEN I thought: hey bank alts are level one – OMG this is totally a farm-boi's dream! Keeping track of auctions is a totally viable use for this LOL
At first I was going to be like there's no way especially since the psx emulator barely play's Roms but if it's a seperate video being played from your computer for which map a couple of controlls for whatever keys they are on the keyboard I can tottally see this… I wonder what the prices will be like though LOL free for the app but u gotta have a membership to vollee for useing bandwith so it's like 10 dollers a month to use the desktop software? I can see that too… If they can do this imagine what they will be able to do in the future.
I'd be thrilled if I could just stand in one spot and fish for a little bit while I'm at work. Don't kid yourself onto thinking you'll be able to run 25 man Naxx with this technology, never gonna happen. That's not to say it doesn't have some seriously good uses. I'd give 'er a whirl.
HAHA the phone is jailbroken. Apple wouldnt be too happy!! I just noticed the numerical battery:) Jailbreaking ftw!
And this would be amazing. I've been looking for this for a long time.
Actually, if I remember right, 3.0 includes an option to display battery capacity as a percentage. This just might be on the 3.0 beta firmware.
Yeah, but he is also using a custom Carrier logo, so he is Jailbroken.
WOW is not my cup of tea, if they did something like this for Runescape however, it would be a different story.
Where the heck is my Ultima online?
Ultima > WoW.
Seriously though if this is real (Looks legit to me) this is going to change iPhone gaming like never before… I tried WoW, never really got into it, but if I could get it on the iPhone I would make an account.
EITHER THIS GUY HAS HUGE HANDS OR THAT IS A MINI IPHONE.
HOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAXXXXXXXXXXX
That's exactly what mine looks like.
???
My hands are average and I can fit the Iphone in the palm of one of my hands. For a smart phone it's really not that big.
so in order to use this… my computer (which would stream wow graphics) has to be turned on?… then its not so exciting
AT&T will block this.
Not if it can make them more money….
I agree. I thought they'd block it too, but if you think about how more money they'd be rolling in with WoW, I be they'd allow it.
is fakeee
I love the whole idea somehow, my dichotomy being the thought of WoW on such a small screen which makes not an awful lot of sense to me. Even on my Macbook I yearned to have a bigger screen to really feel like I was in the world more. I think this (if it truly is real) would be more for the established WoW player who needs his or her fix on the go. I have personally been through 'WoW Anonymous' and don't need any more reasons to get back into that…….
An MMORPG on the iPhone is certainly very possible. We have a natively running Furcadia client running on the iPhone that's 99% and works quite well. I don't think I'd want to do a streaming video based client instead though – there's going to be more lag for the users, less consistent quality and responsiveness, tons more bandwidth usage, etc. It is an interesting approach in that it lets you access a lot of PC games without the extra time and effort of writing an iPhone native client. In the end though, I think iPhone native apps are going to win out over the less responsive streaming remote control approaches, though.
who said anything about streaming video? it says CPU-intensive. your CPU will be handling all the CPU parts of WoW – sending JUST the UI, graphics updates, etc. to be rendered on-phone. Like a dumb terminal with a 3d card. it seems like possible tech. to me. remember the iphone's 3d graphics aren't near tapped out yet.
which is to say, all the iPhone needs is the UI elements, 3d graphics assets, etc. while the computer tells it what to do with them, i.e. "place the camera here, the characters here, etc." – very low-bandwidth
GREAT… if it works on the ipod touch as well as the iphone, n e one know if you would need anything other then wi fi?
Before everyone gets excited, this is not WoW on the iPhone… it is using a sort of streaming technology (similar to a few services announced at GDC this year for desktop game streaming).
That will be against the Blizzard terms of service so, this product if it is even viable, won't be coming any time soon from this company or anyone… And Blizzard themselves wouldn't do it because the quality level would bring a support nightmare/firestorm.
A MMO on the iphone would be a great idea and WoW this means a whole new type of addiction, but i can't watch the video because its private can any one help me.
maybe bizzard would have iphone servers that would cut down on all the confusion.
Sorry but there will never be enough screen real estate to fully play WoW on the iphone. I see two practical uses: Access to Chat and the Auction House. Wouldn't require anything extensive graphically, and can keep you connected/making money.
Not sure if anyone bothered to investigate a little before calling it a hoax… http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/04/25/world-of-warcraft-on-the-iphone-heralds-end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it/
Stiil i dont see much use to it. The cellphone (in this particular case the iphone) battery will die fast and its not like you get the great graphical experience you get on a mac/pc. Its a great proof of concept for other, possibly more relevant, stuff.
Good surfing!
It would be nice if we could see the video.
Uh, the video doesn't work. Thanks for nothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNPSyqLEFZI&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecrunchgear%2Ecom%2F2009%2F04%2F25%2Fworld%2Dof%2Dwarcraft%2Don%2Dthe%2Diphone%2Dheralds%2Dend%2Dof%2Dcivilization%2Das%2Dwe%2Dknow%2Dit%2F&feature=player_embedded
See if this works. Not sure it will by just copying and pasting, but the video itself was up as of right now at this link.
This seems like it would work very much like OnLive, presented at GDC, where they render all of the game on their cloud-computing infrastructure, then send the video to your computer/console (or iPhone in this case). In their demonstration they showed a lower-end notebook running crysis.
Here's the HD version of the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLa-_QScUt0&fmt=18
Here is original video removed from YouTube
http://www.iphonenewstracker.com
HI THERE WOW WORLD OF WARCRAFT ON A IPHONE I MIGHT BE ABLE TOO GET IT ON MY IPHONE AND SPRINT INSTICT FROM SAMSUNG THATS RIGHT I LIKED 2 CELLPHONE WITH DIFFERNT FEATUERS SOO I HAVE 2 CELLPHONES I WOUDER IF I CAN PLAY MULTI-PLAYER ON 2 PHONES AT ONE TIME THERE GOSE THE PHONE BILL UNFORTANLY I HAVE THE UNLIMITED DATA PLANE
This is what we thought after seeing this video, we just went and made a comic-strip about it:
http://www.epictail.com/2009/04/29/ifriends/
Seems easy to believe. I've run wow on my iPhone using vnc software. I couldn't get a good framerate. But you could enable click to move and do things like kill easy enemies or check the AH.
Well, this is just a logic development. In 10 years we will see those zombies everywhere, staring at small screens all the time.
I for one will buy it if it does come out. Whatever the price. Only way I'll get any gaming done with 2 kids in tow.
"Hang on baby, Mommy's gotta kill this murloc first."
I can see it happening though. Perhaps on a smaller offline scale.
If this is real will you be able to create a new account on the game?
Everyone keeps referring to VNC, when in reality the Vollee app in operation is really more like Citrix. Look up Citrix farms and see what I mean…