World of Warcraft – Deeds, Chance & Community Chest Sets

Now I’ve updated my World of Warcraft Monopoly board, click this thing to see it, I thought it best to give the Title Deeds, Chance and Community Chest sets a face lift. I haven’t changed a lot as they looked kind of okay. Sharpened the graphics up and adjusted a few bits and pieces to match the new board. I figure someone somewhere might want to download the new sets.

I haven’t changed the Money Set as it still looks pretty decent. Click here to see it. There are 2 versions, one with a uniform colour, and a second with variations in colour for the different denominations.

New Title Deeds

Click the image below to make it all big and shiny. Some of these files are pretty big so be patient if you have a slow internet connection. I was tempted to scale the quality down when exporting the image, to reduce the file size, but that would mean loss of quality should anyone want to print them off.

Title Deeds Front: File Size = 6mb. Pixel Size = 2990 x 1930.

Title Deeds Rear: File Size = 6.5mb. Pixel Size = 2990 x 1930

Chance Horde Set: File Size = 14mb. Pixel Size = 4200 x 5350.

Community Chest Alliance Set: File Size = 16.5mb. Pixel Size = 4200 x 5350.

NEW World of Warcraft Monopoly!

Back in December 2010 I created a Monopoly board based on World of Warcraft (WoW), a game I was very into at the time. Click this thing to go take a look at it. It’s probably more than a little nerdy to spend so much time crafting a board about a game, especially for a game that’s also considered nerdy. Aside from writing I love graphic design projects like these, they’re relaxing and rewarding.

After I’d posted my article I put the finished design on deviantArt along with a complete set of Title Deed cards, money, Chance & Community Chest sets. I figured someone might enjoy them as much I did creating them. Funny thing is that every often my visitor stats go berserk for a couple of days as a few thousand people come to my blog to look at the monopoly board I designed. This increased dramatically when Blizzard, the creators of World of Warcraft, announced they were launching a Monopoly board game of their own.

Surge in Stats!

In February, 2012 I received over 11,000 visits just from people looking at my WoW Monopoly board! I was shocked. I guess since my own creation had been picked up by search engines it was going to get a lot of attention. A few days ago, Wednesday 20th June, I had another rush of visitors, just and a thousand, most of which were popping by to peek at the monopoly board again.

This got me thinking. I’ve had a lot of emails from people asking where they can buy my WoW board from. I reply and say you can’t buy it, but Blizzard now have their own. Some reply and say they prefer mine, and a few have left comments saying how much they like by board.

My Challenge.

I rooted around in my files, dug out my board and set to work on an upgrade. I had a look at Blizzard’s board, it was pretty good, it had to be coming from such a big company.  I set myself a challenge – to revamp my board and bring the quality of graphics and design as close to that of the official one. Whilst I don’t have oodles of money to spend on design staff with art degrees, or a hugely powerful PC with fancy graphic design software, I think I’ve done an okay job with this new one.

So, take a look for yourself. It’s a bit different to the one back in 2010, the places are clearer and sharper. The graphics are better too, and I’ve added a few extra details to the lettering, shadow effects, embossed and so on. The image is 4mb in size and 2000 x 2000 pixels.

Click the image below to take a look BIGGER!

I’m very pleased with how it turned out. I’ve kept the central image because it really captures the games essence. I removed the parchment effect and used a cleaner looking graphic. Some of the icons have been changed too for a neater look. Overall it looks cleaner and brighter than my previous version. From start to finish this one took about 5-6 hours to complete. I did a bit every night for about a week whilst watching Family Guy.

I’ve seen a few other boards designed by enthusiasts and they don’t match up to mine. Apologies if that sounds big-headed but it’s the truth. Well, apart from the official one, which looks okay, I guess. I don’t like their font style or colours for the fonts much, they look a bit plain.

Well there it is. Thought I’d share this little creation with you, dear blog reader, to show you that I’m not always writing! As for playing WoW itself, I still hang out with my druid now and then, run a few quests and soar about the sky.

So, let me know what you think!

Man On The Edge

Until that day Nathan Greenway never believed in second chances.

“Life isn’t a rehearsal,” Nathan told his friends.

He knew it was a cliché but he’d said it anyway. To his surprise his friends bought it and they set out into the wilderness. Seven days of hiking, swimming, camping and a stack of quality memories they hoped would stick with them for a life time. Not just photos on Facebook, LOL’d at for a few months to be replaced with generic faces leering at the camera. Nathan wanted his mates to remember their trip together until they died.

For some that didn’t mean until old age.

As Nathan sat on the edge of the outcrop he could hear the sounds in the distance. They’d find him sooner or later. He could have scrambled back and hunted for another way down but part of him didn’t want to. His seat at the very tip was the end of the road. Were the good times really over? Was that it? Life, done and dusted. Over. Finito.

The skies were clear and despite the cool wind rushing up at him, the sun was warm on his face. The lake below was a vast mirror, and the trees on the shore looked tiny, like something from a scale model. It felt surreal, like a mirage or a collection of sensations from that feeble half-sleep before your brain fully switches over to dream land.

Nathan closed his eyes and let his body relax by a tiny fraction. He had never been so tired in his life. Every muscle in his body screamed in pain and all he wanted to do was float away on a soft feather bed, let the world below him fade to grey as the deepest darkest sleep softly enveloped his weary mind.

He encouraged that half-sleep to ease aside the real world for a moment.