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Wii Fit hacked to work with WOW

With Wii Fit's popularity making the game near-impossible to find and World of Warcraft's subscriber base nearing 11 million, it was just a matter of time before the two collided in some form. That form, as it turns out, is a project at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence which could augur the combination of real-world exercise and in-game raiding.

In a YouTube video creatively titled "User Interactions with the Wii Balance Board," grad students Matthieu Deru and Simon Bergweiler showed off how they hacked the peripheral to control movement inside World of Warcraft. According to the tech-blog Technabob, the pair connected the balance board to a PC running a special homebrew application which translated on-board motions into in-game movement via Bluetooth connection. For about a minute, they guided two characters on a brief stroll through Azeroth.

Whether by oversight or design, Deru and Bergweiler chose not to have players walk in place on the board, as some Wii Fit minigames do to often exhaustive effect. Instead, they change the characters' orientation by leaning forwards and backwards, and then lean forward or backwards for movement in those various directions.

Category: Bulletin
Posted by thorsen-ink, Jun 16, 2008 6:04 pm PT   127 Comments

Comments

Whistlebuta

Posted Jun 16, 2008 6:09 pm PT

Maybe some basement dwellers will lose some weight

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  • 112 of 131 users agree
destrozz

Posted Jun 16, 2008 6:29 pm PT

lol

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  • 12 of 18 users agree
The_AI

Posted Jun 16, 2008 6:31 pm PT

Wow...

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  • 15 of 21 users agree
Ground_Zero

Posted Jun 16, 2008 6:32 pm PT

rightio then

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  • 8 of 14 users agree
Pyro77

Posted Jun 16, 2008 6:43 pm PT

My guild will now require Wii Balance Board along with working mic and Vent.

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  • 39 of 43 users agree
GeigerdolylWodd

Posted Jun 16, 2008 6:48 pm PT

If these guys can do this for a nonskiing nonfitness game like World of Warcraft why can't regular deveopers do th same for other games on the Wii? I still wouldlike to see a new Mike Tyson's Punchout

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  • 20 of 22 users agree
Expo_Smacko

Posted Jun 16, 2008 6:59 pm PT

Haha, thats odd.

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  • 7 of 11 users agree
yohan7

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:00 pm PT

this is awsome!!! just another step toward virtual reality!

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  • 21 of 25 users agree
dn3datomiced

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:00 pm PT

That sounds positively awesome. I'd like to be able to physically interact with my video games more often. Maybe then I'd have washboard abs.

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  • 11 of 14 users agree
brujos_corpse

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:06 pm PT

"WoW Fit" lol

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  • 34 of 38 users agree
gonzalezj1

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:13 pm PT

"they change the characters' orientation by leaning forwards and backwards, and then lean forward or backwards for movement in those various directions."

Ah, so it works kind of like a Segway.
Well, except while you do look stupid on both, at least you're actually going somewhere on a Segway.

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  • 13 of 18 users agree
MrNib

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:15 pm PT

niceeeeeee

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  • 5 of 12 users agree
musicaz70

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:17 pm PT

That. is. awesome. I would love to see other more action oriented games be used for this! Serious developers should take hint at this, so they could implement both the board and remote for an action title. (As confusing as that may be for controls...)

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  • 5 of 6 users agree
reserati

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:24 pm PT

now WoW players will become athletes.

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  • 15 of 18 users agree
peeweeshift

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:35 pm PT

lol it wouldn't really work that well but if u were just sightseeing it would be ok lol

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  • 2 of 5 users agree
THGarrett

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:35 pm PT

Interesting...

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  • 2 of 5 users agree
tahha

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:41 pm PT

now have fun in sword fighting!!!!!!!

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  • 2 of 3 users agree
haulinsacs

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:44 pm PT

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

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  • 0 of 0 users agree
PumaMania

Posted Jun 16, 2008 7:56 pm PT

Wow Seems pretty cool even though Im not a WoW fan...

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  • 1 of 9 users agree
zeckle_1

Posted Jun 16, 2008 8:02 pm PT

Ha... Thats cool. Now WOW players can be in a dark room and get slighlty fitter all at the same time = P.

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  • 5 of 8 users agree
Fishn4Zora

Posted Jun 16, 2008 8:17 pm PT

There's hope for WOW addicts after all!

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  • 5 of 11 users agree
RaiKageRyu

Posted Jun 16, 2008 8:32 pm PT

@Whisltebuta

If you read it all, you'll know they modified the board so all you do is lean. That ain't gonna help anyone lose weight.

In fact they made it possible for WoW players to be even lazier.

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  • 3 of 8 users agree
Kowpow

Posted Jun 16, 2008 8:57 pm PT

This will be the most action WoW players have gotten since Launch! You know, moving back and forth will get you fit.

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  • 0 of 6 users agree
Nintendo_Man

Posted Jun 16, 2008 9:07 pm PT

Hopefully 3rd parties are reading this, if they are able to do this in their games using the balance board then they can greatly improve their games.

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  • 6 of 6 users agree
bbq2006

Posted Jun 16, 2008 9:08 pm PT

But the wii fit board is too small!!!!!!!!!!1

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  • 1 of 8 users agree
AlterEcho09

Posted Jun 16, 2008 9:12 pm PT

I guess actually walking in place for that long would get a little tiring so the leaning thing makes sense

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  • 3 of 8 users agree
PandaBear86

Posted Jun 16, 2008 9:33 pm PT

Next article: somebody used Guitar Hero guitar to shoot locusts in Gears of War.

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  • 10 of 12 users agree
ShadowLaguna

Posted Jun 16, 2008 9:38 pm PT

WoW!!

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  • 0 of 4 users agree
Chico_Azteca

Posted Jun 16, 2008 10:07 pm PT

this is madness!!!

lol at least i hope some people will actually get tired of playing MMORPG'S XD

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  • 4 of 6 users agree
assassinX01

Posted Jun 16, 2008 10:11 pm PT

Ow.

My brain just popped.

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  • 0 of 6 users agree
neerajkumar_4

Posted Jun 16, 2008 10:31 pm PT

nice one guys!! now no one will complain, as WoW gamers are going to be fit as long as they game

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  • 4 of 4 users agree
Erebus

Posted Jun 16, 2008 10:40 pm PT

Hate "keyboard turning?" The ultimate PvP peripheral has arrived.

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  • 5 of 5 users agree
Proman84

Posted Jun 16, 2008 10:46 pm PT

Cool but I don't one can actually effectively play a game like that.

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  • 2 of 3 users agree
stakex007

Posted Jun 16, 2008 11:05 pm PT

While this is very creative, there is onemain reason why something like this has not become mainstream, and thats the simple fact that actually playing the game like that would be nearly impossible, at least for games like WoW. Because sure, you can run around and all in the game... but you would basiclly need to hold your keyboard, and even your mouse while your doing it to actually play the game.

Some other form of controller would be needed to work in tandem with this to make the game at all playable, and even then it would very likely be more comfortable just sitting down useing a mouse and keyboard. Not to say this isn't really cool, and a step towards more interactive gameing... just simply that theres still quite a long way to go.

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  • 4 of 4 users agree
Mariobros24

Posted Jun 16, 2008 11:07 pm PT

WHAAAT?!

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  • 0 of 4 users agree
karnis

Posted Jun 16, 2008 11:10 pm PT

play WOW & lose weight good

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  • 3 of 4 users agree
dulun19

Posted Jun 16, 2008 11:33 pm PT

cool!.. what about their remote??..

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  • 2 of 3 users agree
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