Tag: World of Warcraft

Week In Review: Butterfly In The Sky Edition


Given that today is Sunday July 5th and not a Tuesday, it must be time to put out the Week in Review completely on time, and that means another weekly topic to think about. Today I’d like to talk about NCsoft, namely the idea that they are this evil corporation that murders babies (metaphorically) and would sell their own mothers if it meant profit. Take a look at the below graph that I have compiled detailing the sales of all NCsoft games each quarter between Q1 ’05 and the latest release: Q1 ’11.

I know how a lot of you like to claim NCsoft shuts down successful games that they don’t like, but consider this: Look at how low Tabula Rasa started out, then see how low it got to before it was cancelled. The first quarter for Others was listed as Exteel, but the game was grouped in to show higher sales. Dungeon Runners is never even referenced by name, just lumped in with “others.” Auto Assault is also never mentioned, and is presumably lumped in with “others.” It’s pretty obvious looking at this chart that NCsoft sets a bar for when they shut down games, and that bar is far lower than many of us would like to admit.

1. The Star Wars Galaxies Challenge: Week 1.

My first log of the Star Wars Galaxies challenge, or my attempt to level as high as possible by the time Star Wars Galaxies shuts down in December. My character is a Twi’lek smuggler named Qa’ashi currently residing on Tatooine if you’d like to visit me, she is level 17 and was created on server I don’t know. The point of this line of articles is to give my experience playing Star Wars Galaxies during its last months of life, and I hope to make this my staple for shuttered MMOs (I can only hope two games don’t shut down at once) otherwise I may need an IV drip.

So far the adventure has gone with its highs and lows. If you haven’t played Star Wars Galaxies the age really shows on an engine that almost feels like it’s falling apart. I’ve had a few times where missions bug and a creature I’m tracking doesn’t spawn where it’s supposed to, or the waypoint doesn’t update and I have to abandon the mission. Small annoyances, like enemies spawning inside of structures and not allowing me to shoot them, or strange lag bugs where enemies regain health faster than I can shoot them. I love the missions though, and I love my free house (which I am populating with posters) and promotional vehicles.

There are a lot of factions in Star Wars Galaxies, to the point where shooting just about any humanoid is likely to lower your standing one faction and raise it in another. My biggest issue with alignment is the random checks in cities. I’ll be running along and I’ll just see “You have lost 20 standing with the Republic” or “you have lost 20 standing with the empire,” and a quick look in the chat box will show an empire/republic guard has been following me shouting “stop! You must submit to a random security check for illicit goods or you will be suspect!” I get that the game is old enough to not have voice acting, but how about some sort of noise indicator? I only suggest this for the same reason a police officer can’t arrest me because I was walking down the sidewalk and didn’t look over my shoulder to notice he was flagging me down by waving his arms wildly but not saying anything or tapping me on the shoulder.

2. Eve Online: No Non-Vanity Items. Ever.

So the Eve Online scandal comes to an uneventful close with CCP promising to the CSM that there will be no non-vanity items added to the NeX store, there were never any plans, and there will probably never be any plans. Maybe. Perhaps. Now, obviously CCP could change face at any time, and to speculate on a time and date would be a big waste of time given it would add unnecessary flames to a dying fire.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that CCP started the cash shop far too early, putting out the expensive items before they could get out the cheaper items. They also messed up by trying to fight the community rather than explain the system to them right off the bat, and by comparing Eve items to vanity clothing you’d buy from a Japanese boutique.

Perhaps, as one poster put it, this is just CCP’s success getting to their heads.

3. At Least MMOs Are Honest In Their Draconian DRM.

I was looking forward to Capcom’s Resident Evil: Mercenaries on the 3DS, and I was planning on buying it used (or new when/if the price drops), until I learned about the game’s DRM. You can only have one save file, and you cannot delete the save. According to Capcom, you would think this was a restriction out of their control, as they claim that the game saves to the cart and thus cannot be removed:

In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset. The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability in order to improve mission scores. In addition, this feature does not remove any content available for users.

If you want to get into specifics, MMOs have the most draconian DRM of any game on the market. You must maintain an internet connection, play on their servers, pay a subscription fee for many or don’t play at all, and if the servers shut down you are absolutely screwed unless someone somewhere maybe leaks the source and a private server is set up that often functions nowhere near the actual game. And God forbid you join a game that doesn’t get off the ground, your $50 and $15 a month for a year or so is gone, down the toilet.

But MMOs are a service, and it isn’t fair to compare an MMO’s DRM to a regular game’s DRM.

4. The Year of F2P And Revival

This has been an interesting year so far, with a decent number of titles being revived while others have gone free to play. We’re only slightly over halfway through the year, so there’s no telling what will happen by December, and then beyond. World of Warcraft debuts its unlimited demo, with players able to play up until level 20 for free forever.

Over at Global Agenda, Hi-Rez has announced that the free to play transition for Global Agenda has resulted in “ revenues are higher than they ever have been before” meaning more content at a faster pace. No doubt Age of Conan will report higher earnings this month, with Fallen Earth following next month, and City of Heroes at some point this year.

5. Speaking of Free to Play: Rock Paper Shotgun Free To Read

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06/29/rock-paper-shotgun-goes-free-to-read/

Rock Paper Shotgun did a hilarious parody of the free to play announcement, with the reveal of RPS: F2R, a way for the Rock Paper Shotgun crew to take what was once free and monetize the hell out of it.

Of course there will be no need for readers to pay anything at all to read the new Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The first two paragraphs of every post will always be accessible to everyone, and readers can read them as often as they want, wherever they want, unlimited times*. The rest of the post will become available to those who make the RPS patented NanoPayments™, of anything from just $0.59® to only $299.99 per article. And Premium Users will continue to receive the same excellent service for exactly the same price as everyone else.
*Up to a maximum of four times.

You can read the entire article at the link above.

World of Warcraft: The Endless Trial


Haters gonna hate. Blizzard announced today that the previously 14-day trial will now be indefinite. Players can experience all that World of Warcraft vanilla has to offer, up until level 20, with no time limit. Players are also able to sample sections of Burning Crusade, and may create Draenai and Blood Elf players. Players looking to buy into the full game will find the World of Warcraft Battle Chest at a pretty good price at their local stores and on Blizzard’s website.

And who knows, perhaps this could lead to a free to play option at one point in the future. Not any time soon enough to hold your breath over, but sometime…in one dimension or another.

Premium Services Coming To World of Warcraft


Here’s an interesting story out of Blizzard. According to this post on the Blizzard forums, World of Warcraft will see the introduction of cross-realm dungeon finder, for players who have friends on different realms, but still want to go through dungeons and heroics together. A new system in development will allow players with RealID friendships to dungeon together, regardless of what realm they are on, as long as they’re on the same faction.

Of course for Blizzard this spells l-o-d-s of e-m-o-n-e, and what does that spell? Loadsa money! Probly…

 It’s important to note that as with some of the other convenience- and connectivity-oriented features we offer, certain elements of the cross-realm Real ID party system will be premium-based, though only the player sending the invitations will need to have access to the premium service.

The above is causing quite a bit of discussion on the thread about whether this violates Blizzard’s promise to not charge for services that offer an advantage, as well as questioning the necessity in charging for a service that is hardly a technological feat at this point in World of Warcraft’s lifespan (The game already supports cross-realm dungeons and realid invites).

So much for Bobby Kotick not having his greedy little fingers in Blizzard’s pie. Big thanks to Verterdegete on the MMORPG.com forums for pointing this out. I’m guessing the service will be just as successful as the $25 pet, although I know plenty of people who are hoping this is thrown out with the mandatory real-name forum update.

Killing World of Warcraft: Death By Expansion Pack


Ever since Blizzard launched World of Warcraft in 2004 and the game propelled itself to top dog worldwide, every schmuck and his sister have been throwing in their ideas as to what will “kill” the behemoth, or at least usurp its player base. Over the years, we’ve seen countless titles riding in on a white horse, proclaiming themselves to be sent by God to destroy World of Warcraft, and then we quickly find out that the horse is cardboard and the armor is actually painted Styrofoam. On the other side of the spectrum, people like myself realized early on that the only entity capable of destroying World of Warcraft, was Blizzard themselves.

In a conference call just a couple days ago, Blizzard revealed that the population for WoW has dropped to 11.4 million, down from the peak of 12 million. Blizzard attributed this figure to the normal departure of players that occurs after the release of an expansion, when the more hardcore players complete all the content early on and lapse back into the state of “I’ve done everything and now I am bored.” In order to combat this in the future, Blizzard also announced plans to expedite expansion pack releases. Currently, the World of Warcraft expansion rate is approximately two years, so we’ll see how far Blizzard plans on shortening development time. One year in between releases?

I suppose the question of the day is, will this have the direct opposite effect? And this relies on how Blizzard delivers the expansions. For example, if the expansion packs wind up being buggy, unpolished content rushed out for thirty bucks just to say “hey, we’ve got something. Stick with us and we’ll fix it over the next few months,” then you’ll see players getting sick of the system fairly quickly. The same holds true if Blizzard were to turn around and say, “listen guys, our normal free content has to go because we’re too busy working on content for expansions. We’ll still release patches and fix bugs for free, but if you want new raids/dungeons, you’ll have to wait for the expac.”

And yes, I write this article from the perspective of one of those Everquest nerds that bought into the expansion every six months program, but you do have to remember that these are two entirely separate communities with different expectations. If more than six months goes by without an Everquest expansion announced, I start getting the shakes that Sony Online Entertainment is going to announce bankruptcy. Furthermore, the Everquest expansions have been great in the sense that there are so many opportunities to get them on sale somewhere that if you can wait a couple months, you can get that forty dollar expansion for about ten bucks.

As my own two cents, what Blizzard should consider is alternating between one paid and one free expansion each year. This way they lure in past players with free content, while at the same time buttering them up to be more willing to buy a paid expansion. It’s the same way Blizzard gets people to buy mounts for $25, it is the “sure you can have that mount for free (in-game gold notwithstanding) but what about that mount. That mount is, like, a million times sexier than your mount.

Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.

WoW: Microtransactions Make Up For Lost Subscriptions


Well, it’s May, and that can only mean Q1 financial are up, and there are many calls to be made. Who better to run through for this article than Blizzard? I mean, they’re name is on the banner image.

First, the bad news. The subscription numbers for World of Warcraft have dropped back to pre-Cataclysm 11.4 million. This has been attributed to the speed at which players are completing Cataclysm’s content, which is much faster than previous (Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King) expansion packs. On the other hand, Blizzard still has 11.4 million paying customers, and that remains pretty impressive.

The drop in players is also likely due to the release of Rift. As in Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, Blizzard has noted in the past that competing MMOs cause a sharp decline in users, followed by a slow trickle as they calmly return with their heads down, hoping you’d forgotten about the time they smashed the floor lamp and walked out the door, claiming they’d never come back again.

On the other hand, World of Warcraft has become more profitable. If the two don’t add up, consider Blizzard’s increasing sale of microtransaction pets and mounts.

You can read Joystiq’s article here: http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/05/09/world-of-warcraft-dips-to-a-mere-11-4-million-subscribers/

Blizzard: $800,000 To Make-A-Wish


With all the talk over the Japanese relief aid, it’s easy to forget that MMO developers are still doing charity for other purposes. Late last year, Blizzard introduced the Moonkin Hatchling, a $10 cosmetic pet selling with 50% of the proceeds being donated to Make A Wish. Blizzard also worked with Make A Wish to bring two kids to their headquarters to visit and see what the development team does on its daily routines.

According to Gamasutra, Blizzard has released their figures: $800,000 donated to Make A Wish. Between now and July 31st, Blizzard has added yet another pet, in which 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross efforts in Japan.

You can buy the pet here.

WoW: Motivating The Least Used Roles.


Those of you who play World of Warcraft and use the dungeon finder tool will undoubtedly have come across a major brick wall: You have all the roles filled out, except for a tank or healer, and not a single soul appears to be willing to take the role. Or even worse, your healer rage quits mid-dungeon, after you’d just spent twenty minutes waiting in queue for him to show up.

In the patch notes for update 4.1, Blizzard hopes to motivate players into taking these roles, by offering extra rewards for the least used classes. Dubbed Call To Arms, the new system will automatically detect which class is the least represented, and offer additional rewards for entering the Dungeon Finder and completing random level 85 heroic dungeons.

Call to Arms is meant to lower wait times by offering additional rewards for queuing as the currently least represented role. To be eligible for the additional rewards you must solo queue for a random level-85 Heroic in the role that is currently being Called to Arms, and complete the dungeon by killing the final boss.

Rewards include extra cash, rare items, elixers, pets, and very rarely mounts. Also from the announcement:

We don’t feel the tanking and healing roles have any inherent issues that are causing the representation disparity, except that fulfilling them carries more responsibility. Understandably, players prefer to take on that responsibility in more organized situations than what the Dungeon Finder offers, but perhaps we can bribe them a little.

Bribery can be a good thing, when used properly.

April Fool's 2011 Roundup


April Fool’s is one of my favorite days of the year, because I love seeing what jokes companies will come up with, my personal favorite being Google’s yearly jokes. Today isn’t even over, and I think the award for the best joke goes to ArenaNet with Guild Wars, who not only created a trailer and page for the Commando class, but added in an entire mini-game to Guild Wars as a “preview.”

Here is an ongoing roundup of today’s jokes, good and bad.

April Fool’s 2011 Roundup


April Fool’s is one of my favorite days of the year, because I love seeing what jokes companies will come up with, my personal favorite being Google’s yearly jokes. Today isn’t even over, and I think the award for the best joke goes to ArenaNet with Guild Wars, who not only created a trailer and page for the Commando class, but added in an entire mini-game to Guild Wars as a “preview.”

Here is an ongoing roundup of today’s jokes, good and bad.

Call of Duty MMO, Cataclysm, To Asia We Go!


Massive Action Tactics Online Of Duty Free To Play

I know what you’re thinking: “Omali, this sounds like yet another free to play lobby based substandard shooter with a cash shop attached where players can pay to win,” to which I must ask that you set aside your stereotypes for five minutes and realize that you are likely 100% correct on that prediction. In Activision/Blizzard’s latest quarterly report, the company reveals plans for yet another Call of Duty developer, Beachhead Studios, to work on a Call of Duty game for the Asian markets. While the traditional Call of Duty never sold too well in Asia, thanks to the abundance of piracy, having mandatory multiplayer and self-hosted servers (not to mention the game being free) will give Activision a tighter control on those who want to play their game.

The financial report doesn’t give any information as to when we can expect the Call of Duty MMO, or if there are any plans to expand the title to the Western hemisphere. In the same financial report, Blizzard highlighted their plans for 2011, including:

Grow World of Warcraft with new content; work towards StarCraft II and Cataclysm launch in China

It is worth noting that Wrath of the Lich King was delayed two years before release in China, due to the restrictions placed on games and Blizzard’s well publicized publisher fiasco, so a 2011 launch for Cataclysm may be on the less realistic side. Still, it would be nice for the Chinese players to remain somewhere close to their Western counterparts.