WoW Expansion #4

World of Warcraft just released its fourth expansion – Mists of Pandaria. WoW currently ranks as the top MMORPG in the world with nearly 10 million active subscribers, each paying $15 every month. Although some gamers wax nostalgic about the good old days of Vanilla (original release), the numbers don’t lie. World of Warcraft consistently has the most subscribers of any MMO, and so whatever they are doing is probably the right way to be updating an eight year old game.

Purist or not, Mists of Pandaria will add a new race of Pandaren (pandas) who can play for either of the game’s two factions – horde or alliance. Additionally, more land to explore and additional quests will be added to the game. For a game that’s been on the market eight years already, it’s always a good idea to keep things fresh so the die hard players aren’t getting bored playing stale material.

Despite having such a large player base, WoW is still working to grow its subscriptions. I think they are exceedingly smart for continuing to hunt for new players. Any game that players get bored of, or perhaps they level capped and are dissatisfied with the end game, will eventually lose players. Developers want to minimize that by adding new content, but it does happen on all games to some degree. By targeting newer players, they are more likely to keep a consistent subscriber base.

Where do you stand on the new expansion – are you pro panda or anti panda?

GW2 report: Level 17

It’s here! And it’s almost better than Christmas!

Since I preordered, I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 starting 8/25. Last night, I hit level 17 and tonight I plan on getting to at least 18.5. I’d shoot for more, but real life calls – I need to stop by a going away party for a friend.

Everything in this onlineMMORPG has been really thought through, and it really shows. Leveling isn’t boring like some other games. There isn’t much in the way of grinding. You complete your story quests as well as heart quests (localized quests marked on your map in the form of hearts). You also find all interest points on the map as well as vistas – which you have to reach climbing a somewhat unorthodox path. Completion of zones on the map gives you additional XP, as well as the traditional XP generator: killing monsters.

The first person to actually level cap (which is at 80, by the way) is a French man who got there by crafting. How, you ask? His guild continually farmed the resources he need and sent them to his account so he could continuously craft. Not the most traditional way to level cap the fastest, but hey – it worked. Personally, I am choosing to savor leveling and am working my way to completing every zone I encounter.

The quests are pretty interesting and I haven’t yet dabbled in structured PvP. But what really sets this game apart is World v World combat. It was such an impressively massive scale. And I died a lot. But it was still totally awesome.

Guild Wars 2: 8 days and counting

Guild Wars 2 comes out on August 28^th. Or if you preordered like I did, August 25^th! I’d say I’m not really holding my breath, but I feel that would be pretty untrue. It’s only 8 days away now and it’s like Christmas was when I was a kid. The anticipation is killing me.

Guild Wars 2 is going to be a great game (and not just because I say so). It’s breaking so many MMORPG genre rules, which I will admit scared me at first. But they’ve been so thorough in figuring out how to break the rules and keep the game progression sensible while making it a super fun experience for the player.

Leveling is now done on a curve, and you scale up (or down) to the area you are in. You can be in more than one guild, though you can only represent one guild at a time. The guild you are representing is the only guild that reaps the benefits of the actions you take while representing that guild. Classes or professions are flexible now, too, which is fun to play as you can progress and choose what skills to hone in on. And, on top of that, there’s no traditional end game. Everything is scaled and designed so that each level should take a similar amount of time and is of equal importance.

Overall, this game is very impressively developed and the graphics are absolutely stunning. If you didn’t preorder and play the beta, I’m sad you missed your first chance to see the game. It really is awesome. And you should definitely join us in this new MMO.

Filling Summer with Free to Play Fun

I’ve recently been looking into free MMOs since I’m sitting around waiting for Guild Wars 2 to come out, but I don’t want to spend money in the meantime.

What I’ve found to tide me over is Lord of the Rings Online. A long time ago (in high school, I think) I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And then the movies came out and I saw them all in the theatre. I also own the DVD box set to complete my nerd status. Anyways, having been a fan of this series for quite some time, I thought I would give the MMO a try.

Overall, I’ve been pretty happy with it. Some quests are only available if you pay for extra content, and for now I’ve mostly avoided that kind of stuff. There’s also a cash shop in case you want to buy something you aren’t finding while questing in game. There’s something homey about running around Middle Earth, which Tolkien fans know so well.

I’ve also spent some time playing Eden Eternal, another free game. It’s more of a cutesy game and your characters are highly customizable. I find that it’s aesthetically pleasing and amusing to play. Definitely good for downtime after a long day at work.

Obviously, there are more than two choices when it comes to finding a fun free MMORPG to play these days. These are just the two I’m filling my time with right now. Have you played any good MMOs lately?

MMO News - Summer 2012

It’s been quite the summer for video game companies – both good and bad. Let’s start with the bad so that we can end on a better note.

Big Huge Games and 38 Studios both closed their doors permanently this summer, displacing every last employee. The games in development at both studios have been scrapped (as far as I know, there has been no move to sell the intellectual property to another party). Very sad times for gamers and employees alike. Rumor had it that these companies were having money issues and that a high up employee exacerbated things.

Bioware, developer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, has had two rounds of layoffs under parent company Electronic Arts. Round one happened in May and took an estimated 100 – 150 employees out of their Austin office. Round two in July further reduced the employee base, but I have yet to see any number estimates on that. EA has stated that this is all part of a restructuring plan, but there are signs that SWTOR is struggling. They have had quite a few promotions to try to lure in new players and are reportedly going free to play pretty soon.

Now that we’ve gotten the sad stuff out of the way, here’s what’s great in the gaming industry.

This summer has seen the release of TERA, Diablo III, and The Secret World. Though these games have varying popularity levels, they seem to be doing pretty well. Coming out in less than a month is Guild Wars 2, and this one should be a game changer (quite literally) as it bends the way MMOs handle leveling, professions, and all kinds of other issues.

Then there’s the far off games. MMORPGs take an absurd amount of time to make, and this is especially the case if the developer wants to do a thorough job and make a state of the art game. The Elder Scrolls is reportedly making an MMO to add to their successful franchise, and gamers everywhere were over the moon with this news.

World of Warcraft - popping up everywhere

World of Warcraft is an MMORPG with 10 million subscribers worldwide. I think it’s hard for people to grasp how huge that is in the MMO world. A really successful MMO might have 1 to 2 million active subscribers. At this number, they are playing in the big leagues. And WoW blows these major games (with humongous budgets to match) out of the water.

So if you can grasp how massive the reach of this game really is, it would make sense that World of Warcraft tends to reach beyond the confines of just the game. There’s a board game and a card game (many of the cards are based on players who are either famous or infamous). There’s also a highly entertaining episode of South Park that parodies the lives of the boys as they play WoW.

These days, the rumor mill is reporting that Blizzard is going to make a World of Warcraft movie. Sadly, that’s about all fans know at this point. They did approach one director, who was already booked. And that’s literally the only tidbit I’ve been able to dig up thus far. So if this movie does indeed come out, it seems like 2014 would be the earliest we might see it (which is after the apocalypse…so who knows).

I also read a news article about a guy who stabbed his neighbor after the neighbor told him WoW was “just a game”. Evidently, the neighbor was trying to calm the overly agitated gamer who was yelling at guild mates on his headset. WoW is serious business, y’all.

Diablo III Update

I know I already expressed that I was upset Diablo III was shipping without PvP. It’s been out a while now, and it is still without PvP. And yet, I bought it anyways. I guess I was just hoping that it would end up being one of the best MMOs of 2012.

The game was plagued with all sorts of issues from release day forward. Server crashes, log in failures, auction house crashes, loopholes, item duplication, account hacking, server rollbacks, etc. You name it, it probably happened. Since release, the game has patched one time. Despite that, when I tried to log in this morning I was informed that the servers were down until 1pm CST. I understand that it’s a Tuesday and people are working…but students are on summer break and at home playing games. Additionally, tomorrow is a holiday and many people already had today off.

So before the patch came out, I beat the game. Why I felt compelled to keep playing when I was so incredibly frustrated, I do not know. But I kept playing. Once I had beaten the game, I wanted to sell all my armor and gear in the real money auction house (seeing as its now working). That was before I figured out that Blizzard takes a ridiculous 30% cut of all sales. Instead, I’m looking into trading Diablo players for a game on steam or something.

Once the patch came out, I logged back into the game again. They totally nerfed the monk class, which is my main. My character, that I poured so many hours into, has been rendered essentially worthless. They did, however, fix some of the things that needed fixing. Oh, and good luck to you if your account gets hacked as mine did. Blizzard’s (non existent) customer service will ‘roll back’ your account to fix the issue. Except all they will do is deposit a few gems in your account without regard to how much money and gear was stolen.

I’m not sure why I bought it after I knew it was buggy or why I played until I beat it. If you have a lot of patience, you might enjoy it. If you don’t, I’d steer clear.