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.

SWTOR releasing a new patch

Star Wars: The Old Republic has announced another update to their MMO. The next patch will fix a few bugs, but will also allow you to move your character to 'a healthier server'. Bioware hasn't announced how that will work or what kind of restrictions you might have when moving your character (or what will happen if you want to move your character back).

For those higher level subscribers who are getting a bit bored with the game, I'm sorry to report that there is no additional content – flashpoints or otherwise – being added to the game at this time. The patch will, however, add some more interesting things into the legacy system for your character, including some sort of bonus depending on what you’d like to be doing with your avatar.

Even with moderately good news like this, it would be awful to overlook the layoffs at the Bioware offices (based in Austin) yesterday. An unknown number of employees were laid off, and per Bioware that is just how things tend to go after the release of a major game. The full force that developed it is no longer needed since the work load is less after release.

Still, a bunch of people lost their jobs yesterday after working with the rest of the development team to make one of the most popular MMOs on the market today. These are sad times. I hope that they all find employment soon, and that the disruption in job having doesn’t negatively impact their lives. Best of luck to each of them.

GW2's lack of endgame: good or bad thing?

Guild Wars 2 has built their MMO to be unlike anything else on the market. In fact, I’d say that it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Its lack of endgame, World v World combat system, instanced PvP and myriad of other unique facets make it easily the most appealing game scheduled to come out in 2012.

This past weekend, GW2 had its first beta for holders of pre-ordered copies of the game. To say it went well would be an understatement. Although it did have a few hiccups (but what beta doesn’t?), those were quickly smoothed out with patches. Gamers who had their hands on the game for the first time this weekend are seriously impressed.

But a small faction of gamers are concerned about GW2’s lack of endgame. Specifically, GW2 is built to avoid the raiding endgame that most MMOs are centered around – and they are worried that the game won’t be as fun at high levels and that the game is leaving a source of entertainment completely untapped.

But honestly, GW2’s complete disregard for sticking to the traditional format is refreshing. If I wanted an endgame centric experience, I’d go play WoW with the rest of the raiding fanatics.

I think the fact that Guild Wars 2 is tossing the endgame will get them a slew of dedicated gamers. Playing will be about the whole experience instead of just leveling quickly to get to the endgame activities. World v World will also keep players plenty busy (and from what I saw of the beta, it will be way more fun than raiding anyways).

So my vote: lack of endgame, in the case of Guild Wars 2, will be a very good thing.

Is the traditional MMORPG on the way out?

In the olden days, I had to walk to school – barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways. Ok, so I didn’t…but I did have to walk (or ride my mount) to get to my instances in MMOs instead of insta-travelling there.

MMORPG games are now favoring one-click entrances into instances and raids. You can literally get there from your menu – no walking, no attacking NPCs on the way, no real work involved. Times are changing, and not for the better.

Honestly, if you don’t want to work that hard on progressing your character and getting cool armor, why are you playing an MMO to begin with? Especially now that you can play an FPS (first person shooter) that will also do some (though not as much) character progression. Some games even let you do a little customization (like in Team Fortress 2, you can customize the hat you wear).

Additionally, PvP is becoming more and more like FPS games. In a modern MMORPG, you queue up in a waiting room of sorts, and then are put into a PvP situation with a limited number of opponents. Again, why not just play an FPS if you want to battle a limited number of bad guys at a time?

In the olden times, MMO battlegrounds weren’t restricted to a small number of players. You used to be able to go out and fight on a battlefield swarming with opponents; it was both overwhelming and ridiculously fun. All of that is gone now, favoring this new insta-zoned PvP. Maybe it’s time for someone to make a ‘new’ genre – something to fill the void the traditional MMORPG has left.

Diablo III shipping WITHOUT PvP??

Less than a week ago, Blizzard – the makers of the highly anticipated Diablo III – announced that its new online RPG  would not be shipping with the PVP (player vs player) game and systems gamers were expecting to have at release. The announcement came from the Diablo III blog itself and was met with nearly 1100 comments on this decision.

Blizzard stated that the PVP Arena system was not living up to their standards, and that pushing back the release date would be punishing everyone who has been (not so) patiently waiting for the solo and co-op content for so long. Those pieces of the game are nearing completion.

PvP has not been cut out of the game entirely, much to the relief of gamers everywhere. The makers of the game intend to release a patch with the PvP system as soon as they feel it is worthy of release.

Diablo III creators are hoping that you’ll spend your time (while you wait on PvP to eventually release) leveling and learning, so that you might be ‘better prepared’ for battle when the patch does release.

The patch is slated to have some cool features: PvP-centric achievements, a system to create evenly matched games quickly, and a progression system to reward you for your destruction of other teams.

Hopefully the multiplayer experience they are creating is worth the wait. They’re going to have a lot of ancy Diablo fans impatiently checking for patches in the meantime.