Blizzard's gambit: Cataclsym? For who?

World of Warcraft: it's basically synonymous with MMO. For the longest time, WoW has been the Coca Cola or McDonald's of MMOs. There are certainly a bunch of other MMos out there, but none seem to measure up to WoW.

So far anyway.


A lot of the current MMos eek out a living with a minimal customer base, and some have gone free to play (F2P) The idea behind F2P is the model now set forth by minigames such as Yoville or Farmville (or whatever crappy ville you play in your Facebook) The idea is you can play for free, and pay for premium content. It's genius, and when the market is basically cornered by a monopoly, it's a necessary move to keep afloat.


The tides, they are changing though. Coming up we have three pretty huge contenders: Guild Wars 2. I never played the first one, and never even heard OF it until I had been playing WoW for about 6 months. Apparently the draw here is that Guild Wars has no monthly premiums.The problem, as I could see it, was that it simply did not have the same appeal as WoW. But this game seems to be taking steps towards being more appealing. Apparently they're going the way of trying to reimagine MMOs (a path all three contenders seem to be taking...in one way or another) and make it feel more epic. I myself was not swayed by what I've seen regarding Guild Wars 2, but it does look pretty. Or prettier than WoW, which is not saying much.

Final Fantasy 14 is coming up soon. Final Fantasy has a huge following, even though the heydey of Squeenix as the paramount rpg machine is over, so this would be an MMO to look out for. It looks astonishing, and seems to provide a delectable gaming experience, which would provide what Aion tried and failed at: making an appealing game, both visually and in content. FF 14 will have a headstart on the fall season, which we all know is the blockbuster season for gaming. I'd say Squeenix could not have planned a better release date, in all earnest. My only concern, and this concerns me for all MMOs coming out in the next 12 months, is that the release go smoothly: if FF14 can keep bugs and server issues under control, they are positioned to take over the MMO market.

SWTOR...could be the end all Star Wars experience. First off, the call to two ravenous fanbases is incredible: the Star Wars fanbase (which admittedly is a batshit fanbase) and the Bioware fanbase (which is a pretty hardcore fanbase). If this game is remotely decent, they will come in droves. The game has an unique look. It looks animated, not as lush as say FF14, but it looks very stylized and very attractive. The atmosphere...well, come on, it's Star Wars. The lore is where SWTOR has every other MMO beat (save maybe LOTRO, but that's just comparing delicious apples and scrumtrulescent oranges) The Star Wars universe is, for better or worse, huge, and the lore involved, the Old Republic, is one of the more interesting chapters in the SW universe. Bioware has geared their gaming experience towards the story-telling experience, which, sad to say, is hard to find in MMos most of the time.

Wow on the other hand, has already peaked in consumer base, and is now shrinking in subscription numbers. It's going on to its third expansion, which poses a few problems too. The probability of new costumers catching on is not very good: if you show a consumer that is not on WoW already an advert for Cataclysm, this is what you're saying: Look! Our new expansion will enable you to play as a werewolf, and the world has changed greatly! You can fly your gryphon anywhere! And you can be level 85!!! BUT! You will have to buy the original game , The Burning Crusade, The Wrath of the Lich King AND Cataclysm. Cataclysm will go for $40, that's for certain. And Blizzard sells the game along with the Burning Crusade in a nifty package for $40. It can be found for $20-$35, if you look. AND The Wrath of the Lich King is another $40, but it can be found cheaper.

... so far, this werewolf party costs $100 AT THE CHEAPEST. And that's for the first month. I don't think a lot of new customers will run in packs to get into WoW because of this Cataclysm. It's to be expected, in all earnest, and Blizzard realizes this, so they basically cater to their established subscription base anyway. The only way I can see new business running in is if they included the original game and the two expansions already released in a $40-$50 package. And they're not gonna do that, I can guarantee it. Heck, I've seen Gamestop sell a prepared 14 day trial version of WoW for $2. It can be found for free online, but wow, Blizzard has balls.


As I said, Blizzard IS catering to their established costumers already, which are over 10 million people, so everything should be fine, right?

Maybe. Blizzard has been making mistakes, pronounced, glaring mistakes. The most obvious is the Real ID debacle. Basically, people do not want (DO NOT WAAANT!!!!) to lose their anonimity. Sorry so sorry. This trend, of putting your face EVERYWHERE on the internet, is a BAD one. People are dumb, but not so retarded that they can't see that they're turning the internet as a collective into a rampaging Big Brother (or are they? I dunno...)Blizzard lost some subscriptions with Real ID. And they backtracked on that one. Then there's a few issues here and there. First, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion has been around for what feels like an eternity. It took a year and a half to get to kill the titular antagonist..no wait, it took a year and a half to be able to set foot in his fucking castle. And then it took about 3 weeks to be able to get to his throne room. Yeah. Nice work, eh? And everyone expected that to be it for that expansion, and for Blizzard to move on.

In what I thought was a huge faux pas, and the beginning of the end for me and my romp through Azeroth, the latest content patch opened up the Ruby Sanctum.

Uhh, what? The Lich King is dead...next in line please? Why are we killing dragons now? buh, uh..hey, bu...why???


It reeked of stopgap, and I hate it when a company insults my intelligence as a customer. It's not like they could've given us a Culling of Strath Raid or SOMETHING that has to do with the Lich King. Someone could argue that Ruby Sanctum makes sense because it sets the theme for the new expansion. And yes, that's true. But I know full well that this was not the way it was intended. If that were the case, a lot more would've been done in the way of tying in Ruby Sanctum with the new expansion, not to mention...the new expansion would've been released by now.


So why hasn't the expansion been released? Not even the release date has been released. What's more, Blizzard kept the beta under wraps for the LONGEST time. And then they made *another* mistake. On the day the release date for FF14 was released, Blizzard made an announcement that they would draw random beta invites for Cataclysm. They might as well have said the world was ending, because the forums went wild. The announcement literally stated that the invites would go out in 24 hours. Except it took closer to 72 hours. Ouch. Credibility much?

To this day, they have not announced the release date for Cataclysm yet, and it's a problem. FF14 will release on Sept 30. They will have a nice headstart, and enough time to generate buzz before the Holidays. SWTOR is rumored to release sometime after March 30.

The buzz was that Cata would hit on October. It COULD still steal some FF14 thunder if they did, but then, by the time SWTOR comes out it would already have grown stale, and by then the content would be irrelevant (only 5 levels...should have been 10 Blizz...) But we don't know yet. It could release around Christmas....thus allowing FF14 a HUGE headstart....or it could release AFTER Christmas...allowing FF14 a BIGGER headstart...and missing out on the Holiday sales....


I believe I had already explained my take in this, that basically FF14 and SWTOR have WoW on a perfect pincer hold. It's just interesting to see the passing of time is proving me right, so far.


All empires must fall. I forget who said it first, I think it was a Roman. They would know.

To Blizzard, I will say this though....that'll do pig. That'll do.

KOTOR II: Or why I hate Lucasarts a bit more than before

In response to the hooplah that is and will be SWTOR, I, after much prodding from the Girlfriend, embarked upon playing KOTOR and KOTOR II. I didn't play ALL of KOTOR. It was kind of droll. Could not finish it. After the big reveal (the game is not 10 years old yet, so I'll stay my tongue)the action kinda drops. I had a big issue with how it felt a bit repetitive. But overall, the story was good and so were the characters. Very enthralling stuff. Then I set forth to play KOTOR II. And it was quite a bumpy ride. First off, it is the fucking buggiest game I've ever played (and I suffered the infamous Fallout 3 freeze quite a bit, as well as watching Altaïr from Assassin's Creed falling through the floor ad nauseum more than once) It would freeze every few hours, the little robot would not move, it would simply just detract from the experience. And then, 26 hours into the game I made a small mistake: I had taken care of playing a light side of the force playthrough...and I made a small mistake and sided with evil f'ckers on some backwaters planet, and suddenly I was on the path to darkness. So I had to go back to a save 19 hours in. This kinda killed it a bit for me. To be fair, I was still very hooked on seeing the experience through, on playing what was aiming to be an incredible conclusion to a game that, bugs aside, spun a tale in a manner so masterful, it should be remade, leaving the storyline and storytelling mostly untouched.

Except for the end. I'm trying to think of a movie that fell so short of greatness at the very end. Or a book. I've got it. KOTOR II acomplishes, by accident, what Terry Gilliam acomplishes on purpose on each and every movie: that feeling of having sat through great scenes that illicit childlike wonderment, only to be met by abject disappointment and a feeling of staleness at the end (it's my contention that Gilliam's purpose in life is to confuse his viewers and depress them a bit/a lot)

Basically you get to the end, and the resolution is this: your mentor spews predictions for roughly 5 minutes regarding your companions, and the state of the planets you visited in your travels, and how balance is restored to the galaxy. Yes. the ending is reduced to walls of text. Very very NES-like. Oh yeah, there's voice overs in this game. It's like an audio book then.

Then you're treated to a short cinematic of the Ebon Hawk, your spaceship flying away. Into space. Yep.


....WTF!?

Apparently Lucasarts rushed this game to completion, or I should rather say, release, so they could partake of everyone's Christmas money.


So now I kind of hate Lucasarts for ruining yet another thing that could have been great. I mean, it's great as it is, but....still. so much wasted potential. Much to my chagrin, the continuation is in MMO form. MMOs, so far, and to my knowledge, are not famous for incredible storytelling. And Bioware has made sure everyone knows that this will be an incredible, cinematic experience. And I have to trust them, I mean, they ARE Bioware. But ionno...part of me....just wishes for a KOTOR III, a game that married Dragon Age and SW in perfect, nerdgasm marriage.

That and, come on, HK 47 in HD would be fucking awesome.

LOTRO: The MMO vacation

I was also thinking about LOTRO maybe as a snack. Or an amuse bouche.


I have a love-hate thing for LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online)The things I like about it, I really like, and the things I dislike break the game a bit for me. I don't know how I feel about the art direction. Jillian loves the look of the game, because it looks less cartoony than WoW. I dunno if I like that. Then again, my laptop cannot handle LOTRO at a proper pace, so...yeah. I prefer the lore to the WoW lore, by far, and the surroundings. The music though makes me want to simply click it off. Your characters have a wider array of emoticons, which oddly enough allowed me to bond with Sigridus, a gruff dwarven guardian at a greater level than most of my toons on WoW (Jillian's argument that Sigrid is a girl's name, notwithstanding)

For one thing, LOTRO doesn't have factions in the strict sense, and the races are a mere four, with variations on locations where men, dwarves, hobbits or elves could come from. Not a fan of that, because I'm not knowledgeable of the lore inasmuch as to know what Breeland is, where it is, or if it's made of Brie cheese. The human models look better than the WoW models, but then they gave them douchebag faces. The hobbits look like dwarves who developed under-age alcoholism at the onset of adolescence (and you can give them a beer belly, to boot). Elves look like anemic, effete humans. Dwarves are super cool in this game though.

Then the classes to me are a handful of what Turbine thought would be a good way to confuse people with choices that should be narrowed down to magic user, fighter, and creeper who can't cast magic OR fight, but is nimble. You have some magic using classes which never really appealed to me, a bard (yes...a musician... for the love of...) a champion, a captain (who supercedes here, a champion or a captain?) a guardian, a hunter, and a burglar. Ohh, and a warden. Warden is what turbine likes to call ' 2nd rate guardian using lances'. I, loving shields and getting hit in the face, made a guardian. I actually made a champion first, but found out that I wouldn't be able to tank as that, so I quit. At level 20. In a game where leveling is like paying off a car in installments.


To me LOTRO has a certain allure...as I said, there are a lot of emoticons you can use...you can smoke, for example. That's....so cool. I ...don't LOVE smoking. But smoking is cool, despite what any campaign says. it is cool as heck. You look wayyyy cooler when smoking. It's a scientific fact. Hans Landa looked incredibly cool smoking that Alpine Apfelfluegelthing. It just is. If smoking wasn't bad for me, and super expensive, I would do it. But it doesn't HOLD me tight, as WoW did, for whatever reason. I blame the music. It's like middle of the day children's show music. BUT....MMos...are a way of life....and...LOTRO is cheaper than WoW, by a lot... something has to tide me over until SWTOR.

With only months and months to go, the speculation begins

Well, I'm off WoW. My time ends on the 21st, and I won't be renewing. I will not be partaking of Cataclysm goodness either. I might not come back.

Dunno.

The significant other insists she wants to go back to LOTRO for a while, but I am not really into it anymore. I'll hold my MMO enthusiasm for either Star Wars: The Old Republic or Final Fantasy 14, and I'm not planning on getting FF14...sooo.....


It's been a while since I've been on a Star Wars kick. It's...odd. You go away for a while, and they've gone and changed everything quite a bit. Anyway, much of my concern with SWTOR is ' what class will allow me to hack shit up while tanking?' seeing as how there is a lack of shields in the SW universe. You know who had shields? Gungans. I don't want a motherlovin' gungan, sorry.

Troopers will apparently be the tanks par excellence...which means I'll probably make one. But playing a trooper... is not really my bag. I'll be honest, it's the fact that they wear the armor and they remind me of all the storm troopers from the movies, specifically the storm trooper that does the Willhelm scream in A New Hope. And TK 427. So I dunno. But apparently, Sith warriors will get this particular special class -

(I got this from Wookiepedia)- Sith Juggernaut were a specialist class of the Sith Warriors under the Sith Empire. They were known for their heavy armor and cybernetics which allowed them a special protection in battle making many strikes by an opponent against them useless often filling them with despair. Their stamina was considered by many to be unrivaled in battle.


So it follows suit that Jedi Knights get an equivalent specialization. In which case, sign me up. Hey, just because it's a jedi doesn't mean they can't get hit in the face. Look at Qui Gon...ooooooooooooooooohhh, don't tell me it's too soon!

A new ho..me. Maybe.

So...after weeks of high pitch feverish obsession, my WoW momentum has waned. I'm officially not having fun, again. It first happened last year. I was not having fun, because the game turns into a grind at end-game. Now I'm not having fun, because I am sick of not leveling my favorite new obsession, the warrior, and I can't level it without my darling healer Girlfriend. And she's sick of WoW. So... the bloom is off the rose. I will let the subscription come to an end, and I do not know if I will be back. We'll see.

We, however, are looking towards the new MMO bad boy coming out next year: Star Wars The Old Republic, or SWTOR for short. I'm a Star Wars geek, sue me. As you might imagine, there will be jedi, and I will be toting a lightsaber, certainly. But apparently the tanking class in this game will be troopers: heavy armored fellows with huge guns. I don't know how I will take to that change. I'm used, as a tank, to being in the thick of it, face to face with whatever is bashing my head in. Apparently this will be a bit different. What I saw was a group battling it out with a huge fucking robot, and two jedi were running around smacking it with a lightsaber, one smuggler was shooting at it from a corner, and the big bruiser was running around with a big rifle taking potshots at it, keeping it pointed at him.


Maybe when the GF is not looking, I will make a sith. See, evil will always prevail...because good is dumb.