World of Warcraft

(Disclaimer: Today’s post is not about Warcraft, so you can skip over this post if you like )

I’m not sure what it is about Wizard101 that is appealing to me. It’s an interesting MMO, designed primarily for family-oriented entertainment. Maybe it’s the well filtered chat system so I don’t have to listen to Chuck Norris jokes while sitting inside a city. Perhaps it’s the intricate card system that helps lend to a fun, laid back MMO game that lacks the “hardcore” raiding and other lengthy instances.

Whatever the reason I’ve heard a lot of good things from young folks like my brother’s son as well as older friends and family. Heck a lot of people in my family are not gamers at all and still found the game fun and interesting. It certainly lacks the depth of Warcraft as well as the complexity of lore and combat options, but it’s still worth plunking a few hours on. Here’s a brief description from the site:

“Wizard101’s collaborative play style supports an environment where players benefit from working together in adventure quests. A tiered chat system and pre-defined character name generator create a safe community for younger players while an Arena provides a spot for more traditional gamers to show off their player versus player spell-casting skills. As they adventure, players can upgrade their costume and magical accessories, adopt bizarre pets, solve puzzles and play mini-games. At launch, Wizard101 will be free to play, with advanced play content available by subscription.”

I’m a little late to the party, but if you’re one of those people that’s been traveling for the past few weeks like I have, you may want to check out the Wrath of the Lich King Cinematic Trailer!

I’ve always been a big fan of Blizzard’s game cinematics, but this is one of my favorites. The irony of Arthas’s fathers words to him (especially if you’re familiar with the back story through Warcraft 3) really makes the old trailers of cut-up combat scenes between the two factions seem rather shallow.

I’ve been excited for both the expansion and I’ve also been on the look out to play Warhammer Online as well, but this renewed my enthusiasm for the game. There’s a lot I have to look forward to in the expansion (10-man raids are my personal favorite), but most of all I look forward to continuing the story line in to North Rend. I just hope that it’s not too bogged down in faction grind and key quests to stay interesting. How do Blizzard CM’s feel about the intro to the expansion? Here’s an excerpt from a recent post on the forums from Neth:

“It was incomplete. You’re right. Where players come in is facing that army and moving the story forward. For me the most beautiful thing about the cinematic is the heartbreaking dichotomy between Arthas’ fathers hopes and dreams for Arthas and what Arthas inevitably becomes.

The cinematic sets the stage, it (hopefully) catches people up a bit on just how tragic the situation is, how deeply ingrained the power of the Lich King is, and how it has spread out like icy tendrils to corrupt everything it touches.

This is the stage, this is Arthas, and ultimately, this is the Lich King in all his power set out before you.

For me, I think it is the cinematic I have been most waiting for and most love.”

What do you think about it?

While I won’t have the luxury of attending myself, Blizzcon has always sounded like a fun filled event for enthusiastic MMO gamers, and I’d love to have the chance to go one of these days. Blizzcon may be sold out, but you’ll still have the opportunity to win tickets to go! Blizzard is running a contest for all current account owners, with a few catches for eligibility:

“To be eligible for the BlizzCon ticket drawing, you must (1) have an active Blizzard Account that was created on or before 9:00 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, August 12, 2008, when we first announced BlizzCon 2008 tickets had sold out; (2) be an adult in your country of residence; (3) have not previously purchased BlizzCon 2008 tickets; and (4) live in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, or South Korea.”

I can’t imagine someone creating an account for the sole purpose of trying to win tickets, but I suppose stranger things have happened. Be sure to follow all of the instructions on the main contest page here. If you don’t win the contest or you’re still unable to go, not to worry, another option is available to you. DirectTV will actually be hosting the invest on PayperView live, with hours of commentary and panel discussion from the event. Catching in the tube won’t exactly come cheap though, it’ll cost you $39.95 to view the event from the comfort of your living room. I suppose its not all that expensive considering its 16 hours of high definition footage, but its a little rich for my blood. Perhaps I’ll catch the recaps out there instead.
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Imagine stomping through the Deadmines at level 80, defeating Van Cleef in a challenging and interesting fight, nothing like the time you breezed through the place at level 20. Heroic versions of old dungeons are something the playerbase has been looking for a long time, and expansion development has renewed hopes that maybe we’d see them in Wrath of the Lich King. Unfortunately that possibility has once again been struck down by a recent post by a Blizzard CM, Bornakk:

” We have stated in the past that while this is a fun idea, we don’t currently have any plans to do this. As much as going back and seeing good ol’ Scholomance sounds like a expedition, it is still a dungeon that a lot of people have already run a lot of times. We are focused on bringing brand new dungeons to players that are also more epic and exciting than what we have done in the past.”

So as you can see, Blizzard has decided to develop new content as opposed to focusing on rehashing old dungeons. One could make the argument that development time for rehashed dungeons are likely a fraction of the time and effort required to build a new one from scratch, but its likely falling on deaf ears. Maybe by next expansion we’ll be able to stomp through Gnomeregan and liberate the place from our fallen brethren once and for all. Or not, which seems to be the more likely scenario. Personally I’d love the opportunity to adventure through old hunting grounds once again, but its on the back burner for now!

If you haven’t noticed the brand new splash on Blizzard’s site, they’ve introduced an aggressive recruiting policy that targets new players and there’s some substantial in-game rewards if you can find friends to bring in. Here’s a list of rewards you can expect:

1. Characters on both accounts can summon each other once per hour.
2. While adventuring with your linked friend/family member, you will each gain triple experience.
3. For every two levels the new player earns, the new player can grant one free level-up to a lower-level character played by the veteran player.
4. A special Zhevra mount!

Needless to say that while a lot of new players will be happy to know the leveling process will be much easier, its left many veteran players out in the cold. After all, where are the rewards for players who are slugging it out to 70 with their 5th or 6th character? Don’t they deserve a leveling boost, even if its temporary, as well? I’ve read quite a number of unhappy responses over at the forums, and that’s not entirely surprising given the current set of circumstances.

In my own opinion, I think Blizzard should reward players on both sides of the fence. Yes, bringing in new players to the game should be rewarded and an easier leveling process for newbies makes the game more enjoyable and less of a grind. But toss a bone to use old heads too, like one triple XP alt to 60 every year or something like that. This wouldn’t upset the balance or effort of the game, but would reward players for being loyal customers as well.

With high powered handhelds becoming commonplace among consumers, I’ve always been curious as to how feasible (and likely) a convert to consoles would be. Console gamers are typically fickle when it comes to MMO games on their box, and really most people who want to play MMOs already have a PC (who doesn’t?) beefy enough to run Warcraft, considering the system requirements are so low. A recent post over at WoWinsider considered the possibility as well:

Mike’s post yesterday about playing WoW with an XBox controller got me thinking. Now, I honestly prefer playing certain kinds of games on the PC, MMOs topping that list. But if Blizzard up and decided tomorrow to change their minds about a console (which they aren’t) version of World of Warcraft, I wonder what it would be like. Exactly how much would the game change once it was ported? And which console would WoW be most at home on?

Honestly a portable version of WoW would be the most fun to me, perhaps on the iphone or psp, (maybe we’d see it over at psp spot), though I’m sure many handheld devices would have trouble running the game..for now anyway.

Blizzard has repeatedly stated that a port to the xbox is out of the question, but as time goes on I believe the possibility is much more likely. Looking at Wrath of the Lich King it doesn’t appear that there’s been any major graphical overhaul, while consoles and handheld systems are constantly gaining processing power. I believe that we’ll see a console version of the game at some point before wow’s shelf life ends.