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World of Warcraft Launches
The last major MMOG launch of the year hits retail stores today. World of Warcraft finally goes live after years of debate, development, and a more than six month Beta test. The usual suspects have details on the game, with Gamespot already having details on upcoming content and Gamespy laying out personal experiences from the test and interviews with the developers.
www.topmudsites.com is a good place to start. If you like MMORPG's, and you enjoy a more literate, deeper, and more immersive game playing experience, MUDs could be for you.
I'm going to pay the $12.99 a month (in 6-month blocks) for World of Warcraft. I played for almost 6 months in the closed beta. I thought MMORPGs were sucky and expensive. Now I look back at how much time I spent and how much entertainment value was in that time.
What interests me is a thought I had. "Cancel cable to play WoW.". This lead into the idea of just downloading the shows I like from BitTorrent. Yes, it's illegal for now, but it's not always going to be.
I think we'll start to see more of a choice in what we consider entertainment. I'd rather have streaming "on-demand" shows at 99 cents per hour's viewing than paying $40 a month for cable.
If I watch an hour an evening (which I don't do, but let's just say) of TV, that's still only $30 a month, saving me money off my cable bill. Say I like 3 shows, each on once a week, add in a movie or two on the weekends. That's still under $20 a month for on-demand entertainment. Plus, I can watch it when I'm not playing WoW.
Yeah, a bit scatterbrained, I'll admit. But if I'm representative of the 18-49 demographic, then others must be having this desire/thought. The iTunes music store seems to be working, so where's my NBC TV shop? or my HBOnline? Keep your TiVo, especially with the new "ads while you skip ads" system. I'll pay for my content to get it commercial free.
Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.