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WoW - The Game That Seized the Globe
The New York Times reports on the global appeal of World of Warcraft. An unmitigated success world-wide, the article examines why the title's U.S. roots haven't stopped it from succeeding abroad. From the article: "Perhaps more than pop music or Hollywood blockbusters, even the top video games traditionally have been limited in their appeal to the specific regional culture that produced them. For example the well-known series Grand Theft Auto, with its scenes of glamorized urban American violence, has been tremendously popular in the United States but has largely failed to resonate in Asia and in many parts of Europe. Meanwhile many Japanese games, with their distinctively cutesy anime visual style, often fall flat in North America. One of the main reasons Western software companies of all kinds have had difficulty in Asia is that piracy is still rampant across the region. Games like World of Warcraft circumvent that problem by giving the software away free and then charging for the game service, either hourly or monthly." Keep in mind that distribution and access rates are different in Asia than they are here in the states. The majority of WoW players pay an hourly fee, and didn't have to buy the box.
Sorry for the karma whoring but here's an RSS link to the site that doesn't require registration and the no-ads no pictures version.
Pretend you're a news feed or printer and you too can read stories without inhibiting log-ins or advertisements!
Now, for my two cents, I like WoW. But I loved Star Wars Galaxies pre-CU. I had two accounts in that game. It had this special kind of social aspect to it where people were dependent on even the most mundane professions. On top of that, you could level by dancing in a cantina all day, simply chatting with people. The fighting classes had to come in to relieve fatigue and wounds. It was a great system that, in my opinion, could have been more popular than WoW.
In WoW, fighting is the only thing that gains prestige. All the best weapons are looted, there is no dependence on non-fighting classes nor is there such a thing. I think that if anything is going to surpass WoW at this point, it has to be something that so far out there that it's not even well defined yet.
One thing is sure, it needs to accomodate both fighting classes and socializing classes and keep them equally important.
My work here is dung.
To see its perspective compared to other MMOs, check out this chart:
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http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart1_files/Subscriptio
It pretty much beats every other popular MMO out there combined. That's impressive.
Also, considering the expansion coming out, I'm sure that will attract either new players or players who quit before and then want to see what the Burning Crusade is about (new content, new characters, new spells, bug fixes, enhancements, etc).
http://www.webzengames.com/Game/APB/default.asp APB is under development.
Reading up on this, it seems that you can either play a criminal or the law. So its along the lines of a combined GTA/True Crimes MMO. Its not out yet, but i might actually give it a try when it does.
If i wanted to hear bullshit, i'd go to church.
"No, the quests don't get more varied. That's why the jab is that there are only three (or so) types of quests. It's literally true."
Oh please that is a flat out lie.
Rescue a knight from a dungeon. Then you walk through the alliance capital with said knight while every soldier you see salutes him. Several cutscenes happen. A certain political figure is revealed to be something very bad and a huge fight ensues after which you are charged to seek out said very bad person and kill them.
There are lots of examples like this. The quests in WoW are very varied. The problem is you finish them and WoW's end game doesn't really even have anymore quests it's just raid dungeon running over and over.
I wonder why you are so sad to see this model survive. 6 millions users cant be wrong. MMORPG are doing something right to survive for so long. The fact that it does not appeal to you is one thing but you should at least respect the fact that 6 millions other gamers actually like the game. Here... let me list a couple of things you will not get from a mame....
... ok that's rather unorthodox but you *can* do it if/when you ever feel inclined to that sort of endeavour.
... all of those do not offer me an entertainment as sustained as being able to log with my friend after a long day of work and just have fun with them.
Social activities
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- Get online with your friends and go kill mobs as a gang (PvE).
- Make a party of player and wage war on another party (PvP).
- Dress your male character with a robe while getting drunk on the beach
Updates
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- Interact with the developers to have your game customized to your need. Tell them what you like and what you dont. They'll do everything they can to improve the game.
- They'll also add content, quest, weapons, armors on a fairly regular basis.
- Events! They can decide that on december 25th, the grinch is gonna come and kick everyone's ass in a WoW-kinda way.
But of course, you know that already, you've read it yourself just as much as people trying to convince you have told you. So again.... that type of interactivity may or may not appeal to you, but you have to admit it offers a gameplay widely different than that of a mame or snes game for instance.
Sure there's a fee but i don't think its overly priced. Based on a monthly fee of 15$ I can honestly say that I spend 3 times the price of that on a single date with my girlfriend, I spend 5 times that price on a monthly basis to go to the movies or buy CDs, I spend more than 100 times that price for a week in the south and yet
The fee required can also be justified to buy the thousands of top-of-the-line servers required to support all the players, pay the developers and of course, lets not be blind, make a profit.
But all in all, I believe that MMOs do offer a value, a style, that offline games cannot offer.
When you say that your friends "throw money at all these games" I say they found a style of gaming that suits them. As long as everyone finds they own style, then all is good right ?
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
You are not chinese.
WoW has different pricing model in some parts of Asia.
Save yourself the money and stop payment, at least; your account and characters are never deleted. I cancelled payment for about a year then went back, picked up right where I left off for a couple months.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
WoW has a policy not to delete inactive characters. If you want to resume paying them money, they want to make it as easy as possible.
Final Fantasy XI deletes inactive characters after 3 months. It's the only MMORPG I know of that doesn't want to try and regain customers who left, but it's an MMORPG and it deletes inactive characters. But it's an exception.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Grand Theft Auto was not produced in the USA, it was produced in Scotland.
r ies)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_(se
Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a computer and video game series created and primarily developed by Scottish developer Rockstar North
WoW got old for me after about a week. Tried Eve-Online and can't get enough. Besides it's incredibly complex, persistent universe adn challenging play, it's exceptionally beautiful to look at.
World of Warcraft is to Eve as Pong is to Half-Life 2.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They do but only in the high end game. Basically unless you are a heavy raider almost nothing has been released since launch top extend your game. There are a few faction based options which are poorly thought out and boring as hell. And of course there are the battlegrounds which may or may not interest you. Of course the PVP ladder means that unless you are a hardcore player you won't ever get the shiny purples from PVPing.
In terms of content added since launch at no extra cost the list I am aware of goes something like:
Mauradon (5 player instance)
Dire Maul (3 5 player instances)
Molten Core (40 player instance)
Black Wing Lair (40 player instance)
Zul Gurub (20 player instance)
Ahn Quiraj (world event, 20 player instance, 40 player instance)
Naxxramas (40 player instance)
Various holiday event quests (Halloween, Xmas, Chinese New Year, Valentines day)
3 PVP Battlegrounds
Revamped map, new quest lines and faction options in Silithus
Several Dragons on the world map suitable for raid killing
New world PVP options
Darkmoon Faire
Additional quests in Feralas, Hinterlands and Searing Gorge mid-level zones
And a bunch of smaller tweaks, revamps etc.
All in all, compared to other MMOs it is a decent chunk of new content. Unfortunately for the last few patches the majority of additions have focused on the high end raider or PVP player.
Sometimes my arms bend back.