Slashdot Mirror
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.
"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.
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
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.