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WoW Burning Crusade Delayed until January 2007
Wowzer writes "Blizzard today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion for World of Warcraft, is delayed until January 2007. From the article: 'By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.' While disappointing now, what will this mean for the yearly WoW expansions long term? As Blizzard COO Paul Sams revealed plans in August that 'Starting with The Burning Crusade, every year thereafter we plan on bringing out a new expansion set.' 2008, 2009, ad infinitum?"
I guess teenage "Thrombo The Orcslayer" will need to sheath his "Daemon Warblade" and come down from his bedroom over Christmas and join mum, dad and Auntie Flo for a family game of Monopoly this year then.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
...sociologists predict many more marriages will now survive the Christmas season.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I knew it, Blizzard has no plans whatsoever to make games anymore. As long as WoW is played, Blizzard are not developers, they are simply maintainers. Don't take this the wrong way though, would you or I honestly continue to make new games if we're constantly making billions on one game?
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Sure, as long as the players will pay for it. ;-)
From an economic point of view, Blizzard would be crazy not to milk WOW for as much money as possible. And economic points of view are important to corporations
Of course (and half off topic), it would be smart to use some of that money and invest in something new, because at some point people will get tired of WOW.
C - the footgun of programming languages
You must be new to the MMO business model. That's standard practice in the MMO business.
Your claim is sort of like saying that just because you paid for WindowsXP you should have free access to every new piece of software Microsoft releases, because by god, you already PAID for Windows.
If you don't want to pay for the expansion, you can keep playing WoW all you like without the expansion pack. If the subscription fee is an issue for you, you can always play an offline RPG. There's nothing untoward about a company charging for the thousands of hours of dev time and expense to offer (what sounds like) a significant expansion, though.
Rock is dead. Long live scissors and paper!
Thank you for moving the release of this product until after Christmas. By doing so you have enabled my long lost WoW addicted relatives to make a meaningful appearance during the holiday season. There are few things more frustrating than having 2 people ask at the dinner table if they can use your computer.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
The game is constantly made easier so that "catching up" is always possible, the hard part is to get the last few items you need.
Anyone who's been in a guild in WoW should know how long it took to run through BWL for example say 8 - 12 months ago compared to now. Not sure how the american servers are doing right now but on the EU servers there has been a big dropoff from the larger guilds. Blizzard _needs_ this expansion or I think they will start loosing a lot of subscribers.
Alot of it is their own fault, they are saying blue items in BC are better than epic items pre-BC, thereby removing the need to obtain the high-end raiding items at the moment. Looking at the amount of time you need to invest to get any decent raiding-items, you are simply better off getting to level 60 before BC comes, and the levelling up with your guild/friends.
Personally I cancelled my accounts, simply because I got bored.
GO and kill the wild boars in the forest.
By my reckoning, you can gain the required 38 levels after only 4796.5 hours of constant killing.
liqbase
I hate blog links. Here's the real deal: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi cId=38244050&sid=1.
Question everything
On one hand they are foolhardy for doing this, on the other it is a brave decision to improve the game. Almost every shop around here is full of WoW stuff leading up to christmas - the 15 day trial packs are literally flying off shelves which shows they will have more than enough new players getting the game for christmas and joining in. However there would have been a huge upsell market for the Burning Crusade pack if it was released in time for Christmas, granted most people who play Warcraft will eventually pick it up but Christmas would have been a perfect time for Blizzard to cash in on both new gamers and existing players.
However, by choosing to delay it they have put the playability of the game over the profit they could make by throwing it out there and just continually patching it up to standard (cough, Gothic 3, EA, cough). I'm quite happy to see a game studio finally taking the time to make a game good before cashing in on it, instead of throwing out whatever they have done to make the sales that will occur anyway. I just have to wonder whether this will be the last delay we will see for Burning Crusade, or whether more lay in wait in development hell.
Business Voyeur
Millions of additional turkeys/goose will now lose their lives thanks to Blizzard's incompetence.
PETA is going to open a can of whoopass.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Sword of 1000 Truths. No doubt when South Park talked to Blizzard to get permission for the episode they worked together to get the content to coincide with upcoming items (or just simply created them because of the episode).
They have to make it easier and easier over time, or nobody will come and start anew, knowing that they will never ever catch up and reach that supersezzy new content. They'd rather turn to some other MMORPG (it's not like there's only one medieval-styled MMORPG on the market...).
I know how much this sucks, and it drove me away from other MMORPGs in the past. Personally I'd be very happy with a more or less "stable" universe, with the occasional new content to keep people entertained. Hell, with good PvP you can even reach that goal by redesigning the PvP areas every now and then, without the need to actually generate a ton of new content!
What really ticks me off in "modern" MMORPGs is the carebear attitude towards the players. Why don't they just hand out everything to everyone?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I felt a great disturbance in Azeroth, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror...and went RIGHT back to raiding again.
Unheard of!
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I'm always amused at the term 'carebear'. As if it was some sort of insult to use it, either towards another person, idea, or action. Can you think of getting into a fight and be like... "Oh yeah?!? Well, you're... you're... a BIG carebare! HA! Take that! Mwuahahaha *walks away gleefully as if scoring some major victory*".
Ironically, it's been my experiance that those people who have used this term to insult things, act more childish than the actions or people it's being used upon.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Isn't "player-controlled NPCs" an oxymoron?
My roommate has the BC beta and i've watched him play. Honestly, i'm surprised it's even in beta, i think it should still be in alpha status. Of the 5 or so hours of gameplay i've seen so far, i have witnessed:
/uninstall
1- Loot rolls being won, but the item doesn't go into your bag. The item was 'lost' since he couln't loot the body anymore.
2- Just clicking on a particular elite mob crashed wow to the desktop, twice.
3- There were several mobs that didn't have any animation assigned to them. they were just these floating statues and you couldn't tell who they were attacking or if they were even dead yet.
4- He has mostly tier 2.5 and 3 gear, and is a freakishly amazing pvper, yet he was easily killed by a rogue only 2 lvls higher. he used to be able to just laugh at rogues with his mail armor and shield, now it appears the lvls signify an overpowering leap in stats making it unfair.
5- I don't know about him, but if I had worked relentlessly, giving up my life to get the uber leet T3 armor, and then see GREEN everyday items drop in BC that are actually better the most sought after gear in the normal game......I'd get so bitter i would prolly logoff and uninstall right that second!
I have seen alot more than this, but all i can say is that the game is nowhere near ready for release. They need to realize that it affects over 6million of us now and most of us like it just the way it is. Also, we already have to deal with the dreaded 'patch day' every tuesday where our servers are offine, we can't play and then we get to read about how they changed the game yet again.
This is just my opinion of the game from what i have seen. I mean no harm to Blizz, and i'm sure that with $(6million X $15 / Month) they can afford to devolop the game into truly one for the recordbooks.
GG
I don't mind cooperation with other players. Actually, that's what I'm looking for. Unfortunately, "carebear" games (i.e. games where the game creator makes sure you don't have to feel any hard edges and stuffs you in bubblewrap) support the radically opposite kind of player: The greedy, selfish prick.
... everything! All your gear dropped to the ground, and if you could not get it back within a week, it's gone for good. Quests and encounters that actually REQUIRED you to use loopholes to be successful. There were quests where the dev team said flat out "We don't have a clue how to beat it. Good luck.". And a few more things that made this game simply and plainly unfairly evil and hard. I guess you could not get less "carebeary" than EQ was.
Let's take two very different (from a "carebear" attitude point of view) MMORPGs. EQ (the original one) and WoW.
In EQ, dying meant you lose
On the other end of the spectrum you find WoW. A minor loss in XP, "damage" to your equipment (which you kept) and if you're too lazy to get your gear back, the worst thing that happens to you is more damage to it. In a nutshell, you lose a little XP and gold. Quests are meant to be solved with a pre determined number of players and, let's be blunt here, that can be scripted if you're a halfway decent coder.
Now, when I look back at the playerbase of EQ, I'd be hard pressed to find real assholes. Sure, you had the occasional player or even group that was either loonies or outright bastards, but few of them survived for long. Simple reason: Being a jerk did not pay off. You DID need the other players, if for nothing else then for getting your gear back from the peak of mount whatever, within that certain week. Being a jerk meant that nobody would go out of his way and risk his gear for yours. I've seen raid parties of 30+ people tank their way through days worth of, from their point of view, "needless" quests, just to get the gear of one person back. Because you simply knew that he would do the same, or maybe he even already did.
In WoW... I've seen more jerks, idiots, morons and simple flat out assholes in that 4 months I played it than in my whole EQ time.
That's what I don't like about carebear games. They let you get away with being a jerk.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The problem is, the term 'carebear' is a created internet term, much like w00t, pawn, haxxor, leet, and others are. To this degree, there's no standard definition for it, and it's open to be used or abused in sentaces that don't properly phase the word to it's original means.
Carebear was always implied 'childish' behavoir or actions as The Carebears was a popular childrens cartoon in the 1980's. It was used to insult people who would yell and scream at someone for 'killing' their character. I believe this was back in the Ultima days when PvP was open and easy. If you're missed those days, then maybe you've seen the South Park episode featuring WoW? You know that half naked guy running around killing people for no reason? Well, it was kind of like that. The grief would call the people he griefed 'carebears' because they would complain and yell at him for loosing, like a child would cry if they lost at a sport.
So, in the wonderful world of online gaming and RPG's, two terms where developed to insult the other people. "Griefer" and "Carebear". A person would call someone a "griefer" if they would kill you repeatedly and a person who complained (ie. cried about) at being killed repeatadly would be called a "carebear". Of course, in Ultima, that game mechanic was possible.
Of course, these terms survived and moved into EQ and all the games to be spawned after it. The term became associated with "easy" as games started to restrict the ability to kill others, such as requiring an accepted duel or special areas that a player could 'choose' to enter. Thus the 'griefers' where killed off and in their anger claimed that such games where too "carebear" to play because there was no threat of grief. Not surprisingly, the player base increased dramatically when such restrictions where part of the game model. Though, to cater to the Ultima fans, EQ and the following games created special servers that allowed open fighting and killing, usually after a certain, very low level. This of course, lead to the popular (and hilarious) story of Fansy the Bard.
Since then, games have tried to cater to the Player vs Player fan base, who liked the idea of danger and suspense when anyone could attack you. Dark Age of Camelot, who's game was designed with restricted areas for PvP combat, created an all open PvP server where anyone could fight anyone at any time. I even tried this server, but didn't last past the first level of open combat as it was just too annoying after I got my quick thrills of griefing. This became famous for showing how over powered the Enchanter class was, as it had a magic casting pet with no line of sight restriction, allowing it to attack you from far away without recourse. It also became famous for the small city of Mag Mel(sp?), where you could resurect and continue fighting. Ultimatly, the server numbers dwindelled to next to nothing because, due to game mechnics, you had very little chance, and players had very little reason, to let you level to the maxium level and have a fair(er) playing field. It's all part of the video game 'God' complex. Of course, at that time, those in support of PvP DAoC servers would call who critizied them 'carebears'.
So, there's a brief history, as I know it, of the term "carebear". And that's why it's not a very good use of the term when calling a game carebear, as a game cannot complain about the way people use it. Of course, if games where real, I could see Shadowbane calling WoW a carebear while Ultima Online kills them both. hehe
For more issues that Ultima faced, you can read some on Wikipedia.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell