WoW Expansion Sells 2.4 Million, New MMOG Planned

Computer and Videogames is reporting that 2.4 Million copies of Burning Crusade were sold on the first day of retail sales. Those numbers are just for North American and the EU, too, which totally discounts any sales the box may have had in Asian markets. Even without our eastern brethren, that number pretty much destroys every other launch-day sales number for a PC game. Meanwhile, the same gent that teased us with the next StarCraft game has tossed out this bone as well: Blizzard's next MMOG 'won't be another WoW'. From the article: "'When we announce our next MMORPG it's not going to be another WOW--we're not a company that tends to tread the same ground,' he told British film magazine Empire. 'It'll be something innovative and new that really brings entertainment to another level.' American Blizzard reps declined to expand on Bassat's comments, although the fact that the company began hiring real-time strategy developers last summer might offer a clue." So ... another Blizzard MMOG. Huh.

Comments

Treading the same ground?

[Samus]

we're not a company that tends to tread the same ground

This from the company that brought us Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3, Starcraft and World of Warcraft?

Re:Treading the same ground?

[MeanderingMind]

Contrary to popular belief, you can make a game within the same world and context without treading the same ground.

This isn't Team Ninja where they keep rereleasing Ninja Gaiden in new, prettier forms. The differences between Diablo 1 and 2, between WarCraft 2 and 3, and between WoW and anything else Blizzard has done are huge.

Most companies would have taken Diablo and stuck exactly to the formula. Diablo 2 would have had the same three classes, the same book system with a few new skills, some reason to revisit tristram and kill Diablo again, and maybe prettier graphics. Instead we got 5 new classes (and none of the old ones, unless you count killing them), a completely different skill system, socketed items, an expansive world across multiple acts, waypoints, and even more in the expansion. The only thing that remained the same was the clickfest.

While Lord of the Clans died, and StarCraft: Ghost may never see the light, Blizzard is known to tread new ground in familiar worlds. Simply listing off game titles without the context of how different each was is disingenuous.

Let's see how long it is before I'm proved wrong.

[Gothic_Walrus]

Between the hiring of RTS developers, the constant hints about Starcraft, and the fact that the game's tenth anniversary is coming up...well, it's just a hunch, really, but it's starting to sound more and more likely that this project is some kind of Starcraft MMOG, however that would work.

I know that I'm not the only one considering this, and that there have been thousands - if not millions - of wrong predictions about gaming. That said, considering how popular Starcraft still is today, if Blizzard doesn't bring the franchise back in some form in the future it would be a horrendously bad business decision. As long as the game isn't terrible (and Blizzard's track record is still very solid, lest we forget), it'd sell like hotcakes and would help to bring in money from the crowd that's not up for the time commitment and fees that MMORPGs require.

Retreads?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, how's this for a thought: It'll be "Starcraft Galaxies" and they'll just dump all of the storyline that was supposed to be going into ghost into an MMOG instead. Seems like a very efficient use of IP.

With regards to creativity vs. retreads, World of Whatevercraft has been begging borrowing and stealing from whatever IP hasn't been properly nailed down -- or haven't you seen the Drain-o, Outland and Silithus lately? Seriously, the Diablo 2 "storyline" boils down to "you're a day late and a dollar short, now go get some loot." Blizzard has taken on a great pretense of lore, but the decision was made -- and contributes greatly to the success of WoW -- that fun is more important than lore. (This is in contrast to Warcraft 3 or Starcraft where you could get mission objectives that were patently dumb and transparently foolish and yet be forced into doing them to make the game continue for the sake of The Lore.) And given the track record that Blizzard has of making even quasi-interactive events in which the choices that the player makes have a tangible effect on long-term storyline, I definitely believe that it was the right choice.

If WoW were a better game, all of the characters would be pursuing different parallel quests that would change the characters' worlds as they progressed through them. Bosses, for example, would stay frikkin' dead. But I would rather have the option to complete the same dang quests with each of my WoW characters than have Blizzard tell me that I have to perform this Really Bad Idea because That's How Things Are -- that's not a game, it's a movie and a cheesy one where the audience is shouting advice at the screen to boot.