Especially if they monetarize Battle.net in some way. I can't say I'd be surprised to see downloadable content or premium accounts for their forthcoming titles.
So? Many other games beyond WoW are like that in concrete objectives. It's what you do with them that counts. And movement is far from slow - there's a nice tiered progression of you getting faster as you have to go farther.
I love visiting botanical gardens. My house is actually five minutes' walk from one. And yes, there is more beauty in water than in any game. You may find it easier to understand what I was saying if you think of it in the cultural discourse of video games as an experience, not overall.
One thing to keep in mind is that WoW accounts are likely to be folded into something involving Battle.net within a year/the release of sc2/d3, whichever comes first. When installing the new expansion pack for WoW, players link their WoW accounts to a "new battle.net account", and there's an in-game reward for combining the two accounts (that hasn't been given out to characters on the live/production/normal servers, as far as I've seen).
The raids aren't anywhere near as big a part of WoW as you make it seem. The reason they get so much attention, I think, is because Blizzard's done them so completely and well, unlike other mmorpgs.
New Quests: there's about 1000 across Northrend. (and fyi, the last big patch before WotLK content - 2.4 - added about 50, 30 of which were repeatable every day.) New Mechanics: that's an incredibly vague term, but there are the new phasing and knockback systems, and the new inscription profession. Also, Blizzard doesn't have a design philosophy that lends itself to including large amounts of whatever to the game. They add in consistent stuff that works with the rest of the game.
The new expansion also adds a new class, revamps two others, adds ten more levels (and corresponding new abilities) for all characters, an entire new continent to explore and see new things in, more crafting options.
And the design on all of this blows away what's come before. The new zones feel really alive - they look fantastic, sound wonderful, and offer interesting and new ways to get around them. Everyone who got off the boat or zeppelin just stopped and went "Wow." for a few minutes. And then we hit the dungeons - the third of the starter dungeons, Azjol-Nerub, has to be played to be believed. It's half an hour of terrifying beauty, of wriggling mummified *things* laying between two golden mushrooms in caverns man was never meant to see, had never seen. You look down vistas swarming with spiders crawling over the most beautiful architecture yet - and then you jump down to join them. It's lovecraftian and slasher-esque and Indiana Jones all at the same time. It's fantastic, and probably the best experience I've had ever in WoW, and one of the best in a game, period.
A house near me (I live in a university town) does actually rent out two large closets as living spaces, $100 a month. This is the kind of house where 2/9 rooms are hotboxed at any given moment and there's a concert in the basement every week. YMMV, but I think it might be pretty fun.
regarding your signature: it's actually the exact opposite; USD is only valuable because other people believe it has value. hence the monetary exchanges.
One of the articles linked to another article that hammered this point home for me: it is now a revolutionary, wonderful new feature that all your equipment and media will be compatible with each other. Think about it. DRM has fucked things up so much that the new carrot is "You can play this on your TV, and your computer, and your mp3 player." That's just fucked.
About Adium - it uses libpurple (from Pidgin) for connecting to all the IM services. If you look at the Pidgin changelogs, most of it is usually libpurple fixes - leading me to believe that Adium can look so good because it's not busy fixing the library everyone uses. It's not that Pidgin's team does a bad job - it's that they do a good job on the actual messaging part and have little time left over for UI redesigns.
One problem: no network drama series has lasted beyond 20 years in the US, and the two longest (Gunsmoke at 20 and Law & Order starting season 19 in January 2009) largely have their longevity explained by their standalone episode format and continually rotating cast; those factors are antithetical to your idea. Oh, and as someone who tried to catch up on L&O - watching sixteen seasons of a show that doesn't care if you skip episodes took a year. Literally. Watching sixteen seasons of a serial would take two, probably - likely too long for anyone to get into.
HDTV is not the same thing as a giant entertainment room penis-length compensator. I got a wonderful regular-size Samsung HDTV/monitor that looks great both from a physical perspective and a "playing Blu-Ray movies on my PS3" perspective. It was $400 CAD and it lives happily on my desk.
Personally, I think that's the major hurdle - that people think you need to have a four-foot wide design nightmare to enjoy HD content. I think if people learned that they didn't have to revise entire rooms of their house to enjoy HD content, they'd be far more willing to look at it themselves.
Bletchley Park - you mean the espionage/technology haven dedicated to intercepting foreign transmissions over foreign technologies for the purposes of fighting a foreign enemy?
On topic, a nice RSS feed-providing website for women I fell in love with recently is geeksugar, the gadgets and tech part of the Sugar bloglomerate. A site that's willing to colour coordinate and discuss ARM processors in Android? Yes please!
2007 was a fantastic year for metal: Dark Tranquillity, Porcupine Tree, Epica, Symphony X, Devildriver, High On Fire...both doom and goth metal got completely rewritten, depressive black went completely new fucked up places, thrash metal came back into true form, and the seeds were lain for a second flowering of melodeath. Awesome year.
Additionally, each new part takes longer to complete than the last - the time it takes to get from 60 to 70 is roughly equal to the time it takes to get from 1 to 60. There's a lot of different time investment and content ahead of level 6 in Durotar.
Slashdot Mirror
Especially if they monetarize Battle.net in some way. I can't say I'd be surprised to see downloadable content or premium accounts for their forthcoming titles.
So? Many other games beyond WoW are like that in concrete objectives. It's what you do with them that counts. And movement is far from slow - there's a nice tiered progression of you getting faster as you have to go farther.
I love visiting botanical gardens. My house is actually five minutes' walk from one. And yes, there is more beauty in water than in any game. You may find it easier to understand what I was saying if you think of it in the cultural discourse of video games as an experience, not overall.
One thing to keep in mind is that WoW accounts are likely to be folded into something involving Battle.net within a year/the release of sc2/d3, whichever comes first. When installing the new expansion pack for WoW, players link their WoW accounts to a "new battle.net account", and there's an in-game reward for combining the two accounts (that hasn't been given out to characters on the live/production/normal servers, as far as I've seen).
Yeah, a green from Howling Fjord just shot my defense through the roof, so I think I can give it a go now.
Ahn'kahet is the name of the second one. Can't wait to give it a try in a level.
The raids aren't anywhere near as big a part of WoW as you make it seem. The reason they get so much attention, I think, is because Blizzard's done them so completely and well, unlike other mmorpgs.
New Quests: there's about 1000 across Northrend. (and fyi, the last big patch before WotLK content - 2.4 - added about 50, 30 of which were repeatable every day.)
New Mechanics: that's an incredibly vague term, but there are the new phasing and knockback systems, and the new inscription profession. Also, Blizzard doesn't have a design philosophy that lends itself to including large amounts of whatever to the game. They add in consistent stuff that works with the rest of the game.
The new expansion also adds a new class, revamps two others, adds ten more levels (and corresponding new abilities) for all characters, an entire new continent to explore and see new things in, more crafting options.
And the design on all of this blows away what's come before. The new zones feel really alive - they look fantastic, sound wonderful, and offer interesting and new ways to get around them. Everyone who got off the boat or zeppelin just stopped and went "Wow." for a few minutes. And then we hit the dungeons - the third of the starter dungeons, Azjol-Nerub, has to be played to be believed. It's half an hour of terrifying beauty, of wriggling mummified *things* laying between two golden mushrooms in caverns man was never meant to see, had never seen. You look down vistas swarming with spiders crawling over the most beautiful architecture yet - and then you jump down to join them. It's lovecraftian and slasher-esque and Indiana Jones all at the same time. It's fantastic, and probably the best experience I've had ever in WoW, and one of the best in a game, period.
A house near me (I live in a university town) does actually rent out two large closets as living spaces, $100 a month. This is the kind of house where 2/9 rooms are hotboxed at any given moment and there's a concert in the basement every week. YMMV, but I think it might be pretty fun.
discoursive theory just owned you.
regarding your signature: it's actually the exact opposite; USD is only valuable because other people believe it has value. hence the monetary exchanges.
You sound like Andrew Ryan.
Thank you for the sexual objectification of one of the parties as "that woman".
If you spent a week there one day, you may want to see a doctor.
So basically Blizzard needs to release World of ElectricCarCraft.
One of the articles linked to another article that hammered this point home for me: it is now a revolutionary, wonderful new feature that all your equipment and media will be compatible with each other. Think about it. DRM has fucked things up so much that the new carrot is "You can play this on your TV, and your computer, and your mp3 player." That's just fucked.
About Adium - it uses libpurple (from Pidgin) for connecting to all the IM services. If you look at the Pidgin changelogs, most of it is usually libpurple fixes - leading me to believe that Adium can look so good because it's not busy fixing the library everyone uses. It's not that Pidgin's team does a bad job - it's that they do a good job on the actual messaging part and have little time left over for UI redesigns.
One problem: no network drama series has lasted beyond 20 years in the US, and the two longest (Gunsmoke at 20 and Law & Order starting season 19 in January 2009) largely have their longevity explained by their standalone episode format and continually rotating cast; those factors are antithetical to your idea. Oh, and as someone who tried to catch up on L&O - watching sixteen seasons of a show that doesn't care if you skip episodes took a year. Literally. Watching sixteen seasons of a serial would take two, probably - likely too long for anyone to get into.
HDTV is not the same thing as a giant entertainment room penis-length compensator. I got a wonderful regular-size Samsung HDTV/monitor that looks great both from a physical perspective and a "playing Blu-Ray movies on my PS3" perspective. It was $400 CAD and it lives happily on my desk.
Personally, I think that's the major hurdle - that people think you need to have a four-foot wide design nightmare to enjoy HD content. I think if people learned that they didn't have to revise entire rooms of their house to enjoy HD content, they'd be far more willing to look at it themselves.
Posting to clear moderation because I was brainless and didn't get the joke.
Bletchley Park - you mean the espionage/technology haven dedicated to intercepting foreign transmissions over foreign technologies for the purposes of fighting a foreign enemy?
On topic, a nice RSS feed-providing website for women I fell in love with recently is geeksugar, the gadgets and tech part of the Sugar bloglomerate. A site that's willing to colour coordinate and discuss ARM processors in Android? Yes please!
2007 was a fantastic year for metal: Dark Tranquillity, Porcupine Tree, Epica, Symphony X, Devildriver, High On Fire...both doom and goth metal got completely rewritten, depressive black went completely new fucked up places, thrash metal came back into true form, and the seeds were lain for a second flowering of melodeath. Awesome year.
Sure there's such thing as a bit pregnant. It's a 2.
Trial accounts can't talk to others.
Additionally, each new part takes longer to complete than the last - the time it takes to get from 60 to 70 is roughly equal to the time it takes to get from 1 to 60. There's a lot of different time investment and content ahead of level 6 in Durotar.
That O...that's new, I haven't seen it before...are you like, someone *special* or something?