I can tell you from personal experience that half the friends I know with Nintendo DS consoles have only bought on cartridge for it: The "R4" device that lets you, among other things, download illegal copies of games so you don't have to pay for them.
Of course, that's just because they want foreign games, right? Right?
Makes sense. Even without an ear, the baby is basically living in a giant fluid filled sac connected only a couple feet away from the source of the noise. A person's body is basically one giant ear (hence why you can hear something you whisper or a bone in your foot crack when you stretch despite the fact no one around you can hear it).
Apparently sharks have gotten wiser and are now trying to attract a 'healthier crowd' by using fruit as bait. I hope this trend in eating healthier humans pleases our laser mounted ocean-dwelling overlords.
I'm a graphic design student. I'm in a drawing class. This is one of the first years, but we are no longer allowed to use copyrighted material in our drawings.
This is ridiculous. We can no longer work off of another's work? Imitate another's style to learn how to become better artists? Or even use a piece of a photograph in a 20+ photo collage? I understand that its important to give credit where its due lest someone have their hard work stolen from them, but I don't think a pencil sketch of a cropping of a 45 year old photograph found for free in my university library from a 25+ year old book is going to hurt the sales of that book. But apparently its against school policy and an abhorrent procedure that can cause us to lose our jobs in the future.
I can't wait until so much is copyrighted that there's only a handful of artists left who can still legally do their work. "Your drawing looks just like my photo! Lawsuit!"
One thing that is both true and interesting here is that many people download because they cannot purchase. Not due to lack of funds, but availability. Unless they go to import stores *and* wait several months for said stores to get the latest foreign album, people who enjoy foreign music have no option aside from illegal downloading. Or buying foreign itunes gift cards.
Personally I wish places like itunes opened up earlier. The main reason I stopped buying CDs is so many of them would have, at most, 2 songs I enjoyed listening too. And singles always cost *more* than compilation albums, usually became they came bundled with DVDs of the concert or something else I never wanted.
I use that many books for a single character from 3.5. The difference is the books were cheaper ($10 on ebay if 6 months or older; $25 in comic shops; $30 retail), there was no DD-insider (meaning more people owned more paper books so you could borrow from friends) and the online content wizards provided was free (there was a LOT of free content on wizards.com).
For example, my soul knife uses Player's Handbook (Fighter), a Dragon Magazine (Feat), Expanded Psionics Handbook (Base Class), PHBII (feat), Complete Warrior (feat), Shining South (Prestige Class), Magic item Compendium (gear), a third party Psion book and uses a custom race varianted from an AEG book.
Exploring lots of books is not my problem with 4E. Its how little content there are per book and how unusable all of the content is for fear of an "unbalanced game". Yeah, you can get infinite attacks with an unerrata'd loop found a week before 4E launched using just the Player's Handbook 1. Games will be broken, that's why we have GMs.
The truth is, 4E still has less classes, feats and races after a year then 3.X had with JUST the SRD. Not even the actual books. Yes, I'm including monstrous races since I believe one of the greatest appeals for me in DnD was the ability to play more than a human, a short human, a short buff human, a big ugly human or a tall foresty human or a half-human half-tall foresty human with barely any the benefits of either. And I wouldn't even be that angry about it if Wizard's didn't market 4E as having 'more interesting races' like the half-demons and half-dragons. Despite the fact they had them in 3E at launch in the Monster Manual! Yes, level adjustments are a little odd...but the SRD includes rules for buying off level adjustments that balances them and makes them fun for the player quite easily (I'd say 'but they are a headache for the DM, but that's just not true for a competant DM who knows more than 'insert X monsters into room and see how my players fair').
Long story short: We got PDFs alongside our books. Both are invaluable resources. PDFs can be scanned en-masse for particular entries. Books can't be used without electricity, scanned through more quickly if you know where your looking and don't have the same problems computers do when you try to maintain a proper gaming atmosphere (i.e. suddenly your paladin is showing your memes from 4chan instead of trying to kill a dragon).
The main reason this was done was to protect the fact that Wizard's is spending most of its energy focusing on its online product. Ebooks are a direct competitor to their fee-charging online service.
When they only release a decent amount of content for players once every year, its no surprise they'd be more protective of their content. Everyone I know who still is fortunate enough to have a 3.X DnD group has every WotC PDF on their computer and/or hard drive. And the group collectively owns every book. In my own group we have 5 copies of Lords of Madness, 2 of Draconomicon, 4 Complete Warriors, 3 Complete Arcanes and, of course, countless players handbooks, monster manuals and DMGs for 3.0 and 3.5. And we still downloaded content.
And we were happy to pay money for the books since we weren't given these official online resources that you pretty much need to use more than half the content 4.0 has to offer. We liked paper and flipping through well printed books. Ebooks were an ok substitute when our book was being loaned to a friend or something...but for the most part nothing beat paper since there were no advantages to using ebooks other than search features (which, really, isn't that good a feature since a lot of the times you'll forget the exact wording of something and are better off flipping through a book until you find the adjacent picture).
Every other month Wizards would release some amazing module for players to get new ideas. The complete and environmental series gave us feats, spells, items and classes. Campaign modules gave us the same. Monster Manuals gave players new races and summons. Nearly every module until May 2007 (Complete Champion) (hey, a month after 4.0 was announced to be released; coincidence?). Every month we'd also get a good dozen or so feats and a handful of prestige classes from a dragon magazine too.
Flash forward to 4.0 where Wizards wants to make the game "easier" to attract a wider audience. Now we get ~6 powers per dragon magazine, about 3 classes races every 6 months and most updates to the game are to make it "easier" (Monster Builder tools, character creation tools, etc...) and to promote their monthly subscription service with some new online trinket no one asked for.
DnD was played like Magic the Gathering in many ways. It was "collect the books/magazines/obscure article". And players loved it. It added a certain radical element to RPGs--the ability to have something no one player has or knows about without being substantially or necessarily stronger or weaker than them. Where RPGs like WoW or tabletop RPGs like Shadowrun have such limited content that nothing a player has on his or her sheet is ever 'new' to someone who scans the modules/playguides or has played for over a year, DnD flooded the market with so much 1st and 3rd party material that players had the opportunity to 'feel special'.
The other bonus element was the fact that players who didn't like scouring every source for obscure little classes or whatnot could feel like they are doing something new and special using the player's handbook, as the optimizers and vorthos' preferred the unique classes and avoided the player's handbook classes like the plague (save for dips, wizards and druids).
Of course it doesn't matter how many classes you make for 4.0. They all basically fill in the same 4 basic roles that ensure once you've played 4 different characters, you've done it all.
Mostly because opening the can is a violation of the EULA, voids your warranty and forces you to rely on downloading 3rd party patches for your can as you can no longer connect to WormNet, the premiere Can o' Worms networking solution software that is required to run alongside your Can o' Worms at all times.
My graphic design program hardly supports even Windows. I've had two teachers (the only two I've asked so far) outright tell me "If you use a non-Mac operating system, we won't be able to help you if something goes wrong."
I didn't say the original was bad. My friend actually bought everything he could from it. Then when he say the WoW RPG source book "more magic and mayham" he naturally went "oh, it says 'more'. That implies further content". After buying it, it was almost a page for page reread of the original content. There's not many mechanics, but the author's name has mysteriously changed...basically it was just an update for the 3.5 system. And I think calling it "more" was quite misleading. It'd be as though you bought "Complete Warrior" and instead of finding new information, you just find slightly expanded information on the core game Fighter, Barbarian and Warrior with some minor errata (with 90% of the book being reprinted material).
Ours are not. The internet either costs more money (at conventions), it out of range (at outside venues) or simply too much of a hassle to connect to (at homes with throttled connections or places with bad connections like certain universities).
They said "we know a majority of people played Warcraft on the internet and not on a LAN". First and foremost, I've only seen the LAN question asked for Starcraft. I've only seen Starcraft played on a LAN. People prefer LANs for high speed, security, and the ability to connect multiple people through a single router without choking their poor internet connection and/or configuring everyone's different laptop to work with that specific model of router (a nightmare with WiFi).
Second of all, how would they know? LANs aren't connected to the internet. They are likely to be played on computers not connected to the internet. There is no way of knowing how many people play LAN games over Internet games, other than surveys. Which is silly since most LAN players aren't likely to see these surveys, as they are likely taken online. Online when you log into the game/game's website. And if you don't use the internet to play, why would you check the website?
I just wish they'd cut the crap and say they are concerned about piracy and want to be able to boast higher numbers on their servers. They want everyone connected to Battle.net even if they aren't playing their games (see Steam's default auto-launch feature). They aren't satisfied with having the #1 pay-for-play American MMORPG in the world (I wish they'd stop claiming 'most populous MMO'). They want to claim they have the most players in the world playing their games by claiming everyone is logged into Battle.net.
Also, as someone who only plays SCII on a LAN at LAN parties, you guys can go straight to hell.
Warcraft even has a campaign setting for 3.0 Dungeons and Dragons. It was originally called the "Warcraft" setting...but they released for 3.5 it with titles that implied more content (for instance, instead of "Magic and Mayhem" it was called "More Magic and Mayhem"). Except it didn't have any new content. The updates were practically non-existant as well. But all the art, icons, etc... and the name of the game was redone from "Warcraft" to "World of Warcraft"...
This sums up Activision's (and Blizzard's) thoughts on games pretty nicely:
"[Those games] don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises.... I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus... on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we'll be working on them 10 years from now."
Yeah, don't release innovative games that can themselves be launched into sequels so popular they require their own company to be run (see: Wizards of the Coast with Magic, Pokemon USA with Pokemon). Instead start merging as many gaming companies together and then stifling their creativity as much as possible (see: Wizards of the Coast with Five Rings publishing).
Sorry I have to use a lot of tabletop examples; its more my fortay and I believe the comparisons are apt.
You didn't buy a game. You bought a temporary license that grants you an account on their servers. Its like bribing the bouncer at a club to get in. Then finding out the drinks are pricier than most and if you don't buy them continuously, you get bounced. Furthermore, you can get bounced for any reason, including drinking out of glasses the bar offers to its guests only to trap them. Finally, after you get in and drink a few drinks you learn what you've been drinking has been watered down. Real drinks require another bribe into a special part of the bar. That's the expansion.
WoW is like a Linear form video game. Except you have to pay $15 a month to keep playing. And there is no ending. And if you take too much time off to play something else, your accomplishments become meaningless or no greater than a "title" that can be obtained by a "normal" player in a matter of an hour or two.
I don't think diligence should be rewarded in a game. Don't say "effort". Effort is trying something. Diligence is doing something. I can't "try" to become level X0. Its not something that is beyond my skills (nor anyones, given enough time).
The only reason people think it difficult is because its lonely (if your new as most friends you meet leveling with either level much faster, much slower or quit before you hit X0) and boring (assuming you use services like WoWiki and Thottbot to complete your quests or you've done them before). Higher level should not always equate to "fun". I've had amazing Dungeons and Dragons adventures at level 3 (the characters started at level 3 for that matter). I've had horrible adventures at level 6, 10, 15 and even 20-30. Same goes for WoW. I have some amazing memories from being level 15 and many more awful memories of being level 70. The epic wonder and mystery is severely diminished at that level, and there's far too many players to feel epic enough yourself to explain why. Personally I wish we could do away with levels, but experiments have shown players don't like that and the worlds tend to come out over-expansive and quite bland.
But in the end its about competition. WoW is about whose armor is shinier and who gets higher numbers doing various tasks. And while you can try to ignore the number-crunching max-level jerks who refuse to acknowledge you because you want to use [insert current worst weapon spec for rogues] or [insert worst talent tree for hunters], it gets difficult as they tend to have the best argument: we want new content. We can't get to new content without beating better bosses. Better bosses require better gear.
In the end it also comes down to "if you've played more, your better". That kind of elitest attitude stinks up WoW like a post-game men's high school locker room. If your level 15, people will assume your new at the game or levelling a second or third character. Those are your two options: your either a vet or your new. Your something or your nothing. But that's complete and utter crap. Yes, in the "real world" (lets say "the office"), you can assume the new guy (i.e. first day on the job) might be a little green. But you won't refuse to talk to him until he's completed his first project. You won't refuse to listen to his suggestions. And although you might give a smirky "that's a bad idea" or "we've tried that" response, you still responded. Which is more than I can say for most level X0 players in WoW to a newer player trying to get the hang of the game.
Mark Rosewater, current head developer of Magic the Gathering, explained a much more in depth categorization. It has a lot more "gray areas" (in which people act like one or the other at different times), but I find it a lot better than this description (at least for tabletop games).
You can find the original article here. The other articles are found here and here/
Sure, we can make it backwards compatible wtih Cowbell Hero.
But seriously, why does this article not look at arcade sales? DDR, beatmania, etc... are still very popular arcade games...not as popular as they were, but only because those card game arcade machines are giving so many japanese a virtual stiffy.
Slashdot Mirror
Stay tuned for the Davy Jones report.
Ba dum psh! I'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your waitress.
I can tell you from personal experience that half the friends I know with Nintendo DS consoles have only bought on cartridge for it: The "R4" device that lets you, among other things, download illegal copies of games so you don't have to pay for them.
Of course, that's just because they want foreign games, right? Right?
Don't forget that no one ever vocalizes your name unless its a sequel or part of an already established franchise.
Makes sense. Even without an ear, the baby is basically living in a giant fluid filled sac connected only a couple feet away from the source of the noise. A person's body is basically one giant ear (hence why you can hear something you whisper or a bone in your foot crack when you stretch despite the fact no one around you can hear it).
What were the odds of that? Seems as unlikely as getting hit by...well you know.
Well I'm blind and I manage to win at everything I do. I can even post quickly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjh61UUv6wA
Apparently sharks have gotten wiser and are now trying to attract a 'healthier crowd' by using fruit as bait. I hope this trend in eating healthier humans pleases our laser mounted ocean-dwelling overlords.
I'm a graphic design student. I'm in a drawing class. This is one of the first years, but we are no longer allowed to use copyrighted material in our drawings.
This is ridiculous. We can no longer work off of another's work? Imitate another's style to learn how to become better artists? Or even use a piece of a photograph in a 20+ photo collage? I understand that its important to give credit where its due lest someone have their hard work stolen from them, but I don't think a pencil sketch of a cropping of a 45 year old photograph found for free in my university library from a 25+ year old book is going to hurt the sales of that book. But apparently its against school policy and an abhorrent procedure that can cause us to lose our jobs in the future.
I can't wait until so much is copyrighted that there's only a handful of artists left who can still legally do their work. "Your drawing looks just like my photo! Lawsuit!"
One thing that is both true and interesting here is that many people download because they cannot purchase. Not due to lack of funds, but availability. Unless they go to import stores *and* wait several months for said stores to get the latest foreign album, people who enjoy foreign music have no option aside from illegal downloading. Or buying foreign itunes gift cards. Personally I wish places like itunes opened up earlier. The main reason I stopped buying CDs is so many of them would have, at most, 2 songs I enjoyed listening too. And singles always cost *more* than compilation albums, usually became they came bundled with DVDs of the concert or something else I never wanted.
Right, anything that gets bonus feats and/or spells per day in its first three levels and isn't a sorcerer or bard.
I use that many books for a single character from 3.5. The difference is the books were cheaper ($10 on ebay if 6 months or older; $25 in comic shops; $30 retail), there was no DD-insider (meaning more people owned more paper books so you could borrow from friends) and the online content wizards provided was free (there was a LOT of free content on wizards.com).
For example, my soul knife uses Player's Handbook (Fighter), a Dragon Magazine (Feat), Expanded Psionics Handbook (Base Class), PHBII (feat), Complete Warrior (feat), Shining South (Prestige Class), Magic item Compendium (gear), a third party Psion book and uses a custom race varianted from an AEG book.
Exploring lots of books is not my problem with 4E. Its how little content there are per book and how unusable all of the content is for fear of an "unbalanced game". Yeah, you can get infinite attacks with an unerrata'd loop found a week before 4E launched using just the Player's Handbook 1. Games will be broken, that's why we have GMs.
The truth is, 4E still has less classes, feats and races after a year then 3.X had with JUST the SRD. Not even the actual books. Yes, I'm including monstrous races since I believe one of the greatest appeals for me in DnD was the ability to play more than a human, a short human, a short buff human, a big ugly human or a tall foresty human or a half-human half-tall foresty human with barely any the benefits of either. And I wouldn't even be that angry about it if Wizard's didn't market 4E as having 'more interesting races' like the half-demons and half-dragons. Despite the fact they had them in 3E at launch in the Monster Manual! Yes, level adjustments are a little odd...but the SRD includes rules for buying off level adjustments that balances them and makes them fun for the player quite easily (I'd say 'but they are a headache for the DM, but that's just not true for a competant DM who knows more than 'insert X monsters into room and see how my players fair').
Long story short: We got PDFs alongside our books. Both are invaluable resources. PDFs can be scanned en-masse for particular entries. Books can't be used without electricity, scanned through more quickly if you know where your looking and don't have the same problems computers do when you try to maintain a proper gaming atmosphere (i.e. suddenly your paladin is showing your memes from 4chan instead of trying to kill a dragon).
The main reason this was done was to protect the fact that Wizard's is spending most of its energy focusing on its online product. Ebooks are a direct competitor to their fee-charging online service.
When they only release a decent amount of content for players once every year, its no surprise they'd be more protective of their content. Everyone I know who still is fortunate enough to have a 3.X DnD group has every WotC PDF on their computer and/or hard drive. And the group collectively owns every book. In my own group we have 5 copies of Lords of Madness, 2 of Draconomicon, 4 Complete Warriors, 3 Complete Arcanes and, of course, countless players handbooks, monster manuals and DMGs for 3.0 and 3.5. And we still downloaded content.
And we were happy to pay money for the books since we weren't given these official online resources that you pretty much need to use more than half the content 4.0 has to offer. We liked paper and flipping through well printed books. Ebooks were an ok substitute when our book was being loaned to a friend or something...but for the most part nothing beat paper since there were no advantages to using ebooks other than search features (which, really, isn't that good a feature since a lot of the times you'll forget the exact wording of something and are better off flipping through a book until you find the adjacent picture).
Every other month Wizards would release some amazing module for players to get new ideas. The complete and environmental series gave us feats, spells, items and classes. Campaign modules gave us the same. Monster Manuals gave players new races and summons. Nearly every module until May 2007 (Complete Champion) (hey, a month after 4.0 was announced to be released; coincidence?). Every month we'd also get a good dozen or so feats and a handful of prestige classes from a dragon magazine too.
Flash forward to 4.0 where Wizards wants to make the game "easier" to attract a wider audience. Now we get ~6 powers per dragon magazine, about 3 classes races every 6 months and most updates to the game are to make it "easier" (Monster Builder tools, character creation tools, etc...) and to promote their monthly subscription service with some new online trinket no one asked for.
DnD was played like Magic the Gathering in many ways. It was "collect the books/magazines/obscure article". And players loved it. It added a certain radical element to RPGs--the ability to have something no one player has or knows about without being substantially or necessarily stronger or weaker than them. Where RPGs like WoW or tabletop RPGs like Shadowrun have such limited content that nothing a player has on his or her sheet is ever 'new' to someone who scans the modules/playguides or has played for over a year, DnD flooded the market with so much 1st and 3rd party material that players had the opportunity to 'feel special'.
The other bonus element was the fact that players who didn't like scouring every source for obscure little classes or whatnot could feel like they are doing something new and special using the player's handbook, as the optimizers and vorthos' preferred the unique classes and avoided the player's handbook classes like the plague (save for dips, wizards and druids).
Of course it doesn't matter how many classes you make for 4.0. They all basically fill in the same 4 basic roles that ensure once you've played 4 different characters, you've done it all.
Cans of Worms have lids for a reason.
Mostly because opening the can is a violation of the EULA, voids your warranty and forces you to rely on downloading 3rd party patches for your can as you can no longer connect to WormNet, the premiere Can o' Worms networking solution software that is required to run alongside your Can o' Worms at all times.
My graphic design program hardly supports even Windows. I've had two teachers (the only two I've asked so far) outright tell me "If you use a non-Mac operating system, we won't be able to help you if something goes wrong."
Just unplug the router and plug it back in. Works every time.
I didn't say the original was bad. My friend actually bought everything he could from it. Then when he say the WoW RPG source book "more magic and mayham" he naturally went "oh, it says 'more'. That implies further content". After buying it, it was almost a page for page reread of the original content. There's not many mechanics, but the author's name has mysteriously changed...basically it was just an update for the 3.5 system. And I think calling it "more" was quite misleading. It'd be as though you bought "Complete Warrior" and instead of finding new information, you just find slightly expanded information on the core game Fighter, Barbarian and Warrior with some minor errata (with 90% of the book being reprinted material).
Ours are not. The internet either costs more money (at conventions), it out of range (at outside venues) or simply too much of a hassle to connect to (at homes with throttled connections or places with bad connections like certain universities).
They said "we know a majority of people played Warcraft on the internet and not on a LAN". First and foremost, I've only seen the LAN question asked for Starcraft. I've only seen Starcraft played on a LAN. People prefer LANs for high speed, security, and the ability to connect multiple people through a single router without choking their poor internet connection and/or configuring everyone's different laptop to work with that specific model of router (a nightmare with WiFi).
Second of all, how would they know? LANs aren't connected to the internet. They are likely to be played on computers not connected to the internet. There is no way of knowing how many people play LAN games over Internet games, other than surveys. Which is silly since most LAN players aren't likely to see these surveys, as they are likely taken online. Online when you log into the game/game's website. And if you don't use the internet to play, why would you check the website?
I just wish they'd cut the crap and say they are concerned about piracy and want to be able to boast higher numbers on their servers. They want everyone connected to Battle.net even if they aren't playing their games (see Steam's default auto-launch feature). They aren't satisfied with having the #1 pay-for-play American MMORPG in the world (I wish they'd stop claiming 'most populous MMO'). They want to claim they have the most players in the world playing their games by claiming everyone is logged into Battle.net.
Also, as someone who only plays SCII on a LAN at LAN parties, you guys can go straight to hell.
Warcraft even has a campaign setting for 3.0 Dungeons and Dragons. It was originally called the "Warcraft" setting...but they released for 3.5 it with titles that implied more content (for instance, instead of "Magic and Mayhem" it was called "More Magic and Mayhem"). Except it didn't have any new content. The updates were practically non-existant as well. But all the art, icons, etc... and the name of the game was redone from "Warcraft" to "World of Warcraft"...
This sums up Activision's (and Blizzard's) thoughts on games pretty nicely:
... I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus... on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we'll be working on them 10 years from now."
"[Those games] don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million dollar franchises.
Yeah, don't release innovative games that can themselves be launched into sequels so popular they require their own company to be run (see: Wizards of the Coast with Magic, Pokemon USA with Pokemon). Instead start merging as many gaming companies together and then stifling their creativity as much as possible (see: Wizards of the Coast with Five Rings publishing).
Sorry I have to use a lot of tabletop examples; its more my fortay and I believe the comparisons are apt.
You didn't buy a game. You bought a temporary license that grants you an account on their servers. Its like bribing the bouncer at a club to get in. Then finding out the drinks are pricier than most and if you don't buy them continuously, you get bounced. Furthermore, you can get bounced for any reason, including drinking out of glasses the bar offers to its guests only to trap them. Finally, after you get in and drink a few drinks you learn what you've been drinking has been watered down. Real drinks require another bribe into a special part of the bar. That's the expansion.
WoW is like a Linear form video game. Except you have to pay $15 a month to keep playing. And there is no ending. And if you take too much time off to play something else, your accomplishments become meaningless or no greater than a "title" that can be obtained by a "normal" player in a matter of an hour or two.
I don't think diligence should be rewarded in a game. Don't say "effort". Effort is trying something. Diligence is doing something. I can't "try" to become level X0. Its not something that is beyond my skills (nor anyones, given enough time).
The only reason people think it difficult is because its lonely (if your new as most friends you meet leveling with either level much faster, much slower or quit before you hit X0) and boring (assuming you use services like WoWiki and Thottbot to complete your quests or you've done them before). Higher level should not always equate to "fun". I've had amazing Dungeons and Dragons adventures at level 3 (the characters started at level 3 for that matter). I've had horrible adventures at level 6, 10, 15 and even 20-30. Same goes for WoW. I have some amazing memories from being level 15 and many more awful memories of being level 70. The epic wonder and mystery is severely diminished at that level, and there's far too many players to feel epic enough yourself to explain why. Personally I wish we could do away with levels, but experiments have shown players don't like that and the worlds tend to come out over-expansive and quite bland.
But in the end its about competition. WoW is about whose armor is shinier and who gets higher numbers doing various tasks. And while you can try to ignore the number-crunching max-level jerks who refuse to acknowledge you because you want to use [insert current worst weapon spec for rogues] or [insert worst talent tree for hunters], it gets difficult as they tend to have the best argument: we want new content. We can't get to new content without beating better bosses. Better bosses require better gear.
In the end it also comes down to "if you've played more, your better". That kind of elitest attitude stinks up WoW like a post-game men's high school locker room. If your level 15, people will assume your new at the game or levelling a second or third character. Those are your two options: your either a vet or your new. Your something or your nothing. But that's complete and utter crap. Yes, in the "real world" (lets say "the office"), you can assume the new guy (i.e. first day on the job) might be a little green. But you won't refuse to talk to him until he's completed his first project. You won't refuse to listen to his suggestions. And although you might give a smirky "that's a bad idea" or "we've tried that" response, you still responded. Which is more than I can say for most level X0 players in WoW to a newer player trying to get the hang of the game.
Mark Rosewater, current head developer of Magic the Gathering, explained a much more in depth categorization. It has a lot more "gray areas" (in which people act like one or the other at different times), but I find it a lot better than this description (at least for tabletop games).
You can find the original article here. The other articles are found here and here/
Sure, we can make it backwards compatible wtih Cowbell Hero.
But seriously, why does this article not look at arcade sales? DDR, beatmania, etc... are still very popular arcade games...not as popular as they were, but only because those card game arcade machines are giving so many japanese a virtual stiffy.