The game has raised the bar for MMOG products, particularly in terms of revenue generation. However, there are some fundamental misconceptions about the game that are particularly problematic. In the end, it is a great game that has perhaps recalibrated investor expectations for MMOG products beyond what makes sense. There is a lot of supposedly new talk about the “World of Warcraft model”. To longtime industry observers, this talk is more retro (or even tired) than it is revolutionary. We have heard this tune before, only where the lyrics once featured EverQuest, now they sing World of Warcraft. Still, WoW developer Blizzard Entertainment obviously did something right and it only seems natural to ask what it was. It is only after understanding how Blizzard made WoW a success that companies can ask such questions as: is that success duplicable and if so is our particular company in a position to duplicate that success?
That’s a fundamental question in any system of laws. If you and I agree that you’ll give me a dollar, and in return I’ll give you two back later, we have a contract. If I skip town, I have committed a crime: fraud. It’s the most basic of crimes, and simply boils down to lying. Of course, there are a thousand ways to lie and be nothing more than a cad. If I tell you I’m a lousy pool player, we bet a dollar on a game, and it turns out I’m better than you, you’re a sucker, I’m a con artist, and there’s been no crime. Yes, I misrepresented myself, but it was a matter of judgment, not fact.
And there are plenty of cases where lying is a sanctioned risk. If we play a poker tournament — a legally constructed one, regulated by our fine system of government — it’s not only acceptable to lie, it’s expected. The card player who fails to lie effectively will almost always lose. It’s a condition of the game.
Consider if you will, Eve Online.
Last, week, Dentara Rast — a character in CCP’s Eve Online massively multiplayer online world — pulled off an impressive stunt. He ran a classic Ponzi scheme and walked off with 700 billion ISK (in game money, and quite a lot of it). Normally, this kind of in-game bravado would generate nothing but a confuse stare from someone not deep inside the Eve universe, and little more than scandal-of-the-week titillation and subsequent yawns there. But I believe this case is more interesting than that.
I believe Dentara Rast committed fraud.
I believe he owes the IRS a lot of money.
Admittedly these are bold statements likely stuffed with straw, but they have deep implications, and bear argument.
First.. sorry the news has been slow.. we monkeys have been mighty busy of late
Now…
This could be a cool new development in the whole graphics scene. Raytracing is a very sweet look. (think pixar)
“Need a reason for extra cores inside your box? How about faster graphics. Unlike traditional faster GPUs, raytraced graphics scale with extra cores. Brett Thomas writes in his article Parallel Worlds on Bit-Tech, ‘But rather than working on that advancement, most of the commercial graphics industry has been intent on pushing raster-based graphics as far as they could go. Research has been slow in raytracing, whereas raster graphic research has continued to be milked for every approximate drop it closely resembles being worth. Of course, it is to be expected that current technology be pushed, and it was a bit of a pipe dream to think that the whole industry should redesign itself over raytracing.’ A report by Intel about Ray Tracing shows that a single P4 3.2Ghz is capable of 100 million raysegs, which gives a comfortable 30fps. Intel further states 450 million raysegs is when it gets ‘interesting.’ Also, quad cores are dated to be available around the turn of the year. Would octacores bring us dual screen or separate right/left real-time raytraced 3D?”
I am very excited about the Wii, and this is exactly why.
IGN is reporting that in Miyamoto’s recent interview in Nintendo Dream (posted below), he also discussed some changes made to Twilight Princess. The biggest change to the controls is that now you will be swinging your Wiimote as if it were Link’s sword. I personally am VERY excited with this new change, it is exactly how I envisioned the Wii version from the start. Nintendo had said in the past that they were worried gamers would get too tired playing a Zelda title like this, but it appears they have had a change of heart. Miyamoto himself is all for the new idea stating, “Upon actually playing it, it’s more interesting this way.”
This could be just the thing for me to forget how unbearably stagnant and boring I ultimately find Oblivion to be: the ability to transmogrify into huge ogres, gigantic walking sticks and carnivorous cephalopods.It’s the Polymorphing Mod for Oblivion, currently being programmed by Grimenir over at the Elder Scrolls official forums. Thanks to megadethr for the tip!
Yours truly has been selected to participate in the first annual “Shmups World Cup”. I will be on a team with other east coast players taking on teams from Germany, UK, Canada, France, Sweden and Italy. We will be playing shooters from every console and emulator you can think of. From Gradius on the NES to Under Defeat on the Dreamcast, we’ll be playing it and kicking ass. The Tourney starts this Monday.
Wish us luck.
A post on my guild’s forums linked to this post on the blizzard forums, which had a blizzard employee stating that Nov 31st was the last date he had heard for the launch of The Burning Crusade.
The post may be gone now, but the date sounds legit. It fits with the Xmas Time frame, and it matches up with all the the media they have been showing already. Here’s hoping.
Nice. WII announced as not having online subscription costs.
In a new interview with major North American newspaper USA Today, Nintendo of America’s recently promoted president and chief operating officer Reggie Fils-Aime has commented on a number of features of the Wii’s imminent launch, including confirmation of free online play.When asked about the pricing model for online use of the Wii, Fils-Aime commented that: “We will offer online-enabled games that the consumers will not have to pay a subscription fee for. They’ll be able to enjoy that right out of the box. The Wii console is going to be Wi-Fi enabled, so essentially, you’ll be able to plug it in and go. It won’t have hidden fees or costs.”
Theres an interesting article on Wired that examines how Mark Burnett, the creator of Survivor, is in fact a game designer. He has another project in the works, and it may be interesting. So.. here is the wired article, you can decide for yourself if hes worthy of considering a game designer.
Quick: Who are the defining game designers of our generation?
A serious gamer might think of Will Wright of The Sims, Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo and maybe John Carmack of Doom. But let me throw another one at you:Mark Burnett.Who dat? He’s the guy who created Survivor, the TV show.
Depending on who you ask, Burnett is responsible for a) crafting one of the most successful series in history, b) injecting yet more gratuitous T&A into broadcasting and c) single-handedly revitalizing a moribund CBS.But I think he’s done something even more interesting: He has brought game design to the mainstream. And he did it not on an Xbox or PlayStation, but in that most Jurassic of media, prime time TV.
Can Anyone Beat WoW?
