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Read the rest of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta Tidbits and Image Gallery (38 words)

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 2 comments on 07/09/2010.
Posted in: Beta, Featured Tags: Blizzard, Cataclysm, World of Warcraft

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Read the rest of Blizzard Entertainment: A Whole New Level Of Fail (373 words)

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 19 comments on 07/07/2010.
Posted in: Fail, Featured, News, Opinion, Video Tags: Blizzard, World of Warcraft

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 7 comments on 07/02/2010.
Posted in: Analysis, Featured, Opinion, Video Tags: BioWare, Blizzard, Star Wars: The Old Repbulic, World of Warcraft

The MMO blogosphere has been in a bit of an uproar after Wolfshead decided Blizzard is to blame for the state of the MMO.  I have a response to this article, and it is to say that there are small pieces that I agree with, however  I don’t have to say alot because I merely need to reference Ixobelle, Genda and Tobold.  They’ve pretty much got it covered, enough said.

There, I told you this one would be short

No need to repeat what has been very well said already.  As you were.

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 2 comments on 05/26/2010.
Posted in: Analysis, Opinion Tags: Blizzard

Cue Saul from Coming to America saying "Ah-ha!"

A few days ago I speculated on the Call of Duty franchise by asking if it could possibly turn into an MMO, and then I tried to connect the dots and wonder if Blizzard might actually be involved in such a thing. I took a step further into speculationville and wondered if Blizzard’s next MMO might be Call of Duty Online.

Bill at mmorpg.com jumped in and took the theorycrafting ride as well. Users in the comments there blasted he (and by proxy me) for coming up with such nonsense, and referenced comments like this one from Blizzard:

Games take years to develop from concept to release. Diablo III was in the works for years before being announced. StarCraft II was announced two years ago and isn’t even in Beta yet.

We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it’s a shell of a game thus far. We’ve already stated it’ll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It’s an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this.

So I updated that former post to rule out Blizzard’s involvement with Call of Duty, and that was that. Blizzard’s next MMO can’t be Call of Duty based on that statement, unless someone has forced them to change their minds.  I would have not speculated as such had I seen that quote originally.

And then this happened: Activision gave financial reports on all its franchises today, and Bobby Kotick dropped this tidbit on us on Call of Duty (via Gamasutra):

The popular global fantasy of being a soldier is allowing us to enter new geographies, leveraging… [Blizzard's] expertise… creating content for audiences that have to date have only been satisfied by Blizzard games,” Kotick teased. “Soon we’ll announce our plans for both China and Korea.

So here’s what we know:

• Blizzard’s next MMO is an original IP, not Call of Duty, unless someone has changed their minds.  The next big Blizzard MMO is not Call of Duty.  However…
• Activision wants to turn Call of Duty into a subscription game, making it more MMO-like.  It already contains many elements of an MMORPG with leveling, achievements, etcetera.
• Blizzard will be involved in some capacity with this new MMO-like CoD game, according to the CEO of Activision.

So there you have it. We weren’t crazy to be connecting these specific dots. Specifically suggesting that Blizzard’s next MMO might be a Call of Duty MMO, might have been ill advised, but suggesting that Blizzard is involved with with whomever might be making the future Call of Duty games is not. We can debate what is or is not an MMO at another time, but this proves that it wasn’t crazy to put 2 and 2 together and figure out some sort of involvement by Blizzard in an MMO-like Call of Duty game.

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with No comments on 05/06/2010.
Posted in: Analysis, Featured, News Tags: Activision, Blizzard, Call of Duty

Call of Duty Online? By Blizzard?

Via Gamasutra, Wedbush Morgan’s financial analyst for the gaming industry was recently quoted as saying that he thinks Activision is set to make some profit this year from Starcraft II’s launch (duh!) and from the Call of Duty franchise continuing to sell well despite the recent Infinity Ward drama.

He thinks that drama will eventually get worked out, and speculates on a new business model.  His speculation (likely a very educated guess) is what is really interesting here for Blizzard fans.

See his quotes below, speaking about Activision’s Call of Duty franchise:

Activision intends to transform the game from a packaged product only to a subscription multiplayer game.

He goes further to speak directly to the Infinity Ward Drama:

We think that the company is on the path to subscriptions, and that West and Zampella did not wish to work on that kind of game, leading to their termination,

This is where I’m going to try to connect the dots with Blizzard.  It might be a stretch, but we know they plan to create a new MMO.  We also know they’ve released almost zero information about this title, and no one knows how far along they’ve gotten on this new MMO.  Perhaps they haven’t started, or perhaps there’s not more than conceptual work?  We know that they wanted to do something very different from WoW’s fantasy genre, and with StarCraft II coming out (and StarCraft Ghost cancelled long ago) it is likely not StarCraft Online.

Maybe, just maybe…Blizzard could be working on a Call of Duty MMO?  If the former IW heads were against developing such a thing, who would be the next best studio to make an MMO on one of Activison’s IP’s like Call of Duty?  Blizzard would certainly be the best, but who knows if that is what Blizzard had in mind or if the Activision guys would even be able to convince them to make it.

It would be a very different MMO from World of Warcraft, and these clues point to the possibility of a Call of Duty online.  The stretch is if Blizzard might be the studio behind it, which would automatically make it a big seller.  Or would it?  I doubt a war based story would have the same kind of mass appeal that Blizzard undoubtedly wants in it’s next MMO, but crazier things have happened before.

What do you think?  Call of Duty MMO by Blizzard likely?

Update: This speculation was put to bed pretty quickly. While a Call of Duty MMO may still be very likely, it seems that it is definitely not the “next Blizzard MMO” that many have spoken about based on the quote found here:

We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it’s a shell of a game thus far. We’ve already stated it’ll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It’s an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this.

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 3 comments on 05/03/2010.
Posted in: Featured, News, Opinion Tags: Blizzard, Call of Duty

The Infinity Ward train wreck, sponsored by Activision.

The mainstream gaming media, indie bloggers, tweeps and forum trolls across the net have beat this Infinity Ward debacle to death. And rightly so, as it has proven to be a great drama to watch unfold. It’s been like a multi-car wreck on the interstate, people just can’t help but rubberneck and say their piece on it. I am not immune to this phenomena.

I haven’t said much about it until now due to the excessive coverage of it all, but I recently pondered how this might effect Activision’s primary cash cow Blizzard, and thought I’d get my 2 cents in. I’ve read very little to give me any impression that Blizzard is any danger of Bobby Kotick and gang running them into the ground in such a manner, aside from my sparkly pony prognotications of doom. One would think that you’d leave well enough alone when that company is making you more money than that of most small countries’ gross domestic product. Yet, they did just that with Infinity Ward and the Modern Warfare franchise.

The IW thing just gets worse and worse for Activision every day. By last count there were nearly 30 people that have jumped ship, and now a group has banded together for yet another lawsuit in addition to the one that West and Zampella filed. Very soon, the 3 remaining employees at Ininity Ward will have to give Activision the bad news by telling them that they won’t be able to crank out Modern Warfare 3 any time soon. Eventually Activision will have to admit defeat because of this train wreck and close down one of the most lucrative gaming studios of all time. This is a great lesson on how to shoot yourself in the corporate foot.

I think that Blizzard is precisely the reason that Activision was bold enough to go through with the sacking of West and Zampella. By all accounts things are just rosy at Blizzard HQ. Starcraft 2 is about to release and make more truckloads of cash, followed shortly by World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm expansion. I think those 2 games might be poised to send Activision’s stock value up just a bit. Hopefully, this Infinity Ward disaster might help them to rethink any future conflict that could come about with Blizzard. You think the IW meltdown is bad? Imagine if Blizzard employees started leaving en masse. You could just about follow that up with an Activision chapter 13 filing, because Blizzard is what makes Activion worth a flip financially. It seems to me that with so much reliable cash flow coming from Blizzard, the Activision bozos felt froggy enough to leap at Infinity Ward. Wonder how froggy they feel now?

It just prooves to me that Activision has it’s collective head solidly up it’s rear end. These corporate robots clearly underestimated the loyalty that the IW staff had for the 2 studio heads they so boldly escorted out of the building that fateful day. So Infinity Ward is going to die a slow death despite what they say to the media or community. There’s no way that the remaining staff can be happy or trust the clowns they now work for. IW’s staff have either left, stayed to get all they can before leaving, and/or have updated their resumes and will be gone sooner or later. The talent level will dissipate to that of entry/junior level. Remaining staff may likely be people without the talent, vision and experience to make MW3 as great as the others have been. Infinity Ward is a dead man walking.

I hope EA is watching. Oh yeah, they are.

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with One comment on 04/28/2010.
Posted in: Analysis, Featured, Opinion Tags: Activision, Blizzard, Infinity Ward, Modern Warfare 2, Respawn Entertainment

Yes, we continue to beat this dead horse.

Continued Reaction
We are now living in a post sparkly ponyoclypse virtual world, and the blogging community has weighed in. Many are still beating this dead horse, as I am, but I think it is a pretty important topic that speaks to the future of gaming. The reaction has played out pretty much as I expected, with a pretty equal split between those that liked it and/or thought it was harmless versus those of us think that it means “something wicked this way comes”. I am in the latter of that group, but I understand and sympathize with both points of view.

On one hand, ActiBlizz is both bold and ingenious. On the other, they are sinister and greedy. To paraphrase Genda from a Ventrilo discussion a few nights ago, “Blizzard worked very hard to establish the market dominance they have, and ultimately only they have ability to do this on such a scale.” That is likely an inaccurate quote, but I think I’ve captured the basic idea. You see, pretty much no one but Blizzard can do something like this at this level. No one else has the insanely large subscriber base that they have. It’s like an economy of scale, but in this case different. Rather than sell a bazillion really cheap items to many people, they sold relatively few of them at a higher price point to less people. It’s not like an expansion, where 99% of the player base will fork over whatever their asking price is for Cataclysm. The target audience is much smaller.

More Numberology
Let me elaborate for a second. If these kinds of things only appeal to 5% of Blizzard’s 10 million + subscriber base, that’s at least 500,000 people that they can sell this stuff to. We saw that happen with the steed and new pets, with at least 140,000 in sales just from people waiting in the virtual check out lines. The number is much bigger (probably closer to that 500k number) because many people purchased without having to wait, and many more will purchase later. The 140k is the only solid number we’ve seen, so we have to consider it’s actually bigger due to the other situations described above.

Basically, their customer base is so big that these kinds of things only need to appeal to a very small percentage of the overall base to be extremely effective in additional revenue generation – because the price of the item is so high. Look at it this way; if any other game with 100-300k subscribers tries to do this, they have a much smaller percentage of players to sell these items to, and therefore make very little profit on it relative to what Blizzard is seeing. Again, only Blizzard can pull of something so astronomical, no celestial pun intended. These numbers are unofficial and estimates are all over the place, but one thing is clear: in one day Blizzard generated several million dollars of extremely high margin profit with those pets and mount. The other thing that is very clear to me is that this trend will definitely continue, and Activision would be stupid to not try to continue to rake the willing for their cash.

What’s next in “macro” transactions?
In this model, there’s nothing “micro” about them and the macro transaction label has begun to surface. $25.00 for a virtual item is alot more than most expansions have cost us over the years. So what will we see? More pets and mounts for sure, but I think the armor and weapon skins are coming. If the premise of the Celestial Steed is that it does what the exising mounts do, but just has a more appealing texture and has no game impacting functionality, then there’s no reason that they wouldn’t do the same thing for other existing items. Why not sell a celestial breastplate? It could merely act as a texture change to your existing breastplate, and keep the same stats. There would be no game play impact, but the sparkly effect would sell millions.

Let’s be honest, one of the most brilliant things Blizzard did was to make huge shoulderpads with flames leaping off of them, swords with electric animations, and a host of other cool effects and animations. Why not sell these textures and animations through the store, ala celestial mount? There’s still no game play impact, but boy do they look freaking awesome and OMG I MUST HAVE ONE…

And voila, another 200,000 people in the queue to buy the sparkly breastplate of doom upgrade. They’ve already demonstrated that there is a huge interest in appearance items, and oh by the way they are already planning this for Cataclysm with the overcloak concept. Those appear to be tied to in game achievements, but I predict we’ll see other items in the Blizzard store soon. Don’t be surprised to see something like an Orb of Deception for sale. I’d bet you a Celestial Steed that sort of stuff is coming…

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 4 comments on 04/19/2010.
Posted in: Analysis, Featured Tags: Blizzard, Cataclysm, World of Warcraft, WoW

Sparkly ponies print money for Blizzard

I think this will be the straw that broke the camels back for some people. For others many others however, it is yet another way to donate to the pile of money in Bobby Kotick’s already overflowing coffers. What I’m talking about is the fact that World of Warcraft players can now buy our first functional item in the Blizzard store, a new Celestial Steed mount.

First we had the Pandaren pet, and plenty gave their thoughts on the issue for better or worse. For those initial sales, much of the money was donated to charity, but I’d wager we’ll not see such generosity this time around. Many feel that the initial “charity” was just a way to smooth over the virtual sales in a game that people already pay to subscribe, as a way to get some opponents to accept the virtual sales and make much less of a stink over it. As far as I can tell, it worked. People said thier piece, then they all moved on. This time around, we have a celestial steed that gives players a mount they can’t get any other way than to cough up the cash for it in the Blizzard store. And by the way, as soon as it became available, people started buying it. Some opinons are already hitting the net and other pundits will begin posting thier opinions soon, so it will be interesting to see what everyone thinks about this item going up for sale. I suspect negative reactions from bloggers and vocal gamers, but we aren’t likely the target audience for these items anyway.

So why are these things here to stay? Because they sell! Just think for a second how many fathers can gift a celestial steed to their wifes or daughters (yes, I’m implying that you are a sissy if you are a male IRL and riding that thing in game) and how many brownie points they can score. All for the cost of a dinner for 4 at KFC! Hate it or not, this kind of stuff is here to stay. So hang with me for a second while I break down an example for you. Let’s assume Blizzard had only 5 million subscribers in total. We all know they have more than that, but let’s lowball it for this example. If ONLY 1% of their subscribers purchased the celestial steed, Blizzard just made another 1.25 million dollars. In reality, they will make more than that. Much more. They gave away 1.1 million dollars in Pandaren pet sales earlier this year, which tells me they made at least 2 to 3 times that much on that item. They made a boatload of money on Pandaren and Lil’ KT pet sales, and those cost less than half as much as this new mount. You can actually ride this mount and fly around, instantly making it more desireable than a cosmetic pet to most people. They’ll sell just as much, if not more of this new mount – at 2.5 times the price of the ten dollar pets.

It will sell millions, sadly. Again, it just drives home the point that these virtual items are here to stay. The masses have no concept of the greed at work here, or simply don’t care. As long as these people hand over thier millions of dollars for these items, we’ll continue to see them for sale. I think we have no choice other than to unhappily accept this change in the gaming landscape. Nothing is sacred any more and we’ll see cash transactions everywhere, in every type of game, and for all sorts of items. Mark my words, we’ll start seeing armor and weapons in the Blizzard store before it’s all said and done. Guaranteed.

Activision is the new EA, or at least they are another EA. They are corporate machines running good gaming studios into the dirt for shareholder profitability. These companies will sell you a hot turd if you are willing to pay for it. And they wonder why gamers hate them. If baby merlocs weren’t crying before, they certainly are now…

*Update: I swear I had not seen this before I made my calculations in the example above. 70,000 waiting to buy and climbing…crazy…

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 10 comments on 04/15/2010.
Posted in: Analysis, Featured, News, Opinion Tags: Activision, Blizzard

Cataclysm beta coming soon™

Blizzard is notorious for not releasing any significant details about the development of it’s games until they have completed the initial phase of that work and have solid details to discuss. So what does it mean when Blizzard makes official announcements on their forums about specific changes to it’s character classes (Shaman, Death Knight tanking, schedule) coming in the expansion? It means they’ve completed work on the design decisions (and possibly implementation) relative to the classes for Cataclysm. We’ve already seen dungeon previews and terrain change previews, so we know most (if not all) their environment modeling work is done. Then there’s today’s news that Blizzard is requesting that the press submit the Battle.net accounts of parties interested in the beta by April 15th.

Blizzard has shown us that alot of work is done on Cataclysm. They are talking about class design changes. They are emailing the press about beta interest. If you add all this up, you may just come to the same conclusion I have. World of Warcraft’s Cataclysm Beta will start soon. I’d go so far to say that we see Cataclysm beta in the next 30-60 days, tops. Those of us that have been long time Blizzard customers and playing World of Warcraft know that beta won’t be a short period of time. They have to get started with beta testing this summer if they want to get this expansion completed and shipped by the end of the year.

It’s Cataclysm time kiddos, all the clues are there!

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 7 comments on 04/07/2010.
Posted in: Featured, News, Opinion Tags: Blizzard, Cataclysm

With gaming conference season kicking off again, BioWare is all over the gaming blogs due to GDC interviews about it’s upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’m sure PAX will bring more info about the game, as will every other conference on the tour, so we’ll eventually see more details about the game come to light. However, I have a rather dreadful feeling about the game right now. This is a great introduction to the dreadful feeling, but I will of course expand on those thoughts.

EA seems to be throwing all their eggs in the SWTOR basket here, and honestly I think they are setting BioWare up to fail to meet their expectations. The core of the problem is that the scope of this thing is too big. AAA mmo’s are a big enough ordeal without trying the full voiceover/BioWare story approach as well. World of Warcraft’s success already sets a crazy feature scope for any new MMO to compete with, so adding your own innovations to that recipe complicates things even further. It requires huge teams, and truckloads of cash to even try to pull it off on a large scale. I saw a video a while back that showed just their writing team in a meeting, and the team was huge. It appeared that they had 12-15 (going from memory here) people on staff just to write for the game. I don’t even want to think of the money they are sinking in to voice acting either, let alone the other costs of development.

Such a big monetary investment is leading to the kinds of unrealistic expectations that give way to statements like this one that say, “…earnings are somewhat depressed due to ongoing expenses of the Star Wars MMO, management has high hopes for this and believes 2M+ subs is possible”. With all that time and money invested, I guess its no surprise that people are making these statements. They’ve put so much into this project that they probably really do have to achieve these kinds of numbers to recoup the investment.

I don’t see it happening. I don’t think the US MMO market is that big. WoW has what, 2-3 million subs in the US? So SWTOR is going to take ALL of those people away from that game? 1 million would be a big deal and something to be happy about, and keeping those after the first month would be an even bigger deal. Blizzard will not part with it’s subscriber base so easily either. I wouldn’t doubt some huge news about WoW or perhaps even about their next MMO that will keep their customer base loyal despite the new shiny SWTOR game coming out. Just releasing a good game will not be enough to dethrone the juggernaught, and let’s face it…they are talking about not only competing with WoW, but flat out beating it. If SWTOR gets it’s 2 million subs, who will be playing WoW? Not many people in that case.

The chances for any game (even one as good as SWTOR promises to be) to get 2 million subs is just an absolute stretch in my opinion. It’s a big bet to be placing, and one that I’d predict to turn out very badly when expectations are not met. The converse is that the market could grow, however unlikely that seems. I never thought the US MMO market could exceed 2 million for a single game back when EQ was making subscription record news of 400k years ago. Perhaps these 2 million subs EA is planning to get are from an expanded market? Or perhaps they are talking world wide subs? Let’s hope that they have something innovative up their sleeves in regard to pricing and subscription models to help this out, because 2 million subs and crazy expectations are just out in space if you ask me. They’d be better off by planning for the limited success that Warhammer Online had.

Will SWTOR be crushed under it’s own weight? Will EA’s expectations create additional problems for this game? This gamer thinks so, how about you?

~ br3ntbr0

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 6 comments on 03/19/2010.
Posted in: Analysis, Featured, Opinion Tags: BioWare, Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Star Wars: The Old Repbulic, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft

I’ve never been a big fan of RTS games, primarily because I don’t multi-task well and managing all those units and construction and such is usually a bit too much for me. Throw in competitive play and I’m bound to have one sad losing experience after another. I guess that explains why my first foray into Blizzard’s games was with World of Warcraft, and it’s RTS style titles. Regardless, I’m throwing that all to the wind and giving StarCraft II a nice long look when it comes out.

Closed beta recently began for SC2, and a few lucky people have been getting their hands dirty with Blizz’s newest toy. Below we have footage of someone’s time in beta, but it’s not what you think. The video shows less of the game and more of another new feature that Blizzard is rolling out; the new Battle.net. This clips shows how tight the integration is with the new service directly into the game:

That clip got me thinking about implications for World of Warcraft, and even further ahead for their new-yet-unannounced MMO title. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see Blizzard’s new rated battlegrounds in Cataclysm run by just this type of Battle.net integration, and perhaps even arena matchmaking and dungeon/raid grouping. Of course this is speculation on my part, who knows what the real implementation will be like. Blizzard has however hinted at a possible patch before Cataclysm to bring out some Battle.net functionality, so this could be a harbinger of news to World of Warcraft players.  At minimum it leads me to believe that the next batch of Cataclysm news from Blizzard might be spiced with some Battle.net info as well.

~br3ntbr0

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with No comments on 02/18/2010.
Posted in: Analysis, Beta, Featured, Video Tags: Blizzard, StarCraft 2, World of Warcraft

There has been allod alot of buzz about Allods Online recently. The game just launched after several weeks of closed and then open beta, and the game has plenty of promise. Many will put the game in the “WoW clone” category, and others will defend it’s twist on the proven themepark mmo formula.

This is not a review of the game per se, but so far my opinion is that it is solid and worth giving a shot. There is great value in the game, especially since it is free to download and play but also because it has a level of polish akin to Blizzard’s 800 pound gorilla. The main point of this article is to say that gPotato will likely see large numbers of players in the game early on. That is nothing new really, since the MMO crowd flocks to just about any new game when it launches (see Warhammer Online, Aion) only to retreat to safer worlds after a month or so has passed and the pain of a new MMO has set in.

I think the MMO crowd has also flocked to Allods online, but for different reasons apart from the shiny and new factors. For starters, Allods is launching at a great time. There are few (if any) other mmo titles launching right now, and the existing franchises (apart from Age of Conan) are releasing very little. The big kid on the block is also at a stagnant stage. Blizzard is famous for it’s long development cycles, leaving anxious regular players with daily quests and repetition until the next big patch or expansion comes out. Currently, the WoW player base finds itself in just that spot, as the Lich King is now dead on just about every server and the populous awaits Cataclysm expansion release. The time is right to lure players away to a new game, and Allods Online is a low risk alternative to that segment of the MMO player base.

I usually prefer buffet style MMO’s, I want all I can eat for one monthly fee. Let me pay 15 bucks and give me access to everything. Don’t nickel-and-dime me to death to be able to experience whatever part of your game is gated behind your item shop. However, if done right the free to play model shines. I can’t say if Allod Online’s model will be good or bad in that regard, but so far it seem to have no impact on how I can play the game. I’m sure at some point I’ll want to buy something from the item store, should I commit to the game, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Combine the zero risk and great timing factors into Allod’s Online pretty smooth launch, and I think they have a good thing going. Agree? Disagree? What say you!

Check out the trailer below and come and join us on the Nezeb server, Empire side:

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 2 comments on 02/18/2010.
Posted in: Featured, Impressions, Opinion Tags: Allods Online, Blizzard, gPotato, World of Warcraft

1.  PVP and PVE balance

Dismiss one play style or the other at your own peril.  There is a reason that games like Call of Duty have single player campaigns, and World of Warcraft has battlegrounds.  Both styles of game play provide a good mix of experiences for the player, and draw a wider range of gamers to a given title.  Having both in an online game seems just about mandatory for today’s games.

2. Apprentice/Sidekick System

For games with level based progression, this is vital.  This has more to do with traditional MMORPG style games than anything, but with a max level will ultimately have an end game to suit that level of player and probably some alternate method of progression to go with it.  For new players that come into a game where the player base is already mature, a sidekick/apprentice system is a godsend.  While you might still be largely left to toil away at your questing and mob killing anyway, you don’t always have to be left out of the fun your higher level friends are having.These systems aren’t perfect, but still very needed.  Even if your level and statistics are bumped up to your friend’s level, your gear or available skills are usually still that of the lowbie that you actually are.  In the end, you are usually a weaker version of those who are actually at the level you’ve been brought up to be.  There’s no developer that has pulled this off flawlessly (yet) but it is much better than not having the option to run that higher level content at all.

3.  Single Realm/World

While it is naive to think that these types of games are actually only supported by a single physical server, some games only offer one world/realm/shard selection.  They do this with with a complex configuration of servers, and it usually necessitates heavy use of instancing.  While some game developers pull it off better than others, there’s no mistaking that dealing with a bunch of instances or “zoning” is a headache for some players.

8. Integrated Voice chat, anti-cheat ware, update management, digital distribution, social networking and game play recording

These are all awesome features by themselves.  I’ve bundled them together here because there are already a few platforms out there that bring every single one of these to the table already.  Every game needs something to help manage player profiles, provide matchmaking capabilities (where applicable), manage their games, and to help players find and play with friends.  I can provide no better example of this than Valve’s Steam.  Blizzard plans to roll out a similar tool with their revamped Battle.net, and Xfire seems to be moving in this direction as well.  Having one place to log in and manage your games, your profile, groups you belong to (and much more) just brings so much value to the gaming experience that it is a must.

You also need tools to fight cheaters.  Blizzard has the controversial Warden.  Valve has VAC.  Others use Punkbuster, Hackshield, Gameguard or something similar.  Every online game needs a security measure built in, otherwise the cheating/hacking twirps of the world will begin running rampant in game.  Wall hacks, teleporting, speed hacks, currency and item duplication exploits are all things that will very quickly send the game into ruination if left unchecked.  Having the game’s launcher or other game management platform (think Steam) manage updates and patches to the game are also so very useful that they should be key parts of the game upon release, especially if you need to quickly distribute a patch to fix an exploit.

Recording game play from within the game is not a tried and true feature for online games.  However, the explosion of video sites and game related videos posted to them makes this something I’d personally like to see every online game provide.  New games like APB are setting themselves apart by adding the capability to record moments of the game and seamlessly add them to YouTube.  How cool is it to catch your guild downing a boss or capping that critical capture point for bragging rights?  Screenshots don’t do justice to the action in most games.

You need a platform to build and supply these services.  Basically, you need Steam or something like it associated with your game.  Not only are many MMO’s sold via Steam, but some new ones are Steam Powered, meaning the game itself is integrated with Steam’s features and benefit from all the platform brings to the table.

9. Game Integrated Web Site and Services and Apps

This probably has alot to do with the item above, as a full platform of tools like Steam would help with this, but not fully.  Features that should be offered like realm transfer (hopefully not necessary, see the single realm/shard paragraphs above), faction transfer, character customization change, name change, and other associated services should be available.  Character, guild, and item look ups should available along with zone, quest, skill/spell abilities, and bestiary.  See everquest2players.com and wowarmory.com for wonderful examples of how to extend an MMO to the web.  Consider a mobile phone app out there too, as Fallen Earth and World of Warcraft have done.

10. Variety of subscription/payment options

Last but certainly not least, flexible payment options are needed. Many people are tired of being tethered to a $15.00 a month subscription fee, as it may limit their ability to play multiple games.  Others like buffet style pricing and don’t want to feel “nickle-and-dimed” by item shops and constant sales pitches.  Modern games need to be flexible enough to provide both, lowering the barrier to entry to everyone yet still proving the stability of established subscription games.  I can find no better example of this than Dungeons and Dragons Online.

Do you agree or disagree with these items?  What features do you want to see in your games?

- br3ntbr0

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 6 comments on 01/26/2010.
Posted in: Featured, Opinion Tags: All Points Bulletin, BioWare, Blizzard, Cataclysm, Global Agenda, Modern Warfare 2, Steam, Valve, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft

Why is World of Warcraft so successful?

Raptr, a social media networking tool for gamers has clocked 4,070,029 play hours in their database at  an average of 35,000 players daily. These numbers are staggering when viewed in the realization that 35 thousand players (just in Raptr alone) have clocked 4 million hours of game time.

Now if we could see Blizzard’s database numbers for all 5 years the game has been out, multiply that by all the average 14.99 monthly subscription numbers and then the ‘additional’ services they offer at a highly over priced 25$ for realm, character, fraction, re-characterization options, I’m sure the numbers would make Bill Gates scratch his head in awe and wonder.

How many companies do you know of (or heard about) that have been as successful as Blizzard has been?
Let’s take a look at what Blizzard has had to offer to the gaming community.

Time Line of Blizzard Entertainment

Feb 1991- Silicon & Synapse was created by 3 UCLA students to concentrate on creating game ports

Nov 1991- S&S release ‘RPM Racing’ for SNES

1992- Interplay Entertainment develop and release ‘The Lost Vikings’ and then S&S develop ‘The Lost Vikings 2’ a puzzle/platform video game which released in 1994

June 1993- S&S created ‘Rock n’ Roll Racing’ for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Super Nintendo
*this title was also released for the GBA in 2003.

1994 Silicon & Synapse change their name to Blizzard Entertainment and there shortly afterwards was acquired by distributor Davidson and Associates.

Nov 1994- ‘Warcraft: Orcs & Humans’ a Real-time strategy game (RTS) is released. Developed by Blizzard and published by Blizzard and Interplay Ent.

Dec 1995- ‘Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness’

April 1996- ‘Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal’ (Expansion Pack)

1996- Blizzard releases ‘Warcraft’ series for the Macintosh OS

Nov 1996- ‘Diablo’ is released

Nov 1997- ‘Diablo: Hellfire’ (Expansion Pack)

March 1998- ‘StarCraft’ is released

Nov 1998- ‘StarCraft: Brood War’ is released (Expansion Pack)

1999- ‘Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition’ is released

June 2000- ‘Diablo II’ hits the market

June 2001- ‘Diablo II: Lord of Destruction’ releases

July 2002- ‘Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos’

July 2003- ‘Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne’ releases to US

Nov 2004- ‘World of Warcraft’ a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roll Playing Game) is thrust upon us

Jan 2007- ‘World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade’ (Expansion Pack)

Nov 2008-‘World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King’ (Expansion Pack)

2010-‘World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (Expansion Pack)

Man that’s a lot of time line, but the one repeating factor in this is dedication and persistence, along with a solid title. Warcraft like every other game was created; fabricated from the minds of individuals for the enjoyment of one’s time. The key to its success was and is a solid foundation to the core of ideas it was derived from. Lore and creativity begat more lore, a good story began to unfold, and you know what? Blizzard didn’t jump on high horse and grind it till it was dead. They fostered it, nurtured it, and marketed the crap out of it in a way that many other companies have not been successful in doing.

See from the release of Warcraft, Blizzard has done one thing and one thing only, and that is develop the idea WoW; luring you in with expansion after expansion, deepening the plot and creating memorable characters to pull you in.

It really is like a good book series, but in a video game. That is the reason why Wow is what it is today. It’s that great book you’ve read a hundred times over, and though sometimes you don’t finish it, you constantly go back to and start over or pick up from where you left off.

$$ And as a developer you couldn’t have asked for anything better. $$

Creativity + Original/ Sound Ideas = Success

*All dates are accurate as cited on Wikipedia to the best of my knowledge.*

Game On!
~Kaldeem

© Posted by Kaldeem for Im Talkin Games with 2 comments on 01/23/2010.
Posted in: Analysis, Featured Tags: Blizzard, Cataclysm, World of Warcraft, WoW

The active rumor out there is that the Curse client has a keylogger in it. Curse asserts that their client is clean, AS LONG AS YOU GET IT FROM THEM. It seems a lot of people don’t want to pay for the added convenience that is in the Curse Premium Client, and have been downloading a “cracked” version from other sites, including torrents. Guess what, that kind of stuff may contain keyloggers. If you don’t want to pay for added functionality that is your prerogative, but if it causes you to get your account hijacked and all your virtual goods stolen, then I have no sympathy for you. Shame on you for stealing the intellectual property of others, and congratulations on your just desserts.

These examples I noted above which are anecdotal reports are just part of the discussion though. WOW.com reported a couple of weeks back that Blizzard is so inundated with trouble tickets from this kind of account and virtual goods theft that they just can’t keep up with it any more. They have taken to offering players a “Care Package” which contains gold, emblems, and items to get them back up and running again. That’s fine for a lot of people but if you get your guild’s stuff taken and you want it back then you are looking at weeks before they get to you to do an investigation and the possibility of recovering your items.

To battle this, rumor has it that Blizzard wants to require everyone to use the Blizzard Authenticator to log in to their accounts. I’d be interested in how they want to roll that one out to the user base. I think requiring hardware at this point would necessitate them distributing them at no charge, or including them in the box in Cataclysm. Some additional in-game benefit should be given to those of us who have already spent our $6.50 to secure our accounts. That concern is minor though.

What is the driver behind all of this account theft? Gold sellers. Gold takes time to farm. Time=money. Delays in delivering cause canceled orders. So if you are running a gold-selling business you can staff up and spend real money to have real people generate your fake money, or you can buy a keylogger and find a way to get it into wide distribution. Then all you have to do is log in to accounts that you capture and steal the gold, then sell it for real money to those who want to purchase it. Kinda pokes a hole in the “victimless crime” argument that proponents of gold selling like to make. There are real victims here. Blizzard is a victim. People who are inconvenienced or lose enjoyment are victims.

In part, Blizzard is a victim of their own policies. I lay part of this problem at their feet for banning bots but not being able to do the same with gold sellers. Part of the problem is how the battlenet login reduces account security by also giving the thief an incentive to also hijack the user’s email account. At least with bots, they sellers were in a perverse way earning their gold. Now they are just stealing it. So bots are getting crushed, demand remains the same or continues to rise, depending on who you believe, and all that gold that is getting sold has to come from somewhere.

What’s the solution? Increased account security with an Authenicator is an absolute minimum. I have checked the box on the launch page which remembers my account name, so I don’t have to type it in. If I never type it again, no key logger can capture it. Make sure your email account has a different password than your game account. It’s not that hard to change it up. And NEVER share your user name and password with anyone.

Blizzard needs to keep developing their tools so they can more effectively track and ban accounts that participate in theft activity, as well as the down-the-line accounts where the proceeds end up.

I guess it’s a testament to the power of the gaming sphere that a stolen WoW account is now worth more on the black market than a stolen credit card number. We wanted gaming to be mainstream and now we are living with the criminal element that comes with anything that has potential monetization.

For all of us gamers, be careful out there. Don’t let one of these common criminals ruin your day.

-Genda

© Posted by Genda for Im Talkin Games with 6 comments on 01/21/2010.
Posted in: Advice, Commentary, Featured, Opinion Tags: Blizzard, World of Warcraft

As gamers we’ve all experienced the anticipation of a new game that we are really looking forward to playing. With that anticipation, we usually devour all the information we can get about a title. When a game company releases a cinematic intro for our anticipated game, we drool over how awesome the game will be based on how well the cinematic was done. Great cinematics for many games have been released, and I can tell you not one of them gives the average player a decent idea of what the actual game play is like. Game cinematics need to go away.

These cinematic movies are like concept cars at auto shows, they are merely showing you the future that will likely never come to pass. These cinematics often don’t accurately portray game mechanics or visuals, and I get that they usually aren’t intended to. They are there to get people excited for a given game, to raise interest and ultimately sell the game. They may serve that purpose somewhat, but they are misleading. They are the result of classic advertising, like the hamburger you see on TV looking nothing like the one you get served in the restaraunt. These cinematic intros are also expensive to make for the development studio, and are often done by a 3rd party.

I am far from an expert on high end cinematics, but it seems that these clips generally employ large amounts of computing power for high resolution graphics and animation. I also assume that the consumer level gaming rigs that could run a game with cinematic style graphics just doesn’t exist at an affordable price point. At this point, I also assume that it’s still to expensive and time consuming for game studios to even think about creating a game with these kinds of jaw dropping visuals anyway. If all those assumptions are even somewhat correct, it’s safe to say that these movies are unrealistic representations of the games they are made for, and there’s no way the game will come close to the visuals and epic feelings conveyed in most of these movies. For the most part, they are an injustice to the game and tough for the developers to live up to. See Warhammer Online’s first cinematic and gauge that against actualy game play and visuals. That cinematic featured two classes that didn’t even make it into the game at launch. Great cinematic quality, but poorly represented the game.

The most recent uber cinematic of recent memory is that of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’m sure everyone under the sun has seen it, but if not you should take a peek at it to see my point:

The video above shows nothing of how the game will actually play or what the game actually looks like. However, the first time I saw this it got my heart racing. It is so well done, so epic feeling, that my fanboy meter shot through the ceiling. For this very reason, cinematics (at least for large AAA productions) are likely here to stay.

I think the perfect middle ground lies with the machinima artists of the world. Using the game’s very own engine and assets to produce a movie is a better bet in my opinion. That way, the graphics are not as misleading, and good story telling can still bring an epic feeling into play. I’ve noticed such a trend with Blizzard entertainment for example. While they have done the high quality cinematics before, they seem to be turning away from that and using their own game engine to produce the movies made for the game, ala Wrath Gate.

Do you agree? Should cinematics go away, or are you ok with them as they are? Should they change? Holla back.

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 2 comments on 01/20/2010.
Posted in: Commentary, Featured, Misc, Video Tags: BioWare, Blizzard, Star Wars: The Old Repbulic, World of Warcraft

I’ve written many times about how I’ve been simply amazed by World of Warcraft. The game’s almost unbelievable subscriber base, the way it has expanded and popularized MMO gaming, and especially the way it continues to be a relevant game 5 years later are all topics that blow me away any time I think about them. World of Warcraft is the Shaquille O’Neal of gaming; an unbelievable specimen that dominated its competition and still demands your attention even in it’s old age. Yet it is far from perfect; for years new games have been able to release and bring those imperfections to the forefront.

Games like EverQuest 2, Warhammer Online and others have been able to flaunt very robust guild management systems for example. Blizzard’s game has always lacked good management features and tools for it’s guilds, despite guild play being a huge cog in the WoW machine. Recently Bobabouille at mmochampion.com posted a wrap up of some of the known information that was released at Blizzcon in regard to certain upcoming features, and Cataclysm’s upcoming guild management functionality appears in the first recap. Looking at these great (and very, very overdue) features got my mind churning. Could Blizzard have possibly left something like this off of their to do list intentionally?

Could it be that Blizzard was smart enough to identify all the really good pieces of functionality that need to be added to the game long ago, yet put them on the development back burner purposely? It could be that adding such great features at this point in time make great selling points for a new expansion, which makes sense. But it also makes sense that adding key features like this 5 years after the game has launched are things that continue to make the game relevant despite its age. The guild management tools in particular seem to knock out yet one more of those key features that other developers can highlight in their game since World of Warcraft doesn’t have it.

Mythic introduced queuing for a scenario from anywhere, later Blizzard introduced the feature to World of Warcraft. Not to be outdone, they eventually added the same queuing functionality to PVE instances. EverQuest 2 (and other games) showed some of the best guild management tools available, and in Cataclysm Blizzard will bring many of the same tools to World of Warcraft gamers. They seem to be going a bit further by facilitating tools for guild recruitment in game, something I’ve always thought should be done in game rather than spread across various guild web sites.

Blizzard is catching up to other games in areas that it has been lacking, and in many ways leapfrogging the functionality that other games have done so well. I think that Blizzard’s dominance and late age relevance is pictured perfectly in the survey on this site’s sidebar. With over 200 votes, Blizzard’s Cataclysm expansion is the 2nd most anticipated game of 2010 despite being pitted against totally new and highly anticipated games. What do you think? Does my theory of Blizzard intentionally holding back on features and functionality hold water? Are you looking forward to Cataclysm and all the known (and probably many unknown) features it will bring?

Merry Christmas!

-br3ntbr0

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 3 comments on 12/23/2009.
Posted in: Analysis, Featured, Opinion Tags: Blizzard, Cataclysm, World of Warcraft

So a whole new world has opened up to us. While I’m not one of those that thinks that 3.3 will trivialize guilds, I do believe it is changing the role of the guild. Guilds will no longer have division between the geared and the ungeared in the sense that the geared will be able to do things and the ungeared cannot. Unless you are one of the lucky ones whose guild is helpful to new 80′s you had to find your own heroics groups and get your own gear until such time that you reached a gear level that is appropriate for doing what the more-geared people in your guild are up to. That used to be difficult, and could cause division in the guild between the haves and the have-nots.

Now with the dungeon finder your new 80 can gear themselves relatively easily. All you have to do is run a lot of PUGs with the Dungeon Finder and collect the emblems you need and whatever gear drops, and before you know it you will also have the gear you need to do more with the guild or others you want to run with.

So what does that have to do with the title? That’s a fair question. In the past, if you could get 2 or three heroics in that wasn’t a bad night’s work. Between getting a group together, traveling, doing whatever else you needed to do, and turning in quests you had a good chunk of time that got eaten. Last night, Tark and I ran that many after we were done doing everything else we had going on that day, which included messing on alts, doing some glyph making and posting, running a couple of raids with the guild (our first Ony 25 on the new toons!) and whatever else we wanted to do we still had time to do those runs.

On other days, we have run a LOT of heroics. Tark is nearing 100 runs. In (less than) a week. So here is where my inner grouch starts to worry. Are we going to get tired of running instances? Is this going to make it harder to bring up a new character because DEAR GOD, if I have to run Oculus again I’m going to jab a fork in my eye? OK, the Oculus example is probably not the best one, since I already felt like that, but I do worry that we are in danger of burning content, premium content, faster than they can create new stuff. And while we are all having fun now, what is to keep us from getting dungeon burnout.

Right now the queues are relatively short and everyone is playing, but what is going to happen when everyone is all badged up and not as many people need heroics any more? I think it’s going to slow down, but it is going to be OK. Why do I think that? Well it was near impossible to get a BC dungeon before, and it’s not hard to get them now with the dungeon finder. I think that’s how the Northrend intances will end up.

One bonus: I think more people will roll up more healers and tanks, or at least alt spec them. The one thing that holds up the queues is a lack of one or the other of these. I know I alt-specced my Ret Pally to Prot, and found out I am one hell of a bad tank. That’s bad as in stinky. Hopefully I’ll get it figured out but thanks to the helpful paladin that was on his alt who gave me some advice. And stuck with the group until the dungeon was done.

-Genda

© Posted by Genda for Im Talkin Games with 7 comments on 12/14/2009.
Posted in: Analysis, Commentary, Featured Tags: Blizzard, Opinion, World of Warcraft

Blizzard rolled patch 3.3 to the live servers. This is the patch intended to get the player base through to Cataclysm, and it contains a lot of things that seem to go a long way to accomplishing that goal. Besides the new raiding content, lots of tweaks, and a new Quest-Helper-like quest tracker, what I want to concentrate on today is the new LFG tool. Actually, I’d call it the new LFD tool, as it’s tuned to look for Dungeon groups.

After reloading WoW on Tark’s machine (long story) and replacing her vid card (old one just went Tango Uniform) it was getting late but I wanted to try out the new LFG tool. So I logged on to my 66 Pally and joined a queue. If you have ever tried to get a dungeon group in your 60′s you know that Outland is deserted and it’s nigh impossible to get that done. Within 10 minutes I was running mana tombs with some folks from other servers. We tore it up and at the end, got a little bonus. Maybe I was just lucky, but they were pretty nice folks too.

Let’s rewind a second. When you use the new tool, it first gives you the choice of what roles you can play. You can choose Tank, Healer, Damage, and Leader. They have simplified the instructions to include the expected behavior for the role, so if it were your first dungeon you would know generally what is expected of you. Once you have chosen your role, you have the choice of picking a particular dungeon, or choosing random, and going along on someone else’s choice. If you choose random, and you are level 80, you get bonus gold plus a number (either 2 or 1) of Emblems of Frost, which can evidently be exchanged for any other emblems. You get more on your first random of the day, and less for the remaining number you choose to run. If you aren’t 80 yet, you get an item instead of the Emblem, and some experience. All in all, it’s a nice bonus for allowing someone else to choose, and obviously greases the skids on getting people into your chosen dungeon if you pick one. You can also choose between regular or heroics.

Once your group is complete, you’ll see the system perform a “ready check” and once everyone is in, you are magically transported to the appropriate dungeon. This was a little balky last night, probably because half the population was using the system. While you are in the queue or dungeon, the system puts a little icon on your mini map that you can click and transport yourself back and forth into and out of the dungeon. Pull one of my Lock’s favorite tricks and bring your Inscription back instead of your Shard bag? Teleport back and pick it up, then back to the dungeon with you. Nice.

Upon completion, you are rewarded your bonus items and gold and you can either run out of the instance or use the teleport. Either way you land on the spot where you teleported in from.

Opinion follows:

I’m in love. It’s always been such a pain in the ass to get a group for a heroic. Always looking for a tank or healer, you may waste a half hour just setting up. I’m sure all of us have had the experience of getting ready to go and then someone key has to leave. With the new system, you can just replace them. Someone being a douchebag? You can set up a vote to kick them. Buhbyeee.

Last night at 1AM, I tried it out with my Lock, was immediately into a COS run, we decided to do it timed, and with five minutes left on the timer, I was looting my Bronze Drake and picking up the 2 extra Emblems and almost 30 gold. I can’t picture a scenario where that would happen like that without the new LFG system

This is obviously intended to bring up the item levels of all of the people who desperately need to raise them before they can do Icecrown Citadel raids. For me, it couldn’t have come at a better time. My Lock just hit 80 a few weeks ago, and my guild is mostly a progression guild so I don’t have much opportunity to raid with them in greens and blues. So I’m filling out my purple set and soon I should be able to run just about anywhere.

The bottom line is that I like accessibility. I don’t like bringing up a new character on a new server and being behind the curve without much hope of catching up. I do like the “get-even” periods that these patches provide in advance of the probable gear reset of the next expansion.

I know a lot of people have pounded their heads against a wall for a long time to get some of the rewards that are going to become available to us who are taking a newer fast track. By the same token, you have had use of those items for a long time.. I think it’s good for Blizzard to do these periodic resets. It moves the carrot to a new place and keeps us from chasing it around in circles.

All in all this new system makes it easier to get a group, and for a fan of MULTIplayer games, that makes a lot of sense. I’m really glad to see it and I can’t wait to get home from work tonight to run me some Heroics.

- Genda

© Posted by Genda for Im Talkin Games with 6 comments on 12/09/2009.
Posted in: Analysis, Featured, Opinion Tags: Blizzard, World of Warcraft