WoW: Things I thought I’d never see

Last night I visited Molten Core with the guild, and we finished clearing all the way through to Ragnaros. This wasn't the guild's first time, but it was my own. And afterward I realized there have been a few things I've since in the last two months since returning that I never thought I would. Ever.

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Emergent Leadership

Upon returning to World of Warcraft after a nine month hiatus, I quickly realized the being focused just on Raiding wasn't going to cut it for me. Lots of reasons really, but the biggest one is Burning Crusade. With the increase in the level cap comes the increase in equipment one can get, both in soloable quests and small group ones. I don't mind the occasional Raid, but eventually it becomes a slot machine: you're just going through the motions until something drops.

So I decided to tip-toe a bit into PvP, specifically Battlegrounds. Oddly enough, being over a year late, I haven't been completely outclassed. And I'm playing what amounts to the least survivable template of a near-one-dimensional class.

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Where’s the next ‘big’ MMOG?

Today Speck asked,  "is the "WoW Killer" that is on the horizon? Which game is getting the hype now?"

Unlike the old days, when AO, DAoC, SB, AC2 and so on were all going to dethrone the then-dominate Everquest, there's just too many games out now, splintering the playerbase into discrete sub-groups.

It's like other features of bygone days: the magic has been replaced by sheer quantity. And it's not just lots of people playing WoW.

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The Future: Games to become Worlds?

Or will worlds become to games?

Basically, who will win the future?

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Blue Ocean Thinking: Nintendo Wii

While I'm an MMORPG fanboi, I've also been following the seventh generation consoles on and off for awhile. This is not because I'm all enamored of the graphics. Rather, it is because each company is attempting something unique, something to both grow their market share beyond the core 18-34 male purchaser/player and, in some cases, beyond gamers themselves.

Throughout the year, my eye has been on the Nintendo Wii. This is likely the first console I'll actually buy since the Nintendo 32bit machine from the mid-1990s.

Today this decision was nailed home for me.

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Supply and Demand at IGE

Over at Grimwell Online, Mank points to a post by Edward Castranova over at Terra Nova in which he mentioned IGE has stopped buying WoW gold. That post, and the thread at Grimwell, cover some of the significance of this.

I have some other thoughts.

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Challenges Facing MMOGs: AGC 2006

At the Austin Game Conference this year, Jon Grande of Sigil Games and Rich Vogel of BioWare Austin hosted a session entitled "'New' Challenges Facing MMOG Development".

Overall, I felt they cast a blind eye to a number of emerging trends, but the stuff they covered about the "core" marketplace (basically as defined by diku-inspired games) was pretty good. And insightful.

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Planned sellout of Burning Crusade?

I've been to a few GameSpots over the past few days, because they happen to be in locations we take our family for shopping. I can't help myself though. I love playing dumb and asking the staff what they know about my genre. I never correct them either. I figure what's the point, they're there to the easy-to-sell console games anyway.

But I have learned two interesting things about their perception of WoW:

• Expected on-shelf date was November 28th. This means I was right. I love being right.
• Blizzard is only planning to ship 4 million units of Burning Crusade boxes.

Huh?

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MMOG: Prison Server

I received an email from the Spain-based MMORPG Prison Server yesterday. I had never heard of the game before, and there seems to be some interesting elements.

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Categorizing Players and Buyers (again)

In a new discussion at Grimwell Online, Tide posted a short overview of research he came across, from a company breaking down player types into a few new market targets.

This research is compelling not only because it's public but because it corrolates pretty closely to a bunch of other research as well.

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