GDC '08: MMOG execs spar over genre's future

sábado, 10 de mayo del 2008 a las 04:38

guardado en Wow Gold

"SAN FRANCISCO--Last year, a whole spate of new massively multiplayer online games hit the market, with some of the biggest including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Fury, Lord of the Rings Online, and Tabula Rasa. No easy feat, considering the tens of millions of dollars and the multiyear commitments necessary to pull off such projects. However, despite the variety of new entrants, none have come close in terms of popularity to even the shadow cast by Blizzard's World of Warcraft, which itself received an expansion at the beginning of 2007. Not-so-massive massively multiplayer panel.So is the MMOG market healthy. That and other questions played front and center in a roundtable discussion titled ""Future of MMOs"" held on the fourth day of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. While MMOGs have had a polarizing effect on many in the gaming industry, the session nonetheless drew a massive audience due to its pedigree of participants. Squaring off in the sometimes-contentious debate were Jack Emmert, founder of Cryptic Studios, which is currently at work on the recently announced Champions Online; Matt Miller, lead designer of NCsoft City of Heroes/Villains; Ray Muzyka, GM of BioWare, which is currently developing an unnamed MMOG that may or may not involve LucasArts' Star Wars license; Min Kim, director of game operations at microtransaction-oriented Nexon; and Rob Pardo, VP of game design at WOW proprietor Blizzard Entertainment. Pardo's WOW being the elephant in the room, the lead designer said it was interesting to hear from publishers, ""WOW has set the bar too high, so we don't even want to try."" From a marketing perspective, he feels this is great. However, as a player, he wants to see competition. He also notes that if a developer is going to do a big-budget MMOG, it can't merely look to compete with the amount of content WOW launched with.

Rather, a player sees the original WOW, as well as the Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and ""whatever expansion we do next."" As for whether the industry is healthy. ""Absolutely not,"" says Emmert, noting that Lord of the Rings Online is the only game to his knowledge that has launched post WOW and broken 100,000 users. Kim agrees, noting that if a developer is purely targeting WOW, ""the future is bleak."" Agreeing, Muzyka said that BioWare is approaching its first MMOG with both ambition and humility. He says his company doesn't assume it knows what it is doing in the online space, but as long as they learn from their mistakes, as well as make something brilliant, then they will find success " "Currently, the population of Earth is estimated to be around 6.7 billion people. wow powerleveling As of this week, roughly 0.1 percent of the sum of modern humanity plays World of Warcraft. Today, Blizzard Entertainment announced that more than 8 million people subscribe to the massive massively multiplayer online role-playing game, setting a new milestone for the title more than two years after its fall 2004 release. The tour of Blizzard HQ now includes a visit to its basement (pictured). As it is with the real-world population, Chinese subscribers are the largest demographic in Azeroth, totaling 3.5 million players. po wow Next up is North America, with 2 million players, followed by Europe, with 1.5 million--the remainder of subscribers are in other territories. Subscription rates vary by region, but US players pay $14.95 each month to play WOW after doling out the suggested retail price for the game, which has been lowered to just $19.99. ""We're ecstatic that the World of Warcraft community has continued to grow steadily since we launched the game,"" said Blizzard president and cofounder Mike Morhaime, presumably while being fed grapes and fanned with palm fronds atop a gigantic pile of cash.

gold für wow ""This milestone wouldn't have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our players."" Though its original world is already popular, World of Warcraft's borders will soon grow, courtesy of next week's release of the Burning Crusade expansion pack. Like the original WOW, it is rated T for Teen. However, at $39.99 it will cost more than the original game, which is required to play the expansion. eve isk " "Shawn Fanning started a digital phenomenon when he built Napster, one of the original peer-to-peer file-sharing programs released on the Internet. Now Fanning is looking at another phenomenon, Blizzard Entertainment's massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, for his next project. BusinessWeek Online is reporting that Fanning is planning to introduce Rupture, ""a virtual social community for online gamers,"" sometime in the near future. des po wow The idea reportedly stemmed from Fanning's own troubles with communicating with other World of Warcraft players. The MySpace for Azeroth will pull data directly from WOW and publish stats and information on a personalized page. Gamers will also be able to instant message while playing, as well as track the progress of their guilds and organize playing time with their online buddies. Rupture will rely on ads for revenue and also focus on exchanging info on gamers' real lives, should they have one.