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The balance between new and old content
In some ways, the development team on World of Warcraft has to constantly pay for their own successes. Nostalgia is a potent force, and players often look back fondly on their favorite experiences and want to experience them again. The recent patch 5.1 changes allowing max level players to enter and solo older raid content is a testament to how much goodwill there is towards these older experiences. In both Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria, older dungeons were revamped and raised to the then-level cap as heroics, and two older raids (Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman) were brought into Cataclysm as five man dungeons to tie into a further storyline. Today, while reading the forums I came across a post by Nethaera that really sums up the difficulty in this kind of balance between player nostalgia and new experiences. One of the things I think Cataclysm showed us was that there are limits to how much time players will accept spent on revamping old content and that Blizzard really has to focus on what's new in order to keep the game moving forward. As much as we all love a good soak in nostalgia, it's never as good to actually eat the leftovers as we convinced ourselves it was.
Big updates for Fairway Solitaire and Junk Jack
Two of my favorite iOS games from the last few years have gotten big updates today. Fairway Solitaire is a really brilliant puzzle/card game that combines golf and solitaire in a fun way, and it's gotten a big update that adds a whole bunch of ongoing content. The game now has a "Daily Mode" where you can play a brand new challenge every single day, and earn new Challenge Cups to unlock even more courses. There's also a new card back and push notifications -- Fairway Solitaire is completely free, and that makes it one of the best cost-to-fun ratio games I've ever seen on any platform. Definitely give it a look if you haven't yet. Junk Jack has also gotten another big update, although the team behind that game has warned players not to install it just yet (there's apparently a game-breaking bug involved). Whenever the expedited update does drop, there will be a whole mess of new items in the 2D Minecraft-like sandbox title, including bows, animals to tame, new hidden treasures, lots of inventory and UI updates, and lots of revamped graphics in the world. The update sounds awesome, and Junk Jack is a great game. It's too bad the team got caught by a bug, but hopefully the next update will be out as soon as possible and everything will work fine again.
New Flyff expansion grants players a New Beginning
The dust only recently settled on the Flyff World Championship, and Gala Networks Europe has announced a new update coming to the game. The expansion, known as New Beginning, brings a load of new content for European Flyff players. Many of the game's mechanics -- such as the loot system, legendary quests, and the upgrade system -- have been entirely revamped. Meanwhile, three new dungeons are available for players looking to test their mettle, and of course new, powerful rewards for said dungeons will be available. Over 100 new scenario and dungeon quests have been added as well, ensuring that players won't lack things to do. The update will be hitting the French and German servers in December. [Source: Gala Networks Europe press release]
Retro XBLA games must be repurchased for the Xbox Game Room
Bad news for those of you who have picked up some classic arcade titles on Xbox Live and can't wait to play them in Microsoft's new Game Room: It looks like you will have to repurchase anything you want to play with your avatar in the 3D environment. Game Informer learned this recently from a Microsoft rep, who went on to say that it's because the Game Room titles are different from the XBLA versions -- in fact, it sounds like they're more old-school and not "revamped," as the rep puts it. Fortunately, you will get a small price break: As previously announced, the games will sell for 400 ($5) to play on Xbox 360 and PC, 240 ($3) for the game on one platform or 40 ($0.50) for "two quarters'" worth of playtime. But for those of us who've already shelled out 400 for the Centipede/Millipede combo, it looks like we'll have to pull out the wallet yet again.
Pirates of the Burning Sea gets major website revamp
Team members at Flying Lab Software have launched a totally new Pirates of the Burning Sea website. The changes are not merely aesthetic; there are substantial additions in terms of functionality. They include a game guide, featured forum posts, and other standards. The site was designed not only by your usual web development folks, but also by the game's UI designer and its art director.There are also some more clever changes and community features, like widgets. The widgets aren't enabled yet, though. Still, it's an excellent set of changes (which have been listed and explained in a lengthy news post on the site) that represents another step in Flying Lab's attempts to strengthen and grow the community of a game whose sales performed below expectations.
