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Trial account restrictions and the 30 percent problem
A few days ago, we posted on a very interesting statistic: Only 30% of all WoW trial accounts make it past level 10. On some level, it's been assumed that this number explains why Blizzard's taking such care to smooth out the beginning game a bit, to make it easier and more fun to stick with the game past level 10 or so. In a large way, this makes sense. But there may be other reasons beyond game play in play as well. If you're picking up a trial account, chances are that you heard about it from a friend or a blog or a news report. But chances are, you were shown or described a massively armored warrior engaged in fierce hand to hand combat on the back of a dragon flying through the air, or a finely robed mage flinging a fireball at the face of the lord of all magic, or something similarly epic. With that in mind, it might justifably get discouraging to show up in game to find yourself dressed in rags, wielding a toothpick, and being sent to collect wolf pelts that inexplicably only drop off about half the wolves you kill. With that in mind, it's easy to see how a trial account user could get bored pretty fast. But for me, there's one other angle that very few people seem to be bringing up: The social angle.
Anti-Aliased: What it's like to sit in the staff chair
So I drove the Aion community up a wall again. I seem to do that a lot when I talk about the game. AionSource was a little miffed at the "disappointment" award the staff and readers gave them, and decided to rip into me. So, in an effort of good faith, I dropped by the flame thread and tried to lighten things up while explaining my position on the game and how it isn't all doom and gloom. Well, after having 9 pages of people not reading what I was writing and electing to call me a nyerking nyerk, I bowed out with a new column topic on my mind: my job. If there was any common theme in all of the screaming, it was how I sucked at my job because I said Aion had a grind, I sucked at my job because I was only level 17 in Aion, everyone on that fansite could do a better job at my job than I could, and I was the reason mainstream reviews were going downhill. (Awesome.) Amazingly enough, I too thought pretty much those exact same things before I got a job here. But writing here for two years has been one heck of an experience, and maybe today I can give you some insight to the things I see on the staff side of the fence.
Warrior Epic MMO releases iPhone tie-in
This is an interesting trend: Warrior Epic, an MMO game by True Games, has announced that they've released an iPhone app [iTunes link] version for free, featuring "a small portion of the strategy, role-playing and battles found in the online MMORPG," kind of like a taster for the actual PC game. The game itself isn't a 3D action game like the full game, but rather a "stat game," much like many of the minigames being released on Facebook and other social platforms (in fact, Warrior Epic is releasing this game as a Facebook game as well). Unfortunately, the only real tie between the games seems to be having the same name and being set in the same universes -- we don't have any characters to test, but it doesn't seem that you can transfer your actual characters or items from the PC game across to the iPhone. But this will be a trend to watch -- two other major MMOs have started work on official iPhone apps, and of course the 800 lb. gorilla of the MMO world, Blizzard, maker of World of Warcraft, has shown a strong interest in the iPhone as a platform, even though they haven't quite released any games on it yet. In the future, you can probably expect to see platforms like the iPhone host access (if limited) to your favorite persistent online games even while you're away from your computer. Should be exciting.
Game controlling glove now available for pre-order and 'The Wizard' remakes
We know how hard it can be to expend precious energy on something as trivial as a keyboard – we spend all day doing exactly that! So it's with proud, near-jubilant excitement that we bring you news of the gaming glove "Peregrine," which allows for keyboard-free game playing, becoming available for pre-order. It's not exactly equipped to handle twitch shooters: the Peregrine was made with MMOs in mind. Rather than push down all those pesky keyboard buttons, it allows for up to 40 different configurable movements instead.The $129 device (that's if you pre-order -- it'll be $149 otherwise) runs on USB and will connect as a keyboard, so compatibility shouldn't be too much of an issue. You can quit writing your Power Glove 2.0 fanfic right now – this ain't it. We do, however, expect to see a YouTube-derived sequel to The Wizard around the end of January, when the first pre-orders are expected to ship to consumers. Get on that, internet! [Via Engadget]
Survey says 15% of overall gameplay time is in an MMO
Our friends at Joystiq reported on this fascinating survey by GamesIndustry.com that broke down responses from 13,000 US and EU citizens about how they spend their gaming time. While they don't have specific numbers for World of Warcraft, the survey says [PDF link] that overall, 15% of gaming time is spent playing MMOs. US players spend about 14% of their gaming time on MMOs, while EU players range from 8% to 16% by country. In the EU, 14% of all players have played an MMO, and in the US, 21% of everyone playing games has played a massively multiplayer online game. Again, these numbers aren't specifically for World of Warcraft (and because the survey went down to age 8 and up, they do include the vast virtual worlds aimed at children, like Club Penguin and Disney's Toontown, which probably throw the numbers off quite a bit), but they do show the effect that WoW has had on the gaming population over the last five years. Five years ago, MMOs were definitely a niche -- some hardcore gamers played them, but most people didn't have the Internet connections to play an online game, much less pay a subscription for one. Nowadays, MMOs represent over one out of every ten minutes of overall playtime, and those numbers are only going to go up.
The best of WoW.com: October 27 - November 3, 2009
That right there's a big ugly frost dragon named Sindragosa, and with the newest patch headed to the World of Warcraft (we expect it sometime this December), we'll be bringing her down. It won't be easy, but then again, WoW players have Joystiq's own WoW.com to guide them. You can read all about that fight, the new patch, and other popular stories in the World of Warcraft on our weekly roundup after the break.
GameX 2009: Victorian spaceships with Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw
Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of the infamous Zero Punctuation reviews on The Escapist is a bit tricky to track down, but we were able to get some time in with him at this year's GameX in Philadelphia. We pitched the fast talking reviewer some questions to get his opinion on the MMO genre beyond his reviews of Tabula Rasa and EVE Online, and found out some interesting things -- like victorian steampunk spaceships are awesome. So what breaks the MMO genre for Yahtzee? Will more MMOs be smash... er... featured on Zero Punctuation? If you're wondering the answers to these questions, then wonder no more! Just click on through after the break to check out our video interview!
The Guild Halloween special
The Guild is on holiday vacation this week -- instead of the latest episode in the series (which is episode 9, and will come out next week, we're told), they've posted a Halloween special video, which you can watch over on MSN or right past the break below. It's more than just a chance to don their actual guildie costumes, too -- they go on a "socially acceptable real-world looting" run, with each guildie terrorizing one unlucky couple in their own special way. What's scarier than a Tuesday with all the servers down for maintenance? Vork showing up at your door. And while we're on the subject of The Guild, our good friends at Massively got a chance to speak with a few of the cast members at GameX earlier this week -- Jeff Lewis, Robin Thorsen, and Sandeep Parikh got cornered by Massively's cameras, and talked with them about Wil Wheaton, MMOs, and Sandeep's famous backflip. Have a happy Halloween, Guild fans, and we'll be back next week with the third-to-last episode of season 3. Like The Guild? We do, too! We chatted with all of the folks at BlizzCon, including Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh, and Jeff Lewis and Michele Boyd. We also saw their panel, and the guys were nice enough to stop by our meetup as well. Stay tuned here every Tuesday for a brand new episode of season 3!
Dragon*Con 2009 in pictures
Oh, Dragon*Con, I missed you before I even left. Though I'm not entirely certain if you can really enjoy the MMO track's annual World of Warcraft party -- which included Gnome punting and Horde vs. Alliance dodgeball -- vicariously, I tried to catch the experience in photographic form nevertheless. (Note: if you want to really experience the meaning of the "war" in Warcraft, you need to do so in a room filled with hundreds of WoW fans cheering for their faction of choice.) Of course, Dragon*Con is more than parties (after all, some of the parties had Tesla coils), there was some great MMO programming and we had a chance to talk addons with the infamous ckknight. With twelve long months to wait until Dragon*Con 2010, we'll all have to live on memories until then. So, until 2010, I leave you with photo galleries.%Gallery-72666% Gallery: Dragon*Con 2009: General convention gallery
Massively multiplayer online... boobs?
Did you know that MMOs and breasts have a long history with one another? It's true, you know. From the time MMOs came onto the scene, so too did scantily clad women with huge hooters. Also, yes, this is indeed one of "those" articles. The article where we talk about breasts seriously, I mean.Sanya Weathers, no stranger to the MMO industry (or breasts, for that matter) just recently took a pretty funny tour of how breasts work into advertising, whether we like it or not. From box art to marketing departments, she looks at some of the good, the bad, and the downright horrible when it comes to putting hot women on boxes to sell games.If you're up for a laugh, go check out her article over at MMORPG.com. It's funny, it's insightful, it's historical, and it's full of what men want most -- awesome games. (Get your head out of the gutter if you thought that last line was going to be another boob joke.)
WoW.com running an instance live on Vocalo.org tomorrow at 4pm central
I've been working in coordination with a group called Vocalo.org here in Chicago for the past few weeks -- they're a community-oriented division of the public radio station WBEZ (the same station that produces NPR shows like "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" and "This American Life"), and I've been doing some interviews with their in-studio host. A few weeks ago, we talked to a psychologist friend of mine about video game violence and addiction, last week we chatted with da_bears, a professional gamer here in Chicago (who recently got into World of Warcraft), and this week, we're doing something extra special: I'll be running an instance together with a five-man group live on the air. It'll start up at 4pm central both live on Vocalo.org (and live on the air in Chicago at 89.5FM). As I run through the instance live on the air (I haven't decided which one yet, though I'm thinking Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle or maybe Heroic Old Kingdom), we'll be talking about WoW and other MMOs, why these games are so fascinating, and what it's like to run with a group of five different people, all playing different roles with different abilities.It should be interesting to say the least -- while the segment will likely be directed at people not as familiar with World of Warcraft as you guys, I'll be sure to keep it interesting even for veteran WoW players (and if we wipe, you can at least laugh at me for being a noob Hunter). I believe we'll also be taking phone calls in the middle of all of this, so if you want, you can probably call up and talk some WoW with me as well.This all begins tomorrow, Wednesday afternoon at 4pm central time, both online at Vocalo.org and live on the air in Chicago, so if you're available to tune in and give us a listen, please do. I have no idea what will happen (has anyone ever tried to run an instance live on the radio before?), but it should be a lot of fun.
Online gaming up in the US
Our economy may still be pretty much in the gutter, but one industry is still going strong. If you glanced at what site you were reading this on and guessed "online gaming," congrats! You win a gold star. Here you go: ★. Anyway, according to this industry report featured on GameSpot, online gaming overall (including MMOs, in turn including WoW) was up 22% year-over-year in May 2009. 87.1 million people were estimated to game online in the USA, an impressive 28% of our estimated total population. Of course, a huge chunk of this is browser-based games (think Bejeweled or Yahoo! Games). WoW is apparently the 21st most popular "online locale," clocking in at 2.2 million US visitors. Still, I'd say 21st isn't bad for a game with a subscription fee; 2.2 million players at $15 a month is $33 million a month (assuming the each have exactly one account). The next-closest MMO, according to this report, is RuneScape, at 202,000 players. Really? Aren't there other MMOs with more than that? Anyway, online gaming, like online everything else, is on the rise. Single-player, localized games are starting to feel positively quaint, although I still think Chrono Trigger is the best computer RPG of all time.
A leveling server, just for leveling
Reader Tiago sent us an interesting idea I thought was worth sharing. He suggests that Blizzard create a "leveling server" -- a server that would be marked as specifically for new characters, so when you rolled a new toon on there, you'd be surrounded by a bunch of other people pre-80. And the key here would be that when you hit 80 on this server, then you would get a free server transfer off. In other words, Blizzard would have one server (completely optional, of course) designed for people to level on, with a realm full of people playing in the old world and leveling through the old quests.Sounds good, right? Like most of our ideas, Blizzard probably won't go for it -- they've already knocked down the idea of vanilla realms, and while this isn't the same thing (you'd be able to level to 80, the idea is just that you'd leave the server when you got there), it does mean creating a different ruleset for a brand new type of server. Plus, to a much lesser extent, it could create an even more lonely existence on the normal servers. Not to mention that Blizzard has been focusing on speeding past the low levels, not emphasizing them.But I like the idea anyway -- it doesn't seem too tough to do (mark one realm recommended, and provide free server transfers off of it), and it seems like an excellent way to get people who enjoy leveling up all together in the same place. And that's really what MMOs like this are all about, right?
A WoW player's guide to Free Realms
Our good friends at Massively have written up a post just for you WoW players about the new hotness in MMOs lately, a game called Free Realms. I haven't gotten a chance to play it, but it's all the team over there can talk about, and the game itself just hit a whopping three million players. It's a free-to-play game (with more premium memberships getting more features -- the minimum is about $5 a month) put out by Sony Online Entertainment that aims towards a more casual audience, with extra content placed in for more hardcore gamers. The questing and leveling itself is very forgiving -- you have a dotted green line leading you to quest targets, and combat only takes place in instanced areas. But the crafting and other various minigames (in order to do mining, you actually play a Bejewelled-style matching game, and there's even a "Kart Driver" profession) can get pretty hard. Just like WoW, those who want to collect pets or build skills can do that, while those who are more interested in dungeon crawling have that option as well.I've been meaning to pick up the game and check it out (on the free level, of course -- with my WoW subscription running, I'm not made of MMO money), and Massively's guide is an excellent first overview to how the game relates to our favorite MMO. If you're getting a little bored in Azeroth waiting for the next expansion announcement and are looking for something else to try, Free Realms might just be it.
The Daily Grind: Games that should be MMOs?
We all have a list of favourite games which we think should be MMOs. My first real exposure to RPGs was The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I absolutely love this game and it's top of my list of titles (or in this case a franchise) which needs to be turned into an MMO ASAP. Logically (and as a games journalist) I know it's not that simple. I've interviewed several folks at Bethesda over the years and I know that their vision of The Elder Scrolls wouldn't translate too well to a Massively Multiplayer Online game.But that aside, I'm pretty sure most gamers are stoked that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is being reinvented as an MMO. I want to know, if graphics, dev wishes and game mechanics weren't an issue, what games would you like to see become an MMO and why?
Ten things WoW players should know from E3, continued
One thing developers have learned from World of Warcraft and other recent games is that it's better to not only get players playing, but keep players playing -- almost everyone we spoke with at E3 talked about addon content and regular content updates. Say what you will about Blizzard's release schedules, but they have very steadily delivered updated content that players want and are interested in, and that's why people are still playing their game four years later.
Blizzard believes fans make their games successful
With E3 2009 officially underway, it's a great time for devs and CEOs to chat about their games and Blizzard's very own Mike Morhaime has been talking about the company's position in the MMO market with Develop. He believes that Blizzard is uniquely positioned within the industry and that it's all about the players:"The story behind us is the passionate community that has grown up around our games," he explains during the interview. "Our commitment to quality has helped us grow a global audience that has grown with every release. While our competitors will be trying to overcome these challenges to grow their brands, we're already a major player there. None have achieved the same level of online growth as World of Warcraft. We're able to leverage huge investments in new content across the world's largest MMO subscriber base."
The Daily Grind: The MMO/life balance
Irony is a weird thing. Here's an example: since becoming a journalist some four years ago I've had less time to read manga, watch anime and play games (oddly all things I do as part of my job). Here's another one: since joining Massively and WoW.com, my time playing WoW has dropped to just a couple of hours a week. Weird huh? It's something I'm trying to change but enjoying a raid is a bit hard when a voice in my head is whispering about news and European maintenance posts.So readers, you work, you play, you go to school, you study and you obviously also love MMOs (or you wouldn't be reading this post, right?). How do you balance your real life with your virtual one? Does your MMO of choice have to wait till your chores/homework/research is done? Would you rather get your fix before dinner or are you up at the crack of dawn before work to do those all-important dailies?
The Digital Continuum: Dealing with delay
Back in 1999 when I was just a 14 teenager with way too much free time on his hands, I had finally got Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete for my PlayStation. Saying the game saw delays would be quite an understatement and up until that time I had been pretty frustrated with the whole ordeal. Nobody likes it when games are delayed and back then I was no exception.But thinking back to how wonderfully translated (and semi-ported from the Sega Saturn) the game was, it was quite worth the wait. Although I may not have realized it at the time, the delays were entirely the right choice. And as it turns out, they usually are, not that everyone can make that observation.
Capsuleer 2.0 for iPhone helps you track EVE Online status
Massively has a good look at an iPhone app that's a must-have for players of the space-based multiplayer EVE Online -- Capsuleer 2.0 isn't an actual client, but like the desktop app EVEMon, it allows you to monitor and track your EVE pilots from outside the game. It's also got skill queues built in (unlike other MMOs, EVE allows you to have your pilots level even while you're away from the game, so most of the strategy in leveling actually comes in choosing the next skill to work towards), a skill library, more pilot details, and even a mini-RSS feeder, incorporating a few popular blogs from around the EVE blogosphere.The two developers of the app tell Massively that their biggest issues in developing the app were mostly by way of the limits CCP (the company behind EVE Online) places on what third-party apps can do with their info.. Most of the things they can't do are built into the game itself, and so it makes sense that a certain amount of functionality can't leave the game client (or else people might never log into the game). The app is currently free in the App Store right now, and the devs aim to keep it that way, but just recently added ads to the mix from the game's official magazine to cover server costs and bandwidth.Finally, they say they're excited about the possibilities with iPhone 3.0 -- notifications are mentioned, and of course it would be cool to get a popup reminder every time a pilot is about to hit a skill. They're also working on a way to provide stats about the ingame Faction Warfare. Sounds cool -- EVE Tracker is still another possibility if you want to follow your EVE progress on the iPhone, but it looks like Capsuleer adds even more innovation to the mix.
