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Corum Online's leveling dungeons
MMOFury has a short interview up with Elliot Coward of Corum Online, a free-to-play, microtransaction-funded MMO (from the same company that runs Flyff and a few more originally Korean games). Corum has a nice little twist though -- in this game, not only do players level up, but so do dungeons. During the week, dungeons that have more players going through them will "level up," and get harder monsters to join, and players can even take over dungeons and gain rewards for their control. The Wikipedia page on the game says that things inside are pretty much taken over by high powered groups and guilds, but considering the size of the game, there's still quite a few dungeons that are uncontrolled. Sounds interesting.To that end, Coward says that the devs are currently working on beefing up the guild system, including building up some systems for guild vs. guild play, and they're always trying to push out more dungeons -- Coward says that "MMOG players can burn through content like a hot knife through butter." Sounds about right to us.
A petition for penguins in WotLK
As you may have heard, there is a serious issue awaiting us in the next expansion. Blizzard has kept us in the dark for a while, but after careful consideration, we at WoW Insider believe it's time to throw our considerable weight (we are, after all, one of the top 50 most influential blogs in the world, with all of the benefits and perks contained therein) behind what the players have asked for, time and time and time again.Yes, we're making our stance official: there definitely need to, in some way, shape or form, be penguins in Northrend. Not only would it obviously win us the Linux vote, but consider the facts: penguins are birds, they don't fly, and penguins lay eggs. Of course, there is one problem: Penguins (order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae) are only found in Antarctic regions, which means there aren't any in the Northern parts of the world (which, in Azeroth, is right where the aptly named Northrend is). But then again, this is a world where dragons can turn into women and people can shoot fire out of their fingertips -- surely, Blizzard can stretch the science just so we can have some cute little formally-dressed birds up there.So while petitions are banned on the forums, we here at WoW Insider know the power that you, our readers, carry, and we want you to add your voice to ours. Sign the comments section below if you agree: when the Alliance and the Horde hit the shores of Northrend, we of course want to see Arthas, and we'd like to have Death Knights, and we want a floating Dalaran and Tuskarr (yes, with a bukkit quest) and Forsaken architecture. But everyone who leaves a comment on this post, Blizzard, wants, almost more than all of that other stuff, just one thing in Northrend: penguins.We want penguins. /signed.
The perils of progressive testing
After Skellum of Dalaran posts on the forums asking just where all these PTR changes are coming from, Nethaera sobers us all up about what the PTR is all about: progressive testing. She says that Blizzard has said from the beginning that there will be changes in the notes, and that things we thought were the end of the world in the beginning have changed or been completely removed. Welcome to the perilous world of progressive testing.And it occurs to me that I've broken my own rule about patience on the PTRs. When those Shaman notes dropped with only a Stormstrike icon, it didn't occur to me (or almost any other players) that Blizzard wasn't done yet. And while the latest changes still aren't done (we're still waiting for an Elemental buff), things have been fixed somewhat since then.But is this really just players doubting Blizzard? They posted the patch notes with just one small disclaimer -- would they have been able to quell the furor a bit more if they'd made it more clear that what's posted on the PTR notes has almost no connection to what will show up on the live realms? But then again, Neth never really answered the question of where these changes are coming from -- if Shamans hadn't QQ'd so much over the Elemental Mastery and Nature's Swiftness nerf, would it ever have been reverted? Blizzard seems to be simultaneously telling players to be patient and also give feedback. If players had been patient when the EM and NS nerf came down, and it hadn't caused such an uproar, would it have been changed back at all?
New York Times can't let WoW duo get away with it
Reader Roland (thanks!) pointed us to this weird WoW reference in the New York Times. In the wedding section of all places, there's a story about a couple that used World of Warcraft to play and have fun as a duo, and it's too damn bad that the NYT falls back into the old media idea that playing videogames as a couple isn't healthy.Can we get one mainstream media article that breaks the mold? Can we get one portrayal of a WoW player (or players, in this case) that doesn't fall back into the old line of MMOs being the territory of cave-dwelling social outcasts? That's most certainly not the case in reality -- how long is it going to take for mainstream reporters to forget this moronic angle and report on what's really happening here: two people in love sharing a hobby in between the rest of their full and fulfilling lives.There are now ten million people playing this game around the world, and the large, overwhelming majority of them are healthy, fulfilled individuals who lead great lives both in and out of game. In fact, the two people this article is about are two of those individuals. It's perfectly healthy to sit down and play a videogame with your significant other, on a beautiful spring day or at any other time (yes, it's never healthy to do one thing all the time, be it videogames or TV watching or anything else, but that's not what's happening here). And it's crazy that the NYT bent over backwards to make it seem like that's not the case.
On CMs and their thread choices
Unholycow on Thrall finally calls out the CMs (in a more literate-than-usual way, I mean) for something they've been doing a long time on the forums-- posting in inconsequential threads, while big player questions remain unanswered. As he says, "what's going on?"Neth answers pretty quickly, and this issue goes almost directly back to the issue of communication between players and CMs. The CMs feel they have a lot more freedom to post on silly threads, obviously, and so they do it more. But when talking about "serious" issues (or maybe just more touchy subjects), their words carry more weight, and so they have to pick and choose what they say.And to that, I have to agree with Tolki, who posts in the thread that we'd rather have an Oprah than a Tony Snow. Sure, things didn't work out so well the last time a CM was completely honest with us, but surely there's a middle ground. BlizzCast is a start-- maybe the devs and CMs should work together to make sure that fairly often (once a week or even once a day), they can speak out on a "serious" issue, and give the player base something to chew on. It could be argued that the CMs' words carry so much weight on serious issues because we almost never hear from them, and if that's true, a regular schedule of discussions with either CMs or devs would help give the CMs more freedom to be more honest with us about what they think about (hey heeeeyy) what's really going on in game.
Blizzard wants you... and your questions
Bornakk has sent out a request on the forums for player questions to be used in the next BlizzCast, and I can only say that I hope, hope, hope that that delivers as much comedy as it promises. As you may know if you attended any of the Q&A sessions at BlizzCon, players and their questions plus developers equals the funny.Considering that the podcasts are pre-recorded and not live, however, so odds are Blizzard will go for informative rather than confusing and awkward, but let me tell you: the latter has its advantages for sure. If you've got a question for BlizzCast, you can apparently send it to BlizzCast (at) Blizzard dot com, and hope it appears on a future BlizzCast.And speaking of podcast questions, don't forget that the WoW Insider Show is also a podcast that answers questions, and you can ask us questions at theshow@wow.com. Unlike Blizzard, we will include the funny ones, so send away.
Heading for greener pastures in 2008?
It's the first month of a new year, and you know what that means: predictions aplenty. Across the MMOscape over at Massively, almost everyone is predicting that WoW is going to suffer-- there's no question that there's a long line of MMOs just waiting in the wings to snatch you players away from Azeroth-- from Warhammer Online to Age of Conan, there are supposed to be some terrific MMOs released this year.So who better to ask if you're moving to greener pastures than you yourselves? You're not supposed to ask whether players are leaving for Warhammer on the forums, but we've got no such compunctions: are you planning on leaving for Warhammer or any other new games in 2008? Are you just keeping time in WoW until the game you really want to play releases later this year?Rest assured, die-hard WoW fans, that we're not going to become "WAR Insider" anytime soon (we've already got it over at Massively anyway)-- I love World of Warcraft, and while I'm definitely excited to see what Mythic and Funcom have in store for us this year, I'm also (along with all of our writers here) in Azeroth for the long run-- at least until I get to see what the Maelstrom's deal is and what's happening in the Emerald Dream.
How to make RMT obsolete rather than legit
Raph Koster was nice enough to come by and read our post about Live Gamer and their attempts to make RMT legit, and responds that while I suggested RMT was cheating and reading strategy guides was not, many older gamers actually do consider sites like Thottbot and EVE-db cheating. Just as the spirit of gaming evolved to consider outside help legitimate, so, Raph argues, will designers give up to market and player pressure, and make RMT viable and "legal."Which is probably true-- it's easy to see a future where a game like Dungeon Runners becomes a big hit, and 90% of the people play the game for free (or close to it), and the other 10% of the audience pays for the game by using only the highest level items and gear, and shelling out money for both. But personally, I'd rather go for Raph's other idea-- that smart designers will find ways around integrating RMT solutions by coming up with ways to make RMT unnecessary. I've written and talked about this before-- when it's impossible and/or inconvenient to obtain ingame items with real money, players just won't do it. And no players means no market.And let's not forget, either, that these are just games we're talking about-- RMT can buy you all the items you want, but it can't buy you great gameplay, and that's the reason we're all here in the first place. If designers emphasize gameplay over simple epic item collection in the first place, there's no reason for RMT at all. Companies like Live Gamer smell money in the air around virtual items, but hopefully (and this is what Raph doubted in his first post) there is still more money to be made with a successful widespread game than just selling the items inside of it.
Nonsurprise: WoW was most played PC game of Q3
The Nielson Company -- the uber-powerful organization which tracks the viewership ratings by which TV programs live (like Lost) or die (like Studio 60) -- has determined that World of Warcraft was the #1 most played PC game during the period of April - November 2007.According to the group, residents of Azeroth and Outland averaged 17 hours of play per week -- 12 hours more than the nearest competition, players of The Sims. So when my family and friends suggest that I'm crazy for playing WoW more than 15 hours a week, I can point to this and say, "Well, if I'm crazy, then so are at least 4.5 million other people!" Yeah, kind of a lame defense, I know.17 hours seems like a good estimate to me because it falls smack dab in the middle between your casual players (who probably play up to 10 hours a week) and your hardcore types (who probably play 30+ hours per week).[Via Massively]
Blizzard was only expecting 1 million WoW subscribers
Former Blizzard producer Bill Roper described the early days of World of Warcraft's development to CVG, saying, "we were hoping we'd be able to sell a million copies of the game." He pointed out that at the time, EverQuest was the gold standard for MMOs, and it only had 500,000 subscribers. "It would have been impossible to predict that World of Warcraft would take off as a cultural phenomenon as it did," he said.He's right; people knew World of Warcraft would be a comparatively big deal, but how could they have predicted 9.3 million players? Throughout the history of persistent world online games, we've been surprised again and again at just how large the market for them can be. There are studios out there who think they can take it even further -- BioWare, for instance. Or maybe the industry will fragment into niche games now. The point is, you can't always predict this stuff. That's what makes it so exciting.In case you were wondering what Roper is up to now, his company Flagship Studios recently released Hellgate: London -- more of a niche title than a mainstream record-buster. Flagship is also working on Mythos, a Diablo-esque-dungeon-crawler.
Community cartographers take on Kunark
EverQuest II forum member Lenefir created a traveler's map of Kunark for players who are just getting started with exploring the new expansion. If you're one of those players, the map will help you locate the docks, the Wizard spire, both Druid rings, all zone lines, and the Sokokar Posts for fast travel around the continent. Another forum member named aprilweeks posted several zone-specific travel maps as well. It's always nice to see players creating deep, complete game-play guides. Not that long ago some LotRO players created a huge guide to housing decorations, too. It's those sorts of community things that make this genre of games special.
The Daily Grind: How many MMOs?
Let's face it-- MMOs are time-consuming. Just one great MMO can steal all your free time, but there are just so many out there that it's hard for some of us to stick to just one. I'm paying for two subscriptions at the moment, but with free-to-play games, and a couple of betas, I'm up to about five different games that I occasionally sign on to about once a week or so..I can't say that splitting myself between that many games makes much sense-- I mostly do it just to keep up with what's new in all of them, so I'd guess that I'm a little higher than average. So let's put the question to you all today-- how many MMOs would you say that you play regularly (about once a week)? Are you a one-game player, or do you figure the more virtual worlds you get to visit, the better?
The return (of Tobold and others) to World of Warcraft
Well he doesn't think he's news, but since we reported on his exit way back when, we might as well bring the whole story full circle, and report on Tobold's return to World of Warcraft. Patch 2.3 (and the Scroll of Resurrection deal-- which is a great one, I don't blame him for filling out a form to get 40 days free) is bringing him back as, he says, a casual player only.Now of course, the story's not really about Tobold-- with apologies to him for the unwanted attention we sent, it never was (so leave the guy alone, already-- if you've got comments about his decisions, leave them over here). But he is a big, influential MMO blogger, and his leaving WoW was part of a trend back then. In the dark days before 2.2, progress on the realms was stagnant, and there was nothing new to keep folks interested. Even with patch 2.2, voice chat wasn't a big draw for players (and in fact, now that I think about it, I haven't used it at all since it debuted-- my guild is still on Ventrilo, and no one has invited me to use the voice chat system).But now we're at patch 2.3, and the times, they are a-changin'. There's new midlevel content (!), Engineers have a purpose in life, Hunters have no dead zone, and there's a brand new 10-man instance in the game (almost guaranteed to quickly become the most popular endgame instance out there). Tobold's back, and, just as before, we've got to wonder if he's part of an early trend. Are all the players who took a break this summer coming back to Azeroth?
Tobold looks back at WoW, wonders what's next
Tobold's MMORPG Blog is one of the most popular online gaming blogs in the series of tubes, but Tobold suggesting that he and a lot of other online gamers are in a "gaming slump." World of Warcraft transformed the industry and expanded the market by leaps and bounds, but its appeal might be winding down, Tobold said. He could be right. Blizzard has been reporting active player numbers as high as ever, but a big chunk of the numbers comes from the enormous Asian player base. North American and European players might be ready to move on.But what's next? Most games these days are WoW clones, and many of them haven't done as well as expected. Does the genre need a Battlestar Galactica-esque total reboot? If so, what will do it? The new Blizzard MMO, as Tobold suggests? The fabled KotoR MMO? The Elder Scrolls Online? What are your thoughts, dear readers?
Rewarding the old timers of WoW
I like Zymm's idea over on the forums-- he suggests that people who have been playing WoW for a while, or just "older" characters, should get some sort of special recognition or title as a WoW "old-schooler." Not just because I am a WoW old-schooler, but because it'd be nice of Blizzard to give out a little recognition for players and characters that have been active and playing for a while. I'm not saying that they should start handing out Epics just for standing around, but a special tabard or title would be kind of nice.And there are other benefits, too. It'd be a quick and easy way of telling who the veterans are in-game-- as in, who should know what they're doing and who might not. Plus, our characters don't actually age, so while gear is some indication of where they're at in progression, it doesn't tell you who's been on for years and who just powerleveled to 70 in the past few months. Some common indicator of age would set a milestone for how long characters and players have been around.Eyonix jokes about "Old School Zymm," but it's a good suggestion-- we should have some way of showing off how long both we and our characters have been around Azeroth.
The challenge of recruiting for farmed content
I've never been in a guild where we've finished all the content in the game, but I've definitely seen a difference between raiding farmed content and raiding progression. When you're working on farmed content, things are very, very different from a progression raid-- the mood is lighter, things move more smoothly, more mistakes are made (and it matters less), and there's a little less leading and a little more joking. Not that farming content is more or less fun than raiding progression, but it's a very different feel-- last night I ran Karazhan with my guild for the first time (they're farming it now), and things were very, very different from those raiding days back when we were struggling through Moroes and scared that the Wizard of Oz event might come up in Opera because we didn't have the DPS we needed.But what if you're recruiting for farmed content? Sara is facing exactly that situation, and she wonders if her guild will be able to find good people now that they're about to finish off all the content in the game. They're expecting loss and attrition (because some people only like to raid progress, and have no interest in farming content beyond their own needs), and trying to bring new people into a guild that's already done everything. Will they only be able to find folks in it for their own loot, or will they bring interested, knowledgeable raiders willing to do the work for the rewards?Hopefully they'll be able to weed out the "omglootz" people from the casual raiders and the other folks interested in seeing the endgame content. There's no question that running farmed content is not nearly as demanding (and that's why some people don't like it as much) as progressing a raid, but that doesn't mean that anyone wants to take on a raid full of loot whores only bent on scoring their next Epic.
More player titles: denied
Well, after my little rant on the extreme lack of titles for players the other day, Blizzard has... not changed their mind at all. Zer asks, wisely I thought, for titles for PvE players, but Bornakk shuts him down, and then stomps all over the idea completely. Titles are rare, he says, and that's the way they like it.That boggles the mind. Titles are a form of achievement, and isn't that what this game is all about? As was mentioned in the comments on the last post, titles could be exactly like Xbox Live Achievements-- relatively meaningless badges of honor (or dishonor) that players would wear with pride. This is a super simple, super easy way to extend the game for players who have been playing for a long time. And Blizzard wants to keep these rare?It's their game, I guess, and obviously if they feel titles should be rare (though I can't for the life of me see why-- keeping content unattainable hasn't been working real well for them lately), then titles will stay rare. But especially at a time when new content is scarce and players are wondering why they should revisit the old content at all, new titles for achievements of any kind seem like an easy (and easily implemented) draw.
The draw of DPS classes
Keen and Graev have a good post up about why (according to them) players prefer playing DPS roles. Statistically, it appears to be more or less true-- according to Warcraft Realms, four of the five highest class percentages are traditionally DPS classes: Mage, Rogue, Warlock, and Hunter. Warriors also have a higher population, but it could be argued that only 1/3 of the Warrior specs (Prot, as opposed to Arms or Fury) out there are actually meant for anything other than DPS.So why do players seemingly prefer to play DPS? K&G give three main reasons. They cite something they call "Big Number Syndrome," which is the idea that unless you're dealing big damage, your class is worthless. They say that doing DPS requires less responsibility-- tanks and healers have to pay attention to everything, but DPSers choose a target and kill it. And they say that DPS classes level faster, which seems anecdotally (at least) to be true-- more damage means a faster kill, which means XP more often.In general (very generally, in fact), I tend to agree. For these reasons, some people are definitely drawn to the DPS lifestyle. But I don't think that these reasons are why people chose these classes in the first place. Hunters, for example, have pets, and I think that's a much bigger draw to the class than "big number syndrome" ever was. And let's not forget that these are more or less the most archetypal classes in the game-- someone who's never played the game probably would immediately know what a "Mage" or "Rogue" could do, whereas a Shaman (the lowest class population, according to the census) is a little harder to explain.So I think K&G are putting the chicken before the egg-- these things may be true about DPS looking back (and they may in fact be reasons people choose DPSers as alts). But when people first choose a class to call their own, I think it's a little simpler than that.[ via Hardcore Casual ]
Thank a Tank (and everyone else) Day
I find it really interesting how class roles, originally created completely by Blizzard, have been given their own flavor by the people who play them. Take a main tank role, for instance-- sometimes it's the raidleader (although it doesn't have to be), but usually it's someone dedicated to the success of the raid, a person who likes getting their hands dirty, is super knowledgeable about both the bosses and their own gear, and both supports and benefits from (in the form of gold for repairs or first choice on equipment) the entire raid. The main tank (just like the top DPSer or the main healer) is a position created partially by Blizzard, and partially by the people who play it.Donaven (quite randomly) calls today "Thank a Tank Day." Unfortunately, he himself is a tank, so the actual proclamation sounds more like whining about being a tank rather than a sincere thanks for a tank who knows what they're doing, but the thought is noble. Instead of just thanking tanks, how about we thank all players who take a role and fill it out to the best of their ability-- who take a job, whether it be grabbing aggro, laying down damage in the right places, or playing the whack-a-mole game of healing, and do it well and without question.For all the QQing about PvP and all the crying about how Arena is unbalanced, the best times I have in this game are in PvE situations, where everyone is working together and doing what they're meant to, all the way until the boss' health reaches zero. The main tank plays a huge part in that, by standing where they need to stand, and laying down sunders when it counts. But when a raid is really working together, everyone does what's needed, and that's when it's really great. I'll thank everyone for that.
First impressions: Wrath of the Lich King and Utgarde Keep
I just got done playing through a quest in Northrend and up to the first boss of Utgarde Keep, and here's my general impressions of what I saw. Elizabeth was a little disappointed with what she saw this morning, but I grabbed a press pass and snuck into the press room here at BlizzCon (where playing time was relatively unlimited), and I feel I got a pretty good impression of the Howling Fjord zone, and the first 5-man we'll see in WotLK.So what did I think? Click the link below to find out.
