Ok, this is a mildly amusing take on the 12 days of Christmas…
I find it interesting that the WoW-side of this song sounds like a 14 year old “Herp Derper” while the SWTOR player sounds like a normal human being. (Naw… I am not biased, why do you ask?)
Yeah, I played it over the weekend. Yeah, I’m still under NDA, so I can’t give you any spoilers, screenshots, or videos.
However, I can tell you a few things.
1) If you don’t have this game pre-ordered already, go ahead and get it.
2) No, seriously… Go ahead and get it. You won’t be sorry.
Some things I can comment on…
1) There seems to be a lot of “WoW-Rage” in every new game. SW:TOR is no exception.
2) I would expect WoW to drop 4.3 very soon in order to try and steal SW:TOR’s Launch-Day Thunder. I don’t know that it will work. While WoW is adding “Yet Another Endgame Encounter”, SW:TOR will be shiny and new. I have heard reports that SW:TOR has already sold over 2 million pre-orders. If that is true, I’d be willing to wager that a new raid in WoW isn’t going to keep their attention very long, if at all. (and that’s assuming that all of the 2 million pre-orders are WoW players… Something I know is NOT true.)
3) I said this in an Ask Massively column a long time ago, WoW ain’t going anywhere. However, with a loss of over a million subscribers so far this year, and with new games taking bigger and bigger bites of WoW’s subscriber base. I don’t think it is unreasonable to say that WoW is starting to move, inexorably, back to the pack. I would not be shocked to see WoW dip below 10 million subscribers by the end of this year, and I think SW:TOR will get more than a few of those people. If SW:TOR takes off, there is no reason it couldn’t pass WoW in subscriber numbers within another couple of years. Will it hit 12 million like WoW did? I REALLY doubt it. On the other hand, as franchises go, show me a bigger money maker, historically, than Star Wars.
Here’s the real kicker. What things does an MMO need in order to maintain success?
1) Community. I’m not sure how well the in-game community is going to develop, but I’m sure that it’s going to. There are a lot of hardcore Star Wars fans out there.
2) Pop-culture tie-ins. Perhaps not mentioned much, but part of WoW’s success is tied to some of the merchandising and other multimedia tie ins. T-shirts, novels, even rumors of a World of Warcraft movie. Star Wars comes with all of that stuff built in. Non-gamers might not know who Thrall is, but you can bet your ass they know names like Skywalker or Vader.
3) Quality of the game. Yeah, it still matters. Without giving anything away, I will say that my experience was very smooth over the weekend. Not a lot of bugs (and the ones I did find weren’t game breakers), and the game felt as if it were ready to be released very soon. We all knew Bioware had a good track record with single player RPGs in the Star Wars universe. While I think they have made a couple of “rookie mistakes” in the MMO space, they have learned a lot of good lessons from previous games including WoW, Rift, and others.
Assuming that this game doesn’t completely crap the bed on launch, I’d like to go ahead and invite the entire 501st to the MMO track party at Dragon*Con next year.
So apparently, one of the stories that is a little late coming out of Blizzcon is that L90ETC had a special guest performer give a video presentation to close the convention. George Fisher, aka Corpsegrinder of the band Cannibal Corpse, had some choice words for the Alliance folks at Blizzcon. “Emo”, “Fag”, and “They should kill themselves” were some of the wittier bon-mots. (What the hell would you expect from a Death Metal frontman? Puppies and Kittens?)
Now look. I have been as guilty as anyone of throwing around some faux-Alliance hatred at Dragon*Con… But seriously? You’re going to do THIS at Blizzcon and not expect to catch shit for it? The folks at GLAAD, and GayGamer.net, and pretty much anyone else who understands that World of Warcraft is just a fucking game responded about like you would expect. However, now there are other stories popping out about fans being assaulted at Blizzcon for wearing Alliance gear.
Seriously?
I mean… fucking-yay that Blizzard has officially apologized. But still…
So here’s the deal. No more “Roll Call” at Dragon*Con for the Horde and Alliance. I’m not even willing to play into the whole Alliance vs Horde thing anymore. For me, it was a lot of fun, but I draw the line at hearing about people being assaulted for wearing an Alliance t-shirt. I draw the line at dealing with people who have no sense of context and who assault people for a purely manufactured reason. It’s just a damned game, people.
There is a slightly darker corner of my psyche that wants to buy an Alliance t-shirt, show up to Blizzcon next year, and dare Corpsegrinder, Samwise, or anyone else to say something about it.
Just when I thought I got out… Looks promising. Of course it is Day 1 of Blizzcon, so OF COURSE IT LOOKS PROMISING!!! We shall see… Coming soon to an expansion near you. (And by “soon”, I mean… 2 years?)
Brace yourselves. Bioware has lifted the press NDA on Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Get ready for every hack MMO site on the ‘net to give “Sneak Previews” of features from the upcoming game. Pay no attention to the fact that you could get 90% of this information directly from the SWTOR site. Pay no attention to the fact that most of these articles will be written by columnists who can’t see past their own preconceptions. Pay no attention to the hordes of angry fanbois who will scream “This game SUX” because they can’t play a “Wookiee Jedi with a quadruple-bladed lightsaber” (which, while awesome, might be just a little unreasonable…) Most of you have already made the decision on whether or not you are going to try this game. (example: Me… I’ve already purchased my copy)
The way things are going in this industry, it is worth it to boycott or black-out all gaming “news” sites and go into a new game with your eyes and your mind open. If you ever want to re-create the “WOW!” experience of your first MMO, then perhaps reading some blog’s “comprehensive class breakdown” columns months before the game hits the streets is a bad thing to do. Half the fun of this genre is in exploring the game world and figuring things out for yourself. If you walk into a game armed to the teeth with advice and tips from some “beta tester”, you may as well save your money and go rent a movie instead. The blogger has already taken the best part of the gaming experience away from you.
The value of MMO-style beta testing is debatable, but it is definitely good for one thing. Building Hype.
…and here it comes.
| © 2010-2012 D*C MMO | Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha |