Wrath of the Lich King; the end of new WoW players?

Should this game be called “World of Warcraft: Now You Have No Life!”? With this content expansion, they are essentially barring new players from starting. The focus of the game up to this point was accessibility and ease of play, but this new expansion is doing the exact opposite. Leveling to 80 is a very daunting task. From 70, its only 10 levels and for the experienced 70s, its 10 levels of refreshment. They have had lots of time at level 70 to play around not having to level up. They got to raid and reputation grind and all. But now, they have are anxious to return to what initially drew them to the game: leveling up.

But what about the new guys? Everyone started out at one point and leveled up. But now we run into a barrier to entry. Most people playing the game now have been playing for a while and they have built up a social structure while playing. The vast majority of players are in a guild and have friends in the game. The newbies have none of this. If the entrees can bring themselves to level to 80, who are the guilds going to take on a raid: the guy who has been there for several months, or the new guy who just leveled up? They will take the veteran and the newbie will get discouraged, quit, and not encourage his friends to join. Word of mouth is the most effective form of advertisement. I think in this case though, its called word of ventrillo.

How do we judge the successfulness of a MMO? I can't be how fun the game is because we all know that MMOs are boring as shit. We judge a MMO based on subscription numbers and WoW has been no different except the quantity of subscribers. At the peak of WoW, the numbers were at about 11 million people playing. Those numbers have dipped since then, with many people defecting to Warhammer Online, Age of Conan or simply getting bored. With this release, Blizzard is expecting to pick up lots of subscribers. But who is really making up that increase? Chances are, it is veterans coming back to the game, wanting to see the new content and experience the process of going through Northrend. How many people are going to join this game because they see an advertisement on their TV? I'll admit, I played up to 70 because of a Mr. T commercial I saw about a night elf Mohawk, but I was a veteran. I didn't have a 70,60,50 or even a 40, but I started out a long time ago. I started playing based on a friend's recommendation in 2005, a year after the game came out. I didn't see Mr. T saying, “I pity the fool who doesn't play WoW” and run out and buy World of Warcraft, its expansion and a time card.

The bottom line is that Blizzard is now catering to the hardcore and experienced players. All the people in the game will be vets and very few new players will be coming to the game. The game that started out as a very user friendly and accessible game is now turning into the exact opposite. The connotation of a WoW player is very present in the video game community and even in the main stream world. It is viewed as a overweight person, sitting in a basement who has no life. This is actually contrary to reality, for studies have shown that MMO players are actually just under the national obesity average. Now, the time commitment to really make the game fun is climbing ever higher and now the stereotype might have to be true for the entry level players. They will have to move into the basement, become obese, eat mounds of Cheetos, Hotpockets, and Rockstars. Unfortunately, since nerds have no social skills, they will not be able to convince their parents that living in the basement is a good career move, at which point they will be kicked out and there is no internet o the street. This game is becoming school: you have to have started reading early or else you're so overwhelmed by the quantity of work, you just don't bother.

Playlist:

1. World of Warcraft
   

Shameless Plug/Update

I started a WoW blog to just babble about WoW. It's so this isn't so nerdy....if thats possible
Playlist:

1. WoW
   

I Can't Believe It

I started to play World of Warcraft again. I think that patch 3.0 and being there at the live recording of the instance is what really encouraged me to renew my subscription. And, I have had a pretty good time playing it so far. The achievements have made this game a little more addicting than heroin. I've been running around revealing lots of parts of the map. Also, with all these achievements that came out, I realized how much I really haven't done in the game. I only have about 1000 points. I'm not sure the maximum that can be achieved, but I have about 93/750. That's a lot of stuff to do. I do have to take issue with some of the things that happened. I killed some of the bosses that it said I didn't kill. I have the t4 helm to prove it. Anyway, most of my work has been me running around exploring everything. And raping low level dungeons. With this release date and patch, the game is starting to feel like the end of high school did. Everyone knows the end is coming, but we are all still there. We are doing things as if they don't have repercussions. I bought lots of expensive gems for my ret set, which is something I wouldn't probably have done unless I had a lot of money. Everything is now a joke. We 5 manned Onyxia, and Kara groups are a dime a dozen. No one is taking this game seriously anymore, and I have always felt that games really become fun when the game isn't too serious. It's a thing that this game will have for a while. No raids will really exist until about next spring which might actually be a little to early. People will hit 80 soon, but enough people to have a reliable raiding guild is something that will not exist for a while.


Speaking of Warcraft, I've also been playing Warcraft 3. Just normal games online, with matchmaking. It's a really fun game. I remember everything that I liked about RTSs and I do like them a lot. I also played Starcraft recently and it is still fun and an amazing game. Games that good really transcend the age barrier. By that, I mean are immune to the passage of time when speaking of playability. I have also realized that I have played WoW since basically the beginning of the game. I started in 2004. I never got past level 36 but I was playing. I had my mage, then a druid and various other characters. I never really settled on a character like I have now. I do like my druid, but my paladin has everything that I want and it makes playing him a real joy.

I said earlier that Shawn Elliot left the brodeo and it spelled certain doom for it as a podcast. Well, he never really left. He will always be here with stories. Only this time they will be read by Chuff(Anthony Gallegos) and Babito(Robert Ashley). And now Ryan Scott will actually be able to talk. However, it would not surprise me in the least if they got Jeff Green or Shawn Elliot to phone in to the podcast using their fancy new ….phone in technology. GFW was my favorite podcast and it still is. I really like their random tangents but they usually have good insight. I hope that it wasn't just Shawn who had the insightfulness. Shawn Elliot is such an amazing individual and he will be sorely missed.
Back in the good ol' days.

I really like to write, I have realized. I like to flush out my thoughts and put them down on paper. I do have this blog, and I am trying to evolve this blog into a thoughtful, insightful place. I will, of course, just put random things on there, I.e.: hatdog, but I also want to try and put things that delve into the game theory. The problem is, I might be going into it already, but it lacks life relevence, so its going to be hard for me to really recognize when I do it. So, it is here I announce that I am probably going to write a back story for my World of Warcraft character, Akoris. Dun, dun daaaaaa.
Playlist:

1. World of Warcraft
2. Warcraft 3
3. Team Fortress 2
   

OpenOffice.org

This isn't really video game related, but I downloaded Openoffice.org 3.0. It's amazing. Its basically a free, FREE, competitor to Microsoft Office. It doesn't disappoint. It's amazing. It looks like office so everything is where is should be. And it runs naively in Mac OSX. win.
Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2
2. Warcraft 3
   

Hi guyz

hi guyz!!
im hat dog!!!

Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2
2. CSS
   

I just wanted to say this:

When in doubt, chuff it out.Which makes me think: maybe I should finish Crysis and Half Life 2. Just chuff it out and play them.

Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2

Shawn Elliot leaves the Brodeo

I'm so depressed that he left. I guess everything is ending for me now that high school ended. But, high school ended and college began, so I guess that other things will too.

Shawn Elliot is a huge inspiration to me. He is not only a hilarious individual, but he is also a very insightful and intelligent one. I wish that I could poses his insight that he seems to have every week. I get a good idea maybe once every month. Plus his awesome stories are so amazing that I have started to amass stories that I can tell.
Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2
   

BonK!

I started playing Team Fortress 2 again. It's a lot alotta fun. But, the question that has been pestering me lately is: why? Why is it fun? Humans by nature are pretty competitive creatures. We've been racing each other places since the dawn of time and wars simply come from competitions over natural resources. So, I doubt I am any different than those humans, despite my constant showering and my real lack of having to do physical labor. So I do enjoy competition. Blowing up someone with a sticky bomb you lobbed over a wall or cliff is extremly satisfying. As is throwing someone up in the air with a ocket launcher and then fataly shooting them again while they remain airborn. Is this fun because you beat another person? If I killed you once, then I am way better than you are. This statement is not valid, for in that game, random events can and do occur that resut in freak deaths, eg. rounding the corner into a crit rocket that someone shot at nothing. I think the real pleasure and the thing that keeps bringing my back is beating the other team. Working together with your teammates to defeat a common enemy is an incredably uniting experience, eg. World War 2 and us kicking the shit out of the Taliban. The great thing about that game is that somehow, situations can arise that leave both teams satisfied. I was playing dustbowl and we were holding the other team down for the entire match. And then, at the end of the match we all of a sudden all died for various reasons and the other team managed to capture the point and win. We know we were the better team, so we were not mad. And the other who pulled a miracle win was jubilant. Not many games are able to do that.

It's been a while since there has been a new class update. But, Robin Walker, blogger on behalf of the dev team, has been doing his job. Namely, blogging. His last blog was titled "Gentlemen" and his newest is entitled "Git along there, little doggies". These are some of the spy and engineer taunts, respectivly. This could point to a class pack release, maybe of both spy and engineer. This would be interesting because spies and engineers are basically enemies of each other. Well, not really. I think the engineer hates the spy, and the spy hates the pyro. The pyro in turn hates the soldier, who hates the demoman. The Demoman does not care for heavies or pyros. Heavies hate spies. Medics hate everyone, scouts are ignored by all and everyone hates snipers, who hates spies. That is why they should release a offense, defense, support pack. I would vote for soldier, demo, sniper. But that is probably not going to happen. I would be okay with engy/spy/offense. I enjoy both scout and soldier so I am okay with either. What if they released another pack for the already updated classes. Just add more weapons! that would be nuts.

Playlist:

1. Team Fortress
   

New layout

I just wanted to point out I put Twitter back on here. I update to say things that I'm doing. Follow me if you want. I'll probably follow you back. I also put a follow feature that's from Blogger. I'm not sure what it does. I also put up a new poll. I think its clever.

Playlist:

1. Team Fortress 2