Monday, March 17, 2008

Brief Instant Message Conversation - MMOGs

The following comes from an instant message conversation with a buddy about the current crop of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs – I removed the R for role-playing as role-playing is not often found in the games today as a norm).

HIM: Will someone dethrone blizzard? (Age of Conan or Warhammer)

ME: No, because most of Blizzard’s subscriber base is Asiatic subscribers, they are still playing StarCraft by the millions and are brand loyal. Warhammer/AoC, unless they have GLOBAL launches planned will end up like EQ2, and unless they are games that fit into the culture they will be in trouble.

HIM: Regarding the upcoming World of Warcraft Expansion Pack “I think I’m just dreading the level 80 grind”

ME: I have done soo much leveling, in WoW nowadays; it is more fun than BGs/Dungeons.

HIM: Coming from the man with 5 level 60's+

ME: Actually only four, and the primary reason for that is there is too much hassle with other people/groups/drama and more importantly wasted time waiting on people... 60-70 are easy. 70-80 should be just as easy.

HIM: See there is a fundamental difference in playstyles, if you are a PvP player that is fine but for raiders you need player interaction, and your progression is based on dungeons so I spend all the time in dungeons and now my progression will be for moot.

ME: I will tell you what, the day (any game maker) releases a game that streamlines the party building/premade building processes, is a game I will go to. That is blizzards weak point, No community management tools, no guild management tools, not easy to find groups, build raids, and hell not even easy to build premade PvP groups.

You solve those problems and have a fun game as well (with low system requirements); you topple WoW.

HIM: So true. Well we have two contenders up we will see.