GotMMOG?

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (Blizzard)

Nothing new after the announcement of the coming expansion called Cataclysm. Goblins, Worgen, 85 level cap, Archaeology profession, major changes to the map, Path of the Titan, flying mounts in the rest of the world. We’ll probably take a stab playing around with it tomorrow but from seeing what was there, it looks like, well…WoW.

It’ll be interesting to see how it feels to roam the lands with everything all different-like. In some respects, this might be one of the smartest moves they’ve made to bring people back (and to get those people to renew their subscriptions).

Thing is, each of these expansions and changes they make to improve lower-level progression and help people get through the content to the higher level PVP end game might help but it’s going to have less and less of an effect each time. People are tired of WoW. But they still like it. What can you do? I think this coming expansion might do enough to bring people back for longer (thus why I think it’s one of their smartest moves of late). No more boring level progression through the same places over and over again with each new character.

The next thing they should do after the expansion (or with?) would be to litter the lower level areas (20-60) with new quests with nice loot for higher levels to accomplish and bring them back. They do mention “hundreds of new quests” in their trailer so…we’ll have to see, maybe we’ll see tomorrow.

g afk

Well, folks (all two of you), the first day of PAX 2009 is over (for me at least…damned allergies). It’s been a long day with a lot of stuff in the Expo worth noting. Bear with me on the summary below. We’ll cover more detail in our post-PAX analysis…when we recover from it.

In the interest of breaking this stuff down into bite sized pieces, we’ll split it up into separate posts…

Here are the things that didn’t warrant their own post (yet):

1) Some MMO devs had booths for existing MMOs, like WAR, that made you wonder why they bothered? They’re not new…they’re not releasing expansions, but they’re here. Okay, maybe they’re trying to drum up more subs but it’s a bit disappointing for active gamers.

2) Global Agenda looks interesting. Sanister got to play which made him an instant convert. I’ll take a look tomorrow. The dev at the booth said what was being demoed was the main multiplayer part of the game (team TPS action). They were still working on the MMO component. My thing was it felt a lot like CrimeCraft which did a terrible job of making it feel like an MMO. The MMO part was just a big empty space where you ran errands before joining the arena-like combat. In essense, another Guild Wars but set in the future. We’ll see tomorrow.

3) That factoid from last year that stated there were over 100 MMOs in development doesn’t seem far off any more. There was a post-apocalyptic, Borderlands style game called Fallen Earth. Nothing ground breaking. We’ll try looking in more detail if we can but it didn’t look very appealing either.

4) On the RPG front, Mass Effect 2 looked…like Mass Effect 1. I dunno…maybe the improved combat system will help smooth out the game and make it feel better, despite it’s console roots.

We’re hoping to dig into Dragon Age: Origins and Bioshock 2 this weekend. No sign of SWTOR anywhere. Odd considering the potential to show off something to a crowd of gamers.

Read on to see the more details from today. We’ll be back tomorrow with even more!

g afk

Or maybe just WAR…jeez.

So, I had a chance to play a little with this sucker while at PAX. Sanister’s actual knee deep in the closed beta but he’s under an NDA. That’s what he says at least…maybe he’s trying to live the Men in Black lifestyle…can’t talk about it. Look at this little pen…

Anyhow, I’ve loved the Warhammer world since I discovered those huge tomes at the local game store. No one around me played it (they were stuck on D&D, go figure) so I never really got a chance to play it out as much as I wanted to. Then, years later someone decided to make all sorts of games based on it and the 40k franchise…and here we are…uh…why does everything look like WoW? Sure the classes and races are a bit different (though they had to cut some stuff because they were overly ambitious). But, really?

Yup, the engine looks beautiful. It’s polished. There are the usual skills/abilities you activate, etc. Nothing new…and maybe that’s my issue with it. There’s talk of it being the next WoW-killer/assassin/whatever but I don’t know.

EA Mythic’s famous for RvR MMOGs (after all, DAOC is all about this). I never got that far in DAOC to play the RvR part of the game (Sanister’s the achiever-whore, I’m the RPer) but it represents a big part of high-level replayability.

Is it worth trying out? Of course! Everyone’s tired of WoW and is looking for something new. The Warhammer universe is fun and brutal. Is it going to replace WoW? Probably not. Even so, Mythic has a chance of launching a great product that will be the spiritual successor to DAOC while snaging all those Warhammer fans. Check it out.

Title: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Pub\Dev: EA Mythic

Release: September 18, 2008

Chances: 80%

This’ll be quick but I had to mention it. I can’t fucking believe that AC is still around. I guess considering that UO and EQ are still around and still have their respective legions of dedicated players, I should’ve known but still. This game is literally 10 years old. I think they released one or two expansions since I played last but nothing had me interested enough in coming back. The fact that it was up there on a monitor at PAX along with Turbine’s other games like LOTRO though made me think about it. Stay tuned, might be running around with boxy models and vast, empty spaces running from mobs.

g

So we went to awesome Seattle, WA for PAX 2008, and after 50+ hours of walking, talking and getting owned we are fucking exhausted! Geeks of all levels of Geekdom descended upon Seattle for this event, taking full advantage of the chance to see & play the latest and kinda-sorta-greatest games coming out; but not necessarily making use of the odd cleaning device in their hotel room (/shower noob!).

So what does that mean to you, well over the next week or so we will be posting up highlights and lowlights of various games and events that took place at PAX. By the way these are our thoughts and opinions on these games and not influenced in any way by game companies – which means we won’t pull any punches when telling you how fucking horrible some of these games are!

For some of the uber leetness to look forward too:

- Battleforge greatness

- Aion its pretty but what the fuck else? Oh and possible BSOD issues!

- Starcraft 2 another installment for the Korean Ladder on Bnet

- Demigod puts the power of being a GOD into your puny mortal hands

- Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria & the fucking horrible Puzzle game!

- Wrath of the Lich King (yea we saw it!)

Aight peeps that’s all for now….

- Sanister

By the way we heard about a curse being placed on viewers of Babylon AD - it’s called LAMENESS x 5 (yea it stacks bitch!)