WoW Burning Crusade Delayed until January 2007 290
Wowzer writes "Blizzard today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion for World of Warcraft, is delayed until January 2007. From the article: 'By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.' While disappointing now, what will this mean for the yearly WoW expansions long term? As Blizzard COO Paul Sams revealed plans in August that 'Starting with The Burning Crusade, every year thereafter we plan on bringing out a new expansion set.' 2008, 2009, ad infinitum?"
Re:Ad infinitum? (Score:2, Informative)
And every game they produced since Warcaft:orcs and humans has been a masterpiece , they take great pride and joy in making these games .
Re:Ad infinitum? (Score:3, Informative)
And what's the problem with this? If you like WoW, aren't bored with it, then the news that Blizzard plan to keep updating it is good news.
And if want to try another game, there are other companies eager for your custom.
Re:Ad infinitum? (Score:5, Informative)
From Wikipedia:
A significant number of key employees have left Blizzard over the years. Many of these have gone to create gaming companies of their own. Some of these companies are:
* Flagship Studios[2], currently working on Hellgate London.[3]
* ArenaNet[4], creator of Guild Wars.[5]
* Ready At Dawn Studios[6], creator of Daxter.
* Red 5 Studios[7], currently working on a yet to be announced next-gen title.
* Castaway Entertainment[8], currently working on a yet to be announced next-gen title.
* Hyboreal Games[9], Working on a yet to be announced next-gen title.[10]
Notice the part where it says "A significant number of key employees"!
Re:not so surprised... (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who's been in a guild in WoW should know how long it took to run through BWL for example say 8 - 12 months ago compared to now. Not sure how the american servers are doing right now but on the EU servers there has been a big dropoff from the larger guilds. Blizzard _needs_ this expansion or I think they will start loosing a lot of subscribers.
Alot of it is their own fault, they are saying blue items in BC are better than epic items pre-BC, thereby removing the need to obtain the high-end raiding items at the moment. Looking at the amount of time you need to invest to get any decent raiding-items, you are simply better off getting to level 60 before BC comes, and the levelling up with your guild/friends.
Personally I cancelled my accounts, simply because I got bored.
Link directly to the source (Score:5, Informative)
Second thoughts about UI restriction? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Make Love, Not Warcraft (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ad infinitum? (Score:3, Informative)
Let's look at Blizzard's history:
# The Lost Vikings (1992)
# Rock & Roll Racing (1993)
# Blackthorne (1994)
# The Death and Return of Superman (1994)
# Warcraft (1994)
# The Lost Vikings II (1995)
# Warcraft II (1995)
# Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal (1996)
# Diablo (1996)
# StarCraft (1998)
# StarCraft: Brood War (1998)
# Diablo II (2000)
# Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (2001)
# Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002)
# Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (2003)
# World of Warcraft (2004)
# World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (2007)
Until WoW, we're seeing a game or expansion (and Blizzard's expansions are usually pretty large) every year, except '97 and '99. And a new franchise or full-fledged sequel every two years.
Since WoW? Two years+ and nothing new, including expansions. Probably not a new game until at least 2008. So we're looking at at least a four year gap between new games from Blizzard. That's half their already-slow (in the gaming industry, at least) output.
Blizzard is one of the solid-gold gaming companies out there. They're tied up making mmorpgs (ok..and cash, hand-over-fist) instead of making games I want to play. C'mon, where's Diablo 3? Where's the new, exciting property? I know there are only so many talented designers out there, and they're tied up feeding the cash cow. But take a few of them off WoW and put them on something the rest of us want to play.
--Compulsion
Re:Ad infinitum? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:not so surprised... (Score:3, Informative)
Many changes being released prior to the Holidays (Score:3, Informative)
http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/us/38233956.ht
They will be doing a 1.13 patch still. To quote Eyonix:
"Keep in mind, we do plan to push a content patch prior to release, which could occupy your holiday time quite well." Followed by, "Oh, you know, just a few small things such as a brand new honor system, as well as new talents and abilities along with dozens of other changes and improvements.
So they are releasing much of the changes available to level 60 people prior to the holiday season. It may even include some world event about the opening of the Dark Portal.
Re:not so surprised... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is, the term 'carebear' is a created internet term, much like w00t, pawn, haxxor, leet, and others are. To this degree, there's no standard definition for it, and it's open to be used or abused in sentaces that don't properly phase the word to it's original means.
Carebear was always implied 'childish' behavoir or actions as The Carebears [wikipedia.org] was a popular childrens cartoon in the 1980's. It was used to insult people who would yell and scream at someone for 'killing' their character. I believe this was back in the Ultima days when PvP was open and easy. If you're missed those days, then maybe you've seen the South Park episode featuring WoW? You know that half naked guy running around killing people for no reason? Well, it was kind of like that. The grief would call the people he griefed 'carebears' because they would complain and yell at him for loosing, like a child would cry if they lost at a sport.
So, in the wonderful world of online gaming and RPG's, two terms where developed to insult the other people. "Griefer" and "Carebear". A person would call someone a "griefer" if they would kill you repeatedly and a person who complained (ie. cried about) at being killed repeatadly would be called a "carebear". Of course, in Ultima, that game mechanic was possible.
Of course, these terms survived and moved into EQ and all the games to be spawned after it. The term became associated with "easy" as games started to restrict the ability to kill others, such as requiring an accepted duel or special areas that a player could 'choose' to enter. Thus the 'griefers' where killed off and in their anger claimed that such games where too "carebear" to play because there was no threat of grief. Not surprisingly, the player base increased dramatically when such restrictions where part of the game model. Though, to cater to the Ultima fans, EQ and the following games created special servers that allowed open fighting and killing, usually after a certain, very low level. This of course, lead to the popular (and hilarious) story of Fansy the Bard [notacult.com].
Since then, games have tried to cater to the Player vs Player fan base, who liked the idea of danger and suspense when anyone could attack you. Dark Age of Camelot, who's game was designed with restricted areas for PvP combat, created an all open PvP server where anyone could fight anyone at any time. I even tried this server, but didn't last past the first level of open combat as it was just too annoying after I got my quick thrills of griefing. This became famous for showing how over powered the Enchanter class was, as it had a magic casting pet with no line of sight restriction, allowing it to attack you from far away without recourse. It also became famous for the small city of Mag Mel(sp?), where you could resurect and continue fighting. Ultimatly, the server numbers dwindelled to next to nothing because, due to game mechnics, you had very little chance, and players had very little reason, to let you level to the maxium level and have a fair(er) playing field. It's all part of the video game 'God' complex. Of course, at that time, those in support of PvP DAoC servers would call who critizied them 'carebears'.
So, there's a brief history, as I know it, of the term "carebear". And that's why it's not a very good use of the term when calling a game carebear, as a game cannot complain about the way people use it. Of course, if games where real, I could see Shadowbane calling WoW a carebear while Ultima Online kills them both. hehe
For more issues that Ultima faced, you can read some on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
Cheers,
Fozzy