MMO Weekly - 16/09/08

This shouldn't be a surprise: the biggest story in MMO gaming this week is, of course, the launch of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR). WAR's various phases of beta went quite well; each added polish, fixes, and upgrades to the game. Having played it myself, I can say confidently that WAR is, in its present state, a very good MMO. The game has been criticized for not being innovative. Quite frankly, I just don't see that as a valid criticism. The character classes are odd enough to make the game innovative in and of themselves, but the game also includes public quests, a quirky sense of humor, and seamless RvR battles that are both intense and fun. IncGamers hosted a “first look” of the game, which you can read if you'd like a more full-bodied overview of the next big thing in MMOs.

In a very surprising move, Blizzard Entertainment completely reversed themselves this week in response to WAR's launch. What was the nature of the reversal? They decided to f*ck with Mythic.

Allow me to elaborate. What did Blizz do when Conan launched earlier this year? Nothing. They didn't seem too concerned about AoC as a threat. What did they do when Tabula Rasa launched late last year? Nothing. How about LOTRO? Nothing. Blizz didn't apparently feel threatened, and so they didn't respond. Furthermore, a Blizzard staffer – Eyonix – told me personally at PAX that Blizzard hopes that Warhammer does well, as there's plenty of real estate in virtual space for everyone. It's no big deal, and they wish Mythic all the best.

Yeah? Really? Then explain this to me: in the exact same week that WAR launches, Blizz “coincidentally” decides to announce the launch date of Wrath of the Lich King? The launch date was announced as November 13th, two full months from now. It's important to note that Blizzard hasn't announced a game two months in advance in my lifetime. They normally announce this kind of thing about two or three weeks ahead of time at the very most. Beyond this, Blizz decided this was the week to fire up the test servers, too. They also released several blue posts about the beta process. They began automatically downloading patch 3.0 (the WotLK patch) onto everyone's WoW client, increasing anticipation for the expansion. In a nutshell, it genuinely appears that Blizz considers WAR a threat, and they're making moves to retain the interest of their current WoW customers.

In other news, Vanguard announced some significant upgrades this week. Known as Game Update 6, this patch contains a new starting area, some graphical upgrades, some avatar improvements, and – this is the kicker – over a thousand bug fixes. Yes, more than a thousand. Personally, with that many bugs in the code I'm surprised the game even runs, but they've been working hard to get everything up to speed. The dev team even provided documentation that it was more than 1,000 bugs fixes, so kudos to them.

On a related note, Vanguard's founding father, the strangely arrogant Brad McQuaid, is still MIA and hasn't been seen in nearly a year. I suspect he's still hurting from the debacle that was the Vanguard launch. Somehow, I imagine him working through his pain on an island beach, sipping mai-tais and having game-design discussions with bikini models equipped with +20 racks. Odd.

Speaking of odd, how'd you like to become a Jedi? It's actually a lot easier than either the movies or Star Wars: Galaxies have made it out to be. You start out by taking a college level class, appropriately entitled, “Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way” at Queen's College in Belfast. They are currently accepting new students. Note: you have to provide your own light saber.

You may remember the story, from last year, about the muckraking ex-ArenaNet employee. He had recently left ArenaNet, the development company behind the mega-MMO Guild Wars. He dished on all kinds of inside information, told secrets, and spread lots and lots of delicious gossip. It was all very juicy, very nasty, and nobody could figure out who the heck this anonymous blogger really was.

Now we all know who he is: he's a big fat liar. He outed himself this past week, calling the entire thing a big “joke”. Considering that no one found it funny, even from the beginning, most folks were a little confused by this claim. The anonymous blogger then went on to chide and lecture readers about being a bit more discerning before believing the things they read on the web. He concluded by claiming that he was Compton Crip gang member, selling bricks and bricks of cocaine. Thus it appears he's expecting that we all offer him a big “thank you” for the education; instead, I'd suggest we offer him a big fat “WTF?” for being a confusing, unfunny, pathologically dishonest jerk. Besides, I know for a fact that not one member of the Compton Crips plays Guild Wars. Not one. They all play GTA IV, and that's a fact.