Category: True Life

One billion dollars? WoW!

If you have a cool billion lying around (are you listening, Bill Gates?), maybe you, too, could compete with World of Warcraft.

If Activision were to create an MMO, it would require an initial investment of $500 million to $1 billion just to compete on an even footing with World of Warcraft, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick told a group of investors on Tuesday.

Kotick sees the immense investment necessary to enter the marketspace as the key reason why companies like Microsoft, EA and Sony had all failed in trying to compete with Blizzard, and as more than enough reason why Activision’s choice to join forces with Blizzard was the smart thing to do.

“There didn’t seem a likelihood that even a well-managed company like Activision would have the prospect for profit any time soon in this category,” Kotick said, referring to the MMO market.

 

Which is kind of a goofy way to look at it.  It assumes that you want to compete with WoW, or get as large of a market share. There are certainly lots of small coffee houses that are quite content with how they are doing, even if they aren’t as big as Starbucks. And while WoW is by far and away the biggest MMORPG — not everyone wants to play it, meaning there is probably an audience out there for MMOs other than WoW (and requiring less than $1 billion to be profitable).

I mean, all kudos to the Blizzard folks for their success, and to Activision for tying themselves to it “on the cheap” by merging with Vivendi — but I think it’s a bit self-serving to say essentially that there’s only room for one MMORPG on the market.

CoX: Statesman Speaks

Jack Emmert, the erstwhile Statesman, gives a “post mortem” of sorts to where Cryptic went “right” and “wrong” with CoX (the game is, of course, very much alive, just not in his hands any more).

He was surprisingly frank, starting things off with a list of CoH‘s strengths and weaknesses. For strengths, he cited character customization, fun moment to moment game play, Flight/Superspeed/Superjump, plenty of character slots, no loot. For weaknesses, he told the crowd about how the game had few goals outside of leveling, its lack of PvP, the repetitiveness of the instances, the lack of an end-game, the lack of guild mechanics, no loot.

[…] So what has Cryptic learned from this crazy process? They need to consider player nature — and launch a fully-featured game, rather than planning to add to it later; by which time their potential players will already be doing something else. They need to ensure that their systems (technology) are easy to update — because MMOs are ever-evolving games. If they don’t update their content, they’ll die out. They need to experiment with min/maxing like crazy during product development — push the game to every possible extreme, because players will. It’s a lot easier to nerf something before the players get a chance to see it.

 

(via Doyce)

“The quintessential modern parental dilemma”

Or so Kottke calls this query: What do you do with the kids when mommy and daddy need to meet up with their WoW guild to do raids? 

Well, now months later I’m finally level 60 and my husband and I are both in the same guild. I’ll be starting my raids with them this week actually. The problem? We have two small children who need to eat dinner and raids start at 5pm. Ack! How are we going to make dinner?! There are no problems with the kids running around playing and such while we raid. They’re already used to that, they play in the computer room and we can get them things that they need (you know, cups of juice, snacks, what have you) when we have breaks. Before it was easy because if I was running an instance and in the middle of combat my husband might be in a a space between pulls where he could safely go afk for 30 seconds you know. But now we’ll be on the same schedule essentially. We both play support classes too (he’s a holy priest, I’m a resto druid) so the guild ideally would want us to both be in a forty man raid. It’s not like we can easily switch off any raid nights other than say, ZG and AQ20 runs.

It’s more of a logistics problem than a real stressor. It’s just that it hadn’t really occured to me when I joined his guild that eventually we’d both be raiding on the same nights and thus on the same schedule game-wise. For tonight, since dinner is already thawed out, I’m just planning on eating with the kids at 4pm (about two hours earlier than our normal dinnertime) and letting them snack when they get hungry later one. We’ll make a plate for my husband (who doesn’t usually get home from work until just about invite time) to heat up and that will take care of tonight. But what about the rest of the week? The rest of the time I’m raiding. I suspect that it will be me who shows up to fewer raids, because I’m the mama after all and that’s who the kids often want. Ack, who’d of thunk that the social problems of parenthood in America would follow me into Azeroth 😮

 

I’d try and figure out how sympathetic I am based how seriously I think the writer is actually taking the problem.

This is something that Margie and I had to manage with Katherine more than once. And, y’know, you just suck it up (and always remember where the bottom line priority is — hint, it’s not with the Guild/SG/TF). There are things you can do to work around it, as the writer notes. But things will happen, and you need to be able to hop away from the keyboard to deal with everything from unplanned boo-boos to scheduled night-night time. And if what you’re doing and planning regularly interferes with your home life with them — maybe some reevaluation of the gaming schedule is in order.

On the other hand, I think it’s perfectly fine to split the “who deals with the kids tonight” duties, regardless of what the kids “want” — that’s something they have to suck up. 🙂

 

I am (or will be) Devoted

According to my account page, I get my 24 month Vet Reward today — two years of playing this thing, complete with ups, downs, triumphs, tragedy, and (best to me) spending time with my wife doing something geeky.

More items for Bases are available at this level. Now players get a selection of the City of Heroes comic-book covers that they can add to their base as small and large posters. Players can select this reward an unlimited number of times.

A new power is also granted at this reward level: The Emergency Base Teleporter. Now players can access their Supergroup’s base from anywhere in the world. This power has a long, interruptible cast time so players won’t be pulling it off in combat, but makes up for this by granting extremely convenient access to the base.

Level 15 characters will also have a whole new set of titles that they can add to their character name. Simply visit any Trainer and check out the new titles that are available.

The base teleporter is probably the keenest item. (Though it makes me wonder — if you leave the base by the “front door,” where does it put you?) Margie, at any rate, indicated her insane jealousy (she hits 24 late next month — I got her first involved in the game with a Valentines Day free account).

Anyway, thanks to Doyce for getting me hooked on this thing (no, really, thanks). It’s been a long, fun road, and I’m still enjoying the drive.

Hanging out in Father Time’s Chalet Faerie

We’re off (weather, DIA, and Frontier Airlines allowing) to So. California for the holiday season, which, perforce, will be restricting our CoXplay (and blogging) a bit. Especially since we’re bringing Katherine’s notebook, which will run CoX in the say way that I could run an Iron Man Triathlon — very slowly and painfully and with a lot of patience and kind words.

So from all of us, Happy Holidays and New Year and everything, And from all of me …

  • Psi-clone: “Seasons Greetings, and may visions of sugar-plums dance in your heads.”
  • Torchielle: “Hope you have a nice fire to huddle up in front of on these cold wintery nights.”
  • Velvet Jones: “Hope y’all have someone to huddle up with in front of that there fire. Merry Christmas, and hope Santa brings you tons of loot.”
  • Ho Ho: “Yeah, like what she said. Oh, and don’t forget to cut down a nice Christmas tree for your place.”
  • Lynn Calodo: “Uh, yeah. Merry and all that. Whatever.”
  • Fazenda: “May the magic of the season, and all that shite.”
  • Mister Ravenous: “Eat well. Get plump.”
  • Honor the Flag: “May this joyous season bring you and all of yours great happiness.”
  • Mister Thorne: “He sees you when you’re sleeping, you know.”
  • Eliza Dee: “He better not be looking at me!”
  • Mr. Azure: “Look, honey! They celebrate Christmas here! Um … may the Christmas Bunny bring you many helpings of corned beef this year!”
  • Unchained Path: “This one hopes that the warmth of these times and the ties that bind you together bring you pleasant memories in the years ahead.”
  • Lady Zebra: “Winter festivals and socially binding exchanges of goods. What kind of backwater hell is this?”
  • Fr. Frank: “May the celebration of the birth of our Lord light the night and the days of your year to come.”
  • Mollie Magpie: “Christmas! Wheee!”
  • Rita the Cat: “I’ll be home for Christmas, you can count on meeeee ….”

Ennui Go

Interesting article over here on what the author calls “WoW-nnui,” a sort of, “Huh, kinda getting tired of this” feeling that more World of Warcraft folks (in his circle) are feeling these days.

Last night I logged in to WoW for the first time in a long time. I visited my characters one by one, but didn’t stick around to play very long despite finally having an evening free to play. I felt a distinct detachment from my characters and soon recognized my old friend, game ennui.

Now I don’t mean to sound like I’m spelling doom for WoW (or MMOs in general!). Far from it. I don’t know WoW’s sales numbers, but as far as I know their box sales remain at or near the top of the charts. And of course there’s a much-anticipated expansion pack coming up that will give them a welcome, if perhaps temporary, bump in their usage numbers.

But in my case, not only could I really not gather any excitement about playing these characters, knowing as I do that I just don’t have multiple hours per week (much less per day!) to play them, but the more advanced the character the more difficult it was to get back into. I could sorta drive my 22lvl hunter; my 37 warlock was almost incomprehensible — and for many more expert players such levels are “lowbies.” Remembering all those spells, weapons, abilities, talents, etc., just seemed like way too much trouble.
And all the quests that were driving these characters’ progress were entirely meaningless now (this is the danger of external motivation—it’s just too easy to lose all sense of why I should care about an entirely artificial set of quests).

I’m involved, loosely speaking (given my lack of attendance), in several different guilds on PvE, RP, and PvP servers. In each, multiple people I know — both those with multiple level 60 characters and those who have never come close to that — have sort of run aground on the over-and-over again gameplay, whether that’s yet-another-kill-X-creatures quest or yet-another-raid for yet-another-piece-of-armor. No one I’ve talked to dislikes the game; there’s no sense of having been spurned
or that the experience has curdled. But in even the best parties there seems to sometimes come a moment when, amidst the music and noise you and your friends silently agree “great party; we’re outta here.” For some people that moment has come with WoW. And I’m guessing that trend is only going to accelerate.

File off some serial numbers, and swap some nameplates, and this could be CoH/CoV. I continue to be interested in news about the game, I’m curious about stuff coming out in I8, even having some character plans around it, and I have a Level 40 that’s been forging along — save for my only playing a couple of times in the last week-plus, due to other commitments — plus a stable of other characters who deserve more time in the sun.

But, honestly, the burn just isn’t there for me, these days. When I have a few free minutes — or even a free evening — I’m not instantly diving into CoX. I’m not regularly staying up to Midnight, to get in one last missoin. Part of it is a “been there, done that,” part of it is being distracted by other interests (good and bad), and part of it is the latest round of dramatic brouhaha that’s not only messed up the community but soured me on the whole associated environment.

I dunno. Not quitting any time soon, as far I as know, and I expect I’ll be playing more in the coming weeks than I have been. But, honestly speaking again, I know exactly the feeling the author of this essay is talking about, and I can imagine a time (in a way I couldn’t a year or so ago) when I won’t be playing CoX.

Zoning …

Due to a variety of personal commitments/activities and being off on business travel, haven’t signed onto CoX since, oh, Friday, so nothing new to report there. And the Devs have bee pretty quiet, trying to get I8 ready for test. So … expect news when you see it. Harrumph.

Crisis of Characters

So I haven’t been playing CoX much over … oh … the last week, at least.

I don’t know if this is a break, a cooling off of interest, a seismic shift in my evening focus, or what. I just haven’t had the fire in the belly for it.

Which has nothing to do with the folks I play with, mind you. And it’s not because I’m hopping into some other cool game. I’ve just been doing … different things. A couple of external functions. Reading. Working online. Watching DVDs.

What I haven’t done is rushed home with every fiber of my being screaming to hop onto CoX and keep pushing all my beloved characters.

No idea what this means, really. And no idea if, having written this, I’ll be back onto my nightly schedule as of tonight.

Just wanted to mention it, since I have the space here to do so.

Blogathon!

Occured to me that there may be folks over here who never read over there, so …

From 7 a.m. Saturday morning to 7 a.m. Sunday morning (MDT), I’ll be part of the 2006 Blogathon, blogging every half-hour on the half-hour for 24 hours on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  So far, ten folks have verified pledges totaling $377 to be donated to the EFF for my efforts. 

My blogging topic will be comic books — reviews, recollections, good stuff like that.  Which certainly ties into the CoX theme of this blog.  So swing on by during the day (or night) and drop off a comment or two to keep me company.  And if you feel like pledging to a mighty fine cause to encourage me, who am I to stop you?

So if you don’t see me in Paragon the next couple of days … now you’ll know why. 

 

Float, flutter, fly

Having gone on the Walt Disney World “Soarin’” ride (during our visit earlier in the month), I can guarantee that, were I suddenly allowed to attain CoH powers, I woud most definitely choose Fly. To be able to swoop and soar over the landscape would be truly awesome.
Superspeed would be okay (and kind of fun), but not as keen, Superjump would be annoying (for many of the same reasons it’s annoying in the game — dealling with what you’re jumping into at all times for one thing). Teleport would be nice, I suppose, but if it had the same range limits as in the game, it would hardly be of value for commuting.
But for sheer thrill of Seeing Stuff, it would have to be Fly.

If only I wanted to create a new SG

The origin story aside (and I find this 1888 encyclopedia entry about it very droll), I think it would rock to have a group named, “The Thundering Legion.” I mean, is that a name or is that a name?
Heck, now that I think of it, that whole Victorian Era sensibiliity about the name (rubbed off from the encyclopedia itself) might be the best thing about it. A displaced band of late 19th Century science heroes, sort of a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen bit (Lady Photon, bless’er, writ large) …
Hmmmm ….

Feeling mainstreamish

Demographics on computer gaming from the Entertainment Software Association:

It turns out the age of the average gamer is 33 years old. 31 percent of gamers are under 18, 44 percent are between the ages of 18 and 49, and a surprising 25 percent are over 50! The average adult gamer has been playing computer or video games for 12 years, meaning that they got their start with Super Metroid and Final Fantasy VI on the SNES, and DOOM II and the original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans on the PC. Those of us who remember playing PONG are rarer, but we’re still out there!

Wow. Part of the plurality. Cool. I’d be curious to see the stats more specifically for CoX, but it’s nice to know that I’m not a completely aberrant freak or something.

As far as families go, 35 percent of American parents say they play computer and video games, and 80 percent of these play games with their children. 66 percent of gamer parents feel that playing games has brought their families closer together. The typical gamer parent is 37 years old. The study also indicates that parents are present 89 percent of the time when a game is rented or purchased for their children.

I will say that CoH has brought Margie and me closer. And if Katherine could play better, she’d be playing more with us (rather than just dabbling with it).
(via Les)

And, having writ, moves on

Sean and Ana are (not, as far as I know, for any related reason) departing CoH and the Alliance.
Like Sam, I don’t want to get whiny and feel like I’m pressuring them to stay. We do what we need to do, and whether it’s ennui, RL crises, other interests, or abduction by aliens, folks do leave, just as other folks come. It’s part of the life cycle of social groups.
But … they will each be missed in their own way. No man is an island, and part of the CoX experience is the company you keep. And they’ve each been good company.