Massively^™

In the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

No matter where you go, there you are.
-- Buckaroo Banzai

Recently, in The Daily Grind, Brenda brought up the subject of taking up a new game in addition to, or instead of, one you currently play, and there were some very insightful responses in the comments. We here at TGI have been mulling over the same issue lately as well. There's apparently something in the air or water these days that leads to such ruminations. Not necessarily outright dalliances, per se, but as a gedankenexperiment into the merits of leaving our current realm or realms and striking out for greener fields.

There seems to be a generalized atmosphere swirling around this notion of changing games lately, but why? For some players, it's idle speculation; for others, serious contemplation. For developers, it's either cause for concern or Miller Time. Is it merely widespread anticipation of Warhammer Online and Age of Conan? Is it boredom with the current crop of MMO titles?

Or is everybody out there just playing Grand Theft Auto IV?

So I'll admit it. I've been pretty hard on World of Warcraft ever since The Burning Crusade launched. A large part of the reason I've been so down on the game is because a lot of Burning Crusade's end-game content came off as incredibly daunting to me. I never had any interest in most of the raids offered in the game simply because I didn't feel like going through all the hoops to access them. Sure there were the 5-mans, but most of the super-cool content was still locked away from me.

Even with the original announcement of Wrath of the Lich King, I felt complete disinterest in the expansion as it seemed to be more of the same. More raids, more high quality content that was probably going to be locked away behind hoops, barrels and fire pit traps. Yet that all changed yesterday with the icy cool wake-up blast of new information that jolted my interest -- something I thought could never happen again with World of Warcraft.

If you just can't take the wait of driving to a brick and mortar store (or even worse, waiting for something to show up in the mail!) then Blizzard's got you covered with their new digital download service. As of right now they're only offering the Starcraft Anthology, Warcraft III and its Frozen Throne expansion pack. However, we could see Blizzard eventually offering both World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade -- not to mention Wrath of the Lich King when it launches.

Currently it's possible to get a digital download version of World of Warcraft and its first expansion through third-party. We're sure Blizzard will eventually take over those titles, as the company probably wants to make sure that buying their product digitally is as good an experience as it can possibly be. The thought of having every Blizzard PC title at our fingertips is a little scary though, we're worried that our bank accounts may suddenly drop soon for some mysterious reason.

[via WarCry]

The subject of microtransactions tends to bring out a lot of different opinions in people and sometimes harsh words are exchanged. I've never really taken a stance on the matter, as I've always been a bit unsure of which side of the argument I fell on.

The Blizzard team has learned a lot from their experience with The Burning Crusade, and in a recent interview posted on their official page, producer J. Allen Brack and art director Chris Robinson lay out exactly which of these lessons they're following through on for the new Sunwell Plateau instances and Wrath of the Lich King further down the road. They talk about how Sunwell is really the pinnacle of the Blood Elf design style and how players will see many design parallels with their starting zone.

As for WotLK, one of the cooler design changes they mentioned is more closely integrating the main story-arc into the leveling experience. Brack mentions how with WotLK, Arthas will play a more visible role in the lives of players, even well before they ever reach the level 80 cap. Similarly, he also discusses how the element of snow in the expansion is being used as much as a story-telling device as an aesthetic one, trying to get players to feel the isolation and despair inherent in the Northrend zone. It's pretty fascinating, as both Brack and Robinson are more forthcoming than usual, perhaps because it's an in-house interview.

What do you get when you take Game Developer magazine, Game Developer Research division, Gamasutra and combine their various developer information gathering efforts? Well, you get an all-encompassing list of the top 50 best developers of 2007 that takes not only weekly sales and ratings into account, but an anonymous survey on developer reputation fielded by Gamasutra itself. The survey asked community members to score game developers on overall reputation and direct interaction working for or with said developer, where they had actually done such.

The list puts Blizzard at third for Burning Crusade, just under Infinity Ward at second for Call of Duty 4 and Nintendo Kyoto (Brain Age, Wii Play) at first. It's an interesting method of rating developers, since they have to of had a game released the previous year to be eligible -- yet rankings also depend on developer reputation, which is a longterm concept. We weren't surprised to see Blizzard sitting pretty high on the list, beating out a lot of other developers responsible for some pretty great titles last year. (sorry, Valve)

There is a nagging question in the back of our minds, however: Which carries more weight in determining placement on the list -- sales or reputation?

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences has placed another feather in the positively avian cap of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. A final list of the nominees and winners from AIAS' 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards has been released, and of the five shortlisted games in the Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year category, it is the WoW expansion in particular, The Burning Crusade, that took the top honor (as Mike Schramm predicted when the nominations were first announced). Blizzard executives also gave speeches on the strategies behind their success -- unrelated to the award -- at the D.I.C.E. Summit, where the awards took place.

There were four other MMOs that deserve a mention for being nominated, and these are a mix of new titles and expansions. In no particular order, they are: EVE Online: Trinity, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, and Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa. The Overall Game of the Year went to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and you can check out a discussion of this, and some of the other AIAS' gaming awards outside of the MMO focus, at Joystiq.

According to WoWJutsu, only 6% of WoW players can reach high-end raids in the Burning Crusade expansion. If you're worried about never seeing them, fear not! Jack, of Easy Productions, has come out with Burning Crusade The Movie.

BCTM is an action-packed 30+ minute Machinima that features 25-man armies in four full dungeons with 24 bosses! Not only is it nice to see who you may be up against in the future, but it's presented in a cinematic way. Follow along as they work their way to the final boss, Illidan Stormrage, and then download the high-quality version on Warcraftmovies.

[Via Warcraftmovies.com]

I don't know whether we should pretend to be surprised or not, but according to a report by the NPD group peeped by Gamasutra, which tracks game sales in retail outlets in the United States, World of Warcraft stood triumphantly on top of the PC Gaming pile for the year 2007, taking the number one and two spots on the list by a wide margin. Burning Crusade clocked in at #1 with 2.25 million and vanilla World of Warcraft came in second with 914k. The next highest contender was the Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack which clocked in it a relatively paltry 433k units sold. The PC game industry in general took in revenue of $910.7 million in sales, though that figure was down from $970 million last year. It's unclear whether this general downturn was due to a lack of good games compared to consoles or the relative untraceability of digital downloads, or what, but regardless the dominance by WoW is striking.

No other MMOs managed to crack the top 10 (nor did we really expect them to), but it'll be interesting to see whether the twin terrors that are Age of Conan and Warhammer Online can join WoW at the pinnacle of PC gaming success this time next year. If Blizzard can generate sales for their original game (which, by the way, launched in 2004 for crying out loud) that eclipse the next highest competitor two times over, you have to assume that Funcom and Mythic are hoping to grab at least a piece of that sweet, sweet NPD pie this year. Whether they choose to use the revenue to buy four wheels of fury is their own prerogative, however.

You may have heard that the Academy of Motion Pictures announced their Oscar nominations (how about that Ellen Page? And I definitely need to see There Will Be Blood, as soon as my wacky work schedule allows me the free time) this morning, but the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences also announced their Academy Award nominations for videogames earlier this week, and they picked five nominees for MMO game of the year.

And the nominations are: EVE Online: Trinity, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, Richard Garriot's Tabula Rasa, Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar, and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. I don't want to be a spoilsport, but I'm thinking that any of those others are going to have a tough time beating Burning Crusade-- Blizzard is still pretty far ahead of the game at this point. But it is interesting to note that three of the five nominees are expansions-- Tabula Rasa and LotRO are the two original games on the list.

Hopefully this time next year we'll see some more new names in the mix. The AIAS awards winners will be announced on February 7, 2007 in Las Vegas.

[Via Curse]

When Dell started dropping hints a few weeks ago that World of Warcraft players simply weren't prepared for some epic announcement they had planned for December, the more easily manipulated among us immediately assumed that it must have had something to do with a Dell advertising cross-over for the anxiously anticipated Wrath of the Lich King expansion. And of course, the cynical folks retorted that it was probably just a lot of hullabaloo about a new laptop or something.

When we checked our inboxes this morning, we found out the cynics had it! Dell has announced a new WoW-ified version of its XPS M1730 notebooks. These things go far, far beyond being simply a "WoW notebook" however, as Dell has gone all out to create a gamer dreambox. Sporting an Intel Core Duo at 2.2ghz, 2 gigs of ram, a GeForce 8700M, and a hearty 17" screen, the real allure of the M1730 is its custom case, which can be tailored to your faction preference with Horde and Alliance version. It also comes with a Beta Club key card (giving you access to all future WoW betas), a pre-installed retail copy of Burning Crusade with all the updates, a WoW-themed backpack and a host of other goodies like a behind-the-scenes DVD, a soundtrack, novels, strategy guides, some CCG cards, and more.

All for the low, low starting price of $4500! That's a lot of dough for those kind of specs, but just look at the thing, it's gorgeous! Rumor is we've got one of these floating around the Massively/WoW Insider offices, so we'll let you know if the thing is as pretty as it looks... and if it's worth it!

The 25th annual Golden Joysticks (not to be confused with Joystiq) awards in London are officially over, and the MMOs were out in force. While Gears of War snagged the "Ultimate Game of the Year 2007" award, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar took "PC Game of the Year", and World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade was the victor in the "Gametribe Online Game of the Year" category.

The full results can be viewed on the Golden Joystick website. While the majority of the winners were serious "no duh" picks, it's a little surprising to see LotRO honored as the overall PC game of the year. Not that we don't think it's not a terrific game, mind you, but an MMO (that doesn't have the word Warcraft in the title, anyway) taking the award over the glut of historically more popular shooters and strategy games is a bit shocking, though not unwelcome!