The Pet Store opened this door. This cross-realm pay-to-group nudges it open a bit further.

A few years ago, a feature like this would have been included in an Expansion Pack or a Content Patch. It would be part of your subscription fee. Now... they're monetizing it.

It goes way beyond a mobile Auction House app. That required a team to develop an iPod and Android application from scratch, and various infrastructure tweaks to have it operate over 3G. This cross-realm play? It's part of Battle.net. It's 5-manning, in the game... the only difference is you're inviting friends from another server. Instead of inviting strangers from another server.

To say that required a great deal of dev time and that it somehow justifies making this (or any part of it) a premium fee is ridiculous. To charge someone to play with their friends... unthinkable. What UI or functionality tweak is on the block next? Tabard Manager? PREMIUM ONLY, FOLKS!

Bleh. Pardo made his quote denouncing crap like this in 2008. A few years later... here's where we're at. Funny how things change.

A flat-out PVP and PVE separation is a gamble. It could work in their favor, it could not. The game is 'almost' there now, with PVP progression and gear being discrete from PVE... perhaps they should make the final step...

Radical class changes were a bit of a problem at the beginning of Cata, as were the changes in heroic/raid difficulty. I think those two decisions backfired on them. The difficulty isn't hard to overcome, with time and patience, but it was nevertheless jarring for many of the players who came on during Wrath.

As for content... 4.1 is an example of content they're pushing out fast to satisfy people, and it isn't very satisfying at all. They shouldn't sacrifice quality for quantity, because they will lose players either way. Stick with quality, take your losses on the chin, and don't make any drastic design changes at any point. WoW is 6 years old, you're going to see some drop-off in subscribers.

Two systems compromised within a 30 day period. Wow.

I wonder who's hubris led them to think the SOE DBs were safe, after the PSN intrusion.

I like the Flashpoint concept. It seems to bring a lot of storytelling to your typical 'dungeon' encounter, and should make the MMO feel a little more 'intimate' for the players involved.

ldonyo wrote on Apr 26, 2011, 20:46:
Isn't this about 20 years too late already?

Clearly the IP holder is trying to resurrect interest in the franchise, just like BTTF. The way to do that nowadays appears to be with a video game.

I don't read this as an end to the single-player experience overall... I think we will always have single-player. What Gabe might be shooting for is more social integration, possibly through sharing Achievements with friends via social networking, or buying/trade of in-game items, an open marketplace for maps, etc.

I think back to the multi-player aspects of games like Neverwinter Nights, and how a 'DM' would create map(s) for players to join and partake in, oftentimes with a story attached, creating something of a mish-mash between single-player and multi-player.

Teddy wrote on Apr 23, 2011, 08:00:
Loved the game, but I do have to agree with him that limiting where the portals can be so drastically made the puzzles much easier for me.

There is more and more of this lately, in gaming. Accessibility. In some cases, it isn't a bad thing - entire genres or sub-genres that were typically reserved for the 'elite' (MMOs) can now be enjoyed by a wider variety of players. Yet in others, it can detract from a title that would historically be more challenging (a puzzle game) as it is 'dumbed down' to guide players through, or to simply conform to a less capable control scheme (consoles).

I suppose Portal has become less a puzzle game and more an adventure game with puzzle elements. It's a happy medium, I think. This world is simply too fun to play in to not make it available to almost anyone

briktal wrote on Apr 22, 2011, 23:23:
I started to go through the game again with commentary, but there's just so little commentary. There's something like 50 more nodes total in Portal 1, and in Portal 2 they are also spread between sp and coop modes.

It's true, there are very few commentary nodes. I was actually surprised, because Portal 2 is obviously a much more polished effort than Portal 1.

The commentary nodes that did exist were pretty great, however. Not many were overly-technical. I enjoyed the insight into their development process, especially their playtesting... it was surprising to see how much feedback they get and how they change the game based on this feedback. Plus there's insight into how the writers - inadvertently at times - crafted the storyline, my personal favorite.

The charity dinner is worth going to at least once, because you can meet people like Chris Metzen and Samwise Didier and actually talk with them a bit and get their autograph (just don't be a leech and take up too much of their time - other fans want to meet them, too). That said, it's $500 a head. Steep, these days.

The Con itself... well, it's not your traditional fan convention. You'll find only a handful of vendors, and everything is Blizzard-focused (naturally), rather than it being sort of an overall geek mecca. You can run into some real bro-gamers there, too. The panels are great, but typically you end up in a back, back row (unless you park yourself very early and get a closer seat, and then you're missing out on other con-stuff) and you end up watching most of it on an overhead screen. For years, people have been claiming entire rows of chairs for their friends by stringing crap across seats (they really should put a stop to this), making seating an issue.

The overall quality of the goodie bag has gone down in the past few years. The 'big thing' has always been pretty awesome, but the auxiliary items... eh. My first BlizzCon was 2008, and they gave you a whole load of little goodies in addition to the 'big thing.' It was a nice little treasure trove of stuff. In 2009 and 2010, the bags had less and less in them.

All in all, if you just want the news (which is the major thing for the Con), you can save yourself $100+ and get it at home via the stream.

This comment was edited on Apr 13, 2011, 08:05.

If you want a game like Ye Olde Tie Fighter, then don't come to an MMO. Seriously, people... the space portions are a minigame and that's it.

I loved Tie Fighter back in the day. Space combat sims were my cup of tea. I'd love a Tie Fighter remake with modern tech... but I don't expect to get it in an MMO.

Wow. This will put a lot of pressure on Blizzard. More expansions/add-ons, faster pace... stressed dev teams, lower quality.

Or... we'll see WoW/Starcraft/Diablo spin-off games (ala the canceled 'Starcraft: Ghost') in the near future, developed outside of Blizzard but still under the Activision umbrella.

I haven't closely followed the whole Starcraft e-Sports thing, so I'm not entirely sure what the problem is here... but it seems to be IP related? These days, your IP is your lifeblood in this industry. Were the Korean broadcasters infringing on this somehow?

What I *have* seen of the Korean e-Sports stuff does seem like they took things and ran with it, and Blizzard basically gave them carte blanche to do so. I can't really blame them for wanting to rein things in. If YOU made a product that somehow spawned competitive, ranked matches based on it... I think you'd want a big piece of that pie, too.

I liken it to the creator of the rubber chicken wanting in on any nationally or globally-televised, high-profile rubber chicken prize fights.

Is TF2 positioning to become an MMO? Maybe as a spin-off? Seems like they are testing some distinctly MMO features... microtransactions, crafting, trading, and achievements were already there. Interesting.

I think it should definitely stay an FPS, even with these features... but maybe Valve is considering a separate MMO project.

The problem with "releasing a broken game" is generally this: the teams working on the game are not given enough time to do it right. Now, this could range from bad business processes... work that is done is done poorly or with bad design that needs to be cleaned up or re-done... or perhaps the team is undersized... or...

I think the APB team genuinely wanted to turn out a good game. I think they fell short. The publisher pushed it through anyhow, to recoup some of their losses before it became too great a mess and fell apart. APB *is* a pretty interesting, and ambitious, concept for a game... basically a two-faction GTA MMO. It's a shame it didn't get a fair shake, and a 'finished' status.

What are they clamoring for, exactly? Do they want something like MAG? Massive multiplayer FPS? How do you justify the monthly cost? What is a gamer's dollar going to get them?

MMOs keep players playing because of two things: their character can be improved in many ways (armor, weapons, showpiece items, mounts, glowy effects, etc), and the world their character plays in desperately needs their freelance help (quests, dungeons, PVP). Call of Duty has, at this point, been about the modern military in the real world (WWII and up). The only way a pay-for-play model would work is if you offered them a sandbox world to go crazy in, ala MAG or APB... perhaps a third world country controlled by rival warlords who employ Private Military Contractors left and right to do their dirty work?

That might work, but that means changing the face of CoD. You can't just take what CoD is now and slap a fee on it and expect people to pay. Online multiplayer FPS matchmaking for basic CTF/deathmatch/etc. is basically a god-given right in the market these days... no game hoping to make sales will ever charge for that basic service.

Very cool. Too expensive. If I didn't have... well, a mortgage and other bills to keep up with, maybe I'd consider it, but...

I believe McCasker. And I don't blame all of Rockstar for the sins of their marketing/PR department... the devs do their job and try to make a great game, but it may not always come out that way. The PR jockies drop these little hints and do back-door dealings with magazines or websites to boost their reviews in exchange for kickbacks. It's not the first time I've heard of review 'scores' getting pumped because a developer's paper-pushers decided to grease someone's palm. "Advertorial" versus "editorial" about sums it up.

Kotick is a dick. He deserves all the bad press he gets, because he doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut, and in failing to do so continues to prove why he's a horrible person to have in charge of a gaming company.

Perfect example of a corporate dickhead running a company he shouldn't. And running his mouth.

He wants to make money, not video games. Total douchebag.

Wow. Um... I'm not sure what to say about that. The inclusion of Klingons really seems like a second thought at this point. They can't find a linguist to hire? People conduct entire weddings in Klingon, and you can't find a linguist? You have the backing of Paramount and... what kind of Mickey Mouse operation is Cryptic running?