With Star Wars: The Old Republic being less than a month away, the game seems to be treading the well-worn path of other top-flight MMOs in charging a subscription. For $14.99 or £8.99 a month you’ll be able to clash lightsabers as much as you like. But is a subscription the right model to be…
Author: Gazimoff
SWTOR: Graphics, Galleries and Gifts
It’s been a busy weekend, mostly consisting of digging further into the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta and avoiding The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. It’s not that I don’t want to play the game, it’s just that I have a stack of unfinished or unplayed stuff building up because I’m immersed in one MMO or…
Star Wars: The Old Republic – First Impressions
The NDA for Star Wars: The Old Republic has now been lifted and I’m finally free to share my opinions with you. In theory this would mean that I’d be unleashing a huge mega-post containing details of every single nuance about the game. I’m going to resist the urge and scale back a little bit…
The Supermassive Beta
How many beta testers does it take to change a lightbulb? The rather surprising answer is 89. Fifty to just carry on as if light doesn’t matter and continue killing swamp rats or whatever. Ten to raise a ticket complaining about the complete lack of lightbulb operation and DEMANDING that it be rectified THIS INSTANT….
The Unknown Warcraft Subscriber
There’s been a flurry of commentary recently on the recent earnings call by Activision Blizzard, where they provide some highlights on their third quarter performance. If you’re interested in reading through the entire transcript of the call you can find it at Seeking Alpha. There are a couple of quick facts to pull out: Warcraft…
The Gates of Compelling Rewards
Do you ever get the feeling that you’re somehow missing something when you read a particular piece of news? That’s how I felt when I was reading over Ghostcrawler’s latest blogppost where he talks about item stat inflation and the problem it presents. While it’s a great article that hints at some difficult choices ahead,…
The Necessity of End Game
Today’s article is a guest post from Honor’s Code. Let me put on my armchair Game Designer hat for a moment. Put yours on as well and join me as we think about AAA MMOs. I think we can agree on the goal. All of us, from the bean counters at production houses, to the…
Mobile MMO Missteps
At the moment I’m on holiday, which probably explains why I’ve been a bit lax on updates. While for some that might mean hitting the nearest beach and putting their head into a good book, for me it means working out just how many of my glorious gadgets I can take with me. What started…
Looking Through The Mists
This weekend has been a firehose of information. Although I’ve never been to a BlizzCon in-person (something I hope to rectify), I’ve been glued to the internet and live streams for information. There’s nothing quite like getting the latest on a games franchise straight from the source. Like a good meal, it takes a while…
The Declining MMO Market
There’s been a couple of great articles recently about the situation at CCP, publishers of EVE Online. The theory is that the company hasn’t been doing as well as it hoped following the White Wolf Publishing acquisition and has been losing both staff and subscribers ever since. I’d suggest reading Tobold’s summary of the situation…