Keep calling it hate. I call it reality. Blizzard aimed low. They aimed at EQ2 and the rest of the EQ1 clones. They've won and Smedley admitted it, thus adding more validity to my claims. Take a look at the numbers - while one of the fastest selling - it will also be, in the long run, the worst selling of Blizzards big 3 franchises (starcraft, warcraft, and diablo).
If you're gonna drop $30M on a game's production, you gotta aim higher than the competition. You've gotta get at least two baby steps ahead to really outpace the rest of the market. The MMOG industry is cutthroat and full of vermin that will stop at nothing to win. Blizzard should have noticed that and taken that extra step.
Of course, it's all moot if they don't get Every Single Server Issue Fixed in the next month or so. Even though most diehard fanbois will eventually give up and just go back to EQ. The Blizzard fanbois will just go back to whatever Blizzard game they were playing, probably until Guild Wars is releasesd. There's no doubt in my mind that GW will be marketed just like a Blizzard game, and I'm sure at some point right before release, they'll make a public stab at Blizzard for using Bittorrent.
Well, of course this will be the worst selling of Blizzard's franchises in terms of the number of pieces of software sold. It has a monthly subscription fee that will necessarily keep its sales numbers lower than a hit game that can be yours for one easy payment of $19.99. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being the most profitable of their franchises.
And I think they did aim higher than the competition. they created a game that is not unpleasant to play. They created a quest system that gets players out and exploring the world, instead of sitting in one place and grinding the same creeps for hours on end. Their soulbinding gear was a brilliant way to keep rare items relatively scarce. And frankly, their world is prettier, funnier and more interesting than other games, despite the fact that WoW runs on low end systems. The instance dungeons have contained some extremely well-designed boss encounters. The battlegrounds sound like they will be something entirely new and extremely cool.
I understand your love of innovation, but I far prefer the games that are polished and slick to games that reinvent the wheel, but aren't fun to play. A lot of highly original game mechanics don't really work well. I prefer a really slick, well-designed game experience to somethign bizarre. I mean, what was "Half-Life" but a Quake clone with scripted sequences and good enemy AI?
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