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Topic: Blizzard is the internet. Or rather, Blizzard owns the internet. (Read 64253 times)
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sinij
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2597
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Wake me up when they will figure out a formula to come up with something new in under 10 years/gazilion millions. All they can do now is clone more Diku, how many clones would it take to saturate the market? 1.5, maybe 2?
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Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.
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Righ
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6542
Teaching the world Google-fu one broken dream at a time.
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The best Slashdot comment is the one that points out that HRose has a slide of Vivendi claiming 6.5 billion WoW customers: 
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The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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1,300 game masters for 6.5 billion million people? Seems low, doesn't it? But I'll admit this right here, I know NOTHING about that shit.
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eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11844
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1300 GMs => An average of 400 at a time. Let's guess they handle a ticket every 10 minutes, that's 2400 tickets an hour.
6.5M subs => 5M active players => Guess an average 17 hours a week play => 500k online simultaeneously.
So if each player calls a GM every 200 hours of play, or once every 12 weeks, then everything works out fine.
How often do you call a GM? I certainly don't call them more than once a year tops.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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People who call GMs call them chronically. That much I do know. It's like any call center/technical support. They probably have a very good system of weeding out bullshit requests.
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Righ
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6542
Teaching the world Google-fu one broken dream at a time.
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I bet people call them on RP servers most often.
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The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536
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Wake me up when they will figure out a formula to come up with something new in under 10 years/gazilion millions. All they can do now is clone more Diku, how many clones would it take to saturate the market? 1.5, maybe 2?
Get past the big titles and the proof is already there. MMOGs aren't a novelty anymore. We don't play them just because they exist. There's scores of titles out now, all worth checking out to at least help ya figure out which ones you like. They won't give WoW a run for their money, but who gives a shit when you're only talking about a few thousand people at a time anyway?
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Soln
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4737
the opportunity for evil is just delicious
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In other news, CCP flipped a switch and 200,000 Chinese accounts turned up in their bank, with 30k concurrent sessions on their new service, pwning their 3 year record with the English EVE. The Earth still moves.
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Modern Angel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3553
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Fuck all this noise. This is good. It will force people to innovate to compete just as Blizzard's RTS titles forced people to innovate to compete. And by fucking God if it means that we get more awful shit in a box MMOGs short term in that mad dash to cash in while trimming the garbage down long term as people start wanting more than we win.
Call me when you hit Time's Man of the Year, Schild.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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Will do.
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Signe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 18942
Muse.
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Miscommunication at Blizzard / Vivendi Date: Jun 14, 2006 Author: Jon Wood
Blue's News has tipped us off to some buzz that's happening over on the WoW forums. It seems as though yesterday, IGN posted an article that quoted an F13.net which cited a Vivendi representative saying that, "All Blizzard franchises will become MMOGs".
This thread on the WoW forums discusses the issue, and a number of Blizzard employees (Blue titles) come out to debunk the rumor. One employee, Drysc, said that: "I believe this was a misquote. We haven't announced any specific development plans beyond the upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft, and we don't have any intentions to focus on only one genre or platform with our future games."
As it stands now, it seems that Blizzard employees are denying IGN's interpretation of what was said. Care to comment? Discuss this in our forums http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?loadNews=5506&bhcp=1http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/81787More Blizzard MMOGs World of Starcraft or World of Diablo, anyone? by Daemon Hatfield
June 13, 2006 - A sequel to Starcraft is right at the top of many gamers' "Please, God, Make This Happen" list. Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways. If not a true sequel, gamers may be getting some more Starcraft action after all.
According to F13.net during a presentation to Wall Street today, a company representative from Vivendi reportedly said, "All Blizzard franchises will become MMOGs." The rep said they have a model in place to produce an MMOG for $50 million over the next three years.
World of Warcraft is one of the great success stories of our time. The big question is: with WoW already sucking hours/weeks/years of gamers' lives away, how will we ever find time to play World of Starcraft or World of Diablo? Alas, that these evil days should be ours! http://pc.ign.com/articles/712/712554p1.htmlhttp://vnboards.ign.com/wow_general_board/b19789/97281992/p1/?14Just sticking them all together because I have nothing to do right now and if I go to sleep now I'll be up and about before 5 AM. 
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My Sig Image: hath rid itself of this mortal coil.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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The thing got posted everywhere. Everyone has a different distorted view of facts and their own contacts. Not a single one of them has managed to do proper fact checking. I love gaming journalism. I'll write an update about it tonight I suppose. Since people probably expected me to 10 hours ago.
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Kail
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2858
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Fuck all this noise. This is good. It will force people to innovate to compete just as Blizzard's RTS titles forced people to innovate to compete.
I'm still waiting for that to be true. Maybe I'm just not into the genre enough anymore, but I've harvested enough lumber and built enough space marines for one lifetime. Innovative is not a word I would pair with the RTS genre post 1998 or so. When they say "all Blizzard thingies will be MMOs," do they mean that the regular titles (e.g. Starcraft II) are gone? While I like the ideas of MMOs and all that, I also like being able to buy games and frickin' play them without having to authenticate my PIN and hand out my credit card number. I'm not the biggest Diablo fan in the world, but I'd happily buy Diablo III over World of Diablo: (internet connection and online subscription required, additional fees may be incurred in the course of online play, for details please read our four-hundred page EULA, any violation of which will render the software you have just purchased worthless).
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Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
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The thing got posted everywhere. Everyone has a different distorted view of facts and their own contacts. Not a single one of them has managed to do proper fact checking. I love gaming journalism. I'll write an update about it tonight I suppose. Since people probably expected me to 10 hours ago.
The sad truth is that ALL fields of journalism, not just gaming journalism, is this way. Shit gets printed that people want to read (i.e. pay for). The truth is often a byproduct that does/does not accompany the story. I've been involved in healthcare, science, political, environmental, personal, and other news stories and have YET to see one that got all of the facts straight. It never ceases to amaze me how things get so distorted so quickly. It's like that game where one child tells the next a story and you pass it along to 20 more kids only to have the end product be a very different tale than the original.
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« Last Edit: June 14, 2006, 10:02:21 PM by Nebu »
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"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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You know how you tell the truth? You write very little and stick to the facts. We're an opinion site, I made an opinion based on the news. SOMEHOW every other big site that linked to it (gamespot, ign, etc) had a longer article than we had. Obviously, they're new at this whole thing.
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Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
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Obviously, they're new at this whole thing.
By my logic, I'd argue that they're old pros.
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"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
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Righ
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6542
Teaching the world Google-fu one broken dream at a time.
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I think schild was just lucky that none of them turned it into a 7,000 word dissertation.
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The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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Obviously, they're new at this whole thing. By my logic, I'd argue that they're old pros. Just to clear things up, I meant the "internet" thing. Magazines are one thing. You have pages to fill. The internet? Not so much.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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I just noticed a typo on the frontpage for the article heading. Son of a bitch.
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Strazos
Greetings from the Slave Coast
Posts: 15542
The World's Worst Game: Curry or Covid
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If Blizzard makes another MMO, I just hope it doesn't have elves. I HATE ELVES. Floppy-eared bastards.
Also, congrats on all the...publicity, though I refused to read the /. link. I will not read their shit until they make their format Not Ugly.
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Fear the Backstab! "Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion "Hell is other people." -Sartre
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edlavallee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 495
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Cross posted because this appears to be where all the discussion is happening. Everything as an MMOG sounds to me like a marketing strategy or organizational objective that has nothing to do with what actually gets developed. It should influence decisions, but is more of an executive statement about where Vivendi feels the gaming market is heading and where the cash is to be made. To try and make an automotove analogy, I see this like Ford announcing they will have production capability of 250,000 hybrid vehicles a year ( Linky ) by 2010. WoW has brought MMOs to the masses and Vivendi sees large dollar signs. That's all it means. It is Vivendi's way of telling its investors they have found the golden goose.
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Zipper Zee - space noob
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Soln
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4737
the opportunity for evil is just delicious
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If they're doing new MMO's, what the point of denying it? And if they are not, what's the point of denying it (by Vivendi)?
Feels like we're all stuck in just a bad office "miscommunication". And people are back paddling to save staff morale or something at Blizzilla.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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Neg. Read my most recent article in the other forum - it should expllain my take on it.
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Soln
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4737
the opportunity for evil is just delicious
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Schild Linkageyeah that's all probably right. Vivendi owns the assets, Blizzard is an operating company. End of story. Nuance: "we won't hurt current title(s) and planned expansion(s) with unofficial announcements. And damn Bruce." lapdog Makin' friends!! 
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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Fuck all this noise. This is good. It will force people to innovate to compete just as Blizzard's RTS titles forced people to innovate to compete. Only, they didn't. Blizzard's RTS success hasn't changed anything other than make more shitty, repetitive, derivative, stale, me-too RTS games available.
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Morat20
Terracotta Army
Posts: 18529
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In other news, CCP flipped a switch and 200,000 Chinese accounts turned up in their bank, with 30k concurrent sessions on their new service, pwning their 3 year record with the English EVE. The Earth still moves.
You're shitting me. Their new China cluster launched like that? They should be kissing our asses for spending the last year making sure their hardware and software could handle it. :) EVE's on haitus for me right now -- but with school out for the summer, I might open it back up. I do love the game.
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Hoax
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8110
l33t kiddie
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Fuck all this noise. This is good. It will force people to innovate to compete just as Blizzard's RTS titles forced people to innovate to compete. Only, they didn't. Blizzard's RTS success hasn't changed anything other than make more shitty, repetitive, derivative, stale, me-too RTS games available. I'm going to jump on the you are super wrong Modern bandwagon. Dude, you are super wrong on a factual level. Starcraft basically killed the RTS genre. Why you are partially right is because MMO's are different. You dont design EQ.25 when EQ is still going strong. Nobody will quit their current character/time investment for 0 change in gameplay/gfx/features. Look what happened to EQ2. Therefore I do believe that WoW will push some innovation into the medium. Denizens of Diablo and Storytime Starcraft should theoretically help the anti-diku cause as well.
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A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation. -William Gibson
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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I agree that WoW's success will eventually push innovation in the MMOG medium, because competing with Blizzard in fantasy-diku space is STUPID and unpossible. I was just disagreeing with his statement that Blizzard's overly derivative schlock RTS'es caused any sort of innovation in the RTS space.
EDIT: And Diablo almost did the same thing to CRPG's. It's only now that the industry is coming back to non-Diablo-esque non-clicky fest type of RPG's where you play more than one character.
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Hoax
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8110
l33t kiddie
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*cough* You never read my posts all the way through and it hurts me on the inside *endcough*
I'm going to jump on the you are super wrong Modern bandwagon. Dude, you are super wrong on a factual level. Starcraft basically killed the RTS genre.
agreed+1
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A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation. -William Gibson
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bhodi
Moderator
Posts: 6817
No lie.
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How did starcraft kill the RTS gerne? Perfection?
Right now I've got dawn of war (+arctic) and rise of legends installed. People are still making them...
Disclaimer: I played starcraft. A lot. And loved it. (that's right!) I still play Wc3 frozen throne, but only for DotA.
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« Last Edit: June 15, 2006, 10:29:02 AM by bhodi »
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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Age of Empires 3 was a really fun game too. I don't know about Starcraft killing the RTS genre anywhere but maybe Korea, but we've established they have no taste in games.
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Morat20
Terracotta Army
Posts: 18529
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Age of Empires 3 was a really fun game too. I don't know about Starcraft killing the RTS genre anywhere but maybe Korea, but we've established they have no taste in games.
Admittedly, I still go back and play Starcraft on occasion, but I also played the Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Rome: Total War and a handful of others....
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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*cough* You never read my posts all the way through and it hurts me on the inside *endcough*
I'm going to jump on the you are super wrong Modern bandwagon. Dude, you are super wrong on a factual level. Starcraft basically killed the RTS genre.
agreed+1
I didn't comment on that part, because it said what I said and I agreed +2. EDIT: The Total War series IS NOT AN RTS, no matter what anyone tries to convince you of. Don't believe the hype. As for why I think Starcraft killed the RTS genre: nothing much has changed about any of the games released since Starcraft. Oh there are little really small bits added, like waypoints and 3d landscapes, but really, they are more derivative than dikuclones. I liked Dawn of War and Age of Empires, but they aren't much more than Starcraft/Warcraft/Command and Conquer with a few bells and whistles added.
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« Last Edit: June 15, 2006, 11:43:43 AM by HaemishM »
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bhodi
Moderator
Posts: 6817
No lie.
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As for why I think Starcraft killed the RTS genre: nothing much has changed about any of the games released since Starcraft. Oh there are little really small bits added, like waypoints and 3d landscapes, but really, they are more derivative than dikuclones. I liked Dawn of War and Age of Empires, but they aren't much more than Starcraft/Warcraft/Command and Conquer with a few bells and whistles added.
OK, but why do you single out starcraft as the genre killer? By simple virtue of being successful? Starcraft itself isn't exactly a revolution in gameplay from command and conquer as you said or even Dune 2: A building of a dynasty for that matter.
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WayAbvPar
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EDIT: The Total War series IS NOT AN RTS, no matter what anyone tries to convince you of. Don't believe the hype. I am not sure I agree. It may not have the build, expand, capture, repeat gameplay, but it is strategic (actually more tactical) and plays out in real time. My main complaint about it, actually. R:TW was beautiful, but the min/maxer that lives in me hated not being in control of every unit at all times.
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When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM
Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood
Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
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