The Funeral of WoW Gold

Most massively multiplayer online role-playing games are about conflict: fantastic clashes between warriors, wizards, aliens, orcs and elves.
And unlike most video games that have a plot and an ending, MMOs are living, evolving virtual worlds that players can explore and influence. They’re hugely popular - and lucrative.
The current behemoth, “World of Warcraft ( Currency: wow gold ),” has 10 million-plus active members that spend $40 to $60 to buy the game, then pay a $15 monthly subscription fee. Most MMOs run on PCs or Macs with interactive features and new content delivered via an Internet connection.
Now there’s a battle involving MMOs going on in the real world, as game makers attempt to challenge, or at least siphon off some of the success of, “world of warcraft
.” New strategies include design changes to make it easier to woo new players, as well as MMOs based on popular franchises such as “Star Trek” and “Star Wars.” At stake: a
U.S. market expected to amount to about $800 million this year, compared with $700 million last year and $332 million in 2004, says market research firm DFC Intelligence. The newest skirmisher is “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning,” published by Electronic Arts and created by Mythic Entertainment. Launched last week, the game shipped 1.5 million copies to retailers, a record for initial PC game shipments at industry giant EA.
Although the companies wouldn’t provide sales specifics, “We are either the or one of the fastest-selling MMOs of all time,” says Mythic co-founder Mark Jacobs.
A big investment
“Warhammer” is based on a Tolkien-esque fantasy universe similar to “Dungeons and Dragons.” Players can explore performing individual and group quests that give their characters (such as a warrior, healer, priest or magician) increased power and skills.
Mythic, based in Fairfax, Va., began work on “Warhammer” in the fall of 2005; EA acquired Mythic in June 2006. The company’s offices are covered in drawings of monsters, weapons and fantastical environments and decorated with hundreds of handcrafted items sent from fans.
During a recent visit, one of the several floors Mythic has grown to inhabit teemed with 150 customer service trainees. They were exploring the game universe and receiving instruction on handling call-in and online problems. More than 250 people have worked on “Warhammer” over the past three years.
Jacobs would not comment on the cost of developing the game. But Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, estimates that EA and Mythic may have invested $50 million.
With “Warhammer,” Mythic is changing the MMO rules by making the game easier for players who might not have enough time to commit to long sessions. (Many MMOs require hours devoted each week to advance your characters.) That might appeal to some longtime players - and attract newcomers, too.
“You can literally step into our game for 15 minutes and have a really interesting experience,” says the game’s executive producer, Jeff Hickman. “Or you could spend five hours playing our game.”
Finding ways to attract new MMO players or keep current ones strengthens a proven business model. “If you have a game that’s successful, it’s a recurring revenue stream,” Pachter says. “The success of “World of Warcraft” has emboldened competitors to put ever-increasing amounts into the development of their games because they now see the potential is well beyond a million subscribers, if you do it right.”
The MMO market has expanded “in size and shape beyond what anyone thought possible a decade ago,” says Mark Arsenault, editor-in-chief of Massive Gamer magazine.
Growing competition
Arsenault expects to see many more MMOs based on familiar properties. Games already in the works include “DC Universe Online,” which features Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and The Flash; “Star Trek Online,” based on the popular television show; and “Stargate Worlds,” tied to the cable TV sci-fi franchise. BioWare, makers of the “Knights of the Old Republic” video game spinoff of the “Star Wars” movies, is working on a similar MMO, according to Arsenault.
Developers and publishers of these games and others will be watching the “Warhammer” campaign in this changing market. If Mythic and EA cannot succeed long-term, others may be leery of entering the marketplace. “They are putting their stake in the ground,” says DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole.
There’s a lot to lose. Notable MMO flameouts include attempts at broadening the market, such as “The Sims Online” and “The Matrix Online,” each of which cost $20 million or so to develop. “Nothing has really come along to match “World of Warcraft ( Buy wow gold ) ,” Cole says. “It’s a really great business model if you can make it work. The profits you can reap if you have a successful product (are) huge. But actually being able to do that, that’s the killer.”
Cole estimates that a “monster” MMO could achieve a 40 percent profit margin, or nearly half of the monthly fees. With subscribers of 500,000, that could reach $7.5 million.
“If you can get to 500,000 (subscribers), you can be very profitable,” Pachter says. “At 1 million, the initial investment can be repaid quickly.”
Mythic has a history in the MMO space. It launched “Dark Age of Camelot” in 2001, and the well-regarded MMO is still in business. Its size doesn’t rival “Warcraft” (“Camelot” had 250,000 players at its peak), but “over the years, millions have gone through the game,” Jacobs says.
“Warhammer” need not vanquish “World of Warcraft” to succeed in its quest to offer another MMO alternative, Jacobs says. “We don’t need to expand the market in order to succeed,” he says. “So many more people now play these games than have ever played in the past.”
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New York — John Smedley grew up playing the “Dungeons & Dragons” fantasy-role playing board game during lunch. Today he’s president of Sony Online Entertainment. Nearly a decade ago, the company launched “EverQuest,” and while the game has been surpassed in popularity by “World of Warcraft ( Buy wow gold ) ,” Smedley still dreams that there will be a South Park” comedy show dedicated to EverQuest one day, just as there was for WoW. Smedley was in New York to give the keynote at the inaugural New York Games Conference, which was the scene of extremely tight security. Dozens of New York’s finest were on hand, which made getting to the conference a bit difficult. But it turned out they weren’t there to protect Smedley or the conference – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, was actually staying at the hotel across the street. But it made for an interesting backdrop as we sat down to talk about the future of online games.
VB: EverQuest was once the most popular, most talked about online role-playing game, but its been eclipsed by World of Warcraft. Do you ever see a way that an EverQuest property can recapture that top spot and regain the crown?
JS: EverQuest is a franchise that we have a lot of faith in, it’s been around 10 years now and we’ve released “EverQuest 2″ very successfully. We’ve run both games very profitably, and they’ve made a lot of money. More importantly they’ve made a lot of players very happy. So yes, we’re investing in the EverQuest franchise for the future. And you’ll see more EverQuest games in the future. We liked the look of the crown, and we’d like to put that back on.
VB: So maybe there will be a South Park episode centered around EverQuest?
JS: It is my dream! That was one of the funniest South Park episodes [featuring World of Warcraft ( Currency: wow gold ) ], and that might just have been the best South Park episode ever. Look, I’m a fan of what the guys at Blizzard are doing. I’m super impressed with World of Warcraft. So to get on South Park, that and [The Colbert Report], are the dreams.
VB: All the of the most successful MMOs have had a fantasy element. The success of those games is something that not even “Sims Online” or even “Star Wars” could match, so why is the fantasy element such a draw for gamers?
JS: It has more to do with the gameplay in them, and in the case of Star Wars I think that is an IP that can reach millions and millions of people. From our perspective, at least while we were creating, it was a different time and a place. But what we’ve seen is that gameplay has evolved so quickly to become a bit more of the casual play and less of the super hardcore that we had started with EverQuest. So that’s something we’re adapting to, and that’s why we have [the free upocming MMO] “Free Realms” and we have “DC Universe Online” and why we have The Agency. We’re broadening out our demographic to be sure that we have games that fit in a lot of different genres, and therefore appeal to a wider range of gamers. I think it is possible to do big games that don’t have to be in the fantasy space.

VB: We’ve even seen fantasy games show up, such as “Dungeons & Dragons Online,” a property that has been around longer than EverQuest or world of warcraft
yet it didn’t reach that mass appeal, why?
JS: A lot of that is a matter of quality too. You have to have some new and something really cool to appeal to people. But there have been a lot of what I would consider high caliber and high quality games that haven’t done terribly well. What it takes to have that extra spark is making sure that you take the time to do the releases right. That is something we’re focused on. We’ve been invested in this game Free Realms since 2005 and we have the best in class for free MMOs. It is coming out in January, and we’re really proud of that.
VB: What can you tell us about Free Realms?
JS: Free Realms isn’t exactly high fantasy. I’d say it is more whimsical fantasy. Think of the movie Shrek, and you wouldn’t be too far off. It is that kind of irreverent humor set in a fantasy world. But we still think that high fantasy has a key pillar spot in our company. We want to continue to invest in that, and we are doing so very actively.
VB: Costs are rising in the MMO space, but are we seeing enough players to support the games for the developers to stay profitable?
JS: First and foremost, you have to make great games. But a close second to that is run your business smart and profitably, and that’s something we’ve been doing for many years. We believe very strongly that you have the investment spending with huge negatives. And now I see a lot of venture money going to this space and a lot of it is going into chasing World of Warcraft, and what we should be focusing on is what is the next best thing. Now we’ve seen some games come in at the low, low cost and there have been some very good examples of that, such as Eve Online. They started very small with that and its grown very well. But I think we’ll see the Warhammer Onlines, and the next EverQuests. These are the high budget brands just like there are summer movie blockbusters. I think that is going to be the norm.
VB: What about other revenue streams? Is in-game advertising something we’ll see more of in the future?
JS: Sure, it already is. We’ve been partnered with Massive for a while on PlanetSide and Matrix Online. It’s making money for us, but it is a small revenue stream. Over time it will grow and the key to making it grow is putting it in front of players so that don’t piss them off. We’ve been careful not to be rude to them. If you think of the movie Bladerunner that is the ultimate way to do in-game advertising.
VB: Will we have professional gamers doing a NASCAR-like thing where they get sponsors, and sell branding on their avatars?
JS: Sure. Absolutely. In fact [in a yet to be announced game], we’ve set up some of the top gamers in that space with exactly something like that. The sad part of professional gaming is that most of them have failed. Someone puts up a bunch of money into the next gaming league, and a gamer wins $100,000 and then you two years later you don’t hear anything about that. I think what it is going to take is games that have a much wider appeal, and even World of Warcraf ( Buy wow gold ) doesn’t have that wide of appeal. It is going to take games that have tens of millions of players, because that’s a cable audience. Now you may have the World Series on Gaming on CBS but it was on Sunday morning. That’s cool that it was on CBS, but it was so early so who was watching. But who would have thought that World Series of Poker would be on TV? Times change. When we’re hearing that 97 percent of kids in this country play games sooner or later games will have an impact when those kids are adults.
VB: And for now, where do the consoles fit in with the MMO space?
JS: Consoles for us are about the broadening the user base out, so that an audience that doesn’t typically see these sorts of games do see it. Most console gamers have PCs but the studies show that they spend most of their time gaming on their console. And so what we want to do is introduce them to these kinds of games. We think that is the simplest way.
VB: Finally, given the state of economy, is now a good time for MMOs? Will we see a “Snow Crash” effect where people might do stuff in their online adventures that they can’t do in the real world, or at least obtain stuff they might not be able to buy in the real world?
JS: What is funny about online gaming is how much people do it. Think of those players that play 20 or more hours a week, and the value they’re getting for $14.99 a month. It is a place to go that is cheaper. They don’t have to go out to a movie and buy a lot of soda or take part in other activities that cost a lot of money. It is a good spot for people that have a money issues. [Snowcrash], I think so and hope so. Maybe not quite that view of the world, but I hope we get to that level of tech. Of course without the social ills that happen because of it. But I think we can avoid that.
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ONCE UPON A TIME, video games were seen as a “boys only” thing. The prevailing thought was that there was something deeply unfeminine with pounding buttons and cursing in frustration at pixels on a screen. If you still believe in all that, then press the “reset” button in your brain, because female video game players are no longer rarities, but staples of the industry.
Still doubting? Meet six girls then, with varying tastes in games, all of whom are probably unafraid to take you up if you challenge them to a deathmatch.
Alodia Gosiengfiao
What was the first video game you remember playing?Super Mario Brothers, my mother introduced me to it.
And what was the first video- game you finished by yourself?It was either Pokemon or Final Fantasy Tactics, but whichever game it was, the feeling was overwhelming.
Did you ever receive flak for being a girl and liking video games?Classmates used to tell me that video games weren’t a girl’s thing, but I didn’t care since playing video games makes me happy.
Do you like using female characters in video games?Yes, because I am hoping to relate to her, or see myself in that character.
What are your five all-time favorite video games?“Final Fantasy 7,” because it has a great story. “Devil May Cry,” because of its great gameplay. “Kingdom Hearts,” because of the way it combined the action and role-playing game (RPG) genres. “World of Warcraft ( Buy wow gold )” because it has such a great set-up and feel. “Lineage II,” because I love their elves.
What are you playing right now?
“DJmax” on the PSP and “World of Warcraft” on the Mac/PC.
Denise Yap
What was the first video game you finished by yourself?Tomb Raider 2 on the Playstation. I felt very proud and accomplished because I died so many times!
What was the first video game you fell in love with?Tekken 2, on the Playstation. There were so many characters to unlock and I was so impressed by the graphics.
Do you feel compelled to use the female characters in video games?No, I use the character that I feel I can control the best or the one I feel has the most interesting design and personality.
Do you find yourself wishing there were more well-rounded female characters in video games?Yes, I do wish they put more thought when coming up with female game characters because they’re often used as fanservice for guys with their skimpy clothing and cutesy poses. Kickass girl characters are out there, but they’re often overshadowed by guy characters.
What are your five all-time favorite games?“Shadow of the Colossus,” it had a simple plot and objective, but the way the game was put together is simply amazing. “Final Fantasy X” is an unforgettable epic. It’s not the newest in the series, but the RPG experience really changed when voices and facial expressions were added to the mix. “Soul Calibur II” had interesting character designs, the graphics were amazing and the characters moved very fluidly. “Suikoden II” had a good story, interesting characters and very nice classic 2D graphics. “Tenchu Stealth Assassins” was my first Mature-rated game! I liked the concept and also the unique tools that the player can use in the game like poisoned rice balls.
What are you playing right now?Burnout Dominator and Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core on the PSP.
Keena Chua
What was the first video game you remember playing? “Duck Hunt” on the Family Computer!
In video games with female characters, do you feel compelled to use the female characters?Yes because they’re usually cooler than the boys.
What are your five all-time favorite games?“Suikoden II,” I loved collecting all the characters and expanding my castle. “Final Fantasy IX,” I liked the battle and ability systems. “The
Phoenix Wright Series.” “Bust a Groove” because it was fun singing along and pressing the buttons to a beat. “Tetris,” it’s highly addicting!
Do you prefer playing video games with other girls or with a mixed group?A mixed group, because it’s more fun that way. Especially when the girls beat the boys.
What are you playing right now?World of Warcraft ( Currency wow gold ), Cooking Mama, Guitar Hero, Rhythm Tengoku Gold, Final Fantasy IV.
Meggy Kawsek
What was the first video game you remember playing?Harvest Moon. I watched my brother play it as a kid and so I took to it easily.
Did you ever receive flak for being a girl and liking video games?I mostly get positive stuff. It makes it much easier for me to relate with boys. No one has a problem with it really, although one summer my parents told me to stop playing because I wasn’t eating properly anymore.
Do you think there are a lot of female video gamers in the Philippines?There are, but they’re not very vocal about what they like. Females are not meant to like games in the Philippines.
In video games with female characters, do you feel compelled to use the female characters?Sometimes, when they’re really good characters. The gender doesn’t matter, it’s their stats that count. I used some characters because they were just balanced.
What are your five all-time favorite games?“Dance Dance Revolution,” my exercise. “Breath of Fire III” because it’s classic, and the best of the series. “Final Fantasy 7,” which had very, very good graphics for its time, an incomparable storyline, and unforgettable characters. “Spore,” my new favorite game, because it’s very creative. “Metal Gear Solid,” which is just plain awesome.
What are you playing right now?I’m playing Spore and I plan on replaying Kingdom Hearts 2 sometime soon.
Lizzette Zamora
What was the first video game you remember playing?Either Pacman, Space Invaders or Galaga, one of the classics.
What was the first video game that you became addicted to?“Auto Destruct” for the Playstation. I’d even repeat the whole game on the same day.
Do you find yourself wishing there were more well-rounded female characters in video games?I wish there were more female characters like Lara Croft (“Tomb Raider”) and Jill Valentine (“Resident Evil”). I think that there will be more female video gamers if that happened. If there were more female characters, I hope that they are as interesting as the two I’ve mentioned because even if some women don’t see having strong female characters in video games as a factor that helps boost women’s morale, personally, it does have a small psychological boost on me.
Do you think there are a lot of female video gamers in the Philippines?Well, I think there are many, but maybe they are just not as showy or obvious as the guys are. I also think that some of them play video games, but don’t play as often as male gamers.
What are you playing right now?Resident Evil 4 (again) and I stopped a couple of months ago, but now I’m back to Silent Hill: Origins and Metal Gear Solid 3 sometimes.
Christa Uymatiao
What was the first video game you remember playing?“Duck Hunter [sic]” on the Family Computer
What was the first video game that you became so addicted to that you’d play it over and over?Age of Empires. My cousins from Australia introduced it to me when I was around seven, and I couldn’t stop playing the various levels over and over again. I probably repeated it more than five times.
Did you ever receive flak for being a girl and liking video- games?Yes, I’ve actually been told that countless times. Guys find it hard to believe that a lot of girls love playing video games.
In video games with female characters, do you feel compelled to use the female characters?If the game permits. I like seeing my female lead character stronger than the rest of the character’s allies. Also, having a female lead for me, gives the game more spice as compared to the usual games with male lead characters.
Do you find yourself wishing there were more well rounded female characters in video games?Yes. The tendency in video games is that game designers make the male characters stronger and better, as compared to female characters.
What are your five all-time favorite games?“Sims” and “Sims 2,” because there’s always something new to keep you interested in the game, especially with all the expansion packs. “Harvest Moon,” though it can get tiresome, finding yourself earning more money and getting closer to marriage/upgrading your farm proved addicting for me. “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?” I loved the game’s plot, chasing after someone while being able to go around the world. For a kid, it’s a great experience to be able to do that. “Age of Empires” series. “Rhapsody,” because it had a lot of great in-game songs where the character would suddenly burst into song.
What are you playing right now?I am currently playing “Spore,” “Loco Roco,” “Jeanne D’Arc,” “Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology” and “Harvest Moon.”
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The Madden series is the undisputed king of football video games. They’re entertaining games but as with World of Warcraft ( Currency: wow gold ), another well-entrenched franchise, occasionally you have to wonder if anyone has a shot of knocking them off their pedestal. Well, in the case of Madden, the solution is simple: Mutant League Football. If you try to beat Madden by making a realistic football game, you’re going to fail. EA Sports has the exclusive rights to use NFL teams and players in video games until 2013 and no other company seems willing or able to out-bid them. Barring some sort of falling out between EA and the NFL, they’re going to have the exclusive rights wrapped up for a long time. You might be saying, “But a game doesn’t need NFL logos and player names to be realistic!” Well, see, that’s the thing. Even if there was another game that looked and felt more realistic than Madden, even if it was more fun than Madden, it wouldn’t matter. Realistic visuals or mechanics are nice but they pale in comparison to the ability to play as your favorite team or your favorite player. A large bulk of the Madden players are professional football fans and Madden is an extension of that fandom. Their love of the game of football is intertwined with their love of a particular team or player. Fair or not, Madden is automatically more realistic than any other football game because it has Peyton Manning and the other game doesn’t. Let’s look at the challengers to Madden. 2K Games tried to compete on EA’s turf with All-Pro Football 2K8, a realistic football game that circumvented the exclusive rights agreement by using retired players but the game just didn’t sell very well. EA’s likely to close this “loophole” by entering into agreements with retired players in the wake of Jim Brown suing them, but even if they didn’t, a game filled with retirees just isn’t going to beat Madden. A bunch of players from different eras thrown together in one game is as unrealistic as a game with fictional players. Even though the players featured were legends of the NFL, they still just felt like stand-ins for the current NFL players. Midway had a better idea with its two Blitz: The League games. It was a hit to the Blitz series to lose NFL licensing - people forget how good 1998’s NFL Blitz was - but Midway responded well. They created a fictional football league where dirty hits and steroid use are the norm. In addition to different game rules that NFL Blitz had, The League added a whole narrative with its “Campaign Mode.” The two Blitz: The League games might not have been spectacular but they had the right idea: look at the lack of real NFL teams and players as a strength, rather than a weakness. If you don’t have to worry about pissing off the NFL, you can make football and its players look as violent and ruthless as you want. The problem is that they just didn’t go far off in the direction of fantasy. The League’s teams were obviously modeled on NFL teams and Midway even hired former NFL players Lawrence Taylor and Bill Romanowski to appear as characters. Ultimately their fictional league was more of a caricature or a satire of the excesses of the NFL (drug use, violent behavior, etc.) rather than a standalone work of fiction. Which brings me to Mutant League Football, a game originally released for Sega Genesis and subsequently rereleased for PSP. I’m not suggesting that this is the one game idea that will beat Madden - it’s actually impossible, seeing as how EA also owns Mutant League. However, it was a good example of a game that put its own unique twist on the game of football. Here’s a run-down of the game for the uninitiated: it was a football game set in a post-apocalyptic world where mankind is now a bunch of mutants and undead. The game of football survived the apocalypse but now it’s a much more brutal game, played on fields of ice and rock littered with landmines and firepits. Players can use a variety of special tricks, called “Nasty Audibles”, to give themselves an edge in the game. For example, they can switch the ball with an exploding ball and toss it to an opposing defender to destroy them, or their running back can strap on a jet pack and shoot up the field. It’s not authentic NFL action but it was still pretty damn fun. The difference between Mutant League Football and the current competitors to Madden is that Mutant League Football was content to be nothing like real football. It didn’t just try to tweak the rules a little and dodge the licensing agreements by making thinly-veiled substitutes of NFL teams and players - it created its own fantasy world and reimagined the game. The only way to beat Madden is to stop trying to recreate Madden. Don’t just change number of players on the field. Make up new ways for teams to score points. Don’t set the game in “the real world.” Be - gulp - creative. Will some fantasy game ever top Madden in sales? I can’t say because I have no idea what exactly that upstart game would look like. Madden has the far easier road because of its licenses and its established fan base. However, there’s no doubt that a game that offered a fun, creative take on football could gain its own following among gamers who love the NFL - or even among those who don’t.

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It’s hard not to be a little shocked at the news that Ensemble Studios is closing down after it completes Halo Wars. The fact that the developer itself was stunned by the news tells you how out-of-the-blue this move from Microsoft seems. What’s even more surprising, though, is that Halo Wars wasn’t the only game based on the Bungie franchise being worked on by the studio… apparently, Ensemble was in the process of making a Halo MMO until it was canceled at some point during the second half of 2007.
Gamasutra has managed to unearth a number of early screenshots and UI images from the canceled title, showing a number of character types and locations that have never officially appeared in the Halo canon. Variations on Spartan armor previously unseen in the games, energy sword-wielding characters, and an interface that seems to be based on the simplified designs of World of Warcraft ( Buy wow gold )I all appear in the game’s screenshots. The game itself seems to have been worked on from 2006 to 2007, which is in keeping with a number of rumors that surfaced at the time about how Ensemble was working on a major MMO project.
Based on the images, it doesn’t seem like the canceled Halo MMO would have been in keeping with the general theme of game’s universe. The fact that Microsoft canceled the game before an official announcement was ever made probably means the publisher felt the same way.
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If you haven’t ever tasted the pleasure of competing in a Massive Multiplayer Online game, be careful. They are addictive and giant time sinks. The most successful of these open-ended, monthly subscription games where players war and explore in groups against other groups is “World of Warcraft.” ( Buy wow gold )It became widely enough known in popular culture to spawn a truck commercial and countless videos on YouTube. “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning” is the latest in a long line of challengers to “Wow” and the question being asked by national media centers around the possibility of a new game knocking “Wow” off its perch as the untouchable king of MMOs. I think the answer is an obvious “no.” But so what? Why is that the focus of a new game? I find that measure of success ridiculous and a lazy approach by journalists who don’t know how to write about a game for a general audience. Pepsi isn’t Coke, Arby’s isn’t McDonald’s and even though spicy brown mustard is infinitely better than yellow mustard, people buy more yellow. That doesn’t mean any of the “other” products aren’t profitable or financially successful. I suspect Warhammer will be a great success. With parent company EA Games behind it, reportedly brisk sales and lots of Web buzz, the game will do just fine. The previews of the game I have seen all looked great, and if my PC were up to snuff, the DNews’ (me) would be in Warhammer testing it out.
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The next time you run with a pick-up group in your favourite MMO, watch out. One of those randoms could be a terrorist, or a spook. According to Wired’s Danger Room blog, the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Conference in Washington, Dr. Dwight Toavs, a professor at the
Pentagon-funded National Defense University, painted a picture where terrorists gather in World of Warcraft ( Buy wow gold ) to plan an attack on the White House. Wired has the full Powerpoint of this talk at their blog, so get ready to laugh/cry/hurl/gawp at what peacekeepers are thinking could be going on in the world’s biggest MMO.
There are laughs a plenty thanks to poor grasp of WoW speak. If they want to catch terrorists in WoW, they’d better go native. And, in fact, that’s exactly the point. Hmmm… devil’s advocate take on why they may be right after the jump.

This is all about context, and the primary issue for spy agencies is tracking online chatter that could reveal a plot being discussed in code. Such codes can stick out in forums and other easily searchable areas, but in lingo-heavy virtual worlds like WoW it is hard for an outsider to pick code from genuine game chat.
The presentation proves the point. To MMO natives, this fake transcript is clearly false. If you saw someone talking like this in WoW, maybe you would report them for suspicious activity! They’re clearly not playing the game you’re playing.
So on some level it makes sense they’re talking about this, and that part of the solution would be to encourage some spies to spend significant time in virtual worlds so they can pick the game chat from anything that is out of place in that context. If context is the key, then some spies might have to be paid to become hardcore gamers — you know, in the same way some spies get to hang around casinos, drink martinis, and shag sexadelic women. It’s a tough job, but maybe someone really does have to do it.
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Latest funding pushes Trion World Network’s bankroll above $100 million; money split between two MMOG projects.
While World of Warcraft （Currency: wow gold ）
has dominated the massively multiplayer online game genre for years, there’s no shortage of potential competitors on the horizon. One possible usurper to the throne got a boost this week, as startup developer Trion World Networks announced that it has secured an additional $70 million in funding, bringing its total seed money to $100 million.
Trion was founded in 2006 by Might and Magic series creator and former NCsoft developer Jon Van Caneghem and for EA vice president of global online Lars Buttler. The operation is currently split between offices in
Texas (Austin) and California (Redwood City and San Diego), but has not yet released any games.
In announcing the funding this week, Trion said it was provided by venture capital firms and media companies including Time Warner, NBC Universal, and GE Commercial Finance. As for what that cash injection will fund, Trion has announced two projects it will self-publish in North America and Europe. One is a fantasy role-playing MMO game overseen by Van Caneghem, and the company also has a separate MMO title being developed in conjunction with Sci Fi Channel.
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Is this the one? Is Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning the massively-multiplayer online game that kills World of Warcraft ( Buy wow gold )? It certainly isn’t the first to try. In fact, every time a fantasy-themed MMO drops, that’s the question that pops up: Will “[Insert Sword-Swinging Game Here]” finally knock WoW off its pedestal?
Dungeons & Dragons Online took a swipe. That seemed like a real no-brainer, didn’t it? It’s D&D — the fantasy license! Millions and millions of role-playing fans have played and loved Dungeons & Dragons. It’s part of the gaming vernacular. Of course, you need to build a good game around the license in order for it to have a chance against Warcraft. WoW flicked D&D Online off its shoulder like an annoying flea. The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar threw a few hooks at the champ. Another popular and powerful license combined with a veteran MMO design studio (Codemasters) gave LOTRO a fighting shot, but it still didn’t so much as dent the WoW juggernaut.

Conan? As much as Funcom wants people to believe that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is selling like popcorn at the circus, fact is that Conan got swallowed up just like the rest of these games. Funcom at one point said that Conan had around 400,000 active accounts after launch, a very strong number — and around 4 percent of the number of people currently playing World of Warcraft. This isn’t to say that fantasy-themed MMOs not called “World of Warcraft” are doomed to failure. D&D Online is still coming out with new content, Lord of the Rings Online is going strong, and Conan does have a slew of players — but the only game that can kill World of Warcraft is World of Warcraft II. (Or maybe a StarCraft MMO.) When you look at the most recent MMO active subscriber charts, World of Warcraft dominates in a way unlike anything the industry has ever seen. Warcraft is the USA Dream Team versus a bunch of
Angolas .

Here’s how out-of-whack it is: According to MMOGChart.com, World of Warcraft ( Currency: wow gold )has somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million active subscriptions. It’s the size of Belgium. More people play WoW (or at least pay for it) than live in the state of Virginia. So the next time you drive through Virginia, picture everyone you see as a Tauren Hunter or Orc Warrior. No other MMO has more than 1.5 million active accounts. Lord of the Rings Online is hovering between 200,000 to 300,000 accounts — which is pretty darn good — but WoW eats every MMO for lunch when it comes to user base. Frodo can’t compete. And in reality, neither will Warhammer. The goal for the folks at Mythic Entertainment shouldn’t be to knock World of Warcraft off its throne, because that flat-out is not going to happen. It needs to find its niche, secure its user base, and go from there. If WAR establishes a solid user base of 300,000 players, it’ll be a “Top 5″ MMO. It doesn’t need 5 million users to be a huge hit; if that were the bar, there’d only be one MMO currently in operation.

So a better question — instead of the silliness of “killing Warcraft” — is whether or not Warhammer Online offers MMO fans something different: a reason to stop playing LOTRO, Conan and yes, WoW. Warhammer doesn’t need to beat world of warcraft; it just needs to siphon off some of its gluttonous user base. Think of it like this: If 5 percent of the people who play World of Warcraft decide to play Warhammer Online, and stick with it for the long haul, it’ll have a user base of 500,000 people. So far, no other game has been able to do that. I’ve been playing WAR since the closed beta, and have watched as the game has slowly morphed into a first-rate, fantasy-themed MMO loaded with Warhammer flavor and features that distinguish it from your everyday sword-and-sorcery MMO. If the “Head Start” program is any indication, a lot of people are anticipating this game — just today, I had to wait 35 minutes in order to log on to the server where my level 6 Black Orc resides. The servers are packed with players.

WAR has many features that make it an interesting alternative to other MMOs, but what stands out to me is that the game allows you to level your character any way you wish. Do you want to play nothing but realm-vs.-realm? You can do this and level up without ever killing a single monster. Do you want to simply wander the countryside, doing quests without ever seeing a rival player? Yep, you can do that, too. You can play nothing but “scenarios,” which are instanced RvR battles between rival factions, or you can stay and fight in designated RvR areas in order to claim land for your side (and pick up some rewards in the process). Or — as I suspect most players will do — you can play a mixture of everything.

The Public Quest is a novel idea, and can be played at a very low level. It’s basically a multi-tiered quest in which you can simply hop in and start bashing away in order to earn Renown, which can be used to get free goodies. For example, an early Orc PQ involves a large giant who is being annoyed by a bunch of angry squigs (small green balls with teeth). Everyone in the quest (you can join and leave at any time, and these are not instanced) needs to slaughter the squigs, subsequently find the exhausted giant several kegs of beer, and then fight more squigs. The final stage of the quest, in which multiple waves of dwarves come spilling out of a doorway, requires the group to kill each new wave and culminates with the slaying of a dwarf hero. That’s a quest for newbie Orc players, and there are literally hundreds of these quests in the game that you’ll stumble upon from time to time.

There is so much to explore within the game. Everything you do is tied to the Tome of Knowledge, which tracks all of your actions and accomplishments, from RvR bragging rights to the new creatures you’ve unlocked in the bestiary. Besides keeping track of how many monster types you have killed, how many times you’ve died and how many players you have defeated and it is also where you can read the backstory of each race in the game. If you take the time to read the flavor text, you’ll realize that you aren’t just fighting a faceless war — each chapter has a theme and a story to tell.

Mythic has done a marvelous job in capturing the spirit of Warhammer. Graphically, WAR now looks much better than the visually underwhelming beta. The latest patch has thankfully brought the game up to speed, and it looks fantastic (although I still have yet to see it rain or snow). A lot of people have wondered whether WAR was just going to be World of Warcraft ( Buy wow gold ) with some new toys, but from a lore point of view the games are very different. In WoW, even the Undead are “noble” in their cause, and the Orcs are more honor-bound tribesmen than rampaging soccer hooligans. In Warhammer, the Orcs, Chaos and Dark Elves are bad guys and evil to the core, while the Empire, Dwarfs and High Elves are the good guys. There is no grey area. After playing the beta and starting a new character via the Head Start program, the biggest question remains: Is the game fun? Absolutely. Being a Warhammer fan for over 20 years, I admittedly have a soft spot for the license — but I also know when a company is trying to throw a license out there without properly supporting it with a good game. Mythic has not done that. While there’s still a lot more of WAR to see and potential balancing issues to uncover, and I hope the team is eventually able to add the content that had to be scrapped last-minute (The Greenskins need their own capital city and not just the Inevitable City of the Chaos faction. We need to see some Mork and Gork monuments!), my first impression is definitely a positive one. Look for a full review soon. The observations for this article were based on a final version of the game available through the Head Start program, which made the game available to beta testers three days early. The account is a free press account.
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The National Science Foundation apparently considers the cultural implications of Blizzard’s highly successful MMO World of Warcraft ( Buy wow gold ) worth looking into. It has given a $100,000 grant to
University of California, Irvine, where some professors have been advocating the importance of virtual worlds and video games on culture for years now.
Out of WoW’s 10 million subscribers, about half are Chinese, which is twice the number of American players; however, American WoW players produce far more mods (modifications) to enrich the WoW experience.
Bonnie Nardi, an informatics professor at UCI, will be conducting the study with the help of doctoral student Yong Ming Kow. Nardi has had opportunities to observe internet cafes in Beijing, and she explains her research:
“We are examining the many reasons for this disparity, including cultural and institutional factors.The vast majority of Chinese players are not ‘gold farmers’ (people who play to generate game gold, which is then sold for real money). They’re ordinary players like anyone. The media has blown that story out of all proportion. Many people think Chinese play for a job. They play for fun.
Chinese people play the more challenging form of world of warcraft almost exclusively. They find the less challenging form of the game ‘boring.’ Here, about 50 percent play the challenging form of the game and there, about 95 percent do.”
As a WoW player, I’m honestly not sure what she means by the “challenging form,” though she could be comparing PvP to PvE servers. Nardi goes on to point out more differences between Chinese and American WoW gamers:
“[They] have invented some interesting ways to play with the in-game economy (not the real world economy). Ways that I have not observed here in two years of studying World of Warcraft.
Chinese players are more attuned to the aesthetics of the game. At least they mention them more in interviews. They talked more about color schemes, animations, architecture, and so on more than American players.
There seem to be fewer female players of World of Warcraft ( Currency: wow gold ) in China. On the order of 20 percent here and 10 percent there.”
Curiously, WoW relationships also work differently in China. The one-child policy, still in effect today, comes into play as well:
“Here and in Europe and Australia/New Zealand people play with parents and even grandparents. Not in China. The older generation dislikes video games. People here play with brothers and sisters. But in China people don’t have brothers and sisters for the most part, so friend relationships are very important.
Some similarities: ‘World of Warcraft’ is a very social game in China, just like here. People play with people they already know. Boyfriend and girlfriend may play or husband and wife. Social relationships deepen through the game. People also make new friends online.”
As a UC Irvine graduate and Chinese WoW player, this news really hits a note of personal interest for me. But even I’m not sure if this research is the biggest waste of money or a significant milestone for gaming — perhaps it’s both. And yes, Blizzard Entertainment is also stationed in Irvine.

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