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Crunchy Bits O’ News
Something for everyone today (well, unless you don’t play MMOs with levels and classes…)
World of Warcraft:
* It’s official: Wrath of the Lich King ships November 13. Well, that gives everyone else two more months!
* During a stockholder/analyst call, Blizzard disclosed some large numbers: 11 million subscribers, $500 million in profit last year, and a total of $200 million spent on WoW’s expenses to date. Possibly WoW might bail out AIG.
* Speaking of AIG, probably the most clueless comment ever on the interwebs had someone gleefully pointing out that Blizzard’s stock dropped 4% this week because Warhammer shipped. Not explained: EA’s stock also drops 4%, entire stock market also drops 4%. Note to Internet: the financial markets are a bit busy, they’ll get to your “fix my hunter” rants later.
Age of Conan:
* Hey, look, PVP!
* Hey, look, producer walks out the door and trashes his own game!
Warhammer: Age Of War’s Reckoning At War: The Final Conflict:
* LAUNCH!!!! fshhhhhhhhh Looks to be going great, if you play Order. Like Destruction? Hope you like half-hour login queues! Thus proving once again that gamers are suckers for Cockney orcs, barely dressed dark elves, and hopefully not some combination of the two.
* Newsflash: Paul Barnett is not always 100% serious, especially when trashing his own company. Note to Paul: we colonials are still working on that “humor” thing. For example, he’s probably joking when he spends half an interview talking smack about his game’s competitor:
You know, I quite like the fact that we’ve don’t have item damage, and you won’t have to keep spending money to make your sword sharp. That’s cool, that is. I like the fact that you don’t have to run miles from the graveyard to get back into the action. I like the fact that you don’t have to go to someone with a stupid celebrity name to buy a bag to put stuff in.
Well, hey, at least we know now he’s played WoW! Oh, wait:
Surprisingly, he noted that he does not play other MMOs, including the ubiquitous World of Warcraft…. “I can’t tell what is flaw and what is genius in WoW, so I don’t want to get sucked into copying things in case I get the wrong one,” the amusing Barnett continued. “‘No one’s going to play our game unless it also had elephants!’ No. Don’t be swayed. And stop playing World Of Warcraft.”
OK…. so at least he’s seen a screenshot of Haris Pilton on the web somewhere. That is progress!
I’m a WOW player, Lich King’s around the corner and I’m excited about it. Convince me to play your game instead.
I really like Blackpool, it’s marvellous. Got a tower, you know. They sell fish and chips and it’s got a golden mile, a whole mile of things to do. But you know what, I went on holiday to Blackpool 17 years in a row. Sometimes you just want to go to Vegas.
Yeeeah, metaphors like that always go over well.
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about 1 year ago
I’m confused about your link to Tobolds post — he intentionally made a sensationalist title and then explained that it’s not a causal relationship. Or am I missing some veiled humor because it’s too early in the morning and I have a headache?
about 1 year ago
Although I can’t find the link at the moment, I took it as his commenting on a forum post somewhere.
I would like to believe people aren’t that dumb, but history is not encouraging.
about 1 year ago
If you cannot distinguish between what is “flaw” and what is “genius” in WoW, you lack a basic ability to discriminate between levels of feature quality and playability that is requisite for being successful as a designer or producer. If he worked for me, I would fire him.
about 1 year ago
I’m still trying to figure out why people spend money on games that aren’t at least three months old?
The stove. It’s hot. Don’t touch it.
about 1 year ago
I so very, very much hate the evolved use of the ‘crunchy’ adjective. If I find the person who started this I will feed them their own anus.
about 1 year ago
When I first heard Barnett talk about WAR, I liked his enthusiasm. Then, he started trashing Wow, which is my game of choice, it started to piss me off. You don’t gain customers by trashing the competition. Although I have many RL friends that work for Mythic, after listening to Barnett mouth off yet again on how Warhammer is clearly superior to a game he’s never bothered playing, it makes me wish that Warhammer will crash and burn, if only to shut him the hell up.
about 1 year ago
Barnett is the biggest blowhard silicon snake oil salesman there is since Brad McQuaid. His creative director moniker is simply honorific and the only thing he actually produced creatively on the project was a few fucking paper collages plastered on his office wall. He does nothing but spew half truths and churn the hype machine with no real understanding of design at all. I’m glad to see his loose limey lips are getting him into trouble and he can kindly go choke on a spotted dick.
about 1 year ago
Scott, my post is a comment on the various “WAR ships, Blizzard makes this or that change to WoW” posts popping up everywhere. I used the stock drop as an example how you COULD NOT say “A happens, B happens” and create a causal relationship between A and B.
Then I had to delete a bunch of anonymous comments who had only read the headline and not the post. I would have thought you’d be able to read past the headline.
about 1 year ago
Seems like Scott needs to learn how to read. Geez.
As other people have mentioned, Tobold’s post is the exact opposite of what you’re bashing him for. Perhaps you ought to take the time to fully read something before frothing at the mouth and coming back here to talk smack about others.
Are you envious of him or something? Are you having a bad day?
You and Tipa are the same kind of angry, bitchy bloggers that I will take off my ‘daily read’ list. Jesus Christ.
about 1 year ago
Not a word yet on Gaute leaving Funcom?
Everybody is theorizing that his “walking out the door” has been accompanied by a bruised area on his derriere.
Quite fun, also, to see how he’s trying to having it both ways by now trashing his game four months after release… Should we believe him now, or when he used to say what a fantastic game it was? Or was he already being pushed aside before he officially resigned, hence the corruption of his game vision?
What a weird world this is, by the way, in which a blogger who launched a tirade against Funcom in which he name-dropped the Nazis (once linked to by Mr. Jennings) was later able to secure an interview with Gaute’s boss Erling Ellingsen, of whom he had said that in doing interviews he went “the route of lies, delusion and outright idiocy”. It’s one thing to be independent from the industry; quite another to be rude to demonstrate it.
It’s a combination of too many factors — such as this interview which Ellingsen would probably never have granted unless something big were about to take place, the release of Warhammer, the phlegmatic announcement of his replacement as though it was just another day at Funcom instead of a cataclysm — that makes it difficult to believe that Gaute wasn’t helped in his decision.
about 1 year ago
My mistake. I had read the story (speculation to the contrary) but thought you were commenting on forum posts and explaining how they were silly.
Hell yes, I’m jealous. His paycheck is in euros.
Sorry if you just now figured out I am an angry, bitchy blogger, though, despite my 10 years or so of prior art to that effect!
Well, aside from where I wrote about Gaute leaving Funcom in this exact story, no.
about 1 year ago
“Well, aside from where I wrote about Gaute leaving Funcom in this exact story, no.”
I meant the lack of response in the comments, not your initial post. My bad for not making it clearer. Still, I’m wondering if there is any lesson to be derived from this, either for Funcom specifically or for the industry in general.
about 1 year ago
[quote] I’m still trying to figure out why people spend money on games that aren’t at least three months old?
The stove. It’s hot. Don’t touch it.
[/quote]
so SO true. I made the same stupid mistake and bought Spore on it’s release day.
I enjoyed the hell out of the game, for about 3 days. The amount of gutting that was done to Spore somewhere between the concept art and demos we were all watching months ago to release would put most butchers to shame.
about 1 year ago
There are thigns i’ll purchase on release, such as the next gothic type game from Pirhanna Bytes or the next Malfador Machinations release, and sometimes even a paradox strategy game. Maybe even something from stardoc.
But that’s becasue those companies put it all on the glass, talk about what you should expect from thier games and then provide absolutly fucking astounding customer support. well, maybe not paradox, but pretty good customer support.
everyone else can take a swim for a few months first.
ok, sid meir still has the key to my computer pants.
about 1 year ago
“ok, sid meir still has the key to my computer pants.”
Er… Good to know. I guess.
about 1 year ago
@Octopaganini
Isn’t his main role within mythic to build hype? Sure his title says he is creative director, he comes up with the crazy, the wacky and the cool, then leaves it to others to fill in the details.
He has done an amazing job at building up Warhammer. MMOs need people like Paul to get them the attention they need and the hype to get them on to a running start. Granted they need the content and stability to back up the hype (AOC anyone?) but the hype is where the money is in the short term.
about 1 year ago
@ Vetarnias
it’s just that his games are kinda fun and timeless.
the re-release of pirates was still just as mind-bogglingly addictive as the c46 version and i’m looking forward to colinization with glee.
There are things i don’t like about civ, and col. and pirates, and railroads! but for the most part they’re pretty fun
and that’s mostly what i’m looking for, so i pretty much have a high rating of the Sid Meir ‘brand’, while my trust levels for any MMO is along the lines of ‘we’ll see if the servers are still up in six months’
about 1 year ago
@kazamx – I can’t wait until the WoD MMO is closer to release and Justic Achilli can start giving interviews. Acerbic and attention grabbing dickery do not begin to describe. Some of his greatest hits can still be found on RPG.net.
The only redeeming quality is that his random drive by inflametory comments are generally amusing. I’ve been flamed in person by him and i even had to laugh.
about 1 year ago
Calling Scott an angry, bitchy blogger is about a decade late. Nowadays he is using “Lum the not so mad any more” as nickname.
Don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill, I just didn’t express myself clearly enough, and Scott misunderstood me. Happnens. No biggie.
about 1 year ago
NO NO I AM STILL YOUNG AND FEISTY!
DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM!
…dammit
about 1 year ago
-gets off Lum’s lawn-
about 1 year ago
Maybe I missed a link somewhere or don’t understand sarcasm or humour (either is entirely possible I guess) but I don’t see how saying you are dissatisfied with various aspects of the game an that it could benefit from fresh eyes is… trashing your own game.
Because if that warrants as trash talk about your game… then wow.