I didn’t really think about that. Lets hope their headlining of those items means as much as you think. I pretty much just figured they’d add a dance or two, make it possible to change your hair, and call it quits, but there is more that could be done if they’re willing to.

Just remember. If any MMO company can pull in 3 or more million players in the US and EU they’ll make more money than blizzard with less infrastructure and overhead.

The9 only made 35 million dollars (1st quarter) with over 7.5 million warcraft accounts and Guild wars and the other games they sell. Someday china will be the place to be but not till thier economy supports wages like ours. For now the average chinese player brings in a couple of dollars a month profit on average. And that gets split between Blizzard and The9

Cyndre – OK, I’ll give you that one, but that still doesn’t explain why it took until SOE completely and utterly screwed things up with GoD, combined with the start of mutterings from around the same time of someone (namely Blizzard) actually pulling off “EQ-done-right”, for their expansion sales to start dropping.

Most people don’t want revolutionary changes made to their game (see: SWG). They want evolutionary ones, and that’s exactly the sort of thing Blizzard is very, very good at.

If you don’t believe me, look at the turnover some of these “buy an avatar, dress it up” virtual spaces like IMVU are doing (which feature no “gameplay” whatsoever) and tell me Blizzard’s not taking notes.

Brad McQuaid said EQ once that Velious and further expansions were so problematic because they hadn’t anticipated that many expansions when they designed the initial game. Had they been able to predict EQ’s phenomenal success, they could have planned better so that expansion content wouldn’t undermine earlier content so badly. Maybe that doesn’t explain it all, but it sounds to me like a fair explanation of most of it.

Perhaps WoW is suffering from the same lack of foresight.

If MMOs were not so linear… if they included more unpredictable dynamics and horizontal gameplay (like helping a faction in a non-ranked way, only to be counteracted by another player supporting an opposing faction), then expansions would be more free to add content throughout the game, rather than focusing so much on the endgame.

They are so worried about upsetting the already established communities in their current franchises that they won’t allow themselves to take any risks or develop content that is remotely contemporary.

What I think they are forgetting is that the game itself was a huge risk, and it is risk taking like that-betting what they have on bright creative ideas-that made them into the massive company they are today.

I really love the work blizzard has done. Starcraft 2 is looking promising now, if a little redundant. This next expansion though, looks like it contains even less than the burning crusade did. The BC contained new races and class switches, plus the level addition. This expansion adds a class that only contains 10 levels, showing a lack of work needed to balance and add additional long-term planning. They could have made content for new hero classes to level up, in a fun way, and gain many new abilities over time. Instead the hero class will gain 20 levels, be done with it, and join the raiding masses with everyone else. How droll. I just want the game to take itself in some new directions, or if anything, look at other games that have put out yearly expansions and borrow their models.

People want new races, new classes, and new professions. They also want in-game mini-games, such as the card game being added to eq1 and eq2, or even the gem game added years ago to eq1, and people also want unique new features. The hero class is not a unique new feature. As this article detailed, it is just a jedi rehash.

Does blizzard understand that there is a large community of people who like low-level content? Does blizzard see that there can be fun outside of raiding? Or is it because there company hired so many members of elite raiding guilds that they now focus on this content only? I don’t know. I’m certainly no expert, but I do know that as someone who bought the last expansion, leveled a character to 70 and then cancled, they certainly aren’t getting me to do it this time. The most fun I had playing the game was leveling my first 2 characters from 1 to 60 with my friends. But their content isn’t for me anymore, its for the raiders. Are the raiders even satisfied?

Possibilities?

- The death knight quest will be just too long, costly and difficult to make 8.5M people say “forget it”.

- Death Knight only usable in a raid and/or 1 death knight per party of 5. (UI/Blizzard enforced.)

- Death Knight rune timers. Can only use your big spells/runes once per day.

I’m just rambling, but I’m sure Blizzard is not going to have a bazillion DK’s running around. AND if they do, as soon as DK’s are overpopulated the next hero class will be released. When that is overpopulated, the 3rd hero class, etc.

Before you blast Blizzard too much I think they’re announcing Wrath of the Lich King way ahead of their release date and they will be including more work, possibly a revamp on the 1-58 experience with new content or a increased leveling rate to lessen the grind. I’d expect them to get 1-2 other Hero classes in too, otherwise it’ll be a horrendous mess of things with everybody taking one of their alts through the Death Knight questline and playing them up to lvl80 causing a glut of that class.

Whatever they do I don’t ever forsee it being “enough”, Blizzard just hasn’t shown any initiative with WoW to introduce the ground breaking features the playerbase has continually demanded and they simply continue to stretch out their core game to its detriment.

WoW is really crying out for something to break the norms and challenge its gameplay, and I think its players like us that are the ones to champion that.. However of the 9 million people that make up the WoW playerbase I don’t feel they’re all as jaded or tired as we are, with most being very new to this style of gameplay. Until that other group of players makes their voice heard I don’t think we’ll see any indication of a change within Blizzard to alter WoW’s direction beyond the baby steps they’ve taken in the past.

Regardless of what they do in the expansion it wouldn’t matter for me, I’m beyond re-subscribing as the WoW experience is simply done for me and I’m looking for a completely new experience away from the tired MMO treadmill.