WoW Offline For 16 Hours

The weekly realm maintenance normally scheduled for Tuesday morning has been moved to this Thursday, January 13, at 4:00 AM PST. As part of this week’s maintenance, we will be making improvements to our current infrastructure to address recent performance issues. Please note that implementing these improvements will extend the duration of the maintenance window to approximately 16 hours. We thank you in advance for your patience during this time; we will work diligently to bring the realms up as quickly as possible.

16 hours? Ouch.

WoW Dominates Holiday Sales

IRVINE, Calif. – January 10, 2005 �Blizzard Entertainment today announced that World of Warcraft has sold through more than 600,000 units to customers in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The fastest-growing massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) has also shattered all previous concurrency records in North America, achieving over 200,000 simultaneous players during the holiday period.

That Was Fast

I quote my own predictions for 2005: Wish: I wish this one would go away, and I may see my wish come true.

Here you go:

Dear friends of Wish:

Unfortunately we have bad news.

After careful consideration of all the facts and analyzing all the data
which we have gathered from the Wish Beta 2.0 test so far, we have decided
to cancel the Wish project.

Our Beta test will end this evening at 6pm EST, and at this time our Beta
forums will close as well.

We enjoyed working together with our fans very much, and we are very sorry
about this development. We wish you the best of luck in the future, and hope
that you continue to enjoy online gaming, even with Mutable Realms and Wish
not being available anymore.

We also wish the best luck to our competitors, and hope that they will not
suffer the same fate as us.

Best regards,
Your Mutable Realms Team

Ethic’s 2005 MMORPG Predictions

World of Warcraft: Will continue to dominate the casual playerbase. Hardcores will move on. Will become the number one MMOG in the USA.

Asheron’s Call 2: Won’t make it to 2006.

Everquest 2: Completely gives up on the casual player market and focuses on the powergamers, thus raping Everquest.

The Matrix Online: I’d be shocked if this one ever gets released.

City of Heroes: Will continue to be strong. City of Villians will be very big for them.

Guild Wars: I hate to call this an MMORPG, but what else can I call it. Will be rather popular but will not be able to remain free of monthly charges. I predict they will find a way to charge people other than the planned “expansion” idea.

Wish: I wish this one would go away, and I may see my wish come true.

Dungeons & Dragons Online: This one has good potential except for one thing: Turbine. Can they erase the stain of AC2?

Middle Earth Online: Same problem as DDO, but this one is already getting the rumors of cancellation (again). As much as I’d like to see this one and give it a try, I’m not hopeful. Turbine, what went wrong?

Tabula Rasa: Square Enix and Richard Garriott. That’s two pretty good things going for you. Won’t be out in 2005 however.

Final Fantasy XI: Will remain strong outside of the USA.

Lineage 2: Suckage will continue.

Asheron’s Call: Will remain a soft spot in many players heart’s, but most will refuse to play it unless they update the graphics.

Anarchy Online: Free game play can be good for the exposure, but it does not help the bottom line. Was one of my favorites and I hope it can get more players. It will hang around for another year.

EVE Online: Will remain popular with math geeks and scam artists.

Star Wars Galaxies: Space expansion a little too little, a little too late. Will hang around but it’s chance for glory is long gone.

Everquest, Ultima Online, Horizons, Shadowbane: Meh, I just don’t care. Go to hell.

What am I forgettting? Planetside. Yes, I forgot Planetside. Thankfully.

Everybody Dance Now

I spent 30 minutes in WoW a week or so ago showing my wife all the different dance moves that the various character races do. She was mildly amused by them and recognized most of them but had problems placing one dance. The one she could not figure out was the male Tauren dance. I knew I had seen it somewhere but could not place it either. I finally remembered where I saw that dance:

It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!

Do You Wish?

Beta 2.0 for Wish is now going on. Not only don’t I care, but it has a tough road ahead of it with everyone and their mother playing WoW.

So I watch with a yawn as Wish passes off of my radar screen for what may be the last time.

Another Alt

I’ve created another alt in WoW, this one a Hunter. I started with a Rogue that got to level 12 and then a Shaman that got to level 21 and now my Hunter is level 10. Something happens to me after a while that I just need a break from a character so I start something new. Always happens, no matter what game. Evnetually something clicks and I ignore the others, but so far, no click.

A Call To Arms

One of the pleasant suprises that came in my Collector’s Edition copy of World of Warcraft was the soundtrack CD. The music is so good that I have been listening to it in my car since the day I got it.

I finally tracked down the Lead Composer of the music (Jason Hayes), and it turns out he has been doing music for Blizzard for something like 7 years. He has gone out on his own now and started his own business. I wish him well. He has announced that he’ll be releasing a CD with all new original music, so I will be watching his site for the announcement. Until then, I’ll leave you with the lyrics of “A Call To Arms”.

Gloria
Honorifice
Pralium Facio
Animus
Gradior Quo
Prodo,

In Excelsis
Precedo
Bellator
Decerte
Adversa
Incurro
Invadoria

Desideratus Fatum!
Desideratus Bellum!