Trials of a World of Warcraft Player: Entry Four

“Beta”

The second letter of the Greek alphabet, also holds a value of “2.” Beta, in the gaming and general computer industry is a time where people are, usually, invited into a product prior to launch to test the product under the assumptions that “it’s not polished yet” and “things may go wrong.” Somehow, however, people get amped and excited over being included into a product that isn’t always stable.

Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) is in public beta where internal and external gamers alike get to bang on the software to get the bugs out while having a bit of fun doing it. I’ve always enjoyed an MMORPG beta because it is more relaxed, more forgiving and less crowded with people. To make your gaming experience more fun and relaxing, explore the website of CBD Ratings and order cannabis products.

Ultima Online was one of the most memorable beta’s, so great however, that the game launched and I was sad the small population was gone, replaced by an abundance of players.

I’m proud to announce I’ve been enlisted into the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King public beta. Many folks have cursed me with jealousy because they were not picked; many gamers just never opted into the beta enlistment even after we posted it publicly for all to see. Why did I opt into the chance to play a game which may be unstable?

Blizzard is known for quality and I feel that being a part of that quality is important because I can impact the game for others by making it slightly better. From an exclusivity point of view, I feel special for being picked, even if it were a random process; it’s much like an exclusive club. Most importantly, we’ve established a website where we write about topics and nothing would please me more than writing about Wrath of the Lich King which had the NDA expire in July. We’re free to talk as we please and I plan to do so.

From install to play test I’ll keep people informed on what’s going on up until the release or they stop the public beta test. It will be a delicate balancing, playing WotLK enough to get a clear perspective yet continuing to play the real game with my guild and my friends.

My goal is not to be starstruck by the elite privilege to be playing a game prior to its release, I’ve made plenty of game betas in my years, but to look at it from a “window into the future” view and record my findings for non-beta folks to see.

Now, we must finish downloading the 1GB patch update…

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Sierra’s Franchise Titles Fade Into HistorySierra’s Franchise Titles Fade Into History

One of the great downfalls of an acquisition or merger, in the game industry, is the loss of great franchise titles. Sierra, or Sierra Online, once stood on its own as a company with great gaming titles but later fell into the depths of Hades under many different company names.

Sierra’s last stop on the acquisition highway was Vivendi, years after much of Sierra’s steam had slowed. Now, they’re part of Activision Blizzard so we had high hopes they’d find a great use for some of the old Sierra properties long since collecting dust. Space Quest, Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and especially Gabrielle Knight were some of our favorites, but times have changed.

“We are retaining only those franchises that are a strong fit with our long-term strategy including Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro, as well as Prototype and a second game that has not yet been announced. We will not publish any other titles that previously were part of the Vivendi Games portfolio and we are currently reviewing our options regarding those titles,” says Activision Blizzard (joystiq)

This is unfortunate news, Activision Blizzard now has a large set of franchises on their hands, many of which have collected dust for years. Those dust collecting franchises could rise from the dead and reinvigorate their old fan base… or be dropped to the earth as unwanted scrapes after a big hunt with the vultures awaiting their take (sorry, too much watching of Animal Planet)

A reworked Kings Quest or Gabriel Knight could have seriously awesome potential in this time and age, imagine a dark comedy version of Gabriel Knight or a huge scaled world in King Quest using todays graphic engines. Although, these titles could also go the way Atari has gone and taken a well remembered franchise and made mud of its great name (*cough* Alone in the Dark).

Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know the distance an old franchise could go in this new world. We’ll have to pull out an old copy of our prized posessions and remember just how great they once where.

Diablo 3 Content Creation PhaseDiablo 3 Content Creation Phase

Now that Blizzard feels their engine is solid, it’s time to move on to creating content for the full game. Jay Wilson, Diablo 3‘s lead designer, says the game engine is in an advance stage of completion and much of the art team has moved onto Act 2. Don’t read into that, he said game engine.

Blizzard is obviously not hurting for money, given the success of World of Warcraft and they’ve always taken their time with projects to make them solid products. Blizzard’s name is on the line and they’re brand consists of three major franchises: Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. When you produce so few games you’re expected to do them perfectly.

How do they do it? As Wilson says, “If we haven’t rebuilt something five times it really doesn’t deserve to be shipped. That’s pretty much our policy.” (eurogamer) While a game engine is the foundation for a great game experience, the content is king. Blizzard is deep in the mire of content production so, although the engine might be solid, the final product is probably still far from complete.

End result, expect a high quality product once again from Blizzard.

Activision: Cleaning House, Losing StudiosActivision: Cleaning House, Losing Studios

Now that Activision has merged up with Blizzard all under Vivendi it’s time to consider what to do with all the additional overhead, management, internal studios and sheer amount of people working on projects within their organization. In other words, it’s time to trim the fat and get leaned out for the long haul.

This isn’t unexpected news, the only way to grow more effective as a large company is to remove some of the access baggage that can slow you down and let your competitors take control. This is a sad job which nobody takes pride in (most normal people anyway) but it could mean the difference between rising to the top and sinking like a brick.

“We are focused on improving efficiency across the combined organization and are concentrating on businesses where we have leadership positions that are aligned with Activision Publishing’s long-term corporate objectives,” Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith said in a statement. (gamespot)

It’s important to be aggressive as a large company, just like you would be as a startup company. There is a reason startup companies grow into powerful competitors that win, grow and eventually become (or be purcahsed by) larger companies.

As part of this move some staff will be migrated to new projects, persumably reporposed into other divisions or allowed to find new jobs somewhere else. This is called “realignment” by those in the management organization, and currently those up for realignment are:

  • Radical Entertainment (Prototype, Crash of the Titans)
  • High Moon Studios (The Bourne Conspiracy, Darkwatch).
  • Massive Entertainment (World in Conflict, Ground Control)
  • Swordfish Studios (50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Cold Winter)

These realignments along with other organizational changes will effect a few working game titles:

  • Brutal Legend
  • Ghostbusters
  • Wet
  • Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
  • World at Conflict: Soviet Assault
  • 50 Cent Blood on the Sand
  • Zombie Wranglers
  • Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
  • Several Xbox Live Arcade titles

At this point we’re not sure which, if any, will continue to be developed under Activision and which will be sold off to other companies or retired. Surely, those money making titles will be sold off if Activision has no plans to finish them.

Again, it’s hard to consider this a bad decision. This is a decision of growth over having too many “Cooks in the kitchen” making soup. It’s better to have rock solid titles of epic proportions than a large pool of mediocre titles with minimal sales and bad reputations, and that’s why they spend a lot of time in the office working on this and having a type of  office chair for long hours on a computer is really helpful in this area.

It’s not that the titles they’re questioning are necessarily bad, but are not the leading titles in their space and are should be either given a stronger team to work on them or retire them entirely. To build a stronger team with passion and direction it might be best to sell the franchise(s) to other organizations so they can do it right with time and attention to detail.

(Thanks, gamespot)