The posting of Monday’s podcast has been delayed a day, sorry about that. This week is fairly long, and the Gaming History gets into the venerable Sega Dreamcast, which still has some developers making new games for it.
Otherwise, this week’s news items include:
- Assassin’s Creed series will have end, assures Ubisoft
- EverQuest Next gameplay revealed, accepting beta registration
- Blizzard confirms Project Titan overhaul, “unlikely to be subscription-based”
- EA claims freedom of speech in NCAA lawsuit appeal, court rejects it
- Region-based factions will be in The Crew
This week’s Question of the Week: “What makes you decide to preorder a game or console?”
Sony’s been putting a lot of effort (read: money) into the PlayStation 3 product line with very little impact in the market. They’ve got this “10 year plan” but haven’t really executed a strong plan for their first two years of said plan. Sony’s plan seems to be “outlive the competition’s technology” while all of its competition stomps on their sales and market share with older and a bit “outdated” products.
The long awaited Wrath of the Lich King is here! By long awaited, really, I mean, I waited a long time to get patch after patch of the next expansion to Blizzards best of MMORPG. Although I don’t know the architecture to creating the patches, it seems so dated in methodology. Why must I download 5GB of patches when one can just supply me with an option to pull everything.
@To assassinate the series
I dropped the series at Assasin’s Creed 2; shortly before Brotherhood came out. I want to pick it up again and catch up to number 4 but the prospect of playing 3 games to do so is daunting. I can see why people want an end to the series. In fact, there seems to be a rising interest in the resurrection of Prince of Persia franchise. I miss the platforming action. Being able to climb everything is technologically impressive. But it can never beat the platforming on an environment blatantly constructed for your climbing abilities.
@Is Everquest the “ahem” Next big thing since Warcraft?
I hate the title. To me it sounds very stupid. There definitely should be a word after the “Next” bit. Getting back to the topic, I hear people say the new Everquest could be a Warcraft killer. But I don’t think there ever will be a Warcraft Killer. Warcraft was a one of case. It was a right game at the right time at the right place. In 2006 I became obsessed with MMOs. The concept of playing alongside thousands of people was captivating. Not having a credit card, I tried to find a free to play MMO. But they were few and far between. Most were crap. People played Warcraft because there was not much alterative.WOW was good. And it had a lot of people. Which made it even more popular. Now there are way to many choices. People flock from one MMO to another. A game that has full servers on relase becomes a desolate wasteland shortly after. So, as I said, there will be no WOW killer. There will never be anything like WOW ever again. MMOs will exists in cycles. They will have a lot of players on release. And will steadily decline after. Just like any other MMO today.
@A game about America made by British and French. This cannot possibly go wrong….
So which coast is London? I bet they will place us under the Immigrants division. And charge us
same numerical prices but in pounds. I will admit, the idea sounds intriguing but it might spook the foreigners. If you don’t know the US geography, it will be just like playing Skyrim.
Unknown locations. Dangerous roads. And locals that tell you to get out of their country. And the development mix is awesome. If there is anything that the British hate more than Americans it is the French…
@QOTW
After the Duke Nukem Forever fiasco, my pre-order policy changed significantly. I only pre-order a game if I know it’s good. I pre-ordered Halo 4. I pre-ordered Battlefield 3.I will most likely pre-order GTA 5. The advantage of getting them on release is that the Internet won’t spoil you the fun bits. I often pre-order games with a strong multiplayer component, because that is when they are the most fun. I never pre-ordered a console before, because back then it was a considerably large investment for a student. I was going to pre-order a PS4, but I am continuously swaying towards the Xbox. I think I will just end up waiting till January and see how both consoles do. Most next gen games that I want to play won’t be released till 2014 anyway.