Posts with tag IGN

Jennifer Leigh knows games -- she finished 5th at the Poker Royale: Battle of the Ages series. She's known as Jennicide on PokerStars, and finished "in the money" at the World Poker Tour in 2006. Other folks might know her from May's issue of Playboy magazine. In a recent interview with the RPG Vault on IGN, she talked a little about her history with games and World of Warcraft.

WoW's the only MMO she's played recently, but she's been known to play Everquest, Guild Wars, and others. She picked up World of Warcraft during a losing streak of poker, and figured paying Blizzard a monthly fee was would be less painful than continuing her streak. Of course, she runs into the same problem many people do: while she loves her WoW, she has trouble explaining to people who don't get it.

She's surprisingly open about her server information. (For the record, she plays a Night Elf Druid on Proudmoore, and helped found the guild Fate and Fury. Also, she's planning a Blood Elf Warlock.) Between this and the politicians coming out of the closet, I can't wait to see what other interviews crop up.

• Game is playable (pray for a demo at Blizzcon), but nothing is final.
• Protoss Zealots have their psi blades and shield, along with a new charge ability. There's a new Protoss unit called an Immortal, with a shield that activates when damaged-- looks like they're already implementing Paladins then.
• A new Protoss unit called a Stalker can blink around-- Blizzard wants Protoss to quickly put an army anywhere on the map.
• Three more new Protoss units: Colossus has long legs and can move quickly, Warprey is a flying unit that does more damage the more it focuses a ray on a target, and a Pheonix can overcharge weapons, but have a cooldown afterwards.
• Zerglings can now become suicide bombs in a kind of rolling form.
• There's a physics system in the game-- destroyed units can roll down ramps.
• System can handle at least 100 units at a time, and looks "similar to SC1 - both in unit and map designs." It must be 3D, though. Right?

Well, okay, maybe he doesn't *like* it like it, but Richard Garriott (aka Lord British) certainly appreciates the existence of the World of Warcraft. In an article I came across over at the WoW Vault on IGN, the creator of the Ultima series, and the Ultima Online MMO, discusses his feelings on the juggernaut that is WoW.

The article quotes an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, where Garriott states, "We commonly get the question, is World of Warcraft a big competitor that might hurt our sales? It really turns out to be quite the opposite." He then goes on to comment that MMO players typically will only play a game or two at a time, but then move on after a year.

I've been happily playing WoW since February of 2004, so I'm into my third year of the game, and nothing else has caught my eye in the MMO market. There are a couple of games on the horizon, but of the folks I'm playing WoW with, the majority have been around from the get-go. Are we just crotchety old-timers who won't admit that the average player only sticks around for a year?

Is what Lord British says true? Did any of you ditch other MMO's to come to WoW, or have you ditched WoW for other MMO's after playing for a year?