Posts with tag world-of-starcraft

Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? It's not all WoW, all the time! Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all of the other MMOs around -- past, present and future.

	StarCraft II turned into World of StarCraft by enterprising fan World of StarCraft is, by all indications, high on the list of desirable games that have never been announced or even hinted at. It's certainly a universe ripe for development, and it's not as if Blizzard doesn't know anything about running an MMO. But why wait for an official release when you can put the game together yourself?
	The latest RIFT news If upcoming MMO RIFT has caught your attention, the past week had a number of RIFT-related news stories that might strike your fancy. New beta additions? PvP details? New class reveals? Massively has it all.
	First Impressions: Battlestar Galactica Online Last year, developer Bigpoint announced that Battlestar Galactica Online was being developed as a free-to-play browser MMO. Just last week, Massively was able to get its hands on the game and take it for a spin.
	The Guild Counsel: What every leader should know about recruiting Do you like WoW Insider's Officers' Quarters? Then you might like Massively's Guild Counsel. This week, The Guild Counsel tackles the topic of guild recruitment, discussing the right and wrong ways to do it.
	Hello Kitty Online meets Manhattan Hello Kitty Online is near and dear to our hearts here at WoW Insider. We were all excited to hear about the latest HKO update. Hello Kitty Online visits New York City, where the locals have gone missing for mysterious reasons. Find out what happened, and cheer up the victims!
	Week in Review: It's all about souls Don't let WoW Insider do all of the talking when it comes to Massively's best content of the week. The Massively staff themselves have picked out what they think is the best content their site has to offer in their own weekly roundup.

Arena Junkies picked up an interesting tidbit by comparing two different interviews. Rob Pardo, Blizzard's EVP of Game Design, gave an interview to Onlinewelten in which he talks about the next-gen MMO. That interview isn't exactly news on its own. We knew since Diablo III was announced at the WWI that it probably isn't the new MMO, and Pardo confirms that in the interview. "..Diablo 3 isn't an MMO," Pardo says, "So we have another development team."

But what is that new MMO being developed? Some speculate it could be an entirely new property. Well, Paul Sams, Blizzard's Chief Operating Officer, has an interview with Gamasutra that indicates no new IPs are coming soon. "Are we ever going to release a new [franchise]?" Sams says, "I would absolutely say we will at some point. I just don't know when that day will be quite yet."

Okay, so Blizzard's still working on a MMO, but there's no new IP on the horizon. So, what's the next-gen MMO going to be? World of Warcraft 2? World of Starcraft? And if Diablo 3 isn't considered an MMO, then is there a possibility of a World of Diablo? For me, this just means that my hopes of Tauren Marines aren't yet dead.

While not directly related to the World of Warcraft, I'm sure most of our readers are deeply interested in the progress of Blizzard's upcoming sequel to Starcraft, Starcraft II. Just recently, Blizzard has shown off the Zerg cinematic, a reveal that many people have been waiting for, myself included.

The quality on the video isn't super amazing, no copy out on the net right now is. Camcorder ftw. Don't worry, though. I'm sure Blizzard will have a fantastic version up on the Starcraft II website in no time.

Personally, I'm stoked. While the Protoss were always my personal choice in Starcraft, the Zerg had unrivaled style. While I was never amazing at the game, I played it a lot and there was never a dull moment in a match against the Zerg, you always had to be on your toes. The gameplay preview in the trailer looks like they've replicated that experience really well. I look forward to it.

And of course... still holding out for World(Galaxy?) of Starcraft!

[ video via SCLegacy ]

Richard Bartle at Terra Nova asks an interesting question regarding MMORPGs in general, wondering why so many of them tend toward the fantasy genre. Did Lord of the Rings have such a phenomenal impact on our cultural imagination that it made every story (or gaming environment) even loosely based on it more likely to succeed, or is there something deeper here?

The question sparks an interesting discussion which I encourage you to read. It certainly makes me think about WoW in a new light. Suppose we imagine that Blizzard had made a different decision about which franchise to develop into their first MMO: would World of Starcraft have been as popular as World of Warcraft is today if its gameplay was more or less just as good, or is the science fiction environment inherently less appealing to the masses than fantasy?

To me, it makes sense that Blizzard chose the Warcraft franchise over Starcraft (or even Diablo for that matter), not just because it is fantasy, and certainly not just because it draws on elements of Tolkien's literature, but because it draws on a wider range of mythic elements, contains more layers of conflict, and generally provides a greater diversity of opportunities for a new gamer to find something he or she likes in it. What's your opinion?