Heavy lies the crown

The proverbial "word" to your respective female parental unit, ya'll.

Our second WoW Saturday went well, though I hear it all fell apart after I left (serving to further feed my inflated ego to such a point that it is becoming difficult to walk). Even so, we fell upon the fel orcs and naga like a tide of righteous judgement, cutting through their ranks as though they were so much chaff, and from that grim harvest was procured some phat Priest lewts (lol).

The MMO market is trying to recover from the juggernaut that is World of Warcraft, and there are several companies that are gearing up to take on the crown. SOE now has Vanguard, which from all reports is a faithful tribute to Everquest (indeed, I have heard it called "the game Everquest 2 should have been"), while Games Workshop is whoring itself out to a few different companies to deliver both a Warhammer Fantasy MMO and a Warhammer 40k MMO. Age of Conan is also slated to be released this year. As you can see, several of these games are hoping to play off of brand recognition, but to be brutally honest this has not proven to be a winning strategy. WoW is established, and to perform a true coup de'tat, one of these companies will have to do what WoW did: namely, they'll have to do what WoW does, but do it better.

There are several ways to go about doing this. One of the best ways (and the tactic that several of the above mentioned MMOs are suing) is to focus on PvP. PvP in WoW is...okay. It's not bad by any means, but Blizzard's efforts to improve their system have met with varied success. Their new Arena system shows promise for those willing to put in the time, but casual PvP has been dead for a long, long time. There's no such thing as scaling PvP rewards in WoW, and some would argue (myself included) that the PvP system was better when there were no rewards.

Another thing to touch upon is content. Azeroth is huge, but by the time you've hit 60 you've seen it all. Blizzard has put out some awesome content for free (several instances, the Battlegrounds, various class changes and tweaks), but when it comes to keeping their end-game players busy, Blizzard has really dropped the ball. Their expansion content has been awesome...but there's only been one expansion, and if the Big Blue can't deliver another one within a year, then they could be in serious trouble.

I'm coming up on the end of Zelda, which is dissapointing. I say dissapointing not because the game was short (which it most certainly is not), but because I must once again depart from the land of Hyrule. It's problems may be manifold, and darkness may threaten to descend upon it on an almost daily basis, but for all of that I can't help but feel at home whenever I put on those green pajamas and snazzy hat.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of that beloved franchise. Did I say franchise? I meant institution. They call Nintendo "the house that Mario built", but I can say with total confidence that Nintendo would not be the company that it is today were it not for Ganon's malevolant plans and Link's steadfast refusal to see them come to fruition. Zelda typically fits in there somewhere. I guess. I mean, she hasn't really been an intregal part of the games for close to a decade now, but she's still, you know, there. Her name's in the title, after all.

That is all for now. Peace!