Indeed.

 

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As long as the competition is non-existent, they can pretty much do whatever they want.

Their customers have already shown them that they'll throw down 10-25 dollars on just about anything.

 

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Yeah, as long as Sony and EA keep releasing crap MMOs, then WOW can live on for many years. 10 more years would not surprise me in the slightest. Because of the art style, the game doesn't depend on using cutting edge technology to look modern and Blizzard has been doing a good job keeping the game looking nice after 6 years so far.

As for WOW on an MMO. Consoles sell lots of games (partly because the piracy isn't nearly as bad as the PC in my opinion). But those are entertainment systems for the living room, relaxing on the couch. And you really need a keyboard and mouse for an MMO like WOW.

I have an Xbox 360 and a PC. I like play some games on the console and others on the PC. If Blizzard put WOW on my Xbox 360, I might hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse and goof around a little with it on the couch. But I suspect I'd still end up playing it on the PC most of the time. And most console owners probably already have a WOW capable PC as well. So what would be the point of putting resources into maintaining two game codes.

Consoles need an MMO that is designed specifically for them. The MMOs that try to be cross platform just end up being mediocre on both or really sucking on one platform.

For now, but they are gradually taking things away, reducing choices, for example; talents in virtually all specs, in all classes can literally be auto-filled in now because there is so little variation most all end up identical in the end. I think the only reason it is not auto filled in already is to let players can think they actually have a choice in the matter. Most all class rotations are have now been reduced to two to four button mashing which would work fine on a game pad. It is pretty self evident at least to me consolized WoW is the direction they are heading.

Some people call only using 3 buttons a dumbed down version but with a little marketing it will be called hard mode which only the L33T can accomplish. Then the next obvious step would where you could actually tell if person was using a console or a computer by inspecting them just to make sure they were really only using a couple of buttons.

Now they are ready for specific hard mode/console achievements on the bosses. All the cool guilds will force their players to switch to console so they get the required achievements to increase their Guild standing.

And that is the XMas story of how Blizz will move the player base to consoles and anybody left using computers will be called scrubs and full keyboard turners.

TGIF

I think they realized with ICC that you can't sit on 1 raid for a year+ and retain numbers. I think it made it to a recent blue post that they, yes its been said before, hope to increase the speed of getting content out.

This information looks pretty accurate to what I would expect and nothing is all that surprising. So next Blizzcon will be a big ole' D3 year I guess They announced the final class and arena this year for D3 so what else surprising could they say about it now? TBH I wasn't expecting arena.

Project Titan... I want to know more. I am pretty excited for a new IP to come out of blizzard.

 

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