Recent Betas vs. WoW

So much to blog about... Its a very exciting time right now... but I am trying to spread it out so that I have back up during down time...

As many of you know World of Warcraft (WoW) has been consuming the PC market (and most of our souls) for some time now. With Blizzards 8 million subscribers spending $15+ a month there are many companies out there right now that want a piece of that 120 million a month pie.

Recent news has shown that WoWs population has been on the decline. This decline in population begs an interesting question: Why is WoWs population in a decline.

Is it lack of content? I would think that the new expansion for the game would solve that issue. Perhaps it is that the content has turned stale? Does that mean that people are leaving the game for greener pastures? Perhaps...

There is quite a lineup coming out in the Realm of MMORPGs, lets look at a few:

Lord Of The Rings Online - Lots of words in the title.... even more in the game.
I had a chance to beta LOTRO back a few months ago before its release. This game is hands down for the fans of the books and true role players. The game mechanics are nothing special and offer little more then the ability to follow a story line. It dose however borrow from the school of Guildwars/FFXI where there is a set of Story driven quest that will help advance you through the chapters of the game. There are also minor things that erk me about this game... Like the lack of any true Magic users. Bards play the healing class in the game and "motivate" the players back to health. Thats another thing that bothers me about this game is that you have Motivation instead of Health and numerous other naming changes to basic building blocks to MMOs. This bothers me because it changes the way I have to communicate in a game changing common slang and having to learn new acronyms. I did however say that this is one for the role players. There are some cool things like a fully functioning music system built into the game, and also the badge system that lets you earn titles for completing certain tasks. All in all its a decent try at an MMO and will prob do well in the long run once it starts getting user feedback.

Warhammer Online - PvP galore from the people who mastered PvP
This game is still in Beta and is looking at a 2008 release date. I have played bits and pieces of this game through friends beta accounts and I am really liking what I am seeing. Even though I am not a huge PvPer myself I can definitely see this game making me one. The quests in this game are based around constant PvP taking place in different "Levels" that are defined to keep the PvP to the correct player ages (levels). The PvP taking place in a level will affect how the quests are given to you and what the objectives of those quest are, thus changing the experience each time through the game. Completing these quest will also help the overall end game RvR game play that takes place. All in all it seems like a good mix of PvE and PvP that should keep you on your toes at all time and eliminate some of the down time found in traditional MMOs.

Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising - ...And now for something completely different.
This game is still in Beta and is looking at a 2008 release date. Its a MMO set in a time period that is a little different then the normal run of the mill. There are some cool ideas here including the use of gods... however it is still too early to tell

Guildwars 2:
There is not really any info on this game yet... however takeing that Guildwars was basicly a really long trial and error period... This game should rock something hardcore.

Swords of the New World:
Complete and udder crap...


All in all a pretty exciting lineup for MMORPGers... So much to play so little time to play them... But I definitely see why people are leaving WoW as MMOs move away from a general all in one solution, and move to cater to specific play styles.

Game Over,
Chris Kincanon