Warp Zoned Presents
Author: Zackery Cote
World of Warcraft’s Next Expansion Should Be Its Last
It’s no secret that Blizzard’s immensely popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft (WoW), has been suffering ever since the release of the game’s most recent expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Whether it’s the pandas, the retcon, or the multitude of changes to the game mechanics, World of Warcraft has lost over two million subscribers since Mists of Pandaria released last September. The most recent statistics released by Blizzard state that WoW has dropped to 7.7 million subscribers.
At one point in 2010, WoW boasted 12 million subscribers, so the number of subscribers has been steadily dropping, and is almost at only 50% of its highest number. Whether this is due to an influx of free-to-play MMOs, a lack of continued interest in the world of Azeroth, or the rise of the MOBA genre, World of Warcraft seems to be on its last leg. According to a recent comment from Game Director Tom Chilton to IGN, Blizzard may have read the writing on the wall. The announcement directly mentioned the next patch for Mists of Pandaria, stating that it would “bridge the storyline between Mists… and the next expansion.” He went on to hint that the next expansion for World of Warcraft would be announced at BlizzCon, which is set to happen this November. I personally believe that Blizzard should make this the final expansion for World of Warcraft, tying up the story of Azeroth. (more…)
Posted in Opinions, PC, Top Story
Tagged World of Warcraft
Metro: Last Light Tower Pack now available
Deep Silver’s Metro: Last Light has enjoyed a great deal of commercial and critical success. How great? The game sold more copies in its first week than its predecessor, Metro 2033, has in three years of being on shelves. The first DLC pack, the Faction Pack, also received a great deal of critical acclaim for it’s exploration of characters beyond the main storyline as well as new weapons and free roaming aspects. Deep Silver hopes to keep the momentum of their game’s success, with three more DLC packs planned for Last Light in the future.
For those of you who have been waiting patiently for the next adventure in post-apocalyptic Russia, the wait is now over. As of today, the second piece of add-on content for Metro: Last Light, the Tower Pack, is officially available on Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live.
The Tower Pack is catered to all you fighters out there who love to get down and dirty with your enemies. It features a combat simulator in which players must fight their way up through a heavily guarded tower. The assault becomes more difficult with each level, forcing players to master Last Light’s unique weapons and deep combat mechanics to reach the highest level. The DLC will also feature leaderboards which will allow gamers to compare their progress and success with other players. The Tower Pack will cost $4.99 / £3.99 / €4.99, but players who have purchased the Season Pass will get a discount on all four planned DLC packs.
The upcoming Developer Pack will feature a fully stocked Shooting Gallery, an AI Arena, and the Metro Museum, as well as a bonus solo mission called “The Spiders’ Nest,” which will offer some new tools for fighting Spider mutants. The Chronicles Pack will consist of three original single player missions that explore the stories of three characters from the original game: Pavel, Khan & Ulman, and Anna. The Chronicles Pack will explore these characters’ side-stories away from Artyom’s adventure.
The Season Pass can be purchased for $14.99 / £11.99 / €14.99 to give players access to all of the Metro: Last Light DLC, as well as an exclusive weapon, the Abzats.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Metro: Last Light
WildStar introduces “play-to-pay” subscription model
If you haven’t yet heard of WildStar, I’d highly suggest visiting the game’s official website and just watching the “Flicks” introducing the two factions. It can sometimes be hard to get invested in the pre-release media and hype that developers try to throw at you, but I haven’t been this impressed by a trailer for an MMO since Illidan Stormrage informed me that I was not prepared.
It’s hard to quantify what is so good about the WildStar videos, but the best way to put it is simply that they’re overflowing with personality. Similar to Borderlands, this game has character rarely seen in modern titles, which have a propensity to take themselves entirely too seriously. Carbine Studios has opted for a more humorous approach, aided by good voice acting. I was pretty much done by the end of Kit’s explanation of the Exiles when she punched the camera man in a fit of emotion.
Of course, with the amount of MMOs going from subscription to free-to-play (or “pay-to-win”), one of the most important questions for any new MMO is what the business model will be. According to a recent announcement from Carbine Studios, WildStar will be a hybrid, with both a monthly subscription model and a “play-to-pay” option. The model is centered around an in-game item called C.R.E.D.D. (an acronym for “Certificate of Research, Exploration, Destruction, and Development”). C.R.E.D.D. can be purchased online with real money and sold for in-game money, which allows players wishing to play for free to grind out a pile of cash and purchase extra game time, effectively “playing to pay.” Meanwhile, players who want to save their in-game gold and can afford C.R.E.D.D. can simply pay a subscription fee. In fact, for extra in-game gold, players can buy C.R.E.D.D. and sell it to others and increase their own stash.
It’s a model that seeks to cater to both audiences who have disposable income but little time (such as people with jobs and/or families) and also players with little disposable income but lots of free time (such as high school or college students). Additionally, by offering C.R.E.D.D. to players who want extra in-game gold for legal purchase via Carbine Studios themselves, the developers hope to cut back on gold farming that is so prevalent in other MMOs. Whether this business model is going to work for WildStar or not, this is definitely a game to watch for in the future.
The closed beta is already underway, and if all goes well, WildStar will be released sometime in Spring 2014.
Infinite Crisis adds Atomic Wonder Woman (and her chainsaw)
For those of you who don’t play many PC games, MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas) have turned into the weeds of the gaming industry. It seems like for every new MOBA that pops up, two more follow it the next day. In addition to League of Legends and DOTA 2, we’ve now got the upcoming Dawngate from EA, Core Masters from Rock Hippo, Strife from S2 Games, and… you get the point. One of the strongest contenders entering the MOBA ring is the DC Comics-inspired Infinite Crisis. Published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and developed by Turbine (The Lord of the Rings Online), the game takes the MOBA formula and puts a DC coat of paint on it. Players battle in classic cities like Gotham and Metropolis, taking control of a cast of beloved superheroes and villains.
WB Games has announced that Atomic Wonder Woman is the latest addition to the game’s roster. You can see her in action in the trailer above.
Hailing from an alternate timeline during which World War III left the world in nuclear ruin, Atomic Wonder Woman seeks to restore the planet she failed to save. Atomic Wonder Woman is a melee assassin (with a chainsaw) who specializes in dealing high burst damage and moving quickly around a fight. Her passive allows her to use more powerful version of her basic attacks, resulting in a decent amount of area damage, and her ultimate allows her to pick a target and charge full force at them. This is not the first time Infinite Crisis has released alternate versions of well-known characters. Already playable in the beta are Gaslight Batman and Nightmare Batman, as well as Gaslight Joker. For those of you who have never heard of these strange, alternate identities, fear not, as Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Joker are all available in their original forms as well.
Infinite Crisis is in closed beta right now, but you can register for access at the game’s official website.
5 Games That Failed Miserably Despite Themselves
Over the long course of gaming history, there have been a lot of bad games; titles like Too Human and E.T. for the Atari 2600 have had notoriously negative receptions and connotations over the years. But bad games are easy to find, especially in today’s age. With platforms like Steam and programs like Kickstarter, ambitious games that would otherwise never have seen the light of day are being released on a regular basis. And for every great indie project like Limbo and Braid, there are literally hundreds of indie games that many of us have never played because they just don’t measure up. However, this list isn’t just going to be covering bad games, because plenty of games fail. Games that fail miserably are games that had nothing but potential going into their development, either because of the companies behind them or the names associated with them, games that would seemingly have to literally try to fail. Here are five games that failed miserably despite themselves. (more…)
Posted in Features, PC, PS3, Top Story, Xbox 360
Tagged Duke Nukem Forever, Game of Thrones, Sonic the Hedgehog
MLG Columbus won’t include StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
Anyone who is a serious gamer knows a thing or two about eSports, and anyone who knows a thing or two about eSports knows that StarCraft has been a staple of the competitive scene for over a decade. We’re talking about a game that almost single-handedly saved an entire nation from economic collapse. The release of the sequel was such a big deal in South Korea that CNN wondered if it would “shake up” the country. Before MOBAs like Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) and League of Legends dominated the competitive eSports scene, StarCraft was the largest draw, with the 2013 Major League Gaming Dallas event featuring a $75,000 prize pool for the StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm competition.
And yet, according to a tweet by the co-founder of MLG, Sundance DiGiovanni, StarCraft II will not be featured at the upcoming MLG event in Columbus, Ohio.
Just so folks know – we are currently not planning to run SC2 at Cbus. Should that change we'll let you know via official channels.
— Sundance DiGiovanni (@MLGSundance) August 8, 2013
Despite being dropped from MLG Columbus, all hope is not lost for StarCraft II fans. Blizzard’s World Championship Series will continue as scheduled, and the North American Star League is consistently running the game as well. However, as of yet there has been no explanation as to why the game was dropped from the MLG lineup, or whether or not it will be coming back in the future. As a staple of competitive gaming and with an incredibly large fan base, it’s hard to imagine a world where StarCraft II isn’t an eSport. Of course, MLG Columbus is still a few months away, so things could possibly change between now and then. Regardless, as of now, MLG intends to move forward without plans to run StarCraft II.
Of course the decision to drop StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm also begs the question of what other changes may or may not be coming for the future of MLG. Will MLG Columbus even include League of Legends or Call of Duty? Only time will tell.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
Ubisoft knows how the Assassin’s Creed series will end
With the always impending release of a new Assassin’s Creed title, it’s hard to tell just what Ubisoft has planned for the franchise. After the ending of Assassin’s Creed III, gamers thought that perhaps they’d finally reached the end of the story. But with the announcement of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, there was a collective gasp, followed shortly by a cry of excitement, as the gaming world realized that the blockbuster franchise was not over yet.
Of course, with Ubisoft releasing a new Assassin’s Creed game every year and continuing on beyond what appeared to be a very conclusive ending to the story of Desmond Miles, it’s hard not to wonder if they aren’t just milking the Assassin’s Creed name for as much money as they can. While it’s definitely true that they are seeking to capitalize on the success of the Assassin’s Creed name, a recent interview with Assassin’s Creed IV game director, Ashraf Ismail, revealed that the powers that be behind the franchise do have an idea of how they want the story to end. Each installment in the series is carefully placed within the framework to progress the story along while still providing a unique, inclusive experience within the game itself.
According to Ismael, one of the key advantages of working with a yearly title franchise is being “able to seed stuff earlier and earlier.” He cited Edward, the protagonist of Assassin’s Creed IV who was seeded in Assassin’s Creed III, as a good example of this. He also claims that this leads to many advances in gameplay, as things that are touched on in early installments become more fleshed out in later installments. For example, the team behind Assassin’s Creed III wanted ship boarding to happen in real-time, but had to be implemented as a cutscene. In Assassin’s Creed IV, the mechanic has been perfected and ship boarding will be happening in real-time. It’s comforting to know that the team behind Assassin’s Creed actually has a plan they are following rather than just releasing a completely insane amount of titles in the hopes of milking their target audience dry.
Of course, this just means we’ll all have to keep buying Assassin’s Creed installments every year if we want to know how the story ends.
Capcom has no plans to resurrect the Darkstalkers franchise again
The world of fighting games has been growing at an exponential rate ever since the release of Street Fighter IV back in 2008. In just five short years we’ve seen four versions of that game, a new Marvel vs. Capcom title (along with one revision), and a new installment in nearly every fighting game franchise ever conceived: Tekken Tag 2, Dead or Alive 5, King of Fighters XIII, BlazBlue: Chronophantasma, Mortal Kombat… you get the idea.
On top of the sequels, we have a few completely new franchises that have made their way into the fighting game market, such as Street Fighter X Tekken, Skullgirls, Persona 4: Arena, and Injustice: Gods Among Us. And now we hear that the old arcade classic Killer Instinct is being revived. So, yeah, on the 12th day of Christmas, the industry gave to me: twelve new fighting games and a partridge in a pear tree. Amongst all of this hype, it’s hard to believe that any fighting game genre could actually be experiencing problems, but unfortunately for Darkstalkers fans, that appears to be just the case.
Things certainly seemed to be looking promising for the franchise with popular Darkstalkers characters receiving a bit of exposure in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Morrigan, Felicia, and Hsien Ko each managed to snag one of the coveted spots in the Capcom half of the game’s 36 roster spots. There seemed to be enough excitement surrounding the game and its characters to cause Capcom to take a hard look at the series, and fans were excited when Capcom announced Darkstalkers Resurrection, which was a compilation of two previous Darkstalkers titles. The goal was both to generate hype for the franchise and to test the waters for future prospects, but according to Matt Dahlgren, Capcom’s Fighting Game Manager, the game did not perform well enough to earn Capcom’s devoted attention.
Speaking to Siliconera, Dahlgren stated, “There is nothing Darkstalkers on the immediate horizon for sure.”
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Comic-Con 2013, Darkstalkers Resurrection