Monday 30 September 2013

Timeless Question

I was off sailing for the last month (from Booty Bay to Menethil Harbour), when patch 5.4 arrived and the Timeless Isle was discovered, so I only got to the Timeless Isle this weekend. Since then, I've spent all my time there, following the legendary quest-line. I'm not sure what to do apart from that, though. The gear that's dropping isn't better than I already have. I can see that it's great for gearing up alts quickly, but for me, what is the value of these Timeless Coins, or reputation with the long-dead Emperor Shaohao? It's not a rhetorical question, I haven't learnt enough over the weekend to figure out what I should be doing next!

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Chinese Subscribers and MoP

Shogun: Total War is still one of my favourite games. I would love to play a game in a samurai-based virtual world similar to Japan's Sengoku period. I would definitely subscribe to that (especially one that was created by a Japanese games studio, seeped in the culture).

Imagine that you, too, loved such a game. How would you feel if, after playing it for several years, the publishers announced that the next expansion would be set in a world like medieval Europe. Only, because they're a Japanese gaming house, it isn't like the Europe that you know. Instead it's full of Japanese stereotypes of medieval Europe, where people wander about, intoning to you "Priests, pilgrims, pastries. These are what matter most."

Yeah. Now you've got it. You bought the game for its samurai milieu, now you've got samurai wandering around medieval France.

The Chinese subscribers to WoW were originally joined because they were interested in a high-fantasy medieval european-style world. Otherwise they'd have taken up any of the other Asian MMOs. They don't want a Chinese-as-imagined-by-Americans MMO, with a side order of Japanese Pokemon. No wonder they're off to League of Legends.