Blizzard confirms new MMO in development
by Chetz on December 14th, 2007


Earlier this year Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of the world’s most popular MMO game “World of Warcraft”, sent their fans into overdrive by announcing that a new game project would be revealed at a Korean “Starcraft” gaming convention. This lead to much speculation that the game would be a new MMO, possibly even a “Starcraft” themed massive multiplayer game. Job postings by Blizzard looking for programmers for a next gen MMO only helped to fuel the fire but when the day arrived the mystery game in question turned out to simply be “Starcraft II”.

Now that several months have slipped by and the hype has dissipated it appears that a Blizzard representative has confirmed that there is a secret MMO game in development at the company. In a discussion thread on the Blizzard forums about the merger between Activision and Vivendi (which owns Blizzard) a Blizzard rep let loose the first official comment about the rumored MMO by saying “It is an unannounced next-gen MMO and that doesn’t mean an expansion for World of Warcraft either.”

Even that brief sound byte was enough to get the buzz brewing again on gaming websites. “World of Warcraft” has been the world’s most successful MMO and generated hundreds of millions of dollars for the company. Even the verification that there exists a new MMO from Blizzard may be enough to trigger the company’s parent stock to rise in value.



http://www.slipperybrick.com/2007/12/blizzard-new-mmo-game/


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Next generation MMO? Hmmmmm.... I am suspicious.

World of Warcraft is a HUGE cash cow for Blizz. Why would they want to split their target audience between two MMOs? That means double the servers, double the maintenance, and double the support for the same market demographic. That is unless they think that a new MMO would allow for penetration into a new market.

But, that "next generation" comment is interesting. If they are talking about a significant advancement in MMO gaming..whether user interface, graphic quality, story arcs, whatever...you could have a game that draws people away from WoW, thus making it obsolete. So, could it be that Blizz's long-term business plan is to gradually phase WoW out and move to new material? After Burning Crusade and the Lich King, how much more of the WoW story can be told in an MMO environment?

Hmmmmm.....

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Diablo 3 ftw.

Alright, since the cat is out of the bag I can fill you guys in.

Blizzard contacted me about making World of Stofecraft (WOS). In this game you will play a stunningly attractive character who looks like me. You will follow me through the epic day to day activities of waking up, shaving, going to work, working out, then sitting like a zombie in my basement playing warcraft while watching ESPN. There will be 25 man raid content of trying to convince my wife to let me buy a new computer, and 5 man raid content of trying to convince her that the bathroom does not need remodeling.

~Stofe

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This is true, the daily quests involve avoiding doing dishes and getting your wife to bring you a beer.

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Diablo 3 ftw.

Yes!

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"If what you're seeing is an open book...Thats great. Well, I'm an open book. But I'm real shy." ~Blue October, "The Answer"

lol stofe! well anyway to be honest i never liked warcraft...the only reason i started playing it was because VJ and Shagy told me to join them and try it out. I have always been a huge starcraft fan though. loved it when it first came out and beat it like 20 times.

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