Is There Hope for PC Gaming?
Nowadays, all we seem to hear about in the gaming world are consoles. It’s all about which is better, what exclusive games are coming out or even when we can expect new ones. But the PC has a place in the gaming world too, doesn’t it? Maybe not.
In a recent interview with VideoGamer.com, developer Peter Molyneux said that he believes the PC gaming market is in “tatters.” And coming from him (a legend amongst PC gaming developers… who has now switched to the Xbox 360 for Fable II), the comment should be taken seriously. Is the PC gaming market declining?
A couple of weeks ago, Blizzard unleashed “Echoes of Doom,” its last major content patch for World of Warcraft before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion releases on November 13th. The emphasis here is on “major.” There’s a lot of new stuff in “Echoes” and it’s taken about two weeks to sort through it all, particularly with the unbearable lag that almost always accompanies a new update. I am here, however, to hit some of the high points of the new content for you non-WoWers, you once-WoWers, and maybe some of you soon-to-be WoWers. (Disclaimer: While it’d be great, albeit sad, if I had an uber-70 of every class, this will have to be written from my experience, which is predominantly of the mage and warrior varieties.)
There are a couple of factors of fundamental gameplay elements that can really make or break a game, like NPC pathing, the camera, or the controls. Of these key components, one of the first things a player will notice is the graphical interface. And, seeing as it’s the primary way the player receives information regarding their character’s status, the quality of an interface can elevate a game from mediocrity to greatness or it can easily break an otherwise positive experience.
In case you spent some time this summer under a rock, in some sort of bomb shelter, or frozen in carbonite, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Funcom’s latest MMO, launched last May amidst much hype and fan anticipation. While the game was initially well-received and sold in record numbers for an MMO without “Warcraft” in its name, subscription numbers have since tapered off. These subscriber drops have been attributed to reasons as varied as the extremely high-end computing requirements of the game to lack of promised features. In a recent interview on Gamespot, director Jørgen Tharaldsen discussed the good, the bad, and the refreshingly realistic facets of AoC.
Millions of players around the world have probably grown sick of grinding the same Burning Crusade content over and over, and therfore are anxiously awaiting the new World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Don’t worry WoW lovers, even if you don’t have the scratch for the new expansion, Blizzard plans on introducing Lich King content prior to the expansion’s release with an upcoming patch.
Start saving your sick days, add Pizza Hut™ to your speed dial, kiss your loved ones good bye(your real life loved ones, anyway), and give your hamster a countdown calendar until it dies of starvation. The 2nd World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, finally has a release date: November 13th 2008. 
Thursday night: a night of either great excitement, or disappointment. This hinged on if you were lucky enough to find an email from Blizzard lighting up your inbox. For most of us, disappointment, though a number of you lucky dogs out there received this most treasured surprise: an invite to the WotLK beta. We have a quick rundown from the past few nights of what we now know, thanks to squelched alpha voices, and the new beta testers.