World of Warcraft patch 3.3 trailer

I believe no game but World of Warcraft would be granted a cinematic trailer with full voice over, just for a new patch release. That’s right, patch 3.3 for World of Warcraft is out, and so is the trailer for it.

But that’s OK, that means I get to her the voice of Earl Boen again. They guy who does the voice for the zombie pirate LeChuck in the Monkey Island games, and the narrator in World of Warcraft. Seriously, that guy must have the coolest voice in the world, perhaps only beaten slightly by Christopher Lee.

No more trees for Diablo 3

According to recent speculations, the well tried and well experienced skill tree is pretty much out of Blizzard Activision’s famous (or infamous) dungeon crawler. This comes from a twitter message posted by the game’s lead designer Jay Wilson himself, who states that the skill system revision is in full force. Trees begone! I think it might be a winner.

An action role playing game without a skill tree? That’s almost like eggs without bacon!

The wonderful thing about a traditional skill tree, is that it’s so simple to understand and get into. The intuitive way of presenting the possible character progression is eye candy to most players who don’t want to dig themselves into some complex manual.

Diablo pretty much set the standard for most role playing games with it’s skill tree system. It was further developed in World of Warcraft, which all must agree on has been quite a success, and adapted by most action RPG developers and many traditional RPG developers. Even the hardcore role playing game developer Bioware used this very traditional system in their latest RPG Dragon Age: Origins.

However, Dragon Age: Origins does draw a lot of inspiration from games like Diablo and World of Warcraft, although most harcore Bioware RPG fans probably will refuse to acknowledge this fact. There is a lot of World of Warcraft in Dragon Age: Origins gameplay.

Anyway, where is Blizzard going with this? Are they trying out a more way of dealing with skills, like the system in The Elder Scrolls games? Or have they invented some new incredible skill sytem that is even more intuitive and easy to understand? Final Fantasy XII had its chessboard stystem. Is that a possible source of inspiration?

At any rate, it ought to be something interesting, since the developers obviously had allready worked out a traditional skill tree system in Diablo 3. Maybe they actually found some kind of meat that actually goes better with eggs than bacon does!

The gadfly bites Blizzard’s cash cow

Activision Blizzard is getting sued, and the filer is none other than the infamous Erik Estavillo. Estavillo has previously filed law suits against Microsoft; Sony and Nintendo, for various reasons, all of them rejected.

The issue this time is Estavillo’s claim that the game progression in World of Warcraft is deliberately set at a low pace, to make sure that playes stay longer in the game and pay their monthyly fee. Estavillo especially makes a point of his character’s walking speed, for some reason.

I wonder if anybody really had any doubts that this is part of the game design. Of course Blizzard designed the game to keep players hooked. Anything else would be terrible game design and a complete mockery of the marketing department.

Obviously, Estavillo is also a complete video game addict, relying heavily on video games for the little ongoing happiness he has left in his life.

Sad story, no doubt about it. Perhaps he should see a psychiatrist?