Ashes of Creation: First Thoughts

When I first learned about this game, it seemed alright. I put it on a list of upcoming games to watch and kinda moved on. Then, I heard some odd things about their battle royal mode that they kept messing with when everyone was wanting more information on the MMO and felt like maybe it was going in a weird direction. Add it to the list of probably dead on arrival games (or dead before arrival, in some cases). However, I saw this video (embedded above), a video that many, many people apparently have watched and enjoyed, including Asmongold and Summit1g. And after I saw that video, well, it’s back on the top of my interest list for future game releases. This in development MMORPG has such broad focus including: PVE, PVP, crafting, politics, religion, exploration, world building (literally). I’m going to discuss some of the things that really set this apart for me after the break.

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Daily Thoughts: The MMO That Could Beat WoW

It’s 2011. World of Warcraft is hailed as the largest (and argued by some to be the best) MMO on the planet. WoW boasts 11-12 million active subscribers. Brighthub lists Aion as WoW’s closest competitor at 3.5 million users, which is only a third of the player base. Though if we bend the definition of MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online – though usually requiring a permanent world)  just a little, we find that Blizzards behemoth already has been trumped and by no small margin. Zynga’s Farmville, the Facebook app, has somewhere between 60 and 80 million users – easily 5 times the player base of WoW. So, hasn’t Zynga already beaten Blizzard? Not quite.

First, we need to remember that Farmville isn’t truly an MMO. Is massive and has many players and is online, but it doesn’t have a true persistent world such as WoW or Aion. Second, FV clearly isn’t trying to be even the same type of game. It’s more so a social networking past-time. A place to loiter for a few minutes a day in between status updates, as opposed to an hour sucking beast that WoW or other MMO’s can be. But MMO gaming companies need to realize, it’s 2011 and social media is king.

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