Grunty, the space marine Murloc!

This week, a “blue” poster on the Blizzard forums, indicating someone of trust and responsibility over at Blizzard community, announced on a forum post talking about Blizzard’s next big game the following:

We have nothing to advertise for the new MMO because it’s a shell of a game thus far. We’ve already stated it’ll be a brand new franchise, which means the lore, art, and game play are being developed entirely from scratch. It’s an overwhelming process, but a process through which we excel. Our track record supports this.

Kill 12 murlocs with me after the jump!

I’m not sure how excited I am to hear about Blizzard forgoing their boilerplate big name titles to look for something original for their next MMO.  Along with many Blizz fans, I’m sure there were a lot of people waiting to hear about World of Starcraft or World of Diablo or, hell, even World of Lost Vikings.

Blizzard + Activision…Blactivision?

Sorry, sidetracked.  Anyway, Koreans everywhere rejoiced at the announcement of Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 gameplay trailers are out, and Lost Vikings? Well, presumably are still very much lost.

My thoughts are this:  World of Warcraft is a game with a 12 million plus install base.  I have been a fan of WoW since the word “go”, and I’ve played more than my fair share of MMORPGs, so I feel safe to say that they have put out the penultimate fantasy online role playing game.  Yes, it’s not perfect and it’s had its good and bad points, but you put that up against any other MMO out there and it pales in comparison to the glory of WoW.

Okay, here’s comes the deep think.  If their new IP is in skeletal mode right now, it can be presumed that there will be one more expansion to WoW before they start reallocating assets into this next MMO venture.  I’m not sure if that’s how it works; I’m sure that WoW will continue to dominate the Blizzard annual budget for years to come. But everything has its run, and there has to be a point where the Everquest of 1999 becomes the Everquest of 2006;  there’s got to be a point where Blizzard has to decide it’s time to put it’s favorite toy down, ever so slowly, in favor of the newer younger flashier model.

So the question is this: at what point do the game analysts and market crystal ball gazers decide that WoW has had its run, and that it’s time to slowly begin pulling the plug?  As far as its life cycle is going, it continues to draw quite the crowd.  It’s the equivalent of putting a vibrant and healthy 50 year old on life support, and then start putting a drop of mercury in his breakfast every morning.  There’s absolutely no need right now, but if you start forcing it into becoming a terminally ill patient before it reaches it’s rightful retirement age…

So then the discussion gets broken down further.  What kind of new MMO are they planning on developing?  One can assume that they are planning to release another fantasy MMO.  While this is possible, is seems unlikely, as they would be cutting their own throats if they did this.  WoW is the quintessential fantasy MMO, so they would merely be throwing time, energy and money into a self-destructive venture that will draw players from WoW to this new immersive land.

So the fantasy MMO is probably out.  So where does that take us?  Are we looking at a Blizzard MMORPG FPS?  Set in the future?  The present?  Are there spaceships involved?  Just because it’s not Starcraft doesn’t mean they won’t try something out in space.  Or are they going to do the Spore route and completely jump the tracks as far as game concept goes? Will it be (gasp) console based?

Blizzard has been very good to me as far as burning lean muscle mass while I sat on my arse and mined for Thorium ore goes.  It was the game that got my wife playing video games (or game, that’s the only one she’s ever done).  But the idea that WoW has an eventual terminus that is saddening and exciting at the same time.  They obviously can put out some damn good games, so where will the path take them this go around?

Original article:

http://kotaku.com/5252209/blizzards-next-online-game-is-completely-original

Actual forum posting at WoWBlues, the administrator’s name is Zarhym:

http://www.wowblues.com/us/blizzard-going-the-way-of-soe-16903519279.html

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