Expacs: The Good, The Bad, and The Pandas

Ok, so almost immediately after tossing up my last post and talking about the mythical "WoW Killer" I had the urge to rant about something that's been bugging me.
Let's just quickly look at the major points in the previous Warcraft story arcs. In the first expac, The Burning Crusade, the players strode bravely through the dark portal to do battle with the demonic hordes. The second pitted the players against the Lich King Arthas and his undead legions. In the third we saw the corrupted black dragon avatar, Deathwing, rise from the depths to try and wipe all life from Azeroth.  And now we have anthropomorphic pandas.
I can't get over it, they've built an expansion on a race that was originally meant as a gag, a joke. I mean seriously, who can take this seriously?

I do believe that WoW is a good game, it's entertaining, engaging and evolving. I know that suspending disbelief is a major part of any MMO but... talking Panda's are just too far off the bridge for me to follow.

No such thing as a "WoW Killer"

For years games have tried to claim the seemingly impossible title of "WoW Killer" and so far each challenger has been unceremoniously crushed. So what's the big deal about this concept?
Well first of all lets look at this from a financial standpoint, with over 10 million subscribers at $15 a month... not a small chunk of change. And that doesn't even cover the online store and micro-transactions. It's definitely a position that most game companies would do almost anything to get.
So there it is, the white-whale. A lot of games and game reviewers have tried to convince the world gaming community of ones superiority over WoW and it doesn't appear that it will end any time soon.

One of the newer challengers is Guild Wars 2. As one of the current leaders in the "micro-transaction pricing model" MMO's GW2 has a fairly strong following and a few tricks up it's sleeve in the form of different game functions. GW2 steps away from the accepted ideology of most MMO's and brazenly states that it has done away with things like the holy trinity of gaming (a party combination of established roles including; Tank, Healer, and DPS), Loot ninjas (people that join groups only to steal or "need roll" on absolutely everything that  drops off mobs), and the removal of expansions.

I know what you're thinking "Hold up, no expansions? No growth?! How the heck can a game stay alive with stagnant content?!". Actually that's not as hard as it sounds. ArenaNet (the developer for GW2) has said that there will be no PAID expansions, every month new content is released into the game, either in the form of holiday events or, the newly coined phrase, the "living story".
All this makes GW2 an incredibly fun and attractive game, but WoW Killer? No. If anything the reality is that GW2 is the alternative, the second person in a 2 party system. It appeals to a different group, that's all.
Truthfully, the only WoW Killer that will ever exist are the Blizz executives. The game will live for as long as they let it and in turn we the players are the ones who decide when it's truly time to let it go.

Starting off with a bang, we've got great news! Ivan Butch and Martin Pezlar of Bohemian Interactive were released three days ago after 128 days in the custody of the Greek governement.

In case you were unaware of the story of this unfortunate pair I'll give you a quick rundown. Back in September Martin and Ivan were on the Greek island of Lemnos, located in the the northern Aegean, they were tasked with taking pictures and doing research of the area for the development of the game Arma III. Research that included taking photographs of the island and it's surroundings, which apparently included a Greek military base... which just so happens to be illegal as it threatens Greek national security. 

So suffice to say their release is good news, however the only real qualm I have about this situation is that the two have been released on bail, meaning they have to go back to attend their trial once the judicial system in Greece stops being on strike. Stranger still is that their bail was a meager five thousand euros... an incredibly small price to pay for the freedom of two men that had been accused of espionage.