Project Lore

Let's just get the objective of the post out of the way in the first sentence.  Okay, fine, the second.  Crap.  *deep breath* Give the upcoming World of Warcraft movie a chance.

I understand why gamers are pessimistic about video game movies.  After all, our wallets have been hit by the likes of BloodRayne, House of the Dead and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.  Granted, those are all from the same tax-abusing director, but Street Fighter and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li would also like to lend their credibility to the topic.  There are some "gems" though, Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat, to name two.  We're still a ways off from the World of Warcraft picture, and we know very little (a nice recap of what we do know here), but it's certainly shaping up to be a quality piece of entertainment.  Not some schlock, money in the bank scheme.

Here's why:
Sam Raimi - Raimi is the mastermind of the cult Evil Dead series.  Originally, the series was all about horror and suspense, before it restructured itself as a tongue-in-cheek mockery.  In either form, the trilogy is much loved and appreciated.  More recently he's been in charge of the Spider-man franchise, which has tailed off in quality with later entries.  Surely it was a reason for Raimi walking away from Spider-man 4.

Raimi also has Darkman and Drag Me To Hell under his belt, and has even dabbled in fantasy as an executive producer on Hercules and Xena.  The presence of Hercules and Xena in his repertoire is more important than you may realize.  Rumors indicate that the film may be made in New Zealand (where the shows were done) and he's stated that he wants to stick to the content that makes Warcraft so popular, the lore and lands.  Both settings that are familiar to the fantasy-based TV shows.

Robert Rodat:  You've probably never heard of him, I hadn't, but Rodat is responsible for the action behind Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot, and is reportedly in the middle of scripting the Warcraft film.  He should be plenty capable of putting the war in Warcraft.

Legendary Pictures - Legendary burst on to the movie scene with Batman Begins and hasn't really let up since.  Not everything the company has done is good (Superman Returns), but Beerfest, 300, The Dark Knight, Watchmen, The Hangover, Where the Wild Things Are and Ninja Assassin have shown that the company can take original and long-standing ideas and turn them into blockbusters.

Blizzard Entertainment - Blizzard is incredibly possessive of the company's intellectual property, especially the one pulling in $1 billion a year.  Nothing gets released with the company's logo on it without complete an udder agreement by the suits.  That's the very reason that the official WoW magazine has been delayed so much.  Blizzard wouldn't release it until it was spit shine perfect.

If Blizzard allows Activision to do a game based upon the movie, see Street Fighter: The Movie (the game), then it's time to worry.

Of course, don't get yourself over-hyped about the movie either.  It's a long way off and, again, this is a Blizzard Entertainment project.  It'll be out "soon."

In early December 2007 Blizzard Entertainment was part of a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games.  The deal was essentially brokered to offload debt France's Vivendi SA had acquired, and give Activision something it severely lacked, a successful MMORPG.  It worked, creating a total (estimated) transaction of almost $19 billion.  In perhaps the most expensive example of monday quarterbacking, Robert Kotick, Activision's President and CEO, admitted to Game Informer that he believed Davidson & Associates was "insane" to pay $7 million, that's with an 'm,' for Blizzard back in 1995.

“That year Activision probably had 60 million in revenues. They said they paid seven million dollars for Blizzard. I’m like 'Are you out of your minds? They’re like a contract developer! They have Warcraft but what else do they have? You paid SEVEN million! That’s insane!

"I was talking to [Blizzard founder] Mike Morhaime the other day and I said, 'You know, I could have bought you for seven million and instead it was seven billion.' [Laughs]
He said, 'Yeah, could you imagine if I had just held out for the seven billion instead of the seven million?'”

You've got to hand it to Davidson & Associates for spotting this diamond in the rough.  With only a couple of quality titles before Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (they were released under a different company name, no less) Blizzard was largely unheard of, let alone highly respected.  Buy Blizzard it did, and D&A reaped the benefits for years to come.

Could you imagine if Blizzard wasn't given the proper time to execute on Warcraft II, Diablo, StarCraft or Battle.net.  Or how meh StarCraft: Ghost would have been when it was forced to ship.  I highly doubt BlizzCon would have ever of happened.  Who knows if WoW would have even been created.  And without WoW it's doubtful ProjectLore would exist!

My brain hurts.  Time to stop contemplating the mass implications to our space time continuum.  Let's just hope things remains solid going forward.

Like the pic?  Then buy the shirt.

And We Think It's Bad In Dalaran Most of ProjectLore's bloggers have been following the whole "WoW in China" escapades pretty closely.  I'm not exactly sure what draws us to the topic, but various voices have touched upon almost every aspect of the struggle to keep our favorite MMORPG up and running in the world's most populated nation.  We've got you covered from the originating factor of the partnership switch, the following lawsuits and outages, all the way to everyone's favorite pastime, gold farming.  And now for the latest installment, WoW's return to China. Seeing as you clicked on the loaded title I will just hit you with the details straight away.  For starters, according to MMOSite.com World of Warcraft saw a one week relaunch in late July (v3.1.3) with millions of players participating, or attempting to.  To get Wrath of the Lich King, and WoW in general, back online the title has been censored in various ways.  Nearly all of the changes have to do with the prevalence of dead bodies (read Undead/Scourge) that are everywhere in WotLK.

• Undead mobs have had their models redrawn to patch up the bare bones (this was done for vanilla WoW and TBC as well).
• Piles of bones, and other items, in the world have been modified to sandbags, sacks of grain and the like.
• Bleed effects now cause black goo to spew from the target.  Many players are joking that it's oil.  It also appears that blood of non-humanoid targets may have been turned green, as seen on this wolf.
• Various spell and talent icons have been modified to remove bones.  Most of these have been replaced with "generic boxes."

Where The Bones At? To me the modifications remove a lot of the sinister, nefarious, and downright disturbing aspects of the Scourge, and even the freed members of the Forsaken.  I do wonder how the Government in question can justify adding a patch of skin to an Undead knee, but allow an Abomination to exist in the title.  Better yet, Thaddius.  The electric monstrosity is "built from the flesh of women and children" for C'Thun's sake. It's unfortunate that the Chinese players can't experience the content as it is meant to be played.  At least they get to play a slightly modified vision, instead of nothing at all. For those of you interested in the finances the 50+ days down may have on Activision Blizzard's stock, it appears that there is little to worry about.  According to the excellent Gamasutra, the company only makes 6% of its worldwide WoW revenue from China.  This is largely due to lopsided contract Blizzard had with The9.  The old contract granted the developer a low revenue stream of only 20%, according to some insiders.  By restructuring to a much friendlier agreement with NetEase Blizzard should begin to pocket far more cash from China.  Enabling the company to make up for the 50+ days of losses rather quickly.  Of course, it remains to be seen how many hourly users Blizzard may have lost due to the down time. The saga continues.

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MythWare, BioIc, thicWare, BioMyth? Have you heard the news?  Electronic Arts is merging Mythic Entertainment, maker of Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, with BioWare, creator of Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic and the upcoming MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic.  EA's announcement, first officially confirmed by Mythic, followed another huge announcement in the video game industry, the purchase of id Software by ZeniMax (the parent company of Bethesda Softworks and Game Studios).  After nothing since E3, the pair of announcements on the same day caught everyone off guard. EA's bombshell was short on details, but here is what we know:

• The "studio group" is still unnamed.
• BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka is now the Group General Manager.
• BioWare’s other co-founder, Greg Zeschuk will become Group Creative Officer.
• Mark Jacobs, former GM/VP/CEO of Mythic, will be leaving EA.

The Mythic/BioWare merger isn't exactly surprising, specifically because it makes business sense to have the developers of MMOGs close together.  On top of better using one's resources, there is also that little issue with Warhammer Online, it simply didn't meet Mark Jacobs' standards for success, 500,000 subscribers and no server mergers.  EA last stated that WAR was around 300,000 and Mythic has already merged servers.  Thus, as part of the on-going restructuring at Electronic Arts, the company has smashed Mythic and BioWare into a “MMO/RPG studio group.” The brevity of the announcement has left me with a few questions:

• Was Mark Jacobs axed for his title's, he was Lead Designer after all, shortcomings, or did he walk?
• Will WAR's post-launch development be hampered by Jacobs loss, or the merger?
• Is BioWare going to take any advice from Mythic, who is far more experienced at MMO developing, or go it alone?  Will they have any impact on SW:TOR?
• Any chance the merger will hinder the development of BioWare's RPGs, Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age: Origins?
• Does the select wording of the new entity, studio group, mean there will be no further layoffs at Mythic?  Perhaps just a new management chain?

Here are my expectations in short; he was likely asked to leave due to the "failure" of WAR and development will continue per usual in the short term. BioWare would be stupid to ignore launch advice and community ideas from Mythic and the company's RPG titles will be unaltered by the merger.  No further layoffs, just a change at the top. From following Mark Jacobs' career at Mythic I would speculate that his departure was a little from column A and a little from column B.  The man played nearly every roll in his formerly small company, which would lead one to believe that he's a workaholic perfectionist and likely a control freak, for better or for worse.  For someone like that selling his company to Electronic Arts must have been difficult, and merging with another developer would be impossible.  So with that in mind, and the sluggish adoption of WAR, Mark likely took an offer to walk out.  Knowing that one of the studio heads, himself, Muzyka or Zeschuk , would be demoted or asked to leave, the choice was probably easy.  No matter which way it went down, we'll likely never know, I wish Mark all the best and thank him for his contributions to the video game industry as they stand. This is by no means at the level of the "Another One Bites The Dust" column, but it is still huge, far reaching industry news.  Are there any other questions that you feel have been left unanswered?  What do you think the company should be called?  Could the move actually make WAR better? For the FPS/RPG fans out there, id Software has detailed exactly why they sold out.  Now for a little bromance; I love John Carmack.  He's clear and concise when discussing business or pleasure, which to him is building unheard of technology, without being arrogant or coating his statements in sugary PR lingo.  Quite possibly, the coolest uber nerd ever. <3 Not to be outdone by a simple WoW blogger, John Romero also chimed in with his thoughts on id. Note: EA responded to the departure of Jacobs this morning.  A spokesperson for EA stated that Jacobs is "a visionary thinker, and one of the pioneers in online gaming and is, at heart, an entrepreneur."  Sounds amiable enough.

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