Project Lore

I'll tell you right off the bat that I'm not much of an economist. I don't play the Auction House, I don't farm for things to sell, and I only do dailies on occasion (usually if I'm determined to raise my reputation with a certain faction). With the guild vault taking care of most of my raiding bills, I don't usually have a whole lot else to spend money on aside from sending gold to an alt every once in awhile, and that's almost always repaid by the time they hit Level 80, themselves.

I've sat, more or less comfortably, around 4000 gold since Wrath of the Lich King launched. That is, until now. Trial of the Crusader, in all of its incarnations, has made me dirt poor!

Just two nights ago, I finally got the main-hand dagger I'd been looking for, Gouge of the Frigid Heart, off of Twin Val'kyr in 25-man. My guild's core group also likes to run 10-man Heroic on their own time, and wouldn't you know it? Nemesis Blade drops off the very same boss. Now, Nemesis Blade is ever-so-slightly better than Gouge of the Frigid Heart, but I'd already gone and spent 7-800 gold on enchanting it with Berserkering and I honestly didn't have the money left to do it again. So, for now, the superior dagger sits in my bank, completely unused.

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Activision Blizzard CEO Robert "Bobby" Kotick on Thursday said he is "optimistic" about the future of the game industry as "a very low cost form of entertainment, if you look at the dollar-cost-per-hour." CNBC interviewed Kotick, who was in Sun Valley, Idaho, for the relatively secretive annual Allen & Company media mogul conference. Here's what he had to say about Activision Blizzard stocks performing above expectations in a down economy:

While Kotick does not speak specifically about WoW, there were some pretty interesting aspects to the interview that I wanted to elaborate on a bit because they can be applied to our favorite MMORPG. The journalist interviewing Kotick first points out that Activision Blizzard (and Electronic Arts) stocks were performing well Thursday. That's just a snapshot in time showing the trading levels at that point in the day, but if you look at the levels over the past six months or so, you'll see that the values have been rising steadily. Not surprisingly, the stock market apparently was on the minds of many Thursday who attended a panel on the economy at the conference. Although not an expert on the economy, Kotick pointed out that the availability of new hardware and the diversity of gaming experiences combine as a way to satisfy a lot of different entertainment needs all in one punch. As Kotick puts it, "While I'm relatively pessimistic about the economy, I'm very optimistic about the ability for video games to satisfy entertainment needs of consumers." And since we've been talking a bit about the future of WoW lately, I also found it interesting that Kotick said he's been looking at his expectations for Activision Blizzard over the next 5 to 10 years. He said that increasing production values, more effective in-game social interactions and the physical aspects of gaming "are really great catalysts for expansion of our audience; and we're still in the early days of markets like Western Europe, (and) in China." So perhaps WoW (or the next MMO) will be more of a world-wide audience? It seems that Kotick is hinting at that thought, which seems like smart business to me (more subscribers = more $$). Also along the idea of more money, Kotick said that lower the price of hardware, "the more consumers will be willing to purchase (it)." Makes perfect sense to me. Of course, a PC is a pretty hefty pricetag for someone just to play a game. But one would assume most people would have their computer for other uses, as well. What does everyone else make of this interview? Can you think of any other ways in which Kotick's ideas may be applied to WoW or the future of other Activision Blizzard MMOs, or do you think his points were too general to draw any real conclusions?

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A few massive announcements came out of Activision-Blizzard yesterday.  The first few came during their business-laden earnings call with investors.  Turns out that one of the industry's premiere publishers did not have a great end to 2008, posting a loss of over $72 million.  Since Blizzard contributed over $1 billion (with a b) in revenue to the company, imagine how much money they would have lost if they hadn't merged with Vivendi Games.  Granted, Vivendi probably brought their own baggage to the merger, but I would hazard to guess that their cash cow would have covered their losses.

We have plenty more from the earnings call, though. Blizzard's CEO Paul Sams announced that the company would release a "frontline" title every year. When I heard that, I immediately got pissed off at the merger.  I figured it was the end of an era.  The shareholders had finally "won," forcing the company to release titles against their mantra.  While Kotick may spout that Activision would not mess with Blizzard's culture, such a decision must have been brought on by external forces. Then I calmed down, sobered up and thought about Blizzard's future rationally. Blizzard is currently working on StarCraft II - which is being separated into three different SKUs - Diablo III, a third unannounced WoW expansion (we assume), and a new unnamed MMORPG.  That is four distinct projects, spanning six separate releases.  Conceivably, they could stretch those titles out for the next few years, driving StarCraft fans nuts in the process. In reality, Blizzard actually has plenty of projects, in different stages of development, to cover their game-a-year strategy without damaging their reputation. For those StarCraft junkies out there, Sams confirmed that the company would make non-WoW revenue this year.  This puts the good money on StarCraft II's Wings of Liberty chapter seeing a 2009 release. The biggest bomb of them all did not come from the earnings call, but from Tigole.  The EQ2 guild master turned game designer has stepped down from his position on WoW's development team to move to the unannounced MMORPG.  To me, the move puts the game at the earlier stages of development. Why would they want such an experienced MMOG designer to come in at the end of the project?  Polish?  Unlikely. I believe he moved to the new team because Blizzard is finishing up the early design document stages and about to get into the nitty-gritty details.  Thanks for all the hard work Tigole! There is one thing I would love to see from Blizzard, a revival of their old console properties.  New titles for the Nintendo DS from The Lost Vikings, Blackthorne and Rock 'N Roll Racing franchises would be awesome.  It could even give Blizzard a chance to branch out into new IP without too much of a risk, while enabling them to put more titles into the market - something ActiBlizz's  shareholders would love on the balance sheets. What do you guys think?  Is Activision influencing Blizzard like I originally feared, or are Blizzard's ducks just lining up in a yearly fashion?  Would you like to see Blizzard return to their console past?  How will WoW fair without Tigole?

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Sometimes I have to stop and think that I made the wrong choice as far as my professions go. Being a tank I have grown accustomed to always being out of gold due to massive repair bills, but if I had made the smart choice I would have picked a profession to help balance that out. I didn’t. I am an enchanter/engineer, so I have two crafting professions. This means I don’t gather up mats, I have to buy them to level my professions. So it is safe to say I have spent a fair bit of time trolling the auction house looking for good deals. With the expansion being so new, there are lots of spikes and valleys as the market settles on a price for these new materials, but there is one trend that holds true no matter what. You gatherers are making a killing selling your mats! Prices on some of the more sought after mats have been just mind blowing. I know prices vary highly from server to server. But I am guessing we are all seeing the same trends. Being an engineer I’ve had to buy up lots of cobalt, saronite, and titanium bars to level up high enough to craft my goggles. This was an expensive process for me. The prices were just sky high, early on I saw stacks of lower level bars going for hundreds of gold each. Prices for herbs and leather haven’t been particularly low themselves. I imagine that those that are supplying these mats are getting very wealthy from them. I have several gathering friends that have straight up told me they have more gold then they know what to do with. That sounds like a good problem to have? I am pretty jealous of you guys that have built in income everyday from smelting titansteel. I’m fully aware that enchanters don’t have it so bad, and that enchanting mats are fetching a small fortune as well. My priority was leveling enchanting with those mats. Perhaps now that I am at 450 I can start to get some money back there. As far as my engineering goes, I am looking for clouds and gathering eternals… but these income methods seem to pail in comparison to the true gathering professions. It’s clear that there is gold to be had in Northrend if you know how to do it. So how are you doing? Are you gathering up a small fortune? Or are you the one lining the gatherers pockets?

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