WoW: Burning Crusade launches tonight
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Jan 15th 2007 at 10:45AM }
The Draenei will be unreleased, the Outlands shall be explored, millions of people will log on to experience Blizzard's World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade expansion -- and the servers maintaining Azeroth will, more than likely, crash. If history teaches us nothing else, it's that whenever WoW receives an upgrade of any form, Murphy's Law is hiding just around the corner. Besides the Burning Crusade launch itself, Gamestop is having special midnight events and a Blizzard game designer spoke about the idea of porting the game to consoles.As previously reported, Gamestop will be holding midnight launch events at many of their stores this evening. Some will have special contests going on and it's best to call your local Gamestop or EB Games to find out if they have anything special planned.
British website Pro-G has an interview with Blizzard game designer Jonathan LeCraft where he speaks about porting the game to consoles. LeCraft says, "You really do need a keyboard to play WoW ... I've seen some mods where people have hooked up WoW to their Wii. When I saw that I was like, well, that's got to be pretty easy to PVP against, honestly. It's not something we're looking at right now." LeCraft goes on to say that due to the money WoW is bringing in we can expect to see another MMO from the studio. We're expecting some kind of major announcement from Blizzard at, or a little before, Min-E3.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
steve @ Jan 15th 2007 11:31AM
Though they may talk about bringing out another MMO, Blizzard is probably also aware that doing so would probably come at the expense of their existing MMO.
If Blizzard did World of Diablo or World of StarCraft, the chances are pretty good that a lot of their populations would come from... World of WarCraft, not from some other untapped parts of the market or other MMOs.
Then again, they could just bundle the two together and charge $20/month and see even more profits.
NothingShocking @ Jan 15th 2007 11:32AM
World Of Starcraft, FTW!
Mike Schramm @ Jan 15th 2007 11:16AM
Don't forget, all the WoW info you need, including reports from the BC Launch, is over at wowinsider.com.
crono141 @ Jan 15th 2007 11:15AM
And how hard would it be to talk to nintendo about the possibility of porting their behemoth MMO to Wii, and requesting support for a WiiKeyboard?
Seriously. When it comes to big projects like that, Nintendo has been known to be quite accomidating.
Matt @ Jan 15th 2007 11:16AM
I agree with LeCraft. As good as WoW is, it's not meant for a console. The control scheme would be absolutely awful. There are just too many actions to efficiently activate one with a control pad.
The console scene really needs to see a good MMO. However it needs to be one built, from the ground up, for consoles. The grinding, the complexity, the massively long play times, it all needs to go. A console MMO needs to be accessible. PC MMO conventions just aren't going to work in that environment.
Grog @ Jan 15th 2007 11:23AM
Maybe enough people will be kept busy by this to finally allow me to get a Wii...
Darkness @ Jan 15th 2007 11:29AM
I'm looking forward to the expansion. WoW has been boring to me for a long time and being able to level up again as well as play a new race with new quests and such will be pretty awesome. One thing we know for sure is that the servers are going to die...and often. Heh, heh.
If Blizz ported WoW to the Wii, I would support it. Being able to play WoW on the big TV would be worth picking it up. Not only that, but I'm sure Nintendo would make drivers for a USB harddrive and add keyboard support if developers were going to take advantage of those functions. I played FFXI on the PS2 for a long time and would do it again for WoW. Demand is there, Blizz should capitalize on that, in my opinion.
Jonathan Tran @ Jan 15th 2007 11:35AM
Yeah they already did a console "MMO" it was called Phantasy Star Online for Dreamcast, and it did pretty damn well considering. You need something that doesn't require a lot of patching (due to nature of consoles), so it would have to be damn well balanced to start. I think their best bet is to make Guild Wars chapter 1 into a console version, since realistically the game's been tested for some time now, just freeze it, pack it, and ship it.
As for other Blizz MMOs... Diablo or Starcraft? I'm sure they have a lot of leftover models/art from GHOST lol
Miharu @ Jan 15th 2007 11:40AM
WoW on Wii: Won't work because it needs high resolution HDTV for the player to be able to see all the lines of text the game requires. Chat log, combat log, all the custom UI's people use... Just think about how hard it is to read websites on Wii without using the zoom function.
Deuce @ Jan 15th 2007 2:25PM
#5:
"If Blizz ported WoW to the Wii, I would support it. Being able to play WoW on the big TV would be worth picking it up."
Actually, you can do that now, if your TV has a VGA port in back. The only problem is that the edges of your picture are cut off on most TVs, which makes parts of your interface go partly offscreen (I used to maintain a mod that addressed this by letting you move everything in your interface around, but gave up after quitting the game, and being screwed over by the changes every patch). It would be nice if Blizz had a "TV option", which would simply move the GUI edge anchors in a few pixels.
trent @ Jan 15th 2007 11:50AM
as far as murphys law... theres already been tons of issues in game. nothing sucks more than running a 20 man raid and seeing all 4 of your tanks simultaneously get disconnected.
Flit @ Jan 15th 2007 11:56AM
Anyway, it's a dumb idea for other reasons. Like it's so hard to find a $200 computer that can run wow anyway. I'm excited for the expansion, and can't wait for the next expansion, which i'm sure will finally introduce new classes (we can hope).
Jestyr @ Jan 16th 2007 2:19AM
Yeah, because WOW would look so amazing in 852x480 (if you buy the component cables). Remember that whole we're not HD part of the WII, I'm afraid it's going to seriously bite Nintento in the butt.
Why is everyone so hell bent on shoehorning everything into the WII.. it does what it does well, but unfortunately it doesn't do much very well unless Nintendo makes it.
Yes I own a wii, yes I love my wii (snicker) but I wouldn't want to play a full featured MMO on a standard def gamecube on steroids on a controller not made for such games.
/endrant
Ashley @ Jan 15th 2007 12:57PM
As a noob to WoW (yesterday lol), I would like for their to be a WoW Console version!
To be honest, nothing sux more than sitting at a desk playing WoW.....I want to be on my sofa, on a big TV! lmao
It WILL happen, it just depends on when! ;)
James @ Jan 15th 2007 1:29PM
Everquest: Online Adventures for the PS2 was fun.
Jonah Falcon @ Jan 15th 2007 1:35PM
I just got a copy from Blizzard this morning after I'd sworn off WoW months ago. Gah.
Pwnut-Butter @ Jan 16th 2007 12:02AM
WoW on a console would be freaking retarded. Unless they made a keyboard and mouse of some sort for it. In which you would still need a small table or something for it. There's no way to use a console's sucktastic joystick controls for an mmo. Hotkey's would be quite limited as well. Ugh.
Darkness @ Jan 15th 2007 4:11PM
Deuce, you can hook up to a TV now, but I don't like how part of the picture gets cut off and I don't want to drag my computer to the livingroom everytime I want to play WoW. Heh, heh. Better to just have it on a console and enjoy it that way.
GrenadesAndHam @ Jan 15th 2007 4:53PM
Bliz has been sending out invitations to folks like me who stopped playing WoW long ago. I'm tempted to jump back in just to see what gives, but I'll definitely wait until after the first week (or month) has passed.
Dan Ryan @ Jan 15th 2007 5:17PM
Want to sit on your couch and play WoW to your heart's content?
Get a laptop. Problem solved.
ky13 @ Jan 15th 2007 5:47PM
I use a gamepad to play WoW. It works great. By using the shoulder buttons for and and the top 6 buttons, I have 24 different actions to choose from.
Nick @ Jan 15th 2007 5:46PM
I think you meant: "The Draenei will be released" or "The Draenei will be unleashed", whichever you prefer.
Zegim @ Jan 15th 2007 5:57PM
World of Starcraft. That would be sweet.
Ray Hayes @ Jan 16th 2007 1:27PM
Played Guild Wars, on my PC, 50" DLP at 1280x720, Xbox controller. Hit A button to target, right trigger to attack, Blck Button for Inventory..keyboard in lap to hit skills...kicked back in my recliner..
Yeah...it can and WOULD work, just laziness on the developers side..