Some MMO Tidbits

The Warhammer MMO comes out in the middle of September. I know next to nothing about it, but the little of the game play video I've seen does little to distinguish itself from the well-represented fantasy MMO crowd. I don't see this game surpassing Age of Conan sales; AoC may not have been a revolution in MMO play, but it did offer some interesting twists, limb and head lopping prime among them. But I haven't heard anything remotely innovative coming from Warhammer. In fact, I recently read a report that the developers had to scale back the breadth of the content, including removing entire cities.

Xplay reported Blizzard is going a step further in getting current players to recruit their friends. In addition to the standard thirty free days of play for getting a friend to sign up, World of Warcraft also offers players the option to give a friend a free level. In addition, newly recruited friends earn three times the xp when grouped with their recruiter. Those are some interesting carrots that Blizzard is dangling. I'll be interested to see to what other lengths they'll go to retain their current subscriber base.