World of WarcraftMMORPG Merger Announced
I received this press release last night. I figured I would just post it here in it's entirety and let you digest it.
--------------
SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT, SQUARE-ENIX AND BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCE CROSS-OVER GAMING DEAL
- In an unprecedented merger of gaming assets, online gamers will be able to take their existing characters into new and exciting adventures in other gaming worlds.
SAN DIEGO, CA - March 31, 2005 - Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), Square-Enix (S-E) and Blizzard Entertainment (Blizzard), the worldwide leaders in Massive Online gaming, have announced a joint venture where players of any of their games, including the enormously successful World of Warcraft, the granddaddy of online gaming Everquest, S-E's hugely successful online version of the Final Fantasy franchise, and the popular titles Everquest 2 and Star Wars Galaxies, can take their existing characters and move seamlessly into new gaming worlds. Through new technology developed jointly by all three companies, your character will be converted over to the rule set and graphical look of each new game as you transfer back and forth, opening up literally tens of thousands of new gaming possibilities for every player. Players of all these games will suddenly be confronted with not just new zones to play in, but entire new universes.
"We have been looking for ways to add more end game content to World of Warcraft, and this just seemed a natural fit" said Mike Morhaime, President of Blizzard Entertainment. "This gives our players instant access to a range and depth of content that would otherwise take us years to develop through our current schedule. Now you can simply pick up and walk into another universe and open up an entire set of new and unique content"
"The enormous success of World of Warcraft proves that there is a large market for online gaming" said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. "We decided that the best way to tap this market is to combine all of our assets into what is in effect one massive, massive-multiplayer game. By opening up more content and variety like this, our player base can only benefit and thrive."
The details of the agreement will be released in more details later. The current timeline calls for the merger to be completed by May 16th, in time for a complete demonstration at the Electronic Entertainment Expo held annually in Los Angeles. The companies have put together a transition team lead by venerable programmer Raph Koster of SOE that will finalize the details of the changes that will be needed in each game to make the transitions from game to game smooth and consistent. "Some things are going to have to change in each game to make this work" said Mr. Koster. "Expect each class in each game to get altered somewhat to allow them to fit into the new rule sets. We are excited about the possibilities of how this can improve the gaming structure of all our franchises."
Each company will be releasing more detailed statements on their respective websites over the next few weeks explaining to the players the impact of this agreement on their specific games.
About Blizzard Entertainment
Best known for their series Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo®, Blizzard Entertainment (www.blizzard.com, a division of Vivendi Universal Games) is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating many of the industry's most critically acclaimed games. The company's free Internet gaming service Battle.net® provides a forum in which owners of Blizzard's games can play in a multiplayer mode remotely across the Internet and against other gamers from around the world.
About Sony Online Entertainment
Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Digital Inc., is a recognized worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online games, with a subscriber base of over 800,000 active accounts around the globe. SOE creates, develops and provides compelling entertainment for the personal computer, online, game console and wireless markets. Known for its blockbuster franchises, EverQuest®, EverQuest II, Champions of Norrath and PlanetSide®, as well as for developing Star Wars Galaxies(TM): An Empire Divided(TM), SOE continues to redefine the business of online gaming and the creation of active player communities while introducing new genres on various entertainment platforms. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, with an additional development studio in Austin, TX, SOE has an array of cutting-edge online games in development.
About Square Enix Co., Ltd. and Square Enix, Inc.
Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Square Enix Co., Ltd. (Square Enix) develops, publishes and distributes entertainment content including interactive entertainment software and publications in Japan, North America, Europe and Asia. Square Enix brings two of Japan’s best-selling franchises – FINAL FANTASY®, which has sold over 60 million units worldwide, and DRAGON QUEST™, which has sold over 35 million units worldwide—under one roof. Square Enix is one of the most influential providers of digital entertainment content in the world and continues to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation.
------
Updated 4/3/05 - Just wanted to say "April Fools"
Tags: News, WorldofWarcraft
Share This: 
85 comments
Rated: 5 
WoW sould never be compared to FFXI that games just soo pluahh....
populated by gold farmers and rude japanese ONLY people..
Wows networkin may suck but it basically kicked FFXI off its pedistol when it luanched. :)
And EQ blows! get off that train and wage war in WoW pvp you wussies!
but yeah lame 4/1 totally obvious in the first sentance.
Not Funny
And the exchange rate would be 500 gil to 1 copper.
I guess the regulars weren't joking when they said the Karma trolls are out in force.
F you trolls, and here's to hopefully getting back to real rating someday.
Tauren Druid
Occido Fetialis
Doomhammer (Downhammer)
My other deck is a Fairlight Excalibur.
Good job, Alla. ^^
Tristy, 70 Mage; Anayla, 65 Druid
FFXI.
Anayla, Rank 2 Bastok Hume Female
18WHM/10BLM/4MNK
Liable rules are very lax when it comes to satire.
Submitted by: Allakhazam
Now...allakhazam submitting newsletters... :) Intrigueing, I LOVE april fools.
Now play WoW. Cheap huh?
51 Tauren Druid - Server Crushridge
Final fantasy good features:
-switching back and forth from and to all professions/classes with no penalty. You can be all professions permitted by the race of the character.
-purchasing additional characers per login account for $1.
-more versitile and flexible crafting rules with few limitations.
- interesting races -- taru especially could be gnomes?
Wow features that we like
- Graphics and sound that are comical and entertaining
- Quest system that efficiently tracks quests and tells you where to go next.
- Fast healing and fast regeneration of mana
- Fast respawn rate - virtually no waiting for bosses
- Solo play practical and grouping needed for limited elite quests only
- Almost no death penalty
- no body retrieval problems
- relatively safe roads that take you from one zone safe area to another with little risk.
- safe and efficient, hippogriff, bat, boat, and zepplin transportation system.
-underwater adventuring and swimming.
- good raid system.
Everquest
- i am drawing a blank here
Could someone remind me about things that are good about everquests. Mashochists need not leave their favorite things.
A mashochist told me he liked waiting a week for bosses to spawn, waiting an hour to heal, having no safe way to run from zone to zone, being penalized for dying, etc.
Edited, Sun Apr 3 04:28:12 2005
:) Oh, that was my favorite part of the game, yours?
april fool u fools
Should have realized from that a lone not even a offical press release . !!
Very good.
Later
Should have realized from that a lone not even offical press release . !!
Very good
I must say, he got me! I was starting to think "what about the level conversion? the economy, the combat systems, the armor and weapons, how will this work financially for the companies?!" and then I scrolled down to the april fools update :)
and next time dont use I recived casue it made it sound like you were the only one to get it
Sony's graphics and lore
Blizz's playability and customization
...it would rock.
If we got...
Blizz's servers and tech support
Square's graphics and lore
Sony's playability and customization
if you give bizzard a chance, there tech suport so far is then greatest then any ive come cross and there servers what's really wrong with them if they are teling us the truth about them being state of the art .
rember in nov how they said they did not excpt things go this well and it has grown to 1.5 million and still growing . what do you expt. ?
as for wht Square's servers and tech support is like i wouldn't i like to play just one game at a time.
but sony sux's in everything even some of there graphics and lore they got from wow. :))
Eq 2 has border's you really cant turn off ( I love the full screen as defualt EQ 1 did that to me. ) and other thing's in EQ 1 they tred to fix they never finshed.
so my guess is sony has somethnig on WOW so they have to do this or else . IF it's not a joke and who's doing the Merger if it sony say good bye to how game are now. nerf are coming and other things.
I'll keep playing but it wont be fun anymore ill do it just to do it till get so bored i cant anymore.
:(( sony is just to greedy .
Later
Later
As for Sony being greedy....DUH!!! Sony is a multi-billion dollar world-wide corporation. All their on-line games combined is still just a drop in the bucket compared to all their other endeavors. Why would they care about little details in their games like: grammatical errors,broken quests,minor bugs,etc... as long as the games' playable and most players don't care enough to petition their angst,things will remain the way they are.
It would be nice if EQ was sold to a smaller company like Blizzard(just an example). A company that cares about role-playing and fixing all problems no matter how minor. Why do you think Blizzard does such a great job with WoW? Because they care about the little details. Sony doesn't.
Sony's graphics and lore
Blizz's playability and customization
...it would rock.
If we got...
Blizz's servers and tech support
Square's graphics and lore
Sony's playability and customization
if you give bizzard a chance, there tech suport so far is then greatest then any ive come cross and there servers what's really wrong with them if they are teling us the truth about them being state of the art .
rember in nov how they said they did not excpt things go this well and it has grown to 1.5 million and still growing . what do you expt. ?
as for wht Square's servers and tech support is like i wouldn't i like to play just one game at a time.
but sony sux's in everything even some of there graphics and lore they got from wow. :))
Eq 2 has border's you really cant turn off ( I love the full screen as defualt EQ 1 did that to me. ) and other thing's in EQ 1 they tred to fix they never finshed.
so my guess is sony has somethnig on WOW so they have to do this or else . IF it's not a joke and who's doing the Merger if it sony say good bye to how game are now. nerf are coming and other things.
I'll keep playing but it wont be fun anymore ill do it just to do it till get so bored i cant anymore.
:(( sony is just ot greedy .
Later
Later
and if sony gets a hold of this, some things we are doing in wow now , well say good bye to them if anyone rember's how it was before sony got full control over EQ. and things we were told would happen with EQ 1 and EQ 2 , i have yet to see them happen.
and does anyone really think the crossover will work and stay as high a standard as wow has now.
and one other thing about the cross over they said they would do in EQ 1 to EQ2, when i asked about it just before EQ2 came out i was told that was never posted . but i no what i rede.
( the cross over EQ was talking about was to do some EQ1 quest that were going to be needed to connect the two ) and why didnt sony offer to carry over our player's from EQ1 to EQ2 and now they are .
do you all really think it will happen you no how Eq was.
and I 'm going to print this one out so i have the prove when it all goes another way. i ll just post it were every i can .
and if this isn't a Apirl fools joke.
then that would explain why the last few days of wow have gotten so much better and sony had something to do with it .:(( and i was so hoping it was wow a lone.
Square's servers and tech support
Sony's graphics and lore
Blizz's playability and customization
...it would rock.
If we got...
Blizz's servers and tech support
Square's graphics and lore
Sony's playability and customization
...well, this next generation of MMORPG would SUCK.
Tauren Druid
Occido Fetialis
Doomhammer (Downhammer)
My other deck is a Fairlight Excalibur.
Business is business :(
Now last years WoW april fools was the best!
They claimed the new playabe race (just when horde was released in beta) would be a 2 headed ogre, and it would be a "co-op". You would get to chose whatever class you wanted, and both of there "hp/mana/rage would stack" one would be able to control where they go, the other casts while they do it or just watches the fun. (mind you 2 people) It was very convincing at the time (screen shots and everything) then we found out it was april fools.. Damn them.. That would have been soo uber...
/mumbles
FFXI (Cerberus)
Icha, level 52 white mage, retired
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/profile.xml?14650
Edited, Sat Apr 2 07:59:10 2005
Edited, Sat Apr 2 07:58:33 2005
i read the same thing and felt the same way...this is a joke if only bc of giving SWG more claim to popularity than it really has.
Firetree
60 Rogue
Dimitriev = Dwarven Paladin of Medivh
<Dionysus>
http://wow.allakhazam.com/profile.html?98240
they called star wars galaxies popular.
80 Druid Iliketrees
39 Mage Psiweaver
The only downside was after sony nerfed ALL my abilities like they did with my old EQ characters all i could do was run and FD.
man i love Sony, was sure hard to leave em and start playin world of warcraft. But, now i can do both.
Nobol 60 Tauren Hunter/Uther
Nice one Alla.
Free account required to post
You must log in or create an account to post messages.Forum system by Zam