The show notes will be up tomorrow (unless Drae drags his vagina), but if you follow me on Twitter you know I’m none too thrilled with Blizzard right now. The greed of Activision is starting to show through.  Listen to Pugcast 43: Rantcast to hear exactly how I feel.

The short version is that in my opinion Blizzard is coming across as taking the easy way out. I could completely fathom the creative hands sitting in a meeting and saying “what can we do with the minimal amount of work but the maximum amount of return.” They’re a business. Making money is the name of the game. I’m pissy because I see a company that used to have a massive passion for making video games changing in the name of greed. They are the fucks rolling need on an item they already have.

“Back in my day” we used to take computer games and mod the hell out of them. Warcraft didn’t even look like Warcraft in some cases. Is that wrong? No. It extends the life of a game. The engine is why you spend the money. The mechanics of the game are what make it great. I equate it to a FPS. Take Half-Life and the countless mods that came out for it. The new trend in which is happening is that the developer locks the code down and you have to buy the mods. Once upon a time the devs were all about the community being so into their game that they tweaked it and made it live on longer. Now it’s all about the quick return. Starcraft 2 will be no different. If someone in the community mods it, you’ll either have to hack your copy or submit it to Blizzard. The way I understand it, they can sell it. It’s all good because the kids today don’t know any different. I see myself getting less for my money.

The exact reason why I didn’t buy the reskinned my little pony mount was I do not personally find one mount worth about HALF of an full expansion. Thats my personal choice. As a consumer I feel its a rip-off. If you don’t, good for you. Enjoy the mount. If Pepsi starts selling me a six pack for the price of a 12 pack, I’m going to stop supporting Pepsico. Same deal here. I see the focus shifting and I don’t like it. It’s my opinion that I don’t like where it is all going. If you bitch in the community you hear “talk with your wallet and leave.” I am really torn as to what to do.  The fact that I’m torn, pisses me off.

On one hand I feel strongly to not support this game. If the strings weren’t attached I honestly would have left when the first mounts went up. The strings are attached though… I do a podcast that people have enjoyed enough to spend money to transfer their characters to play with us. I feel like I owe those people. If I stick around, I’ll probably grow to absolutely hate this game and Cataclysm could see my final departure from the game.  If I take a break, I could see myself coming back for Cataclysm and having a blast. Would I have a guild to come back to though? I wouldn’t hold it against anyone to hate me forever for leaving. I agree it would be a pretty shitty move, but do they really want to play with a bitter douche bag?

God damn you Blizzard. God damn you.

A game like LoTRO is really appealing to me. It’s a completely different style of MMO. Sure the controls are mapped like WoW, but to call it a clone is bullshit. It does so many little things along with all of the big things that it stands apart in my opinion. It doesn’t have my friends though. I could retreat to Lotro to blow some steam off and come back refreshed, but again, am I a traitor to those that came to an oceanic WoW server to play with us?

Well, this isn’t a professional blog post as much as a diary entry. lol. So I’m going to make dinner and think about it some more… just like the past week… I have until Tuesday to decide. That’s when my WoW account re-ups. (I’m a one MMO person. $15/mo is it for me. So there is no play something else AND WoW for a while until the spark is back.)