With the announcement that EA is buying BioWare (along with Pandemic and the current parent of both companies, Elevation Partners) for $860 million, it seems that a range of past, present, and future MMOs will be part of the EA brand.
But is it a brand that can challenge Blizzard?
Is it a brand that can eclipse SOE?
EA has done some good things. They have had some games that have outshone Blizzard in the past.
But they have also shipped a lot more crap than SOE.
I took a little time off from other characters and played my Horde character in World of Warcraft for a bit this week.
Garnatz, an orc hunter, is not my only Horde character, but he is the only one I have really bothered to play beyond the mid-teens.
Another hunter. I think I have four hunters on three different servers. It is a fun class to play.
I got Garnatz out on a whim. He was something of an experiment. I decided I wanted to see the world from the Horde side of things. And, as I have said before, the experience in WoW on the Horde side was different, up to a point. Then Stranglethorn Vale shows up and you end up on the same ride as the alliance side.
Not exactly the same. In STV the experience at least starts off a little different, plus there is a Horde camp in the middle of the zone, so you are not constantly running from one end of the zone to the other. You can fly between the Horde camp and Booty Bay, which took enough of the edge off of STV, at least for a while.
When I last left Garnatz, he was about a quarter of a level shy of 40.
He was also rich.
At least compared to the rest of my characters he was rich. Characters on my account with more than 100 gold on hand are a rarity. Garnatz had over 900 gold when I logged in.
Back when I was playing him, I had decided to try to maximize cash flow with him.
I used the Auctioneer addon to play the market.
I picked up and sold everything I looted.
I managed to get a cheap deviate fish recipe and went into business selling Savory Deviate Delight to those Horde with the desire to be pirates or ninjas.
I even avoided trade skills… well, for a while.
All in all, I found that if I focused on it, I could make gold.
Of course, there were some advantages for Garnatz. On his server, like so many, the Alliance outnumbers the Horde at around 2 to 1. This meant that the auction house was much less competitive. I was able to sell quite a bit through the auction house, much more successfully and much more lucratively than I was ever able to on the Alliance side. There were enough people there to fuel demand, but not enough to swamp supply.
So I decided I ought to finally get him to level 40. I ran him off to the Bandlands, scooped up a few quests, and went out hunting with his faithful cat, Shredder. Here they are:
You may recognize Shredder. He is, of course, The Rake, the cat that used to be every hunter’s favorite first pet. I should actually trade him in on a new pet. With four hunters, I have worked through most of the pet types and have settles on the wolf as my favorite.
In not too much time, and without too much struggle, Garnatz hit the magic number.
It was time to recall back to Orgrimmar and spend some of that saved cash.
Level 40 is a much bigger deal in WoW than level 50. Not that level 50 isn’t special. It is an accomplishment and you do get a pile of skill updates, but at level 40 you get your first mount. And, as a hunter, Garnatz also got the upgrade from leather to mail armor.
So I went to the auction house to upgrade some of his leather armor to chain. Of course, as I mentioned above, the Horde side of this server has lots of buyers but few sellers. So I was thwarted for upgrades. I managed to find some shoulders and chest armor, but otherwise the market was bare.
Life on the Horde side.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 