More Apples

I criticized a fellow blogger for excluding me from his blog roll. Now, I'm not one to complain about not being on a blog roll per say but I felt slighted just a little and I'll tell you why.

You see me and this other blogger have grown very close over the past few months. I thought we had something special. We would exchange tweets and reminisce about farts, bowl movements and his lack of a decent sex life. I had grown very fond of this person, so I decided very early on in our relationship that I would do him homage by placing him on my blog roll. Now, I'm not one to blow my own horn, but I think my blog is pretty darn good, I mean, Kotaku even quoted me recently and I do know a few movers and shakers in the gaming industry, none that would actually come forward at the time of this writing to admit such a relationship even existed but still I know of them. I also feel that being placed on my blog roll is a landmark for any blogger and its a prized position. Your either interesting as a writer or you not on my blog roll. But I'm feel I'm losing you as a reader so I will continue with the true story.

So, I decided recently to check out the blog of my precious and what did I find? I had been omitted from his blog. I quickly brought the vacancy of my name on his roll to his attention, because I have no shame and any traffic is always good traffic. However, in rectifying this slight, I may have under estimated my own true value to this other blogger, my precious, my fart buddy. Apparently, my name is now on his blog roll, but with the added title of "Large Drunk Penis". I wanted to say, I almost weeped with joy when I read it. I never knew he felt that way about me, and therefore, I...

OMG.. really? Am I going to write an entire blog about Scary calling me a Large Drunk Penis? No not really. I was hoping that by rambling, as Scary often does at the beginning of his blogs, that I might come to some type of epiphany by the end of mine. One that I could wrap up into some kind of gaming MMO blog post or metaphor, but I'm really not all that creative.

Well, I could start off by saying that Rift is an interesting game. I've actually chosen not to play in the 5th beta this week because, well, I'm just not sure its the game for me. True as Scary says, apples are all different with different sizes, tastes and even different looks, but in the end no matter what else, they are still apples. But I already have a favorite apple WoW and I actually like it just fine enjoying it. Sure, I know that I'll get tired of playing it when I reach end game and I've gone through all the raid instances with friends, but that really doesn't diminish the enjoyment I get out of the game now. Those that have reached end game since Cataclysm was released are spouting that its the worst expansion Blizzard has ever released and yet, they were the first online to get it and the first to consume all of its content, so its a win win for Blizzard even if those people bail to try out Rift. But I like WoW just fine and I see no need to replace something that works with something thats a big question mark.

Will Rift hurt World of Warcraft? No more than Lotro or WAR did when they got released. A few will play Rift to level cap then wonder, what next? They will start to yearn for WoW. It always happens. People will want the familiar surroundings of Azeroth. Blizzard will drop in some new free content in a few months, about the time people realize that Rift is after all, just like all the other apples in the barrel. Will it sustain a good following to keep it up? Sure. I predict that those playing Lotro, EQ2 or WAR will easily jump over to Rift. A few with be WoW players, but not as many as some predict.

I'm just realistic not pessimistic. I've seen it all before, Tabula Rasa, Champions, Age of Conan and WAR. Enough hype to power a rocket to the moon, but not enough for the return trip. People go because they want to taste the fresh water, but they don't want to stay there. Eventually, Rift will start to merge servers after 9 maybe 10 months and in a year and a half it will be a F2P model. That's just the future. Besides, people forget that SWTOR is right around the corner and I'm sure BioWare has no intentions of letting Rift beat them. Especially with such a valued IP in their hot little hands. No, Rift will go strong for a while, but people will flock back to WoW eventually.

So says the Large Drunk Penis.