World of Warcraft sells 800,000 copies in first three months.

îIn less than three months Ö. [WoW] sold over 800,000 copies in North America. With a subscriber base of more than 750,000 players and peak concurrency of over 250,000 users, World of Warcraft is now the biggest online game in North America.î

Prediction: If Blizzard can lick the lag problems, WoW will become the first-ever, million-subscriber MMOG in North America. Thatís the magical, imaginary line at which experts agree weíll have our first-ever ìMass Market MMOGî (soon to be abbreviated to MMMMOG) in North America.

Wow. Just Wow. (Sorry, I mean WoW.)

It’s no real surprise the game is so successful. It’s an extremely accessible, motivating and, above all, fun MMOG. It recognizes that we aren’t paying $15/mo for endless drudgery or to live some ‘alternate life’. We’re paying $15/mo to be entertained, first and foremost, and WoW’s particular brand of entertainment is easy to pick up and even easier to get hooked on.

Even so, seeing numbers like this being done by a MMOG on the PC just boggles the mind. Even Everquest at the height of its popularity barely broke 600,000 subscribers.

Just amazing, and hats off to Blizzard Entertainment on a truly remarkable game.

The Mac version of the hit PC first person shooter, Doom 3 has gone gold and is due to start shipping on March the 14th. Though think again before you start buying as only the iMac G5, Power Book G4 and Power Mac G5’s will run it as it requires at least a 1.5GHz G4. For more info check out Aspyr’s website

I was wanting to play Doom on my Windows 2000 computer one day but I couldn’t get any sound, not even with VDMSound.  So I looked for a fix and I eventually found out that Doom has been ported sevarl times to almost any system you can think of.  So I waded through the 50,000 ports you can download and found a really great one: JDoom.  JDoom is actually an extension of something bigger, the Doomsday Engine.  Not only does it port Doom to Windows, but it also adds 3D models to the game.  (See the screenshot) JDoom is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OSX.  Long live Doom!

The Doomsday Engine

Upon hearing of the creation of Microsoft’s new console I thought it would immediately be a failure, but I was wrong.  It has long been a fact that first person shooters are best played on the PC, so what changed with the XBOX.  Nothing.  A mouse and keyboard still smokes the XBOX’s dual analog controller, and the keyboard adapters don’t really work very good, although they do give the edge.  Not to mention that the hardware is pathetic compared to the modern video cards and Pentium 4s.  Halo is bearly playable on the XBOX, so why is it so popular?  I have one word, marketing.  Microsoft ground the XBOX and Halo into the minds of people everywhere.  You have to give it up to Microsoft to be able to sell something that is utter crap.  Maybe with the XBOX 2 MS will get it together and make some sort of keypad/mouse combo, for those of us who can’t use the dual analog controller, which is a craptacular way to FPS.

Suffice it to say if I buy a console, I will be buying a Gamecube, if/when the Legend of Zelda comes out, but never a Microsoft console, I’m glad I…
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After being subjected to a month of near-constant talk about World of Warcraft (WoW), I finally broke down and bought the game. I don’t even like Warcraft.

But, apparently it has broken all sorts of sales and concurrent user records. None of my friends can stop talking about or playing it, it seems. One friend of mine runs a videogame store and actually bought a new PC and is getting a broadband hookup, specifically to play WoW. Now it seems that is all he does.

The game had better be worth the trouble I went to get it. Although, to tell the truth, I am a little excited. This is the first Massively-Multiplayer game I will ever play, and I think it will be a unique experience.