we caught up with developers from five major studios and asked them to describe to us the joys and sorrows of building a persistent world.

In our first part of an ongoing series on MMOGs, we caught up with developers from five major studios and asked them to describe to us the joys and sorrows of building a persistent world. Fortunately, the majority of the studios in question weren't newcomers to WOW WoTLK Classic Gold the genre; they were standing on their own shoulders, using their previous experiences to inform subsequent projects. ArenaNet is one such studio--and their time working on the original Guild Wars went a long way towards what World of Warcraft would become.

Games are already mass market! You're just looking at the wrong kind of game. Angry Birds is huge. Minecraft is huge. A little closer to home, World of Warcraft is huge. For developers, the barriers to entry have never been lower, as evidenced by the thriving and innovative indie movement. For publishers, there have never been as many ways to reach an audience--boxed product, digital, free-to-play, subscriptions, you name it. For players, there are now dozens of ways, dozens of places to play games. As a developer, I have to say, I'm as interested in making games for the billion or so phones and tablets out there as I am in making the kinds of games on the kinds of platform I've supported before. Doesn't a billion sound mainstream? It does to me. We're not in a Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo world anymore.

Blizzard has previously positioned The Crew as the " World of Warcraft of driving games," and massively multiplayer online games of that type usually get a lot of free content in addition to paid post-launch content. As Blizzard VP of digital publishing Chris Early recently said, Blizzard is embracing the latter model as well, as players are more accepting of DLC and Season Passes.

The Crew lets you drive coast-to-coast across America, supposedly with no loading screens. You’ll be able to drive by familiar locations like Mount Rushmore and San Francisco, as well as a desert-based areas with off-road cars. The Crew is scheduled for WoTLK Gold release on Xbox One, PlayStation 4. and PC on November 11. with a beta launching on 
July 23. P2Pah's own Carolyn Petit recently took a trip from Detroit to Miami in The Crew, so be sure to check out her preview for more on the game.