News at Grimwell:

Seems NCSoft just opened up a new studio in Irvine, CA, not far from Blizzard’s offices, specifically to grab part of the WoW expansion pack team (but also to consolidate their Glendale office there). Those people have apparently made the move now, gutting the WoW expack team for the short term, at least. I’ve confirmed they opened the office, but not that part of the WoW expack team moved over.

It makes sense, though; why else open an office near Blizzard when you have an established customer service plant in Glendale, 40 miles away? NCSoft has had a hard time hiring talent to move to Austin, they need and want to get more projects into the early stages of development and they aren’t particularly pleased with the lack of progress on Tabula Rasa… …which shouldn’t surprise anyone when you realize that this is the same core team that spent 4 years and $10 million to get to this same stage with the original UO2).

I don’t even care to comment if it’s true or not or what will be the impact on the game. What I notice is a consolidation of what I considered here and in another long article too dispersive that I chosed to not publish. These devs keep moving from a project to another as the most natural thing in the world and this is enough to make obvious how there’s NO commitment in this genre, no matter of what everyone says.

Responsibility is risky. Commitment is demanding. Nothing good can come from an incestuous industry where these “worlds” are considered disposable and relative already by the dev teams.

Casual players? No, casual developers.

EDIT: Who wants to bet that this will finish on Slashdot? After Geldon calling for Doom Blizzard could get rather upset, two cheap shots coming from the same place and promoted to high-level buzz. I’m not entirely sure if Grimwell made that up in order to mantain his site in the center of the attention.