GDC and Stuff

I've been following the Games Developer Conference a bit. I mean given how many computer game sites I'm subscribed to that comes as no surprise. Anyway I'm still to get around to watching the video The Evolution of RPG Development Roundtable Roundup which sounds really interesting (since I have a big interest in RPGs as a whole).

There was an interesting talk called Why Does Everyone Like World of Warcraft?. I've never really played MMOs much, they are things I've shied away from due to their recurring fees (for most of them) and their time consuming nature (because I have enough games taking up my time as it is). However I'd say one thing this didn't seem to go into (and the article might not be entirely representative) is the critical mass effect. I've been tempted to join World of Warcraft as a few of my friends who I see less frequently have set up a guild and it would just seem cool to do some quests with them and such. Apparently, according to the report, American gamers (which, apparently, are representative of Western gamers) often join guilds to make friends. Well I didn't want to make friends by joining a guild rather to maintain links to a group of friends (alright I admit that it is a group of dancers :D).

I also read PS3's power will be untapped for years which blames Sony Hardware Team for making the system difficult to understand. Maybe Sony should focus on insuring there is a usable and well documented API then, I also fail to see why "in a couple of years the system will look/play great" should be an incentive for me to buy one for say, umm, the next couple of years.