Jason Anderson, if he is still lead of FOOL, is enough to make me root for Interplay. And I don’t care much for Bethesda and I defineitly don’t want them making FOOL.
From the interview where Jason speaks about WoW and MMO’s (I think interviewed by Brother None) I trust him to get what made WoW popular, to stay as true to FO as a MMO can, soehow fit these two ideas in a package with compeling gameplay and original ideas. But I’m definitely not sure that it will be released in a stable state without being stripped and gutted at luanch, mainly due to funding. I don’t see much capital being poored into the MMO market in the future for slightly risky ventures, and FOOL by Interplay has to be seen as much more than slightly risky by debt-issuers.
Wild speculation forecast:
I hate to say it but I think Bio’s MMO is the only MMO with the funding and possible appeal that has a chance of being the next cash-cow. But I think it will be short lived as Blizzard has to be working on something as well, and they are far too smart to do an EQ2 with WoW. I’m thinking a World of Diablo that is basically WoW with a different setting and better graphics and slight twists on what they currently offer as content. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken.
I don’t see WHO, after playing in the OB, really taking much of WoW’s market (not a month before WoW’s next expansion). If they released six-months ago, or 4 months from now, but this is just shitty timing.