World Of Warcraft Alpha Explored, Blizzard Quizzed

Thanks to GameSpy for its two-part tour of World Of Warcraft, as they "got the chance to get our hands on... [an] early 'alpha' build" of the eagerly-awaited Blizzard PC MMORPG. The author praises the "incredible atmosphere and game speed... solid interface [and] fun quests", while expressing a few reservations about the "[lack of] character customization options" and the "racially restricted zones" in which "NPCs...would automatically attack any members of another race." The preview is closely followed by an interview with designer Jeff Kaplan, in which he addresses questions on design philosophy ("It's very important not to fall into that trap of trying to manipulate your community as if you're trying to run an ant farm") and in-game housing ("We do not anticipate that our player housing system will ship with the initial product.")

Comments

my predictions for WoW

[feidaykin]

I'm a die-hard Blizzard fan. I've played every Blizzard game on the PC, and most of the SNES games. Thus, I kind of know their strengths and weakness. Their biggest weakness (most evident in say, Diablo II) is completely underestimating their fanbase.

Back in the days of the Diablo II stress test, we were told it would be impossible to solo in Hell difficulty games in Act IV. Guess what? That's what everyone ended up doing. It was the standard way to level as fast as possible.

Blizzard has flat out said that WoW is going to be different than other MMORPGs in that it won't require as much of a time investment. So here's what I see happening. The gamers are going to breeze through all of WoWs content upon its release in a very short amount of time, and become bored rather quickly.

I could be totally wrong on this... it is just my prediction. At least one very good thing about MMORPGs is that they are constantly being updated, so hopefully Blizzard can patch in some new monsters/areas or whatever will be needed.

Bottom line, though, is that Blizzard has a track record of underestimating the average gamer.

Re:my predictions for WoW

[feidaykin]

I think some of the content or areas will be locked out when it first comes out. Also didn't they say there are something like 1400 quests in the game? That ought to keep you busy for a while.

It depends on how involved these quests are. Throwing a number at me doesn't really impress me without an average time for completion of a quest. If each quest takes an hour, then yes, you have a lot of content there, but if each can be done in a few minutes... it wouldn't satisfy cross-over customers used to games like EQ, daoc, etc...

When Blizzard flat out says that the game is designed with casual gamers in mind, I really believe that seasoned MMORPG veterans are going to be a bit dissapointed. Honestly, I hope I'm wrong though. The game looks breathtaking.

Re:my predictions for WoW

[fireduck]

The gamers are going to breeze through all of WoWs content upon its release in a very short amount of time, and become bored rather quickly.

while its true that blizzard has rapid fans (who do strange things like getting lvl 50 characters in D2 within 4 days), I think Blizzard is aware of this.

Sure, people breezed through D2, but did they stop playing? No. That's the beauty of the game. You finish the quests, but your now in pokemon land where you "gotta catch 'em all" when it comes to set items, rare items, crafted items, etc.

I imagine WOW will be the same way. Sure the content designers will probably find that some people have used up all the quest content, but there'll be something else in there to artificially keep the player interested.

Re:my predictions for WoW

[frenchgates]

If you are right, that the kind of people who play MMORPGs now will play so obsessively and efficiently that they breeze through the content, this may not matter. There is an untapped market waiting to be exploited.

I was an early beta tester of the original EQ and as it developed it became abundantly clear that, as an adult with a job and a wife, I would never be willing to put the in the time the game required to progress satisfactorily in levels. The time commitment, especially of repetitive activities in the same zones was far too high.

I have been waiting for an MMORPG to come around that has two qualities: most of the time spent in the game is fun, and that I can play a few hours a week and feel I'm making progress. This game seems to fulfill those things. In this over-scheduled age we live in, I bet there are a lot of potential MMORPG players like me. The game that hooks them will make a lot of money.

You Gotta Breeze Pretty Fast

[Bruha]

Blizzard has claimed that WoW will have more content than Asheron's Call (original) at launch than AC has today. I've played AC for 2 years and never touched on 10% of the content there was just that much.

Considering that AC vs Warcraft though you have to understand that Warcraft's world has been around since the late 90's and has plenty of lore and history to build on. AC they're still building the story on a monthly basis. This was one strenght of Galaxies also being that the story has been around in this case for ages and thus they can spend more time on content than working on the timelines.

More history always makes it easier to put in more content.

Still have to see what content they do put in vs what should be there already.

I rather like the *lack* of customization options

[Liquidrage]

EQ was like this as well early on. You got the ability to "stand out" and look different by earning it. You got different weapons, different armor. Standing out was an accomplishment in itself.

There is nothing wrong with this approach, and I hope they don't submit to the "we want everything handed to us" crowd.

Too many games of late hand you this early on. Easily dyed armor, zillions of look combinations (that get covered up by armors anyways).

I remember in EQ beta seeing the people from earlier beta's and they stood out. They had chain or plate armor. They had robes who's origins I could only guess at. Weapons I dreamed about. It made me want to level, to go to new areas, so I could look "cool" too.
I'm not some mad powerleveler or Ebay-er of items. But I am a big item-collector. It's a huge part of the game for me. And when games minimalize an items ability to make you stand out, they are taking away a large part of the fun for me.

Months from now, when a vast array of items flood the world, they can add more customization options. But from the get go, let us have the fun of exploring a new world and let us have the fun of earning our place in that world.

Something about beta?

[JVert]

I'm a big blizzard fanboy but this quote is quite unnerving."We do not anticipate that our player housing system will ship with the initial product."
Golly I renember we were talking about what constitutes beta? Maybe not having all the features?
At the very least i'm going to wait for at least this feature to be added before I buy in. Dangit blizzard come on you've taken along time with this and we've all said "OK, your pacing yourself so you get everything done right? not like these other guys?" 'sure sure'.

Re:Another new mmporg

[KDan]

PvP can make the game significantly more interesting, so long as it's done right. An implementation similar to real life is actually probably the best. ie:

- if you attack another player, you're "flagged" for a period of time (say 30 minutes) so that for that time you have to stay in the game, and if you quit or get disconnected it's as if you'd just got killed (with whatever losses of equipment or xp as usual), and if you get hunted down by your victim or their friends in that time they can kill you.
- if you attack someone who's flagged you don't get flagged, even if they were flagged by someone else.
- if you walk into a regulated area while flagged (eg into town), the local militia will come after your ass.

A lot of areas don't need to be the 'deserted by the law' type - enough to ensure that those who do get to such deserted places actually know that they could get attacked by some random lunatic and take their precautions (keep an eye out, ready to recall if a suspicious character just happens to wander by, or a strong enough party to be able to handle such an event). The pkiller flag, especially if it's visible (eg by a dark halo around your head or something) makes it quite an investment to attack someone - because if anyone else sees you in the next, say, half an hour, they know they can attack you and kill you without getting a flag, if they think they're stronger than you.

The trick is, basically, to make it an expensive action to attack someone. Just like in real life, it should not be something you do casually, it should cost you - in this case, no visit to regulated areas for a while, and shiny "hit me" target aroudn your head - so that basically you don't want to be meeting anyone stronger than you whom you can't trust.

The only times such a system gets out of hand is if there are a significant number of very high-level players who band together and decide to exploit it. Enter horror scenes like the evil clan taking over the fountain in the middle of the city, slaughtering all the guards, and requiring newbies to pay to get water from the fountain! But those should be rare enough to warrant intervention from the game moderators (and with an appropriate punishment the first time - eg demotion of all the involved characters to half their level and loss of all eq), it probably won't happen a second time.

So the result of such a system for the non-pker (like me) is that you know when you're safe, and you know when you're not, and when you're not safe you always have this little edge thinking "what if a bastard walks here and attacks me" and you're on the edge of your seat a little more. It makes the game more interesting.

Daniel

Re:Another new mmporg

[SuiteSisterMary]

There should also be a penalty for attacking somebody vastly weaker than yourself. To modify your example, make the length of time the pkiller flag stays on you proportional to the differences in your rank. Then, make them consecutive, rather than concurrent.

Then, possibly, remove penalties for being killed by somebody vastly stronger than yourself. If a level 30 decides to go newbie hunting, don't punish the poor newbies. Or, just require a certain parity in relative power to even have the option of attacking another player.

Or, make a 'sanctioned' PvP arena, where you can challenge somebody to combat to the death; if they accept, a time and duelling rules are agreed upon, and the two people (or all the combatants; make team capabilities) are transported to the arena, and can safely kill one another.

As long as you keep track of duels, you can easily identify 'professional duellers,' (hell, make some bloodsports, at that point) and flag somebody to refuses to duel for a while, just for fun. Part of the agreed upon rules would be the penalties for losing the duel; anything from forfiture of certain items, level reductions, or even a 'I whupped SoAndSo in a duel' souvenier item.

A duel can be postponed once, for no more than 48 hours, without penalty, or disconnected during, once. When the duel is agreed upon, an alternate time is agreed upon; if you disconnect from the first duel, you'd better show at the second one, or you automatically lose.

Killing somebody in a duel, of course, doesn't get you an automatically negative flag.