NYT on World of Warcraft

The New York Times (registration required) has a piece on Blizzard's World of Warcraft, discussing the game's popularity and high sales. The article also examines the design processes that go into the game, and the artistic outlook of the WoW live team. From the article: "From around a dark, windowless room, nine young men peered into the unfinished virtual interior of Karazhan, a haunted tower set in a forlorn mountain pass that will open later this year. 'As you can see, the architecture is a little ornate, a little Gothicky,' said Aaron Keller, a 29-year-old designer, gesturing to the 3-D model on the computer screen before him. 'We're thinking about turning these arches into horse heads.'

Comments

Graphics

[Lobishomen]

The incredible thing about the World of Warcraft isn't how beautiful it looks, and it is beautiful. What I find amazing about the game is how fluid and eye catching it is with such low end hardware requirements. They really did an amazing job.

And to beat the inevitable rush of complaints, the Hardware issues are much improved over release. When speaking about the World of Warcraft everyone seems to have selective memory. There hasn't been a majorly anticipated MMORPG launch in the history of internet gaming that didn't have bottlenecks.

Re:Graphics

[Chi Hsuan Men]

I did not pre-order this game as I had been completely put off by other MMORPG experiences, specifically DAoC, SWG, FFXI, and a free trial of AO. These games amounted (to me anyway) mindless grinds and felt more like work than anything else.

I was HEARING great things about WoW, but I was convincend that playing these other MMORPGs that I will feel the same way: suckered that I spent $50 on a game I hated after a week or two of playing.

So, I stayed away from WoW. I was hearing great things and was starting to cave in to the temptation of buying a copy. I was on the fence when I hear about the server issues due to player volume. When I finally decided I wanted to get the game, there were no copies to be found anywhere; however, a week later, a couple of copies appeared at Target, and I snapped them up.

For anyone who has played a MMORPG and liked the concept, but hated the gameplay, try WoW. You will love it. The only time I have felt like the game was a grind was because I actually was grinding my skills. The second I was tired of it, I just stopped, did a quest, and I was adventuring again.

This game is so good, it convinced two of my friends who are stalwart enemies of the pay-to-play MMORPG to start paying to play this game. If I was a movie producer, I would call the game a "MMORPG Morrowind", but even better than that.

I have experienced MINOR server outage problems; however, I do have a 9-5 job and have other hobbies besides gaming, so it's possible I don't experience the issues as much as "hardcore" players.

I cannot say enough good things about this game. It is the best RPG I have played since Baldur's Gate II. I never thought the MMORPG could be done this well.

Re:Graphics

[Sentry21]

And it should be pointed out that the server hardware problems were because they had planned for 600k users over the next year, and had fully expected to find bugs and bottlenecks in their code over the course of their increasing userbase.

Suddenly, they had all 600k users in a month, and they had a year of bugs and bottlenecks to fix immediately.

Honestly, I now see the reason for World Passes. FFXI was flawless (as much as one could expect) during it's NA PS2 launch.

Re:Graphics

[arkanes]

If you like Blizzards graphical style in general, you will like WoW. It's very similiar, for obvious reasons, to Warcraft 3. For example, the buildings in towns look like the equivilent buildings in Warcraft. The engine is average, it's not Half Life 2. But the quality of the art, as opposed to the quality of the engine, is top notch.

Re:Did I miss the memo?

[Moby Cock]

What have they done that they are good again?

They released World of Warcraft.

Medivh's Tower!

[Godai]

w00t! They must be talking about Medivh's Tower in Deadwind Pass! A lot of us old beta hands have been waiting to get in there. Given Medivh's prominence in the history of Azeroth, it promises to be an absolute bounty of Warcraftian lore!

Plus, Deadwind pass is just spooky. I mean, it just reeks with atmosphere =) How can the big instance in that not be cool?

Re:Did I miss the memo?

[CrazyJim1]

Bnetd are your friends? They publish a public server to bypass the copy protection on Blizzard games and they're your friends? Maybe some people like software pirates as friends, but I don't get it. Why was Slashdot moved by the plight of BnetD? I used BnetD when I couldn't get into beta, and I actually later bought a beta and with the knowledge I gained helped Blizzard directly with War3(if you saw war3 early beta, you laugh at the imbalances). So in a way BnetD was good there. But when Blizzard released War3, the only way the pirates could play would be to use BnetD. You can't log into BattleNet with a pirated CDkey, its pretty good copy protection.

Re:WoW, EQ2, DAoC, et al vs. IGE.com -- when?

[sgant]

Actually, I see this as the "next big thing" in litigation.

First we had the RIAA going after Napster and Kaaza and others...can still get .mp3's but it's no where near as easy as it was with Napster.

Now we have the MPAA going after P2P bittorrent sites...fight not as easy as it was with Napster...but they're still throwing out lawsuits as fast as their little junior associates can print them off.

Next I belive the game companies are going to not only go after pirated games (already been doing this to mediocre success) but also going after IGE type companies and game cheaters and hackers like on Steam.

Will it work...probably as well as the others have done...meaning making a small dent yet not really doing much.

Re:Did I miss the memo?

[DarkBlack]

Just because someone decided to use the software for that purpose doesn't mean that the sole intention of the developers of the software was to pirate games. Give me a break. I've used it to play StarCraft games with a legitimately purchsed copy, so don't try and say that it was soley for pirates. I guess nobody remembers the times when the chances of getting a decent game on the actual battlenet servers was crappy at best. That is why it was written and used.

I haven't purchased or played a Blizzard game since and I own all of their titles previous to the incident. They lost a lot of repect from me that day.

Re:Did I miss the memo?

[bonzoesc]

"Bnetd are your friends? They publish a public server to bypass the copy protection on Blizzard games and they're your friends?"

The Bnetd people are like your friends that always bail you out of attending your 6-year-old niece's terrible birthday party to instead film a car chase on the interstate and then all go to an action movie with Samuel L. Jackson followed by Steak n' Shake.

Here's a list of the online gaming communities that are stupider than battle.net:

Beauty is Truth, Truth; Beauty

[Dixie Flatliner]

While it would be unfair to say Blizzard's art department doesn't receive enough acclaim, I think they deserve every ounce of good press and more besides, Blizzard is one of the few developpers out there that uses the quality of their art to act as a central element of their game engines. While the game does sport some noteworthy techical specifcations (pixel shaded post-processing, dynamic distance polymorphic (no pun entended) LOD, and some very sharp specular lighting effects) it is far and beyond their unique art style that makes it such a beautiful game. And style needs no hardware requirements, only taste =)

Re:Did I miss the memo?

[CrazyJim1]

"You directly helped Blizzard with balance issues in Warcraft 3? I thought you designed the game......"

No way man, I had no hand in designing it. I just pointed out a ton of imbalances, and was rewarded with Blizzard friend status from my frequent feedback. It was barely a game at beginning of beta, just a bunch of units with semi-random statistics. Its fun for me when a game doesn't choose to balance their game because I can find imbalances like no other. I was winning close to 100% of my games at start and as things became more balanced and everyone started learning strats, my winning % dropped down to like 85%. I definately would like to design games though, or do more beta testing. I like to be in the development process because I think thats where all the fun is. Once a game's strategies are known by all, the game either becomes paper rock scissors, a twitch fest or a fun psychological battle of wits. I think a psychological game is the best, but they're hard to achieve.

Re:Did I miss the memo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing how somebody brings this up on every WoW post. You've missed it several times obviously.

Most people don't care. An obviously large chunk of slashdot doesn't care.

As soon as you get off this idea that slashdot is one giant mob as opposed to a collection of people who MIGHT have their own opinions that differ from yours, you will be a lot better off.

Re:WoW support is horrible

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard that Microsoft is the most secure OS. I've heard that Iraq has WMD. I've heard that there's nothing wrong with Diebold voting machines. I've heard that IBM ripped off code from SCO.

I've heard that in Soviet Russia, other people think for YOU.

Good gameplay that appeals to casual gamers.

[JavaLord]

has a piece on Blizzard's World of Warcraft, discussing the game's popularity and high sales.

A few of the things I like about World of Warcraft.

1. It's not a real 'grind'. You get an experence bonus for being offline, so you don't have to feel like you need to play all the time to 'keep up' if you are the keep up type.

2. There is a good questing system, that offers rewards that are at least as good as the rewards (ie drops) you would get from just farming mobs.

3. Decent PvP system. Those who want PvP join PvP servers, and PvP combat is limited enough to not scare off newbies, but prevalent enough to be enjoyed at higher levels.

4. Things aren't too hard. Most of the professions (ie crafting) aren't too comlicated which is nice for a casual player like myself who has a full time job. :)

I think WoW is the first MMORPG to really reach out to and reward casual players, and it's succeeding.

What IGE.com does NOT illegal

[Necroman]

People tend to get confused and think that what IGE is doing is illegal, when it is not. What IGE does is against the Terms that you agree to when you play the game. From the terms I have read from a few MMORPGs that I have played, the only way they will/can do to you is cancel your account. And it is rare that they will even do this.

It is rather hard to prove that any single player is involved in the sale of in-game money. The only for sure way I've ever heard of would be to have the company (Like Blizzard), buying money from a site like IGE, then when the money is delivered, they cancel the account of the person who sent them the money. I don't see many game developers doing this.

Plus, IGE is only the middleman in the deal. IGE doesn't have anyone directly work for them that farms money to be able to sell to other players. IGE pays people as those people sell the money to IGE, then IGE sells that money to some other person. This makes it even harder for them to get caught.

Re:Did I miss the memo?

[DA_MAN_DA_MYTH]

But most of you guys whine and moan on here before logging off to go play WoW on an MS Machine that you paid for with W's tax cut.

Hey Hey Hey...

I play WoW on a Mac.