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How They Made World of Warcraft
SiliconJesus writes "Rob Pardo, VP of Design at Blizzard, gave an interesting keynote at the Austin Game Conference outlining the Blizzard philosophy on designing game content, core and casual players, and why story should always drive the game." From Raph's writeup: "If you extend the leveling curve too far, it becomes a barrier. You hit a leveling wall. Our walls are shorter and there are less of them. The short leveling curve also encourages people to reroll and start over. We had some hardcore testers who would level to 60 in a week. There was much concern within the company. But I would tell them that we cannot design to that guy. You have to let him go. He probably won't unsubscribe, he's going to hit your endgame content or he'll have multiple level 60s. In games with tough leveling curves, it discourages you from starting over." More is available from the conference, with Gamasutra having a rundown on Mark Terrano's writer's keynote, and Gamespot's piece on the MMOG Rant session. Paneled by the likes of Matt Firor, Lum, Rich Vogel, and Jessica Mulligan, that must have been entertaining to see live. One more thing - WoW has 7 Million subscribers now.
Large quantities of crack and heroine. Every user...ummm...player knows this.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
They made a pact with the devil?
Stories within stories. Subplots. Etc...
You see, while you are right that nobody will ever be able to 'beat wow', there are still parts of WoW you can beat. For instance, every large 40 man raid comes with a story, some better than others of course. Look at Nefarian and Blackwing Lair. There is a LONG story behind that dragon, the lair, the orcs, and the surrounding zones (searing gorge and burning steppes). In fact, before you ever get to step foot in blackwing lair you have to go through some quests that highlight some of the story and lore. And if you want, you can read up on the particular lore of the encounter you are doing.
Some say "BUT!! BUT!! Once you kill Nefarian he isn't REALLY dead!"
Yea, well, once you read a good book, guess what, you can read it again. This is no different really.
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
By ripping off Everquest?
Take a look at Blizzard's entire track record and there's not really anything groundsbreaking original in there. What Blizzard does it take a good idea, one that has had some success, and they improve on that idea to have *more* success than the previous incarnation. Take Warcraft for example (starting with the actual RTS). It had been done, and most people will point to "Dune" as the innovator. Take Diablo for example, it's basically a roguelike so you could say rogue, nethack, or anything in that genre. Obviously MMO's were not new, Blizzard just took it and molded it to make more money.
I think it's a good thing to have ideas improved upon and perfected like this, and it helps set somewhat of an industry standard for a certain level of quality. I've played just about every Blizzard game ever made, including that stuff with Interplay back on old consoles and they do make fun games, even if it's just taking an idea and going further with it. I have issues with WoW and went back to Frozen Throne, but it was a good year of gaming.
Fear is the mind killer.
the levelling curve in WoW is very steep once you hit 60, after you are, say, 5/8 T2 and exalted with the BGs the impact of rerolling is HUGE, not to mention that very likely you'll be stuck in 'alt city' with your guild (having to pass on gear etc.) and have to always use your main whenever possible.
I can see somebody just hitting 60 with a mix of greens and blues thinking 'hey, that was fun, let me redo it on another character', but the situation is a lot different for the raiding crowd: yeah, it takes a couple of weeks going to 60 (esp. with friends helping you PL and so on), but it takes many many months progressing further, getting your profession's recipes, getting reputation, getting raid gear, getting PvP ranks, etc. etc. etc.
-- the cake is a lie
Unfortunately, this isn't true with WoW.
That is, unless you consider the story while levelling to be:
"Greeting [Playername], we have been expecting you for a while now. We of the [Foo] Brotherhood have been trying to drive back the [Enemy] from the [Place] and are in dire need of some [Animal Anatomy]. Please collect [1..20] [Animal Anatomy] and return to us when you're done!"
[Animal Anatomy] Collected 0/[1..20]
What do they mean designing? I thought they stumbled across this other world during some sort of weird programming experiment and just coded up a way to access that world remotely.
I mean, I know that the characters/creatures/buildings/etc. look like they are made of polygons, but they HAVE to. It would be impossible to transmit that many raw video feeds across the Internet and still have a decent framerate.
If you used the device from the movie Tron then you could get inside and see what it is actually like - but the government won't let you.
Yea, well, once you read a good book, guess what, you can read it again. This is no different really.
You mean you don't destroy yours? I find that burning books after I read them gives them a satisfying sense of finality.
There is something to the lack of long-term effects on the game when you beat bosses, though. The fact is you aren't replaying an entire story arc in its entirety, but repeatedly replaying specific parts of the story in order to be able to progress to the next one, each time failing to see much of an even temporary effect of your actions. It's as if the ending of Dragons of Autumn Twilight had gone:
"And thus did the Heroes slay the Dragon Highlord Verminaard and free the slaves of Pax Tharkas. Then they slew him again, because he didn't drop the helm that Caramon wanted. Then they once again ventured into the fortress, hoping to find a pair of healer boots for Goldmoon. Finally, after the forty sixth slaying and subsequent celebration of the end of the greatly feared Dragon Highlord, the Heroes thought themselves prepared to move on to the next great challenge..."
Still I think it is just something that needs to be accepted as part of the game. They could make it so that you didn't repeat content and at least your own personal trek through the story was unbroken by giving you every relevent item from a dungeon on your first trip through, like a console RPG. Random drops are why you have to go back seven times seven times, but that may be a decent tradeoff for being able to find a group for dungeons instead of everyone saying they've already done it. Stories are great, but they do have to make a game (with thousands of people following the same story) out of it.
I do wish there were more examples of having at least a temporary effect on the world. For example, the quest in the Barrens which summons a mass of centaur invaders. As long as that quest is going on, anyone in the area needs to content with those invaders. They could do a lot more like this, giving the impression that your actions are doing at least something that affects those outside of your own group.
The enemies of Democracy are
Player grows normal character. Player sees difference between normal and hero. Player grinds hero. Hero is more powerful. Content is too easy. New content is generated to challenge heroes. Hero is now mandatory.
The idea isn't meritless, though -- it's just tricky to make it work.
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