Slashdot Mirror
The Quest To Build a Better Warcraft
Red Herring tackles the rush into virtual space, talking about the MMOG goldrush and the business consequences World of Warcraft has had on the games industry as a whole. Though sometimes it doesn't seem to fully understand the difference between a single player game and a Massive one, the article still touches on a number of important points. Lots of folks are looking to cash in on WoW's success, and they're importing or licensing every Massive game they can find to get on the bandwagon. "The problem is that no one knows what the next WoW killer will look like. Creating a hit video game, which combines strong characters, a compelling story, and top-notch production values, is part art and part inexact science. Making a hit game can be much more difficult than producing an Oscar-winning movie. After all, the hit video game must be compelling enough to keep players coming back for more." Even if a lot of their conclusions are odd, and they call Puzzle Pirates silly, it's worth a look. What do you think it's going to take to crack Blizzard's deathlock on the Massive genre?
The content is all that amazing in World of Warcraft, but the game engine is second to none. Make a game engine as good as WoW's, with the character animation, UI and scripting support and you've got a WoW-killer. Until then they are just bad immitations.
Anyone looking to make the next WoW killer would be well advised to look at the way Blizzard went about it. A MMORPG is not something that can be turned out in a couple of years with a standard development team to make use of some film licence; it takes significant investment, in terms of time, manpower and cash. Of course, that's not to say that using existing fictitious worlds as a starting point is a bad idea - MMOs need a lot of content to sustain them and getting the appropriate intellectual property owners on board could make sense. I think a lot of the obvious licences have already been used for MMOs though (Star Wars, the Matrix and Lord of the Rings spring to mind). End-user involvement is critical to the success of a MMO game. Any MMO game that is developed behind closed doors and then unleashed on the world is doomed to failure in my opinion. Extensive alpha and beta programmes open to anyone willing to participate are something the industry are going to have to get used to. If your game is any good chances are that the guys you had playing in beta will spread the word and you'll have a ready made subscriber-base when you go live.
Pokemon MMORPG.
I'm being serious here. It's one of the most popular game franchises, and well-known to non-gamers as well. The consept and playstyle lend themselves well to MMORPG gameplay. All that's needed is to take the good stuff from popular MMO's, mix them together with the Pokemon brand, and you'll have a game that'll get ten times the amount of players WoW has.
Is it perfect? No. Could you make a game that simply improves on its mistakes? Possibly.
But what are its mistakes, and are they really mistakes or are they fundemental parts of the nature of MMO gaming.
It would be easy to think that you simply visit the WoW forums, note down the complaints of gamers and ex-gamers and then fix these in your game.
But wich to follow? Do you cater to the PvP haters or lovers?
WoW currently caters to both PvP and PvE but that also means neither side gets exactly the dedication they want. So they complain. BUT would a game without one be that successfull? Just how big is the subscriber base that is satisfied with the current combo? People who are satisfied tend not to post on forums. They are to busy having a good time in the game.
Same with the crafting/loot system. Again WoW has sought the middle ground, essentially both systems of getting your equipment are competing with each other. This means that pure crafters have a reduced market while at the same time those who are looting get lots of useless materials they need to sell.
And again, would a game that focusses on one exclusively (SWG had a pure crafting system) be that succesfull?
You could create a MMORPG were levelling up isn't everything. Were grinding to X isn't the primary goal. That would make the RPG crowd perhaps happier but might loose you all the grinding monkeys who no longer have an epenis to wave around.
WoW in many areas seeks the middle road. It works. 8+million people think the bits they like are better then the bits they don't like.
If you are going to change anything in that design you need to realize that you are going to please some but most likely upset a hell of a lot of other players.
Go pure PvP and you MIGHT appease those PvPers who left but you are going to loose for sure every single PvE player. PLUS a significant part of the players who like a bit of both.
Just read every comment here that suggests an obvious improvement and then ask youreselve what the total effect would be.
Then again, until WoW entered the market, people said that the MMORPG market had been saturated and that any new game could only poach from other games.
So is WoW the final MMORPG or is it just a more succesfull EQ waiting to be dethroned by the next comany.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.