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11 Innovation Lessons From the Creators of World of Warcraft
Ant writes "Colin Stewart's OC Register Inside Innovation blog has up a post discussing Blizzard Entertainment's success in the games industry. According to the site, Blizzard has learned eleven lessons on innovation that can help almost any business. The industry leader used these innovation methods not only to create the world's most popular massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft, but also to keep the game fresh and challenging for more than 10 million players. Because many of those customers pay $15 a month to continue playing, Blizzard's ongoing creative achievement is worth more than $1 billion a year in revenues, not counting the multi-millions it tallies from its other games."
Look, the game is pretty, fun for a while, and very addictive. They took the tried and true method of giving item hoarders, dungeon crawlers, D&D fans, and basic gamers a basic concept that each one could easily get addicted to. TFA had nothing you didn't already know. They basically took the best parts of Evercrack, UO, and D20 systems and made a pretty game out of it. End of article. Making red-colored crack and successfully getting a whole bunch of people addicted to it isn't really that impressive, and neither was TFA.
11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft
April 4th, 2008 Post a Comment posted by Colin Stewart
(This post consolidates lessons published in the O.C. Register and the "Inside Innovation" blog.)
Blizzard Entertainment, the envy of the computer game industry, has learned 11 lessons on innovation that can help almost any business.
Irvine-based Blizzard used these innovation methods not only to create the world's most popular massively multi-player online game, World of Warcraft, but also to keep the game fresh and challenging for more than 10 million players.
Because many of those customers pay $15 a month to continue playing, Blizzard's ongoing creative achievement is worth more than $1 billion a year in revenues, not counting the multi-millions it tallies from its other games, such as StarCraft, Diablo II and Warcraft III, plus trading cards, comic books, etc.
This combination of creativity and profitability is much of the reason for the upcoming merger of game company Activision with Blizzard's parent company, Vivendi Games. The new company, to be called Activision Blizzard, will be valued at about $18.9 billion.
The following lineup of innovation lessons emerged from a video game conference, an interview, and several experts' comments.
Blizzard executives discussed the company's innovation processes during the D.I.C.E. video game conference last month in Las Vegas. Then, in early March, World of Warcraft lead producer J. Allen Brack explained his teams' work methods during an interview at Blizzard's new headquarters in Irvine. I also invited several business and innovation experts in Orange County to comment on how Blizzard works and how it and other creative enterprises such as the Walt Disney Co. innovate to keep their customers interested.
1. RELY ON CRITICS
Blizzard welcomes criticism - seeks it, in fact - both during game development and after the launch, when games need to be fine-tuned and freshened up.
In a process that is common for software companies, an alpha test provides crucial pre-release feedback from company employees. When the game software is ready, Blizzard moves to a beta test involving a limited number of outside players. Blizzard plans a beta test of its upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack for World of Warcraft, but hasn't announced when it will begin.
In addition, tens of thousands of Blizzard subscribers sign in to the game's Public Test Realm area to test and give advance feedback on patches, upgrades and revisions for the current version of World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft scene"Seeking out customers' viewpoints and criticisms is an ideal way for businesses to align products and services to what their customers want," said Ardelle St. George, intellectual property attorney and chairman of the Orange County Innovation group.
Innovation educator Marty Wartenberg of UCI Extension and the ZB Global Design Center in Carlsbad said, "It is very useful when developing your design and product to have third-party objective folks review and critique the design."
"The idea is that colleagues will not be completely honest and critical with the participants present," he said. "It would be much healthier if folks could take well-meaning and constructive criticism as a chance to improve the product or service. Unfortunately human nature tends to resist. This is a challenge to overcome in the business world."
Mike Morhaime, Blizzard CEO and cofounder, said criticism is important, but it's hard to take at first, as he recalled from tests of Blizzard's early game The Lost Vikings.
"We thought the game was good enough, but Brian Fargo of Interplay took it home and played it, and had lots of feedback," Morhaime said. Fargo wanted all the Viking characters to be redrawn so they wouldn't look so similar, which the game team didn't want to hear.
"It means he really cares," Morhaime told them. "When I digested it, I thought, 'Hey, these are good comments.' "
- Rely on critics
- Use your own product
- Make continual improvements
- Go back to the drawing board
- Design for different kinds of customers
- The importance of frequent failures
- Move quickly, in pieces
- Statistics bolster experience
- Demand excellence or you'll get mediocrity
- Create a new type of product
- Offer employees something extra
RTFANever play it. Ever. If you don't find yourself addicted to it you will become so awkward you will eventually cease to have a social life (assuming you had one in the first place).
All of this thankfully learned from observance and not experience.
SLASH VERTISEMENT
IE, Sam Lantinga, the main dude behind SDL.
2. sell an addictive substance that causes unemployment, obesity, and contact bed sores
IE, repetitive social networking based violence simulation, with bar-pushing
#1 Take the most popular online game on the market (EQ), copy it, dumb it down, make it so easy that even an 8 year old can get level 50 (60, 70, whatever it is now :), and you have a winner!
Careful What You Wish For....
"Blizzard remains ahead of the competition because the company was able to parlay its strength in one game format to create an online service, which created a whole new product line and different type of revenue stream," he said. Wow. Imagine a world before WoW where there were absolutely no MMOs an no one had ever thought of a monthly fee for these games that didn't exist.
The irony of this whole piece is that just about every single on of Blizzards "innovations" are things Sony Online was doing with EverQuest for half a decade before it (Beta tests, test servers, employees playing the game, upgrades, cancelling titles that didn't work, broad demographics, stats analysis, the fun of a gaming company).
The more interesting thing is, EverQuest only ever achieved roughly a twentieth of WoW's subscription figures. So, more valuable than simply listing the things SOE already did as Blizzard innovations* would be to look at what Blizzard did differently that got them 20 times SOE's subscriber base - and fifty times that of most other competitors.
As a fluff piece, it's nice to congratulate Blizzard for innovations they didn't come up with. The thing is, they evidently did something different and the article manages to miss that far more fascinating angle.
*Note: Not claiming SOE came up with the innovations either. Ultima Online was doing much of it several years earlier still. And they took over from a lot of MUDs, MUSHes, etc. If anything, there've been a series of advances that have been made one at a time, everyone else copying whenever someone else has success with a new idea.
I'd suggest Blizzards real achievements were something more like:
Truly earn loyalty from your customers: People who bought Diablo and Starcraft played for years on a service they didn't have to pay any extra for. Any other company would have turned those servers off once they weren't making money from boxed copies of the game. Blizzard kept providing it and earned a fierce loyalty from their fans where everyone else leaves their fans feeling screwed the moment the dollar signs don't add up in the short term.
Set the barrier of entry LOW: While SOE was playing with the brilliant idea but agonizing experience of StarWars Galaxies and everyone else was chasing prettier graphics, Blizzard put out a game with cartoony graphics that everyone and their mom could play. Ten million general players doing something simpler beats out a few hundred thousand beardy ones and housewives with enough time to learn your complex game mechanics.
Don't milk the cash cow until its teats fall off: Blizzard's managed to get what, one expansion out so far? SOE has put out how many for EQ2 that was released at the same time? Sure, your balance sheet looks better if you can say, "I'm going to get 200% revenue from my begrudging players this year." It actually looks even better if you say, "I'll stick with 110% revenue from 2000% of the number of happier players."
Bliz, the mage class is broken. Has been for a year.
I agree. World of Warcraft isn't exactly innovative, but they've managed to make a game that is fun and a game that has gotten people, who may not have even played a game (or an MMO, to be more exact), to put endless hours into it. And they've remained strong and retained a majority of their user base because of this: Alot of people play the game for the people. Friends, distant family, friends through the game, ect.
Kudos to all you folks who've ground it out longer than 4 months!
-AC
From Blizzard:
1) Money doesn't buy you happiness.
2) Money will buy you lots of shit that make you happy.
3) Did I mention we have lots of money? I know it's not really a lesson, but it's our list and we're rich, beyotch!
4) Money isn't very flavorful. We had a buffet lunch of money once and after the 10th or 11th thousand dollar salad, I had to switch to the lo-carb dressing. Ugh.
5) Money.
6) If you have money, girls (some) will like you for it. As long as you have a proper pre-nup, wear rubbers (always) or get a Vasectomy to reduce risk, enjoy the ride.
7) It's amazing what you can do with money. This one time, we filled the company pool up with crisp dollar bills. The first guy to dive in got massive paper cuts from the crispness. Wow, like millions of dollars worth of cuts. We had to drive him to the hospital, while we used $100 bills to try and stem the flow of blood.
8) The morning commute into the office is so much nicer in my Ferrari. Vroom Vroom my ass, Mazda.
9) Money money money money money!
10) Sometimes, you have more money than you can spend. Paper crafts are so much more fun!
11) Nerf warlocks, bitches.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
This is a piece about some egomaniacs that want to express that they're simply smarter than so many others in business.
They actually think that their "11 Innovation Lessons" are new, different, and special.
Even a junior manager at a McDonald's has learned this stuff within their first 30 days on the job. Really. They are intrinsic to running any service organization.
Read through them, and ask yourself: would a McDonald's Junior Manager know this as an intrinsic part of his job servicing customers?
The short answer is YES, a junior manager at McDonalds would know 10 of 11 of them. The 11th just doesn't apply to McDonalds. Because Big Macs are perfect.
#12: Post generic bullshit slogans off motivational posters as major new insights
#13: Profit???
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Sorry but Blizz is a supermodel at fat camp when it comes to talking about things.
First they do not listen to critics, If it gets placed on the test realm it WILL go live.
Not that much fun to work there, most people that have worked there would not go back, and rather work for other firms.
They are pretty much the only gaming company that is their own publisher, they do not have to answer to the money like everyone else does. Who else can postpone a launch until after the holiday season?
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
not many people give a fuck for super complex game rules (that's why nerds love DnD) they want something that's fun and group based. WoW gives that.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Blizzard's not exactly the best example when looking for innovation. Sure, they've made some solid games, but all of the ones I'm familiar with (that is, most of the major ones save WoW as I don't do multiplayer-only) were awfully derivative; the RTS stuff from Dune 2/C&C, Diablo from Rogue/Nethack etc.
Lesson #12: if they get addicted, they'll pay more.
... just lots of little ones. There's not a lot in WOW that hasn't been done before in other games, either MMOs or other genres, but what Blizz has done is make the innovations of previous games work. Previous MMORPGs have been innaccessible, imbalanced, prone to exploits, buggy and often just downright boring.
WOW has so often overcome these issues to become one of the biggest games of this decade with a lot of well thought out and well designed gameplay.
Take the whole bind on pickup/bind on equip mechanic for items, meaning that some in game items can be bought and sold freely, but others (usually top tier weapons and armour) can only be gained by achieving in game goals. This means that there is still a viable cash economy, but players cannot simply 'buy' their way to the top, they need to go out and complete quests etc.
Wow was not the first game to feature an ingame economy, but what it did was make the economy fun and useful to players whilst at the same time limiting it's potential to be expolited.
Hmm, i think this is a list which they didn't do in order to archive high player numbers...Come onn "Rely on critics"? I have never seen they do that. "Excellence"??? the game is full of bugs(created in game) even a gm could fix it with 5-6 letter command word and yet they still refuse to fix things up. I really think Blizzard archived this high number of players because of "friend factor" and "warcraft" name brand(which also means some lore) I have seen better support for players even in free games...
I would have said that the main difference between EQ and WoW was timing (stating the obvious?). EQ arrived way before online gaming was mainstream, WoW arrived as it became mainstream. Every major gamer had broadband by that point and WoW was the game that filled the gap.
Yes, of course it had to fill the other criteria of being a great game, addictive, fun and with a good reputation. But it won for the most part because it was the right game at the right time.
EVERYTHING. Except the dancing naked gay elves on mailboxes and a ridiculous cow race..at least Everquest and Everquest 2 makes it more realistic and believable.
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
So you have 10 million people at $15 per month with 12 months in a year. That gives me 1.8 Billion, so who is pocketing the other 800 million?
Blizzard executives went to the crack-addled streets of inner-city LA, bought a bunch of it, gave it to their employees, and said to them, "Figure out how to make this crack into a computer game. Feel free to try some of it too." The crack enabled them to stay up late enough to think of WoW.
- shazow
In my opinion, Blizzard did do a few things differently, but I don't see the ones I'm thinking of in the list.
What they did differently was this:
They made a good UI.
Blizzard usually has good UIs, and WoW's is no exception. They've even modified it over time to add some new things to it (such as additional button bars)... things that were being done by AddOns before.
They allow... no, encourage people to make UI Addons
Certain types of Addons have had the ideas behind them incorporated into the main WoW interface, too. Examples of this include the current Raid UI and the multiple button bars.
They don't nickel and dime you to death. See: EQ2, where even new dungeons (AKA "Adventure Packs") cost money.
Keep It Simple Stupid (the KISS principle)
WoW still has the same 9 classes it started with. While the abilities these classes have has changed over time, it's still easier than juggling 20+ classes like most other MMOs. While there will be a 10th class introduced in the next expansion, it will automatically start at a certain level (although Blizzard hasn't yet said which... rumors say 50 or 60) and will only have to be balanced from that level up.
(This would have been a numbered list, but Slashdot is apparently stripping out ol and ul tags now, despite them being on the Allowed HTML list)
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I admit, I would want to rant about their success. Is it jealousy? Maybe. But let's keep that aside for a moment.
They talk about innovation.
Nearly every aspect of World Of Warcraft is stolen from other games.
Example: UO. You can find a lot of similarities, from mounts to gray death screen. UO still has features, WoW hasn't. But most importantly: UO takes a lot of innovation from the so called freeshard-scene, and i think, this is also the reason origin never pursued those emulated servers in the first place.
E.g. the speech system which does not allow you to read other's language is something which was developed on UO roleplaying shards (as for I know, but it could have been also in some MUDs) - so it is not new in WoW.
So, why is WoW still better than the other mmogs? well, let's face it: it is because they took all the good things and tinkered it to something better.
So, yes, they are successful. And yes, they can talk about how to get successful, how to keep successful.
However, I rant, because it is not innovation, they should talk about. There is hardly any great innovation in WoW from my perspective.
It's a fun game, trying to suit the majority of players, the company cares for the players, they did some good decisions (e.g. low hardware specs, scriptable client), and of course, don't forget, they had a lot of publicity from previous games (the warcraft series, diablo, starcraft and lost vikings), and those WERE innovative in a great deal.
Still, talking about WoW, I think they really should talk about success, not innovation. Because it was more advertisement, more strategy and more publicity behind the success of WoW, than innovation.
Face it: Most Innovation comes from innovative and creative minds, which are not bound to deadlines or sallaries. Innovation was to include a modding engine in HalfLife, which kept a very bad coded game alive until CounterStrike came out (so innovation lead to innovation). Innovation was to include a Level Editor and Sound Editor in Warcraft2, which made the game popular for custom maps, and in WC3, innovation from the _users_ has lead to a lot of custom maps, like tower defense or dota (because the game was very scriptable and moddable). WoW lacks all those opportunities of customization and blizzard has hunted down any modding scene from the beginning, who tried to do something else, than interface scripts (which are limited in innovative ideas), like emulator software (but that is perfectly understandable! emulators are bad for business!).
Because the userbase can't contribute a lot of new ideas, and because the game itself has very few "new elements" at all, but sums up all the other MMOGs before it, I simply can't accept blizzard as teacher in innovation, regarding WoW.
Marvel Online got cancelled before ever seeing the light of day despite massive numbers of comic book readers past and present.
Matrix Online had a HUGE franchise that translated in to a game no one cared about.
Disney has a massive fanbase yet Toontown putters along quietly.
Ultima Online followed on the back of a game series that many people would argue was far more beloved than Warcraft - long established as near a dozen of the greatest RPG experiences on the PC. Even there, its numbers were never anything close to WoWs.
I think the IP helps. It certainly got a lot of the initial interest though I'd suggest most people who've since picked it up only heard of the RTS series later. But I'd suggest there's more to it than just milking an IP.
I played WoW for a while, during a period where I was off work for a few months. I played it all freakin' day long. Then when my life got back on track, I quickly lost interest because WoW felt like work, especially after hitting the level cap. I didn't need nor want a 2nd day job.
:)
Had I not gone back to work, I probably would have kept on playing. I don't dislike MMOs, but the primary reward they provide is some sort of progression, be it experience/levels or grinding for new gear. If you can't invest the hours to achieve that progress, then it becomes an unsatisfying exercise. If I have only an hour to kill, WoW won't give me any fun, and consoles or flash games will provide a better endorphin/time ratio
-Billco, Fnarg.com
What's the matter, didn't get your purplez on your last 5-hour long raid?
Riveting
You take it, I don't want it...
As others have said, the list in this article is fluffy and useless.
However, I've been following the design of MMORPGs over the past decade, so I will offer a list of things that Blizzard *actually* did well, that together (combined with the strength of their pre-existing brand) are what I believe are responsible for WoW's overwhelming success.
1. Polish, Polish, Polish! -- WoW is probably the most polished MMORPG ever to be released. It makes a huge difference.
2. Smooth Newbie Experience -- this is critical, making it easy for casuals and spouses to get started (or "hooked")
3. Fun, Fun, Fun! -- if it's not Fun, get rid of it. Blizzard ruthlessly excised most of the un-fun stuff from the standard MMORPG design.
4. Don't Ship Until its Done -- several MMORPG disaster launches have shown that you really must wait until its ready
5. Low System Requirements -- 95% of the PCs in peoples livingrooms can run WoW, compared to like 25% for most games. This is no accident.
6. Reward Quests More Than Grind -- WoW was the first MMORPG where questing was the most efficient way to level for most players. This kept them moving around and doing different things, which is way less boring than 30 hours of grinding foozles. This idea is also behind the daily quests, for example.
7. Something For Everybody -- crafting, raiding, casual content, battlegrounds, PvP servers, lots and lots of quests, epic mounts... there is stuff in WoW that appeals to each of the Bartle playertypes.
8. Customizable UI Makes Players Happy -- even Everquest could be customized somewhat, but WoW made it possible to make powerful and useful custom UIs, and made it easy for other players to then use them. There are now a lot of players who will not want to play some new MMORPG unless it has a customizable UI.
9. Infrastructure Is Important & Hard -- they knew this from battle.net too. Again, they underestimated some things--like bandwidth--in the first year, but it eventually got sorted out.
10. Manage Community Expectations/Customer Service is Important & Hard -- they already knew this from battle.net, of course. The WoW forums are a cesspool, but that is unavoidable for a game of that size. In all other respects they've done a pretty good job.
11. Keep Cheaters, Botters and Farmers Out -- they watched Diablo I get absolutely destroyed by cheaters, and Diablo II had its share of setbacks here. Currently they can't stop Glider, but at least they're trying.
12. Hire lots of good lawyers
13. Use them.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Curious they didn't mention Ghost as a cancelled title. Perhaps there is hope!
#12 - Create list of Innovative Lessons and sell them for cash money
I just can't take seriously all this talk about Blizzard's innovation in WoW. WoW released without single ambitious feature, if anything WoW is culmination of shine and polish on tried&true ideas that were tested in countless other games. UO that released in what, 97, had more innovative features than WoW.
Bold claim. Could you back it up with an example so that I might have a fun game to go and play later this week?
At least with a traditional game, the only way the developers can screw things up is by making a bad sequel, the original will remain the same. If the devs on an MMO screw things up, you're not getting the original game back, ever. It's gone.
Don't have the time for MMO's, don't have the inclination. I do think that MMO's will replace bingo and daytime gameshows when our generation retires. Teenage Korean geeks, you'll rue the day you tangled with the American old farts! That or we'll just get our grandkids to beat you.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
So, all I need to do to be successful is go back to the drawing board and quickly create an excellent new type product specially designed for specific types of customers! It's so simple!
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
With all the badassness blizzard supposedly has, they should totally be up to the game to make a MMORPG based on Frank Herbert's Dune. I would gladly pay for some Fremen loving or spice/crack dealer =)
yeah, this article really told me, how to make a successful product...
What a waste of time!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Hella successful, yes, but fresh? WoW is too successful for Blizzard to want to change anything or release new content. They're afraid to break the cash cow that works.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Offtopic? Just because the subject is "first post" (which it wasn't), doesn't mean the body is offtopic (it hits the nail on the head - not innovative, but fun).
I don't think anyone has ever accused Blizzard of being innovative. They use sufficient technical ability to bring their games to market, but the company rides on the back of its artists, its writers and its production values. Creativity doesn't sell games. Polished, smooth, fun gameplay sells games.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
blizzard games are awesome, because you can clearly see how love they put in the design. just take a look at the myriad easter eggs cleverly incorporated in every edge of the stories and npcs. if you never get around to care or see those, you'll just be awestruck by the most perfect item-collection-design in existence. if you don't believe it... look at other games which tried that. hellgate london... O_o.
there's something in that game for almost everyone. at least for a while.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
To be fair though, the rest of the points they make are actually unique and say something relevant for software design. Seriously though, this first half looks like it was written by Aleksey Vayner -- this is the exact BS that you hear constantly in the boardrooms of software companies -- the type of crap that drives software developers insane and makes people fold their hands together and nod their heads until they can go home at 4pm.
This self fellating crap is hard to read, but of course, I don't have an office job anymore because I tend to laugh in people's faces when they take 4 pages of rehashed ideas to say how intelligent and innovative they are. Maybe if the software developers got to elaborate in this article on things like their rapid prototyping software or say, what financial incentives they have to overcome major obstacles, work ridiculous hours on a server upgrade - maybe then this would say something useful for business or consumers. As it is, this is better suited to pumping up the sense of genius an amway stooge likes to feel.
Ace
You'd be surprised how non-obvious it is to some people exactly wth Blizzard did right, even when it's spelled out for them.
E.g., Sony has been in a frenzy to copy the secret sauce of WoW into their own games for years, but it mostly resulted in blunders of epic proportions. Yes, eventually they got some things right-ish by sheer trial an error, but it's been a lot of trial an error, and a lot of changing people's characters and skills completely, for no good reason.
Just as one example, and I'll deliberately pick a mild one, because I'm not trying to start a flame war: the rested xp bonus in WoW. It's been discussed to death since WoW beta, and spelled out repeatedly why it's there and what effects it has, so you'd think it would be a no-brainer to copy it. Right? Well, Sony's first attempt was to go, basically, "oh, yeah? Well, we'll give ten times more in EQ2! And not make you go to an inn either!" So effectively, unless you were in a group all the time and/or playing 16 hours a day, the rested time would rise faster than you could possibly use it. Even as you'd run to the next mob in the middle of nowhere, you'd gain at least half of what you used on the last mob.
Now it's definitely not game-breaking. I did say I'd pick a mild one. And, hey, I'm not gonna say "no" to free xp. But it missed the point by a mile.
As a less mild example, Sony seems to have done a lot of over-simplification to their games (arguably even the much maligned and surrealistic SWG NGE) based on their and their fanboys' view that, surely, WoW only gets so many people because it's simplistic stuff for retards. Actually it's the contrary. WoW is a more complex game by far, and that makes it more interesting. It's intuitive and has a gentle learning curve, as it feeds you that complexity gently and gradually, but that's very different from being oversimplified. Essentially, Sony lobotomized their games, well at least SWG is as good as lobotomized, based on not understanding what they're trying to copy.
So, yes, bleeding obvious as that stuff might seem to _you_, I'd say it's good to see someone spell it out. Because some people seem that unable to comprehend it on their own.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Just to go through that list and tell you from first hand experience how non-obvious that can be to some people:
1. RELY ON CRITICS
I've actually been in places where they treat you like an Enemy Of The People criticizing the Communist Party, if you dare question the tiniest detail of their masterpiece. Heck, half the industry still is in a mind that deleting posts and suspending accounts is the right way to deal with bug reports. Sony is still infamous for beaming into space the people protesting one of their most heavy-handed and ill-advised ban-sprees.
Others just let the fanboys run amok and call everyone names if they report a bug or make a sugestion.
Heck, I've worked in one place where even internal criticisms didn't make it past the designer's continent-sized ego.
2. USE YOUR OWN PRODUCT
It should be obvious, but it isn't. I've seen for example FPS where the demos were recorded in god mode. That should have been obvious right there that even the devs can't play it on the normal difficulty setting. It's one of the things that should give one pause for thought, you know: if playing the game as you ship it isn't funny even for you, then why inflict it on the rest of the world like that?
3. MAKE CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS
Again, it should be obvious, but it isn't. E.g., one syndrome of many games is to rush to do an expansion pack, while the old crap is left as it is.
But more importantly, it really ties in with #1 and #2 above. What it says there is that long before the customers even see the product, they have internal teams trying to find out what sucks about it. In an industry which routinely ignores even the beta-testers' bug reports, that would explain why Blizzard's games are launched more finshed and polished than other games get after a dozen patches.
4. GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
Basically what TFA there really says, is: if your co-workers or testers say "dude, that idea sucks", then listen to them. In fact, see #3, encourage them to be honest and think about which stuff sounds good and which doesn't.
As an example of where that obviously wasn't the case, take SWG's NGE. There's (among many other blunders) a quest for example whose reward is a scope for a sword. Worse yet, it's really a potion, because they don't have item slots and such, so you can't actually attach it to the sword. The very fact that someone just shrugged and coded it like that, tells me that any kind of internal review or criticism, is non-existent or doesn't work. In any normal place, one of the guys who has to script, review or test it, would go "excuse me? am I the only one who thinks it's freaking stupid?" That noone listened, or maybe even they felt so much like a cog with a quota that they didn't even bother reporting it, speaks volumes.
Similarly in EQ2 there still are such dumb quests in the game as killing bears and deer to see if they stole a book. I mean, FFS, what would they do with it and where would they keep it? And then you get to kill your faction's own foresters to see if they stole the book. And that's the good faction, btw. And later you have to beat up badgers until they tell you where a sage is. (And it's not a druid quest or anything.) You have stuff like giving yourself a quest to avenge a knight, then digging up his tomb and taking his shield as a reward. You have stuff like giving yourself quests, and then giving yourself some money and an item as a reward. How schizophrenic is that? Etc, etc, etc. That that kind of mass-produced drivel even made it into the game at all, much less survived there since launch, tells me that their internal review process doesn't work. Or maybe reviews only if you met your quota of lines of script/code.
And again, I've been in one place myself where ideas were a one way street, from the High Priest... err... designer to us peons, and it wasn't the peons' job to criticize them.
5. DESIGN FOR DIFFERENT KINDS OF CUSTOMERS
Again, this should sound obvious, but it's not.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
actually, my topic was first post :P though I did a post further down which did kind of mirror some of the points that people have made in reply. I have seen WoW in action, and while I can see how it would be fun becuase of the social aspects and the level of detail in the economics and such in the world, I don't want to get addicted and spend years playing it like one of my friends did :P For some reason I think that I would consider it if the world was GTA though, just because I think the GTA world is even more fun - it is getting to be more like an RPG but with good skill elements remaining, and I think Rockstar would be able to make an awesome MMO game with it. I don't understand why they put out crap games like Manhunt when they are capable of such quality gameplay.. :) GTA is actually rather innovative, which is maybe why I'd choose it over WoW.
which is totally what she said
I like Blizzard because they make quality games .What I dislike about them is lack of innovation
Blizzard's formula
1) Don't ever innovate. Let others try new ideas and see how well it fares in the market. Not a single game of their was in any way unique or innovative. Every single feature in the games of theirs is borrowed from previous (often less successful) games .
2) Once you pick what idea to exploit commit to it 100%
3) Make sure you steal all the right parts and throw junk out. Blizzard is excellent in this aspect -they actually do have people who understand what is fun and what is not. Their biggest merit is that they can make balanced and interesting games out of rehashed ideas . Starfcraft is one of the most unoriginal games at the time of its release - yet it has balance and diversity just in the right proportion to keep people playing up to this day
4) Quality art , quality code- good execution
5) Market it more than Britney Spear album!
WoW is a very polished and very high quality product. Their biggest "innovations" though are tweaking XP rate so it is not takes whole year playing 24/7 to reach max level (EQ,Lineage anyone?) and quality content. It does not detract from their merit though imho - none before them could balance MMORPG that well. Innovators they are not- but quality craftsmen they are.
savage. the battle for newerth. www.notforidiots.com
rts/fps.
>in order to archive
>I really think Blizzard archived this high number
Archive doesn't mean what you think it does, Sparky. The word you were looking for is "achieve".
HTH. HAND.
I've been playing for two months and I haven't breached level 20 yet. Maybe if you play the game for hours on end...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I enjoyed the article.
Sure, it's very generic in some points, but still: It reminded me to look more closely on some points I use to forget sometimes.
Maybe I'm that fluffy too...
The irony of this whole piece is that just about every single on of Blizzards "innovations" are things Sony Online was doing with EverQuest for half a decade before it (Beta tests, test servers, employees playing the game, upgrades, cancelling titles that didn't work, broad demographics, stats analysis, the fun of a gaming company).
Ultima Online did all or most of those things before Sony or Blizzard did. WoW was a marketing success but hardly any kind of innovation.
If you hit 70 in "2-6 weeks" then you may want to step outside your mom's basement and get a breath of fresh air.
Most people who continue playing at the level cap are there for the social aspect, not to sit around grinding on kobolds. Same goes for PVP, which is a blast. It's no less "Fresh and challenging" to play WOW pvp over and over again than any other multiplayer game.
UO gets the pioneer badge for MMOs, IMHO.
EQ gets the 3D pioneer badge for MMOs, IMHO.
Shadowbane was probably the first to do massive battles in a working manner. WOW still doesn't have anything like this - and they actively prevent it actually. I do so miss the nightly attacks on Southshore. They use to crash the server - and that's a problem, so blizz did everything they could to basically push people away from world PVP. And they did a very good job of it. Now it exists as mostly people running around griefing a few people. There's no such thing as an epic PVP battle anymore - BGs/Arenas have turned even PVP into a grind. *snoore*.
So yeah, WOW is pretty cool and they definitely got the glue of MMOs down, but pioneers? Not really. They are behind the curve on several items actually (housing, character customization, mentoring) and the PVP is pretty unbalanced. The UI customzation is awesome however and has set a VERY high watermark for other games to reach.
And actually that puts at the heart of what makes WOW tick - gear. Everything in WOW is way too gear dependent - but this is one of the primary ways they keep people coming. They are the masters of the treadmill - if you just raise your faction to here, you can get that one piece of armor/weapon that will help you to do better in the arenas. So you can get some more weapons and armor. For the Arena.
And before you beat me up, I'm a pretty active WOW player with two accounts and 4 70's. The game can be fun, but they have basically perfected the treadmill.
EK
If you are looking for a game with very little grinding, no farming, no twinking, no buying in virtual stuff with real money, 100% PVP, that values skill over not having a life and cooperation over soloing, i recommend PlanetSide. It's a sci-fi MMFPS. Instead of straight jacket classes, you have certifications that you can load and unload if you want to switch from being ground vehicles, to aircraft to ground pounder. Higher level characters have access to more items and vehicles, but it the same stuff a lower level character can have. Levels give you wider choices. My Lasher does as much damage as your Lasher. Three empires engage in a 24/7/365 war for territory that spans continents (islands, really). Give it a try, if you want something radically different.
If you live on the east coast, sign up for the Emerald Server, join the Vanu Sovereignty and look for Ghosts of the Revolution on Thursday night at 730pm Eastern. Ask for N1H1L.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I guess #14 is "constantly cave in to the crying masses" ??
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Actually, the latest patch has a "fix" that is most certainly a response to a contentious issue in Warcraft -- Premades. In various battlegrounds, you can queue to play as an individual or form a team to enter the battleground together as a premade. Unfortunately for the pick-up-groups, or PUGs, the premades usually have better communication, better gear, and completely trash the other team. They also earned a bad reputation, as some premades took it further and camped in the graveyard, slaughtering hapless players as soon as they spawned. Now, I don't want to debate whether or not premades in general are honorable or objectionable, but there was enough of an uproar amongst the casual players that Blizzard actually stepped in and changed the queueing process so that large groups are now shunted to a special queue just for premades, while individual players and small parties still go to the PUG queues. Premades battle premades, PUGs battle PUGs.
Apart from some very irritated players who now have to wait longer times in the premade queues, all of the casual players can breathe a sigh of relief. The queues flow faster and the games are a lot more fun. Depending upon your side of the fence, you can argue that Blizzard did the wrong thing, or that it was a brilliant and timely change, but they were directly addressing the "critics."
The moon may be smaller than the earth, but it's much farther away!
The /dance emote for the Tauren was enough to ensure massive success for me.
tone
in theory.
Just like getting rich is easy -- in theory. The problem is actually doing the things you know you ought to do. You need to pay attention, and to consistently put money into investments that are balanced according to your strategy, and regularly pay attention to market changes to keep your portfolio on track. Anybody who does this consistently from the time he is twenty will be well off by the time he's forty and by most standards rich by the time he's sixty. He'll be rich much sooner if he had more money to play with at the outset.
People who do this aren't even phased by an economic crisis like the current one. Balancing their portfolio means they're putting more money into stocks when others are getting out; the prices they pay might look bad in three months, but in ten years they'll be holding a lot of valuable shares, and they'll probably be selling to rebalance their portfolio towards unpopular investments.
The reason more people don't take this easy route to wealth is because it is boring, and requires patience. There are things you'd like to spend your money on that you enjoy today rather than in ten or fifteen years. It's more exciting to make a killing with a brilliant, overnight success than to spend a few hours a month at it for a couple of decades.
The same thing applies to innovation. To be innovative, you hire the best people you can get and keep them thinking about what the customer wants and needs. It means forgoing some things today; you spend a bit more on people up front, and at the outset gains don't look that dramatic, but over time it adds up.
There is a lot more creativity out there than innovation. This is heresy, I know, but ideas, even good ideas really aren't worth very much. It's things like focus, insight, patience and willingness to defer quick gratification that are in short supply. How many times have you seen successful or nearly successful projects sucked dry to pay for something else that has a one in a thousand shot of being the next big thing? Or companies that cut corners by hiring cheap rather than experienced? Or products which languish without investment until there is some kind of competitive crisis?
It's a funny thing about business that I've found: it's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's the things that are obvious that you stop regarding them as knowledge at all. All the points in TFA boil down to this: you innovate by hiring good people, keeping them happily focused on delivering things that make a difference to the customer.
You see companies copying practices from successful companies all the time, and this is a good thing. But they don't get the same success because they see them as a formula for success. The formula for success is usually much simpler, sometimes so simple, "like buy low, sell high" it gets forgotten and buried under mental clutter, and we're too proud to be reminded that that is the point. Innovation is pretty much the same thing: invest in people and keep the focused on customer problems.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Think of it as an online Skinner Box with virtual rewards. It's designed to condition people into behavioral patterns in exchange for a stimulus. If the stimulus is pleasurable enough to cause them to neglect critical things in their lives, then the subject might exhibit superficial SYMPTOMS of addiction, but it's still conditioning. Sure, drugs condition people too, but there's a difference between psychological conditioning and physical chemical dependence.
I have been a WoW subscriber since its inception. However, most of you have a completely misconstrued idea of the typical WoW player. Yes, I will concede that there are some whom you might consider addicted. Those that play for 10-15+ hours a day and take the game way to seriously. This however does NOT represent the majority of player base at all.
A vast majority of the people that I have met, and those whom I know personally are adults. Ages 20ish to 30. Many of whom live successful lives, are married, own their own houses, etc. The game is not just a bunch of pimple faced teenagers and hopeless introverts. There are quite a few women who play as well, many of whom are the wives and girlfriends of other WoW players. Fact of the matter is, WoW is more like a social club than a MMO. Its happens to be a common similarity and a social enabler of many of todays working sub 30 adults.
Of course there are quite a few younger subscribers as well. My 9 year old son even plays on occasion, with the chat disabled of course!
I have been around, I've seen my share of MMO, and I've played many of them simply because I enjoy that genre better than any other. However, I can honestly say it is NOT WoW itself that keeps me playing, if it weren't WoW it would be something else. WoW is just the path of least resistance in terms of MMO's. I enjoy playing and and the vastness of the world itself keeps me from getting bored with it.
There is some grinding involved in WoW however it is not nearly as bad as EVERY other MMO that I have played. And I guarantee you, the average player will never even have the opportunity to experience some end game content let alone repeat it endlessly as some you have suggested. Over the course of 3 years, across all my characters, I have logged only 24 days total "casual" played time, and have taken several extended vacations in between. Nevertheless, I am just as well geared and/or equipped as 80% of those on the server on which I play. My point is, you do not have to be some lifeless introvert to enjoy and progress in this game, and THAT is why so many people play it.
WoW is not perfect. It's actually far from it. I tried it and quit right away. I've spent more hours playing online RPGs than most WoW players but WoW didn't appeal to me. In my opinion there's one thing that they completely screwed up and it's the economy. Please, don't defend them and say "but it's to prevent people exploiting the economy". It's not. They took a lot of decisions influenced by how badly the economy was screwed in Diablo II. However the real reason the economy was flawed in Blizzard's Diablo II is because the programmers have been completely incompetent with regards to the blatant item duping going on.
And here, instead of learning a lesson and make item duping impossible while still keeping a great economy (cool trades, super items that could be switched from character to character, from account to account etc.) they FUXXORED big times and invented silly 'binding' rules for items.
I saw that and I quit disgusted by the game.
Because it is a fact that when you control the server side it is possible to make item duping impossible. Yet they did NOT learn the lesson from Diablo II. Instead of coming with a cool economy they went with a broken one.
Items binding and no perma-death.
A game for noobs... But, granted, they learned how to milk noobs.
While you may be right with the technical definitions of addiction vs. dependence, I think the GP is using "addiction" in the way that it is generally used in everyday speech: to describe both psychological and physical dependencies.
What makes you think psychological dependencies aren't "real"? Sure, they might not be as serious as physical dependencies in most cases, and the risk of permanent harm to your body is greater, but it can be pretty damn difficult to stop gambling (or, case in point, playing an MMO), too.
Most people are "addicted" to alcohol and tobacco in a psychological sense long before they develop a physical dependency (if ever), so I don't see why you seem to want to dismiss psychological dependencies as not being a serious issue. That said, this whole side-discussion is somewhat off-topic, so let's move along, folks...
Of course I didn't RTFA.
Hasn't really changed the camping behavior tho. I suggest instant respawn for someone killed by a player within a minimum distance of the graveyard. Insta-zerg.
The change to the queueing is still nice, and it's like having leagues. It'd be nicer if they had BG ladders tho. Or frankly, a ladder system that wasn't a complete joke for Arenas (read the comment about how Blizzard only cares about Level 70's. Arena is another one of those things).
Really, WoW is more about innovation of the business, not the product.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Permadeath would be a horrible thing to have in WoW since death can't be avoided if you want to instance or PVP. Latency spikes or the world server going down would also randomly kill you even if you were careful as possible. The Bind-on-Pickup is to ensure that there is always a reason for people to enter dungeons and raid and try to add a sense of 'worth' to powerful epics - though it is easier to gear a character now than ever before which isn't a bad thing.
Before I explain the subject, it should be noted that I have NEVER before considered myself a "gamer", or someone who was interested in RPGs at all for that matter. Sure, in the past I might have picked up a controller and gotten into a round of Rogue Squadron or Soul Reaver, but it's never been a serious interest... until WoW.
I started out by watching my former roommate. He would spend hours of his day after work playing. He's one of those types that can become completely immersed in almost anything, and in turn, lose touch with reality. But I digress.
I started watching and learning during the beta, and afterward for about a year. In the beginning, I thought it was fun to look at, but still wasn't convinced that I should try it myself. It wasn't until I saw the magnificence of a 40-man raid that I began to understand what Blizzard had done so well.
I've now been a moderately dedicated player for over two years, and am nearing max level with my second character. I do not play twelve hours a day, and many days I don't play at all. But there are a number of reasons I continue to pay a monthly subscription, which I will attempt to illustrate (some of these have been noted before, I'm sure).
Dynamic content: While many of the basics have remained the same, Blizzard has gone out of their way to expand, improve and refine content and gameplay beyond any other game I've seen. What's more, you don't have to rely on the next expansion pack to get new content. Case in point, the 2.4 patch.
Social interaction and group mechanics: One of the things I love most about WoW is that the people I interact with in-game are people I associate with in real life OUTSIDE the game. Two of my brothers play alongside me, as do many long-term friends and co-workers. We have a common ground where we can all enjoy each other's company, even when separated by vast distances. Learning to work within a group, and being part of a mechanism is quite possibly the most appealing thing for me. PvP is fun, sure, but I'd rather work with people than against them. Learning your role within the group, and adapting to that dynamic can be a metaphor in your work and social activities as well. It's actually helped me in real life situations.
Low system requirements: When I first started playing, it was on a Mac Mini 1.25ghz with 1gb of RAM and a 32mb video card. I can think of no other (CURRENT) MMO that can get away with that. I've since gotten a newer machine with better hardware, but I can still play on the Mini any time I choose, with no real dramatic decrease in enjoyment or playability.
To echo other previous statements here, hate on it all you want, but the fact of the matter is that if they have 10 million plus subscribers, they are doing something (if not many things) correctly.
For the record, I am a single father, and my playtime is nowhere near many people I know. Real life ALWAYS takes precedence over a video game. But if I have the time and nothing else to do, well...
"Oh, Florida. Just think, somewhere in this state, right now, Jeb Bush is eating a live puppy."
Well, it's not that simple. On account of that monthly fee, you don't just get some stuff later, you also get a lot more stuff up front.
E.g., WoW is a lot larger a game than Diablo 2, or for a more modern comparison, than Oblivion. Even the game as published has maybe 10 times the landmass of Oblivion, and 20-30 times the number of quests. If you think it's economically feasible to give you 10 times more content for the same 50 bucks, dream on.
They can put a lot more work into the game up front, because they hope to get more money out of you later, via those monthly fees. That's something those fees get you right there.
That said, though, depending on the game, you might get some "freebies" for those 15$ per month too.
E.g., COH seems to be pretty much what you ask for. They never sold an expansion pack, they had about 11 mini-EPs for free. More than half the game as it is now, has come via expansion packs. All the hazard zones, Salamanca, Ouroboros, the new Faultline, all the PvP zones, etc, etc, etc, are from free EPs.
E.g., EQ2 on the other hand won't give you even the time of day for free, so to speak. As the GP said, they're really milking that teat for all they can. Their expansion packs have been really tiny, and all their EPs and Adventure Packs _combined_ so far, amount to less than WoW's one EP. But they were sold for more money on the whole. Their largest EP, "Echoes Of Faydweyr", adds two new races (fairies and evil fairies), and their newbie areas and capital cities, but that's it. As surface goes, each of the two islands is about as big as the Draenei and respectively Blood Elf newbie areas and cities in Blizzard's Burning Crusade EP, and even less as quests and scripts go. Sony's biggest EP was a tiny fraction of what Blizzard sold as their one EP.
Seriously, even when they have 1-2 dungeons they can't be arsed to stick in a whole EP, they sell it as an "Adventure Pack" for half the price.
E.g., WoW actually is somewhere in the middle. They added quite a few "free" stuff over the years, bundled with some patch. All the endgame grinding dungeons for example came for free later. Ditto IIRC for the battlegrounds. And a bunch of other stuff.
They did sell an EP, but, really, that's one big huge chunk of land and quests. It really has more of both than Oblivion, or for that matter, than a few Oblivions put together. Again, based on the assumption that they can recoup that partially via monthly fees too. (Might make some people stay longer, might make some people return to try it, etc.)
At any rate, do I regret buying that EP? Nope. As I was saying, I got more value for that money than from a couple of single-player games put together. Sure, I could start demanding that they give me all that for free, since I pay a monthly fee. Well, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't say "no" if they wanted to give me a bunch of content for no extra cost. But from a pragmatic point of view, it was still money pretty well spent.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Troll much? Item duplication has long been eliminated from WoW. And the "soulbound" item system is a good idea. Otherwise the marketplace would be flooded with hand-me-downs.
Blizzard really didn't "create a new type" of anything. It's just EQ++, with art and lore stolen from Blizzard's existing Warcraft games. They built on existing work, and an existing industry.
The real question is how they managed to be so damn successful with such a derivative product.
Honestly, the 11 points in this article are probably bullshit. It really all comes down to this: They combined a pre-existing successful, addictive game genre (MMOs) with a pre-existing, world-class brand (Warcraft), and they did an acceptable job of software development/maintenance -- unlike, say, SOE, who had a succesful brand (Starwars), but ended up with a mediocre product (SWG) (What's the point of starwars game without spaceflight and jedi powers?)
How about not playing the game 24 hours a day? Nothing will be fresh and challenging if you do it continuously for 6 weeks.
Seriously, no sarcasm here - the transformation of Blizzard into a service company wouldn't have been nearly as successful without the departure of almost all of the people who actually did the r & d to make it happen. The main thing which Blizzard has done right in the past few years is to not even bother creating anything which even remotely resembles new IP. Putting the focus on truly global marketing and strictly prohibiting any investment in games which are not sequels or expansions may seem a bit uninspired, but, on a business level, is pure genius. It has meant that not only is there no risk of cannibalizing their own product, but has freed up resources for taking the marketing to the next level of budget and polish, while also diversifying into additional high-margin ancillary products and licensed goods. Almost all of the creative stars who actually made Blizzard's classic titles and helped in the original development of WoW are gone - Adham, Brevik, O'Brien, Strain, Phinney, Wyatt, Hayes, Petras, the Schaefer Brothers - and Blizzard is much better at executing as a business because of it. The ones who remain may never create a title which isn't an expansion or sequel, but they do know how to implement a winning formula. And, of course, they won't have the obnoxious sense of entitlement and demands for outsize pay often found in senior employees which drains coffers and damages morale. WoW was a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity, and not needing to deal with the burden of catering to the kind of creative talent which chafes at endless regurgitation was the best thing which could have happened to them.