Blizzard Entertainment today announced that its eagerly awaited massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft will be in stores in North America on November 23, 2004. World of Warcraft will launch simultaneously in Australia and New Zealand, and is planned for release in Korea, Europe, and other countries throughout Asia shortly following. With a monthly subscription, players in these regions will soon be able to experience the epic adventure of the Warcraft series in an immersive and continually evolving online environment.
Monthly Archive for November, 2004Page 3 of 3
There was a really interesting article written by Richard A. Bartle over on Gamasutra. It is called “Soapbox: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies - No, Really!” and I suggest you read it if you are interested in MMORPGs in any way. I hope the link works. If not, I’ll try to sum it up a little here:
If you have a Virtual World (VW) that people play, people will eventually leave. If old people leave, new people are needed to replace them if the VW is to survive. New people are needed to join at the same (or better) rate than the old people leaving. The new player is critical to the survival of the VW.
Newbies won’t play a VW that has a major feature they don’t like. Even if the old players like the feature, your VW will eventually die as the old players will leave at some point and will not be replaced by new players.
Players compare any new VW with their first one. They demand features from their first VW be added to their new VW, even if those very features were partly responsible for why they left the first VW.
Many players generally prefer a design choice that is good for them in the short term, but bad for the game in the long term. They hate design choices that are bad for them in the short term but good for the game in the long term. Make me happy now!
One of his quotes: “Virtual worlds are becoming diluted by poor design decisions that can’t be undone. We’re getting de-evolution - our future is in effect being drawn up by newbies who (being newbies) are clueless.”
He does offer some possible solutions to this problem:
1. Make a VW so different than any past experience a player may have had that they come into it with no expectations.
2. A good marketing plan or the right license may encourage old and new players to try something different.
3. Take a good look at the VWs being developed in other countries and try to include the good ideas they use. Different cultures have allowed for VW to evolve in different ways.
4. Make the VW so beautiful and amazing that people are drawn to it.
5. Sometimes just the passage of time will allow people to approach VWs in a new light.
6. As VW players mature, they may recognize the bad designs as bad designs after all. They may become more willing to accept a bad short term change in order to improve the long term health of the game.
Well, I think I have covered enough of this. I don’t want to get in trouble so go read it yourself. I think it is a great insight into how VWs have evolved and what could happen to them if it continues. I do not agree with everything he writes (for example I really hate the idea of perma-death, but his observations on instancing is pretty dead-on) but it is worth the read for sure.
Here we are, mere weeks away from retail (maybe), and the World of Warcraft devs are still trying to decide what to do about carrying characters from beta test over to retail.
You’d think that with all the previous blunders made by other devs, the option would be simple. Everything from beta gets wiped, with the sole exception of maybe reserving a character name.
But here are the devs: “We have yet to announce our plans for characters at the end of beta testing. We have heard many (many) reasons for both sides of the issue, and when we have finalized plans, we will announce them.” -Tyren
And another: “We have not yet given a decision on the possibility of a wipe from beta to retail.” -Caydiem, Assistant Community Manager, WoW
Make the right decision folks, wipe ‘em. Wipe ‘em all.
Edit: My brother brought up a good point. Perhaps they are just trying to keep everyone playing. It is possible that announcing a character wipe at the end of beta now could cause some people to stop testing the game until retail starts. *ahem*
I was playing the free “World Preview Event” of Guild Wars last weekend. I’m not sure if this game qualifies as an MMORPG or not, but I guess it is one. The odd thing is that there is no monthly fee. I’m not sure how that is going to work out, perhaps they will sell expansion packs every few months or so instead.
Anyway, there was one feature of this game I was very happy to see. Occasionally you are given the option to do a mission/assignment/whatever that requires a group. Normally this means you have to start broadcasting for other people looking to do the same mission. However, Guild Wars has added another option. Near the mission guy, there are NPC henchmen standing around that are the same level as the level of people going into the mission. You can click on them and invite them into your group.
I made a group of me and 4 henchmen and did the mission. They have henchmen of every class so it is easy to pick what you want, or if you have a group and want a healer you can just grab an NPC healer. I was suprised by how well they did their job too.
The free weekend was with characters that start at level 15 so I cannot say for sure that they are always as helpful as this, but it sure was a great idea.
I guess I’ll have to pick this game up, if nothing else for something to do when I get tired of other games. No monthly fee makes it worth that alone. The graphics were pretty darned good as well. Certainly there was a few bugs, but nothing overly troublesome for me.