WoW, EQ2, SWG Content Updates

Several of the larger commercial MMOGs are gearing up for updates in the next few weeks. The Everquest 2 Producer's Letter details more quests and PvP news, SWG's Patch 19 has smuggler updates and animation fixes, and World of Warcraft lead producer Shane Dabiri offers up a Battleplan for your perusal. (N3rfed has some leaked patch notes, if you're so inclined.) From the WoW Battleplan: "Some of our upcoming plans have already been mentioned on our community site. For example, in our next major update, we will be releasing Blackwing Lair, a 40-person raid dungeon, where you will be able to battle against the epic dragon Nefarian and his minions. We are also working on a 20-person dungeon called Zul'Gurub, and the mysterious lands of Ahn'Qiraj in Silithus. Outside of dungeons, we want to continue adding new world events, such as a carnival that will take place in Mulgore and Elwynn forest."

Ah, yes, the "Battleplan"

[Anonymous Coward]

Suffice it to say that the World of Warcraft "battleplan" offers basically nothing that wasn't already known and fails to actually let anyone know what the actual battleplan is.

People have been clamoring for information - real, useful information - on what Blizzard is planning for months now. Everyone knew Battlegrounds was coming. Blackwing's Lair has been on the table for ages. The other stuff mentioned is interesting, but not very helpful.

Imagine if your mayor came in front of the citizens of his city and told them "we're working on adding a new road to alleviate traffic down town, and are thinking of adding a new traffic light onto Main Street, and we're pleased to announce a large festival that'll be coming soon". What would be the first thing you'd want to know? Probably some more details, like where this new road would be placed, where on Main Street this new traffic light would be placed, and what, exactly, this new festival would be for.

The battleplan gives absolutely no indication of what Blizzard is actually planning. It also totally ignores certain other issues, like, say, class imbalances [slashdot.org], population issues (more Alliance than Horde), imbalanced content (Alterac Valley Battleground favoring Horde unless Alliance exploits the Horde base), bugged content (Ruins of Andorhal), bugged abilities, and more.

A lot of people would love to see new content, but most people would rather see the bugs fixed first.

Ultimately this battleplan failed to address any of the concerns of the community or really offer any "plan" beyond what was already known.

Re:MMORPGs

[Chyeld]

They tried that, it was called Sims Online. Honestly, I wasn't sure how many S&M Brothels could be fit into one town was really a question that needed to be investigated, but TSO certainly made a good effort to try to answer the question.

I hear Second Life is something of a better setup, but given I've only heard of it via /. I can't say it's been that successful.

Or in a less glib manner, because allowing players to create content causes three issues.

1. Who owns the content?
2. Is the content suitable (both in quality and context)?
3. And how do you facilitate content creation when most of the MMORPG's are based on systems that even the developers have to take multiple go's at a project before it's ready to even become public beta?

Re:MMORPGs

[Anonymous Coward]

In before Second Life reference.

Also, in a game like EQ2 and WoW where player advancement is a major goal, allowing users to create their own content is just asking for trouble.

Re:MMORPGs

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

If you spent any time at all around the kind of people who play WoW and the like (myself included) you would know why these people (myself included) should never EVER be given the ability to modify the world to any significant degree.

The phrase I like to apply to this idea pretty much sumarizes my reaction to any new and interesting technology.

"the potential for mis-use is MINDBENDING".

Re:MMORPGs

[The_reformant]

the problem with this is the quality of player produced content. Player building are an inherently bad idea since they require large empty areas to construct buildings in, the result would be wastelands of nothing but empty houses.

Although building things and adding content creates a sense of accomplishment to the person doing the creating it rarely adds anything of any value to other player's experiences

Re:Need to expand?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a limit to how many programmers you can throw at a problem and receive any benefit. If you throw the optimal(or at least near-optimal) number of programmers at the current issues, why shouldn't you have a second separate team working on new unrelated code. With a sensible design so that new development can be kept sufficiently non-intertwined with the existing code, nothing short of a full scale design change due to a fundamental architecture bug would prove problematic, and you'd get the current bugs fixed at the soonest possible point in time plus have new content delivered earlier. Seems win-win to me. Admittedly, skimping on work on the current stuff to work on the future stuff is stupid, but that's not a necessity...

Wake Me Up When MMORPG Makers Grow a Pair

[Shihar]

Personally, I am done with WoW. WoW was never terribly innovative in my opinion. It refined the drab MMORPG equation for sure, but it was not Half-Life to replace my Doom.

I had leveled up to level 40 at my leisurely pace on a PvP server and really couldn't stand the thought of killing more NPCs or doing more increasingly mindless 'quests'. My real hope had been with battle grounds. My hopes for BGs was quickly shattered when it became abundantly clear that being a level 40 in the BGs was pointless. I personally had hoped that the BGs would try and match up levels to offer a competitive atmosphere for all.

I am sick of MMORPGs. There was so much promise originally when people started connecting thousands of people together in online worlds. I was not surprised to see the original ones were just static NPC slaying games, but I really had hoped that after nearly a decade a spark of creativity would be injected into these MMORPGs. I am not saying I want a Tail in the Desert or a Second Life. I just want am MMORPG that offers a living and breathing world, not another friggin MMODC (Massive Mutliplayer Online Diablo Clone).

This is deja-vu from the year Doom came out and was immediately followed by roughly a thousand knock offs with absolutely no creatively or thought put behind them. The only difference is that the MMORPGs that have come out are even less creative then the Doom knock offs were, and the drought did last a frigging decade. It is sad and pathetic that the original pre-release Ultima Online remains to this day BY FAR the most innovative MMORPG to date. Wake me up when someone grows the balls to make a truly grand and inspiring MMORPG.

Re:Need to expand?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because it's not like Blizzard has kept patching old games like Starcraft and Diablo II for quite a long while like Valve has done with Half Life.

Oh, wait a second. They have.