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PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

World Of Warcraft Diversity Explored 26

Posted by simoniker from the we'd-settle-for-hamlet-of-warcraft dept.
Thanks to RPGVault for their interview with World Of Warcraft producer Mark Kern, discussing Blizzard's forthcoming massively multiplayer RPG. He particularly stresses depth of content, especially relevant since recent allegations against Star Wars Galaxies: "I think one thing that sets us apart, aside from all the little things that go into our interface, quest-driven gameplay, and instanced dungeons, is the fact that there is so much to do in the game. This is also the key to retention. We have a huge amount and variety of places to explore that are packed with special locations, encounters, story and quests." He also discusses different play styles, saying the game will offer "..outdoor content for soloing, dungeons that offer cool loot and encourage grouping to succeed, and heavy boss encounters that require large guilds to take out."
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World Of Warcraft Diversity Explored More

World Of Warcraft Diversity Explored

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  • Why? Because Blizzard is making it. Need I say more?

    Finally, a company that has never laid an egg in RTS or RPG-lite has entered a new field with the same old dedication to quality that is unmatched by ANYONE else out there making a MMORPG.

    • Need I say more

      Yes, you do. Blizzard has made two games, Diablo and Warcraft. Diablo II was a redo of Diablo and Starcraft was a redo of Warcraft. They got lucky twice and have made a fortune reselling those golden eggs as expansions and sequals. I wouldn't get all teary eyed with anticipation for this game as MMOGs are a completely different beast and their online endeavours *cough*bnet*cough* are less than stellar IMHO. Plus, comparing a game that noone has seen outside of scripted E3 demos to cur
      • Hell, even Diablo is seriously derivative of Warcraft.
      • They got lucky twice and have made a fortune reselling those golden eggs as expansions and sequels

        How many companies have failed to get lucky that second time? How many companies have failed to have a sequel exceed the success of the original? How many companies failed to have an expansion pack succeed? Lucky with War 1, lucky with War 2, lucky with Diablo 1, lucky with Starcraft, lucky with Starcraft Brood War, lucky with Diablo 2, lucky with Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction, lucky with War 3, lucky with W
        • Once again, they made 2 distinct games and a bunch of derivative clones based on those two platforms. As far as their track record goes, lets do a comparison to another company..Chevrolet for example. In 1975 I'm sure there were quite a few investors/designers/fans claiming that the Chevette would be nothing short than the greatest car ever built, considering chevy's long line of great cars (Bel-Air, Impala, Corvette, Camaro, Chevelle etc..). Every company puts out lemons, and I'm saying this is going to
          • Once again, they made 2 distinct games and a bunch of derivative clones based on those two platforms.

            Even if true it's irrelevant, you completely missed the point. Derivative games are not sure things, they fail too. "Derivatives", "clones", sequels, follow-up, expansions, whatever you wish to call them, when you have such a long successful string of hits there is probably something beyond luck that is involved.

          • Re:More than luck (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Unknown Relic ( 544714 ) on Monday August 11, 2003 @01:45AM (#6663471) Homepage
            Actually, Blizzard has already had their lemon, only unlike most gaming companies they did the right thing in dealing with it. For those who don't remember, the game in question was Warcraft Adventures, a cell shaded adventure game similar in concept to the old Sierra classics. Instead of releasing a sub-par game, knowing full well it would sell simply because of the brand name, the game was canceled:

            What happened to Warcraft Adventures?

            Following an intensive and very serious review of the game, Blizzard decided to stop development on Warcraft Adventures. We determined that, given the game's status and the rapidly changing technology of the industry, it would not be possible to complete development of the title within a reasonable time frame.

            While this was an extremely difficult decision, we firmly believe that we cannot release a game that does not meet the exceptionally high standards that both our customers, and we, expect from the Blizzard label.

            Stopping development on this game was not a decision that was taken lightly. It was a hard call to make, but each of us knows that it was the right choice. We hope that Warcraft fans will consider our track record and trust our judgment on ending the project.

            The other thing that many people don't realize is that before they got into computer games, Blizzard successfully developed several popular titles on the SNES, including Lost Vikings, and one of my all time favorites, Rock and Roll Racing. Even if you do only count the craft and Diablo games as two distinct games, their library is much broader than you seem to realize.

            • Re:More than luck (Score:3, Interesting)

              by vjmurphy ( 190266 )
              "Actually, Blizzard has already had their lemon"

              Does Battle.Net count?

              Sorry, Blizzard, I just don't trust that you can deliver a secure experience online. That's why it is unlikely I'll be picking up Worlds untile such time as I'm convinced they actually care about exploits and security.
              • Sorry, Blizzard, I just don't trust that you can deliver a secure experience online. That's why it is unlikely I'll be picking up Worlds untile such time as I'm convinced they actually care about exploits and security.

                Actually, this is exactly why I trust Blizzard to deliver a secure experience online. There is no better opportunity to learn how to do things the right way than by doing them the wrong way first. Certainly Battle.net had its problems, but Blizzard has a track record of learning from its m
            • Saying that Warcraft Adventures was Blizzards so-called lemon is not exactly a fair or true statement, seeing as the project was stopped in the deveopment phase. The reasoning behind the stoppage, while it was never made official by Blizzard themselves, was that they were trying to put out a CRPG at a point in time when BlackIsle and Bioware were cleaning house with the Baldur's Gate series. However, as most know at this point(here it is for those who don't) they did keep most of the development data, wh
          • >Once again, they made 2 distinct games and a
            >bunch of derivative clones based on those two
            >platforms.

            OK, so lets accept that statement of yours. That implies that they are quite good at making derivative clones since they have succeeded many times at it (and not really failed). Since Warcraft online could thus also be seen as a derivative clone, chances are they might be very successfull in my opinion!!

  • FreeCraft (Score:3, Insightful)

    by managementboy ( 223451 ) on Sunday August 10, 2003 @05:34AM (#6658782) Homepage
    I just miss FreeCraft :-(

    • Re:FreeCraft (Score:2, Insightful)

      by trompete ( 651953 )
      Binaries and source code can still be found via Google. I just happened to grab a snapshot of it the night before the site got shut down. As the owner of almost every Blizzard title, I was saddened to see this project shut down.
  • A game which dares to ask the question "is too much of a storyline a bad thing?"

    Be STUNNED with amazement as you play a slightly different game than what other developers have in the market!

    HEAR the same generic sounds, as Blizzard and competitors alike try to justify ignoring the need for sound FX staff!

    SEE the beauty of jaggies and buildings you've seen a million times in Warcraft 3!

    FEEL the power that comes with playing an Orc, which is only slightly different from humans!

    ENJOY this great
    • I've played muds as a player, coder and area maker for over 10 years, and have played almost every mainstream MMORPG on the North American market. I believe that the missing element from an RPG vs Levelling 'ad nauseum' MMORPG game, is the idea of permanent character death.

      Mentioning the phrase usually incites people to reflexively assume that perm character death could NEVER work. But I don't think it has been
      given serious treatment as a conceptual game element.

      Consider the following.
      -One of the primary
      • I agree 100% with everything. I have never been interested in MMORPGs because of many of the problems listed here. There is not a significant amount of Role Playing going on in comparison to the power levellers. The incentive is to go out and get ph4t 1007 rather than role play.

        This would raise one serious social issue however. It has already come to pass that individuals have commited suicide over what transpired in the game world. Would perma-death cause this to be more likely, since the character (
        • I dunno, I think you could have some kind of 'account karma' attached to the game subscriber, so that they in each case with a new character had some random, benefit, detriment depending on the playing style of their other characters. There are various interesting possibilities for handling perm char death.
  • For a second there I thought they were talking about Black dwarves and (East) Indian goblins...

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