Star Citizen - Chris Roberts, lots of spaceship porn, lots of promises

[Ryan_Kelly]

@triggercut

There was an article on the front page from WoW launch written by Tom that pretty brilliantly laid out all the reasons for why WoW was revolutionary and a departure, and almost all of those reasons would come to underscore the game’s massive popularity and become adopted genre-wide. Everything from not having to camp spawns and just sit there for hours on end to having beneficial temporary effects (like stat gain potions) geared towards in-game time rather than real time were amazing developments. Hell, the notion that you could actually quest your way to the level cap was something completely new and different.

Continuing from the interview with Pardo I quoted earlier:

We did it through a lot of methods; we had directed quest gameplay from beginning to end, you could solo all the way to the top - grouping was encouraged rather than required. The level curve actually matches the content. There were lots of little implementation details, but the idea was this: “Let’s just take this super fun genre that people don’t know really exists, and expand it out so that everyone can enjoy that.” We set that goal and achieved it, and I’m most proud of that. A lot of the time you try to achieve goals, and don’t quite make it all the way - you might make 70% of the goal - especially if it’s so lofty.

As you highlighted, their success came from smoothing out all the rough edges that had plagued the MMO genre up to that point, masterfully applying polish and maximizing accessibility. But can this be described as revolutionary from a game design standpoint, rather than refinement? Or to address what I see as the root cause of much of the disagreement here, does the fact that WoW revolutionized the marketplace automatically classify it as possessing revolutionary game design?

[Timex]

@Ryan_Kelly

But can this be described as revolutionary from a game design standpoint, rather than refinement?

On some level, I’m not sure it matters.

If someone makes a truly groundbreaking game, or refines existing materials into a truly great form, all that really matters at the end of the day is whether the final result is fun and worth playing.

Being “new” certainly has some weight in this regard, as truly new stuff often helps you overlook shortcomings. But even if you just do what other games do, but do it better, that can push you to the top.

That was the big issue with so many MMOs that followed WoW. They were just trying to be WoW, but were objectively worse at it. They were just a shitty version of WoW. There was no reason to play them.

[J_Thomas]

@Mark_Crump

Everything that came after it – with the possible exception of LoTRO – kinda failed on liftoff: Matrix Online, COH, Vanguard).

I just want to point out that CoH came out before WoW, and it was successful. It had 120k subscribers shortly after release, and peaked at 180k. Not quite EQ-killer numbers, but pretty good for early 2004.

Then WoW came out, and redefined success in the genre.

One other thing:

@Mark_Crump

Where i think WoW didn’t seriously change at least my perception of MMOs wasn’t until 2011 when in patch 4.3 they introduced the raid finder. Up until then, WoW was sort of on the EQ model where you needed spam chat or be in a good guild to raid.

Instanced raids in WoW were a huge deal. Raiding in EQ was much more then just a matter of being in a guild capable of handling the content. Your guild had to get to the raid spawns first. Everyone I knew in the top guild on my server was sick of contesting raid spawns. The guild I was in imploded largely because of it.

[Mark_Crump]

@J_Thomas

Raiding in EQ was much more then just a matter of being in a guild capable of handling the content. Your guild had to get to the raid spawns first. Everyone I knew in the top guild on my server was sick of contesting raid spawns. The guild I was in imploded largely because of it.

This is true. And WoW was at the least one of the first. I also think WoW was the first to support addons.

I can’t remember what raiding in EQ2 was like. I do remember that some dungeons were non-instanced, but I can’t remember the raids.

[Gordon_Cameron]

@Telefrog

It’s crazy talk to say that WoW was not an immediate game changer when it launched. The difference between WoW and the other MMOs at the time was epic. I remember when WoW launched and it absolutely sucked all the air out of the room for the other MMOs that were in development.

That’s my impression as well.

Prior to WoW I had tried a few MMOs and bounced off of all of them. In '04 I remember all the hype and forum chatter about the WoW beta and in Jan '05 I started playing it myself. After a brief period of skepticism I was completely hooked. It also peaked for me pre-Burning Crusade, in terms of my interest level (not necessarily in terms of game mechanics, etc.).

I don’t think it’s a contradiction to say that WoW was a game-changer while also acknowledging that it borrowed heavily from earlier titles in the genre.

[KevinC]

@Gordon_Cameron

I don’t think it’s a contradiction to say that WoW was a game-changer while also acknowledging that it borrowed heavily from earlier titles in the genre.

I think design wise it was mostly just a refinement of an existing formula, but in terms of the industry it was completely gamechanging.

[ArmandoPenblade]

@Gordon_Cameron

Prior to WoW I had tried a few MMOs and bounced off of all of them.

The same is true for me. Then I tried WOW and hated it. . . because it turns out that I really goddamn hate MMOs.

So now I’m in a permanently depressed state, because they refuse to make a real Warcraft game and keep releasing expansions for a fake Warcraft game that I hate every part of :( :( :(

[instant0]

WOW wasn’t afraid to use good ideas and polish/improve upon them in all aspects.

Unlike a lot of the competition and releases since then that have the notion that “we’re not gonna do like wow and be polished and continuously improve…”. Not to mention their gamechanger - UI MODS.

Hey, LOTRO is great, but the engine is shit and it took them years to improve the solo->group aspect of the game, that probably bled away a lot of players. How fun is it to play a MMO when all the content is now “Large Fellowship” and you cant find anyone to group with -when-you-want-to-do-the-content-.

That said, WOW also was terrible in TBC when it came to group content, but at least they helped smaller guilds so you no longer needed 40 people…but it didn’t really shine until WOTLK with the dungeon finder introduction… and then latter with the raid finder and scalable raids, all great ideas…

RIFT also had a lot of great ideas, but nearly all of these came later on, when it went F2P. Such as a scalable mentoring(level) system (EQ2 let you mentor ‘down’ as well, if I remember correctly) and instant-adventures for world questing, at release it only had a terrible game engine and “Rift” events. Something Warhammer also did (also shitty engine) - but at least Warhammer let you make some UI mods again + it had the TOME - which was worth playing for alone.

EQ was good for its time, but it was absolutely not solo/short burst friendly and pretty ‘elitist’ when it came to end-game content.

DAOC was more solo friendly, and tried to encourage exploration by giving XP bonus for killing stuff in ‘new areas’, and the 3 realms/PVP idea was good for those who managed to grind that way.

Wildstar was pretty polished in almost every aspect, had a great engine, UI Mods, group system and everything… they just lacked the magic (and somehow they nerver got it…). They pretty much said straight out "We’re not gonna be accessible like WOW… ". If I remember correctly, they did not have any means of doing large scale content without a pre-established group and the PVP system they had was shit.

WOW also came out at a time when a lot more people were on the internets and ready for something new… What is funny is that the same year, if I remember correctly, EQ2 launched. Only one of these games became a success, and it wasn’t the one from SOE. Why do you think that is… Polish, innovation, A great game engine, not being afraid to take ideas from others.

• WOW was also the first MMO (I think?) to make a 64bit client available with much improved stability and performance :)

[Profanicus]

You’d have to have a pretty pedantic definition of ‘game changer’ to claim that WoW doesn’t qualify.

[Charlatan]

The two things that stick out in my mind that marked WOW as a game changer were these:

• do you recall that they actually sold out at stores? Sales were so high and demand was so great that they decided not to restock immediately. Never heard of that before… or since.
• they opened with something like 50 servers. Remember the 2 to 4 hour queues? The demand was so great that the next week they deployed something like 50 or 60 more servers … a week after launch! effectively doubling the user base. And it still wasn’t enough. They continued to deploy servers like crazy the first six months of the game.

The gameplay may not have been revolutionary but it was definitely a game changer and is one of the few games that has become a cultural touchstone.

[Mark_Asher]

WoW killed existing MMOs for the most part and forced new MMOs in development to adopt many of WoWs innovations and new wrinkles.

I played EQ and was amazed. I loved DAoC and Shadowbane. I put a lot of time into other MMOs before WoW launched and enjoyed them – AC2, CoH, and one or two others. I got into closed beta in WoW and despite my past experience in MMOs it became the best of the best. Blizzard hit it out of the park.

[Ryan_Kelly]

@KevinC

@Gordon_Cameron

I don’t think it’s a contradiction to say that WoW was a game-changer while also acknowledging that it borrowed heavily from earlier titles in the genre.

I think design wise it was mostly just a refinement of an existing formula, but in terms of the industry it was completely gamechanging.

This is my take as well.

[Fishbreath]

Great, Mark. I was doing just fine this morning, and now I miss Shadowbane again. I played that one to the bitter end.

[Teiman]

I am more a fan of sandbox games. MMORPG of the style of WoW feel to me like limiting experiences where you are supposed to do exactly what the designers wanted you to do, and nothing else. The freedom of the player is so small has is almost non existing. Is sad that so many people is ok with not having any freedom.

[Mark_Asher]

@Fishbreath

Great, Mark. I was doing just fine this morning, and now I miss Shadowbane again. I played that one to the bitter end.

Yes, I loved that game. There were fans working on getting it up and running again but I don’t know if anything ever came of it. It was a unique MMO.

[Jason_McMaster]

Man, I loved it too. Shadowbane will always be one of my favorite gaming experiences.

[instant0]

@Teiman

I am more a fan of sandbox games. MMORPG of the style of WoW feel to me like limiting experiences where you are supposed to do exactly what the designers wanted you to do, and nothing else. The freedom of the player is so small has is almost non existing. Is sad that so many people is ok with not having any freedom.

Well, you could at least improvise a bit on the PVP servers.

In my troll only launch guild we were in StonePeaks(?) north-west of Barrens(?) and ambushed alliance players traveling through. We’d have one lone troll stand on the road, waiting, and acting all weak and attackable… and as soon as the alliance players attacked, we’d rush them from the side of the road were we had been hiding behind some bushes/trees :)

Spent so much time fighting around barrens I’d probably had 3 levels 60s by the time I hit 60 on my first character.

I was really looking forward to SB, but after getting into the BETA I kinda lost all interest in it… It felt like a step back in almost every regard from what I had played previously, even if the premise of clan cities being possibly to fully destroy seemed awesome. Despite its shitty UI/engine, Darkfall came a lot closer to how I envisaged it.

[Mark_Asher]

@instant0

Despite its shitty UI/engine, Darkfall came a lot closer to how I envisaged it.

Whatever happened to that game? I was going to try it but never did and I can’t remember why?

[instant0]

I think it was almost impossible to buy at one stage; then they re-released it… and the company was sold to someone else? I know that the guy I knew from the Quake milieu who worked on it, moved back from Greece (where they moved to develop it, on the cheap) near the time they sold it. There used to be a bunch of awesome PVP videos from the game making the rounds on the youtubes… but all I remember from playing it was “UI OVERLOAD” and a horrible grind.

[RichVR]

Weird. The title of the thread says Star Citizen. But it’s a WoW thread. Discourse messed up again I guess.