Same specious "non-arguments" over and over.

Replying to the original post:

I don't understand? Why would you suggest NOT to imitate a succesful game? I agree that developers should try new things, experiment with gameplay, but I don't think that it's going to help you as a developer in ANY WAY at all to ignore a giant like World of Warcraft. I've played World of Warcraft, I like playing World of Warcraft. It's success is shown in a capitalist way, you do feel like you're accomplishing something by playing it. Aren't you though? In a world of 7.5 million players, if you accomplish something there, I think you've accomplished something in general. It's not all just false rewards, not when you're playing with tons of other people like that. Now, if you say it is, then you're discriminating a whole movement for gaming, and that's multiplayer gaming. It's the next big thing, why do you think xbox went with Live?

I think World of Warcraft made it easy enough for tons of people to get into gaming. It made them feel like they were good at games, by rewarding them as they played. A whole new generation of gamers came about through WoW. If you can do that with a game, that's AMAZING. That's what counts. Playerbase is what counts. If you show that you can attract 7.5 million players, then holy jesus, you've got the magic touch buddy.

Saying a game with 7.5 million players isn't a good game, isn't a good design, now that's your oppinion. You're entitled to it, but guarenteed you're going to get flamed on forums for it and you're going to meet a lot of people that disagree with you. Telling people not to imitate a game with 7.5 million players designs? Now you're just being foolish.

Oops. Forgot to sign in - I'm the AP above.

EDIT:

Didn't read the latter posts. Seems you have drifted from the original topic a bit...

I have to agree with makeshiftwings - commercial developers have no responsibility beyond creating a successful game, in my opinion. I mean, there's some obvious limits: It obviously wouldn't be okay for a commercial game developer to create a product that directly kills/harms people (like cigarettes), and there's a gray area with a limit that every person is going to set differently. WoW doesn't even come close to this limit for me, and therefore I'm not judging it based on any perceived harm it may or may not be causing.

If you find a commercial game morally objectionable, then I see the responsiblity of presenting the opposing point of view lying with you, not the developer (unless it's against the law for whatever reason - then it's the responsibility of the government).


[Edited by - kindjie on November 27, 2006 10:14:42 PM]

Hello everyone, long-time game player, aspiring game developer here. I came across this interesting discussion and decided to provide my input on the topic.

Regarding the issue of "Is a WoW a good game?", I think in the sense of "compared to what's out there" yes, it's a good game. This is obvious by its 7.5 million playerbase. Blizzard took the things many MMOs at the time were doing wrong and did them right. The first example that comes to mind is the dedication and time required to achieve most of the game's objectives and experience most of the content. In Final Fantasy XI, for example, you really need to be a hard-core player to reach level 75 and experience what the game has to offer, while in World of Warcraft you can sit down for an hour or so every other day and actually get somewhere.

But, that's beside the point. Compared to current MMOs, yes WoW is a good game. However, when you consider the potential the whole MMO genre has to offer, and, more directly, the things Blizzard could have improved on, WoW is no longer a good game. I could go on and on, but the three main things I didn't like about WoW (at least compared to FFXI and Lineage II) was 1. The cartoony graphics and silly plots/dialogue, 2. the absolute repetitiveness of gameplay, and 3. the ease/lack of challenge in gameplay (which is main ingredient to the game's success in the non-gamer and young crowds).

Sure, you get a sense of accomplishment after spending hundereds of hours leveling up to kill a real player enemy, but a sense of accomplishment of the same magnitude can be had in a regular, successful game in several hours. WoW can be fun at times, but the fun:time ratio is comparatively low, which is true for many MMOs. Where I think SE had(has) it right with Final Fantasy is the true immersion and sense of grandiose you feel as you're really getting into the game. Of course this varies from person to person, but the cartoony graphics and simple, boring quests in WoW certainly don't help the game to be immerssive. And after all the games I've played, the ones that are always the most fun are the most immerssive ones.

Ehh, got a few more ideas on the subject but my battery is running low.

Quote:

Original post by BBHudson Quote: Original post by CIJolly Let's say there are two kinds of good. One is exemplified by the works of Shakespeare, Mozart, Picasso, George Orwell, etc. The other is best displayed by works like Harry Potter, Britney Spears, most situation comedies, etc. It's interesting that you put Mozart in that list, as I regard WoW as the "Mozart" of MMORPGs. By that I mean both may be described as "dull perfection". WoW stuck to a tight tested formula and never tried to introduce anything new, yet it worked because it got that formula bang on. If I had to segregate "good" into two catagories it would be that of perfection and that of innovation, much like if you compare Mozart to Beethoven. In this sense the OP is absolutely correct, in that if you try to emulate WoW you'll never make as good a game, because it already did everything correctly. To make a better game you're going to have to change things, i.e. introduce new ideas. Anyway, although some do appear to take it too far, I do not have a problem with people criticising a popular game. It is only by pointing out faults in a particular formular that one can come up with a superior formula. As some genius at Honda once said: "It's good to hate".

Mozart = "dull perfection"

Shows the relativeness of opinions.

If you didnt know, Mozart WAS innovative for his time.

Will be interesting to see 5 years down the road what opinions
people have of WoW when there are possibly much superior games (I hope).


Unfortunatley WoW reminds me of seeing the old ladies sitting in the Casinos
at the nickel slot machines all day.

Quote:

Original post by wodinoneeye If you didnt know, Mozart WAS innovative for his time.

Well that's completely untrue but you can believe it if you like...

Back to the topic at hand:

I'm not sure what most of the above stuff is really about. From what I can gather someone's under the impression that Blizzard is somehow an evil brainwashing corporation that's raking in money by getting people to pay for boring pap? What a load of rubbish. You see there's a general fault in the capitalist society we live in that all the different media formats (music, films, games) exploit to the extreme: you can't try before you buy. Ok, so that's not so true with music these days, but when was the last time you demanded your money back from the cinema because the film you paid for was utter s**t? That's why Hollywood have gotten away with release drivel for years - all they have to do is hype up a movie and people will go see it. It doesn't matter if the film sucks because by the time people realise they've already paid. However, such a thing is not true of World of Warcraft. Why? Because you have to keep paying every month! If WoW really was as bad as some of you people seem to think they why do 7.5 million people not just STOP PAYING. People are stupid but they're not that stupid, and furthermore although everybody has a differing opinion, you can't exactly get your own opinion wrong. People play WoW because they like playing WoW.

ramble warning! I wrote this post pretty quickly I'll think about it some more when I get home.

In response to the above poster I thought I'd try to make a list of the reasons people play wow.

The items on the list aren't totally orthagonal, and there may be many other reasons - a survey would be a way to get better results (and statistics) but here the the main reasons I feel people play WoW:

1) They like playing it. But you don't do something for 6+ hours a day if you just 'like' it, there are other reasons.
2) They don't like playing, but continue to play for other reasons (I have known a few people who play even when they say they don't enjoy it (especially in 'hardcore' guilds)). This includes playing because they are addicted - See http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/2006/10/view-from-top.html for an example of this.
3) They play because of the reasons the OP said. People like material gain, even if it is virtual.
4) They play because they like the genre and can see it's potential but there are no better mmorpgs, or at least with as much popularity (which apparently makes it more fun to play). This is kindof an extension of point 1, I cheated.
5) Sheep effect. The want to play a game, they go to the gamestore- world of warcraft is on the shelf 'oh I think I'll buy that, my [friend/brother/dog] was talking about that I think I'll try it out', unwittingly knowing that mmorpgs keep players more than other types of game because people make friends in the game, they become part of the community and world and become reluctant to leave and let their virtual bodies decay and become weaker than everyone else. They are playing wow because it is popular.
6) To earn real life money. (lots of people do this, mostly Chinese I believe).

http://blogs.parc.com/playon/ is a good site for statistics about on wow.

[Edited by - stevenmarky on November 28, 2006 3:59:25 PM]

world of warcraft capatalizes on the world as it is today.... not on the us alone do u understand the stock market or anything like that ... the world is based on who has the flyest stuff dawg.... does anyone need a pair of 300 DOLLOR NIKES , HELL NAW... its that they want the best stuff its materialistic .... and in a world sense of view ITS A SUPPLY AND DEMAND WORLD , teh main cause .... money and TEH RICHES lol whthough the money and "teh riches" we just have selfconcios people , basicly all i am saying is the people who seel the armor need cash or want it and the people who buy it demand the best stuff.... thats how it works now if u want to change that then.... u should make and ANTI-WOW

I've personally been playing WoW for about 2 yrs now.

Now, I'm not saying it is a great game. I don't like fighting games much. My 2 to 5 hrs a day are usually enough for me.

However, there are elements in it that I personally like.

I do know though that some of the current players in WoW came from SwG when they changed the gameplay too much. So, there can be more than one 'good' game out there. As has been said already 'good' is based on the viewers standpoint.

Things I like in various online games I play:

1. WoW - Rest time - Promoting breaks from playing and rewarding it with speedier levelling while rest time is being used.
2. SwG - Property - The ability to own property including your own virtual permanent sales person.
3. Starpeace - Industrial Expansion - Running a whole business so that it makes money while you are doing something else if you care to.
4. WoW / SwG - Questing - The more quests the better, but preferably if there was some sort of effect in the game as a whole. Maybe will make you think carefully before taking on a quest.

So, my idea of the 'perfect' game (in my eyes at any rate) is to have :

1. The ability to utilise a rest time functionality for combat purposes (if you so desire to play that side of the game).

2. The ability to own 1 or more buildings for storage, residential or rental purposes.

3. The ability to run a virtual business as an alternative game style to combat.

4. The ability to quest/grind by choice from level 1 to level max regardless of being grouped with others or solo.

Of course peoples views are different but sometimes you need to cater for different views so that friends can play together without changing how they like to play.

As has been mentioned before some people play games - and WoW is not the only game of the type - because their friends had been playing and think its cool.

eg.
I met my fiance while playing Sims Online. We both liked Sims and were both invited to try the online version. We did and hooked up. After a while ( I think 2 or 3 yrs ) we moved on from that together and started playing SwG because we both liked star wars. 2 or so years later they decided to change that game in a way that meant both my fiance's Jedi and my Trader were affected in someway. We tried out the new style but had already lost several in game friends due to the earlier riddance of 2 (in their eyes) minor roles (Bio Engineer and Creature Handler). Within 6 months we had stopped that game too and drifted onto WoW which was being played by my fiance's son at the time and was starting to look interesting.

One thing to note though is that sometimes graphical games aren't the only game out there that attracts players. Before Sims Online in my case I had been place Starpeace and this is back in 2001 maybe even earlier, can't recall exactly now. I am still playing that game now albeit a break of 2yrs while ownership was passed around resulting in several changes I wasn't interested in.

Well, thats my view on the subjec. I hope it didn't diverse too much from what was being said.