View Full Version : Successful MMO design corrupts new ideas
EtienneK
29-07-2008, 10:19 PM
Makes some good points:
The creative director of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, has said that successful design in MMO's like World of Warcraft has had a corrupting effect on the way games designers think.
Read more: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/successful-mmo-design-corrupts-new-ideas-says-warhammer-dev
Miktar
29-07-2008, 11:29 PM
"Successful design" my fuzzy ass.
FuzzYspo0N
30-07-2008, 01:42 AM
"Successful design" my fuzzy ass.
Agreed, article is somewhat, unobjective. Interesting read though.
dislekcia
30-07-2008, 02:21 AM
Well... I don't know exactly what the new thought here is supposed to be.
Developers are always influenced by the games they played before the current thing they're building. That's just how our minds work... Perhaps it's really bad with things related to WoW though because so many non-gamers played it as their introductory game, which means that they're super-defensive about how awesome it is?
If you're aware of what you're taking from a game, then you can use that awareness to change things up. I don't think that avoiding something totally is a great idea though: Study what worked and what didn't. Then be smart when you design your own stuff. Anything else is amateur.
Fengol
30-07-2008, 08:27 AM
The news snippet runs against this article (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3693/the_adventurers_guide_to_thievery.php?print=1) (The Adventurer's Guide to Thievery) from Gamasutra which recommends looking at other games and activities for inspiration and ideas.
dislekcia
30-07-2008, 11:39 AM
I don't know if it runs counter to that... I think that he's just saying that WoW has a very powerful hold over the people that play it religiously (hah, see what I did there?) and that means that it's difficult to get non-WoW-flavored ideas out of them.
I can understand that, plus it's not like Barret's a newbie designer either. Maybe this is making things more difficult to get across than usual?
I don't see the problem with WoW flavoured idea's really.
People like to say that WoW just used a lot of existing MMO ideas and then either kept em or built on them.
Isn't that the point? Build on existing idea's or at least examine their flaws for new ideas.
Personally I just feel too much of the development focus in games at the moment is the 'eye-candy' factor and not enough on the gameplay.
I haven't bothered with Age of Beta yet but it looks like they did try to balance that a bit more however from what people who's opinion I trust have told me they've cocked up a bit with some of the concepts like the FFA PvP as you're finding guilds camping entire area's to stop people leveling.
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