Bobby Kotick Not Worried About The Old Republic Competing with WoW
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The rose-tinted glasses are a big part of it yeah. In the good ol' days it was much more a long grind, lots of people didn't do it not because they couldn't but simply because they were bored by it. Just like how the old instances were so much more of a chore content wise, which makes sense because you can barely make raid bosses very complex when you're dealing with 40-man raids.rsvp42 said:
I find what you say about leveling quite amusing by the way. Especially the "new quests help make it all more pleasant and fun, but it's doesn't actually make it more important" passage. I mean, we're playing a game here, aren't they supposed to be fun? Isn't that the sole purpose of a game, to entertain?
Even still I find that it matters a lot, simply because there's a lot more content in the leveling than there is after that. Stories and story-build ups (which have their climaxes in raids and instances), plenty of areas and dungeons all ready to explore, how does that not matter? I was absolutely delighted that in WotLK Blizzard put a very high emphasis on the leveling content and I'm even more delighted that they're continuing this line all while still catering. They really neglected the journey before despite that taking so long.
Hence why especially after WotLK hit, I was appalled by my guildmates (whom I hadn't seen for quite some time as I took a WoW break after finally stopping with hardcore raiding) rushing through WotLK's content like a bunch of munchkins. WoW's most vocal community seem to be the munchkins anyway and they seem to make up the majority of the 'old guard', I guess that's because the game was extremely attractive for munchkins back then.
That said, a little less exp per quest would help at the moment. After I finished all my quests in the new Crossroads and finally was able to go to Ratchet, quite a few quests there were already green. It's a waste if you'd be pretty much forced to leave a zone if you want to progress. Smear the exp out a bit Bizz! Though it's a relatively minor point, if you pay attention it won't be that much of a problem.
I also agree that the professions do feel a bit trivial while leveling, and that you're mainly doing that during leveling so that you don't have to trek back to old areas and farm everything at max level. All the leather gear I can make for my Shaman is vastly inferior to the instance rewards I'm wearing right now, and looking at what I can craft in the future it'll stay that way for quite some time to come, and I'm just level 19!
It must just be that I've played it so much already because it obviously still holds a lot of appeal for others. Maybe it's that less of my friends play it these days or it's just not possible for me to remain immersed on the nth playthrough. In a lot of ways, what I want in an MMO is completely different than what newcomers will want. I should try to give it one last go though, try to see it objectively. But sometimes the only remedy is just a new world to play in, nothing against WoW.Cowabungaa said:
Well now that Blizzard have had their casual expansion to ease in the casuals the difficulty is going to be ramped up Cataclysm like they have promised, and nearly all BETA testers agree that nearly all Heroics contain bosses which are very difficult, and this will help break some verterans out of some bad habits they may have developed during Wrath of the Lich King. As long as Blizzard stick to their guns, and don't give in to the nerf callers, WoW will stop being casual.rsvp42 said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_599304&feature=iv&v=3XAFhyz-MSo
This type of reviewer is hit-and-miss with some people, but you can just mute if you don't like the commentary, but it shows a small slice of one of the first Heroic bosses you come across.
Well again that doesn't change the problem I have with it, just the way in which it's presented. By the same measure you can say WoW has the same thing: you just need to roll a Druid and you can be a Tank, DPS or Healer; you're not locked into any one role. You can progress as any. The fact is those categories remain and for as long as they do it means the PvE content of the game will be restricted to cookie-cutting rote-learned methods to advance with. It also guarantees that PvP will be terrible as it is in WoW. There are no buff classes, there are no debuff classes, no kiting classes, no sapper classes, no stealth classes, no utility classes.Labcoat Samurai said:
Yes, many classes can do these things but they are not defined by them and many of them can be done by other classes to varying degrees. But for the most part: all classes have an overlap that exceeds well above 50% because their abilities and roles are so homogeneous. Contrast this with Team Fortress 2 where all available classes are designed around their own specific theme and they are very good at it and extremely poor at everything that overlaps with another class' expertise. TF2 is balanced like a very good RTS and the worst RTS games are the ones where units are too versatile and too similar and that's unfortunately what WoW and TOR opted to replicate.
WoW originally was first setting out to break the mold and the trinity was extremely indistinct. Some cloth classes were expected to and had spells to buff their melee, the hybrid classes were exactly that: if I ran out of mana as an Elemental Shaman I could melee and the damage wouldn't totally suck but would be something like 50% that of repeated spellcasting. The thing is that once Blizzard noticed players getting around their out of mana problems which would force them to melee and actually use the Spirit stat until they could cast again by simply using lower rank spells, likely pressure from Jeff Kaplan steered it back towards Everquest's 'trinity is dominant' model and hybrid classes in WoW now frankly suck and are indistinguishable from core classes except that they pay a 'hybrid tax' where the mere label means no hybrid healer can ever heal as well as the core healer Priest, damage as much as the core damage Mage or Rogue. Tanking has been the only exception because people struggle to find tanks. Unfortunately for Shaman, despite being able to and having threat-generating abilities for off-tanking: never got considered.
I was a Shaman. *sniff*
IF the game is good, they should be worried.
IF its mediocre, or even terrible (which IMO is VERY possible), then yea, they dont have anything to worry about.
we just have to wait and see how it turns out.
I, for one, am not going to preorder any more MMO's EVER. FF14 just made sure of that.
IF its mediocre, or even terrible (which IMO is VERY possible), then yea, they dont have anything to worry about.
we just have to wait and see how it turns out.
I, for one, am not going to preorder any more MMO's EVER. FF14 just made sure of that.
Very true. I'm playing WoW right now (just started playing actually) and I have to say that I won't switch until I hear that TOR is a solid MMORPG. I won't make a mistake like a did with FFXI. I went over to that MMO and felt cheated.rsvp42 said:
What I mean is that a lot of people seem to be expecting Bioware to easily translate their success with CRPGs into an instant 'win' with MMORPGs, especially as the Bioware formula for CRPGs of 'you are hero, hero picks up overarching quest, hero picks up band of misfits and 2 dimensional love interest (or two), fight, talk, fight, talk, fight, talk, talk, finale' doesn't really seem made for MMORPGs.Caliostro said:
My point really being that from Kotick's POV, this is just another group of new comers with impressive financial backing and a popular franchise and WoW has seen those come and go so no need for Blizzard staff to start tidying up their resumes just yet.
I'll probably try it, but I've also tried LotRO and DDO and still went straight back to WoW. WoW is just too well maintained and too well executed to be de-throned right now. But it should be interesting to see two of my favorite developers going at it.
Bioware vs. Blizzard: Fight for Your Money 2011 (Actually, sounds like a kickass Marvel vs. Capcom-type game...)
Bioware vs. Blizzard: Fight for Your Money 2011 (Actually, sounds like a kickass Marvel vs. Capcom-type game...)
Lets look at it this way:
A good portion of those 12 million players don't care about video games AT ALL, yet they for some reason play wow, but they will most likely NEVER bother to play another game.
These are people that had a hard enough time learning all the little tricks of WoW, and people think these will move over to another MMO? And a Sci-Fi one at that? Not going to happen.
A lot of these people will most likely disappear from the MMO scene before buying a new one.
A good portion of those 12 million players don't care about video games AT ALL, yet they for some reason play wow, but they will most likely NEVER bother to play another game.
These are people that had a hard enough time learning all the little tricks of WoW, and people think these will move over to another MMO? And a Sci-Fi one at that? Not going to happen.
A lot of these people will most likely disappear from the MMO scene before buying a new one.
Agreed. World of Warcraft gets by on being simple, accessible and a quick-to-play runabout with friends.Aurgelmir said:
This is something only Blizzard have really been able to pull off in my opinion.
Take Funcom's Anarchy Online. Ugly, lumpy and generally no fun at all. This is something I think is down to the science-fiction genre as a whole.
When it comes to science-fiction, it either comes across as far too complicated, or just patronisingly simplified....or maybe I just don't like Anarchy Online. Maybe it's because the general playerbase is a group of elitists who consider WoW-players to be ten year old kids who aren't hardcore enough for a real MMO.
You wha?
The Holy Trinity shouldn't work in PvP o_0.
Anyone with half a brain would just ignore the tank and attack the healer, smashing the entire thing apart.
It's PvE, relying on the fact that AIs aren't programmed to counter this.
The Holy Trinity shouldn't work in PvP o_0.
Anyone with half a brain would just ignore the tank and attack the healer, smashing the entire thing apart.
It's PvE, relying on the fact that AIs aren't programmed to counter this.
Well, maybe not as their primary features, but many of those are extremely specialized. And in WoW at least there are classes that are designed to fill those roles as secondary roles. I was personally always satisfied with the stealth abilities of my rogue and the kiting abilities of my hunter, for example. YMMV, I guess... *shrug*Arec Balrin said:
In theory, tanking, damaging, and healing are key components to just about every party-oriented RPG I've ever seen. Even if you look at a classic adventure/RPG like Secret of Mana, your party consists of a tough combat guy, a healer, and an offensive spellcaster. Every final fantasy game ever has worked best when you have a mix of tankers, damagers, and healers (some strictly enforce it, others let you figure that out for yourself). Diablo 2 circumvented that by ultimately just scaling up the single player experience for multiple players... but the result was that there was no teamwork. Just a chaotic (but fun) dogpile. The core D&D party is fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard. Fighter takes the hits, cleric heals and off-tanks, rogue deals direct damage, and wizard deals area damage and controls the battlefield. That's not to say alternative parties don't work, but it's a tried and true method that's been going for 30 years.
The problem I've had with it in MMOs is that they often over-specialize. It's boring to be stuck in one part of the trinity and never break out. It's no fun to be a healbot, and it's easy for a tank to be jealous of the damage numbers the rogue is pulling... and sometimes the rogue wants to feel like a badass and take some guys on directly. That should be encouraged.
On the other hand, it would get old quickly trying to play TF2 classes in a varied singleplayer campaign. And it would be very difficult to balance such a campaign. Missions that would be cake for the sniper might be a ***** for the demo man. TF2's model works well for what it is, but with that much variation in class specialization, the amount of thought and effort you'd need to put into encounter design would skyrocket.
I don't know, maybe it would be possible, but I'm not confident it would be
Yeah, I agree that that's bad design. It's not a fair trade to give up group desirability for solo variety. Why not let players have their cake and eat it too? The point is to let them have fun, not enforce draconian restrictions on them. Sure, a warrior may get jealous if a druid can do his job just as well. So give him something else so he can be more than just his *job*. Earlier, I mentioned D&D as having started this trend, but it doesn't fall into this pit. The rogue fills the damager role, sure. But he's also the skill guy, the scout, the trap disarmer, etc. (which, admittedly are all fairly well implemented traits of the WoW rogue). The fighter fills the tank role, but with the right weapon in hand, he can kick ass and take names even while effectively tanking. To some extent, WoW tried to implement this model, but as you pointed out, they dropped the ball in some significant ways.
I'm not sure I follow you about it being the product of poor AI. I mean, the game tactic of tank, healer, and damage dealer has been around for decades in D&D, and I'm sure that version of it predates any video game version.InevitableFate said:
Are you referring to the notion of threat and aggro? Strictly speaking, those roles don't arise from that sort of AI. For example, D&D lets a fighter tank by positioning himself for attacks of opportunity and trip attempts if enemies attempt to get to the wizard.
Having gone through the Baldur's Gate series I see your point Labcoat but differ. The game is much easier when you use the 2-row formation with two Fighter-type characters at the front(usually the main character if you're wanting an easy game, plus Minsc Or Khalid), then Druids or Priests in the middle(Jahera, Viconia) with Thieves, Bards or Mages at the back(Imoen, Jann Jannson or Edwin).
The big but here is that whilst tank, healer and dps did exist in this game; those were not the only roles and it would be obvious if played in turn-based mode. Some of the most important spells and abilities were not high damage, which was often unreliable, but of utility, buffs and debuffs that weren't additional; not surplus to a fight but essential to it. Fights were closer to the dynamics of PvP than PvE. I can't remember any time when Purge or Dispell really important in WoW except for specialised and circumstantial encounters in instances. They were not core to the game: tanking, healing and dps was. There's no real strategy there so it has to be shoe-horned into the game from the top-down.
I didn't just use a Priest in Baldur's Gate to heal, that wasn't even their primary function for me: I used them to turn dead, scout with Sanctuary, disrupt enemy spell casting, cause morale failures etc. Thieves weren't simply DPS but were intended to take out one specific target at the beginning of a fight *immediately* with their backstabs: four rounds worth of damage each delivered on their first attack, often gibbing that target. These days that target would instead be tanked and focus-fired down first with healers healing and that's it.
A lot of my 'tanking' was done by Edwin the Mage, summoning meat shield after meat shield of critters that prevented enemies getting close to my range-focused group.
There is another way; developers have forgotten it.
The big but here is that whilst tank, healer and dps did exist in this game; those were not the only roles and it would be obvious if played in turn-based mode. Some of the most important spells and abilities were not high damage, which was often unreliable, but of utility, buffs and debuffs that weren't additional; not surplus to a fight but essential to it. Fights were closer to the dynamics of PvP than PvE. I can't remember any time when Purge or Dispell really important in WoW except for specialised and circumstantial encounters in instances. They were not core to the game: tanking, healing and dps was. There's no real strategy there so it has to be shoe-horned into the game from the top-down.
I didn't just use a Priest in Baldur's Gate to heal, that wasn't even their primary function for me: I used them to turn dead, scout with Sanctuary, disrupt enemy spell casting, cause morale failures etc. Thieves weren't simply DPS but were intended to take out one specific target at the beginning of a fight *immediately* with their backstabs: four rounds worth of damage each delivered on their first attack, often gibbing that target. These days that target would instead be tanked and focus-fired down first with healers healing and that's it.
A lot of my 'tanking' was done by Edwin the Mage, summoning meat shield after meat shield of critters that prevented enemies getting close to my range-focused group.
There is another way; developers have forgotten it.
