Sardu (Page 8)
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Features, PreviewsTue, Aug 30, 2011Sardu
You do point out a very distinct difference in the progression of both games in terms of higher level item drops and how they effect progression. I look at them both as valid systems, but still see at least a few issues with greens in BC negating the need to raid in prior instances.
In post PoP EQ it's true that a lot of new content, even in non-raid areas took into account those raid-dropped items and adjusted difficulty levels of encounters with that in mind. In other words new content was vastly easier to manage if you had done previous raiding progressions. But, it's also important to note that not a single one of the old raid zones lost it's usefulness. Even once OOW came out, a newer guild wanting to become a raiding force would start in ST / VT before moving on to PoP progression even though ST was content from 5 expansions ago. Better geared raiders heading into PoP was one main reason, but the other is the fact that to take on harder raids a guild had to learn "how" to raid. Thus the items and skill progression of a raiding guild went hand in hand... by the time you were in PoP you couldn't possibly handle GoD content if you were still wiping in the Elementals etc.
WoW not only introduced a much quicker overall leveling progression to the game, but by itemizing BC to negate the need to raid in older instances they've more or less made them obsolete. If you can skip over lvl 60 purples in favor of greens at lvl 62 then most guilds do exactly that. Raid progression really carries no meaning nor purpose until you are at that level cap of 70. Knowing this, there's really also no need to raid even then should the next expansion follow this trend, but for now that's besides the point.
When BC launched, yes there were many many guilds who'd mastered the raids in Azeroth, but once they started on the lvl 70 raids they were vastly more prepared to tackle that content than a single other guild starting with raiding after it's release. At least on the server I play on, not many new guilds do well in the lvl 70 raids simply because of lack of experience with raiding, something progression through EQ provided. Not only provided but had the secondary purpose of getting useful items. Both of which are missing from WoW.
So on the one hand you have a quicker progression, but I'm not so sure that new content making older content obsolete is such a good plan for future development. If I start playing WoW today as a casual player, the one single reason to buy BC before the next expansion arrives is to have overland mobs to fight from lvl 60-70 so I can survive in Northrend. Old factions are abandoned so of little use, and instance drops will simply be replaced by greens in a few levels. What happens once the third x-pac is released? Will all the hard earned purples from level 80 raids be worthless compared to lvl 82 greens? Will people even want to bother starting the game as a new player, needing to buy x-pacs just for grindable content so they can do max level raids? Could a new guild at that point even handle the raid content with no prior experience?
Without those drops having any need or meaning, there will never be a single reason to 'progress' through raiding in WoW unfortunately.
Although I already sent off an email over the weekend, I thought I'd go ahead and say that the re-design for the site looks great. It's definitely a 'leap', and gets my Master Sardu's Stamp of Approval (tm) !
You made a lot of really great points re: press at events like Blizzcon. The attitude you bring to the event as a writer is most often going to be reflected directly in the coverage you present to your readers. Gamers do tend to be a passionate bunch and will most definitely pick up on that attitude in your words, no matter what the specifics of the news item may be. At least for me that makes all the difference in weather or not I visit a site on a regular basis. We all knew that an event like Blizzcon would be covered by a zillion media outlets, but at the end of the day there's only a select few that have bothered to write about the even like they actually gave a damn. That's what always kills me about some of the supposedly 'major' gaming sites... even their 'in depth hands-on previews' of a game will be nothing more than "I did this, I did this, and then I did this." rather than ever bothering to mention simple things like if the game was fun to play or not. Then again, those same sites seem to hold that kind of statement until after they've confirmed advert revenue from the publisher :P
At any rate, I guess my point is... keep up the good work TTH peoples !
First I'd just have to say that as far as Bane goes, it's much more prevalent in Tabula Rasa... at least in terms of invading alien races :P
I can definitely see the multitude of ways that WoW has been a boon for the industry, and agree that it's helped more than one small developer secure funding by being cited in design docs before production even begins. The same thing happened with both UO and EQ before WoW ever launched, and many would even argue (myself included) that WoW would never have been created were it not for the success of both of those games before hand.
There are however downsides that I think are just as clearly recognizable. There are indeed ways in which the gaming industry mirrors the music industry in terms of creative control over a project. If Band A starts working on their first major label release but the folks in the office (in control of the bank account) don't find it 'commercial' enough they'll either ask for songs to be re-recorded or fairly often drop funding for the project entirely. The exact same thing happens in the game industry where the proverbial bar has been set by WoW so for a project to even get a green light these days those dreaded words "casual gamer" crop up more and more often in design docs etc. Look at the recently linked preview for AoC - a game fairly hyped as being somewhat more 'hardcore' due to aspects of realism in gameplay beyond just visuals... yet even THAT game is being said to be build for casual gamers (read: you can solo for most of the game outside of those handful of dungeons/ boss encounters/ high level raids/ pvp events so guilds and the like are just glorified chat rooms and little else) As far as dropped projects goes .. where's the big MS funded MMO on the market? Oh that's right, they've all been canceled :D
Try jumping into a forum discussion sometime about a recently announced MMO and you'll find one of two things - either a whole big pile of comments about the game being a WoW clone , or conversely people saying it won't be enough like WoW to stand a chance on the market. Though many might disagree, I feel as though people have barely begun to scratch the surface of the fantasy genre. Lets be honest here, WoW is EQ with a fresh coat of paint though tongue-in-cheek humor has replaced a lot of the overall depth of the game. In EQ when you took down a dragon, it was most often with a guild full of people you otherwise spent your time grouped with on a regular basis. Though they've been much more clever in how they disguise it, WoW has just as many if not more full-on time-sinks that EQ had even though that's one of the things tend to complain about if you mention a 'hardcore' game.
The WoW story makes me glad I never did take a trip down to the EQ FanFaire a few years back that a bunch of my guildies were attending... for all I know one of them might not have been 18 yet and I'd have been arrested for being on a VT raid with them and suggesting they spend their DKP on a new robe !! o.O
On a more serious note though I do feel bad for all people involved in that story. Other than the boy that is, unless the woman was a full on stalker vs. someone he'd lead on to believe he wanted to marry knowing full well that due to his age any romantic relationship would be illegal. So she lands in jail with her picture plastered all over the web and I'm guessing he got a slap on the wrist. I don't necessarily blame the parents for taking action, but it still might have been better parenting had they talked to the woman and then cut their son's computer access and left it at that but those are some of the many details left out of the story that make it hard to say what 'really' happened.
I'm actually surprised to hear about AA closing the servers though. I knew the game wasn't exactly a huge success but didn't realize the population was so low. From the bit of time I played the game I thought it had some really great elements to it .. I kept imagining what a game like Eve would be like if the space combat felt that fast paced and physical, or what your typical fantasy based game might be like if you could harvest that wood you need for crafting via destroying a small village in some PvP zone etc.
Happy birthday greetings and a mighty gratz on your new level. Hopefully this will be a good spell level for you and not just merely upgrades !
As far as the PotBS publishing deal goes... once again I'm somewhat (only somewhat mind you) shocked by how negative people are being that SoE is involved. I'd like to be able to take some of the negative comments seriously but then most of them I've seen almost word for word literally hundreds if not thousands of times before on various community sites. Nothing says "I'm a robot with no real opinion of my own" quite like the SoE-hater crowd.
Here's a great example quoted from the forum post of a gamer on another site on this topic :
"Platform Publishing is a SCAM perpetrated by SOE to take control of independent franchises. First they promise to do all your marketing and distribution, but the trick is.....they do it very poorly and as cheaply as possible to insure a crippled launch, because just as everyone else has learned, MMORPGs rarely succeed with a poor launch."
Send that man a tinfoil hat !
In all seriousness though, I'm excited for ye olde folkes behind PotBS as this deal will no doubt greatly increase their potential subscriber base. Having a strong marketing team and retail presence will make a big difference, and even though the launch date is being pushed back a bit and sits right near the time frame of a couple of other major launches (AoC / TR ) the titles are all so different that I don't see that being an issue. And it can only be a good thing if the game will be on the Station Access pass as it also likely means that SoE game time cards will be usable for single subs which again, plays a fairly major role in the success of a game like WoW simply due making the game available to a much broader audience.