Just got back from the Austin Game Conference where I heard
several interesting talks. A major theme this year was of course the commercial success
of World of Warcraft and the reasons for it. Rob Pardo, lead designer for WoW,
gave a keynote on "Blizzard's Philosophy and the Success of WoW" (see Gamasutra summary). Also, Damion Schubert, Lead Combat Designer, Bioware gave a talk titled
"Moving Beyond Men in Tights" (see Raph's summary) in which he outlined what makes the fantasy-combat-grind
formula of most MMOs work. There was much overlap between these two talks so
I've taken the liberty of lumping several of the factors they mentioned
together in one list (below). Although there's not really much news here, I
think this list is a nice summary of currently popular MMO design principles.
Rob started by saying that at Blizzard, they see the video game market as a donut: the center represents hardcore gamers while the outer ring represents the larger group of casual gamers (never mind that the center of a donut is an empty hole). In developing WoW, Blizzard was going for the whole donut. According to Rob and Damion, here's how Blizzard won it:
1. Polish - Both cited the quality of
WoW as a key factor in its success. Rob said Blizzard has a "culture of polish"
by which they refine games throughout the development process and don't launch
before they're ready.
2. Soloability - Rob said they designed WoW so that players could "solo to 60" if they wanted. Damion said this is how WoW beat EverQuest. Soloability is certainly Blizzard's biggest departure from past MMOs such as EQ in which players had to group in order to get to the higher levels. Rob said some of the devs panicked when a few of the "hardcore" beta testers got to level 60 in a week and a half. But instead of getting bored, these players re-rolled new characters and continued to play. And of course soloing is also good for casual play because finding or assembling a group takes time (see our PlayOn data).
3. Differentiated classes - Both said
it was key to have classes that are differentiated in their roles because
players must know what each class is capable of when assembling a group or
competing in PvP. It also means a distinct experience for each class which provides
for replayability.
4. Rewards and pacing - Both cited these as key. Rob said a "huge reason for our success" is WoW's well-tuned leveling curve (see our PlayOn data). Rob said they tried to remove "experience walls," for example, WoW's rest system somewhat reduces the gap between the hardcore and the casual players. Damion said the "secret" of WoW's success is that it's quests are rewarding enough (through quest xp) that you actually do them. In past games, he pointed out, players tend to ignore the quests and instead camp in the one location with the most optimal mobs and grind. Also, Damion said that xp and levels reward devotion rather than skill so every "subscriber" can advance if he or she only plays long enough.
5. Low system requirements - Rob said
the high system requirements demanded by photorealistic graphics cuts out the
casual gamer. Rob admitted that building WoW without
cutting-edge graphics was hard. The developers wanted the best quality graphics
possible, and it's easier to market photorealistic graphics. "Everyone wants you
to do it." He said Blizzard's screenshots never look as good as those of with
more photorealistic games and that resulted in a lot of negative press. However he
also suggested that in addition to broadening a game's potential market,
stylized art is more resistant to looking dated.
6. Bite-size chunks - Rob said another way they tried to support casual play was to provide goals that could be accomplished in only 30 minutes rather than the hours required at the higher levels of past MMOs. They created the PvP "battlegrounds" so that players could get in a game or two over lunch (much like an FPS), and the "winged dungeons" were designed so that you could complete a portion of them in half an hour.
7. Combat works - Reflecting on the
genre of MMOs more generally, Damion argued that developers keep using combat
because it has several desirable features: it provides a tactical real-time
experience (i.e., engaging), it's a repeatable activity, and it scales well
from a single player to many. The game industry, he said, has not yet found
other kinds of activities with all of these features.
8. Fantasy has wide appeal - Damion pointed out that "fantasy" resonates with a wider audience than other themes such as SciFi. People know what it is. And it appeals to the hardcore, casual, young, old, men and women alike (he said "just look at all the fairies, dragons and unicorns all over Michael's craft stores"). He also says it easily provides for a wide range of opponents from rats to dragons in contrast to other themes like Westerns in which all opponents are guys in black hats (lol).
9. Game-y games provide the fun - Here Damion is contrasting "games," such as EQ or WoW, with "virtual worlds" such as, Second Life. Most non-game virtual worlds to date require players to "find their own fun" by giving them "freedom" instead of content. But the average player won't go to the trouble of creating content.
(Note: Damion included Star
Wars Galaxies in the category of "virtual worlds" rather than
"game-y games" which is a little unfair. SWG tried to do exactly what
Damion is advocating: it created games around new kinds of
activities beyond combat, instead of just giving players the space to create
their own activities. So, for example, dancers didn't just
"socialize" in old-SWG cantinas like people do in SL clubs: they
unlocked new dances and lighting effects as they earned xp in entertainer
groups, they healed "battle fatigue" and sold "mind buffs.")
Now just because WoW exhibits all of these nine features doesn't mean that all of them account for its success. In my opinion, #2 and #5 are the most important and radical things that Blizzard did. What do you think?
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