In November, we asked whether World of Warcraft would be the first North American million-subscriber world. Today, it is.
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Aug 30, 2005
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Wahey! That's an amazing figure. 1.000.000 subscribers should be enough to form a substantial income base. Cudos to Blizzard.
J#
Posted by: Jonas Antonsson | Aug 30, 2005 at 14:19
Not to mention the other 3.000.000 people from other countries that pay their monthly WoW bill as well.
J#
Posted by: Jonas Antonsson | Aug 30, 2005 at 14:20
I can almost hear those SOE/Lucasarts execs crying themselves to sleep...
"You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."
Hopefully you lot are taking note...
Posted by: Consumer | Aug 30, 2005 at 14:29
WoWzers
Posted by: Mark Wallace | Aug 30, 2005 at 15:02
I think an issue is whether the mainstream press picks up on this. What level of penetration does a phenomenon have to reach before it is A) accepted and B) mainstream? If Xbox live has 2m subscribers, is that a significant social moment? Given the social connections occuring in virtual spaces, I think this is evidence of a fundamentaly different kind of social interaction. I also think it speaks directly to the need for connections and community that Putnam argues Americans have been steadily losing over the last four decades. IMO, the popularity of these games is a direct response to those trends.
I've been saying this to reporters over the last month while they've interviewed me about violence and aggression. A few even listened.
Posted by: Dmitri Williams | Aug 30, 2005 at 15:53
I think the connection to Putnam is dead on. Look, people are paying money to be in an environment where working together is expected.
Posted by: Edward Castronova | Aug 30, 2005 at 15:57
Surely Putnam references are a Red Herring?
What are the differences between WoW and UO/EQ/AC/SWG et al?
Why has WoW completely and utterly destroyed UO/EQ/AC/SWG et al in terms of subscriber numbers?
Posted by: Consumer | Aug 30, 2005 at 16:20
- Vivendi/Universal. This is no small-potatoes operation, and Blizzard is just a part of them. Of course, the comedy there is calling Blizzard "just" anything, considering their very succussful approach of entering established genres with faster and more intense iterations of the established base. Blizzard makes 'em, VU may have that necessary global reach.
- China. Anyone who can work a good partnership in this market stands to benefit. Notice I say "partnership". Blizzard can't just walk into Imperial Palace and demand a presence. Ya gotta know the system. Blizzard or VU or both did.
- Progressive launches. Every time the game launched in a new market, this effectively was secondary advertising. I imagine there's a corrolation between a spike in player activity around the time a new market launch happens that's outside of that market.
- It's not a hard game to cancel, and therefore not a hard game to re-up. Players "beat" most of this game far faster than any other MMO, and therefore arguably don't fall as deeply in love with it. At the same time, this lack of love makes it more casual, so much so that careening in and out is something easier to do than, say, EQ or SWG.
There's probably a large number of other reasons, but these are my top four hypotheses. I agree. They haven't really yet, but I think it's partly because even 1mil U.S. isn't that much considering, say, the number of GTA:SA titles sold before the AO rating (about 35mil) or the number of XBox's on the market (22mil in Februrary). Those are the sorts of "serious" numbers that bely a mainstream. MMOs are still somewhat niche, nevermind the tens of millions of dollars collected in monthly fees worldwide. 1mil people doing something at any given time I guess is less interesting that 35mil of them :)Posted by: Darniaq | Aug 30, 2005 at 16:42
I'm intrigued by the 3rd places argument but I also want to echo Consumer's skepticism. Not only is it unable to differentiate WoW from the other MMOs, but WoW is one of the most soloable games out there. If anything, WoW encourages people to not have to work together.
Also, it sidelines the other functions that "other players" do serve - e.g., as an audience for social prestige and social ranking rather than actual people to socialize with. It's this non-relational, and almost non-social, function of other players that could just as likely explain MMO success in general.
Sure, some players do play for the social connections, but how many players prefer to and are actually playing alone?
Posted by: Nick Yee | Aug 30, 2005 at 17:27
WoW is smooth. Tradeskills, combat, quests, maps, auction house, graphics, etc. All the WoW features/mechanisms are smooth.
One can also look at the other MMOGs on the market to gain insight into why WoW is successful: 95% or more of the other MMOGs on the market are trash. WoW is smoother trash, and everyone can appreciate the difference.
Posted by: Grax | Aug 30, 2005 at 18:59
Nick, if playing alone is a big attractor to WoW, why wouldnt those soloers play the far more interesting and immersive standalone RPGs?
In every single aspect I can think of, soloing WoW is an inferior gaming experience to that provided by the best solo RPGs out there.
You don't have to work with others directly in a party to make up a social world, simply seeing other avatars do stuff around you and knowing they're humans is 'social'. Actually I think that one major attractor for WoW is that this is a place which is shared with so many others. I know I m going to find someone online, no matter what time I log on. I remember playing Neocron and not meeting a single human in hours. No matter how much I might have liked the game, I just stopped cause there s noone around.
I had never seen anyone in any netcafe I visited in NZ play an MMORPG before WoW was launched. Now half these places are filled with people shouting across the room ("hey, check this out...quick come help me there...I NEEDED that dagger...etc")
I personally find WoW incredibly tedious, but still play cause its the only MMORPG I can play with others I know. The widely shared knowledge of a fantasy world is what makes WoW so appealing. Equating soloable game elements in a world to a non-sociable world does not seem to make much sense IMO.
Posted by: gordon.calleja | Aug 30, 2005 at 20:01
What WoW highlights, to me, are these two perennial questions:
What about WoW separates it's solo/groupability from EQ, even the EQ from, say, three years ago? Yet, it's been argued EQ is more of a "social" game. We've all discussed aspects of why previously, be it the forced downtime, the number of players one needs to coordinate with, the average length of play session, and the type of players playing then (versus those playing now). But really, the foundation of the experience is the same. Players are basically simply able to achieve more in less time.
And let's look at that soloability.
What's soloable about any of the instances above, say, Scarlet Monastery (popular farming instance, almost level 40 appropriate), or any of the Battlegrounds? Yet, somewhere around 25% of the players have level 60 characters [1]. With 4mil subscriptions, even if we're really conservative and say that's really only 1mil actual people. 250,000 of them have been to the endgame. With the U.S. having just hit 1mil subscriptions in its ninth month, obviously the game isn't in freefall, so these people are doing something. One of the few "somethings" doable after 60 is the endgame activities, all of which require some form of grouping.
So people may not be chatting like they used to, and there's probably less wedding planning these days. There may not be as many fashion shows and social gatherings (though they do happen) either. But to me, this requires we ask different types of questions, like:
Posted by: darniaq | Aug 30, 2005 at 22:24
darniaq, you raise interesting questions. What do you mean exactly by "truly escapist immersion"?
More specifically, what does the term "escapist" imply?
Posted by: gordon.calleja | Aug 30, 2005 at 23:28
"So people may not be chatting like they used to, and there's probably less wedding planning these days."
Ironically, I'm reading TN after finishing my evening WoW play, during which I talked for a long time with a guildmate about her RL wedding planning.
Anyway . . . I suppose we can postulate that WoW's big (for the US) success must either come from taking players away from other MMOs or from attracting new ones, or both. Maybe Woodcock's data can shed some light on option A. As to option B, there's got to be some word-of-mouth snowballing going on. As in: Hey, I know you never played one of these thingies before but this one's fun. Then the newbie tries it and finds that it's all visually lighthearted and immediately accessible, which leads to longer-term hooks.
Nick, do you have any data on the solo/group thing? I've always assumed that solo players would go for a stand-alone RPG, too. Better graphics and stories, no lag, etc. My experience is anecdotal, so I don't want to generalize. It is very social, I think due to extensive use of voice chat in a large guild of fairly mature gamers clearly looking for community (see Putnam, Oldenburg, etc.).
Posted by: Dmitri Williams | Aug 31, 2005 at 00:36
"why wouldnt those soloers play the far more interesting and immersive standalone RPGs?"
I would think the answer to that question would be obvious to this crowd. The milieu is more compelling simply by virtue of the other human players existing. The world is more real. When I play a solo RPG these days, I am always struck by how vacant, and thus static and unreal, the game world feels as compared to MMORPGs.
Posted by: Keith M Ellis | Aug 31, 2005 at 01:07
Being able to so solo in a RPG is important to folks that want to have a powerful character, but don't like to beg for groups. If you've played a ranger on orginal EQ you know what I am talking about.
They want be powerful among peers, and self made wo/men at the time.
Posted by: Brent Parker | Aug 31, 2005 at 01:08
Congrats Blizzard! 1M US Mark is now to the industry what the 4 minute mile was to Olympic athletes after it was broken.
I think the connection to Putnam is dead on.
I prefer Aristotle to Putnam. "Humans are social animals" The desire for humans to socialize is much older than America, its older than the Colosseum or even Rome itself. To predict that humans will continue to form communities is like predicting that insects will continue to swarm, or birds will continue to flock, or fish will continue to school.
It's been argued that this drive is what builds cities, states, and nations, and what demands technologies like radio, television, and the internet. It's also what fuels the communities of tomorrow.
Once the 4 minute mile was broken, there was little argument that it couldn't be done by many to come.
-bruce
Posted by: bruce boston | Aug 31, 2005 at 02:36
There is a universe of difference between soloing in WoW and playing an offline single player RPG. WoW is successful for some very simple reasons, IMO.
It's not afraid to be a game.
It doesn't punish the player.
It respects casual gamers.
It is up to basic production value and interface polish specifications of offline games.
It understands that socialization need not be forced in order to flourish.
These all seem pretty basic when you put them like that, but none of the competition follows those same mantras. I don't think WoW is the 900 lbs gorilla. I think it's the primitive caveman who has just learned to use fire. That makes it an incredible step forward from the other cavemen, but hardly the end of the journey of progress. :)
Unfortunately for them, many of the other MMOs still seem to be complaining about how dangerous this "fire" thing is, how it must be evil witchcraft, and really weren't we all better off before?
Posted by: | Aug 31, 2005 at 03:07
Whoops, that was me. Gotta get used to this whole "computer" thing.
Posted by: Rob "Xemu" Fermier | Aug 31, 2005 at 03:08
"These all seem pretty basic when you put them like that, but none of the competition follows those same mantras. I don't think WoW is the 900 lbs gorilla. I think it's the primitive caveman who has just learned to use fire. That makes it an incredible step forward from the other cavemen, but hardly the end of the journey of progress. :)" - Rob "Xemu" Fermier
What you call "progress" some call "smooth newbie bullshit". I'm sure many people called McDonalds "progress" in the realm of food preparation when that company was starting out.
Taste, taste, taste. So underrated.
Posted by: Grax | Aug 31, 2005 at 04:32
Just some self observation & looking back across my MUD/MMOs and comparing them with solo-RPGS.
On SOLO RPG.
I grew up with Final Fantasy, hooked on SNES and played every one of them. Aside from FFXI, FF is what I considered to be a SOLO experience.
(Please don't side track into how FF is not the greatest RPG there is, that's probably true, I think I just like the 'value' in believing that I've got here a game that a player can throw 200 hours of playing time at and still find something new to do). Prince of Persia was fun and exciting, but you can finish it in 10 hrs and think about what to do next... may be go back to that driving game.
FF becomes somewhat different when you have a friend playing next to you, or you hand the controller over and watch him play instead. Somehow it became a 'multiplayer' SOLO-RPG. And there's joy in being with friends and just play a game together.
ON MUDs.
I was never a player for very long - became a creator instead and watched players. There are players that would RP with anyone who wants to put in an effort. There are also players that just stick with their real life friends, and avoid strangers. Whatever they need they can produce within the few RL friends they know. So it is seems they still enjoy the game with just buddies.
ON MMOs.
I have never really seen the Massive aspect of a MMO. I never feel that you really are interacting with more than a dozen at the same time.
Sure, there are 600 players online at once, but I only talk to the 5 that are in my party.
Posted by: JLIU | Aug 31, 2005 at 04:46
JLIU: Have you ever ran a raid?
Posted by: Brent Parker | Aug 31, 2005 at 08:25
Just to weigh in on this 3rd places argument... so much more needs to be said about the nature of connections and interactions that are occuring in these spaces (and I know Dimitri is on this already).
I tend to agree with Nick Yee - other MMOGs are more sociable and arguably they generate more meaningful communities amongst their smaller subsciber base.
WoW is more soloable but then why not play solo games instead. One thing Putnam never got straight (IMO)is the human social propensity to be alone together... this is truly bowling alone... to simply hang out doing your own thing while others do the same. Maybe have the ocassion conversation, maybe work together for mutual benefit, maybe pick on someone else for fun.
Actually in this sense - Benedict Anderson's Imaginary Communities is a better resource than Putnam's 3rd places perhaps.
Anyway, I think this is the niche Blizzard has mastered without necessarily knowing it... and its a fair reproduction of Putnam's modern civic society.
Very crucial however is the demographic data here -- how much of this subscriber base is playing the high end game with its very sociably militaristic raid organizations and how much is stuck in the mid-range (like me :-) basically doing my own thing and hooking up with guildmates or whoever when my fancy or intrumental reason dictates? Nick, do you have any data on that?
Posted by: Bart Simon | Aug 31, 2005 at 10:08
One thing Putnam never got straight (IMO)is the human social propensity to be alone together
Good comment, Bart. Consider the popularity of going to a movie, where we sit in the dark not speaking, and yet still sharing an experience. Or amusement parks, of which Disney's are the summit. I believe it was Disney who said that "shared experiences are compelling experiences." And yet there too, the level at which the experiences are 'shared' vary widely.
I think one crucial aspect of being 'alone together' is that people like the feeling that they could get together with others if they wanted to. Being in a WoW-like space without being able to communicate to others there would, I suspect, be much less attractive than the present setup, even if you rarely do communicate with others whom you see there.
how much of this subscriber base is playing the high end game with its very sociably militaristic raid organizations and how much is stuck in the mid-range?
Graphics showing zone population for the time of day can be found on PlayOn. I may be mis-reading this data, but, while IronForge and Molten Core stick out, it doesn't look as lopsided as I would have suspected.
Posted by: Mike Sellers | Aug 31, 2005 at 11:07
From my limited knowledge of the 100 or so people I play with very few cancel and re-up. Many take a break now and then but let their subscription continue. Others cancel and don't come back at all (or at least have not so far).
Although the game is very soloable early on it is still superior to a single player rpg in that if you get into an area where you need help there are plenty of people around to lend a hand.
Soloable at the start but by the time you reach the 50's playing solo is not an option if you wish to advance. Both PvP and PvE play require a group of anywhere from 5 to 40 players to accomplish the available tasks.
At this point nearly every player has at last one max level character and rather than quit due to lack of content has started an 'alt'. The ease of levelling combined with the community relationships that are built over time keep people in the game longer than they would have stayed in others where progress were more tedious or difficult.
Posted by: Brian Miller | Aug 31, 2005 at 11:10
Mike Sellars wrote:
"Graphics showing zone population for the time of day can be found on PlayOn. I may be mis-reading this data, but, while IronForge and Molten Core stick out, it doesn't look as lopsided as I would have suspected"
Thanks for reminding us to check this Mike... the data helps and provides an indication of where to look for the character/quality of social interaction.
I think one of the main problems (forgive my bias) is an undertheorized notion of what "being social" means. Players of solo rpgs are already social (as members of a culture, or more directly as participants in the metagame). That MMOG players interact (by trading stuff, grouping or even having wedddings) tells us nothing about the meaning of those interactions for the players. Yes they socialize but that does not mean they are more or less "social" than anyone else.
In comparing MMOGs its these multiple meanings of socialness we need to figure out and crucially we need to not take designers or players words for it either.
One hypothesis following Putnam in fact is that WoW allows social actors as players to keep on keeping on with their instrumentally driven alienated existences under the guise of living at "Cheers" (the malaise of modernity - yadayadayada). This would contradict Dimitri's (and Constance's) WoW as heavenly 3rd place argument (er.. my bias again). But i'm game... are Lineage or EQ more 3rd place-ish in Putnamian terms than WoW? Here the quants and the quals (or the structuralists and post-structuralists) can surely get together as long as we agree that social capital is not the only measure of the social bond.
Posted by: Bart Simon | Aug 31, 2005 at 12:28
From a casual player perspective, WoW is nearly perfect.
- Soloable and enjoyable in solo.
- Fun
- Possibility of very different gameplay depending on class/profession/talents selection.
- Fun
- No grinding required unless you want to do it.
- Fun
- Questing, questing, questing... Quest log always full!
- Fun
I could go on and on, but Blizzard always made nearly-perfect games for the masse. And this translates in HIGH-SELLS for every title they make.
Blizzard = Fun games
It's simple! :)
Posted by: LEKO | Aug 31, 2005 at 13:07
I want to emphasize that I didn't say "playing alone" to mean "being alone". I meant "playing alone" in the sense that Bart Simon and Mike Sellers elaborated on - the "alone together" - using other players as an audience rather than as social connections. After all, just because singing on stage involves an audience doesn't mean any socializing is going on. And to argue that performers should then prefer to sing alone misses the role the audience was playing.
The reason why achievement driven soloers may prefer MMOs is because this audience provides comparison and ranking. Being level 50 in a single-player game is not very meaningful. Being level 50 in an MMO means you're better than all those players below you. I'm not saying this is the sole function of other players, but it's clear that other players can function as non-relational motivators.
Some PlayOn data on grouping and soloing:
- http://blogs.parc.com/playon/archives/2005/06/grouping_and_so.html
- http://blogs.parc.com/playon/archives/2005/06/grouping_ratio.html
What the data does show is that over a 5-day period, among players who played more than 5 hours, 16% never grouped. (Given we have no base rates, it's not clear though what we should compare that % to.)
And that soloing is the far more prevalent than grouping especially in the lower levels. One could argue that WoW is social in the high-end game, but it would be harder to make that case for the low to mid-range play.
Posted by: Nick Yee | Aug 31, 2005 at 13:32
gordon: "...if playing alone is a big attractor to WoW, why wouldnt those soloers play the far more interesting and immersive standalone RPGs? In every single aspect I can think of, soloing WoW is an inferior gaming experience to that provided by the best solo RPGs out there."
I can go on and on, and your personal gaming needs may differ, but I can guarantee you that one of the prime factors in WoW's success is that unlike the gross majority of MMORPG's on the market today, in WoW, you can enjoy the majority of the content casually and at your own pace -- which can mean solo.
If you think that analysis is wrong, maybe check out some of SOE's latest ads...
Posted by: hikaru | Aug 31, 2005 at 13:40
I think many have said it before, or at least, I can't believe I'm the only one who's ever said it :)
Players like the opportunity to play together. Many don't like being forced to do so though.
This is where "Massive" is relevant: To me, it's about the easy opportunity to play a self-directed experience, meet some new people, meet up with existing friends, or doing a bit of all three during a play session. The opportunities to do this are based on the thousands of concurrently active avatars within the compartmentalized game space. There may be only 50 people in a zone, but you're not restricted to that zone nor those 50 people. This is a marked difference from every other genre in which a game experience involves the set number of participants who all started together.
To me, it's a question of motivation. Do players want to get in and play a game that involves overcoming a series of challenges until they win? Or do they want to feel like they're part of an ever changing virtual society in which they can grow both socially and competently alongside others doing so through all forms of activity from direct action to indirect socializing to abstract economics and politics? The latter I consider "escapist" in a way. All of what an escapee feels interested in doing in a virtual world can be done in real life. They just choose to do it in a virtual setting. Therefore, why they choose one game over another is different than why a "gamer" chooses one game over another.
It's why I can't really accept anymore that "MMOG" covers every game from Second Life to Guild Wars. I consider that somewhat comedic really, given both the nature of those games and the type of player attracted to them. Is someone who loved GW going to love SL? Maybe. But I have my doubts there's an appreciable number of them.
Posted by: darniaq | Aug 31, 2005 at 13:41
Nick: "What the data does show is that over a 5-day period, among players who played more than 5 hours, 16% never grouped. (Given we have no base rates, it's not clear though what we should compare that % to.)
And that soloing is the far more prevalent than grouping especially in the lower levels. One could argue that WoW is social in the high-end game, but it would be harder to make that case for the low to mid-range play."
Thanks for the data! So 16% never group, which means that they stayed solo either by preference, necessity or for some other reason (uncomfortable reaching out?). Thus 84% did. The quality of those interactions escapes our analysis, so I'm thinking we really don't know much about the degree of sociability taking place. Some portion will be active and some pretty fly-by-night. I'm with Bart on the multiple types of socialness.
My way of thinking about it and measuring it is to parse interactions into bridging--meeting people and forming casual bonds, e.g. p-up groups, and bonding--making stronger connections that yield emotional or practical support, e.g. guildmates offering each other advice on RL issues. I have little clue about the extent to which these things occur systematically.
Bart: "One hypothesis following Putnam in fact is that WoW allows social actors as players to keep on keeping on with their instrumentally driven alienated existences under the guise of living at "Cheers" (the malaise of modernity - yadayadayada). This would contradict Dimitri's (and Constance's) WoW as heavenly 3rd place argument (er.. my bias again). But i'm game... are Lineage or EQ more 3rd place-ish in Putnamian terms than WoW? Here the quants and the quals (or the structuralists and post-structuralists) can surely get together as long as we agree that social capital is not the only measure of the social bond."
Actually, what we say (maybe this thing will get published and I can link it!) is that for the casual player the 3rd Place element is a pretty good place for the bridging function. This can lead to bonding, but that takes time, interdependence and personalities that work. For the more hard core players, we suspect there is more bonding. The bottom line is us suggesting that someone who has a lack of bridging might benefit from starting MMO play while someone who needs bonding is less likely to benefit. As time goes on and more substantial connections are forged, that prescription would flip.
As to comparing the leves of things game to game, I'd suspect that the key variables would be the necessity of grouping with others, the benefits of longer-term groups for success and the overall culture of sociability. For example, L2 has a lot of adena-farming and tension and trash talking and the PvP orientation makes strangers enemies. When I played AC2 on a PvE server, people were substantially more friendly and open to connections. And I bet the XP bonus given for grouping makes a difference. L2's is pretty low, or was last year when I threw my copy away in disgust. So I suspect it's one part game mechanics and one part cultural atmosphere. Maybe someone else here can pin this down better.
Last, I really like the alone together concept. Does anyone think that this would vary by personality? It seems like the "lone wolf" of an MMO must be different than the "lone wolf" of Baldur's Gate.
Posted by: Dmitri Williams | Aug 31, 2005 at 14:50
last thought for a while on this excellent thread... and just to reinforce my point. Nick's data is great but evidence of grouping or not is simply an indicator that people are in groups not that they have any kind of relation (bridging or bonding included).
I've been in groups where no one said a thing and i've been soloing and spending all my time in whispers and general chat forming bonds up the wazoo. I would argue that the "group" (the game mechanical group not the sociological group) is barely a sufficient condition for social interaction let alone 3rd placeness.
...but I suppose if one wanted to start somewhere groups wouldn't be bad - its just "socialness" (whatever that is) is more likely than not to be an unintended consequence of group play and I wouldn't say non-grouped play is any less social than grouped play in WoW (high end game excluded :-)
Posted by: Bart Simon | Aug 31, 2005 at 16:44
Bart's point above is spot on. I've had very similiar experiences. On top of that some of the richest social experiences I've had where while soloing. Bumping into someone who needs help and then bumping into them again in a few weeks or months and then chatting for hours on end. Something that has happened at every level.
I agree that soloing in WoW can take you quite far into the levels but you also tend to meet a lot of others that are soloing similiar areas with whom you exchange stuff, notes and so on which tends to land people in the friends list, whether you've grouped with them or not.
So I'd say it would be misleading to draw conclusions about the "socialness" of various stages of an mmo from the frequency of grouping thereof.
Posted by: gordon.calleja | Aug 31, 2005 at 19:35
I also agree that grouping does not equal to socializing. Grouping is probably a better indicator of cooperating than socializing.
Perhaps there is a way to identify measurable social lubricating activiting for different games and then measure them, an social activity that does not result in objective results. For example, the amount of dancing in WoW but not the amount of dancing in SWG. For example, the amount of time spent shopping at the EQ bazaars but the not the amount of time spend in WoW AH (I personally love "window" shopping at exotic RL bazaars and viewed as a social activity.)
Frank
Posted by: magicback (Frank) | Aug 31, 2005 at 22:27
I vaguely recall some long distant thread in which someone talked about ingame downtime being required for social lubrication. Caused an interesting stir :)
However, I think it's measurable, and useful.
I also agree measuring other such activities would provide interesting insights. However, I think this sort of measurement would be fairly complex.
I consider this an interesting contradiction. Players are given the ability to conduct roleplay-like activities, but because the interface for those is built around the same interface for crafting and hunting (for the most part), players can't really converse. It's a double-edged sword maybe. How does a developer make an activity as compelling for a roleplayer as they have for a combatant or crafter? The direct answer is, I guess, to immerse that player into the activity through attending keypresses and getting results.
I personally find it works fairly well. I'm not much of a crafter or roleplaying but I loved the way EQ2's crafting system was designed. And I hit Master Musician twice in SWG because the /flourish system, particularly with special effects droids and a full band of other instruments and interested musicianships, was somewhat more compelling than most combat I'd experienced in the earlier games. Truly felt there like I did as a song-twisting EQ Bard :)
*breaks into Memories*
Posted by: Darniaq | Sep 01, 2005 at 08:25
Interesting, excellent discussion. Just a few quick responses/comments:
Darniaq>"I speculate the current dominance of WoW is based on a few factors:" (snip)
You left out the most important factor: Reputation. Blizzard had an incredible (and well-deserved) reputation world-wide for quality game play prior to the WoW launch, based on the popularity of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft in various markets. This has been especially important in China and Korea.
Darniaq>"China. Anyone who can work a good partnership in this market stands to benefit. Notice I say "partnership". Blizzard can't just walk into Imperial Palace and demand a presence. Ya gotta know the system. Blizzard or VU or both did."
This is somewhat misleading, depending on how you define 'benefit.' There have been good partnerships in China for other popular games from the West and Korea, ones that were marketed as well as WoW, that have failed miserably in the market. Just ask SOE and Ubisoft.
Blizzard chose The9 because they won the bidding war, pure and simple. Any number of companies could have provided the proper or even better partnership values (such as Shanda, TOM or Netease, for example), but The9 brought over $50 million to the table.
The9 also has experience running a popular MMO in the Chinese market, so they aren't tyros. However, on a purely partnership issues basis on paper, Shanda or Netease have (or had) better credentials. Note that one of Netease's inhouse MMOs, which launched about the same time with less marketing, is beating WoW's peak concurrencies by about 50%.
For all that, I'm glad The9 is succeeding well; I know those guys and like them a lot.
The Soloability Debate: I think we're missing the point, which is choice. It isn't just about the quality of the solo experience versus the better experience of stand-alone RPGs. It is the connection between soloability AND having other people available at a moment's notice to either join in or admire your buff avatar. It is cool to be able to solo around, yet know that the land is populated. It is like shooting hoop on an empty court, while you decide whether to join the nearby pick-up game.
Blizzard did their research and tapped into this. I don't know if "alone together" describes it, but I can't think of any other term or phrase that does.
Posted by: Jessica Mulligan | Sep 01, 2005 at 12:20
Agreed on that last important point, Jess.
As I said earlier in response to Bart: "I think one crucial aspect of being 'alone together' is that people like the feeling that they could get together with others if they wanted to. Being in a WoW-like space without being able to communicate to others there would, I suspect, be much less attractive than the present setup, even if you rarely do communicate with others whom you see there."
And it's not just that others are present: players are present in a way that makes them seem at least nominally open to social contact (another reason why taverns in various guises are so important -- 3rd places within a 3rd place!); they have persistent identity, so there's benefit to familiarity; and there are often immediate tangible benefits for social contact that can act as a catalyst to being more sociable. Remove any one of these and you're suddenly a lot more "alone in a crowd" than you are "alone together."
Posted by: | Sep 01, 2005 at 12:36
Ah, wonderful how you hit my experiences with MMOGs in general spot on in how Soloing and Aloneness are experienced in these VWs.
My first experience ever with a MMOG was UO. I decided that I wanted to do some anonymous exploring alone. I went far and wide, until I came across some caves I thought to be deserted when I spot another player that mined minerals deep inside. This captures the very essence of what I find so fascinating with these worlds; Being alone with others.
When I play offline single player MMOGs it actually feels like a waste (for me) since it doesn't mean anything to have a high-level character. I can't compare to others, I can't have a (direct/indirect) impact on others, no matter how small. At least they noticed my cool headgear as I ran by.
I think Blizzard did a very smart thing by lowering the difficulty by allowing people to solo all the way to the top and make grouping optional. To organize and maintain a random group to take an instance can incur large overhead in means of time. And to more casual players, I think this can feel like a time sink sometimes.
Ok, I didn't add much new thought here, but I it was just delightful to see how others feel it regarding to being alone together :-)
Posted by: espie | Sep 01, 2005 at 15:41
I also figured it a foregone conclusion that "Blizzard" has become something of a brand name on its own. They make fun games, and that's that. Not flawless, not perfect, and not universally beloved, but their reach as a game provider is broad, particularly because they have multinational cross-cultural appeal.
You make an interesting point about the partnership vs the game viability too. I always considered it odd that EQ and SB didn't take off in an environment that played (then) games like Lineage. I figured SB's problems were rooted in the quality of the programming and that EQ didn't have the huge appeal because it focused specifically on PvE.
Once again my western-bias is exposed :) Are you talking about Westward Journey Online II or Fly for Fun or another title? I particularly liked the style of the former, but hadn't realized until now just how popular it had become. I just assumed Mu dominated everything...
Posted by: Darniaq | Sep 01, 2005 at 15:42
I'm amazed. What are standalone RPGs assumed to be so superior? And why in the world it assumed the non-grouping is non-social?? I have yet to play standalone RPG that gives a true sense of place the way an MMO can. Standalones are always missing that bit of white noise, chaos, or randomness that comes from having other people around. Even if I don't choose to interact with them seeing other people moving around with purpose, knowing that things don't just idle as soon as they are out of my perception makes a huge difference.
Posted by: Thabor | Sep 01, 2005 at 15:49
Getting back to the question of subscriber numbers, I personally think the huge success of WoW (relative to the other MMOG big guns) is down to the strong solo play and real attempt to incorporate narrative. From levels 1-59, it really is like a traditional single-player RPG and thus very casual friendly.
UO and SWG were very solo friendly but lacked this narrative element. If SWG was designed as 'WoW with Star Wars setting', they would be sitting on 4 million subscribers, not less than 10% of that figure as they are now. Of course, with a game like this the narrative will eventually come to an end, but WoW has shown that you can string this narrative out into a huge amount of real-world time.
Posted by: | Sep 01, 2005 at 17:52
Okay...so now they broke a million in the US, but whcih MMOG will be the frist to boast a gross income of one billion in revenue a year? I think WoW is pretty close depending on how you scale it.
I hope that money goes to more improvments and better innovation.
Posted by: Rich Thurman | Sep 01, 2005 at 22:09
Is WoW's wild commercial success primarily due to its superior game design or has Sony simply been "betamaxed" again?
Game play in WoW and EQII are similar in many respects: you spend most of your time running around, alone or in a group, killing mobs and delivering items to NPCs in order to complete a multitude of quests and level up. (Unfortunately, if you want to hang out and socialize at, say, a virtual rave with real music and a variety of avatar dances in a player-crafted/created environment, you have to play a different game like SWG circa 2004 or Second Life.) In both WoW and EQII, you can also use zone-wide chat to help you put together a group more easily (although I miss the bustling coach stables of EQOA); ask a guard for directions so you don't waste hours searching for quest-givers; and take a cool ride on griff.
Now WoW certainly has some great features that EQII does not, such as "quest sharing," "one-click crafting," a language barrier between factions, ubiquitous humor, and stylized cartoonish graphics. But EQII also has some great features that WoW lacks, such as "mentoring," "spell/ability queuing," an anti-kill-stealing mechanism, easy "assisting," and rich realistic graphics. Which design is better?
The difference could be that WoW offers dueling and PvP along with PvE while EQII does not. But Sony already tried this with SWG, and it never came close to even one million worldwide subscribers.
So even after reading this insightful thread, I'm still puzzled as to exactly which features of WoW account for its domination over other U.S. MMORPGs. I'm beginning to wonder if the explanation of WoW's success is not to be found in any particular features but in other factors, just as the triumph of VHS over Beta or of the PC over the Macintosh was not due to superior technology.
Posted by: Bob Moore | Sep 02, 2005 at 02:41
Hey Jessica,
Can't wait to see the response to D&D Online and LoTR Online in China and in the US.
D&D has a "cult" following in China. Even Magic: the Gathering, or derivatives of it, have a strong following. But, you probably got the details from your contacts in China.
The marketing and operational capabilities of Shanda, should help much to make the launch very successful.
Frank
Posted by: magicback (Frank) | Sep 02, 2005 at 02:47
Bob,
WoW success in the US market is a combination of many different factors. Strong brand and IP is one factor. Strong and fun gameplay is another.
Can't presume at the moment to pinpoint all the major factors, but I do think that the structuring of the gameplay to make it easy and familiar to console gamers yet have the top-end gameplay for the hardcore gamers have something to do with it.
All the other MMORPGs were too “old school” (my opinion). It’s like the current fans of rap and hip hop viewing 80’s rap as so “old school.” WoW is easy and friendly enough for new players to learn about online RPG gaming.
I think WoW as done much to educate prospective customers to the joys of online RPG gaming. It would be good to see what % of WoW customers are new to MMORPGs.
Frank
Posted by: magicback (Frank) | Sep 02, 2005 at 03:15
Having Shanda as a partner certainly does give DDO a leg up in China, especially if Shanda pulls out the stops in marketing and promotion.
We're just going to have to wait and see, I guess. The last version of DDO I looked at before I left Turbine was pretty fun to play, but the only way to know for sure if it will be popular there is to launch it, :D.
Posted by: Jessica Mulligan | Sep 02, 2005 at 03:22
The reason I don't agree with your "betamax" comment is because the media format has long been said to have superior quality while VHS managed to align more studios through relationships, thus ensuring consumers accepted a "lesser" quality. As such, I can't agree that there are more people playing a "lesser" game in WoW when they could be player a higher quality one in EQ2. This is because I don't believe where EQ2 is superior actually matters to the average (read: casual) gamer.
Every game does something better than another. EQ2's graphics are superior, but the game play of WoW has more universal appeal (in my opinion). Further, the history of both brands have traditionally targeted different types of players. I applaud SOE's efforts to broaden the awareness of EQ, but that's a relatively recent effort. Meanwhile, having been around for over ten years (since 1994), Warcraft is one of the granddaddy brands of computer gaming (at least to those playing games the most these days... and again, in my opinion).
So I don't think there's a single answer really, but rather, a convergence of factors, many of which are covered here.
Posted by: Darniaq | Sep 02, 2005 at 08:12
I agree with many of the explanations here for WoW's success, but want to add one possibility: some cultural products are popular because they are popular. That is, we've all seen a nightclub that's popular because people are inside, not because it's that great a nightclub. The virtuous circle of success leading to success can outwiegh the quality of the original thing.
Also related is what some folks call the "network effect." Things are valuable because others are in the network of users. e.g. a phone system adds value as more people join it. This often makes the quality of the system secondary to the sheer fact that it's used by many. (see also MS Office, etc.)
Posted by: Dmitri Williams | Sep 02, 2005 at 10:17
I was just reading one of the several articles about WoW business success over at CNN
"...Nine months later, "World of Warcraft" has more than 4 million paying subscribers (meaning players who paid $50 or more for the game in stores, then roughly $15 per month to continue playing). ..."
I would expect from CNN a bit more in deep analysis. Of the 4 million customers, only a fraction are full paying customers. For China for example The9 has already paid the royalties for the whole year in advance (meaning that the large Chinese customer numbers (over 2 million) does not have any influence on the revenues for Blizzard/Vivendi for the first year).
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Sep 02, 2005 at 12:19
(Warning: long post and all that)
Prior to WoW, my only experience with online multiplayer games was the original text MUD in its various incarnations which I played for years. I tried a few other text adventures (such as the DikuMUD ported over to the Amiga that ran on the AMUC IceBBS system) but never really got involved in them. Inbetween I tried a few other multiplayer games but while they were fun, they weren't persistant worlds nor massively multiplayer (Neverwinter Nights or any of the various games with an online component like Need For Speed for example) but mostly focused on single player games. I never was involved in EverQuest (or "EverCrack" as some wags referred to it,) Ultima Online or Lineage. Why? I guess I was put off by the subscription price and that I didn't know anyone who played them.
When WoW came around, I wasn't paying attention either. While I loved Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft II, I never got into Warcraft III and Diablo II so yet another Blizzard game just didn't rate high on my radar. It did on my brother-in-law's though: being a Mac fanatic, Blizzard's support for the Macintosh meant he tended to buy into pretty much everything the company did, including WoW. As he was sucked in to it during the beta period, he introduced it to my sister who got quite involved with it too. As a point of reference, my sister was just as fascinated as I was with the original text MUD so it probably wasn't a hard sell. Come Christmas 2004, they came over to Calgary for the holiday and brought the game with them. One of the extremely clever things Blizzard did -- given the lack of a demo version -- was to include a 10 day subscription in the deluxe package for players to give to someone else. It didn't give a full version of the game to them in the sense that when the trial was up, a full boxed version of the game needed to be purchased in order to continue playing, but it's enough to give a good sense of the game's style and feel. So WoW went onto my PC during a time when I was relaxed and had a lot of spare time, and it didn't cost me anything.
Well, it sure cost me a lot of time. A seriously huge amount of time. By the time the ten days were up, I wanted to buy a copy. Unfortunately this also coincided with the initial holiday release period and there wasn't a copy available in North America for love or money (unless you wanted to pay $500+ to an eBay scalper.) Now this is quite a strong reaction to a game, indeed any game. The question is why did I react to it so positively? I think there are a number of reasons, in no particular order:
1) I wanted a fantasy equivalent of a first person shooter with multiplayer capabilities. Friends have been into Quake, Doom, Unreal and Counterstrike for years. I don't like the games as I don't like the SF trappings, and, just as importantly, the graphics engines tend to make me queasy. The WoW engine never has, even after excessive hours spend playing. Prior to WoW, Bioware's "Neverwinter Nights" was about as close as anything had got, although "Thief" in many respects had a more appropriate graphics engine.
2) I wanted something that I could play at my convenience. The problem with Neverwinter Nights was trying to get together a group for playing. I had no real interest in trying to play a sequential adventure with a pickup group where the game would move along when I wasn't present. I dislike missing carefully crafted narrative. With WoW I could start at any time and play with anyone as they came available.
3) WoW is a structured free-form game. Some games I've played permit any action to be done in any order. The problem here is that as there's really no focus, it's quite frustrating to "play the game". On the other hand being shoe-horned into a specific narrative framework can be just as annoying. With the WoW quest system there're guidelines to focus within but enough variation that if one quest stumps or lacks interest there are many others that can be pursued. There's variety in the quests offered. Some are training quests teaching you how the game works, others are FedEx style (i.e. pick up item A and deliver it to person B somewhere in the world;) while others involve either slaughtering computer mobiles or collecting goods. To give variety to these quests, there's usually a narrative structure supporting them which may well mix in a number of different quest styles as one quest leads into another. The result is quite satisfying.
4) Easy support of secondary characters. With a built-in mail/fedex system, equipment and money can be transferred between characters on the same side on the same server. With the distinct differences between classes and skillsets, and the interconnection between them in terms of what one needs but only another can do, it makes sense to maintain several different characters and trade between them. As each class and race have their own quests variety is indeed the spice of life. This enhances the earlier point: if you get fed up (whether temporarily or permanently) of a character and its quests, there are still many more options, and while you're doing that, you can still benefit the original character and perhaps give them something to get them over the hump.
5) Easy grouping with others. Some games require that teams always work together. Others won't let it happen at all. In WoW some quests can be done on one's own, and some cannot. Some are simply easier with a group and others merely take a lot longer if everyone wants the same stuff. The ability to join groups of two to five on the fly and leave just as easily is excellent. Quite often if I'm doing a similar quest to someone else nearby, we'll create a group for the duration of the quest and then go our own way.
6) Casual communication. Even when I'm playing alone, I normally have a channel open with friends or family in the game. In many respects, my sister and I now use the game as an alternative to instance messaging, email or the telephone. Sure, it's not roleplaying in any way, shape or form, but it certainly makes the game feel friendlier. A while ago I joined a guild and tend to have ongoing chats with the guild members present which may or may not be game related at all. This informality also has game-side advantages: as there's a sense of friendship and community, sharing of information and items is common and help in the form of support while doing quests is quite forthcoming. Even in the general chat channel most people are pretty good -- the casual profanity or idiocy common in Battlefield 1942 or similar games that I find highly irritating just isn't there. For those players who still irritate, the /ignore command is a nice character specific twit filter. Blizzard decided to police the game such that ridiculous names are made unavailable so as to reduce total suspension of believe; that's not to say that some don't escape into the wild, but they're rather less common than in other games.
7) The game encourages exploring. There are quest givers and merchants scattered throughout the very large maps. Some are in obvious locations, and some are not. Each area in the game has its own distinct look and usually a different set of inhabitants. The quests mentioned above frequently send you all over the world to collect things or talk to someone specific to an area and so make a good working knowledge important.
8) Built in support for PvE, RP and PvP. PvP is player versus player, PvE is player versus environment and RP is roleplaying. Each server has a specific play style associated with it. On PvP servers, any character on one side can attack any other player on the other at any time. It tends to be bloody and (for me at least) frustrating. PvE doesn't disable PvP-style playing, but it does reduce it significantly by adding "flagging", or the ability to enable PvP status on demand or in specific locations or by assisting PvP-flagged players. This means that unless you go into certain locations or perform an action that would turn on your PVP status, you're invulnerable from the opposing players meaning you can concentrate on playing the game and not being ultra-cautious to avoid being slaughtered. This suits me just fine. RP is for people who really want to immerse themselves in the game and OOC (out of character) chitchat or behaviour is strictly off-limits. By having all these different styles for different players, Blizzard has very cannily accomodated a much wider range of players than other games have, including me. One of the most frustrating points of the original MUD was the constant PvP; towards the end the developer did add "protected classes" to try to deal with that but it never felt quite right.
9) Time elastic. One can do useful stuff in the game in half an hour, but it can easily swallow up hours if let. Some instance runs do require a significant dedicated period of time but outside of that you can come and go.
10) Location independent. So long as the computer hardware is capable and there's an internet connection, I can play from anywhere whether it's my home PC, my work PC, my sister's Mac G5, a friend's laptop, or whatever. It's always the same characters and account on the remote end. Once the game is installed, there's no further need for a key CD or anything else of that nature. As I use a vanilla installation the lack of add-ons for customising the interface bothers me not at all.
11) No impossible puzzles. While I adored the original MUD, there were puzzles in it that drove me batty as I couldn't figure out how to solve them. The infamous Mausoleum would be the best example, especially as you were then penalized for getting the answers wrong by the immobilizing skeleton. Having grown up with MUD and the Infocom adventures, I was really quite used to sophisticated and intelligent parsers so I'm sad to lose them. Sometimes WoW is a little too simple here, but with no real text interface the GUI is limited as to what it can be used for and it does prevent the designers from really going to town..
12) Lack of rarity. Economically this shouldn't work, but one of the things I like of the game is that there's lots of everything. It may take time to locate it, but you will. This makes quests to find things possible. Sure, there are rare drops for very specific items but by and large anything needed for quests or manufacturing can be found within a reasonable amount of time, or something similar will drop (e.g. Lightforge armour for paladins versus Valor amour for warriors.)
13) Appealing graphics. Sure, they're a little cartoony and not realistically rendered, but they're close enough and this is a fantasy game after all. Plus they seem to look good and move well even on lower end graphics chipsets.
14) Continuous development. As WoW is always being worked on, new features, items and quests appear on a regular basis. This gives the world a fun feeling as every month or so, there'll be something new to explore or do. That Blizzard has done so without charging for expansion packs is to their credit. While I've heard that they are planning one, I truly hope that's just a rumour or temporary decision on their part. The WoW map is littered with empty caves, inaccessible locations and portals that go nowhere; the implication here as that these are holding points for future development and they've deliberately left themselves room to move.
15) Quirky humour. From the occasional silly names of NPCs, to visual jokes (like the goblin version of the Corcorado in Booty Bay, the through-the-mountain car wreck in Tanaris), the entertaing descriptions of some of the items, the post-quest discussions of some of the NPCs (after the escort mission for the turtle in Tanaris where his wife reads him the riot act) and so on, I find WoW highly entertaining. The developers have managed to mix serious with silly in such a way that neither causes the same kind of atmospheric killer that "Very Special Episodes" of any North American TV sitcom tend to do. That it's all done with a straight face and in character rather than a self-conscious smirk seems to make the difference. Even theoretically anachronistic items like the goblin racecars or gnomish teleporters fit the feel of the world: I love the whole jokey engineering substructure of the game (who amongst you can resist the Gnomish World Enlarger?) I like some of the other items that cut against stereotype too such as the laid-back Carribean talk of the trolls or the MC Hammer dance routine of the orcs. Even the infamous /train "choo choo" all the characters have brings a smile to my face.
16) Cost is reasonable. WoW isn't cheap, but given that the 6 month subscription is in the same ballpark as a full priced game, I'm not spending any more than I would usually. I'm certainly well above the 20-60 hours of gaming that any normal adventure game would give me.
17) It's a game. Seriously, this is one of the most important features. Persistant modelled worlds may be theoretically nifty but because I find this one fun, I play it. And play it. And play it. And...
This list is one that's developed since late last year, and other games may well encompass some or all of the features, but they're ones I find draw me back repeatedly. As mentioned earlier, I don't have anywhere near the breadth and depth of experience of some people but this is my anecdotal evidence. There are some frustrating elements to WoW, but not enough to detract from my overall enjoyment of it.
Adam
Posted by: Adam Hough | Sep 02, 2005 at 13:11
The China base of players broke 2mil? Last I read it was only 1.5.
Further, the individual customers in China aren't influencing Blizzard/VU revenue because The9 did so on the front end. It's frontloading instead of collecting over 12 months.
Finally, I honestly don't share your expectation for deeper coverage from CNN. They are the pinnacle of mainstream media, dominated by the 3 minute soundbyte for a fast moving audience who sometimes only want the headlines anyway. We go out of our way to learn more. Their primary audience may also, but about a zillion different topics of which MMOs are still too niche to compete against.
To this group, the only things that matter are those that the mainstream press is best at delivering: raw newsmaking fact. 4 million is a fairly big number (though pales against how many GTA:SA titles were sold before it was rated AO). $50 + ($15.99*9) equally $740,000,000 is an impressive number (though add another billion to that for rough sales figures on GTA:SA).
But even that marginalizes some facts, though this is typical of the genre. 4mil subscriptions, call it 3 million people, spread across over 500 servers only capable of supporting a few thousand people at a time. And then they're sub-divided by the encounters across the land.
Our direct shared experience is with, at most, dozens of other people at a time. We're a long way before we're thousands of people are laying siege to a fort of thousands of people :)
Posted by: Darniaq | Sep 02, 2005 at 13:16
Adam, your list is great, but it is also true that most of it is true of almost every MMORPG on the market.
Back in 2003 I did a graph of available MMORPGs in the Western market (which meant it included a few Asian games). What I found was a power law distribution typical of a network effect.
One characteristic of these distributions over time in many domains is that the curve is essentially invariant. For example, the curve of "biggest cities in the US" has always been the same shape. The #1 city has always been x times larger than the #2 city, and so on, although which cities these were has changed over time. When a city rose in population or declined, it was as if the other cities "knew" what new numbers to adjust themselves to in order to retain the proper shape of the curve.
According to this theory, once you get bigger than the biggest game, you're on an inevitable path to the next "station" on the graph. Once you fall in size, you're on a track to shrink until you fit the curve.
With this, I've usually been able to predict the sizes of games ever size.
When you add to this the fact that it looks like game acquisition and growth can be predicted off of the first 48 hours of acquisition (acquisition curves are also highly regular; given the first few data points, you can predict the whole shebang), it's fairly straightforward to say "any MMO which sells a sufficient number on day one will go on to become #1." And in fact, if they sell the same amount that WoW did, WoW will either shrink to occupy the #2 slot, or they will go on to have around double what WoW does today.
The only exceptions I have found to these have been virally grown games such as Eve and Runescape. I can only assume a lot of the model is dependent on factors arising out of the retail market.
Posted by: Raph | Sep 02, 2005 at 13:31
Looking back through the list, I guess it can be summarised down to a couple of things:
1) Personal introductions matter. Without that I'd not have started playing WoW.
2) WoW suits me and is good enough that I have no urge to look elsewhere for better.
I'm not sure that really helps the business discussion though!
Adam
Posted by: Adam Hough | Sep 02, 2005 at 14:02
Darniaq, I believe you are mistaken on your figures for GTA:SA. Total sales for the entire GTA Franchise are around the 40 million mark, with each of the big three (GTA3, GTA:VC, GTA:SA) selling in the region of 10-15million copies each across all formats.
Posted by: | Sep 02, 2005 at 14:35
Heh... I don't mean to be dismissive of your list, Adam...!
One thing that is important to realize (and that game designers get bit by all the time if they do not think about balance correctly) is that it only takes a marginal difference to cause massive imbalances in a zero-sum iterative game. In other words, a game doesn't need to be dramatically better in order to win the customer; it can be just marginally better, and still rack up the customers. It's a mistake to be looking for why Lineage, Ragnarok, Mu, WoW, whatever is "5 times better."
And of course, my analysis excludes retention as a factor, which is ultimately what leads to piling up the big figures.
From a business perspective, I think the real question to ask is whether WoW could be built for 1/5th of what it actually cost. If not, then it's destined to be a permanent outlier until someone else with pockets that deep decides to play in the market. I am guessing that it could have been made for half of what it cost, but there's definitely a "you get what you pay for" effect as well. I think it's interesting to contrast this to the games in Asia, which have achieved comparable regional figures with much much smaller budgets.
Posted by: Raph | Sep 02, 2005 at 14:35
I would attribute a great deal of their success to features and design, although certainly other factors still play a large part.
A few of the things that stand out to me about WoW are:
WoW has more social spaces. The mailbox/inns, griffin points, boats, the auction house. All generally accessable. Social spaces in WoW are integrated and there is a strong sense of faction (Alliance/Horde) identity.
The primary social spaces in EQ2 are crafting instances which are more seggregated the higher you go. Living zones are seggregated by race, instanced player housing exacerbates a sense of isolation.
WoW has a large variety of terrain which is well interconneted, and continous. Flight paths are well distributed. Areas with deadly inhabitants can usually be traversed by road with care.
EQ2 has great terrain as well. However, it is not well interconnected. Flight paths are short, and limited in number inhibiting your ability to appreciate terrain. Areas with deadly inhabitant are very difficult to traverse even in a limited fashion.
EQ2 has more "realistic" graphics. Until PC horsepower catches up this is negative and not a positive. They may have resolved them by now, but the technical issues surrounding the "better" graphics are what drove me to try WoW, another victim of the A400 debacle.
WoW has more beautiful graphics, with greater fluidity. Animations that are quite expressive. Graphics don't stutter, even at 1600x1200. The "reduced quality" may affect their longevity, on the other hand it gives them a wider inital audience and the social ties and history may balance that out.
Quests in WoW have more cohesive lore. Rewards are usually identified in advance easing the choice of bypassing low value quests. Some quests have event trigger rewards in addition to items / quests IE : Stitches, animated apparitions with dialogs, etc.
Those are just a few of the more notable items to me. There are many others I could mention.
Posted by: Thabor | Sep 02, 2005 at 17:41
"Darniaq, I believe you are mistaken on your figures for GTA:SA. Total sales for the entire GTA Franchise are around the 40 million mark, with each of the big three (GTA3, GTA:VC, GTA:SA) selling in the region of 10-15million copies each across all formats."
Actually the GTA franchise is probably not a viable comparison since it's primarily a console title. Comparable PC titles would probably be Diablo, Battlefield 2, The Sims, etc. In terms of a comparison tracking down exact sales figures is difficult, but I did run across a news item that The Sims 2 sold one million copies within its first ten days from release.
Posted by: lewy | Sep 02, 2005 at 19:50
Just to clarify, I mentioned GTA as an example of what it means to be a top-selling game on a console. You're absolutely right Mr. Silent Contributor ;), I mistakenly mentioned SA when I meant to mention all titles. The goal of the reference was to highlight how "success" on a console uses larger numbers, due to the greater amount of titles sold in general. In other words, PC games are not dominant, MMOs are primarily PC (in the U.S. at least), and while WoW is king among them currently, it's king of a perceptually niche genre.
That's why I don't expect much from CNN coverage. As big a fish WoW is, the pond is avoided by the folks going to the ocean :)
Posted by: Darniaq | Sep 02, 2005 at 23:47
Ugh. It's one thing to try a creative analogy. It's another to hit Submit instead of preview. Anyway, that was supposed to be "As big a fish WoW is, the pond in which he reigns is avoided by folks going to the ocean." Because salvaging the analogy was important or something...
Posted by: Darniaq | Sep 02, 2005 at 23:49
Raph>One thing that is important to realize (and that game designers get bit by all the time if they do not think about balance correctly) is that it only takes a marginal difference to cause massive imbalances in a zero-sum iterative game. In other words, a game doesn't need to be dramatically better in order to win the customer; it can be just marginally better, and still rack up the customers.
This and you're power law theory are really interesting. But it seeems that if MMOs, or at least WoW, are consistently drawing so many new players into the industry, then the market can't be said to be zero-sum anymore.
Maybe I'm just not understanding.
Aaron
Posted by: monkeysan | Sep 03, 2005 at 01:12
Enh, ignore the zero-sum bit for a second--it's an analogy.
A product of any sort only needs to be 5% better to start getting significantly more than 5% more users, is all I mean. Particularly once you include network effects that mean that those folks refer other folks, and so on.
In game design, we often run into this when attempting balance and ignoring the effect of multiple units. One additional unit has a strong force multiplying effect. It's disproportionate in a counterintuitive way. It particularly shows up in the sort of game I am talking about. Similarly, a marginally greater power will result over time in a very large win streak in an iterated game, particularly if there are persistent effects, because the effects of victory compound.
Posted by: Raph | Sep 03, 2005 at 03:13
Darniaq wrote:
"..The China base of players broke 2mil? Last I read it was only 1.5. .."
The9 has announced it in their last Quarter Earning Release
"...We are proud to announce that the number of paying accounts has already surpassed 2 million. We firmly believe that the rapid acceptance of WoW by game players in China is a reflection of the quality and dedication of The9's management and employees..."
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Sep 03, 2005 at 05:48
Gotcha, Raph. Good stuff.
Posted by: monkeysan | Sep 03, 2005 at 18:24
Darniaq wrote:
It's why I can't really accept anymore that "MMOG" covers every game from Second Life to Guild Wars. I consider that somewhat comedic really, given both the nature of those games and the type of player attracted to them. Is someone who loved GW going to love SL? Maybe. But I have my doubts there's an appreciable number of them.
So because Y Tu Mama Tambien didn't appeal to the same audience as Fantastic Four, they're both not movies?
--matt
Posted by: Matt Mihaly | Sep 04, 2005 at 13:59
In fairness to Darniaq, there is a distinction between what he's saying and your analogy about different types of movie.
Films differ with respect to content and technique but do not differ with respect to how Movie-ish they are.
Digital online games can differ in content and technique, just as movies do, but they can *also* differ in how PLACE-like they are. I thought this is what Darniaq was getting at.
Aaron
Posted by: monkeysan | Sep 04, 2005 at 14:04
Raph wrote:
"...In other words, a game doesn't need to be dramatically better in order to win the customer; it can be just marginally better, and still rack up the customers..."
But is that enough to attract casual players? I have the impression that part of the success of WoW was also the ability to attract casual players from other market segments. But just being marginally better could hardly explain such a success in different market segments. At least I can hardly imagine that.
Posted by: Luca Girardo | Sep 04, 2005 at 14:17
I'm not Raph (and I'm not about to play him on this blog), but my own suspicion is that the casual gamer influx is still heavily guided by the sort of network effects Raph describes--ie, even casual gamers tended to find WoW via word of mouth, friends, portal sites, etc. geared toward and established by the more hardcore.
Aaron
Posted by: monkeysan | Sep 04, 2005 at 19:31
"Playing an MMOG" is a very different statement from "playing an RTS" or "playing an FPS". Maybe it's close to "playing a Sim" given the breadth of Sim titles out there, but then I don't know anyone who'd say they "play Sims". They generally get more specific, like Space-, Flight-, War-, etc.
It's why I condone added qualifiers for MMOs, like "Playing a virtual lifestyle MMO" or "Playing an MMOFPS" or "Playing a cool large game with a dozen other people."
Posted by: Darniaq | Sep 04, 2005 at 19:45
Posted by: Abalieno | Sep 04, 2005 at 21:25
I don't know about that. Maybe, if you mean that most cultural phenomena involve network effects, but that's trivially true. Certain kinds of mass-cultural artefacts rely much less heavily on network effects of the sort I described. A few examples are products like toothpaste, cars, and goldfish. On the entertainment side there are products like Brittney Spears, the entire Star Wars prequel, Stephen King books, Cameron's Titanic, the list goes on.
Cheers,
Aaron
Posted by: monkeysan | Sep 05, 2005 at 00:29
4 million users and the basic mail system still doesn't work. Amazing.
WoW is a very important example of how far marketing, name recognition, and ACCESSIBILITY can get you. I lump the following together when I use the term accessibility: ease of install, support for low end machines, easy game (WoW is freakishly easy- if you can't level up, and level up fast, in WoW, give up computer games as a hobby), clean and easy to use interface, easy to find something to do inside the game.
The game itself is decent, not great, and the endgame is absolutely horrid. But even at the end game, the accessibility STILL sucks you in, because by then you are very likely to have numerous friends playing (some of whom find any other MMO type game too difficult). The desire to play a game, ANY GAME, with your friends (and/or spouse) keeps you locked in.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Sep 05, 2005 at 04:23
I'm always somewhat doubtful about "difficult" and "easy" tags associated with these games.
Having played several MMOs (EQ, SWG, DAoC, CoH, SoR) and a lot of wargames and boardgames.. I've never felt that MMO gameplay could truely be challenging.
What seemed to vary was mostly the frustration they could generate. Time penalties, XP loss, greater randomness..
Guess that's a large part of WoW's appeal and what also makes it "too easy" in hardcore players' eyes. It's fairly relaxed.
I remember some party wipes in DAoC where everybody got disheartened, bad blood and insults ensued and the group just dissolved with most people logging off disgusted. That would get labeled as "harder".
In fact, nothing in the gameplay was frankly more difficult. Quite often, it was just a matter of a failed "roll", something you have no control about. And there was generally no way to salvage the situation at all.
I understand that some players wish harsh punishments and stress in the game to give more "worth" to what they're doing. That's almost nonexistent in WoW. I think that's one of the main roots of both its success and the negative comments from old-timers : It's light-hearted. Just a game.
Posted by: XP | Sep 05, 2005 at 09:55
Accessibility indeed played a major role in capturing the attention of non-specialized players in the game; a small but not irrelevant percentage of my friends who play are not good gamers at all - but either take on easier quests or call for help and group for the tougher ones.
On the other side the game is very challenging also for hardcore gamers like me: I constantly try to stretch my character's skills to the maximum to win quests which are 3-4 levels higher than me, in order to get better EQ rewards.
I also find that the endgame instances are extremely appealing and challenging.
In the end I think that WoW fully deservers its success because of its artistic and game design merits. Other factors are an extra to wheel in different kinds of non-pro gamers and give the pro gamers something to relax with, but there is that extra "special feel" that keeps everything together, that cannot be simply ascribed to marketing or other things, that only the great, great games have.
WoW truly deserves to be remembered as a cornerstone of MMOGs, and not only for its numbers.
Posted by: Emanuele Ciriachi | Sep 05, 2005 at 13:49
>Is WoW's wild commercial success primarily due to its superior game design or has Sony simply been "betamaxed" again?
Game play in WoW and EQII are similar in many respects: you spend most of your time running around, alone or in a group, killing mobs and delivering items to NPCs in order to complete a multitude of quests and level up. (Unfortunately, if you want to hang out and socialize at, say, a virtual rave with real music and a variety of avatar dances in a player-crafted/created environment, you have to play a different game like SWG circa 2004 or Second Life.) In both WoW and EQII, you can also use zone-wide chat to help you put together a group more easily (although I miss the bustling coach stables of EQOA); ask a guard for directions so you don't waste hours searching for quest-givers; and take a cool ride on griff.
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You may not realize it but you just elaborated on the very reason why WoW has completely dominated EQ2 in subscriber growth. The games are so fundamentally different both in concept and design, and it is obvious to end users in the implementation of both games. This is highlighted primarily in the mistaken belief SOE developers hold, they feel that their attempts at mimicking "features" should produce similiar "Gameplay." It's glaringly apparent that they just "don't get it," which is why they are doing so poorly, comparatively speaking.
Posted by: Jeff S. | Sep 05, 2005 at 14:27
I wonder, I wonder... at odds here perhaps are those around the industry/art of game making looking for that extra 5% that gives WoW its kick and then there are some game studies folks wondering if there is a bigger story...
Is this simply a matter of which combination of design tweaks generates a market phenomenon like this one and how might it be repeated? Or, going way back to Dimitri's post about MMOGs as 3rd places is the phenomenon here indicative of significant shifts in the social and cultural landscape that we live in?
Of course, I'd be the last person who would want to see more than there is... maybe this is just a 5% better game design with a good word of mouth network effect and that's all.
...but then I go back to the 3rd places idea -- Putnam's communities were always highly romanticized places where people felt responsible for and committed to one another... sociable places arise through a kind of divestment of the self in the aura of a generalized other (sort of like a "taking one for the team" attitude... sort of).
... and yet almost everyone talking about WoW here has talked about how amazing the game is for letting them do whatever they want to do, letting them play the game however they like, how much easier it is to come and go, socialize or not, play this way or that.
This is all fun alright (WoW is fun) but this is Putnam's horror - the kind of individualistic late capitalist sort of fun that led him to write the book "bowling alone" in the first place.
So let me enlist all these savvy designers to once again push the anti-third places argument (just for fun eh...) everyone posting here is demonstrating to a tee the very problem with community that Putnam was worried about. Community (the Putnam kind anyway) cannot and should not ever be an individual choice.
Posted by: Bart Simon | Sep 05, 2005 at 14:30
> I also find that the endgame instances
> are extremely appealing and challenging.
In my experience, the end game instances are only challenging for the poor sap leading the raid.
For everyone else, the endgame instances pretty much boil down to pressing the "1" button repeatedly for about 6 hours and hoping you don't fall asleep too often.
I played the game for about a year. I would have quit much earlier if it were not for the accessibility effect it had on friends and such. I'd never played a game before where so many of my friends were ABLE to also play.
Blizzards Rep + Good Marketing + Accessibility is really all it took to produce this gigantic userbase. The fact that Vivendi clearly has enormous contacts in foreign countries shouldn't be understimated either.
The only game design lesson to be learned from WoW is this: do not underestimate how important it is to make your game ACCESSIBLE to potential players. It should be easy to install, easy to get started, and easy to find something to do. If you don't have those things, you lose a huge percentage of potential customers before they even have a CHANCE to decide if your actual GAME is fun.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Sep 05, 2005 at 19:14
China is the biggest market for World of Warcraft.
Posted by: Hugh | Sep 06, 2005 at 02:30
Hugh wrote:
"China is the biggest market for World of Warcraft."
Maybe. It seems like the majority of Chinese players as counted by The9/Blizzard are cafe players, and that the methodology used is as suspect as that used by the NCSoft and Lineage.
Posted by: lewy | Sep 06, 2005 at 07:32
Putnam isn't so anti-Internet as he seems at first. On second read, I found his stuff to be more open-minded about uses of the Internet to foster offline community than I'd first realized.
However, I think that the sensibility written up by William Galston really gets at the individuality tradeoff Bart is after here. It's the balance of autonomy and the need for others. Does WoW hit the sweet spot here?
See http://siyaset.bilkent.edu.tr/Harvard/galston.htm
Posted by: Dmitri Williams | Sep 06, 2005 at 10:12
I am a not a total newcomer to this type of game but I am a very casual gamer. I tried eve and EQ before moving to WoW and it was through word of mouth. The box didn't make me want to buy the game.
One of the big plus sides is the speed at which you can accomplish tasks early in the game. I have only had the game 2 weeks and already have quite a few level 10 toons and have explored all the newbie starter areas. I have been fishing started a fire and cooked things gathered herbs mined ore and tailored some garments. The speed at which you can dive into all tasks is what is so interesting. EQ required you to find things without any maps (which didn't make any sense as in RL who doesn't have a map?) it was also painstakingly slow to level up. Personally as casual gamer I don't want to kill XXX mobs to get to the next level. WoW has this aspect fine tuned as I now have a choice. I can level up either by killing XXX mobs or just choosing delivery quests. Even doing the trade skills is interesting.
I don't think that for hardcore 12 hour a day players it can hold their interest (I pray that they don't bring an expansion pack too soon or I'll be left in an empty world as 40% of the population will dissappear. (Presuming they like EQ allow travel to players over level 40.) The problem that EQ had was you couldn't just buy EQ you had to by 5 expansion packs which make the game expensive for new players and left new players running around empty landscapes with few friends and being insulted by Alts powerleveling, or even worse trying to powerlevel you thus ruining your experience of the game which is finding out things for yourself.
Anyway I have enjoyed reading the debate. 1 Mil subscribers is a milestone in gaming history whatever it's faults (and there are a few) Blizzard has made a great game for the casual player.
Posted by: John Alexander | Sep 07, 2005 at 05:04
The data Nick gives on grouping doesn't take into account guilds. Social interactions can take place in guild chat and never involve grouping. In fact, soloing is easier when you belong to a guild as characters tend to be better outfitted when working in a guild. Odds are though that someone in a guild is likely grouping.
I do think that XP hit some important points that some have missed. I would say the structural similarities between the MMORPG games I've played (SWG, EQ2 and WoW) isn't as telling as the management style differences they exhibit. "What seemed to vary was mostly the frustration they could generate. Time penalties, XP loss, greater randomness.. "-XP. SOE focuses on time sinks to keep players in the game such as the never ending jedi grind of '04 SWG or the crafting of EQ2, where a roll could cost you hard sought after resources, instead of remembering that people are paying to play a game. I see the focus on the game in the design of WoW and in the management, most recently reinforced with the "no /pizza" stance but apparent from the very start (article: http://www.gamergod.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=287).
Adam’s idea of structured free-form gaming is a big one too. SWG was so open that it was easy to just get completely lost and not know where to pick up. The free form of SWG got me hooked but it also kept me running in circles for quite sometime. But linear is no fun either and I see that as the biggest difference between online RPGs and stand alone, single player RPGs. Blizzard have balanced these 2 wonderfully. Quests are available from the second you appear on Azeroth and lead from one to another very smoothly. Experience from the quests leads to levels and to new quests and areas. There isn’t a point when a character MUST farm some mob endlessly. The same cannot be said for the SOE games I’ve played.
Another difference, and this will go back to the management of the game, is their responsiveness to the customers. There were changes in game play in beta almost up to the last minute but these have continued in the game itself. Going through the forums can be painful but occasionally there is a nugget of gold in there and blizzard seems to find them. Not just that but each patch has taken some of the great ideas that players have mod’d and incorporated them into the game. I’m not sure that those creating the mod’s are thrilled but as a player it makes so much sense to use those ideas and incorporate them into the game. The details that modding is focused on are things that would likely be ignored by an in-game dev and this is caught by blizzard. In contrast, I constantly got the feeling that SOE was annoyed by it’s customers.
The final thing that made me cancel my SOE account and get WoW though was that blizzard allows for more than one character per account per server. Players can try several races and classes without having to start on a new server (realm) each time. They can use the in game mail system (which I’ve never had an issue with… except occasional lag) to send goods and money between characters on the same account.
Although it does boil down to minor differences, at least part of that is in the focus of those making the game. If the ‘business perspective’ takes over, the game loses. Keeping customers playing longer by adding time sinks (EQ2 crafting, the SWG ’04 Jedi grind) makes sense from a business perspective but completely ignores if its fun and adds incredibly to the frustration factor that XP mentioned. I played SWG for a year and that alone means it was a good game but (Sorry Raph) it never felt finished and in the end (for me Jan ’05) was destroyed by managers that refused to hear what customers were saying. Fun first is why WoW is doing so well.
Posted by: Mark Ball | Sep 07, 2005 at 16:19
Fun first. Exactly. Blizzard looked at the MMORPG genre and simply made a game that was more fun to play than what was out there. And they did it with their usual polish, and used a game universe they owned that was already popular and was perfectly suited to such a game. The game practically sold itself - proven company, proven license gets people into a game that actually delivers the fun it promises. Word of mouth and good reviews reach even more gamers that might not have been into Warcraft or Blizzard before.
I think the game success is simple to understand. But it's a deceptive simplicity, like a zen state - like understanding a gameplan for a football game may be easy, but going out on the field and executing it correctly is a whole different story. Blizzard had the right plan, then they executed it perfectly.
Posted by: AcidCat | Sep 07, 2005 at 18:13
> Another difference, and this will go back
> to the management of the game, is their
> responsiveness to the customers.
If SOE is even worse than Blizzard, that is frightening. Blizzard is incredibly UNRESPONSIVE to their players.
For a year now players have been BEGGING Blizzard to fix the mail system. It sometimes takes 1-5 minutes just to get something out of your mailbox.
> Going through the forums can be painful
> but occasionally there is a nugget of gold
> in there and blizzard seems to find them.
Blizzard almost completely ignores the forum, and some of their staff have accidentally implied that the entire "suggestions" forum is 100% ignored.
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Sep 08, 2005 at 00:25
Another point about WoW is that Blizzard seems to focus on gameplay in their design. Compared to say, DAoC, the difference is rather clear.
Mythic designers built rules, spells and systems that they assembled in various classes and specs. The resulting gameplay was often lopsided or frankly unbalanced. In some cases, it was game-breaking. (One extreme case being animists and the first iteration of mana fonts. That combination could litterally crash the game server)
These faults were generally patched upon by specific modifications, like special caps. On the whole, the design often feels haphazard and rough.
With WoW, you feel the approach is different. Sure, a warrior, a rogue and a warlock can use a sword. But they have completely different gameplays. And you feel this has been planned precisely.
The instances and the landscapes also have this "handcrafted" feel. Whatever you may think of the game itself, its implementation feels professional on many aspects. It's polished.
Couple notes : There are grinds in WoW. But they're somewhat optional. If you wish to become a crafter, truely useful recipes demand that you get faction with several organizations. That means grind, grind, grind. (Several kinds of grinds, but grinds nonetheless)
I guess these are meant mostly for hardcore gamers.
@Hartman. I think you're misrepresenting the situation. What they've said (repeatedly) is that they do look at suggestions but won't acknowledge or respond to them. Their response is through the patches.
I still think a lot of issues were heard and adressed. Things like the relative weakness of 2 of the hunters spec lines. Maybe you don't like the result, but that's another issue.
On the other issue : It's rather obvious WoW's Database has trouble dealing with the number of transactions on a highly populated server. If that is due to the database structure, there's no easy way out.
Posted by: XP | Sep 08, 2005 at 09:19
XP wrote:
"Another point about WoW is that Blizzard seems to focus on gameplay in their design. Compared to say, DAoC, the difference is rather clear.'
It's funny that you should mention DAoC, because it seems to me and my friends that a lot of WoW was built with DAoC in mind. In DAoC you had major imbalances in realm vs. realm gameplay due to class issues. It seems coincidental at least that Blizzard chose to make only a relatively small number of classes available and gave each faction only one unique class, the shaman and the paladin.
In DAoC there were major problems with realm population imbalances, with people joining a server specifically because the faction they wanted to play owned a numerical advantage on that particular machine. In WoW all of the PvP battlegrounds are instanced and have population caps in place to ensure a fair fight.
So it seems to me at least that if WoW does see further than its predecessors it's because it's standing on their shoulders. That said, while WoW is certainly superior to DAoC in many respects there are inevitably pluses and minuses to the manner in which both games have chosen to approach PvP. While realm population issues have been mitigated in WoW the cost has been that there is no persistance to PvP as with DAoC's keeps. I remember when I first started playing DAoC and a rival realm mounted a raid on one of our keeps. Immediately a hue and cry went up in general chat, members of the party I was in started to chatter excitedly that their guild chat was switching over to realm defense, and defenders poured out into the frontier. There will never be an analagous situation in WoW--there's no consequence other than inconvenience if the other side wipes out one of your towns (or cities) and the usual response to raids is one of indifference. If you were feeling like doing some PvP anyway you might join in on realm defense, but if you want to level you're more than likely to just ignore the whole thing and carry on with your business.
Posted by: lewy | Sep 08, 2005 at 09:42
I agree in general terms about RVR/PVP, but I still think there's a wide difference in design methodology. Did Blizzard procede differently than Mythic due to their example ? I'm not so sure.
What I mean is that not only the classes are fewer, each has been separately designed with a specific gameplay in mind. Another point is that most bonuses and specific abilities are rather small in scope and numerical value.
DAoC on the other hand, has a myriad of classes built upon shared lists and systems. Some are extremely innovative. But the result often isn't very cohesive. (Useless spec lines, useless spells, useless styles)
Worse, the result is often wildly uncontrolled.. Once more, take the case of the Animist. For those unfamiliar with DAoC, this is a truely innovative class. It can summon a pet mushroom (no kidding) which is rooted in place. And it can also summon other creatures for a limited duration. Amongst them spell-firing mushrooms that last 2 minutes.
In itself it's fine. But..
Mushrooms have their HP and spell proficiency based on caster's level.
The level of the spell they cast is based on the level of the summon. Which means that if you go for low-level shrooms, they fire a level 5 spell, but they have the same HP and spec than a higher-level shroom. And the cost much less in terms of mana.
The chance of a spell being resisted is based on the spell level / the target's level.
Each attacker on a target then lowers that resist % . That's already troublesome, because it means these low-level shrooms may hit more than they should because they're more numerous.. Worse, anybody grouped with them will benefit from that bonus..
And then you add mana fonts.. Natural regen in combat is 1 pt/ 14 sec. (a "tick", which gets shorter if you sit) With specific abilities, it may go up to something like 5 or 6. With a specific buff, you gain up to 5 points more.
Mana fonts are fixed surces, gained through a quest. What they did was give something like 20+ points per tick. Compared to 10-11, that's already worrying.
Further it's a ZONE effect... Which means that if you got 8 animists in it, EACH will get the full amount.
And lastly (in the first implementation) You could STACK THEM. To 8 if I remember correctly. Just about 15 times natural regen.
A zone of infinite mana on a class that can summon at will, with a bonus for each creature.. That shows a staggering lack of synthetic vision.
Given enough animists and fonts, you could crash the server.. Or desintegrate anything while the server held.
I could give other examples, like the sharing of dual-wield styles.. But the point is that it may be more a matter of methodology (or professionalism) than simply the benefit of hindsight.
Posted by: XP | Sep 08, 2005 at 10:35
Just a quick aside about Michael Hartman's complaints about the mail system - I've been playing since beta on several different servers with a few different guilds and not once have I had a problem getting my mail nor heard anyone else complain of such a thing. Certainly not saying that such a problem doesn't come up - but that focusing on one minor issue that clearly not everyone is experiencing is not a good example of Blizzard being "unresponsive."
And have you read the official forums? If I were Blizzard I'd ignore 99% of that junk too. Listening to your playerbase is one thing, listening too closely may cause psychosis. As always, there is a vocal segment of players that feel they are entitled to have the game changed to suit their personal taste just because they pay a monthly fee. This vocal minority crops up in just about every MMO, and they cry most loudly in those with PvP.
Posted by: AcidCat | Sep 08, 2005 at 10:42
My server is quite crowded. At peak hours, every transaction including mail becomes difficult. You can check the content, but retrieving objects can take more than 30 seconds or fail.
Obviously, WoW's data storage has some difficulty handling the volume of transactions it gets in these circumstances.
Maybe the volume of transactions was lower during stress tests due to less mail and auctions.. I don't know. Where they can go from there, I don't know either.
Posted by: XP | Sep 09, 2005 at 09:10
A little sidenote about how I got "here".
Word of mouth and reputation are powerful factors but for me an EDGE article (A World Apart) was the trigger.
Another (geek and undervalued) aspect is the "Second World" nature of the game (the WarCraft franchise), the detailed and coherent world history and background.
Posted by: kissgz | Sep 09, 2005 at 10:07
In this thread from several months ago, people focused on the incredible success of WoW as measured by the number of copies sold. However, there are other factors -- such as game complexity and maturity of the player base -- that seem relevant to the questions pursued on Terra Nova.
After almost ten months of casual play with WoW, I decided to cancel my account and investigate other titles. I've tried out several games, and have been pleasantly surprised by the complexity and accessibility of EQ II.
This game has been in the shadow of WoW ever since it launched, and participants in this thread have elaborated many reasons for WoW's success. However, a year down the road, is it time to give EQ II a second look? As players become disappointed with the end-game content and grindng nature of WoW, is it possible that we will see a migration to diferent MMOs? Will we someday say that slick, accessible games such as WoW prepared gamers to tackle greater challenges such as EQ II or Eve Online?
Posted by: Second chance for EQ II? | Nov 20, 2005 at 17:52