Tag: design

Warcraft, Rift and Fun

Posted on by Gazimoff

I’m not sure if I announced this anywhere, but back in March I took a month long holiday from Warcraft to play Rift. I felt a little jaded from the game and needed to take a break, much like I occasionally take time off from my real-life job. I think its a healthy thing to do, plus it gives me the chance to look at other games on the market.

Like many people at the moment, I find myself looking at Rift and questioning my subscription. Some people I know have quit the game completely, while others like me are keeping a subscription going to both games.

Continue reading “Warcraft, Rift and Fun”

Designing My Own MMO

Posted on by Gazimoff

A while back I was challenged on Twitter to design my own MMO. I can’t remember exactly who threw down that gauntlet, but I have a feeling it was Razorbug. In the weeks that have passed I’ve been kicking the tires on this idea, thinking of how I could make a game unique enough to sound interesting yet familiar enough for players to be comfortable with it.

I wanted to share this idea with you partly to see if an “armchair designer” like me can come up with something that you might find interesting. I also want to pass the challenge on – to see what you would choose if you had a development team waiting for your MMO ideas. It’s a great exercise and it challenged me to think in a different way to my normal consumer-critic mindset. If you’re up for the challenge then give it a go!

So without further ado, let me share what’s been in my head these past few weeks…

Continue reading “Designing My Own MMO”

Playing Cards at the Carnival

Posted on by Gazimoff

Confession time: I like to take my time when levelling characters. I’ve tried levelling at breakneck speed and it just isn’t for me. Nowadays I prefer to take things at my own pace – I have a bunch of alts that still aren’t at level cap in Warcraft, while in Rift I’m only about two thirds to cap nearly two months after release. After all, what’s the rush?

Spinks recently highlighted an idea that the Everquest 2 developers are kicking around, where experienced returning players could trade cash for a max level character. I agree with her that the concept feels like a bad one, but that it’s getting difficult to justify why.

There’s a great analogy someone once made that compared MMOs to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Basically put, if the films followed the same path as many MMOs then the opening twenty minutes would be about getting the ring to Mount Doom. The rest of the first film and the remaining two would all be about getting the ring into the volcano. Feels slightly skewed, right?

Continue reading “Playing Cards at the Carnival”

Cheering the Armchair Designer

Posted on by Gazimoff

The Warcraft community is huge. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people writing, drawing, sharing or discussing something about the game every single day. That’s a staggering amount of people all talking about one game made by a single company.

Having such a vocal community can be a bit of a double edged sword. Whenever a change to the game is introduced it gets placed under intense scrutiny. Sometimes a change will be met with universal acclaim, while other times (although rarely for Blizzard) it’ll be met with disdain. Sometimes a change will be so controversial that it’ll split the community completely.

The most recent controversial change was Call to Arms, an attempt by Blizzard to reduce the time it takes to assemble a group for certain combat roles. While the aim is commendable, a number of bloggers (including me) noticed several flaws with the design as presented. We discussed it, shared it and importantly made suggestions about how to improve it.

Continue reading “Cheering the Armchair Designer”

Bribes, Karma and Recommendations

Posted on by Gazimoff

Patch 4.1 is approaching, although when it’ll actually arrive is currently anyone’s guess. Content and changes are being crammed in on a regular basis, making predicting the arrival date sheer guesswork at the moment.

Call to Arms is one of the latest features to be squeezed into the patch. Essentially the change amounts to a bribe to persuade tanks (and occasionally healers) to queue by themselves for heroic groups by offering them an additional reward when they complete the dungeon.

The rewards on offer to those that respond to the Call are a mix of the following:

  • More gold
  • A chance of a rare gem, flasks or potions (basically more gold)
  • A good chance of a dungeon drop only non-combat pet
  • A rare chance of a dungeon drop only mount

Although the Call to Arms can in theory be triggered for any role, it’ll always go for the one that’s needed most. In the majority of cases this will be the tank, although occasionally it’ll be healers that are most in need. It is highly unlikely that this will trigger for DPS roles.

The goal is that this will reduce the queue times for DPS, providing them with a better LFD experience.

It will not work.

Continue reading “Bribes, Karma and Recommendations”

An Appreciation of Developers

Posted on by Gazimoff

Earlier this week I stumbled on a brilliant idea from Scarybooster. For a couple of years now he’s been running Developer Appreciation Week, a chance for us to say thanks to all those in the video games industry who make our lives that little bit better.

I know I’ve been a grouchy malcontent recently, poking holes and picking problems. Yet to be fair, Scarybooster has a point. I honestly can’t remember the last time I stood up and said “You know what, for all its faults you still made a bloody great game that I’ve had great fun playing.” Sure, I might think certain things could be better but that doesn’t mean that the fatalistic “everything sucks” approach is the right one.

That said, there are some groups of people within the video game industry that I wanted to single out for special thanks. While I appreciate the work of everyone who spends their day job producing this form of entertainment, I reckon these folks deserve a particular mention.
Continue reading “An Appreciation of Developers”

Burnout By The Numbers

Posted on by Gazimoff

It’s ironic that almost a year ago I was writing about the same topic and how to cope with it. Back then, players were complaining about being burned out with Wrath. They’d done everything they wanted to, achieved what they wanted and were ready to throw in the towel. I was as well, which is why I wrote about how I cope with hitting a gaming rut.

Yet here we are, a slim 14 weeks since Cataclysm was released and feeling burned out already. These aren’t just isolated cases either – MMO Melting Pot reports that 75% of all respondents to a burnout article on WoW Insider are themselves struggling with the problem.

So what gives? What turns a loyal fanbase of players into burned out deserters in the space of three and a half months?
Continue reading “Burnout By The Numbers”

My Folly Against The Entitlesloth

Posted on by Gazimoff

I feel like a conflict has been brewing inside of me for the past few days. It’s one of those horrible conflicts of ideologies that I can’t see any easy way to resolve. And what makes it worse is that both sides of the conflict are borne of a single source.

You see, I want to help players become better.

Part of that is by writing guides, making videos and helping people in-game. I don’t see anything wrong with being a bad player if you have a willingness to improve. The players I don’t want are the greedy entitlesloths – the lazy players who play badly, know they play badly and insist on continuing to play badly. The players who then inflict their laziness onto others by abusing LFD, expecting to be carried through dungeons on a dais to scoop up loot like peeled grapes.

But in my desire to stigmatise the entitlesloth I fear that I contribute to a culture of elitism. A mindset of “You must be this skilled to enter”. I see people who play in spite of their real-life restrictions and limitations, the people who rely on Warcraft to provide them with an escape from their real world situation. And I feel ashamed that the culture I help support probably makes them feel unwelcome and unwanted.

Continue reading “My Folly Against The Entitlesloth”

Looking For Dramatic Change

Posted on by Gazimoff

If you ever wanted a minute by minute reading of why tanks and healers feel special, you need look no further than the infamous Looking for Dungeon tool. It’s a bit radical to see tanks get insta-pop dungeons and healers have maybe five minutes while DPS are left to sit around for maybe an hour or more.

Ever wanted to feel third-class? Just roll a pure-class DPS and watch as the queue mocks you, again and again.

But why is this? Surely if we got more people to play tanks or healers then we’d all win from shorter queues? I’m not sure. We’ve had two major tanking changes, firstly to make non-Warrior tanks much more viable and secondly to introduce a whole new class to persuade people to tank. I’ll admit that the LFD tool was introduced after these changes, but still – that means that either nothing has got better or (shudder) things were actually worse than I remember.

Continue reading “Looking For Dramatic Change”

Comparing Mages: Warcraft Vs. Rift

Posted on by Gazimoff

There’s a common theme among fantasy MMOs. It doesn’t matter what game it is, you can expect to find the same three character classes. There’ll always be a plate wearing warrior type that’s ready to soak up the damage and a cleric or priest (or even minstrel) type that throws out healing.

Then there’s the spellcaster. Mage, warlock or elementalist, there’s always someone throwing around balls of some description. They also tend to have similar mechanics for casting spells and so on. How can a new MMO make itself feel any different?

Continue reading “Comparing Mages: Warcraft Vs. Rift”