Interesting question I seen on MMO-Champion. Do I want WoW to stay on top?
World of Warcraft is a game I’ve sunk years into and spent a lot of money on, in subscriptions and expansions. I’ve made some very good friends there, friends I’ve carried out of the game and into the real world. I’ve written articles about the game, reviews about it. I’ve written a comic about it and various game design articles about various features of WoW.
I have invested a lot into this game. But do I want it to stay on top?
The answer is No.
The power of WoW
Let’s face it. WoW has such a powerful presence that no other MMO has come close.
Tabula Rasa tried to kill the Warcraft
They failed, as their servers were smite to the ground.
Warhammer tried to kill the Warcraft
They failed, as they were stricken down to the ground
Age of Conan tried to kill the Warcraft, Hahahaha
They failed! As they were thrown down to the ground
With WoW on top every other game tries to be WoW. They’ve all failed. Some of those games don’t even exist any more. With WoW having such a huge market share, and so many expansions their game is relatively perfect. Many new MMO’s suffer from intense lag, major graphical flaws and heavily unbalanced PVP. Warcraft being on its 3rd expansion has fixed those flaws. Yet any game that comes out gets compared to WoW as it is now, not how it once was.
As long as WoW is this powerful and dominant nobody will try anything else. By dethroning WoW, I hope, it would open up new possibilities as publishers and developers alike will go “Warcraft got dethroned by a total unique MMO. Let us try new ideas and broaden the horizons of MMO’s also!” which in the end works out better for all of us.
…realistically we’ll probably just get more copies of this new MMO, but I can hope.
Stories
There are so many stories in games. So many yet to be birthed, yet to be experienced. Warcraft has some awesome stories and an awesome world. But eventually they’re going to run out of main lore. We’ve had Illidan, Arthas and now Deathwing. Those are some of the biggest names in Warcraft history. Eventually they’re going to run out of bad guys and have to create more. But I don’t think you could capture the same feeling in facing them… unless of course they release Warcraft 4 with a whole slew of new characters that will be the basis of an expansion or two after Cataclysm.
I remember reading that Bioware may consider turning Dragon Age into an MMO. That I would like to see. Dragon Age has a very dark fantasy story with many continents spoken of, but unexplored. An MMO of it would be amazing.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is supposed to have a unique story for each class. That also will be interesting to see.
Mechanics
I don’t know where the basis for World of Warcraft’s mechanics came from. You know the whole action bar at the bottom, talent trees, health, mana, energy for rogues sorta thing? I haven’t played Ultima or Everquest so I’m not sure if they started it first. Still that’s pretty much the foundation for every MMO I’ve played and I’ve played a lot of MMO’s.
The most original mechanic I’ve seen so far is in Star Trek Online. In it your ship has shields. Forward, Rear and Side-facing. You can click buttons to redistribute shield energy to whichever side needs it most. You can also change how your power is distributed.
“All power to shields”
“All power to engines”
Heard these phrases? If you put more power into the engines, you move faster. Put more in weapons your phasers hit harder. It’s an interesting mechanic and makes space combat more interesting than just getting in range and spamming phasers for all you’re worth.
Warhammer Online was a Warcraft clone with Warhammer races. They had a few original ideas here and there, but for the most part if you knew WoW, you know WAR.
This is disappointing. I want to see more interesting mechanics. Nobody will be able to dethrone WoW while they continue to copy WoW. It is only by stepping into uncharted territory and doing something totally different that WoW will be defeated. If WoW is not on top I don’t think that pressure will be as intense to make something just like WoW to take the WoW players away.
Yeah I know in reality we’ll just get games copying the WoW-killer. But like I said, I can hope for growth in the games industry. I can hope for change.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
You’ve bound to have seen some user created WoW films. Leeroy Jenkins? Onyxia Wipe video? Blind? Nyhm? What would happen if the creative geniuses in the community got together and created their own quests and raids using existing models and zones as a template?
A whole lot of crappily done instances with poor balance. But among them will be the shining gold that even the MMO’s designers will go “WOAH” to.
Many of the designers and writers that I respect believe the WoW-killer will be an MMO that implements UGC and pulls it off. City of Heroes have it, but due to misuse anyone who makes or plays user quests that are unbalanced in the favour of the player, get banned or retroactively lose everything they’ve gained.
This sounds fair enough, but they don’t give any examples or guidelines as to what is and is not exploitative. So the players don’t use the system and stick to Developer made quests. This is a shame as there’s so much potential here.
This is what I’d love to see. World of Warcraft has Community Managers. These are the awesome guys in a thankless job who dig through the forums all day, locking the crap threads, blue-tagging the awesome ones and stickying the really helpful ones.
What I envision is an MMO that allows User Generated Quests and Raids. The developers provide the textures and models, the dragons and skeletons etc. They also provide you a choice of ‘difficulty’ e.g. Tier-10. If I choose T10 I then am restricted into giving out items that are of appropriate power for that difficulty and bosses must have fixed Health, also appropriate to that difficulty.
The players then piece that together into a dungeon or raid. The ‘Community Managers’ or ‘UG Managers’ will have the job of looking through all that was created, finding the truly awesome ones and marking them as “Full of Win”. A User-Generated Dungeon of the Month. The ‘Editors pick’ of raids. Amongst all the tripe (and there’ll be a lot of it) there will be gold which will be plucked out and put on a stand for all to see and enjoy.
When I consider this, I see what my designer/writer friends are saying that the MMO which masters User-Generated Content is the MMO that kills WoW. How many people are still playing Warcraft 3, years after it’s release, not for the base game but for the custom maps? DoTA is one of the most played maps in Warcraft 3 and it’s still going, changing and getting releases. An MMO that pulls that kind of effect will be the dominant one for years to come. “Not enough content” is a problem when it’s only developers making it, but let the community make some too and woweee, what a game that could be.
Conclusion
Do I want WoW to stay on top of all MMO’s? No I don’t. There is just too much untapped talent, too many awesome mechanics and too many epic tales to tell that are outside the Warcraft Universe.
I want to play an MMO that’ll let me make my own content for the game. An MMO that’ll let me enjoy the awesome content other players make.
Don’t get me wrong, I love World of Warcraft, I’m glad it’s going strong after 5 years, but eventually I’m going to want to experience more than it can provide.
What do you think?
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I love the concept of User Generated Quests and Raids, the truely hardcore could create there own content and player/guild limits could be tested. I have been playing Fable 2 recently and the other thing that appeals is the introduction of Character choices effecting content, the whole good/evil pure/corrupt making an impact of quests you can do and even character apperance.
Eve-online has been providing a user-driven MMO since before even Warcraft was around. In fact, it was too dependant on the population at the very start from what I remember of it. There was limited PvE, from the perspective of quests and factions, but they addressed that for the solo player.
The real game however, is in the corporations, economy, politics, all of which are largely driven by the player base. PvP is hardcore and epic, massive battles involving hundreds of ships, with significant stakes in the form of the players investment in their ships, which don’t conveniently respawn 30 seconds are being blown to pieces. All this however, is the responsibility of the player base, because it is they who form the corporations, politics, allegiances, and ultimately the gathering to play out the confrontations. I like having a relatively linear game that allows a dungeon or raid a few times a week, in a universe that doesn’t need me to expand, change, or progress.
It attracts a different kind of gamer however. One could argue the same kind of mechanic you mention already exists in WoW. A DK in frost presence does less damage than one in blood, but is more survivable, as an example. I for one, prefer my casual-friendly wow, one where I don’t risk all my characters gear just because I want to pvp a bit.
That’s User-Driven not User-Generated.
User-Driven is the AH, we decide what prices to pay, we decide what loot rules to use.
User-Generated is us creating an instance, placing the mobs, placing the bosses, choosing their abilities, how much damage they deal and what they drop. It’s the Warcraft 3 map editor for WoW. The UTEd of MMO’s.
The dying and losing the ship you spent months to get is neither, that’s just harsh unforgiving gameplay.
Indeed, I misread and let my mind wander. However, I think such an MMO would be attractive to a different kind of player, which is what I was getting at (and I was not attributing my comments on ship loss to UGO or whatever, it was an example of why I prefer WoW over Eve).
The toolset alone. If it’s too simple, then the danger is everything looks the same. Too complex, and the uptake would be low. Now, ive been a programmer for years, and judging by the fact i’m still doing it full-time, im competent enough at it. Given that, I don’t think ive seen a tool/map editor/language that I think is simple enough to use that would actively encourage my patronage of a particular game. It would be interesting to see what Blizzard could come up with in that department. A mate and myself wrote a really simple (functionally) mod for UT a few years ago, a version of Crotchshot (Kneecapper, to keep the theme Northern Irish), and even that was non-trivial, requiring a little coding, some sound work, and understanding of the UT mod system. So whereas UGO sounds great, im thinking how it would be executed to make it a gamebreaker.
Since I posted this (it appeared on my public blog a few days before going up here) I’ve been thinking on how you could get such a toolset to work.
I have some thoughts written down here: http://skynes.livejournal.com/20180.html
Including some flaws, plus points and how ideally it would work. It’s a big job though, easily bigger than the Warcraft 3 editor.
Arena’s made by myself….sounds pro.
.-= Vinnayo´s last blog ..noTion 25-man progress =-.
I assembled a group of 10 or so people about 2 years ago to try and establish an idea for an MMO.
It is INCREDIBLY hard to a/ come up with a unique concept, and b/ get the finer points ironed out with 10 role playing geeky pc types all having their own ideas on things.
The idea I finally came up with was Steampunk – having Victorian technology gone awry in an alternate future.
Sadly – after I’d spent ages illustrating concept art for characters and environments – someone discovered that something like that already existed (could be Tabula Rasa..?)
One has to look at market environments with regard to new games.
WOW currently has the market, and for an MMO to be successful after 5 years in an amazing achievement.
People love the game for various reasons, primarily because it caters for such a wide variety of play styles and offers so many things to do.
Few people, with the possible exception of the QQ hardcore brigade (i.e. bored students who will probably fail every course), ever stand around wondering what to do next.
I’ve left a few times to try new games, but always return.
There’s just an attraction, an addiction, that WOW offers, which is incredibly hard to break.
The social element is probably a very large part of that.
My personal view is that the next game to break the market will be founded on the Facebook gaming app principle: a quick hop-on/hop-off approach to put an action in motion, then log off and return later to see what progress has been made.
Statistically this sort of game attracts the largest untapped market: women.
Time will tell.
For now I need to go farm herbs…
HEY! I’m not untapped…………. wait that sounded wrong.
Lol! You’re an exception, as are most female games players (1 in 5 females in WOW, I know)
The majority of ladies who use a PC only ever play solitaire or freecell…
If only I could use some of your ‘untapped’ kewlness to convince the missus to play MOAR WOW! :’(
Counterstike (Yes, *the* Counterstrike) and Team Fortress started as user generated content… I remember playing both in their very early protoype versions at LAN parties… Sheesh but they were good times – But I am drifting!
There were literally thousands of user generated maps, many were pretty poor (mine included) but there wwere also some amazing stuff (TF and CS as a start, but also a brilliant Aliens adaptation that I remember).
Likewise there were lots of add-ons for Neverwinter nights.
So, my point is that UG content is feasible if the loot ‘limits’ can be determined.
CS is a whole different game tho…the concept is alot easier then wow. Every player pretty much has the same abilities the only variety there is that u can only buy the AK/Galil/Mac10 etc. as T and M4A1/Famas/TMP as CT also T got a bomb. But that’s it….every person is able to do the same thing and that just isn’t the case in WoW
. Imagine WoW arena’s being like CS: 5 Warriors vs 5 Warriors, 5 Mages vs 5 Mages, 5 Resto Druids vs 5 Resto Druids. 
.-= Vinnayo´s last blog ..noTion 25-man progress =-.
I think his point was that when it comes to User Generated Content, a lot of it is absolutely awful, but then you get pieces of pure gold like CS and TF2.
You got a very good point in your article: we compare everything new to WoW. Last week I played the open beta of Craft of the Gods. While the graphics are less cartoony, I found much similarities in the game. Because the game isn’t finished and during beta everything seems to be logged, gameplay was sluggish (for example interaction with NPC’s was slow, fighting continued after the mob died etc.) First thing that came to my mind was: “another WoW clone”. There are similarities, but also a lot of new things.
By comparing the new games to an established (and pretty much fully evolved) game, we basically give them no chance. As a game company I would be hesitant too to invest a lot of money into the needed resources like hardware and servicedesk for example. Just because Blizzard did a good job with WoW in making a better game during the last 5 years, we must not forget how the game used to be at the start: unstable with lot of downtime, unbalanced, huge (and really huge) amount of bugs. Basically no bossfight in a raidinstance was not bugged.
the new wow killer
http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=2855133
Rofl. I’m in the Beta for it. It’s not bad, but definitely tailored to its 8+ audience.
It’s silly that they’re charging it as subscription based, I think that’ll hurt it quite badly.
Just in case you are interested, I played Ultima Online before (albeit on a private server rather than the official (OSI) ones.
Ultima did indeed have mana / casting / hp but it was done a little differently.
When you started you had 225 points to put into 3 stats – I can’t remember the names but it was roughly stamina / agility / intelligence. A melee type would do 100/100/25, a caster would do 100/25/100 and you might get the odd middle combination like 100/75/75. The agility thing was like “endurance” – it meant you could travel further without getting “tired” and meant you could wear plate or leather or cloth, the more you had.
The 100 of each state would give 100 health 100 “endurance” (I guess) and 100 intelligence.
You cast spells using scrolls which used up your mana and of course taking damage meant you lost health – all players could wear all types of armour and all players could cast spells though a melee type would probably only use a spell of recall (cast on runes).
They also had stuff like player vendors, player houses (from tiny things to huge castles). You also had way more crafted stuff like cupboards, chairs, decoration for your house etc.
Was a good game really just never wanted to pay to play when I was younger.