Blizzards next MMO is........

[Tannhauser]

Games Workshop has totally ripped off WoW.

[Aez]

Games Workshop has totally ripped off WoW.

Don't make me open one of my six mouths.

[LK]

I don't think Blizzard would agree to use anyone else's licensed properties but their own.  They have made it a point to create and own every item that is used with their games, including the I.P.  That way they are the sole benefactor of said items.

Come join fellow students of Hogwash School of Sorcery in Blizzard's next groundbreaking MMO based on brand new, own IP.

Sig'd.

Could you at least bother to fix the grammar before putting something in your signature?

[Righ]

Then I would have to put editorial comments in the attribution. I'll tell you what, since it offends you so fucking much, I'll remove it.

[tmp]

What would be the proper grammar? Genuine question, english isn't my first language so may as well learn something out of it.

[Righ]

Come join fellow students of Hogwash School of Sorcery in Blizzard's next groundbreaking MMO based on their own brand new IP.

[Ratman_tf]

Come join fellow students of Hogwash School of Sorcery in Blizzard's next groundbreaking MMO based on their own brand new IP.

Totally lacks charm, now. 

[tmp]

But has Blizzard-level polish.

[Signe]

It was lovely the way you said it the first time.  Lorekeep buggered every thing up.  We should bugger him up with a pointy stick! 

[TenaciousMike]

Personally, I think that a SC MMO would be the bee's knees.  Make it a MMOFPS a la Planetside, with the 3 factions having gameplay differences that reflect the RTS.  The universe would be made of several planets, many of which would have capturable cities that would change art depending on who is in control.  Add in space stations, as well.  Allow a bit of PvE, but focus on the PvP aspect.

Just throw is up with the 3 factions like so:

Terrans - Plays much like Planetside.  You start out with the ability to work a few guns/vehicles.  After progressing far enough, you could unlock your latent Ghost abilities, or become a hotshot captain of a cruiser.  To pick up various vehicles, you have to be near a base.  If you get shot down, you can eject and fight on foot.  Death causes you to respawn back in a cloning tube of some sort. 

Zerg - Your character is a maggot.  You have the ability to metamorphosis into the various zerg units.  This work along a system similar to the Terrans.  The large units would be the equivalent of vehicles.  Only you wouldn't need a machine shop to morph.  You could do it in-field.  Only you can't morph again until you "die".  At which point you respawn at base and morph into something else.  Unless somebody was morphed into an overlord, which would be like a mobile spawn point.

Protoss - Your character would basically have a lot less variety in progression than the other two factions, but be more versatile.  Maybe do something with the Dark Protoss.  They could basically gate in any kind of vehicle they wanted within a radius of a pylon, but it would take time for it to appear (which they'd have to defend the gateway from attack).

To make it further interesting, allow 1-time faction changes.  Zerg infection, Protoss "enlightenment" or Terran technological enslavement.  This could give the various factions even more end-game balance.  (This would allow Zerg characters access to stealth if they levelled up a Dark Templar or a Ghost and then did the "infection quest").  Of course, this could lead to buyer's remorse, but advancement would be on the easy side of things.

[LK]

It was lovely the way you said it the first time.  Lorekeep buggered every thing up.  We should bugger him up with a pointy stick! 

Sorry, I'm a writer and that line made my eyes bleed.  I forgot the strength of any good quote goes up by 10 points if it's published on the internet and is also grammatically incorrect.

But the Blizzard polish line gave me a big laugh.

[Ratman_tf]

Personally, I think that a SC MMO would be the bee's knees.  Make it a MMOFPS a la Planetside, with the 3 factions having gameplay differences that reflect the RTS.  The universe would be made of several planets, many of which would have capturable cities that would change art depending on who is in control.  Add in space stations, as well.  Allow a bit of PvE, but focus on the PvP aspect.

Just throw is up with the 3 factions like so:

Terrans - Plays much like Planetside.  You start out with the ability to work a few guns/vehicles.  After progressing far enough, you could unlock your latent Ghost abilities, or become a hotshot captain of a cruiser.  To pick up various vehicles, you have to be near a base.  If you get shot down, you can eject and fight on foot.  Death causes you to respawn back in a cloning tube of some sort. 

Zerg - Your character is a maggot.  You have the ability to metamorphosis into the various zerg units.  This work along a system similar to the Terrans.  The large units would be the equivalent of vehicles.  Only you wouldn't need a machine shop to morph.  You could do it in-field.  Only you can't morph again until you "die".  At which point you respawn at base and morph into something else.  Unless somebody was morphed into an overlord, which would be like a mobile spawn point.

Protoss - Your character would basically have a lot less variety in progression than the other two factions, but be more versatile.  Maybe do something with the Dark Protoss.  They could basically gate in any kind of vehicle they wanted within a radius of a pylon, but it would take time for it to appear (which they'd have to defend the gateway from attack).

To make it further interesting, allow 1-time faction changes.  Zerg infection, Protoss "enlightenment" or Terran technological enslavement.  This could give the various factions even more end-game balance.  (This would allow Zerg characters access to stealth if they levelled up a Dark Templar or a Ghost and then did the "infection quest").  Of course, this could lead to buyer's remorse, but advancement would be on the easy side of things.

I can't play FPSes like I play MMORPGs, so I'd rather they didn't go that route. Agree with everything else though.

[bhodi]

I really think there is a market for a Planetside 2008. Add some blizzard polish and you've got yourself a moneymaker.

[Teleku]

If somebody could do a MMOFPS "right", it could be really awesome.  There is a ton of potential there.  However, at this point, Blizzard is the only one I actually would trust to pull something like that off, due to their professionalism, but most importantly, their resources (making an MMOFPS that works probably has to be one of the more technologically challenging projects I can think of, as the other attempts have shown).

Unfortunately, Blizzard has no past experience in doing FPS's, and I'm not sure if they would be willing to dive in that direction. Though I would love to see them open themselves up to some new game types (well, I guess they did that with WoW).  It would be interesting to see what they could do to other genres with the ol' polish.

[Lantyssa]

They had no experience making an MMO either.

That doesn't guarantee they would do it right, but they certain have the capability of pulling it off, too.

[LK]

I'm sure there are enough FPS fans in Blizzard, or at least a willingness to hire experts outside the company, where if they decided to make an MMOFPS, they would bitch slap all predecessors like WoW has.  It's not really unique mechanics or the such that define Blizzard, but what they *do* with those mechanics and how it integrates with everything else to create a smooth experience.  Plus they do a lot of stuff outside the game environment that tries to improve the customer experience (like Battle.net).

[tmp]

I'm sure there are enough FPS fans in Blizzard, or at least a willingness to hire experts outside the company, where if they decided to make an MMOFPS, they would bitch slap all predecessors like WoW has.

They sort of tried already* though with the Starcraft: Ghost. Both in-house and the hiring experts approach... granted Ghost isn't typical FPS but i think it came down to them realizing they couldn't come up with anything to bitch slap the predecessors.

*) single player not MMO FPS obviously but hey, getting the FPS part is as important as the MMO part.

[Venkman]

An MMOFPS ideally would be COD4 with maps supporting 100s of players. But even if it was compartmentalized to 64 on 64 zones, I think it could be massive enough with the right objectives and meta-objectives. I'd love to see SC MMO go this route. While it'd have more appeal to the existing genre if it was the typical grind/achieve DIKU stats thing, Blizzard already won that fight so doing it again with a new theme only makes sense if they see it as a WoW replacement (as many have speculated). I prefer to hope they are looking at another genre to win, whether FPS or MMOFPS.

[Slyfeind]

The only thing that turned me off of TR was, there was never a moment where I could catch my breath. It was all explosions, all the time, and I wanted to hang out in a tent somewhere and play cards with my fellow soldiers, or go to the pub or something. Downtime is important to me, as long as it's pleasant and not boring. Is this just me? Do most people want all explosions, all the time?

[Aez]

The only thing that turned me off of TR was, there was never a moment where I could catch my breath. It was all explosions, all the time, and I wanted to hang out in a tent somewhere and play cards with my fellow soldiers, or go to the pub or something. Downtime is important to me, as long as it's pleasant and not boring. Is this just me? Do most people want all explosions, all the time?

[LK]

I'm sure there are enough FPS fans in Blizzard, or at least a willingness to hire experts outside the company, where if they decided to make an MMOFPS, they would bitch slap all predecessors like WoW has.

They sort of tried already* though with the Starcraft: Ghost. Both in-house and the hiring experts approach... granted Ghost isn't typical FPS but i think it came down to them realizing they couldn't come up with anything to bitch slap the predecessors.

*) single player not MMO FPS obviously but hey, getting the FPS part is as important as the MMO part.

Ghost was an attempt to replicate 3rd-person stealth action, not FPS.  Moreover, it was developed by non-Blizzard companies, and I imagine Blizzard wasn't as hands-on as they'd like to have been during the development process.  There were a lot of factors working against Ghost.

[Ratman_tf]

The only thing that turned me off of TR was, there was never a moment where I could catch my breath. It was all explosions, all the time, and I wanted to hang out in a tent somewhere and play cards with my fellow soldiers, or go to the pub or something. Downtime is important to me, as long as it's pleasant and not boring. Is this just me? Do most people want all explosions, all the time?

This is exactly why I burned out on Planetside. Action-action-action. Maintaining a high level of alertness means I am going to crash and burn eventually. And go back to a game with a more even pace.

Explosions and excitment and wild things have their place, but like eating <favorite food here> if that's the only thing you eat, you are going to get tired of it.

[Venkman]

When you create games that cross genres, you need to understand whether that's going to increase your playerbase beyond the core from which you began or just alienate the players in that base.

PS tried to make MMO for FPS fans at a time when people who thought "MMO" thought stats and fantasy. Fast forward 5 years and that's largely still the case. But at least they tried. Unlike TR, they started with the total vision and remained largely consistent throughout. TR to me felt more like HG:L than any FPS (emphasis on felt).

SC MMO could be the way Blizzard delivers an actual MMOFPS for a crowd of players tired of WWII, modern warfare or Unreal. Or it could replace Warcraft as the preeminent stats-game.

As to the downtime thing, you need to be able to have players feel like downtime is appropriate. In PS it wasn't because there was no environment there. Just battleground after battleground. Take any MMO and remove auctions and crafting and it'd feel the same.

[Signe]

The only thing that turned me off of TR was, there was never a moment where I could catch my breath. It was all explosions, all the time, and I wanted to hang out in a tent somewhere and play cards with my fellow soldiers, or go to the pub or something. Downtime is important to me, as long as it's pleasant and not boring. Is this just me? Do most people want all explosions, all the time?

You KNOW I agree!  That's why I prefer MMOs that are craftastic.  I like mini-games, too. 

[Paelos]

The only thing that turned me off of TR was, there was never a moment where I could catch my breath. It was all explosions, all the time, and I wanted to hang out in a tent somewhere and play cards with my fellow soldiers, or go to the pub or something. Downtime is important to me, as long as it's pleasant and not boring. Is this just me? Do most people want all explosions, all the time?

You KNOW I agree!  That's why I prefer MMOs that are craftastic.  I like mini-games, too. 

Whenever I get tired of my current MMO, I always go back to Puzzle Pirates. Something about that game just calls to me like a siren when I'm burned out.

[Slyfeind]

I think it says something, when you want to relax with a game, you have to log off your current game and go play something else. In POBS, the music is entertaining enough, that I can just set sail to anywhere and enjoy the game. EQ is weird for me, that I actually look forward to sitting on my ass while my mana regens. I think it gives me time to consider what I've done and what to do next.

In WOW, I feel like the devs grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and threw me forcefully at level 70. In TR and Planetside, I was so busy that I didn't notice the advancement. While that might seem like a good thing, the advancement might as well not be there.

I suspect there's going to be many more formulae and combinations of game design to come...and a lot of them are going to be really really bad, and it's going to cost money. ZOUNDS OBVIOUS!

[tmp]

Ghost was an attempt to replicate 3rd-person stealth action, not FPS.  Moreover, it was developed by non-Blizzard companies, and I imagine Blizzard wasn't as hands-on as they'd like to have been during the development process.  There were a lot of factors working against Ghost.

Well 1st person/3rd person isn't exactly much different, with lot of games letting you switch between both modes. Stealth is extra aspect but then iirc they tried to move towards less of it and more of regular shooter in the later iterations and that wasn't anything special either. Ultimately the buck still stops at Blizzard's desk -- they picked the development approach, the people who were supposed to do the work, and the way that work was supervised. It didn't work out (repeatedly) and it does imo show Blizzard methods aren't infallible and they don't have perfect grasp on every single gameplay model; so there's no guarantee everything they'd ever try is going to be the bee's knees, MMOFPS included.

[Typhon]

[...]show Blizzard methods aren't infallible and they don't have perfect grasp on every single gameplay model; so there's no guarantee everything they'd ever try is going to be the bee's knees, MMOFPS included.

Facinating conclusion.  The conclusion that I came to was something like this: What makes them special is that their business model calls for not releasing games that hurt the brand.  The risks they take that don't work out (the Thrall adventure game and Ghost are the ones we know about), the public never sees.  Someone at the top has the balls to say, 'no we're not releasing it' or 'no we're not releasing it yet' and it's worked really well for them. 

The "genius" seems to be that they only release games that are fun, which is unusual only because short-sighted thinking is the norm in virtually every industry.

[Ratman_tf]

[...]show Blizzard methods aren't infallible and they don't have perfect grasp on every single gameplay model; so there's no guarantee everything they'd ever try is going to be the bee's knees, MMOFPS included.

Facinating conclusion.  The conclusion that I came to was something like this: What makes them special is that their business model calls for not releasing games that hurt the brand.  The risks they take that don't work out (the Thrall adventure game and Ghost are the ones we know about), the public never sees.  Someone at the top has the balls to say, 'no we're not releasing it' or 'no we're not releasing it yet' and it's worked really well for them. 

The "genius" seems to be that they only release games that are fun, which is unusual only because short-sighted thinking is the norm in virtually every industry.

Well, most companies don't have the resources to dump time and money into a product that's not going to ship. Could Mythic have survived if they decided to shitcan DAOC instead of launching it without Hybernia being itemized?

[tmp]

Facinating conclusion.  The conclusion that I came to was something like this: What makes them special is that their business model calls for not releasing games that hurt the brand.  The risks they take that don't work out (the Thrall adventure game and Ghost are the ones we know about), the public never sees.  Someone at the top has the balls to say, 'no we're not releasing it' or 'no we're not releasing it yet' and it's worked really well for them. 

The "genius" seems to be that they only release games that are fun, which is unusual only because short-sighted thinking is the norm in virtually every industry.

I don't think your conclusion is in any way contradictory with mine. They both take into account that:

I'm sure there are enough FPS fans in Blizzard, or at least a willingness to hire experts outside the company, where if they decided to make an MMOFPS, they would bitch slap all predecessors like WoW has.

... is not guaranteed. Your conclusion simply goes bit further than mine and focuses on likely way Blizzard would handle such possibility turning true. (developed game lacking bitch slapping prowess)

[Tannhauser]

My hunch is that Blizzard has at least one guy who knows what a fun game is.  And they listen to that guy.  They also have at least one guy who knows how to make that game a reality.  They then have at least one more guy who knows how to polish that baby until it shines with the light of a thousand white suns.

[dwindlehop]

I will bet a beer that Blizzard never makes a MMOFPS, ever. A MMOFPS is just not mass-markety enough for them. I don't mean that in terms of historical trends. I mean that Blizzard's bread and butter is making games that a large fraction of the world with access to a personal computer can play. A Blizzard MMOFPS will get axed in the design phase because the core elements of FPS (graphics, twitch) run counter to Blizzard's core business.

[Megrim]

I'd argue that. I don't think graphics are a core aspect of FPS. Shinier and shinier has been the approach for a while now, with successive games trying to one-up one another with 49068058029809109 fjigapixels per goatload or whatver, but if you look at the most popular fps to date (Counter-Strike 1.6) i recon it's pretty easy to see that it's fun gameplay that is a main staple of a successfull FPS. And from that, i'd say Blizzard's core business is making a lot of money making fun games - whereby if they had impetus enough for a MMOFPS, be it from a design point of view or whatever, they'd do it in a heartbeat.

[LK]

Yeah I was going to say that graphics would be a moot point for Blizzard, as Blizzard makes better use of graphics, not bigger use of graphics.  So if they did something, they'd make it work artistically instead of sucking down graphics card power.

Honestly? I think Battlefield Heroes might be Blizzard-like.  We'll see.

[Tale]

I think it says something, when you want to relax with a game, you have to log off your current game and go play something else. In POBS, the music is entertaining enough, that I can just set sail to anywhere and enjoy the game. EQ is weird for me, that I actually look forward to sitting on my ass while my mana regens. I think it gives me time to consider what I've done and what to do next.

At level 60 (when that was the max in EQ) I used to hang around in East Commonlands at the tunnel where people sold stuff. At least on my server, that was the bazaar before there was an actual bazaar.

It was the most fascinating place to be. People wearing all kinds of gear came in from all over, showing off what they had achieved, and meanwhile the newbies were levelling in the zone. As a troll warrior I used to pull Sergeant Slate to the tunnel and beat him to a pulp (revenge) while an audience watched. Other people would be around doing crazy things that made people laugh.

I always left after a while because it was kind of embarrassing that "just hanging around" was fun. My guild wanted/needed me to do stuff, so I did. But that ability to step back and watch the world go by is an important part of these games.