WAR RvR Video from E3.

[Count Nerfedalot]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/successful-mmo-design-corrupts-new-ideas-says-warhammer-dev

The creative director of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, has said that successful design in MMO's like World of Warcraft has had a corrupting effect on the way games designers think.

Paul Barnett of Mythic Entertainment has discouraged his team from playing Blizzard's market-leading online game for fear it will influence their design decisions too strongly

OH  EM  GEE 

Is this guy really a professional developer?  Can anyone name a SINGLE profession where refusing to observe what works for other people or learning from their mistakes is anything but egomaniacal lunacy?  Being open to doing something different or trying something new is all well and good, but ONLY in the context of understanding what has and hasn't worked in previous attempts. 

From a related news blurb on the same page, same guy says:

"I have to listen to people who say things which I find ultimately stupid,"

Pot, meet kettle.


My hopes/expectations for WAR just tanked.  Not that I'd mind a different quest system, or something really radical like GET RID OF LEVELS AND CLASSES AND GRIND.  But deliberately cultivated ignorance is just begging, no, DEMANDING fail.

[MahrinSkel]

I dunno, I agree with him on this.  WoW obviously did a lot of things right, and that's worth studying.  But frequently the design discussion for most people starts and ends with "Game X (the #1 of the genre) did it this way, so let's do that, but with (insert minor twist here)."  No attempt to examine why they did it that way, and what contribution (if any) that particular feature made to that success.  Which is all well and good and par for the course in the industry, except that since you don't want to examine where the magic comes from you have no idea if your minor twist will fuck it up.

He's not saying not to observe what works, just not to take it as set in stone perfection.  Now, as for whether he's a good enough analyst to actually pick the WoW magic apart and figure out how to improve the secret sauce, I have no idea.

--Dave

[Trippy]

No he's saying don't play the game because it's flawed and I don't want those flawed ideas in my game. He's pretty clear on that.

[Triforcer]

IF SCHILD IS PAUL BARNETT, WHY AREN'T WE ALL IN BETA??? 

[tmp]

Is this guy really a professional developer?  Can anyone name a SINGLE profession where refusing to observe what works for other people or learning from their mistakes is anything but egomaniacal lunacy?  Being open to doing something different or trying something new is all well and good, but ONLY in the context of understanding what has and hasn't worked in previous attempts. 

In all fairness observing what works playing WoW rather than actually develop the game you're supposed to be developing ... well, that didn't work out too well for Vanguard.

There's also thin line between learning what works, and just copying what you think works because it's easier that coming up with your own (equally workable) ideas. I suspect in the game development the risk of falling for the copycat approach is pretty high and that ultimately does result in less variety.

[Lantyssa]

I would think the ideal path would be to figure out your design, then take a close look at other games to make sure it hasn't been done better, or shown how not to do it.  Not looking to other games to design your own is great.  (More of this, please.)  Ignore other games completely at your own peril.

[Count Nerfedalot]

The strange thing here is that I might actually like some of his ideas, especially another quote from the releated articles list on that page: ""Smart people with bright ideas are more important than creatives".  Now, without any context for that quote, I'm pretty much guessing what he means.  But to me, it rings true in the sense that ideas are relatively easy to come by, the hard parts are nailing all the details down and getting the implementation right.  Those take intelligence, discipline, and tons of hard work, not blue-sky-creative-thinking-outside-of-the-box nonsense.

If that is indeed what he means, then that would make him kind of like the anti-Raph creative.  Raph had/has wonderfully creative ideas, but his head is in the clouds and his feet are definitely NOT planted on terra firma.  With no basis in reality and apparently no discipline at designing for the real world or actually, you know, finishing the development of a design to the point where it actually works, his good creative ideas largely get wasted. 

The problem is, the article says Barnett discourages his team from playing the competition and quotes him specifically as refusing to check out the competition himself.  That reeks of artistic hubris, trying to avoid having his personal creations tainted with the influence of others.  In the context of pure art, MAYBE that is valid, .01% of the time.  But almost every real artist learns from others rather than inventing a whole new art in their heads with no external influence. 

All of the arguments defending this guy in the past few posts are true, and completely beside the point.  It is absolutely a problem when your design team is ao close-minded or entrenched that they can't even consider an alternative solution to something that worked well in WoW.  That path leads to the same derivative schlock that we all complain about so much.  And any designer that takes a system from one game and implements it the same way in his own without understanding EXACTLY how it will fit in his game is an idiot.  If all this guy has is close-minded idiots on his team, then ignoring the existing industry best practices and trying to build everything from scratch is not going to solve the problem!  What he needs to do in that horrible event is to ditch the team and get some real designers in who are ready and willing to take the state-of-the-art and advance it.  NOT put blinders on everyone and repeat all the mistakes of the past through willful ignorance.

As an aside, isn't it possible that the reason it took 3 months for him to argue his team into doing something completely sideways from how it was done in WoW to great success, is because his idea really isn't as good as WoW's?    Without a lot more info on all the details, of course, we can't judge that, but the possibility is definitely worth keeping in mind.  No matter HOW much you hope WAR will be the one game to rule them all.

[Lakov_Sanite]

  No matter HOW much you hope WAR will be the one game to rule them all.

Didn't we already establish that game failed?

[trias_e]

They've all obviously played WoW before.  The point is that if you play it every day you'll start to see MMORPG design through tunnel vision.  That's partially why we ended up with LOTRO and AoC.  And partially why both of those games suck.

Of course, they see the money hats that WoW print and from a business standpoint want to emulate that success.  problem is, you can't do WoW better than WoW, or even as well as WoW.  The inevitable flaws in your game are magnified 10 fold thanks to the unfortunate comparison between your product and WoW.  Solution?  Do whatever you can to separate your game from WoW.  If you can release a decent game that is different, you will be better off than if you release a decent game that is similar.  This is the only reason Eve has managed to do well at all.

Not that I think War is going to be anything different.  I'm sure we'll get the microgrind in quests, NPCs that exist to hold exclamation marks over their heads, PvP points that you buy gear with, and all that stuff WoW does better than you.  This little quote by Barnett does give me a little hope though.

[squirrel]

I can't imagine why someone would argue that either. DAOC had crap for PVE content for *months*, in all realms. I did forget about the itemization issue - Midgard had some of that too but not to the extent of Hibernia. I think Alb dungeons were all itemized at or shortly after release.

Nah Barrows dungeon in Albion wasn't itemized for 6 - 8 weeks IIRC. Didn't matter - PvE was horrid in DAoC until Darkness Falls got set up and running well, and it was fun for a while. Catacombs task dungeons were dull but effective. ToA was utter grind tripe.

[eldaec]

They've all obviously played WoW before.  The point is that if you play it every day you'll start to see MMORPG design through tunnel vision.  That's partially why we ended up with LOTRO and AoC.  And partially why both of those games suck.

This.

Back before WoW, everyone sat about having exactly this conversation about Everquest.

The only games worth a damn between Everquest and WoW were those that attempted to do something other than what EQ did. It took a long time and a lot of money for WoW to come along and out-EQ the orignal EQ, it'll take longer and more money for someone to out-EQ WoW. There are better things for most developers to be doing.

[Count Nerfedalot]

They've all obviously played WoW before.  The point is that if you play it every day you'll start to see MMORPG design through tunnel vision.  That's partially why we ended up with LOTRO and AoC.  And partially why both of those games suck.

This.

Back before WoW, everyone sat about having exactly this conversation about Everquest.

The only games worth a damn between Everquest and WoW were those that attempted to do something other than what EQ did. It took a long time and a lot of money for WoW to come along and out-EQ the orignal EQ, it'll take longer and more money for someone to out-EQ WoW. There are better things for most developers to be doing.

And yet, pretty much all those games that attempted to do something other than EQ ended up repeating one or more of the exact same mistakes their predecessors did.  Given that, I conceed.  All game devs should ignore anything that works for fear of it contaminating their pure visions.  It's a pointless argument anyway, since, with the exception of WoW (and maybe LOTR), history has proven that most developers are incapable of learning from others (or even their own) mistakes anyways! 

[Tannhauser]

I dunno, I think Turbine learned a great deal.  They went from horrid games of utter goatshit to LOTRO which is to me a polished, fairly fun and accurate simulation of Middle Earth.

[KyanMehwulfe]

Yeah. Whether one likes the game design or not, it's at least well polished and their production values definitely went up in terms of art, music, etc. Hopefully its success lets them move onto a better funded/prepared for attempt at an Asheron's Call sequel.

[UnSub]

Hopefully its success lets them move onto a better funded/prepared for attempt at an Asheron's Call sequel.

I can't wait for Asheron's Call 2!

[Brogarn]

I can't wait for Asheron's Call 2!

*snicker*

[HaemishM]

Hopefully its success lets them move onto a better funded/prepared for attempt at an Asheron's Call sequel.

I can't wait for Asheron's Call 2!

Now see, that's just evil.

[Soln]

don't copy WoW but for Christ's sake copy its advancements.  I.e. fast exp, fast travel, hearthstone, easy UI, easy Quest source, easy PvP entry, etc.  These are basic mechanics that don't need to vanilla your game.  Give your new car four doors and concentrate on the gilding and performance to distinguish it.  AoC and LotRO gave us a car with gull-wing doors.  Don't mess with designs the market is saying already work well.

And DAoC was before WoW -- it invented (I thought) skill socketing, RvR and a lot else.  It's sheer skullfuckery for someone to say don't be influenced by WoW. 

I would have though t it was Paul's job to ensure his title *was* original.  Rely on WoW's basic improvements, and let the great Mr.Barnett be sure the title becomes unique in non-game breaking ways.

[Draegan]

I think every game should have addons like WOW. 

[Goreschach]

Given the track record of WoW and every other MMO, ever, I'd rather they make a game that was influenced too much by WoW than one that wasn't influenced by it enough.

[Tannhauser]

Hmm Gore must be new here. 

[grunk]

the game sucks? Holy shit!

HEY GUYZ! WOW HAMMER SUCKS!!!? OH MY GOD, YOU KILLED WOW HAMMER!

WTF. i would rather continue to beta test AoC or go back to a 5+ year old mmo then play this pile of shit.

My only hope. is when EA finally smells what Mythic is cookin... that they dont flip up the lid to see the giant steaming pile of shit this game truly is. That this shit demon doesnt hurt KOTOR:O

For fuck sake.

[Triforcer]

There is no way you aren't a gimmick account or a psychology student writing a paper.

[apocrypha]

You know back in the days of modems right? 33.6kbps gaming. Heady days of lagged out QuakeWorld. We used to joke that there were so many packets getting lost that they were having an entire other game with them somewhere.

I think grunk might be those lost packets and they've developed AI along the way. Well... maybe not AI as such... self-awareness.. no... er... well, posting abilities anyway 

[Lakov_Sanite]

You know back in the days of modems right? 33.6kbps gaming. Heady days of lagged out QuakeWorld. We used to joke that there were so many packets getting lost that they were having an entire other game with them somewhere.

I think grunk might be those lost packets and they've developed AI along the way. Well... maybe not AI as such... self-awareness.. no... er... well, posting abilities anyway 

In 2000 TARDnet was brought online, in 2008 it became self-aware.

[schild]

I'm fairly sure that at the end of the day and when this is all over, if things don't go well, the person we're going to blame is Paul Barnett. Mostly because he can't keep his trap shut. Someone needs to shield him from talking to the public Ever Again. And by shield I mean fire, ship to Eastern Europe, and let him work with that ex-SWG fuck. He's a walking disaster.

And if things do go well, Paul will get zero credit.

He is right fucked.

[Margalis]

I think people are reading far too much into this Barnett thing. Unless you know how this attitude plays out on a day-by-day basis in the office it's impossible to judge. Obviously there are merits to paying attention to the competition, but also merits to not paying too close attention.

It worked for WOW no?

[Fordel]

WoW payed very close attention to its competition. Close enough to see most of the stupid and avoid it.


I think this conversation has come full circle with that 

[eldaec]

He is right fucked.

He works for GW. He doesn't need to make money or achieve anything gaming related to keep his job. He just has to have a boner for stupid pewter models and IP lawsuits.

[eldaec]

re: paying attention to WoW.

Anyone who has read the non-NDA breaking information releases will be aware that WAR is *heavily* influenced by WoW. WoW might have copied art direction from WAR, but WAR selected the same UI model, skill model, quest model etc that WoW lifted off of prior games. It seems fairly obvious they chose that beacuse of WoW.

At this point I'd imagine WAR *really* needs managers shouting 'Stop adding things that feel exactly like WoW kthxplz!'.

[Tannhauser]

Anyday now a new MMO will come out that is original, fun and breaks the mold of what is supposed to be MMO's.

Yep, any day now...

[tmp]

At this point I'd imagine WAR *really* needs managers shouting 'Stop adding things that feel exactly like WoW kthxplz!'.

Too late; in this day and age you could have just basic mechanics revolve around whacking foozles for xp, and people would say "gee they're so shamelessly ripping off WoW"

[Triforcer]

Er, all MMOs since UO have worked that way.  Its like complaining at every annual car show that the companies' new models still have steering wheels and tires.  That's the basis the industry works off of, and you aren't suddenly going to see MMOs where there is no UI and you have to type in spontaneous haikus to activate abilities while dancing on a NES-style track and field pad. 

[Soln]

Barnett is the asshole at the end of every conference call looking for things going wrong.  Calling out stuff that hasn't come up yet.  Every time there's a progress report, Barnett is the guy who asks about something else and why it isn't done yet.  Even if there a plan for it.  Based on that little bit of public self-admission I expect Barnett is the guy stirring up churn, swirl and generally being a really negative a-hole.  Never satisfied.  AND he feels that's productive -- keeping "everyone on their toes" by generally stressing everyone out.  "Keeping the pressure on".

Every software project gets a personality like this.  It just depends if there is someone higher up to tell them to STFU or allowing them to go. I expect for WAR because Barnett is the GW partner rep he's been a class 1 dick since inception.  I feel sorry for that team and wish them well at launch.

[grunk]

I think every game should have addons like WOW. 

yeah, because fuck forbid. you have to fucken manage hate, fucken heal... fucken drop a buff.. or a fucken nuike...


For fuck sake, addons are the worst fucken thing i have ever seen. Maybe you fuckers should get a program to play it for you...