The MMOG landscape - unchanging and eternal (since 2004)

[Montague]

If money were the issue, Vanguard would be at 20 million subs by now.

Edit:  This comment really should be in my other post....

Money can hire talent and skill, but it can't guarantee it.

What money does (or can do) is the ability to say "this isn't fun" and go back and fix it. I doubt that Blizzard's coders and artists are that much more skilled than Funcom's and Mythic's. Morhaime has said on more than one occasion that the secret to Blizzard's success is iteration. That costs money, and also requires the self-awareness to say that this beautiful system that I spent thousands of hours creating sucks donkey-balls. Requirement one is why most MMO's fail, and requirement two is why MMO's with "rockstar" developers are also destined to fail, no matter how much money they have.

[UnSub]

Only if you completely misunderstand what Blizzard did.  Which everyone does.

Even Blizzard didn't forsee what they did. It was a surprise to everyone.

[Venkman]

Only in the scope of their success. More below.

EQ had 550k subs, WoW has what, twenty times that?  Why?  Because Blizzard did a better EQ.  If Blizzard picks AC1 or UO, does a similar makeover, removes the crap ideas, adds polish, they would get twenty times what those games had at peak, because there isn't a single piece of evidence to suggest otherwise.

Err, except the evidence of the choice they made. Do you honestly thing Blizzard looked at EQ1 and said "we must make that because it hit 550k". Come on. They couldn't! At the time design decisions were being made (probably '99), there wasn't a preeminent model outside of maybe EQ1 and Lineage.

No. Instead they took what they FELT was right. And got it right. Oh, and they got China and some other Eastern countries right too, with the same premise. You think Vivendi just gave them a blank check to do whatever the hell they felt like. They made the most expensive MMO of all time on anything but a lark.
 
EQ1 just happened to get it right, at the time. Blizzard said to themselves then what everyone else has said since: certain shit just works, so don't screw with it if you want to have a better chance at a solid success.

Then polish it, market the hell out of it, get it into as many markets as possible, and to ensure we balance the retention/attrition right, make the game easier over time. Oh, and continue to market it, continue to polish it, continue to add shit that other developers wrongly prioritize as launch features, etc etc etc.

Your post is a template to design the correct safe mmorpg... The flip side of not putting value judgments against ideas employed in wildly successful games is the unspoken fact that you will prejudge ideas that haven't so far been wildly successful.

Glad I was transparent about saying exactly what I meant

I'm not saying that is right or wrong or even how I personally think. What I was (and am) saying though is that this is why things happen the way they do. I can't remember the other thread in which I mentioned this exact same thing, but basically it all comes down to established marketplaces. These are the rules for MMOs now. That's it.

If you want to change them, you've got to create a new market, or find a market that is no longer being served by the current marketplace. Ah, now I remember, it was the PvP thread. You can create new opportunities in uncontested marketplaces such that eventually you can grow to take over the established one.

You just need to be right. And in all things from design to development to marketing to publishing.

Edit: clarity and temporal adjustment

[Triforcer]

I wish someone would take a chance on another AAA 2-D isometric MMO.  You can do so much more with games like that, in terms of customization, non-combat careers, etc.   

Would be a hard sell as AAA though, given the state of the industry- many people would balk at paying 15$ a month for a "flash game" or "another Runescape."

[sidereal]

So charge $5.

The $15 price point drives me nuts.  I'm currently playing the ATiTD beta.  Love the game.  Played in the first beta and first telling.  Could spend 20 hours a week on it.  But I'm not going to pay $15 a month for a game that unpolished.  If it was $10, I'd think about it.

[eldaec]

Only in the scope of their success. More below.

EQ had 550k subs, WoW has what, twenty times that?  Why?  Because Blizzard did a better EQ.  If Blizzard picks AC1 or UO, does a similar makeover, removes the crap ideas, adds polish, they would get twenty times what those games had at peak, because there isn't a single piece of evidence to suggest otherwise.

Err, except the evidence of the choice they made. Do you honestly thing Blizzard looked at EQ1 and said "we must make that because it hit 550k". Come on. They couldn't! At the time design decisions were being made (probably '99), there wasn't a preeminent model outside of maybe EQ1 and Lineage.

'We must make a better EQ' is *exactly* what they said.

Everything else in the 2004 generation took some level of risk and tried to innovate in some way beyond EQ (hell, there are MMOGs from before 2004 with more developed mechanics). WoW took a specific decision to spend the design and management effort making EQ shinier, funnier, and more accessible.

[Arthur_Parker]

EQ had 550k subs, WoW has what, twenty times that?  Why?  Because Blizzard did a better EQ.  If Blizzard picks AC1 or UO, does a similar makeover, removes the crap ideas, adds polish, they would get twenty times what those games had at peak, because there isn't a single piece of evidence to suggest otherwise.

Err, except the evidence of the choice they made. Do you honestly thing Blizzard looked at EQ1 and said "we must make that because it hit 550k". Come on. They couldn't! At the time design decisions were being made (probably '99), there wasn't a preeminent model outside of maybe EQ1 and Lineage.

I have no clue why Blizzard picked EQ1, I also have no clue what subs EQ had when they made the decision, that's why I didn't say anything about Blizzard in terms of them being aware of 550k subs, reread what I wrote.  I said WoW is about twenty times more popular than EQ was at peak.  I then said if Blizzard made a new UO or AC1 they would get twenty times what those games had at peak, there's zero reason to think otherwise.

The reason I'm talking about Blizzard making a new UO or AC1 is to remove the whole, "nameless dev company won't do what Blizzard did" bit from the game making equation, as it's been talked to death.

As for your other comments, I'm just seeing a circular argument based on what's been successful so far.  That doesn't make you wrong, in fact the state of play since 2004 shows you are probably right.

Instead of talking about what Blizzard did right, it's maybe better to mention what they didn't do. 

They didn't enter the market with similar game-play to a game that had already crossed over into the mainstream, a game that holds fastest selling pc game titles for it's expansions.  A game that despite being 4 years old still quite often appears in the top ten, a game that's had it's own south park episode, a game with tv adverts by Ozzy.  A game that's as near perfect as can be at providing the game play it set to provide.  But mostly, they didn't enter the market with an inferior version of another game that had been made by possibly the most famous development house going.

[Ratman_tf]

I'm not so sure that Blizz copied EQ very much. They'd already put out two graphical roguelikes, and knew the dungeon stomping monster bashing thing by then.
One could say they copied AC or DAoC jsut as much. (Or as little) But the only thing they seem to have directly copied from EQ is the raiding paradigm.

[Arthur_Parker]

Well there's the whole grouping online, tank healer dps thing.  DAoC I can see them copying from, battle grounds, realms etc, but DAoC was just a copy of EQ with added PVP.  I'm having a hard time thinking of anything you could consider a massive leap forward in DAoC compared to EQ.  The realms are just forced guilds giving you opponents for PVP.  Capturing forts, well it's a fantasy game, capturing castles isn't that unusual.  You could say cutting off cross realm communication, but I'm still not convinced that wasn't discovered by accident just by the natural desire to cut down on customer service support costs.  I must be missing it, but I don't see much copied from AC to WoW.

[Ratman_tf]

Well there's the whole grouping online, tank healer dps thing.  DAoC I can see them copying from, battle grounds, realms etc, but DAoC was just a copy of EQ with added PVP.  I'm having a hard time thinking of anything you could consider a massive leap forward in DAoC compared to EQ.  The realms are just forced guilds giving you opponents for PVP.  Capturing forts, well it's a fantasy game, capturing castles isn't that unusual.  You could say cutting off cross realm communication, but I'm still not convinced that wasn't discovered by accident just by the natural desire to cut down on customer service support costs.  I must be missing it, but I don't see much copied from AC to WoW.

The monster bashing leveling up schtick. It wasn't exclusive to EQ.

[Arthur_Parker]

Yeah, D&D.

[Megrim]

D&D doesn't have tanks healers and dee pee ess.

[Goumindong]

Copy all of Eves systems but use Mechs / tanks / aircraft with 1st/3rd person aiming and actual projectiles so it's more of a twitch game than a "my 1 2 3 4 rotation is > than your 2 2 1 3 rotation" game.

Or have Jumpgate copy everything Eve does but let you actually fly your ship. Either one works.

The reason why Eve has any hope of actually running is because it forces point-to-point movement and does not track projectiles. Turning it into a space shooter (projectile tracking, on-the-fly movement) with the server population loads Eve has would cause the server to melt into glass. Even with the compromises Eve uses, CCP uses server architecture that is beyond bleeding edge and into poke-you-in-the-eye-edgy territory ("Hey, guys, let's load our entire SQL database into solid state disks, it'll be fun!")

But we can dare to dream right?

Eve is the middle ground between full looting and no looting. It's "logical looting" so to speak. It gives the person a chance to enhance their character (implants) and yet have a very good chance of keeping those indefinitely, UNLESS they get careless. It gives the winner of PVP battles some extra rewards, without rendering the victim itemless, lost and poor. I just can't figure out how one would incorporate this kind of game into a fantasy setting.

Absolutely not.

Eve is full looting. The only difference is that when you try and pick something up, you only get half of what was there. The difference between no loot and full loot is always based on what the killed player keeps.

And in Eve, the killed player keeps nothing.

Maybe if you related that to ship insurance you would have a point

Anyway, they have been nerfing it some but still allow it. If people had seen the sheer amount of shit I have had blown up in my kills and realized I am helping with inflation, they'd all thank me!  Or something.

Other way around. You are contributing to inflation. Less stuff with the same amount of money creates inflation. Less money with the same amount of stuff creates deflation.

So every time you blow someone up, you make stuff more expensive. Thanks a lot... jerk

Segue 1: The Economy

The one thing that Eve got got right about the Economy in Eve is for it to be heavily managed. Hopefully their [strike]retard[/strike] economist figures this out before he suggest things that completely ruin the game, and the Eve devs, not having a clue what they are doing otherwise, follow along. I say this because while the Eve devs seem to understand that these are isk and item faucets and sinks, they don't seem to understand is that the reason it works to regulate prices is because there are isk sinks that are item faucets and item sinks are isk faucets.

The trick is to model the economy of your game as a domestic economy for players and foreign economies for NPCs. In EvE, the NPC's buy and sell things that can convert into the building blocks of items in eve. If this did not exist, Even would have hyper inflated or deflated ages ago. The reason for this is simple. There is an ever increasing amount of stuff and money coming into the system. Anyone who wants to make real money via RMT, will concentrate on producing the most amount of currency that they can then sell. This pushes prices up.

The number one defense against this is to have some automatic mechanism outside of the game that lets players trade their money for stuff and their stuff for money. This is your NPCs, your foreign economies. The brilliant thing about MMOs though is that you don't have to give a shit about what happens in foreign economies. In the real world, beggar thy neighbors policies have detrimental effects because those economic problems cascade across all economies. In the virtual world you can do whatever the hell you feel like because the developers hold supreme power over NPCs and no one cares how they feel. Another comparison would be as if NPCs were the federal reserve, except instead of trading treasury bonds for money and money for treasury bonds it can will stuff into existence and hand it out.

This holds prices stable and protects against inflation and deflation. It is a necessary component of any MMO that expects to have an economy and stable prices over its lifetime. If everything that players use is player created, then at some point, your economy is going to collapse.

Segue 2: Dynamic Content

Dynamic content Ala Oblivions AI style would be great in an MMO if it could handle it. I am not sure that any MMO could really handle it. It for instance would be a great addition to EvE, or any EvE similar MMO. The issue with having the NPC's interact with players can easily be solved by abstracting all their interactions. EvE would be a perfect setting for this and even has the market infrastructure already built to deal with it.

For a fantasy MMO you could have all these interactions take place "inside stores" and have players when they go to stores, get a store front rather than directly interacting with the NPCs. Otherwise you run into the canned responses which everyone had problems with. Which is pretty much how eve does it. The NPCs would spawn spaceships why fly to station to station/belts/do what they need to do/etc. And any interaction would occur via the standard methods of market/contract interaction within stations.

Buffs should last until you die.

Toggles are the answer to that. "Buff others" can be solved by simply creating a toggle as soon as applied so that you can toggle it on another. You still have to balance activation costs and such turn them into a constant cost of some sort. But that is the way to do it. If it was fire and forget you would end up with a lot of problems.

D&D doesn't have tanks healers and dee pee ess

It does, has always, and will always. Tanks, healers, and DPS are just conventions for the defining terms of combat. Even if you had something that didn't use hit points you would have the same conventions.

[Murgos]

D&D doesn't have tanks healers and dee pee ess.

You should cut down on the crack.

[Megrim]

D&D doesn't have tanks healers and dee pee ess.

You should cut down on the crack.

 

[IainC]

D&D doesn't have tanks healers and dee pee ess.

You should cut down on the crack.

 

D&D practically defined the holy trinity. A balanced party had at least one cleric (healer), one fighter (tank) and a mage (glass cannon).

[Draegan]

D&D practically defined the holy trinity. A balanced party had at least one cleric (healer), one fighter (tank) and a mage (glass cannon).

Did they define the word Tank?  I'm pretty sure even in the MUDs I played, you had a warrior or a paladin in the group to "tank" but it was not refered to as a tank.  Didn't hear that term until I got into graphical MMOGs.

[Trippy]

They didn't call it a tank in the TSR books but it was used in the PnP world well before CRPGs used it. I still remember a non-TSR book back in the late 70s early 80s (I really wish I remember which book it was) that had a pictorial representation of what the different levels of AC meant and -10 AC was a guy sitting in a tank.

[Goumindong]

D&D practically defined the holy trinity. A balanced party had at least one cleric (healer), one fighter (tank) and a mage (glass cannon).

Did they define the word Tank?  I'm pretty sure even in the MUDs I played, you had a warrior or a paladin in the group to "tank" but it was not refered to as a tank.  Didn't hear that term until I got into graphical MMOGs.

I am pretty sure it doesn't matter. A tank, by any other name, would absorb as much damage. The distinction might be interesting as a matter of lexicology but not as a matter of game design.

[Megrim]

D&D doesn't have tanks healers and dee pee ess.

You should cut down on the crack.

 

D&D practically defined the holy trinity. A balanced party had at least one cleric (healer), one fighter (tank) and a mage (glass cannon).

A balanced party was one that could keep it's members up in fights, and deal with encounters in a variety of ways which included killing things, as well as solving problems through non-violent means. Fighters weren't known for their exceptional Bugbear aggro holding skills, mages could do alot of things besides nuking and rouges were flexible in their utility to the party. MMOs do not have any of this.

[Slyfeind]

D&D practically defined the holy trinity. A balanced party had at least one cleric (healer), one fighter (tank) and a mage (glass cannon).

We're retconning the trinity into D&D these days. People look back and think, "Of course fighters were tanks and rogues were DPS!" But they weren't before WoW. If a fighter tried to draw aggro, they were penalized xp because they were acting like a retard, because nobody wants to get hit. And fighters did more damage in melee than thieves ever could. Thieves were skill monkeys, there to pick locks and disarm traps and steal crap from the rest of the party while pretending to be a priest or something.

Then WoW comes along, and Wizards of the Coast turns fighters into tanks, creates rogues to do melee damage, and removes thieves from the game. And we all pretend that's the way it's always been, for some weird reason.

[Megrim]

Thank you.

[Arthur_Parker]

I'm not really bothered, I commented on D&D with regard to monster bashing and levelling up.  But if you are thanking Slyfeind as if he's ended the discussion, I dunno I reckon we could get another two pages out of this.

Assassins, back stab and all that.  Also Rogue's weren't in 1st edition were they?

In the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set, there were only three classes: the Cleric, the Fighting man, and the Magic-User.

[Draegan]

They didn't call it a tank in the TSR books but it was used in the PnP world well before CRPGs used it. I still remember a non-TSR book back in the late 70s early 80s (I really wish I remember which book it was) that had a pictorial representation of what the different levels of AC meant and -10 AC was a guy sitting in a tank.

You know that I rewind my brain a bit, in SojournMUD and other games if you had -100 AC you would get the phrase "You have more armor than an M1A1 Tank!" or something similar to that, in your attribute sheet.

[Goumindong]

A balanced party was one that could keep it's members up in fights, and deal with encounters in a variety of ways which included killing things, as well as solving problems through non-violent means. Fighters weren't known for their exceptional Bugbear aggro holding skills, mages could do alot of things besides nuking and rouges were flexible in their utility to the party. MMOs do not have any of this.

Which is irrelevant. "Aggro" is a mechanic that the game uses to simulate the rational response of a DM(well, kinda its actually a mechanic to direct enemy attacks, something a DM would typically do via the human decision making process). MMO's do not care about "utility" and if you're talking about status effects, then I am fairly sure that most fantasy MMO's have those in various fashions. What specific class performs the role is more or less irrelevant, what matters is that the role has existed and continues to exist.

[Slyfeind]

I'm not really bothered, I commented on D&D with regard to monster bashing and levelling up.  But if you are thanking Slyfeind as if he's ended the discussion, I dunno I reckon we could get another two pages out of this.

Oh easily.

Assassins, back stab and all that.

Backstab sucked. The DM could always find an excuse to not let it happen, and much complaining ensued. When thieves were replaced by rogues, WotC let rogues use the thief's backstab ability, but from anywhere at any time. It became the "sneak attack."

[Trippy]

D&D practically defined the holy trinity. A balanced party had at least one cleric (healer), one fighter (tank) and a mage (glass cannon).

We're retconning the trinity into D&D these days. People look back and think, "Of course fighters were tanks and rogues were DPS!" But they weren't before WoW.

And you are retconning the trinity into WoW.

[Ratman_tf]

So WoW seems to have taken the lion's share of gameplay ideas from Diablo 2. Talent specs, quests, etc. The only thing I can point to in WoW that Blizz expicitly copied from EQ and no other source is raiding and agro management.

[Megrim]

A balanced party was one that could keep it's members up in fights, and deal with encounters in a variety of ways which included killing things, as well as solving problems through non-violent means. Fighters weren't known for their exceptional Bugbear aggro holding skills, mages could do alot of things besides nuking and rouges were flexible in their utility to the party. MMOs do not have any of this.

Which is irrelevant. "Aggro" is a mechanic that the game uses to simulate the rational response of a DM(well, kinda its actually a mechanic to direct enemy attacks, something a DM would typically do via the human decision making process). MMO's do not care about "utility" and if you're talking about status effects, then I am fairly sure that most fantasy MMO's have those in various fashions. What specific class performs the role is more or less irrelevant, what matters is that the role has existed and continues to exist.

How is it irrelevant? It simulates what someone somewhere along the line interpreted as the 'rational response' and we've been stuck with it ever since. Not only that, but it simulates it badly. Furthermore, you're missing the crux of the argument; it's not about whether the mechanics of a fight in D&D translate (however poorly) into MMOs - it's about the fact that D&D plays completely differently to any MMO, and group mechanics in MMOs being based on what the group mechanics of D&D supposedly were, is complete and utter bullshit. This includes the roles of characters within any given party. The role of a fighter in one is different from another, and yet again the third. A Tank is a Tank in any MMO.

[Venkman]

This is exactly right. In MMOs, you are the specific role you play in a group encounter. Later on you had additional abilities grafted on your template to be able to solo.

I said WoW is about twenty times more popular than EQ was at peak. I then said if Blizzard made a new UO or AC1 they would get twenty times what those games had at peak, there's zero reason to think otherwise.

I used my example, and mentioned the timing, for a specific reason.

Blizzard didn't look at EQ1 then and say "this is the easiest thing to pull off so we'll just copy that". They looked at that game model (iterated in other forms too) and at AC1 and at UO and said that entire game system was superior to attract players. They basically used their expertise as gamers to see what model would work best for the genre.

Ya know, like with Diablo and Warcraft.

There is no arguing that lots of people like this kind of game, given the state of the genre until WoW launched. Blizzard just did best what most other developers kept trying to do.

I contend that the only way WoW would be any different from today is if the entire market for subscription-based AAA MMOs that existed before, then, and now preferred some very different type of game.

As for your other comments, I'm just seeing a circular argument based on what's been successful so far.

Yea. This drives right back to what you and others have been saying (and been saying before too). The success of WoW has not evolved the game play side of the genre. It's just defined the rules for playing the game the way Blizzard plays it. You want to fight them at their own game you need more than a good IP and a few million bucks. That's the very essence of established marketplace, like Windows in the 90s, IBM in the 70s, other big ass companies. You don't have what it takes? Changes the rules. Find out who's not being served and go after that audience.

But, be right. If you want a killer game, don't rely on uber hardcore PvPers for example. Competitive gamers have plenty of options. People who want to compete in time-based stat-adjustment skill-qualified persistent world ownership, well, that's just not considered a very big market.

[Slyfeind]

D&D practically defined the holy trinity. A balanced party had at least one cleric (healer), one fighter (tank) and a mage (glass cannon).

We're retconning the trinity into D&D these days. People look back and think, "Of course fighters were tanks and rogues were DPS!" But they weren't before WoW.

And you are retconning the trinity into WoW.

lol wut?

[Goumindong]

How is it irrelevant? It simulates what someone somewhere along the line interpreted as the 'rational response' and we've been stuck with it ever since. Not only that, but it simulates it badly. Furthermore, you're missing the crux of the argument; it's not about whether the mechanics of a fight in D&D translate (however poorly) into MMOs - it's about the fact that D&D plays completely differently to any MMO, and group mechanics in MMOs being based on what the group mechanics of D&D supposedly were, is complete and utter bullshit. This includes the roles of characters within any given party. The role of a fighter in one is different from another, and yet again the third. A Tank is a Tank in any MMO.

How well it simulates it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it does. You cannot have an AI that is going to assess the situation like a DM would and so, instead of that, you have "aggro". The function exists in both DnD and in the MMO, even if the execution is different and imperfect.

In the end, you're missing the point entirely.

But first off, lets get some thing straight.

1. The "role of a fighter" is irrelevant. You could have 3 fighters and one could heal, one could dpr, and one could soak damage and you would still have the holy trinity.

2. In DnD, until 3e. Every single fighter was the same as every other fighter. The idea that "the role of a fighter in one is different from another, and yet again in the third" is fundamentally ignorant of the history of every edition of DnD that has ever been created.  Until 3e it was impossible to make a fighter different than another except by how strong they were and how many hit points they had. In 3e, their role across their many options did not really change, they had a lot of hit points and heavy armor, and sometimes they could do DPR, and that was it. Sometimes you called your fighters barbarians and gave them more hit points and some DR instead of AC.

3. A tank is a tank in any MMO and a tank is a tank in any edition of DnD. They all operate, fundamentally the same. They are the guy who it is intended to go in and get hurt instead of the other people in your party. How they operate is irrelevant, but they are always present. DnD has always been a tactical wargame based RPG, which is what the core of our fantasy MMOs are. You kill monsters, get XP and loot, then go to some other monsters, kill them, get their xp and loot. The game part of it is organizing the party to defeat the monsters and take their stuff. Any roleplaying you do is not a core part of the game.

Another possible way to say that is that the roleplaying is just the mechanic by which you get to the next set of monsters to kill in DnD and in an MMO is "/lfg i have a big internet penis".

The gameplay as a function of that holy trinity, has not changed. Now, i suppose you could argue that the holy trinity came from something else. Which is entirely possible. But i don't really know whether or not its true.

And now back to your regularly scheduled: Why you're missing the point

You're missing the point because all of that stuff that you're describing isn't the game. Games are, essentially, a series of choices which have a set payout[known or unknown]. You do better at the game by achieving a higher payout. The stuff that isn't fighting in DnD has no payout. Its neutral, its not a game. That isn't to say its not bad or its not fun, but its not actually part of the experience that we can call a game. "Game" has a very specific meaning here because the instances that fall into its description allow designers to cater and craft the choices and payoffs to produce very specific outcomes. Good or bad. WoW is giving us the same initial choices for the game as we had in DnD. You can play as the tank, the healer or the damage dealer. Its the first rung on the branching decision tree. It was the same first rung on your branching decision tree in DnD as well. And the optimal play choice between a number of different players has at least one of each. It was the same in DnD as well. That is what is relevant to the comment

[sidereal]

Another possible way to say that is that the roleplaying is just the mechanic by which you get to the next set of monsters to kill in DnD and in an MMO is "/lfg i have a big internet penis".

Bollocks.  You were doing it wrong.  Your loss.

This conversation has been had before.  Search the pen and paper forum for 'D&D holy trinity'.  People who call the fighter a 'tank' pre-4E are mistaken.

[Arthur_Parker]

I said WoW is about twenty times more popular than EQ was at peak. I then said if Blizzard made a new UO or AC1 they would get twenty times what those games had at peak, there's zero reason to think otherwise.

I used my example, and mentioned the timing, for a specific reason.

Blizzard didn't look at EQ1 then and say "this is the easiest thing to pull off so we'll just copy that". They looked at that game model (iterated in other forms too) and at AC1 and at UO and said that entire game system was superior to attract players. They basically used their expertise as gamers to see what model would work best for the genre.

Ya know, like with Diablo and Warcraft.

There is no arguing that lots of people like this kind of game, given the state of the genre until WoW launched. Blizzard just did best what most other developers kept trying to do.

I contend that the only way WoW would be any different from today is if the entire market for subscription-based AAA MMOs that existed before, then, and now preferred some very different type of game.

I'm getting the sense (maybe wrongly) that you don't really believe it would be wise for Blizzard to make an improved UO or an improved AC1.  As it's very unlikely to happen anyway, I'm just going to let this go with one final comment.  If the model they picked for WoW was the right one (I'm by no means suggesting it wasn't), then if they pick the same model for their next mmorpg, they have two similar models in direction competition.  The only way they can avoid that, if they want to avoid it, is to pick a different model.

[Lantyssa]

They didn't call it a tank in the TSR books but it was used in the PnP world well before CRPGs used it. I still remember a non-TSR book back in the late 70s early 80s (I really wish I remember which book it was) that had a pictorial representation of what the different levels of AC meant and -10 AC was a guy sitting in a tank.

Wizardry.  Their manuals had all kinds of wonderfully silly pictures.