Paul Barnett speaks on being "Dazed and Confused"

[Nebu]

Barnett did just start off as a consultant so it is possible that the WoW rot had set in long before he had any real power. Once he came in he may have said "Stop playing WoW", but if that is what the standard culture is...

I was just being silly... but you're right.  I guess that I just haven't seen what value Barnett has brought to the game.  Up until now (and in beta) everything he has said/done just seemed to be either for comedic effect or out of ego.  I understand that he's just one guy in a whole team, so it's possible he just got outvoted on... well... everything. 

[Arthur_Parker]

I remember something very similar to the below about Mythic devs and WoW being posted on SA shortly after WAR was released, not going to spend ages looking for it though.

My WoW guild has a handful of Mythic employees in its ranks and each of them is up to 6+ days inactivity in our WAR guild; all the while maintaining a steady presence back in WoW knocking out year old content, gearing alts and playing with new talent toys.  I suppose that's as good an proof to the 'if x sucks people will return to shittheyplayedbeforex' statement.

I don't think I did that math thing right.

[Tebonas]

I take being left handed every time over those severe mental disorders Barnett seems to have.

[Ratman_tf]

Unless of course he was blatantly lying the whole time about that stuff. 

Unpossible. 

I don't know. If they were that into wow, you'd think war wouldn't have some of the blatantly fucking obvious mistakes that made it in. There are so many stupid gameplay decisions in war that wow managed to correct years ago, that it's hard for me to believe that the clownshoes embargo wasn't in effect.

They cherry picked the parts that appeared to be WoWtastic without understanding why WoW did them in the first place. That's gonna make some disconnects in what features they chose to "homage" and what parts of DAOC they clung to like rats in a shipwreck.

[Nevermore]

What game/s is Sanya playing now days, consistently?  I don't keep up with her blog, but I wonder what games are soooo much better than WoW that she couldn't make it a few days into the story?

From the sound of it, Sanya doesn't dislike WoW because she thinks it's a bad game.  On the contrary, she seems to have high praise for it.  She just doesn't find enough of a sandbox in it to find it enjoyable.  Which is perfectly fine.  I have to wonder if she's been playing Eve.  It's the polar opposite of WoW in that it's one of the best sandbox games out there, but lacking in polish and with some pretty unforgiving (to put it kindly) game mechanics.

[IainC]

I believe she's playing LotRO or she was until fairly recently at least.

[Hawkbit]

That boggles my mind then.  LotRO isn't a terrible game, but it's so much like WoW that I'm confused by her statements regarding linearity.  Imo, LotRO pellet whacking is no different than WoW pellet whacking, to use her reference.  The whole thing is confusing. 

[Arthur_Parker]

LOTRO feels like a world, WoW is a great game.

[Nebu]

LOTRO feels like a world, WoW is a great game.

I have to echo this.  It was immediately obvious that LotRO was meant to attract those gamers that want to feel a part of the story.  WoW is aimed more at steering players toward teh shiny.   Guess which gameplay style is more popular?

[Morfiend]

LOTRO feels like a world, WoW is a great game.

I have to echo this.  It was immediately obvious that LotRO was meant to attract those gamers that want to feel a part of the story.  WoW is aimed more at steering players toward teh shiny.   Guess which gameplay style is more popular?

I don't think I agree with you because....

Ohh look at that shiny over there.

What was I saying?

[Rasix]

LOTRO feels like a world, WoW is a great game.

I have to echo this.  It was immediately obvious that LotRO was meant to attract those gamers that want to feel a part of the story.  WoW is aimed more at steering players toward teh shiny.   Guess which gameplay style is more popular?

For me it's all feel.  I couldn't get used to the feel of LOTRO combat after playing WOW.  WAR was less of a problem in this area (when not having to deal with the brain dead monster AI).  AoC was less of a jarring transition mainly because it felt like a new system for the most part and was faster paced.

[Delmania]

I have to echo this.  It was immediately obvious that LotRO was meant to attract those gamers that want to feel a part of the story.  WoW is aimed more at steering players toward teh shiny.   Guess which gameplay style is more popular?

Blizzard refined this in Diablo II.  New patch, new runes.  They kow what works.

For me it's all feel.  I couldn't get used to the feel of LOTRO combat after playing WOW.  WAR was less of a problem in this area (when not having to deal with the brain dead monster AI).  AoC was less of a jarring transition mainly because it felt like a new system for the most part and was faster paced.

Yes, combat is far less fluid in LotRO than in WoW.  Also, the game suffers from the problems the story has: the good guys are noble, the bad guys are nameless threats.  I hate being resticted to just one side, and I hate that all the classes noble. 

[Fordel]

LotRO is also a hell of a lot more demanding on your system. I could not play LotRO on my old PC. It just wasn't happening.


WoW will continue to play on anyone's toaster oven of a machine.

[Bismallah]

WoW will continue to play on anyone's toaster oven of a machine.

And piss poor connection speeds.

I was in the middle of the bum fuck Anbar province for several months on an RBGAN pointed into the sky and I could still play WoW... yes my lag was red, but I still leveled a Shadow Priest and I still didnt have the cast delays like I had with WAR from my FIOS line in the states.

[Delmania]

LotRO is also a hell of a lot more demanding on your system. I could not play LotRO on my old PC. It just wasn't happening.


WoW will continue to play on anyone's toaster oven of a machine.

What were the specs?  I was playing the lo-res client on a machine that has 2 Gb RAM and 2 256 nVidia cards with SLI enabled, and the ran fiarly smoothly on the recommended settings.

[Modern Angel]

What's funny is that LOTRO runs better on my system than WoW does at this point. WoW did something weird with their draw distance and you're drawing shit in Dalaran when you're not in Dalaran. Guess what's in Dalaran? YOUR ENTIRE SERVER POPULATION

[tmp]

Also, the game suffers from the problems the story has: the good guys are noble, the bad guys are nameless threats.  I hate being resticted to just one side, and I hate that all the classes noble. 

Their monsterplay provides nice alternative to it, though... in fact, since it's tad bit more dynamic than the main world while still managing to stay a casual option, i spend more time in it than in the main part of game. It's a vent of sorts, that lets the player have both self-derogatory humour thanks to monstrosity of your character, and extra fun with stomping these noble heroes into ground and sending them bravely run away.

[Nevermore]

WoW will continue to play on anyone's toaster oven of a machine.

Unless you go to Dalaran.

[Ingmar]

LotRO is also a hell of a lot more demanding on your system. I could not play LotRO on my old PC. It just wasn't happening.


WoW will continue to play on anyone's toaster oven of a machine.

What were the specs?  I was playing the lo-res client on a machine that has 2 Gb RAM and 2 256 nVidia cards with SLI enabled, and the ran fiarly smoothly on the recommended settings.

As soon as you utter the letters SLI, you are out of the toaster zone.

[Ingmar]

Given Paul's prior comments about WoW that doesn't seem to be Mythic she's talking about?

Unless of course he was blatantly lying the whole time about that stuff. 

Or Mythic has more than one employee.

Well the implication of his remarks were that the whole team was supposed to be avoiding WoW deliberately, is my recollection. Maybe I misunderstood and he was the only one covering his ears and shouting "I'm not listening!" at Blizzard.

[Lantyssa]

As soon as you utter the letters SLI, you are out of the toaster zone.

He was out of it the second he mentioned 2Gb.  The SLI just turned it into an industrial grade kiln.

[Modern Angel]

Or that tubby sack of shit didn't do anything, which I've seen written. In other words, it's a good soundbite and since he's a media attention whore guess what spews out of his mouth?

[Nija]

I have 4 gigs of ram in my mac mini and I have 2 gigs of ram in my $200 tiny silent linux box.

It's like $25 for 2 gigs of ram now, big deal.

(8 gigs in my gaming machine)

[Lantyssa]

And that makes them barely more powerful than toasters?

[Ratman_tf]

I still have my 800mhz Windows 98 machine. I should try to fire up Wrath on it for shits and giggles. I bet It'll run.

[Fordel]

RAM was always the biggest bottle neck I found.

When my old Toaster went from 500 megs to a gig, literal doubling in performance, if not more.



Yes, I was able to play WoW with 500 megs of ram. 

[Delmania]

My current gaming machine happens to be a laptop, so I am unable to upgrade either the RAM or the video card...

LOTRO feels like a world, WoW is a great game.

What I am wondering is what people's analysis of the methods that Turbine did to acheive this.  If you remove the emphasis on the story, LotRO really is a clone of WoW in terms of mechanics and design.  You still quest for levels, you still hit buttons to fire off skills to win, you still raid to get endgame gear.

[Arthur_Parker]

I imagine some of it is the history of middle earth, I read lots of tolkien years ago, also MERP rulebooks etc, so walking around ruins in Arnor is interesting to me.  Walking round WoW never really had the same effect, I can't even remember the name of the warcraft world.  But mostly I think it's an accident, nobody plans to create a nice setting rather than an excellent game.

[Ashamanchill]

My current gaming machine happens to be a laptop, so I am unable to upgrade either the RAM or the video card...

LOTRO feels like a world, WoW is a great game.

What I am wondering is what people's analysis of the methods that Turbine did to acheive this.  If you remove the emphasis on the story, LotRO really is a clone of WoW in terms of mechanics and design.  You still quest for levels, you still hit buttons to fire off skills to win, you still raid to get endgame gear.

The concept of being like wow, with just a bit of added material is what floated them for so long.  Just picking up on people were sick of killing Illidan for the tenth time, but weren't sick of the Diku loot/experience/crafting treadmill has kept them going.  And yes, the epic feel to it and the lore certainly helped...hell my friends and I were sold on the game just on the concept of maybe, possibly, one day being able to kill Sauron.

[Segoris]

What I am wondering is what people's analysis of the methods that Turbine did to acheive this.  If you remove the emphasis on the story, LotRO really is a clone of WoW in terms of mechanics and design.  You still quest for levels, you still hit buttons to fire off skills to win, you still raid to get endgame gear.

I think the difference is where the story is at when the game comes in. WoW is a continuation where LoTRo runs alongside the story.

[Delmania]

And yes, the epic feel to it and the lore certainly helped...hell my friends and I were sold on the game just on the concept of maybe, possibly, one day being able to kill Sauron.

Given how Turbine is committed to preserving the lore, I think that might be a long shot.....

[Ashamanchill]

And yes, the epic feel to it and the lore certainly helped...hell my friends and I were sold on the game just on the concept of maybe, possibly, one day being able to kill Sauron.

Given how Turbine is committed to preserving the lore, I think that might be a long shot.....

Yeah I know...but still, I had one slim, the buzzers ringing so you might as well shoot the ball from half court hope.

[Ingmar]

What I am wondering is what people's analysis of the methods that Turbine did to acheive this.  If you remove the emphasis on the story, LotRO really is a clone of WoW in terms of mechanics and design.  You still quest for levels, you still hit buttons to fire off skills to win, you still raid to get endgame gear.

#1: Scale. One of the biggest things keeping WoW from feeling like a "real" world is that the scale is so compressed. A zone in WoW and a zone in LotRO might be about the same size, but the WoW zone will represent a bigger chunk of the world with that size. That's good in some ways; it means that WoW has a much wider variation of terrain types and zone looks, but it also is much worse for immersion.

#2: Zone design. WoW zones are very clearly designed first and foremost for gameplay. The level banding of the mobs, the quest hubs, the progression of how you pass through them, espeically in newer zones, are all very game-y. LotRO on the other hand has less leeway to change, say, where a town is, and just generally spent more time on making things interesting to explore rather than making their quest progression work just so. Again, there are positives and negatives to this approach.

#3: Art design. LotRO goes for a more 'realistic' art style than WoW. As long as you don't go all weird uncanny valley, that will usually increase the immersion value of a game, especially when it comes to terrain art. While I personally like WoW's style and think it works very well for that game, there's no question that it takes you a step away from the game feeling like a world the way LotRO does.

[waffel]

It's just too bad that lotro didn't have ACTUAL faction-based PvP.

[Ingmar]

It's just too bad that lotro didn't have ACTUAL faction-based PvP.

I dunno, there's something to be said for not having to dick class balance up with PVP issues.