Paul Barnett speaks on being "Dazed and Confused"

[Fordel]

LotRO succeeds at 'world' because I can open up just about any passage from the trilogy and use it to narrate a location in the actual game. If your greatest desire in life was to be a hobbit eating bacon and smoking pipeweed, it delivers.

[Ard]

I find it more amusing how almost every WAR thread now devolves into a LOTRO thread.  I'm not sure which game that actually says more about.

[Ingmar]

I find it more amusing how almost every WAR thread now devolves into a LOTRO thread.  I'm not sure which game that actually says more about.

We needed to change it up from devolving into DAOC threads.

[pxib]

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.

Not exactly. It's an inferior clone, and that works to its advantage. I think Ingmar's #2 is most important. Although the quest design in LotRO is careful to make sure you at least pass through most of the areas on the map, there's no sense that they have no other purpose.. In most single-player computer RPGs (and WoW) the gameplay experience is polished to the point that they no longer have towns or outposts so much as quest hubs.  Lore is only as deep as necessary to link the quests into story... and no deeper. The world is designed for you! If you won't be directly involved with it, IT DOESN'T EXIST!

If WoW were Lord of the Rings, the One Ring would be endgame loot, you would kill Sauron six hundred times hoping that he'd finally drop that helmet you need for your tank, and everyone would ride around on the Nazgûl's flying mounts. Everyone. It would also play more smoothly, be more popular... and be less of a world.

[Chockonuts]

Funny video showing people in game.  Well, I guess you could call it "in game".     http://www.wegame.com/watch/Standing_in_line_in_Warhammer/


I think Jacobs probably is considering whether to use that as proof that huge throngs of people are playing WAR right now.  All it needs is Barnett's narration, really.

[fuser]

Thanks for the video, I forgot how horrible the character animations were.

[FatuousTwat]

Who on that website decided that constant pop ups would be a good thing?

[Koyasha]

What's really surprising about that video to me is...uhh...that people are standing in line, instead of clumping around the spawn point trying to grab the mob.  I don't think I've ever seen anything like that happen before on something of limited scope like that.

[UnSub]

Take that, people who said no-one was playing WAR! Just count the number of people in line! 

[Triforcer]

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.

Not exactly. It's an inferior clone, and that works to its advantage. I think Ingmar's #2 is most important. Although the quest design in LotRO is careful to make sure you at least pass through most of the areas on the map, there's no sense that they have no other purpose.. In most single-player computer RPGs (and WoW) the gameplay experience is polished to the point that they no longer have towns or outposts so much as quest hubs.  Lore is only as deep as necessary to link the quests into story... and no deeper. The world is designed for you! If you won't be directly involved with it, IT DOESN'T EXIST!

If WoW were Lord of the Rings, the One Ring would be endgame loot, you would kill Sauron six hundred times hoping that he'd finally drop that helmet you need for your tank, and everyone would ride around on the Nazgûl's flying mounts. Everyone. It would also play more smoothly, be more popular... and be less of a world.

There is nothing, nothing, nothing in WoW as immersive as the Shire in LOTRO.  Other LOTRO zones are nearly as great.  If I have one minor nitpick about LOTRO immersion, its that I don't remember from the books the population of 10,000 raging flesh-starved boars in the Shire that routinely attack you in the midst of the corpse-of-boar-victim flooded farms. 

[FatuousTwat]

So, are boars considered canon?

[IainC]

What's really surprising about that video to me is...uhh...that people are standing in line, instead of clumping around the spawn point trying to grab the mob.  I don't think I've ever seen anything like that happen before on something of limited scope like that.

I remember it in the LotRO beta. There were a few unique quest mobs for lowbie quests that constantly had a queue waiting at the spawn point. Also when Catacombs was first released for DAoC there was a particular mob for one of the low level Champion Quests that usually had a small line waiting for him to repop.

[tmp]

#1: Scale.
#2: Zone design.
#3: Art design.

Would also add #4: the 4h wall.

LotRO world is to large degree coherent and mostly lacking the "wink wink nudge nudge blatant pop-culture reference lolz" so permeant in WoW. This results in world that feels more solid and stand-alone so to speak, something that could possibly exist on its own and to exist for its own sake rather than for the sake of entertainment of computer game player.

[Modern Angel]

Regarding that, I realized that WoW is the Robot Chicken of video game humor. You know what I mean... there's never really a joke or a punchline. Just a reference. So you reference something from nerd pop culture and the reference is supposed to be the entire joke. Except it's not really a joke and you realize that it's really, really lame after the third time going "HAHA! VOLTRON! I REMEMBER VOLTRON! I LIVED IN THE EIGHTIES! HAHA MAN VOLTRON! Wait... Volt... is there anything else to it except the reference itself? That... man, that's not that funny after all..."

[Chockonuts]

What's really surprising about that video to me is...uhh...that people are standing in line, instead of clumping around the spawn point trying to grab the mob.  I don't think I've ever seen anything like that happen before on something of limited scope like that.

What's even MORE surprising, was that was the "Destruction" side, including people from Chaos.


You'd think a side touting Chaos and Destruction would be a little more..  "chaosy and destructiony"   

[Special J]

Regarding that, I realized that WoW is the Robot Chicken of video game humor. You know what I mean... there's never really a joke or a punchline. Just a reference. So you reference something from nerd pop culture and the reference is supposed to be the entire joke. Except it's not really a joke and you realize that it's really, really lame after the third time going "HAHA! VOLTRON! I REMEMBER VOLTRON! I LIVED IN THE EIGHTIES! HAHA MAN VOLTRON! Wait... Volt... is there anything else to it except the reference itself? That... man, that's not that funny after all..."

HAHA! A Blood Elf named Haris Pilton!  The endless pop culture references in WoW are a big turnoff.  I don't mind the odd one but you can't go 10 feet without tripping over one in that game.  When they're that frequent, they stop being funny or clever.  It really kills the immersion.

[Typhon]

It really kills the immersion.

I'm not saying that I disagree with it being old, but it IS the world.  It was in Warcraft 1 and every game since.  There's always some pop reference of some type and a fair amount of sillyness to go along with demons, undead and the end of the world.

[Kageru]

You'd have to be fairly sensitive or determined to hate wow to find it that much of an issue. The pop-culture references are actually pretty rare.

That said the Haris Pilton one is more a joke on blizzard for introducing a monstrously expensive consumable (22 slot bag) to act as a gold sink. So given what she sells the reference is perfect.

[Montague]

You'd have to be fairly sensitive or determined to hate wow to find it that much of an issue. The pop-culture references are actually pretty rare.

That said the Haris Pilton one is more a joke on blizzard for introducing a monstrously expensive consumable (22 slot bag) to act as a gold sink. So given what she sells the reference is perfect.

http://www.wowwiki.com/List_of_pop_culture_references_in_Warcraft 

[Modern Angel]

I don't complain about immersion or anything like that. It's just this symptom of Generation Y humor typified by horrible shit like Family Guy and Robot Chicken (and WoW) where there's no joke. There's not even a setting for a joke. There's not even absurdist, hard to understand humor a la Kids in the Hall or early Monty Python. There's just a reference, hanging there, and you're supposed to laugh because you remember where it's from even if it's not funny. It's like you take the classic incongruity of something not belonging in a given scene/setting and rely on a generational obsession with unhealthy amounts of nostalgia to bring the laughs.

[Kageru]

Over the total content of WoW that's pretty damn minimal. On top of the fact you'd have to be a pop-culture geek to even notice a lot of them. In which case you probably like it.

[Sjofn]

Wierd that you're accusing Gen Y of this fault, when Gen X seems just as guilty, perhaps even moreso. All the "har har a reference!" stuff I see is usually stuff that has a huge nostalgia factor for people slightly older than me, and I was born in 1977, one of those bastard years no one fits in either generation. But all the people I see making those sorts of jokes (and I don't really care about them, personally, if someone finds it funny, good on 'em, I don't feel a need to yell at them to get off my lawn) are older than me, not younger.

I'm also pretty sure most of Blizz's workers are solidly Gen X if the age of their panelists at BlizzCon is any indication.  

[Special J]

You'd have to be fairly sensitive or determined to hate wow to find it that much of an issue. The pop-culture references are actually pretty rare.

That said the Haris Pilton one is more a joke on blizzard for introducing a monstrously expensive consumable (22 slot bag) to act as a gold sink. So given what she sells the reference is perfect.

I'm not saying that I disagree with it being old, but it IS the world.  It was in Warcraft 1 and every game since.  There's always some pop reference of some type and a fair amount of sillyness to go along with demons, undead and the end of the world.

Really? I thought they were endless. Yeah every game had them and I can handle that but they just seemed absolutely everywhere to me.  Anyways, it's not the reason I don't play WoW.

[Arthur_Parker]

Paul Barnett 13 May 2009

Paul is going to do some work on UO.
 

[Modern Angel]

Wierd that you're accusing Gen Y of this fault, when Gen X seems just as guilty, perhaps even moreso. All the "har har a reference!" stuff I see is usually stuff that has a huge nostalgia factor for people slightly older than me, and I was born in 1977, one of those bastard years no one fits in either generation. But all the people I see making those sorts of jokes (and I don't really care about them, personally, if someone finds it funny, good on 'em, I don't feel a need to yell at them to get off my lawn) are older than me, not younger.

I'm also pretty sure most of Blizz's workers are solidly Gen X if the age of their panelists at BlizzCon is any indication. 

Yeah, I meant to throw Gen X and Y in there but it was late. I'm 77. I'm at that tale end of it. I know. It's the same spirit that gets us Land of the Lost and GI Joe remakes.

[Nevermore]

I'm 77.

Wow, I think that makes you the oldest person on F13! 

[Modern Angel]

Christ. See what happens when I post with a headache first thing when I wake up?

[IainC]

I'm 77.

Wow, I think that makes you the oldest person on F13! 

Although Tale is apparently about the same age too.

[tmp]

Over the total content of WoW that's pretty damn minimal.

It's still plenty enough to run into them every now and then, and don't kid yourself, it does result in stronger impression the game is just theme park rather fully developed separate universe. My beef with this approach is mostly, it comes across as a really lazy way to develop the content -- after all it's much easier to make quest where Ford O. Teabaggins asks you to bring him an o-ring and excuse it as "it's a joke, and two references in one, get it? lolspit", than invent from scratch a new (fairly interesting) character and mini-story attached to them.

[Soulflame]

Given that creating a truly immersive MMOG would entail something along the lines of, say opening Ulduar as a new zone, into which everyone piles, and once a boss is down, that's it, no farmsies for you, I'm just fine with "theme park" as opposed to "world".  Because in a truly immersive world, Yogg Saron dies once.  Only one group or person destroys the giant robot in Storm Peaks.  No one needs to read the wanted posters for Mob X, because Player Y killed it months ago, and now no one else can.

Since that's really been done all of once in an actual MMOG (AC) and people screamed about that then, I seriously doubt it'll ever happen again.

[Righ]

Generic boss type + random item table + random ability table + random name table = "unique" boss kills and everybody getting a shot.

[Soulflame]

Diablo II?

Seriously though, that is doable.

WoW is a theme park.  You ride the rides, and there's lots of signs that say "You must be THIS tall..."

[Tarami]

Diablo II?

Seriously though, that is doable.

WoW is a theme park.  You ride the rides, and there's lots of signs that say "You must be THIS tall..."

Doable, but pointless. Randomness doesn't fix anything, it's just a short-term obfuscation of the underlying problem (repetition). The people who played Diablo enjoyed repetition with a minimal variance. They are not the 11 million people playing WoW.

[tmp]

Doable, but pointless. Randomness doesn't fix anything, it's just a short-term obfuscation of the underlying problem (repetition).

It's a bit different argument; this was in response to "ultimately every MMO is theme park because million people keep killing the same guy over and over". Changing the name/appearance/tactics of the boss so no two encounters are identical does reduce this issue to some degree. Even if it's as simple as letting people kill "Palpatine Sr." then "Palpatine Jr", "Palpatine the 3rd" and so on.

[Tarami]

I'd still say it does, because then the encounters become even more generic, not less - because there's not even a possibility to back it all up with lore unless you have some advanced system where the swapping of bosses can make sense to the players, even be predictable. Every shred of consistency makes it more like a world and less like a squirrel wheel. I agree it might possibly make the game in itself more interesting, but I doubt it will make the game less game'y.