Something cool about WoW

[El Gallo]

Hunting obscure corners of the universe for pets was one of my favorite things about early SWG.  I remember crawling around looking for some sort of uber-armor spider babies.  Once people saw you could kill anything in the game with them, they nerfed the bejesus out of tamed pets.  So I went back to killing Kimogillas with pistol-whip instead of tank spiders.  Man was that game a wreck.  Someone should start a thread about it.

[Sky]

It is really cool in WoW that when I am fighting a MOB I can actaully see my sword being swung too.

Feel free not to post in my thread, then. I wasn't talking about invention of ideas, or how it stacks up to other games. I just thought that was a cool bit. I'm trying hard not to call you names.

No longer.  Pets were normalised (aka all the unique pets lost their uniqueness - now every cat has the same stats etc) a few patches back.  Poor old Brokentooth had to be taken out and shot after that patch - since without his 1.0 attack speed he is just another boring old newb cat.

Well, that blows. That's the part that was cool about it. So never mind this stupid thread that some expletives have made stupider.

[LC]

The Chinese game I have been playing offers this feature. You can charm/capture almost any mob in the game. Each one has it's own stats and abilities.

Here is my current pet with his information window open: Link

The next pet I plan to get: Link

[Surlyboi]

Hunting obscure corners of the universe for pets was one of my favorite things about early SWG.  I remember crawling around looking for some sort of uber-armor spider babies.  Once people saw you could kill anything in the game with them, they nerfed the bejesus out of tamed pets.  So I went back to killing Kimogillas with pistol-whip instead of tank spiders.  Man was that game a wreck.  Someone should start a thread about it.

Man, I miss that. I was a BE/CH at one time. I used to make and train squalls that could eat rancors. Poison and bleed special attacks, the works. Called 'em "hellbunnies" Best part was watching the reactions of people as I let them go apeshit on their unsuspecting pets.

And yeah, somebody should make a thread about what a trainwreck that game has become. Maybe they could mention twitch or something too.

[Lantyssa]

I miss all my babies.

[jpark]

Re: subtle things.

My comment here may be personally incriminating to me - at least if you spoke to my ex-girlfriends.

So... I like annoying the NPCs in the game.  I really get a hoot - finding the different dialogue sequences they go through when you click on them repeatedly.

In a way this is therapeutic, since it spares those around me in my real life  :-D

[Samwise]

STOP POKING ME!!!!

[Chenghiz]

Repost from SA - the Blood Elf who would teleport you to Silvermoon before they added the teleporters in beta.

[eldaec]

The better question in my mind is what did WoW popularize. That's a wider net. There I'd say things like mailboxes, instantiated sport-based PvP, quest-based advancement (as opposed to pure mob grinding), interactive world objects. Probably others I'm missing.

All that stuff was already appearing just about every MMOG of the same period (CoH, EQ2, GW, SWG, even ATitD)


WoW might have popularised MMOGs as a whole (jury still out), but it's hard to say it has had any impact at all within the genre. Shorter time played between levels maybe? But that was also a process that was happening anyway (look at daoc for the most extreme example of grind shortening).

The one thing WoW did do was launch a stable and polished product. So far there is little sign that the polish bar has been raised for other MMOGs.

(btw, GW also has permanent pet taming)

[Rasix]

WoW might have popularised MMOGs as a whole (jury still out), but it's hard to say it has had any impact at all within the genre.

[eldaec]

ROFL

As far as I can tell, people might be talking about WoW lots - but I don't see any changes in design or any sudden move to release games when they are not either buggy pieces of crap or bland patch-the-fun-in-later wastelands?

Or is Vanguard really that much more polished than I thought?

[Merusk]

ROFL

As far as I can tell, people might be talking about WoW lots - but I don't see any changes in design or any sudden move to release games when they are not either buggy pieces of crap or bland patch-the-fun-in-later wastelands?

Or is Vanguard really that much more polished than I thought?

Vanguard said they were going to try and stay as far away from becoming WoW as possible.

Who knew they'd succeed so wildly and in so many facets.

[Simond]

Also: Brad McQuaid has an ego the size of Jupiter.

[Venkman]

All that stuff was already appearing just about every MMOG of the same period (CoH, EQ2, GW, SWG, even ATitD)

But my point is that WoW brought it all together with a stable and content complete experience out of the box. No other game prior did. Nobody else had the money, time and confidence of a multi-national publisher.

WoW didn't raise the bar. It raised a bunch of them. A few of those are in features. Unless an MMO is targeting a niche on purpose, it too will have mailboxes, sport-based PvP, quest-based advancement, less time between levels (therefore an achieveable endgame) and interactive world objects all in the same title, not appearing as unique line-item features spread across multiple titles.

It did not innovate any of these individual features. It innovated by bringing them together. And yea, so did EQ2. But which game is everyone talking about?

That's why I emphasize popularize. WoW made quest-based advancement popular in this genre by bringing in more people to this genre than existed here already (except in the Far East)

[eldaec]

Unless an MMO is targeting a niche on purpose, it too will have mailboxes, sport-based PvP, quest-based advancement, less time between levels (therefore an achieveable endgame) and interactive world objects all in the same title, not appearing as unique line-item features spread across multiple titles.

Point I'm making is that future-MMOGs-not-tatgeting-niches would have had these anyway - as they had already become de riguer regardless of WoW.

Occasional games will miss out occasional features, just like WoW skipped one or two now-standard features.

[WoW provided] a stable and content complete experience out of the box. No other game prior did [this]

Absolutely agree. This is the new thing that WoW did. Noone else seems to be following this, either because they can't or because won't. This is why I'm not sure WoW has had nearly the impact on the design of new MMOGs that some people seem to think.

WoW has had a massive impact on the way the wider gaming industry looks at online games. It may or may not bring more people to the genre, but I don't see anything that WoW has done to the genre that would not have happened if WoW had not been made.

This is not even intended as a criticism of WoW - they set out to do what had already been done, but to execute it with much higher production values and quality levels. That's cool.

[Jayce]

I hate to SirBruce this post, but please.

Point I'm making is that future-MMOGs-not-tatgeting-niches would have had these anyway - as they had already become de riguer regardless of WoW.

You do realize that everything prior to WoW was niche by todays' definition?  500k subs was incredible back then.

Absolutely agree. This is the new thing that WoW did. Noone else seems to be following this, either because they can't or because won't. This is why I'm not sure WoW has had nearly the impact on the design of new MMOGs that some people seem to think.

I think it's way too early to tell.  To the extent that it is possible, we have seen almost all new games get more WoW-like (which, for the record, I think is a bad thing).  Vanguard and LotRO come to mind.

It may or may not bring more people to the genre,

May not bring anyone new to the genre?  Are you high?

[Bunk]

Bobo the Bear was born in UO, died several hundred times, and was reborn each time. Well, at least each new one looked like the original, so close enough.

He was then reborn in WoW. Being the fan of self-gimpdom that I am, I kept Bobo through my hunter's entire career, 1.0's be damned.

[eldaec]

I hate to SirBruce this post, but please.

Point I'm making is that future-MMOGs-not-targeting-niches would have had these anyway - as they had already become de riguer regardless of WoW.

You do realize that everything prior to WoW was niche by todays' definition?  500k subs was incredible back then.

Not everything was targeting niches though. Which is what I said.

EDIT: And BTW, 500k subs is still incredible NOW if you are not Blizzard. Thinking of 500k western subs as niche would be nonsense.

Absolutely agree. This is the new thing that WoW did. Noone else seems to be following this, either because they can't or because won't. This is why I'm not sure WoW has had nearly the impact on the design of new MMOGs that some people seem to think.

I think it's way too early to tell.  To the extent that it is possible, we have seen almost all new games get more WoW-like (which, for the record, I think is a bad thing).  Vanguard and LotRO come to mind.

How?
Shorter grind? Was already happening with every diku release since ever.
More quest-based? Did you not play CoH, EQ2, DDO, or GW? If anything, WoW is less quest based than its contemporaries.

It may or may not bring more people to the genre,

May not bring anyone new to the genre?  Are you high?

We've had the new-people-to-the-genre discussion many times before. But plenty of people have argued that the extra couple of million western players are only here for Blizzard, and will walk back out the door before they play a non-Blizzard MMOG. This is not a new or controversial opinion (though ofc it may or may not turn out to be true).

And contrary to many people's belief there are only a couple of million new-to-dikumud players in WoW, the rest are Asians who were already playing crazy Asian Dikumuds and will most likely go back to playing crazy Asian Dikumuds once they are done with WoW.

WoW was certainly the first crossover eastern/western success. This is a way WoW could effect the business side of running mmogs. Maybe WoW will herald a whole range products successful in both the eastern and western markets, but there isn't any evidence of that so far.

I just don't see how mmog game design has changed as a result of WoW. Yes it has been the most successful implementation. But people have been making EQ/Dikumud clones with slightly less grind, slightly more quests, and slightly more consensual pvp since forever. They were doing it before WoW, they will do it after WoW, they would have done it without WoW.

[tkinnun0]

I just don't see how mmog game design has changed as a result of WoW.

WoW showed that you don't need social ties that arise from forced grouping and downtime to have retention. If you consider EQ2 at launch vs. EQ2 now you can see what kind of an effect that change has had.

[stray]

Some of the best things about WoW are impossible to implement for others (i.e. they don't have $50 million to offer something on that level of scale and polish). So in a sense, I agree with eldaec.

[EDIT]

Most of things they can implement is no brainer bullshit others have been doing here and there in other games.

[Nebu]

Some of the best things about WoW are impossible to implement for others (i.e. they don't have $50 million to offer something on that level of scale and polish).

Didn't Vanguard have like a $50 million budget?  I'd like to know what they spent it all on... it certainly wasn't polish.

[Stephen Zepp]

Some of the best things about WoW are impossible to implement for others (i.e. they don't have $50 million to offer something on that level of scale and polish).

Didn't Vanguard have like a $50 million budget?  I'd like to know what they spent it all on... it certainly wasn't polish.

The engine, and art pipeline took up a very hefty chunk. And it appears to me at least that they left the core engine pretty much alone, and then tried to push the performance without optimization for their game, which is always a bad idea.

/mole
Part of the reason Torque (even the commercial license) is so cheap compared to other engines is that we approach the concept of an engine from a completely different perspective--an engine is reponsible for low level functionality--simulation management, render/scene management, networking, object referencing, cross platform capability, etc.

Many engines however go the next level, and force specific methods and techniques for higher order functionality, and expect you to use them stock and "bow down to the designers"--and they do of course give you pretty strong tools to do so. The up side is that IF your game fits the engine designer's plan, it can be made reasonably well without modification, and low amounts of actual programming (relatively speaking). The down side is that when you are going past the boundaries of what the engine "expects", it's pretty hard core (and expensive) to do anything about it.

When I first heard about Sigil, Vanguard, and their engine selection (and this was well before I was a GG employee), the first thing I noticed:

--management
--artists
--"vision"
--no c++ designers/developers

And I said to myself--this is going to be an art/"vision" driven game, and they aren't even realizing just how important the architectural design/development is during the early process. They spent a year plus doing production quality art for screenshot purposes, and I still hadn't heard about any major programming staff additions, and I said to myself "this just isn't gonna work like they think it will..."

[Pendan]

As a C++ developer the lack of programming talent was very evident to me during the Vanguard beta. The lack of multi processor support was an obvious example of the client problems and all the issue with zoning lines showed me the server programming failure. I also questioned what they had been doing for the last year plus of beta when they were patching so much stuff during the last month.

I wonder however how many well known C++ developers there are. Only ones I know about are better known for their non coding game design than actual coding ability. Like Sigil did during formation isn’t Green Monster doing the same thing now? Press releases for managers and artists. Only MMOG company that I can think of right now who formed and somewhat announced technical talent and then were actually successful with a product is AreaNet with Guild Wars.

[Stephen Zepp]

As a C++ developer the lack of programming talent was very evident to me during the Vanguard beta. The lack of multi processor support was an obvious example of the client problems and all the issue with zoning lines showed me the server programming failure.

You can't blame that on Sigil...that would be hugely fundamental underlying engine changes that they have no control over. The zoning stuff, sure.

I also questioned what they had been doing for the last year plus of beta when they were patching so much stuff during the last month.

Amen to that. Like I said originally, I am hugely doubtful that they planned on having any -real- development/design from the get go.

I wonder however how many well known C++ developers there are. Only ones I know about are better known for their non coding game design than actual coding ability. Like Sigil did during formation isn’t Green Monster doing the same thing now? Press releases for managers and artists. Only MMOG company that I can think of right now who formed and somewhat announced technical talent and then were actually successful with a product is AreaNet with Guild Wars.

And look at how terrible most of the launches and products have been, hehehe.

[Pendan]

You can't blame that on Sigil...that would be hugely fundamental underlying engine changes that they have no control over.

Actually I feel I can blame that on Sigil. They picked the engine to use. 3 years ago the Intel and AMD road maps all were public that multi core processors were the future. Even before the public road maps multi core was being discussed. Before that multi processor mother boards were getting more popular. So if they are happered by the engine they have no control over then it is because of a lack of foresight a good C++ designer would have thought about and made a better choice.

Next point is they don’t have much control of the graphic engine but does that limit their multi threading completely? What all is being handled by the third party graphic engine? Do they have their own UI on top of the graphics for the scene being displayed? Can UI updating be done in a separate thread? Can sound be done in a different thread (supposedly this is one area done with different thread in Vanguard)? Can network communication be done in another thread? Can they do prefetching of artwork in another thread? In this post Brad says they have more multiple core support planned http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/27195-vg-your-system-specs-required-4.html#post667847 My issue with this is adding multiple thread support to an existing application is usually very difficult. Much easier and plan and implement it from the start than to add in later.

The multi processor support was just an easy thing to point out as a lack of underlying technology. I saw other things less easy to explain and point out the lack of C++ designers. Brad’s words just scream it out to me when he says they will just patch in the threading later.

[Tale]

They spent a year plus doing production quality art for screenshot purposes, and I still hadn't heard about any major programming staff additions, and I said to myself "this just isn't gonna work like they think it will..."

OTOH their art director - the late Keith Parkinson, whose art was also partly inspiration for the game - was terminally ill. He needed to get the art done back then.

[lamaros]

So what did Edison invent?

Releasing a polished lightbulb.

Nothing exists in a vacuum.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm suddenly just really sad that someone spent their last days racing against death in order to complete something related to Vanguard.  I can't help but think that if there were a heaven, this guy would be sitting up there looking down at the game and going "Aw fuck, what a shitpile.  I could have spent that extra time with my family.  Thanks Brad, you dick."