Blizzard starting work on 'Next-Gen MMO'?

[Trouble]

The rumors continue:

Well placed US sources have revealed to us that the StarCraft MMO will be unveiled at an upcoming Blizzard event on May 19 in South Korea - the epicentre of the sci-fi RTS series' rabid fandom.

The unveiling of the new instalment has previously been rumoured for the South Korea event, though we now know that the title is in fact an online spin-off and not a new RTS game as previously assumed.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=163207&site=cvg

[Furiously]

It's going to be funny when they announce Warcraft 4.

[schild]

I'd lol.

[WayAbvPar]

Am I the only person on the planet who never played Starcraft?

[schild]

Actually, there's one other person. Jimmy Carter.

[tazelbain]

I hope they announce that they are breaking into the social spaces racket.

[Morat20]

Am I the only person on the planet who never played Starcraft?

If you like RTS, you missed out. It's like being a 4X fan and never having played the Civilization games, or having skipped Alpha Centauri. I mean, I liked the original C&C, and loved Red Alert -- but nothing compared to Starcraft. I still yank it out and play it every once in awhile.

Brood Wars took a really good game and made it damn perfect. Three distinct sides, three completely different playstyles, all in almost perfect balance. Fun ass game.

[Wolf]

Am I the only person on the planet who never played Starcraft?

If you like RTS, you missed out. It's like being a 4X fan and never having played the Civilization games, or having skipped Alpha Centauri. I mean, I liked the original C&C, and loved Red Alert -- but nothing compared to Starcraft. I still yank it out and play it every once in awhile.

Brood Wars took a really good game and made it damn perfect. Three distinct sides, three completely different playstyles, all in almost perfect balance. Fun ass game.

Screw this. If you like computer games at all, get starcraft and broodwar and play through them.

[sinij]

Player Housing needs to serve some sort of reason.

Player retention is not good enough reason? Player housing in WoW should be guild halls and its functionality should be a get-together nexus of portals and community chest.

Did I mention how primitive guild system in WoW? Sufficient to say there are no guild wars... UO had it in what, 98?

[Rasix]

WoW's hurting for subs.

[schild]

WoW's hurting for subs.

China is hurting for bikes.

[sinij]

Blizzard could have shat in the box (and you can make convincing argument that they did) and as long as it is polished enough it would sell. WoW success is 50% Blizzard name, 40% polish and only 10% gameplay.

[Furiously]

Blizzard could have shat in the box (and you can make convincing argument that they did) and as long as it is polished enough it would sell. WoW success is 50% Blizzard name, 40% polish and only 10% gameplay.

You can't polish a turd.

[Slayerik]

Blizzard could have shat in the box (and you can make convincing argument that they did) and as long as it is polished enough it would sell. WoW success is 50% Blizzard name, 40% polish and only 10% gameplay.

Though I agree with half of your points (the ones concerning guild wars and housing), are you just trolling here ?

[Slayerik]

Blizzard could have shat in the box (and you can make convincing argument that they did) and as long as it is polished enough it would sell. WoW success is 50% Blizzard name, 40% polish and only 10% gameplay.

You can't polish a turd.

Tell that to Brad!

 

[Miasma]

Blizzard could have shat in the box (and you can make convincing argument that they did) and as long as it is polished enough it would sell. WoW success is 50% Blizzard name, 40% polish and only 10% gameplay.

That's just absurd, if the game sucked people wouldn't still be subscribed to it and Blizzard's reputation would be in the toilet.  Bad games can destroy a company's brand name far easier than good ones can build it.

People bought the box based on the Blizzard logo but are still playing because they enjoy it.

[WindupAtheist]

I predict that Starcraft Galaxies will be all about humans and protoss running out into the wilderness with swords and pikes to tame six different colors of space-buffalos and monkeys and shit, and the only people who play it will be a hundred thousand crafters, and Lantyssa, who'll call you a fucknut if you suggest that a guy with a machine gun should be able to own a monkey-tamer.

 :-D

[shiznitz]

Am I the only person on the planet who never played Starcraft?

You, me and Jimmy Carter. I never thought I would have anything in common with Jimmy Carter.

[El Gallo]

Blizzard could have shat in the box (and you can make convincing argument that they did) and as long as it is polished enough it would sell. WoW success is 50% Blizzard name, 40% polish and only 10% gameplay.

That's absurd, but the next time you make up some numbers to prove a point, make up ones that actually help your cause.  Because you are saying that non-Blizzard WoW would have 4.25M subs based on gameplay and execution, and that non-Blizzard, non-polished WoW would get 850k subs (almost double EQ's max) just based on the gameplay.

[schild]

Blizzard really is about 90% of the popularity. There's no question at this point.

[WayAbvPar]

Am I the only person on the planet who never played Starcraft?

If you like RTS, you missed out. It's like being a 4X fan and never having played the Civilization games, or having skipped Alpha Centauri. I mean, I liked the original C&C, and loved Red Alert -- but nothing compared to Starcraft. I still yank it out and play it every once in awhile.

Brood Wars took a really good game and made it damn perfect. Three distinct sides, three completely different playstyles, all in almost perfect balance. Fun ass game.

Good. I loathe RTS, so I don't think I missed out. I might check out the MMOG though.

[Typhon]

Good. I loathe RTS, so I don't think I missed out. I might check out the MMOG though.

I'm not an RTS fan either, but I did like SC + Broodwars.

[Kail]

Blizzard really is about 90% of the popularity. There's no question at this point.

I'd question that.  I'm sure it helps, but there are a lot of big name companies with big name licenses which haven't had nearly the success that Blizzard has.  Square can sell crap in a can as long as it's got a "Final Fantasy" label on it, but Final Fantasy XI capped at what, 500k subs?  Less than 10% of World of Warcraft?  Is Square really that gimp compared to Blizzard?  I suspect that most of it's popularity is just because it's popular (like Counterstrike; everyone played Counterstrike, even if it wasn't their favorite game, because it was so universal, not because they had some deep reverence for the dev team).

[Nonentity]

Man, NO.

I don't want this to be a Starcraft MMO. Splitting an audience like that would just not be smart.

I highly, highly doubt it will be an MMO. And they said no Starcraft.

I'm with schild on this one, I think it will be Diablo-related.

I wish it WAS Starcraft, because then it would be Starcraft 2 - the inevitable first step before a Starcraft MMO.

[Merusk]

Am I the only person on the planet who never played Starcraft?

If you like RTS, you missed out. It's like being a 4X fan and never having played the Civilization games, or having skipped Alpha Centauri. I mean, I liked the original C&C, and loved Red Alert -- but nothing compared to Starcraft. I still yank it out and play it every once in awhile.

Brood Wars took a really good game and made it damn perfect. Three distinct sides, three completely different playstyles, all in almost perfect balance. Fun ass game.

Good. I loathe RTS, so I don't think I missed out. I might check out the MMOG though.

I can't stand it either, but it was a good story.  Borrow a copy then use the cheat codes.

[sinij]

Though I agree with half of your points (the ones concerning guild wars and housing), are you just trolling here ?

I'm hard pressed to find single innovative streak in WoW ... yet it so successful. That is what pisses me off.

[sinij]

That's absurd, but the next time you make up some numbers to prove a point, make up ones that actually help your cause.  Because you are saying that non-Blizzard WoW would have 4.25M subs based on gameplay and execution, and that non-Blizzard, non-polished WoW would get 850k subs (almost double EQ's max) just based on the gameplay.

You have a point.. Gameplay is probably around 3.5% if we go by numbers... So depressing. As to Non-BLizzard WoW, we will see how LoTRO will do, since that what it actually is.

[Morat20]

Though I agree with half of your points (the ones concerning guild wars and housing), are you just trolling here ?

I'm hard pressed to find single innovative streak in WoW ... yet it so successful. That is what pisses me off.

It worked. That was a fucking miraculous innovation by MMORPG standards. Something some Dev houses (*cough* SOE *cough* SIGIL *cough*) still haven't grasped.

Another -- it was designed to be playable on lower-end machines, replacing GPU-intensive graphics with stylized (and low-poly) graphics so that it ran smoothly on a variety of machines, not just top-end gaming rigs. (A huge change from the standard, that probably accounts for 20% or more of it's subs).

Another -- highly quest based for levelling, with a very intuitive UI. I believe grinding was still the order of the day when it was released.

Another -- highly customizeable UI, with a publicized API allowing easy creation and addition of third-party mods. Made a huge difference for players of all types -- and the most popular mods tended to get absorbed into the base UI.

So, we've got accessible game,  that is playable (and looks good) on a wide array of computers (not just top-end stuff), intuitive UI layout and quest progression, and with an open UI that allows the bleeding edge catasses to write up anything they feel the UI is missing, which Blizzard happily steals for the non-catasses.

Nope. Nothing innovative there. I just can't think of any MMORPGs that launched before WoW that had all of those. Or, really, any of those. Perhaps someone had an open API for their GUI that I wasn't aware of.

It's not like it's competitors were grindy games where finding and doing quests only accounted for a fraction of the needed XP to level, had a long leveling curve, required top-end shit to run the game smoothly and looking good, and shit themselves on launch and required months and months to patch into basic playability.

[Lantyssa]

I predict that Starcraft Galaxies will be all about humans and protoss running out into the wilderness with swords and pikes to tame six different colors of space-buffalos and monkeys and shit, and the only people who play it will be a hundred thousand crafters, and Lantyssa, who'll call you a fucknut if you suggest that a guy with a machine gun should be able to own a monkey-tamer.

 :-D

If it means I don't have to play with you fucknuts, can I claim it as a victory? 

[Trippy]

WoW's hurting for subs.

China is hurting for bikes.

Actually they are. The number of bikes you see now on the streets of Shanghai and Beijing has dropped a few orders of magnitude since the 80s. It's basically wall to wall cars, with some remnant bikes now.

[Teleku]

What Morat said.  The game has plenty going for it to keep subs, and was still quit innovative when it came out.  The Blizzard name probably helped them get the initial surge of subs when it launched.  After that, I would account almost everything else entirely to mass attention/word of mouth it has received, and its fun gameplay (which did I mention it was fun?  Like, much more fun than pretty much any other MMO?  Cause thats why everybody I know who plays it, plays).  The Blizzard name argument makes no god damn sense.  Nobody keeps playing and paying for a god damn game because it has a name written on the box.  I got a number of friends into the game whom I've gotten to play several other MMOs in the past.  They couldn't get themselves beyond the teens in FF11 (me neither), or past the 20's in City of Heroes, before they quit in boredom/frustration.  Now they are all raiders (we do alot of PvP as well though for fun).  This is not an uncommon story to hear among others as well.

Please, for the love of god, quit using that argument!  It retains those millions of subs based on GAMEPLAY (and being able to play on an old machine also probably helps alot as morat said), whether you like it or not.

[sinij]

I don't know if you forgot green text or went funboi on us but WoW gameplay is as generic as sliced wondrebread. Its 100% DIKU. You group, pull mobs from static camps and kill them for exp while tanks hold agro, healers heal and mages blast damage... just like in any other DIKU. It can be fun if you are into that type of thing but it NOT innovative and its NOT gameplay that brings people to WoW.

[sinij]

Another -- it was designed to be playable on lower-end machines, replacing GPU-intensive graphics with stylized (and low-poly) graphics so that it ran smoothly on a variety of machines, not just top-end gaming rigs. (A huge change from the standard, that probably accounts for 20% or more of it's subs).

WoW minimal specs are quite higher than UO/EQ/DAoC/AC at the time WoW released.

Another -- highly quest based for levelling, with a very intuitive UI. I believe grinding was still the order of the day when it was released.

Are you trying to tell me that quests were WoW's innovation? Think about this again. Quests are almost as old as DIKU.

Another -- highly customizeable UI, with a publicized API allowing easy creation and addition of third-party mods. Made a huge difference for players of all types -- and the most popular mods tended to get absorbed into the base UI.

WoW UI was awful at release, they were just smart enough to incorporate majority of community mods into a client. Again, many games, have much better and equally open UI... just for some reason it took-in with WoW and huge UO mod community flourished that developers took clues from.


So why WoW so popular, what are these KEY things they got RIGHT? Is it ONLY Blizzard name and polish at release? Does it mean that any other title they release is 100% guaranteed success, given that its equally polished? Should they just re-skin WoW every few years and release it to be massive success? Why EQ2 failed but WoW succeeded, they are identical games. What does this mean for LoTR considering that its non-Blizzard's WoW?

[ajax34i]

Shrug, ignore the numbers, and try to figure out reasons other than the evident one as to why so many play.  Personally, I haven't played Warcraft before (nor Starcraft), and while Diablo was ok, I couldn't care less for the Blizzard name, but I enjoyed WoW for a while.  You don't like Dikus, so nobody does.  And like I said before, this "innovation" you keep looking for, it doesn't actually guarantee success.

[Teleku]

I don't know if you forgot green text or went funboi on us but WoW gameplay is as generic as sliced wondrebread. Its 100% DIKU. You group, pull mobs from static camps and kill them for exp while tanks hold agro, healers heal and mages blast damage... just like in any other DIKU. It can be fun if you are into that type of thing but it NOT innovative and its NOT gameplay that brings people to WoW.

In that case I hope you hate every single RPG made after the 80's (that includes planescape), every RTS after Dune/C&C, every FPS after Wolfinstien, ect, ect.

Just because its using the same format (like every other computer game pretty much does now a days) doesn't mean the damn gameplay is similar at all.  I have a good time in WoW, but I couldn't fucking stand EQ.  And I really TRIED.

And no, you dont god damn run around pulling mobs from static camps like in EQ.  You haven't even touched the game have you?