i dont think an MMO that has a BIG content like wow can have its lvling content removed. lvling is how characters and players get to know eachother. i know it sounds corny but it is how u learn to play it. by slowly adding new skills and improving the ones u have it increases the the content in a slower manner. but i agree with the majority of what was said lore. i recon the 3D of gaming will be introduced in the future though. or at least id like to see it happen.
World of Warcraft, but a shooter, I would love to see if it could be executed well. Something like if Mass Effect, and WoW could be combined would be awesome.
I thought there was supposed to be an MMOFPS, called Huxley, but I haven't heard about it in forever.
Not really, I'd say the gearing-up process at 60/70/80 was where I made most of the contacts I would later raid with and where I learned to use all my buttons in the most optimal way. I'm leveling an enhancement Shaman at the moment and as of level 28, it doesn't particularly feel like I'm playing an Enhancement Shaman. I don't have anything like a decent collection of enhancement toys and I'm actually relying more on Elemental stuff for the bulk of my damage.Originally Posted by lostplotman
And Lore, again with the shirts! Gah!
I've found that most of the people I leveled with have fallen off/lost interest/ switched sides. It's the older 80s that I spend more time with now.
Submit lore to What Not to Wear. :P
The game that will kill WoW is going to be the next MMO Blizzard releases, but it will be a slow death. WoWs limitation is that it's old tech, old concept, old hat. It was the best you could do when it first came out, and that fact alone is enough to stunt the growth of new MMOs. With the budget, talent, and experience Blizzard has developed by maintaining WoW their new MMO design team will be able to take all the concepts that Lore mentioned and build them around a new engine, with all the newest bells and whistles, and take that MMO in the direction they want without having to worry about legacy code. The best part about this is that while they can create this game from the ground up they can design it to work alongside WoW. With the new Battle.net infrastructure people will be more willing to give another game a shot since they can still chat with everyone who didn't move over yet. Eventually, a large portion of the player base will migrate and Blizzard gets to corner the market yet again rather than letting it age on and on until someone else sees a moment of weakness and releases something to refresh the community.
There's really no one else in the industry with a name or a franchise to compete with them, possibly excepting Square's MMO in the making. Bethesda can't polish their shoes, let alone a game. They won't be the ones with the #1 prize at the end.
I personaly find that alot of mmo games that come out seem to focus far too much on the PvP side of the game. I have bought quite a few new mmo's when they came out since i started playing wow and all i find is that the game might have a raiding side to it, but it seems that its main goal was purely PvP.
I think a game has to embrace raiding more to be competitive with wow, maybe even dethrone it, otherwise its just going to be another PvP game, a dime a dozen. Raiding is exciting when it comes together nicely, but can also be a total disaster if its half assed. Which no offence to any wow fanatics, i find WoW raiding content massively half assed now a days. For me personaly, i enjoy the epic feel to raiding. The massive structures, the feel that its massive, not just visualy. I loved black temple's feel, it felt big, epic, not simply because it looked huge, it felt huge. Icc it feels like a tiny little dungeon. The only big feeling i have is gunship, but with its lolshipness to it, it kills any epicness i feel.
I think leveling is interesting to some people but an mmo can surely give an option to clear that experience up. Some people like it, some dont. I agree with whoever said up there that i get closer to my characters after max level than while leveling. I think its because you can only really grow your character once its maxed level. While your leveling you get new stuff sure, but whats the point? You will replace it a day or so after. And i always feel like im only asking myself, geez when will i hit 80, not, man what will the next level bring me. Lets face it, leveling is beyond boring. Every level is no different than the next. There are only a handful of quest types, they may have variations of where and what to kill, but in the end, they are all the same.
I always hated accidentally making something terribly, probably my favorite change that blizzard made, and lowering the raid size, 72, to even 40.
overall a nice episode, i liked it.
just one thing you got wrong: eve online was released 2 years before wow, yet you mentioned it only in the post-wow section. other than that: keep up the good work, hope well talk again in 6 months when its 1 year anniversary
Great video release,
One simple fact is the character graphics and the overall gaming experience of WOW is superb compared to the many other MMO releases.. The Blizzard team not only spent time creating a couple of different in game experiences ( leveling, crafting, end-game .. ect ), they also spent alot of time making the game very aesthetically pleasing. That alone for me makes it much more enjoyable to play.
Once again you've outdone yourself with a great Weekly Marmot
Peace
Xtreme
Chimoe
One of the things I thought about for a new MMO was actually a regress back to a more drawn out and fulfilling leveling experience (Think EQ, without the "penalties"). I think a huge percentage of WoW players enjoy leveling very much, as is represented by the vast number of "Alt-o-holics." Beyond that, you have a ton of people who enjoy collecting, whether that be achievements, pets, mounts, etc. While the raider/pvper is the core of WoW, providing direction and purpose for the story line, the [and I use this term free of stigma] "casual" player is what made WoW rocket to the millions of subscribers it has today.
I think the next large player base MMO will focus acutely on PvE, have a much longer leveling experience, and provide more opportunities for collection. I also think that a huge percentage of the content will be solo-play, with no more than 10persons needed to accomplish any task.
Would I necessarily want to play a game like that? I'm not sure, but I think it would be an extremely successful model.
Last edited by Spiritus; 04-25-2010 at 09:27 AM.
Congratulations on half a year! I've been watching and enjoying your shows the whole time. Keep up the good work!
Thank you!
One thing WoW does horribly is help new players use the leveling experience to actually learn the game and their class.
Beyond the great work on all your marmot movies, I want to add one little thing to this one.
To me...someone that has been playing MMO's before even Everquest came out, the genre in a whole is the best gaming genre ever invented.
I kinda wish you would have spoke about or researched MUD's a bit. They were the true start of MMO's and years before everquest, I was raiding/crafting/pvping and everything inbetween. The first real MUD (Adventure) was created in the late 70's. MUD's had all the ideas first as they were created by mostly just regular people and not many companies. Games like everquest and beyond just took what made MUD's successful and put a graphical interface to it. MUD's also eventually ended up using some graphical elements (even before everquest) but it wasn't 3d obviously. Some MUD's have been in stable existence for longer than any 3d MMO you can imagine, and some still hold very wide player bases (for a MUD a few thousand people is HUGE).
TLDR - MUD's were and still are awesome!
This, more or less. The weakness I see in WOW (and why I think their playerbase has plateaued) is that it takes a LOT of investment from the average video game player to get into this game. More and more, you see people who say "yeah I play WOW, but I never made it to max level." In a lot of ways, those people have never played WOW. They've only played like 1/2 to 1/4 of the game. The more expansions (and more levels) released, the more daunting it is for players like this. The improvements to leveling in Cataclysm should really help with this, but more and more, WOW just has a lot of levels and a lot to learn, the game is groaning under its own weight.
Addons are another factor to this game that can be intimidating to new players. There's very few games out there that really allow the amount of player customization that WOW does. I've had friends that are convinced using Addons is tantamount to cheating. When you get down to it, Addons are an important part of what makes WOW...WOW. I think putting more of the functionality of common Addons into the game would really improve it. Then, you don't feel like you have to download some questionable software from some shady website to play the game. Think Equipment manager, for instance. If you need it, its there. However, if you aren't ready for it or don't understand it, you can turn it off. If wow had some built in options to do what Grid, PitBull, PowerAuras, or other common addons did, I think more players could get that addon feel without having to actually use them, while letting those of use who use them to continue to do so.
Learning how to use your class, and how to gear up is also something you can't get by just playing the game. I enjoy roving sites like Tankspot for every tidbit of info I can get on playing my class, but asking players to know about or find websites like Elitist Jerks just to have a chance can be intimidating. Having a community, such as a guild, that can help teach you is great, but it can be hard to figure out on your own. Perhaps Blizzard or another company can figure out a better way to connect the high end online theorycrafting community (which is half the fun of the game for me anymore) with the average leveling/casual playerbase.
The leveling improvements are honestly what I'm looking forward to the most in Cataclysm. I've done the raiding thing. Its awesome, and I'll probably continue to do it in Cataclysm, but you can bet I will level at least one new toon to see how they've improved some (horribly painful, especially considering the BC and Wrath zone design) areas of the old world.
I don't think you're going to see games that focus on soloing being very successful. The coolest part of an MMO is that you play with other people, regularly, and your characters each have unique abilities that allow you to fill different roles in your group. That's what makes MMOs work, imo. Even if its not fantasy style, or class-based, you're not going to have much success if all you've got is a solo game where other players happen to pass by you every once in awhile. The best stuff may not always require a grind, but it will certainly always require teaming up, at least a little.
Sorry to rain on your parade.
Episode 26... The "half year minus a week" anniversary?
Seriously, episode 1 isn't the one-week anniversary, episode 2 is.
Same deal with years - the first episode of the new year celebrates the anniversary, not the last episode of the old year.
And the 26th episode is the last episode of this half year.
(Expect some congratulations from me next week.)
Last edited by Martie; 04-26-2010 at 06:43 AM.
Hey Lore, not sure if you'll read this or not. But I wanted to say there are other MMO's out there currently that you didn't cover in your video. Though it was a great video.
You were a tad wrong on your time lines,
Final Fantasy 11 came out in 2002, and Eve-online came out in 2003. Both games are still thriving, though Eve's player base is only 350k at the moment, it's still one solid persistent universe with no shards, no instance and one giant world. FF11 still has 2 million players and is going strong.
Wow classic was released in 2004...2 years after FF11 and one year after Eve-Online.
So to say these games took something from WoW, or were gimmicks from WoW is wrong. Both of these games had unique concepts and ideas and both came out before WoW. So I only thought that I'd question your statement that these games came out after WoW and only in response to WoW.
They did not.
Now I'm not trying to start anything, though I know flames will come. I'm only trying to say that stating that games came out to compete with WoW and to attempt to mimic WoW when they were released years beforehand is a bit inaccurate.
Much Respect Lore,
Keep up the good vids!
As a fan who came here just to watch the tank videos but now am staying more to watch these weekly marmots, gratz on half a year. I also am a former game developer who gets a lot of the points Lore made but there is so much more to go into when it comes to future MMO game design.
We can go back to Richard Bartle (and kudos for someone else mentioning MUDs as the origins of MMOs) who started it all. He theorized about 4 different types of "people" that would play or enjoy MUDs/MMOs. http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/ScarothIt is also theory that you, as a game player, aren't necessarily just ONE of these types of Bartle players. You could be a Killer/Socializer who likes to get premade battlegrounds groups together. But you still mostly enjoy dominating in PVP. Or an Achiever/Socializer who would be perfect as a hardcore raider.
- Achievers - want to "conquer" the game by gaining XP, leveling, increasing their craft skills, getting better equipment, downing bosses, etc... Their focus is on acting on/against the environment.
- Explorers - want to discover new places and things, learn the lore and backstory, gain knowledge of the world and it's mechanics, find clever exploits, solve puzzles, etc... Their focus is on interacting with the environment.
- Socializers - want to interact with other people through conversation, helping, giving advice, trading, group raids, etc... Their focus is on interacting with other players.
- Killers - want to dominate and/or compete against other players, usually violently. Also tend to enjoy doing whatever they can to generally harass and annoy other players (griefers)
The way WoW succeeded in my mind is that they made the game accessible enough so that people could discover they liked the game experience and then they hooked them by having enough features/content/etc that played to that player's specific likes. So current LK raids are "easy" in the sense that getting together 10 decent people for ICC and downing 4-6 bosses is fairly simple to do, but it also plays to a number of different types of players. The Achievers are obviously there for the "conquering" and the frost gear. Explorers will be there because its new "stuff". Socializers are obviously there because its 9 other people to socialize with. Even the Killers are somewhat there so that they can dominate on the dps charts. All this is possible with an 80 toon and spending a few weeks gearing them out with badge gear. I do agree that it is quite an investment to make for "casuals" but once you have achieved the level cap and once you have invested enough time to getting decently geared, you can play the game however you want to. As people have already said, make getting to that point less of a grind and more fun and you are golden. I got lucky in the sense that I leveled together with my wife and a couple of other friends from another MMO and we all got to 80 in approximately the same time and had fun doing it together.
I'm in a semi-hardcore raiding guild and we generally have a core of people just interested in raiding 2-3 nights a week, but those same people have interests in the game other than raiding. A few do premade BGs. A few have alts out the arse that they like to level. A few will spend time in trade chat crafting for people. A few go on heroic achieve runs. The thing is, there is SO much to do and such a variety that people don't get bored easily and go away because of the rate "new" things come out. In my opinion, if Blizzard continues to keep releasing content and releasing enhancements at the rate they are now, they won't be dethroned anytime soon. People are already thinking about Ruby Sanctum even though so many people haven't even killed the LK yet (myself included). And it can be new raid instances as new "content", but it can also be enhancements like the Random Dungeon finder. Can you imagine if they somehow came up with a reliable system to allow anyone to put together an Ony 10 with cross-realm players at the drop of a hat? Now you just made putting together raids that much simpler. Ok, I realize there is LOADS that would have to be in place for that kind of system to work, but wouldn't you like to just log on, drop yourself into the queue for Ony/OS/ToC, and 15 mins later, your decently geared and experienced raid is assembled and someone with experience leads it on through. Gee, casual raiding much?
And thats just one example of a "pain" in the game that could be done better by either Blizzard or another game that would keep people subscribing. Remove all the "crap" stuff in the game and make it easier to get to the fun parts and you keep winning with players.
Ok, so that changed subjects a couple of times, but the gist of what I wanted to say is there.
I also want to say happy biannual anniversary, and that I believe Final Fantasy introduced something to MMO's such as story lines, but it was still extremely grindy
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