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Why I’m Not Excited for Blizzard’s Next Big Thing
By Cameron Sorden | June 4, 2008
I’ve been a Blizzard fanboy for as long as I can remember—well before World of Warcraft ever came out I was playing Warcraft 2, Diablo, Diablo II, and even some of their older, more offbeat games like Rock N’ Roll Racing and Blackthorne. It seems like everything they touch turns to pure gold, and I’ve spent thousands of hours of my life gleefully absorbed in their products, breathlessly waiting for their next fantastic effort to come out.
But I’m really not excited for whatever big MMO project they’ve got cooking right now (which they definitely, obviously do). I was just reading Syncaine’s post about the progression of World of Warcraft and theories about what Blizzard plans to do for their next MMOG. Almost everyone thinks it’s going to be set in their wildly popular Starcraft universe (me included). Also, I had read Tobold’s post on WoW’s sustainability the other day and thought that he made excellent points.
If one new class, a few twists on some old quest styles, shared mounts, and the same old dungeon and raiding game bumped up 10 levels is really all that they can offer us, maybe they are saving their good ideas and impressive innovation for their top-secret project. I mean, Wrath of the Lich King sounds great, but it just doesn’t seem like it’s two years worth of expansion—especially after Burning Crusade was so cookie-cutter and uninspired, other than the new races and starting areas. I’ve been running old-world dungeons lately, and the BC stuff doesn’t hold a candle to them in terms of flavor and design.
The problem here is that I’m not particularly interested in Blizzard’s next big thing. I’m sure I’ll play it (if just so I can talk about it), but I’d rather see them pour some real heart and passion back into WoW instead of milking it like the cash cow it’s become. If Blizzard is working on a Starcraft MMO, which is by far the most likely scenario, I just can’t see playing it as much. It would almost certainly be more PvP-oriented than WoW, and I’ve never liked the Starcraft series very much or thought it was nearly as compelling (for me) as the Diablo or Warcraft worlds.
Even if they were making Diablo Online or World of Warcraft 2, however, I don’t think it would be worth it. For one, the WoW players clearly already play and enjoy a medieval fantasy-themed MMOG with Wacraft. Convincing them to leave it for something that would be so similar, even if it was made by Blizzard, would be a really tough sell. I don’t want to start over and do the same kind of stuff as I’ve been doing in WoW for a game with a very similar feel, theme, and design (and since Blizzard definitely has a style, it would be). I’d do it, of course.
But I’d much rather see them start working on improving WoW. I feel like there’s definitely a lesson here from SOE: EverQuest peaked at around 550k players, but despite all its flaws it was still maintaining more than a fourth of that playerbase as late as last year. As their lead mentioned in a recent Massively article, they still continue to get new players, as well. Using the past to predict the future, WoW could still be seeing 2-5 million players seven years from now. They haven’t even leveled out in their growth yet, almost four years after release!
It seems silly to ignore that many players just because they’d rather work on their next project. I’d like to see some real attention lavished on WoW. Do any of these features sound interesting?
- Flying mounts in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms
- New mid-level content to give you some more leveling options
- Dungeons for 1-3 players
- More interesting toys and knickknacks for players
- More mount options
- Vanity options for PvE play (even if it’s just displaying different tiers of class armor you’ve collected)
- Better methods of separating or balancing PvP and PvE play (totally separate tracks for these would fix lots of problems)
- Tank and healer shortage addressed
- Respec costs addressed (there has to be a better money-sink that doesn’t bar fun and experimentation)
But instead, we get mounts you can load another player on, one new class, and ten new levels. Woo. I really hope that their game plan isn’t neglect WoW and milk it for the next game, because there are SO many good and cool things about WoW (still my favorite MMO, by far) that I’d hate to see it relegated to B or C-list priority in development terms.
Blizzard: We love your game. We don’t need something new if it’s going to mess with working on World of Warcraft.
Topics: Random |
June 4th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
If they added all that stuff, heck I’d even come back. I bet all my friends would too and their friends. But Blizzard doesn’t “refresh” their games. I have never ever seen them do that. (not talking about sequels, which use the plot sometimes and refresh everything else, but I am talking about expansions)
June 4th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
That’s not entirely true—Diablo II was tweaked in patches for years after its release. The latest patch included a major re-balancing of the classes and was released in 2005, if I recall correctly.
It seems like there would be more of a reason to “refresh” WoW than any other game as well, since players pay the same amount per month now that they did when the game was released; that’s something that Diablo II can’t even come close to matching.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I’m semi-excited over the expansion. I enjoy leveling and seeing new content, I just can’t stand doing the same dungeons every night for weeks at a time.
When the xpac comes out, I’ll buy it, get right back on top of the gear curve by the second night, and check out all the new talents and spells and stuff. I’ll run all the dungeons once or twice and that’ll be that.
However, if they made a diablo MMO I’d dive in headfirst. AoC is the closest thing we have now to a dark, bloody MMO full of demons and undead, so thats my part-time home for now. But I’d ditch it in a second for a Blizzard made product…
June 4th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
scaleable dungeons please. Make them adapt to the number of people in the party KTHX. seems so simple yet no one does it. I miss Lost Dungeons of Norrath.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:53 am
There won’t be flying mounts in Azeroth, except in Northrend.
They already explained that a lot of the scenery was like an old western town from a movie-set: all facade and nothing behind it.
So flying mounts would expose the ‘fake-ness’ of the world, rather than improve the game experience.
I have to agree with the levelling though. What is the point of having 10 more levels?
The hard core will blast through 10 levels in a week, and the rest of us will catch them up in a month or two, worried that we are falling behind and rushing more than we want to. Then we will be back at the level cap again.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:06 am
I totally agree. I’ve lately come to realize that Blizz has moved on and WoW is about as good as it’s going to get- maybe a few improvements from WoTLK, but nothing that the players really want to see changed.
Sure, I’ll buy it and play the new levels and new content, but I won’t be sticking around long after that like I have since BC launched. I’m hoping WAR will have something decent to offer us by that time.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
1-3 man dungeons (with rep and badges) would be nice.
Shared talents (BoP) per account not character. I should be able to make that belt for my other characters.
Shated rep per account. Some small quantity should go to my characters at equal level.
A “Dungeon Runners” feature I want VERY much. “Teleport to friend.” In DR, it can be done endlessly. In WoW, I’d settle for it on a cooldown.
And lastly, to steal a crafting idea from Warhammer Online… When I diss the item i get the dust AND the enchant back. The enchant can be placed on another item.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
However, if they made a diablo MMO I’d dive in headfirst. AoC is the closest thing we have now to a dark, bloody MMO full of demons and undead, so thats my part-time home for now. But I’d ditch it in a second for a Blizzard made product…
I completely agree on this point, and this is the only point I disagree with Cameron on. There is a huge difference in the art style and feel between Warcraft and Diablo. I just can’t see how a Diablo-themed MMO would be like WoW from an art standpoint. The only thing I could see that would carry over might be skills and spells, as WoW actually borrowed quite a few from D2.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:19 am
For the record I was one of the first people to speculate that Blizzard is purposely holding back improvements to WoW. In my blog article dated April 18. 2008 entitled “Is World of Warcraft 2 in the Works?” I stated the following:
http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=113
I believe the reason that Blizzard has refused to improve the feature set of WoW is because they are saving these innovations for WoW2. Character graphics remain ugly and unimproved. Guild halls have not been implemented. Player housing has not been implemented. Chracter emotes and sound in general remain unimproved. Positional sound for NPC’s is not even implemented./
June 11th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Wouldn’t surprise me either if they’re holding back. Or at least, quietly diverting ideas and marking them for (x) future project instead of WoW.
When you think about it: Lich King is (or should be) feature-locked already. So whatever massive new idea they could add would have to wait until the next xpac, which would be what… 2009? 2010?
Assuming they have started working on (x) quietly last year, or even earlier this year, 2009/10 puts them square in the middle of the dev cycle for (x). That’s the time where you put in those new features. It’s not outlandish to think those new huge ideas have already been earmarked for (x) and will not make it to WoW, simply because it does not make sense from a future business standpoint to put them in WoW.
It’s much better for them to announce “This is (x), look at all its new groundbreaking features” than to say “This is (x), where we put all the features you already saw in that WoW xpac”. Way to steal their own thunder there.
June 16th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
1-3 man dungeons (with rep and badges) would be nice.
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this is not the way to go, why? dumbing down a game to make up for player laziness is not the answer.
sorry, dont give the the casual sob story, I AM the epidom of casual, i play every morning 1 hour before work, and MAYBE 2 hrs a night at most, and go soemtimes for days without plying due to real life, and so far I have been able to experience everything I can in game, am in t5 eqivelant gear and have done all content up to hyjal/ bt, and even that is now possible to me in the future.
thats the problem, imho , the dumbing down of games like these is in a way paying homage to the less smart,motivated types that once typified this genre.
All the boards, on any mmorpg platform out there nowdays all are the same….
“this is too hard, make that easier, how come that class is better than me, why cant we all be the same, yadda yadda yadda.”
I dont know bout you guys, but I play games for the challenge, the adventure, and the fun.
if you take the challenge out of any game, it is bound to fail in the end. Gmae balance? bah, game balance is the cry of those that cannot adapt.
as for the topic, yes WoW is now the cash cow, to hold blizz up while they work on their next ” groundbreaking game”
if only that groundbreaking idea would be not to cater to fools, id sign up in a heartbeat, but i am not holding my breath.
June 16th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
“I dont know bout you guys, but I play games for the challenge, the adventure, and the fun.”
That’s fine, but I don’t think ease necessarily equals dumb. I think anything that eases the barriers of entry to your game’s content for as many of your players as possible is a good move.
If making things easier is making them dumb, then what are you saying? Automatic transmissions in cars are dumb? Microwave ovens? Email instead of snail mail is dumb?
Those are silly extreme examples, but you’ll find some in WoW itself. Wanna go back to the zillion attunements game to have the priviledge of seeing some content? Go back to having to wait 5-20 minutes for groupmates to make it to your instance because they can’t be summoned? Wanna do away with soul pouches and have to move your shards manually inside the bags? No direct flights to some flight masters, depending on where you are?
Don’t confuse complication with complexity. Complexity is good. We need more complexity in games. But complication is bad, and making things easier gets rid of complication, not necessarily complexity.