report

I have been invited to Blizzard a few times, been treated well, spoken at length to Blizz people and generally been welcomed with a good heart and friendship. Sure they are in business, but you know what, very few people walk the same path as them, so their attitude to fellow MMO devs from my experience has been very good. Jeff Kaplan also went out of his way to send my boy some really nice WOW swag for his birthday.

Now it may all be a cunning trick, but if it is, its a long running and nice trick.

Paul Barnett

report

It’s not even true if you discount the fact that delivering a polished, working, fun product counts as massively innovative in teh MMO space – there’s hundreds of innovations, big and small in Wow.

You see, is a joke! MMOs are boring fellows! WoW makes them funtimes for all, and is innovative for it!

report

Whats a diku?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIKU
:)
However, a DIKU MUD is a MUD made by students at DIKU. ;)

report

report

It’s not even true if you discount the fact that delivering a polished, working, fun product counts as massively innovative in teh MMO space – there’s hundreds of innovations, big and small in Wow.

Enhancing or streamlining an existing experience is not innovation. Innovation in gaming occurs where someone introduces an entirely new aspect, that impacts upon everything else. Wii controller, that’s innovation. Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2, that’s innovation. Making a better quest delivery system is certainly helpful, but isn’t innovation.

report

report

It’s not even true if you discount the fact that delivering a polished, working, fun product counts as massively innovative in teh MMO space – there’s hundreds of innovations, big and small in Wow.

report

This keeps coming up in my WoW guild “Are you going to try WAR/Conan?” they ask. “No,” replies I, “I don’t play MMOs”.

report

its no wonder they made wow lol.

report

they need new stuff to copy

I agree with cyrenic, you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head there shcraa. There isn’t a great deal of innovation to WoW, in terms of building on what came before, it’s more that Blizzard have made it a much more accessible and polished experience. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that in itself (they’ve made MMOs truly mainstream). I think the problem is that unfortunately because of the unrivaled success of WoW and the depth of the team Blizzard can keep going on the project, it makes the challenge that much greater for anyone else hoping to enter the market place, and capture a profitable market share of the MMO audience. It’s like going head to head with East Enders in the TV ratings. There is a finite audience out there for these games.

I certainly think there’s potential for development in the MMO market, but I don’t think it lies in following the existing MMO model, but instead taking a different direction. One of the big questions I think about with MMOs is, is it entirely necessary for there to be 10,000 other players on this server nowadays? If you created an MMO where each game server housed maybe only 100 players, how much different an experience could it be?

report

report