I think what made WoW so successful was the series of games that led up to it. It had a story. Yeah, it ripped a lot off Warhammer in the beginning, that’s why they are so similar in looks and style. Warhammer has a long, rich storyline; it’s been around for 25 years. Is Warhammer online going to change the face of MMOs? Who knows. They are adding a lot of stuff to the game to make it much more fun than WoW, and future MMOs would be smart to look at it and implement their ideas into their games.

You can’t expect the original to be much different then its ripoff, so WAR won’t be much different than WoW. But in the ways that it is different, it truly shines. WoW players will feel comfortable with it and like it much more than WoW.

report

Then you’re not as involved with the subjects as you might think. That’s what I took from his comment on first reading as it’s what I’ve always thought myself… and I’m glad he clarified it for people who don’t have the history to see the connection, as they’ll be in the vast majority. A similar comment could have been made regarding Chaos League and Blood Bowl…

report

But, and this is where I think Herr Scheisse’s point intersects with mine, Aristotle said “All men by nature desire to know.” That doesn’t mean they do. The paradigmatic rules are there, but they’re not always seen or questioned, nor do people always do their job. When you see a game and already know how it works, it doesn’t cause much wonder, and we let the air horn gather dust in the garage.
That’s true for designers as well as gamers.

report

A scientist engaged in a piece of research, say in physics, can attack his problem straight away. He can go at once to the heart of the matter: to the heart, that is, of an organized structure. For a structure of scientific doctrines is already in existence; and with it, a generally accepted problem-situation; This is why he may leave it to others to fit his contribution into the framework of scientific knowledge.
The philosopher finds himself in a different position. He does not face an organized structure, but rather something resembling a heap of ruins (though perhaps with treasure buried underneath). He cannot appeal to the fact that there is a generally accepted problem-situation; for that there is no such thing is perhaps the one fact which is generally accepted. Indeed it has by now become a recurrent question in philosophical circles whether philosophy will ever get so far as to pose a genuine problem.[...]

Not in all fields does scientific discovery come from idle wonder alone, and the understanding of parts in respect to its place in a bigger frame is the reason why aquiring an insight into the field will change your perspective. And I would argue that while the choice of the general building blocks of a game is somewhat philosophical, the actual execution of the game’s mechanics are a somewhat more closed field where reference to accepted paradigms is common and useful. Of course, there are always new paradigms waiting to be used for gaining a deeper understanding, and what Bartle critizised here was that WAR laid back and tuned the mechanics instead of introducing those.

report

Now that we’ve got this out of the way, consider the passage in dispute:

I’ve already played Warhammer. It was called World of Warcraft. Age of Conan – that’s PVP. Wow, gosh, PVP – it’s pretty hardcore, PVP, isn’t it? No. When you played [older MUDs] you got killed after three months of playing, your character was gone. Yeah, hardcore PVP – yeah, we’re hard, aren’t we? We’re evil. No. You don’t know anything. I might have a look at it from a point of view of seeing what things – the class balances are like, seeing how they’ve implemented the – But there are a number of things you can do with player versus player, and I want to see the way they’ve done it not because whether it’s cool or not but because of you chose that way. Now, why did you choose that way?

That’s a pretty intense stream there to dissect — wonder condescends to spittle and precipitates anacoloutha. You’d really need to see and hear it to figure out if Mr. Bartle is shifting targets between the unwashed masses, ignorant developers and Blizzard’s cloud of unknowing, or if he’s just unloading on one particular target.

What’s objectionable is the implication that design is esoteric and completely separable from appreciation. It isn’t. Design is invisible to most game players, but simply because they don’t start to reflect on it. When they do, their appreciation for the game increases. You don’t need to be a designer to ask “why does the auction house work that way?”

Or, to quote the Philosopher, explaining how one arrives at scientific knowledge, and why wisdom is born of idle wonder:
Metaphysics A:2 (982b11-27)

That it [wisdom] is not a science of production is clear even from the history of the earliest philosophers. For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of Wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they philosophized order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end. And this is confirmed by the facts; for it was when almost all the necessities of life and the things that make for comfort and recreation had been secured, that such knowledge began to be sought. Evidently then we do not seek it for the sake of any other advantage; but as the man is free, we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another’s, so we pursue this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake.

It’s a natural impulse when playing a game, or watching a movie, to ask “how does it work?” And, some act on that inpulse and seek to find out. That I know something about photography, film editing and staging doesn’t make me a filmmaker, but it helps me enjoy films. Likewise, that I know something about game design, and ask of a game many of the same design questions doesn’t make me a designer.

report

Also, MAKE A WILD WEST MMORPG!!!1 DEADLANDS RPG MUST BE MMORPGIZED!!one

report

report

report

That interview took place at a conference for developers of indie MMOs. I was there only because I was a designer.

>I think he sees himself as a French aristocrat circa 1785, throwing breadcrumbs of insight down to the unwashed masses of the gaming community.

Well, you can think whatever you like, but that’s not how I see myself. I’m more like Aristotle trying to get people to look through my telescope but doomed to spend the remainder of my days under house arrest by the Inquisition.

>That’s like saying Versace doesn’t wear clothes

What? Gianni Versace designed clothes for women which he never wore and was never going to wear. If it’s fine for him to do that, why isn’t it fine for MMO designers to create MMOs that they’re not going to play the same way as players?

>The guy seems to radiate “self-important douchebag.”

Read what you wrote, and then consider what you yourself are “radiating”.

Richard

report

Waiting for someone to claim SEKSAE…

report

I completely agree that the MMO is very far from reaching it’s potential. I’m going to say they’re at about 5% right now. Hell, if they can’t get an uber-nerd like me to play, they’re not doing much right.

report

Yet in many ways it felt less special. There were less cool, unexplored things hanging around, less one off unique items, and while the 5 mans were quite a lot better balanced and usually more rewarding, they were also for the most part very short, very linear, and not something you’d re-run once you had whatever item you wanted from them.

I think what the end-game experience is missing is a unique experience. Every player pretty much ends up doing all the same stuff, seeing everything. It’s a triumph of accessibility and polish, but at the expense of atmosphere and experience. Is it actually possible in an MMO to keep a game balanced and fair, and yet offer players their own little unique stories, explorations, fights and cool items, while keeping gameplay balanced, not forcing people to grind for random rewards and not being shouted at by angry internet men? And with all the sites reporting the instant the game gets new content & items, and the proliferation of database sites, how do you go about introducing unique experiences that people get for exploring rather than just having read about it and doing it for shiny epic #1?

report