By Jim Rossignol on November 13th, 2008 at 11:10 am.
VG247 got a chance to talk to Blizzard COO Paul Sams ahead of last night’s Lich King launch. All standard product-waxing was there, and Sams even made a few mutterings in the direction of their new MMO, which has been in the first stages of production for quite some time now. “We want to create a great game,” he said. “Something that’s cool, and new, and different, and kind of next generation in terms of look and feel and gameplay. That’s a challenging endeavour.”
No word on schedule yet, as the Blizzard team still aren’t 100% sure of this “new” direction: “We want to have a level of confidence that the direction we’re going in the right one, and that it’s polished enough to be able to show something, also. And we’re not in either of those places yet.”
It’s worth remembering that WoW was seen as a huge risk when it was originally in development. Any number of pundits predicted that it would break the company, that it was even – gasp! – too radical to really be a major success. Now of course we see it as a pillar of establishment commercial gaming, but it’s worth remembering that Blizzard took a big risk before, and now have more than enough money to do it again. So, speculation hat on folks: What will a second Blizzard MMO be like? And if you can bare to drop your Robes of Cynicism +5 for a moment, what should it be like in an ideal world? I think I’ve talked too much about this in the past, so let’s open up the floor, and some brains…
13/11/2008 at 11:19 Fede says:
As many have already said, it would be nice if it was something with a persistent world. That alone would make it much more interesting, as it allows players to generate their own content when they get tired of quests and so on (for they will, sooner or later).
Another thing that could be interesting would be allowing players to create their own unique NPCs.
As for the setting and kind of game, probably anything could do, be it RPG, RTS or FPS. I’d like to see Blizzard making a TBS, but I’m sure this won’t be the case.
13/11/2008 at 11:39 phuzz says:
I love Eve’s single universe, I find it really hard to get my head round all the other MMOs that have separate servers.
(I’m assuming though, that being from Blizzard any new game won’t have Eve’s vertical difficulty curve).
More opportunity to customise your character as well would be nice, in WoW everyone looks the same because they all go for the same gear, so more unique gear would be cool.
dunno why I commented though, I hate people so I don’t do MMOs
13/11/2008 at 11:43 Homunculus says:
I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it ad nauseum: a better Planetside in the Starcraft setting boasting Blizzard’s trademark polish, please.
13/11/2008 at 11:44 Bobsy says:
I was about to sneer at how they’d just managed to tell us NO new information… but I think it’s actually more interesting than that. Blizzard are going in new and exciting directions… and it’s put the willies up them!
For a company who have for over a decade made their name by rehashing other people’s work with an incomparable level of polish, this is actually rather chin-strokingly intriguing.
13/11/2008 at 11:51 Gap Gen says:
I didn’t think Activision did new and different any more.
I think something new that no-one has done before would be a kind of fantasy setting with new and exciting creatures like elves and orcs, and you have to run around killing monsters to pick up new kit and become more experienced. I think it’d work quite well.
13/11/2008 at 11:52 BarkingDog says:
Well, I’m a sick, sick person so I would like it to be like WoW without all the things that I personally don’t like about it. Like grinding and pickups. And arena requirements on pvp things and… well you get the picture. If I weren’t such an addict though I’d want Blizzard to live up to their own pre-hype and come up with something so revolutionary that I couldn’t have thought of it at this stage anyway.
However, if it’s Starcraft I wouldn’t be too crushed.
If it’s Lost Vikings in Space I will burn them to the ground. :D
13/11/2008 at 11:52 Meat Circus says:
How much does he want to bet that it will be neither NEW nor DIFFERENT?
Blizzard being a company largely famed for not doing either.
13/11/2008 at 11:53 Lu-Tze says:
World of Starcraft the “action RPG” MMO.
Obvious, but someone had to say it.
And then Mythic will follow up with Warhammer 40k Online 5 years later.
For something revolutionary, lets push the boat out and assume they’ll go for massive massive battles like EVE and have the game focus on huge numbers rather than huge dragons. That’d be genuinely interesting.
13/11/2008 at 12:09 Heliocentric says:
Hello kitty online, of warcraft. Targeted at bridging the 14 year old boy and 8 year old girl markets.
13/11/2008 at 12:18 Gap Gen says:
One thing you could do with a Starcraft FPS would be to have a kind of Left 4 Dead aspect, so the Protoss and Terran individuals are powerful, with the Zerg less so but each Zerg player gets a mini-swarm. A base-building aspect might also be interesting, with Terrans able to construct bunkers or turrets in the field, or Protoss able to warp in robot assistance.
13/11/2008 at 12:18 Dan Harris says:
Bear to.
That is all.
13/11/2008 at 12:23 AndrewC says:
Persistant, player-changeable world for me!
Even better though – a persistant meta-world. As most MMO’s can fit in a small corner on WOW, they should be put in a small corner of WOW. A world in which you move between the various MMO’s you are a part of, doing meta-quests within their framework to create a transcendant, aggregate avatar.
I can forsee no problems with making this happen.
13/11/2008 at 12:27 Nik Daum says:
I would love a combination of Gary’s Mod and Warcraft somehow, but without the monthly fee.
13/11/2008 at 12:34 Nuyan says:
Sorry, can’t drop my Robes of Cynicism as they are soulbounded….
What I’d like is a true open sandbox world, where players can decide in what direction they’ll go without a carrot-on-a-stick in front of them. Where players can build up their own places and items and where players provide each othe r with consequences. It’s the future of MMOs anyway, a MMO where there’s a strong framework for players to create their own content is superior to anything else. Its technically possible and should be able to become popular as well, although it does require a change in mindset of the current average MMO player and may not be an instant success moneywise.
But I don’t see Blizzard doing that. The furthest thing they might go for innovation wise is a MMO in first-person perspective, perhaps a MMOFPS shooter. They’ll progress a bit on their copied RPG concepts a bit, implement achievement stuff correctly and generally make better carrots to place on their stick.
13/11/2008 at 12:34 Okami says:
I hope the game will be based on a completely new IP.
Which will of course not happen. I guess it will be a Starcraft MMO based upon the events in the three new Starcraft RTS games. And I guess that the three new RTSs will change the universe in pretty much the same way Warcraft 3 and The Frozen Throne changed the Warcraft universe to pave the way for WoW.
I also like the way Gap Gen thinks: A Starcraft MMO with a few strategic and tactical elements thrown in could be cool. There have been a few MMOs that have tried to combine RTS and MMO mechanics but usually they sucked. If anyone could pull such a thing of, it should be Blizzard.
Concerning the Left 4 Dead influence: I’d really love to see a concept like the AI director incorporated into an MMO, in order to bring a more narrative element to the gameplay.
So instead of a set ammount of scripted quests that advance the story of each individual player, have a rough story arch for the whole game, that’s planned to play out over large stretches of time. And have an AI games master respond to the combined actions of all the players on a server.
Think along the lines of WAR, but with the AI playing the enemy faction and all the players allied against it. There’s a huge war going on, with players able to capture and loose territory and the AI responding accordingly.
Results of key actions and key quests could take the story of one server into a different direction than the story on another server.
Well, I guess that’s never going to happen..
13/11/2008 at 12:37 Jesucristo says:
Blizzard making an innovative game? ¡LOL!
13/11/2008 at 12:40 Super Bladesman says:
Open up the floor, and some brains?
It’s going to be a zombie MMO? Braaaaaaiinnnssss!
13/11/2008 at 12:43 Kadmon says:
@ Dan Harris. Schoolboy error there, old chap. Notice the pun on ‘bare’ and ‘Robes of Cynicism’? I chuckled a little, anyway…
13/11/2008 at 13:02 Steve says:
Next-gen gameplay? Blizzard don’t seem to be capable of moving past EverQuest, so I doubt it’ll be anything spectacularly different from the awful WoW and its endless grinding.
13/11/2008 at 13:06 Thirith says:
I don’t think I’ll ever get the visceral hatred that WoW elicits. Obviously Blizzard is keeping a very large audience happy – personally I didn’t get much enjoyment out of the one or two days of WoW that I played, but I don’t understand why some people need to rant and rail at the game just because they don’t like it. (I understand even less why people who have spent months and even years playing the game then need to rant and rail. Obviously you enjoyed playing the game for a good long time…)
13/11/2008 at 13:14 Heliocentric says:
Think of something you dont like, that other people do.
Now imagine you are on the internet, and angry.
“People are wrong or you are wrong” (binary nature of the internet)
“People who are wrong are stupid”
“I am not stupid, your stupid”
This is no different for ex players, however. The people who compain and play it have not realised that they are the stupids.
This goes for most mindless hatred.
13/11/2008 at 13:16 Fede says:
> Oops!
> It feels deathly cold!
> Everyone feels the Robe of Cynicism (+125) they are wearing (n) are cursed.
13/11/2008 at 13:19 Heliocentric says:
I hate that… No lower case email address, no mini dark one.
Wow i judge from wower friends and experience in Guild Wars, I dont want to play a carrot and stick game. And wow has the stick of failure and punishment (cash lost, gold lost when you die) with the carrot of being like everyone else and playing multiplayer skirmish concepts.
I can get that same carrot faster in other games without the stick of such magnitude. I’d take that stick for a better carrot however.
13/11/2008 at 13:22 Gladman says:
I don’t think Blizzard remember how to create new things.
13/11/2008 at 13:45 Downloads_Plz says:
I mean this as somewhat of a rhetorical question, but why SHOULD Blizzard create new things, at least on a regular basis?
They’ve created three IP’s that have worked well for them in Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo. And in the last 13 years, the only games they’ve made have been from those franchises. And people still want more of them!
When SC2 was announced, a lot of people were extremely happy, and it will be huge.
When D3 was announced, a lot of people were extremely happy, and it will also be huge.
And even when Wrath of the Lich King was announced, a lot of people were extremely happy, and by the end of the week or so it probably will have sold about 10 million copies.
You can give them all the shit you want about not creating new franchises, but really, why should they when the ones that they have created are still doing ridiculously well?
That said though, I believe the new MMO actually will be a new franchise, a lot of people will be extremely happy, and it will be huge.
13/11/2008 at 13:50 cyrenic says:
Smaller server shards (population wise, not necessarily world size) with more impact for player actions. Say, small enough that everyone could be at the same place for a major event and it wouldn’t crash the server. This would also make a tighter community, fostering both alliances and rivalries. Make the server structure more flexible so that friends can play with each other easily (i.e. no fees) even if they didn’t start on the same server.
Multiple viable ways to advance your character, including PvE, PvP, and exploring.
Some sort of variation in the content. If it’s a Starcraft MMO, (which is extremely likely) make really good tools that allow a single developer create a planet in a week.
Drop the monthly fee. If they think their numbers are big now, dropping the monthly fee would make the current numbers look small. I think with that many people advertising when starting the game up or loading a new area could make up for the monthly fee.
13/11/2008 at 13:50 man alive says:
Said this before, I think. Same old stuff gameplay-wise but tied into social networking, web games, etc.
What I actually want from them is singleplayer WoW. Massively increase XP gain rate so you don’t have to grind and can skip all the fetch-10-skins quests, let you have AI companions. No monthly fee (which is why they won’t do it). Wowblivion would be neat, I want to check the world out but don’t want to play an MMO.
13/11/2008 at 14:08 tom@nullpointer.co.uk says:
BRAiiiinnnnzzz,
speaking of what happened to kojimas zombie mmo?
13/11/2008 at 14:08 AlexW says:
Do the goddamn EVE formula. Blizzard have enough cash to get a unified game world up and running, and Lord knows people would jump at the chance to be able to meet anyone that plays the game without “Oops, I’m on a different server” troubles. With hefty differences from EVE, of course – in that respect, World of Starcraft would be a good thing.
That, or a non-subscription MMO. Either one’s good, and would genuinely constitute new ground for Blizzard.
13/11/2008 at 14:15 shon says:
I think what make Blizzard so successful is that they do familiar old things very very well. I have a hard time believing they will branch out into some of the theoretical new gameplays mentioned here.
Having said that, I think the only thing you can be sure of is that it will be in a science fiction or modern setting just so they don’t infringe on WoW. I am betting on a more accessible to new players version of EVE.
13/11/2008 at 14:19 AndrewC says:
Cyrenic: have the gold farmers pay to advertise on in-game billboards.
13/11/2008 at 14:20 Erik says:
To me, the most interesting books written are the ones that’s not about commercial success, they’re not written to appeal to as many people as possible. This goes for music as well. Sadly, this is almost non-existant when it comes to games, and especially MMOs, that might have a great deal to do with the huge investment involved and the need to see good return on the investment. Probably. No one is willing to take risks, Blizzard calling WoW or any other new MMO they decide to make a risk, that’s a joke.
I’ve tried almost every MMO, and basically they all feel very much the same. It’s all about progress in a way that’s to me tedious. Give me an interesting MMO, or even MMORPG, that has no levels and no currency, that might be the day I decide to try another MMO.
The reason I love singleplayer RPGs, isn’t about the character’s progress when it comes to levels/XP or items. It’s about the character’s progress as a person, it’s about the journey, the choices made and the ability to change a world, different paths to be taken. You can’t change the world in an MMORPG because developers are under the impression that the game has to be the same for everyone, that everyone should be able to do the same things. That if you start playing on a server that’s two months old, a city that was filled with quests, can’t be gone because some other player destroyed it. To me that’s just very safe and very boring.
13/11/2008 at 14:22 Dan Harris says:
@ Kadmon:
I did notice, but my Grammatical Pedant filter has much stricter settings than my Weak Pun filter.
Anyway, on topic, I want:
- all players in the same world;
- world actually changes when people do things, so two players starting playing a year apart will have genuinely different gaming experiences;
- guns;
- dragons;
- sports mini-games well-developed enough that I could have a character solely devoted to being a professional GunDragonBall player, until my stadium is permanently destroyed by some other players on a quest at which point I get very angry and start playing the game ‘properly’ to exact revenge;
- airships from which to fight dragons;
- cake.
13/11/2008 at 14:26 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:
They are going to make a sequel to Tibia.
13/11/2008 at 14:35 TooNu says:
Look at Blizzards past and tell me what has been “different” asides from the obvious Warcraft/Diablo = swords and magic. Starcraft = Guns and space.
So how can it be different? it has to be some FPS MMO and even then why pay a monthly fee if TF2, COD4, BF, CS and many other FPS games are free (after initial purchase).
Even RTS games are free to play online. Diablo is free to play online. HOW CAN BLIZZARD MAKE A DIFFERENT MMO??????? THEY CAN’T.
13/11/2008 at 15:18 Dave says:
TooNu, the lack of imagination in that post makes me sad.
Blizzard isn’t really known for innovation, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing they can do now that’s not an MMOFPS.
Maybe it’s going to be massively multiplayer World of Goo, or massively multiplayer Solitaire, or… who knows? :P
13/11/2008 at 15:24 Gap Gen says:
Dan Harris: “airships from which to fight dragons”
If the airships are filled with hydrogen, that is going to be a short fight.
13/11/2008 at 15:25 phil says:
Based on what’s been on the bleeding edge of radical technical innovation, the championing of new media and the fearless exploration of the limits of human/technology interface since the internet’s inception, how about a porn centred mmo?
No? Then how about one where high level characters can link themselves together, voltron like, into uber stompy creatures, capable of tearing hole in the game world itself and then using them to storm from server to server, serving as big bads or patrons to newbies. Personally I like the porn idea better, though the scoring for PvP could be problematic.
13/11/2008 at 15:25 Ian says:
World of Diplomacycraft.
You choose a mixed race citizen of Azeroth (human/orc, gnome/tauren, that sort of thing) and act as a go-between for the various faction leaders, and eventually go on a mission of peace to the Lich King himself!
13/11/2008 at 15:56 phuzz says:
A good (fiction) book about the possible future of mmos (including AndrewC’s idea of moving between mmos) try Halting State by Charlie Stross. Loads of interesting ideas, especially for this audience.
13/11/2008 at 15:58 Gorgeras says:
I don’t expect the next Blizzard MMO will be much of a change. It will be yet another game promoted and sold entirely on the premise of PvP and player factional warfare in the two years leading up to release following the official announcement. Then within the first month after release, disappointment as it’s yet another Everquest clone.
I suspect EVE will be the only MMO that gives players any real freedom forever, even if it has become dissolved of late due to horribly ill-concieved changes in favour of PvE mission grinds.
13/11/2008 at 15:58 Arnulf says:
Hmmm.
I’m still strongly convinced that it will be a game set in the Starcraft universe. I’m thinking about the situation when WOW was announced back then. The exact details escape me. I’m terrible at keeping correct dates and such. But I seem to remember that Warcraft III, which took ages to complete, was still not released but almost there. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction was dominating the scene.
Warcraft Adventures was ditched for some time then — correct me if I’m wrong here. The parallel to Starcraft is too tempting. SC2 is just over the horizon. Starcraft Ghost was scrapped, sadly. It must be a Starcraft MMO.
Now, if we knew what visionary figureheads were joining Blizzard in the last five years, like Rob Pardo and Jeff Kaplan back then, we could guess what kind of MMO they’re developing. I’m still with a Tabula Rasa/Planetside kind of game. Probably it will be mostly PVE, but also feature a strong PVP element.
Am I totally off here? With that all said I deem Blizzard too predictable. We don’t know all variables yet. Blizzard can be secretive. And successfully so. That they were able to hide this project at all. Although I don’t know for how long they were working on this. One year? Two years? They came out with WC3 after just one year. And I thought back then one year is a long, long time. They should be ready any time now. I was wrong of course.
What I would like to see, is an MMO where I could talk with my guildmates when I’m outside the game, too. Like over IRC or via SMS with my mobile phone. Also, the game should be multi-platform: Wii, XB360, PS3, what-have-you. Not only PC. Market information (auction house etc.) should be available from the outside too. If there is some kind of territory, results of the PVP element, it should be also accessible from the outside. Think the WOW armoury stretched over all aspects of the world, or universe.
Well, that’s my take on this.
13/11/2008 at 16:48 fulis says:
Who cares
It’s going to be grind based anyway
13/11/2008 at 17:12 Gorgeras says:
All it would take to remove the grind is a properly implimented economy. EVE used to have something like this before PvE missions became so lucrative and miners got shafted.
With WoW, I thought in 2004 that we could capture mines and lumber mills and NPCs would work them, giving all players of the owning race materials and cash. What are friggin disappointment it was when it got announced that the trade skills got dumbed down. I knew then that there wasn’t going to be a viable economy in WoW.
13/11/2008 at 17:13 mujadaddy says:
Pff. Try Robes of Cynicism minus Five.
13/11/2008 at 17:21 Gap Gen says:
How about they sell cocaine for £25 and then £9 for a monthly “subscription”. Cheap and effective.
13/11/2008 at 17:34 Jahkaivah says:
“New and Differant”? From Blizzard? Surely they mean “Old, but remarkebly well polished”? :P
13/11/2008 at 17:38 Capon says:
I do like the rhetoric of innovation that Blizzard are giving their new MMO. I say rhetoric, since I do think they’re going to go on a safer route in practice, only because MMOs are a very big investment…. they have to be able to pay themselves off, and get a steady growth of player population over a 5+ year span of time.
One aspect in the game I do hope they be innovative is in their playtesting development stage of production. I know Valve does plenty of this, and it looks that Blizzard has caught on (Korean Starcraft league players alpha testing it). When this style of game testing in brought in, then more weirder and controversial ideas can be developed for the game.
One idea that could have been play tested is Gorgeras’ idea with an NPC driven mining and logging industry. Maybe it was tested back when WoW was still in development back in 2004. But if it wasn’t, and it was panned out due to risk and staying in their comfort zone, then that would be a shame. Play testing could have tried out that idea, and seeing real results on it’s effects on the game economy.
13/11/2008 at 17:51 R. says:
I guess I’ll ignore the several statements that Blizzard have made in the last 6 months about their new MMO being IN A COMPLETELY NEW AND ORIGINAL SETTING NOT TIED TO THEIR BIG THREE FRANCHISES as it seems just about everyone else seems to be in blissful ignorance about that little point. Oh and it’s somewhat funny to see several people scream and demand something new and untried while in the same paragraph begging them to follow the Eve formula.
Jesus Marimba, just when I thought my opinion of my fellow gamers couldn’t get any lower, I read rubbish like a good 75% of the posts about this entail. At least try and establish some facts before complaining about it being Starcraft Online or whatever else nonsense some of you are projecting from your own personal prejudices.
13/11/2008 at 18:16 perilisk says:
Lost Vikings Online.
13/11/2008 at 18:28 cyrenic says:
@R.
Can you link sources, please?
13/11/2008 at 18:28 TheDeadlyShoe says:
i remember when WoW was announced, it was going to be new and different… he he he.
13/11/2008 at 18:48 Gorgeras says:
EVE’s formula is new; even EVE doesn’t use EVE’s formula, but largely due to an overwhelming amount of non-EVE formula content distracting from it. CCP don’t seem to be paying attention to fact that even 0.0 space where there is no law is safer than low-sec space, where there is law but no enforcement; which is good if you’re a criminal but not if you’re any other kind of player.
It’s shameful that the artistically compromised WoW has become a cultural phenomenom but EVE has not, instead relying on being the most loved alternative. Mythic unfortunately failed to keep to what Paul Barnett described as “If you try to be the Beatles, you’ll end up being the Monkees. We’re trying to be Led Zepplin” because EVE already was the Led Zepplin. You would have thought if they were seriously trying to be alternative to WoW, they would have made Warhammer more like EVE. Instead we got more of WoW: instances, grinds, little actual war. WAR is now officially the Monkees.
I’m slowly starting to go off MMOs completely. I don’t understand why developers can repeatedly get it wrong and fail to exploit the most promising types of gameplay that would benefit from a persistent massively-multiplayer world. Instead we get types of gameplay that belong in either single-player or ordinary multi-player games.
Why do instanced PvP when Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2 do it better?
Why do quests when The Elder Scrolls and The Legend of Zelda do it better?
Why do team-based dungeon-crawls when Diablo 2, Baldur’s Gate and the Left4Dead demo do it WAY better?
The one gameplay type that actually depends on an MMO infrastructure is competitive, player-VS-player, faction-VS-faction sandboxing. Almost no modern MMOs have attempted this and EVE sought of had it spoiled by excessive protection that gave me as a new player back in 2005 the false impression that losing a ship or being pod-killed was the end of everything. The system security mechanic probably gives many others the same false impression too.
13/11/2008 at 18:48 Tei says:
I don’t really like the Blizzard games, but I think will deliver something “original” with some real impresive quality, and thats whats the world really need.
¡Good luck Blizzard!.
13/11/2008 at 19:18 Nuyan says:
Completely agreed with Gorgeras. Even EVE doesn’t always fully follow its own unique formula, at least most content that’s been added in 2008 hasn’t (although, the new stuff has been mostly welcome).
Gah, how I long for a well-done pure sandbox MMO made with a big budget…
By the way Gorgaras.. Have you ever played WoW? I don’t know why, but I fondly remember an orc with that name on my old server (Defias Brotherhood), which must have been several years ago already.
13/11/2008 at 19:44 Jahkaivah says:
100% agree with Gorgaras
My analogy of EvE is to imagine someone inventing the wheel back when the wheel wasn’t invented, but also inventing the machine gun at the same time and operted so the machine gun (which doesn’t need to reload) would randomly fire bullets when you tried to use the wheel.
Bloody bloody mess, and you problably wouldn’t want it like that but for crying out loud, THE WHEEL WAS A GOOD IDEA.
13/11/2008 at 20:08 Gorgeras says:
Everyone secretly 100% agrees with me, but only because the alternative to my absurd version of events is something far more terrible.
I was Gorgeras on Defias Brotherhood, yes. That was one of three versions of him I played as, all were Shaman. The Gorgeras on Hellscream is not me and I’ve always been annoyed that apparently some GM saw fit to make my name no longer unique when this pleb had a naming violation.
I quit WoW after the slowest creeping of disillusionment in history, only staying so long because I’d miss my friends there so much. The PvP-fest it was sold as between 2003-2005 never happened and significant changes were made to the game in the first six months to disguise the heavy PvP-ness of it that almost everyone else seems to have forgotten.
Those same people laugh at me when I tell them Warlock’s were once a Hybrid class and along with Priests they were intended to be able to do decent melee DPS. Before ridiculous Everquest-inspired design was introduced, they were actually quite good at it too thanks to the plentiful cloth items with Strength and Agility stats.
13/11/2008 at 20:29 TooNu says:
It can’t be different, what else can an MMO be???
It will have either A) Swords and magic or B) Guns and tech or C) A Mix of both.
It will NOT be the standard MMO 3rd person walk around a magical/alternate world.
It is not going to be an MMO puzzle game.
It is not going to be MMO World of Goo.
It is not going to be different or original. There are hundreds of games for every genre and all the good quality ones are MMO allready. There are bad quality ones also and there are indy games also.
I can’t imagine MMO N or MMO Desktop Tower Defence working to be honest…or MMO Solitaire.
So this leaves FPS. When I am right, you can buy me a beer.
13/11/2008 at 20:37 Jon says:
I want more guild interaction. In WoW, a guild is basically just a group for raiding and Guild Banks were a pain in the ass to manage. I want to see more management tools regarding community aspects of the game. I buy MMORPGs to play with people online (my buddies in RL and ones I meet online). I dont buy it to grind by myself. I think the focus should be on community and group play. It is something that until GoW2 and L4D recently came out, console era was strugglin bigtime with my passion of sharing my game experience and play with someone. Anyhow, Blizz makes great games, and I will continue to buy them. I can argue, dare to be great and make another Title that is just outta nowhere and is a huge success. Or I can argue, if it aint broke, dont fix it. What you have is raking in 100+ million a month. Im no mathematician here but god that is insane.
I bitch piss and moan about dumb stuff all the time in a game. It is because i care and enjoy it so much. If you dont get people getting pissy about small things, then start to worry about the shit franchise you just made.
13/11/2008 at 20:57 Nuyan says:
Hah. So it really is the dirty cigar-smoking orc that also gave a very cool speech during the huge War Council meeting in the Gurubashi Arena (among the most impressive events in WoW ever, I’m sure), I think I still have a screenshot of you standing there somewhere. Anyway, I was one of those Second Gurubashi Empire trolls and actually ended up as guildmaster of that guild for over a year or so. Ah well, happy I left WoW though. :)
Small world.
(sorry for offtopic chatter)
13/11/2008 at 22:24 Lacobus says:
Things Blizzard’ll need to do capture the ‘serious-gamer-but-thinks-MMO’s-are-shit market’ (in which I include myself)
1) No grind. I REALLY hate levelling up.
2) No grind. How can people enjoy this? I’d settle for less grind, or better yet, grind hidden by all the amazing fun you’re having.
3)Nothing with war or age in the title. In fact, no swords ‘n’ sourcery or far future interstellar space travel, period. Its been done to death and is B o r i n g. New idea maybe?
4) Real time combat, really, this is must. I want to click mouse-left to fire or punch or whatever, not use a menu system.
5) I know, get rid of combat all together, most games with combat in are really just excuses for teenage boys to vent any feeling of latent homosexuality anyway. Gears of War exists for this reason alone. In fact you know what? Fuck it. MMO’s will always be shit. I’m gonna go play World of Goo and PicPic (thanks Mr Walker!).
14/11/2008 at 03:24 Erlam says:
“this is actually rather chin-strokingly intriguing.”
Holy crap, I was ACTUALLY stroking my chin when I read it too, hahaha.
I’d really, really love an FPS MMO based on Starcraft. In fact, the.. err… fact it hasn’t been done is insane. Come on, who WOULDN’T play that?
14/11/2008 at 03:30 Erlam says:
Oh, and kudos to the ADOM reference above!
14/11/2008 at 17:34 Andy Kay says:
New and different? my arse.
(yes, my arse is new and different, at least as much as any Blizzard MMO will ever be!)
14/11/2008 at 19:31 Nick says:
Your arse is well polished?
15/11/2008 at 02:34 Conquests.of. says:
I hope it’s World of Starhammer. Online. Craft.
of Duty.
15/11/2008 at 22:11 Visi says:
A game where the players built it as they went along always sounded like an awesome idea in my head…
Start out as a forest or whatever, players wear roads as lots of players pass over a point, cities would spring up at key areas…. It probably couldn’t be done, but I can fantasize.
19/11/2008 at 10:52 Dathelon says:
Evolving armor and weapons would be nice. That way everyone’s not just a copy of their neighbor and gives character types and abilities more customability. Oooh, and creating your own character type instead of getting a list of what you can be.
20/11/2008 at 23:13 Ben says:
There are a lot of ideas from old MMOs that I’d love to see back. Asheron’s Call 2 had some amazing features similar to what people have mentioned: A dynamic world, one that evolved depending on the players. For example, each town started out in shambles, but depending on the population of players hanging out in that town, it regrew and started having quests and NPCs to interact with. Also, the forge, required for crafting, was fueled specifically by the players. They would have to harvest resources from around the world to fuel the forge so people could craft and rebuild.
Unfortunately Asheron’s Call 2 was shipped so unfinished I considered it pre-beta. It was an amazing world though.
Then there’s the Saga of Ryzom, which is a great game I only played briefly. You basically earned spell modifiers instead of full blown spells. So you could create an entirely customizable spell depending on the situation and your play style (do you want “long range, big damage and costs lots of mana” or “short range, weak damage, but essentially free”) … I found that system to be incredibly innovative.
Then there’s Planetside, which I still have a hankering to bust out at times. One of the best MMO games ever, if it weren’t for the lag and how unbalanced things can get. I loved that it was an FPS though and it was all PvP on a global scale.
There are a lot of fantastic ideas out there that failed for many reasons… I only hope that Blizzard gathers them up and polishes the hell out of them to create a truly fun game. I don’t care if it’s “unique” or “innovative”… I want something that’s fun to play and always evolving.
22/12/2008 at 03:04 Chris says:
If Blizzard will be creating anything, lets hope to the heavens that they aim to actually attract MMO veterans who have scorned them ever since they’ve released this pinnacle of a treadmill game called WoW. Let’s hope that Blizzard releases a game where REAL skill is needed. Let’s hope that they create a World Simulator, something akin to Ultima Online BEFORE Trammel ruined it. Let’s hope that they create something serious to compete with Darkfall or Mortal Online(both games I can’t wait to play). I want to join a world, not a “game”. I’ve had enough of the same garbage being spat out by this industry EQ, AO, WoW, AoC, WAR ect ect…. Blizzard has the power to turn this entire industry around and go back to MMORPG roots, go back to the times where players shaped the environment in a seamless world without instances instead of the devs shaping the world for the player. I hope Blizzard begins catering to MMO vets instead of going after MMORPG noobs. But this is probably just wishful thinking…