Comments on: A Tourist in Azeroth

By: qubodup

qubodup — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:39:07 +0000

The warning made me not read it.

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By: tilt

tilt — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:58:58 +0000

I take full blame for this — I goaded Peter into trying WoW, since, as I put it to him at the time, I don’t see how you can write about games without having some small familiarity with one of the most influential games currently out there. His response: “You bastard!”

I considered pointing him at the Draenei starting area, but we were both on the road at the time, and I figured one large demo file was probably enough to start with (since the later, and better starting areas are part of the Burning Crusade expansion).

I also find the perspective of a fresh player fascinating, especially a fresh player with an eye towards the game mechanics. I would agree with the comments expressed above; the game becomes ever more complex and engaging as you put more time into it. This has always been a high point for Blizzard. But I also think you’ve done a good job of capturing the essence of the starting experience.

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By: Nelson

Nelson — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:52:13 +0000

What’s great about Warcraft is how well it engages at various levels. The endgame is “deep” but even the level 1-20 experience is quite engaging for most people. Particularly the newer Blood Elf and Draenei starting areas, you can see the game design lessons Blizzard learned in action there. I’m hoping Diablo III will be totally different, honestly, way more Diabloesque and less engulfing. Just more fun button clicking. We’ll see.

I mentioned on Twitter that I was an officer in Joi Ito’s guild We Know. It’s a great guild full of fun people playing the game a lot, but casually. But in my opinion his raiding-as-organizational-structure theory doesn’t quit work. The problem is Warcraft is still just a game with no real world consequences. People behave very badly in games sometimes, ignore authority, etc all with no consequence. If someone at my company was always late to meetings and interrupted people rudely during discussions they’d be fired; but in a guild, not so much. Similarly there’s not a lot of reward for excellent in-game performance compared to excellent work at a job. It’s a good thing games are more relaxed than jobs, but it makes it different.

PS: “I’d love to fly around and explore Azeroth with no such requirements, at my leisure, and with no other players to interrupt or distract me”. That game exists, it’s called Morrowind

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By: peterb

peterb — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:21:55 +0000

Nelson,

It’s probably inevitable that I’d miss out on a lot of the deeper aspects of the game, given that I’m talking about it only from my limited preview and free trial (which prevents me from, for example, engaging in any guild play).

I’ll be interested to see what design lessons Diablo III ends up taking from WoW.

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By: SBP

SBP — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:06:31 +0000

By complete coincidence, I was checking out the WoW demo the other day. There’s nothing in it for me for liking WoW. I’m newly married and my wife is *very* jealous of any time I spend in pixel land. And beyond that, the last thing I want is a game that’s /work/. I’m 40 years old, why do I have to prove to the game that I’m worthy to play it?

So I played a bit. I was very impressed that it ran perfectly smoothly on my 2004-era Mac Powerbook (my newest machine). A big hand to Blizzard for treating those of us behind the tech curve like people, not dumb schmucks.

Also, it looks good. I’m sure I would have eaten this up with a spoon when I was 16. However, as an adult I don’t see a reason to care. There’s no reason to care about the Orc character I created and they didn’t give me any reason to care about the world he inhabits, other than to see what it looks like. Where’s the drama?

I *do* find the economy that’s risen up around the false scarcity of the MMORPG’s very interesting. Check these guys out: http://www.wowmine.com/wowgoldus.php?sfid=gl&gclid=CMv9h72tnJgCFRlcagoddQHZng

We can only hope they require their gold farmers to submit TPS reports along with their imaginary work product.

I’m going to plug two RPG style games I’ve played recently that I’ve definitely enjoyed. Here ya go, lovers:

http://playgreenhouse.com/game/BASLX-000001-01/
http://playgreenhouse.com/game/HOTHG-000001-01/

- S!

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By: Nelson

Nelson — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 04:48:13 +0000

Wow, Peter, you have some great insights into WoW and yet totally miss some crucial parts of the game at the same time. You’re dead-on that the seamless transitions in the game and the lack of cognitive breaks is a big part of the addictivness of the game. So is the social part, too. And when you get deep into the game you can appreciate the game balance, the detailed ways that all the classes and abilities fit together to make 25 man raids or 5 man PvP teams. It’s a tour de force of game design.

One particularly powerful thing about WoW: they’ve managed to keep it compelling even for the nerds who’ve played the game for hundreds of hours and finished most of the scripted content. The design of the endgame raiding and PvP games is an impressive monument to making the most out of your content development budget.

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By: Allen Pike

Allen Pike — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:33:31 +0000

Obviously there’s a lot to WoW beyond the early solo game. For somebody who’s played casually for a couple years, though, it’s interesting to be reminded of that perspective. Specifically, you nailed the non-social aspects that can make WoW burdensome. That is, where a lot of iPhone games and Wii games can be a lot of fun to quickly pick up and put down for short bursts, WoW is very much designed to make that a crappy way to play.

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