Developing a New Major

ch1 – Elegant Game Design by Scott Cuthbertson

notice on the WOW splash screen – only Blizzard name – no Vivendi or universal logo (wonder if that’s still true with the activision merger?) – they have a very strange relationship (unique) with their publisher -they get to delay game launch till they’re satisfied that it is going to be a high quality game and hte publisher keeps paying them (most publishers would drop the developer in a new york minute. helps that blizzard is owned by the publisher – but they get to keep some of hteir independence which isn’t true for every develop

there’s a relationship between time, cost, and quality. everybody makes a big play about going for quality – but when push comes to shove – they’ll cut content to mke sure a  game comes in on time and htey’re willing to cut quality to save time and money. Blizzard gets to go for the qulaity – “rare freedom”

their history is made up of good games – they started with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans – influenced by LOTR and D&D – it was rts before that genre existed. There was competition at the time – DUne II, COmmand & Conquer came out shortly after Warcraft. Had good sound – they seemed real. Had good simple game play, good levels iwth good reward for finishing. Warcraft II was delayed and delayed and delayed – but people waited, they were anxious for it, didn’t give up. Retailers went crazy of course looking at delayed profits. The players got a good quality game.

game has outstanding game design – based on their committment to detail, and that htey listen to their fans and they make changes to accomodate them. there’s time for new characters to learn the game and get comfortable with their character coices. Don’t have to jump right into leveling up. They can stay near where newbies spawn and fight easy to kill enemeies adn get some loot – some armor (old and beat up – but better than nothing). Get instant gratification and increased power for some early easy to finish missions. Early missions also help pull the character into the story. First missions are linear – have to finish A before you can do B and so on – this keeps the player in a certain area, makes sure they get hte basic skills and loot before moving on. Give them initial success.  HIgher levels have simultaneous quests, more complex stories behind the quests. Then there are all the crafts you can do – fishing is the author’s favorite. They give ya a break from teh quests butstill make you feel  like you’re doing something

not innovative game play – but “it provides players with a visually pleasing, consistently satisfying experience that incorporates the best elements that BLizzard had perfected and it presents this to hte player in a way that is polished, intuitive, and downright fun” (p. 11)

CH7 – Ancestors & Competitors by Chris McCubbin

talks about the games that came before WOW and the elements  WOW took from them

nice intro to what WOW is  – “graphic, persistent world”, MMORPG – graphic in that you see pictures of yourself fighting (graphic, not text, not pen and paper). Persistent = game goes on all the time – even if you’re not htere. Massively multiplayer – lots of people playig at one time -hundreds. Online – played over hte internet – you have to pay a subscription fee to use blizzard servers. RPG – only control 1 char at a time and that’s how you interface with the wrold thru your char, there’s no specific goal to the game but lots of quests and the process of creating a story along hte way

ancestors

D&D played with pencil nad paper (pub now by Wizards of hte COast). It’s sort of the touchstone of all RPG’s. Created in teh 70s by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perrin. Lots of influences like LOTR from which D&D got it’s character races. ALso influenced by conan the barbarian and poul anderson fantasy novels. Everybody gets idea of character classes from D&D – fighers, mages, thieves, clerics, paladins, druids.. every game might have different classes – but they all have that basic class concept – let player focus on the specific set of things their class can do. Games got idea of Experience Points from D&D too – you get them by finishing tasks

Warhammer strategy pper and pencil, has spun off a bunch of role play games. Game is basically set of rules for battles between players. Started in 1984 by Games Workshop in Britain. Warhammer is violent and funny (but a very dark humor) THing they introduced – monsters, really bad characters that you have to play against. WOW also got it’s sense of humor from Warhammer.

MUDs – combat based dungeon crawls, text on computers. you could make choices at key points. people from all over hte world could create characters nad bring htem into hte MUD, they picked classes, did leveling, won armor and magic spells. Wow has one of hte same problems MUDs had – large online communities so there’s player killing, flaming, harassment (bad social behavior. MUDs had to create terms of services and game masters to police the online community.

Ultima Online – computer – came online after doom adn diablo that had small LAN gmes – Origin Systems wanted to create a game with real time speed and good graphics that could be played on a large scale like MUDs. It was a huge hit right off. Intro’d the idea of character advancement by skill building. It didn’t h ave classes or levels. Wow has classes but also skills. Had a really strong craft and trade system – and a lot of players liked  being trraders and selling stuff. UO intro’d animal training and having housing for players, you could sail ships.Had the social problems of MUDs – player killing nad kill stealing. still arund today – graphics get upgraded

Everquest – civilized game. very popular. published by SOny. Went for simplicity and usability. Skill based systems had too many options. EQ used mouse and keyboard movement (UL had mouse only). It intro’d the idea that top level players shouldn’t run out of stuff to do. Intro’d idea of rare item drops to powerup their top level characters EQ focused a lot of attention on the highest level playersto keep them in the game. theres now a EQ2 – both systems still online

Asheron’s call – from Microsoft – came out after EQ so never caught on as big. Attracted an older, more sophisticated audience. Intro’d idea of a patronage system – higherlevel characters could mentor newbies and give this stuff – mentee gave the higher leveled character a percentage of what they got. Wow got the idea of having great art work from these guys. AC intro’d idea of marking where your body would respawn when you died on a map – WOW picked up on that idea too – you don’t get penalized too much if ya die in the game – fun keeps going

Dark Age of Camelot -calls it hte 2nd age of MMORPGs – this one embraced medieval fantasy – 3 different cultures to play as, had PVP combat, had level specific battle zones to corral fighting and help newbies get into the game. Had expanded quest system – no need to camp for rare items. Intro’d idea of “horse routes” – you rent a horse to go fast from point to point – WOW has gryphon stations to do the same thing

City of Heroes – not fantasy – based on superhero comics, different look to the world – author calls this the 3rd gen MMORPG – both CoH and WoW focused on FUN and simplified systems. Not so big on depth and complex systems and stories. Death not a big deal – just respawn somewhere else. Get the player back into the fun. Some say CoH too simplistic – hasn’t caught on, lots of churn. Gameplay seems repetitive. WoW avoided this by having lots of gameplay

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