DFC answers the same WoW question
(Visited 8127 times) Game talk
Aug 302006
Is It Possible to Surpass World of Warcraft? on GameDaily BIZ is DFC Intelligence’s David Cole taking on the same topic as the “Warcrack panel.” He comes to largely the same conclusions:
- “From the gameplay perspective, World of Warcraft made evolutionary changes to the MMOG. Namely, Blizzard made WoW a lot more like a traditional game.”
- “WoW facilitates the go-it-alone mode of gameplay.”
- “…instanced content lets Blizzard formalize some of the way users play MMOG. For years, different play styles led to social problems among players who were following different implicit rules.”
- “…many users are not attracted to a purely open-ended game.”
- “Blizzard was able to launch a product on a global basis because they had years of experience with releasing and operating online games around the world.”
- “Blizzard’s franchises like Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo were among the most popular PC games of all time. Blizzard is definitely a company well-known for quality of product not quantity.”
- “World of Warcraft’s success, admirable as it may be, will be extremely difficult to duplicate.”
- “…most success with MMOG comes with smaller, dedicated online game companies that use small amounts of investment money to great effect. Jagex’s Runescape, CCP’s EVE Online, and Three Rings’ Puzzle Pirates are three…”
- “…innovation with gameplay and business models tends to produce hits.”
As Jessica Mulligan pointed out over at Lum’s, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been said already. But for some reason a lot of folks seem to disagree.
26 Responses to “DFC answers the same WoW question”
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If everyone keeps aiming at WoW I feel we will only wind up with WoW 1.5 …
We seem to be obsessed with killer apps and I think that’s hindering innovation and creativity a bit.
I didn’t wind up playing Eve Online for very long, but I definitely found it to be somewhat original and thinking outside the medieval fantasy box.
I agree with hip chainsaw.
Certainly one could ponder the idea of a single game having a larger userbase than wow; Or one could dream of making the next wow. But, I think the big question is what will be the next big type of game. Not what will be the Wow killer, lets leave Wow 1.5 to blizzard.
What comes to mind first is lord british and his lofty goals of providing several niche games to sell to multiple overlapping markets. Second is the interesting HL2, TeamFortress2, Portal bundle. What would happen if they also had some form traditional adventure and online world in there as well?
Providing users with short jumps in shifting gameplay through different games vs providing one big killer game.
SOE have been “aiming at WOW” with SWG for 18 months….and it’s killed the game. They tried their hand at “innovation” by making it into a pseudo-FPS….and it sucked….badly.
Aiming to emulate will be any developer’s undoing; nobody has bettered Counterstrike in 7 years, no matter how many times they tried.
Aiming to create an environment which does not copy any other game or format, and then polishing it with several gallons of Turtle Wax, is the best way to emulate WOW.
Five years from EQ to WoW or something like that, with a whole bunch of not so mass-market-successful MMO in between.
Excluding the non-monthly-subscription successes out there (or in other words, focusing exclusively on the traditional PC-client-subscription-based-MMORPG), I wonder if it’ll be at least that long before the next ‘major’ major mass market title wipes WoW’s record (as WoW did to Everquest).
In the meantime, as others have said, between now and then I’d think the real opportunities are in:
– Other business models (no monthly sub).
– Very casual games (a few minutes fun a day).
– ‘Niche’ subscription / non-casual games.
Having used the word niche, I’d like to clarify that I think there are niche out there that could be reasonably large and quite profitable.
And yet, all but a few MMO’s in development seem to be targetting some minor variation on WoW’s audience. What chance do they have when the critical mass is with WoW.
The near-term successes, will be those that hone in on desires of the unserviced markets and release very novel games (heavy roleplay, unrestricted and harsh PvP, social focus, even craft/economics focus).
Read the boards of games in development. Look for those posters that are trying to convince the dev’s to build *their* game. You’ll see groups seeking each of these kinds of games.
I personally believe the unrestricted/harsh PvP sub-group is substantial in size, and largely unserviced.
I’ve already made this point over at Broken Toys, and on my own Blog, but beating WOW is easy if you think a little differently.
If you want to beat WoW make WoW2.
It doesn’t need the IP, the players are already in the market now, so it can be genericfantasyworld01.
All it needs is the same quantity and quality of content as WoW, the same ease of play, the same everything as WoW but new, unexplored and shiny. Add to this the things WoW players are wishing for, that don’t break the game, and you’ve got your WoW beater.
Many of the WoW players have played much of the games content, for many casual gamers the first 59 levels are the most fun so once they have done that once they have ‘won’. If you offered them a brand new world to explore and new content then they would move.
There will be some WoWers who will move automatically, they are the ones who try most new MMOs, there will be others who think they’ll give this new game a try it looks good. If it is WoW2 then they will go back and tell their friends and guilds about it and more will move. Word of mouth will spread and lots of people who are playing WoW will move because they get everything they already have, but NEW.
P.S. I am not sure this will apply to the asian market, I don’t know if they have the same need for the NEW as we do in the West.
While I can’t disagree with the statements here, I will comment on the idea that WoW is so large that picking on the subscriber churn it leaves behind is bigger than most MMOs out there. If Burning Crusade alienates 500,000+ fans and there’s nothing to placate them they will begrudgingly stay with WoW. (Sounds like a market opportunity to me) If however, there’s a game out there that answers their problems, they will jump ship and move. Vanguard is getting some of that kind of hype/steam. LotRO is doing likewise. The point here is that ex-WoW players in a new, WoW-like MMO is not a small market. Vanguard and LotRO will battle here and don’t underestimate the impact that moving from 40 man to 25 man raids will have on the thousands of WoW guilds once Burning Crusade is released.
The BC expansion will add levels to the group of players that haven’t “leveled” in over 18 months. That’s a major social change in addition to a game mechanic change. It will also reduce the raid size to 25 meaning most guilds will pare down from 50 to 35 active players. Feelings will be hurt and players will be left out. While BC is sure to be a smash hit retail wise, it’s not going to go without it’s sizable share of players that leave because they were left without an invitation to the smaller, higher level party. The churn caused by BC is enough to successfully launch any niche focused MMO currently in development, Vanguard and LotRO included. Playing for the big market is not always a Bad Thing(tm). DAoC proved that to us years ago by feeding a successful launch from ex-EQ players in what was EQ without bugs and a few additional features.
While there’s lots that can be done differently by a genre that has fallen increasingly susceptible to broader game-industry publishing patterns(sequelitis anyone), that doesn’t mean that the currently served market is used up and left without any opportunity. Just because there’s an incumbent doesn’t mean you can’t try to take away market share with a successful clone. I’d love to see more innovative games out there but the reality is that today’s economics, rising game development costs, WoW’s success and the newness of the MMO genre all work against anything innovative. Why take a chance when bottom feeding can be just as profitable and a much safer venture? Remember, there’s investment from very traditional types dominating the industry. They’re here to make money for the least amount of shouldered risk. Guessing at the churn rates of WoW as an available player base/market segment is far less risky than defining your own market segment and guessing how many players are in it. The former has data to back up the speculation while the later is speculation without substance.
Kressilac
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More like WoW 0.9. More I try to reverse engineer it, more I find that while they make early-on decisions that are not what I would have done, they carried them to the logical conclusions. I suspect if you really wanted to recreate WoW the first thing you should do is recreate Blizzard.
If what you mean is that there is room for a game that looks like WoW and is prepared to take on the market for people who like WoW but have hit max level, sure. As soon as people stop launching 2 WoW clones a month. In the meanwhile trying to get Wal-mart to carry enough copies based on your cover art when their buyer is thinking that shelf space would be better used either for a movie-tie in or another copy of Worlds of Warcraft is going to be an uphill battle.
That’s not my expectation on that change. You may well be right. But my expectation is that raiding guilds (which are not most guilds, or even the most common guild) will be able to allow people to check out the new content and still have enough people to raid. Also they will not feel the need to recruit for a while, unless they loose their main tank. Some shrinkage will occur naturally, and by-the-time they are all max level and visited the new non-raid content they will be a fine size to raid all the time. My other thought is: Dude, if your guild kicks you out as soon as they don’t need you, that’s what you get for working for loot with strangers instead of playing for fun with friends.
From a player’s perspective … I believe Blizard did something pretty amazing that I can only describe as “simplistic beauty”. Nothing new to see, just a proven formula done really well.
I think, maybe, their development process (release management and all that) must be pretty good.
In regards to the new raiding size, I actually expect the change will have a great outcome for players and profits.
Most guilds will naturally (1) have more active players than need to fill the 40-person raid, say 50 people and (2) have two or more subgroups which when the broken will naturally fit the 25-person raid.
Instead of being disruptive, the change allow the guilds an excuse to restructure the guild organization in a expectant and relative self-organizing fashion. Also, there would be groups that still need more people to fill the new 25-person team, which will naturally spur guild recruitment. It’s all good if done right. Excellent move!
It’ll also reduce CPU power for instances, allow for more CPU time to provide better NPCs. It’s all good 🙂
Frank
WoW has been beaten for quite some time actually…
http://mythicalblog.com/blog/2006/03/24/the-blogging-game/
I think the change to 25 man raids is a good thing. However, the guilds that run the 40 man content today need 50 people active to keep raids full. You need 70+ active to have two 25 man raids running and you better have a lot of each class because if there’s a shortage, one of your raiding groups will feel snubbed. Its not really possible to run two 25 man raids in the same guild. From bank items to distribution of loot to social ties to competitions it would break down quickly into a finger pointing contest between the two groups. It’s much easier at that point to break into two guilds. Two raiding groups in the same guild requires very rare leadership to run it. The same can be seen between smaller guild alliances. Its significantly harder to run an alliance that 40 mans than it is to run a single-leader-single-guild raiding group.
That said, the 25 man reduction is going to alienate a sizable amount of players. 100K players is probably a low estimate when you have 60 times that playing your game. Most niche MMOs can make a good living off 100k players. While I think WoW’s change is a good thing, I also believe it will be the root cause of some significant turnover in the months after the expansion. Most likely WoW will replae all they lose with new subs and possibly even more due to the renewed shelf presence/marketing. I don’t think it will hurt WoW and didn’t mean to imply that. I do think it will leave enough in its wake where there’s a business opportunity to make money with a clone. Vanguard is in the best position to take those customers IMHO.
[…] DFC answers the same WoW question on Raph Koster DFC answers the same WoW question on Raph Koster Is It Possible to Surpass World of Warcraft? on GameDaily BIZ is DFC Intelligence’s David Cole taking on the same topic as the “Warcrack panel.” He comes to largely the same conclusions: “From the gameplay perspective, World of Warcraft made evolutionary changes to the MMOG. Namely, Blizzard made WoW a lot more like a traditional […] via Raph Koster […]
“WoW facilitates the go-it-alone mode of gameplay.”
I don’t understand why so many people keep saying this. It’s not true at all. Many of the larger quest chains cannot be completed without a small team. And don’t get me started about what happens at level 60. The game is effectively over if your lifestyle cannot support a 20-40man raid schedule.
I agree with “Lisa’s Darren” about a new WoW killer. A sprawling and lush creation with similar appeal and scope will inevitably come along and swallow up WoW players. In fact, for those people whose lifestyle does support group raiding, then the new game will have even greater appeal because they’ve exhausted all of the possibilities that WoW can reasonably provide.
That is actually my biggest (and really only) complaint about the game, and the reason why I stopped playing when I got close to 60. The game requires socialization for a small percentage of the content pre-60, and doesn’t do anything to hide that fact. However, the game doesn’t do anything at all outside of that content to bring people together. The effect of this is that WoW is a game where groups aren’t valued beyond the individual quest or instance, where guilds are pretty much worthless pre-60, and where the disparity between “raiders” and “casuals” is at least as pronounced, if not more, than EverQuest (where it’s had almost eight years to build up). The game caters to both extremes of players (those with little time to play and those with lots of time to play) but doesn’t do a good job with people in the middle, who have a moderate amount of time to devote, would like to participate in challenging group activities on a regular basis, but can’t really commit to a hardcore raiding schedule.
Players can overcome this if they happen to know people from outside the game – whether those are real life friends or people from another game. But because WoW does so much to facilitate solo play, the odds of meeting people and making enough friends to accomplish the group/raid content within the game itself are very low.
I think it’s because of the Diku-flavored MMORPGs, it’s the one that permits the most soloing. (I actually think that UO and SWG permitted quite a lot of soloing as well — UO probably more than SWG — but the combat game is very different). YOU can’t do everything in WoW solo, but you can do most things, until you hit 60.
In fact, in the old days of SWG, everything could be done solo (ok, maybe not the krayts unless you had the right template) with nothing to gain in a group (besides solo-groups for xp).
Actually, many people felt that it could only hurt SWG (on my server at least). People splitted and then doctors became buff bots to maximize solo sessions.
I still remember going banthas hunting with a group of 15… That was before those 90% armors were crafted.
In SWG, we set all players at roughly level 5, I believe, and creatures scaled up into the hundreds. You were never intended to solo krayts. 🙂 The mitigation armors and the buffs really damaged the PvE balance in that sense.
The idea I had was armies of folks trying to tackle the big creatures; tons would get incapped, strewn about with one hits, but could get back in the battle if they had healing backup, because wounds were what took you out permanently, and they were supposed to accrue more slowly. The krayt would switch targets frequently.
Gosh, I don’t feel that way at all. Most of the characters I’ve created have ended up within groups I don’t know outside the game. Granted, In most of the cases it was a group of people that knew each other that opened up to accept additional people like me, but it hasn’t been difficult, except for the occasional discouraging experience with some pick-up groups.
Take a step back, though, and look at the issue from a larger perspective. In WoW, you can progress all the way to 60 by yourself, or you can do things in a group, but the key point is that one can choose. It’s that flexibility that I believe is one of the basic keys to a “successful” game that I’ve been harping about.
UO and SWG had elements of that (Raph, you have to admit that they did), and didn’t achieve greater player bases for other reasons. Facilitating solo play and grouping is a good thing, because people feel they have the freedom to choose as they see fit.
Now, I need to go read up on this Diku thing Raph keeps referring to. I’ve only been involved in these games since 1992 or so, so I don’t know about the earlier work done…
Of course UO and SWG had elements of that — I am soloer myself, have the attention span of a butterfly for games, and cannot commit to extended guilds and play schedules anymore.
The sort of interdependence that I had in both those games was NOT the moment-to-moment “team sport” interdependence. I actually don’t believe that a fast-paced interaction like that helps socialize at all. (See “Forcing Interaction” for more on that).
Instead, it was interaction “at a distance” whereby players of different playstyles and roles could happily hang out solo or in groups of folks like their kind, but had moments of interaction with entire other groups: the fighters who had to visit the blacksmithy in UO, the merchants who needed a harvester supply in both games, and yes, the infamous dancer example from SWG.
As far as Diku, the Wikipedia article gives a good summary of what it is, but the thing that needs to be clear to everyone is how much of the gameplay we know today in WoW comes very much from the DikuMUD tradition. I’ve written about how there are broad families of virtual world design before, but can’t find any of the links too handily.
I think that kind of mechanic worked for the base professions Raph, as people got deeper into the elite professions it took fewer and fewer people to accomplish the same thing in PVE, there seemed to be a correlation to soloability based on the progress of players into the elite professions and the maturing of the crafter population, armor and weaponsmiths. I cant imagine this was easy to balance, people wanting uber templates and crafters wanting to make the best gear/weapons they could.
It seemed to negate the rock/paper/scissors, and led to FOTM templates based upon percieved weaknesses in other templates, and the best armor weapons being sold to those who could afford it. For your viewing pleasure:
Background:
This is 5 months Pre-Pub9, during saber TEF, Darklief is about eh…40-45% completed Jedi template. This is a fight between two guildmates with the best possible gear on the server.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liiIjESe2Qk
As you can see from the video they cant take eachother down, thus a 40% complete Jedi was roughly equal to a well geared out maximized double mastery “regular” player. In fact my completed template Jedi was able to routinely kick the banthas out of 4-7 of the same types of players. And yes, solo kryats. But these were “Alpha” classes.
However, one must remember this was a earned the hard way, After completing 24 normal professions to unlock, then easily 3-5 hours a day grinding solo in the boonies. At 40% of I felt comfortable enough in public, (this was just after a BH jumped me, it wasnt a regular thing for me to take my Jedi out on the town where anyone could shoot him)
I’m not sure the design anticipated the eventual consequences of an “Alpha” class system. For my money I prefer skill systems vs classes and levels in my game play, but I think WOW is a testament to how most new gamers prefer thier advancment to be “channeled”. I think as players move along the experiance spectrum through many games they prefer more open ended systems, its just a natrual progression of peoples desire for greator complexity in thier game play
I do not support an “Alpha” class in any game, on reflection having played SWG at the pinnacle of power at a Jedi, I finally got what the devs were getting at when the Nerf bat began to be swung, its elitist, exclusionary and alienating when one player can dominate other players without any counterbalancing. Furthermore I think it was unanticipated or unintended what happened with the power differential between Jedi and non-jedi. They should have been disallowed from PVP with non-jedi.
This is a key differance between WOW and games like SWG, in WOW the bar is lower, early on the barrier to entry is not premised on time, credits, grind, gear, there are no alpha classes. The cost of a lower barrier is fewer options in the end, and even at the pinnacle of character development, there is no differeance between two fully geared tanks in BWL gear.
Easy to understand, easy to progress through, and easy to master, in my mind means easy to dispose of and move on from. If people want to chase that in lieu of longevity and recurring revenue so be it, but they should not expect players to buy thier next title, when they offer the same stale world, because they’ve enabled thier consumers to think of thier product as disposable.
Mileages vary, of course. For me a pickup group almost never went well, or lasted long when it did. Maybe it was the servers I was playing on, the times I was playing during, or whatever, but pickup groups (in most every game I play) are not something I ever have much luck with, at least for the last 3 years. The bad thing is that I talk to people I know in and out of games and they echo this experience. I know many people that flat refuse to group outside of their guilds now – and while they might allow someone to join them if they’re already in a group of known good people, they don’t do true pick-up grouping.
Socialization happens because players interact. As Raph points out, there’s a lot of ways to encourage interaction, and combat is only one place where it can happen. What I mean is, it’s not just because things can be soloed that interaction doesn’t occur as much as I think it should in WoW. It’s because there’s no real reason to interact outside of combat, and even then only for a very small percentage of combat.
I compare that to my experience for the first two years in EQ1, where 80% of the game required a group. Soloing was possible, but slow and difficult. During those two years I added dozens of names to my friends list, many people who I still talk with today even though they’ve moved on to other games.
On the other hand, for a year and a half in WoW, I ended up with a grand total of 3 names on my friends list, two of whom I saw online maybe once a month while I was playing. And yet I advanced farther in WoW in that same time than I ever did in EQ1. After two years in EQ1, I was just finally approaching level 50 with only one character that I played all the time. In WoW after a year and a half I was already well past it on one character with four alternate characters ranging from 20-40.
If the goal of a subscription-based revenue model is subscriber retention due to integration with the community and providing a large and challenging content path, then EQ1 seems to have done a much better job of achieving that goal, even if WoW surpassed it in terms of concurrent subscriptions. Of course, it could also be said that EQ1 (and other games) primed the market for WoW too.
I agree with everything you said, in general Tal. Further, look at the numbers of WOW vs EQ1. And the system Grind Time vs Level. Now look at the relationship of player connectivity and depth of broadband penetration throughout the US while EQ was in its prime and now, while WOW is at its peak (well I’d say its peaked).
There IS a correlation between online gamers and broadband penetration, its not just better graphics, and a more streamlined “easier” system. There are multiple factors that led to 6million subs. In other words they couldnt have had better timing. Solid fan base, solid IP, increased connectivity, good distrobution and marketing, and few other new kids on the block to compete with. That makes for a big fish in a little pond.
So maybe the point is not to grow another big fish (game) for the same sized pond (consumer base) but to expand the pond by innovating into a new genre or providing new gaming experiances. I dont know thats a question for designers and investors I guess. But I sure do know a lot of people looking for something new…
Is there a combat-based MMORPG where there is interaction not based on combat? I know, entertainers and fatigue in SWG, etc., etc., but otherwise people “socialize” because they have to in most games. To what I think one of Raph’s points was, there’s not a lot of socializing because they want to, or so it seems. And if it’s a non-combat-based game, like the Sims, no one seems to be interested anyways. The bottom line is that a game can’t force people to socialize, and instancing and group quests and the like are the stick not the carrot…
I disagree. There’s already too many ATITD-type “experiments” out there. The Paul Sams interview in the Guardian has him going on about how few entities there are out there that have the wherewithal to produce a “blockbuster” game. A bit of puffery, perhaps, but I think he’s right. The pond has plenty of anemic minnows in it – the emphasis should be on the next Leviathan…
Well, the whole crafting path is one avenue where that interaction often comes in. Depending on the degree to which the game implemented crafting, of course.
Really? I know of only one, ATITD. 🙂 Seriously, worldwide there are literally HUNDREDS of sub-based professionally produced hack n slash orc-slaying games — graphical ones, I’m not even considering muds here. They sprouted like weeds in Asia. Here in the US, they are clearly the majority of the games operating.
Well, I’d say Seed is a ATITD-type experiment. But I would say that there is room for a lot more.