Jun 9
Nice Idea. It’s Mine Now
Via the Waaagh blog, an NDA-breaking blogger who has noted the recent addition of Achievements to World of Warcraft’s Lich King Alpha test. Now obviously, this could very easily be a Photoshop Hero sort of thing. Faked ‘leaks’ are very common, and they’re darned easy to do. So take this with a big grain of salt. That said, given the nature of Warhammer’s Tome of Knowledge, this seems like a gimme move on Blizzard’s part. As I said last Friday, the implicit danger in innovations like the Tome and Public Quests is how ’stealable’ they are.
Syp (the Waaagh blogger) notes that Lake Wintergrasp, too, may be an attempt to answer WAR’s engaging RvR gameplay element. That leaves the Public Quest element as the major distinction between the two games. If Blizzard really is trying to answer the game bullet point by pullet point, look for some new kinds of collaborative questing mechanic to be announced before the expansion’s launch.
As with the RvR vs. Wintergrasp comparison, the Achievements Blizz may be adding are not *really* the functionality of the Tome. They’re much more like Xbox Live Achievements. Make sure to click through and check out some of the PvP badges, leveling badges, and exploration badges they may (or may not) be handing out. To flip this around again, it’s worth noting that WoW doesn’t have to have anything even close to WAR’s funnctionality in order to ‘win’. The current playerbase will consider this an innovation from on high, and happily glom onto it. Another feather in Blizzard’s cap.
This is such a screwed up place for MMO gamers. This summer, at least, minor innovations look like molehills. The (quite sensible) concepts of Public Quests and integrated lore elements seem like drastic shifts. It’s actually been making me think about the generation of games ‘beneath our feet’. Will 38/Carbine/Red 5 offer something really groundbreaking? Or are they going to offer more of the same “but better”?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with the-same-but-better. My enthusiasm for WAR hasn’t waned. I’m just surprised that the sincerest form of flattery is seeing so much use this year.
7 Comments so far
Leave a comment
War’s RvR concepts are not new, however. DAoC has had the basic concept for ages, and Mythic is simply borrowing an idea from itself in that regard.
As a player, I don’t care in the slightest who ends up implementing the idea, and I especially don’t care who thought of it first. I will play the game that implements it the best.
Because that is the point right? If one game is more fun then another, I’m going to play the one that is more fun, more polished, and gives me the best all-around experience.
Ideas are tricky things these days. In order to beat WoW, you not only have to come up with new ideas, but also so radically different that no one can steal them.
This is kind of depressing, because if Blizzard does end up just assimilating bullet points from any game that poses the slightest threat, then truly, the only thing that can beat Blizzard, is Blizzard.
The stranglehold is complete! Flee for your lives!
I think we can all agree it is in the execution and Blizzard has failed on almost every execution of a feature they have attempted aside from launching the game and launching TBC. Anything in-between has been a dismal failure, with months of changes required to get it sensibly right. PvP honor system, arenas, battlegrounds, badges of justice, TBC world objectives, etc.
Blizzard has done something with WoW that has made it what it is, and that is stick with what they know, PvE, and always do it well. That has kept players in WoW, not any of the extra features they have managed to muddle into the game over time.
It is very confusing to see Blizzard start adding features in to compete with upcoming games. It very well gives the impression that Blizzard is worried about a downturn in subscriptions.
I’m in no way saying WoW is going to die, but ever since the Activision merger, a lot of Blizzard’s moves have been very defensive in regards to their position in the marketplace. Good business? Maybe, but I don’t think Blizzard has been able to stick to the “steal an idea, and execute better” since they originally developed WoW and TBC. This system, being part of an expansion, may be worthwhile, but as mentioned in a lot of other discussions, this sort of system is quite pointless 4+ years after launch when everyone has already spent 1000’s of hours in your game world.
Going along with some of what heartless said, I’ve swallowed Paul Barnett’s little red pill when he said, in some interview that feels like forever-ago, “it’s flawed genius,” referring to WoW. Swallowing up bullet points or not, it’s still WoW and that’s not really going to change. The WoW attitude, the way it’s structured and built, none of that will change ~too~ drastically and maybe that’s the leg up that WAR and other MMOs will have.
What is interesting and, frankly, suprising (or worrying depending on your side of the fence) is how far-sighted Blizz seems to be. From what I’ve been reading, AoC seems to have been fairly shortsighted in terms of innovation (I live in China, so I haven’t played it yet). I think WAR looks semi-farsighted, but it still keeping a lot of things that we’re all going to be familiar with. I’m not so sure that Blizzard is worried about a downturn in subscriptions as it is “phase 3″ or something. I’d like to think WoW is successful because there is a method to the madness and that the wizard(s) behind the curtain at Blizzard had to see this stuff coming long before WAR or any other competitor started releasing the details of their game. Not just to huge subscription games, but they’ve gotta see the popularity of the smaller MMOs like Maple Story and Puzzle Pirates. Last I checked, part of the demographic for those games is also one that I think Blizz is interested in, too.
To me, Blizzard milked WoW’s position on the market for as long as it could until the hype around its next competitor rose to a climax. Now there’s all this news that seems to be saying the WoW is friendlier, less hardcore, more accessible and just plain more fun… just like that other MMO you’ve been playing or were even thinking about playing. Genius. Pure evil genius.
[...] other news, courtesy of Michael, I have learned that an alpha tester has either leaked or fabricated news that Wrath of the Lich [...]
This article and a similar one on the Serial Ganker site brought flashbacks to the early Microsoft days. They consumed and attempted to integrate other’s ideas into their OS (a large portion complete failures). I agree that “the only thing that can beat Blizzard, is Blizzard”
[...] Who?” piece with “Attack of the Clones?“, MMOG Nation wonders if there’s a bit of thievery going on, and Tobold has his own take on it as [...]