Sep 15
RIP WoW 1-60
I’m right there with Cameron on his commentary about WoW’s 1-60 content. Blizzard has made their decision about what that stuff ‘means’ in the overall Warcraft experience, and now they’re going to build on the 60+ gameplay in future expansions. If the rumormill is to be believed, within a few years we’ll be talking about the level grind to 100; just imagine how fast the experience of playing from 1-60 will be at that point!
I join Cameron, too, in saying that while it’s not how I would have liked them to do it, I certainly can’t fault them. After a lot of work on a Wrath-related feature, I’m now more excited than ever about the possibilities coming up in the next expansion (due out on the 13th doncha know).
With AGDC this week I’ve also had the chance to have my viewpoints forceably moved around. Damion did that for me this morning with his elder game talk; I was pretty well oriented in the direction of ‘elder game is good’ when he specifically called me out. Okay, well, not me, but he said something like “all the armchair designers that think lower level content should be expanded have never played in an endgame.”
Burn.
Of course, he’s right. And it’s definitely one of the reasons I’ve so enjoyed having a max-level character. I’m in a guild, I have a fun character that I’m really going to enjoy leveling through the 70-80 zones … good times. I’m especially looking forward to dungeons like Nexus and Utgarde. 5mans ftw.
I’m actually really pleased with how the next few months are going to go, gaming-wise. I’ve got two months of fun time in WAR, and plenty of time to easily finish my quest for an epic flying mount. That plus regular gaming nights with the DDO / Shortiez crew will make for some good gaming.
Here’s hoping you’re having some good gaming as well.
3 Comments so far
Leave a comment
I need to go back and re-read Damion’s comments more thoroughly. Is there a straight transcript of the speech posted anywhere?
I’m not sure I agree that the only game is the endgame. It’s definitely a game, and it’s definitely an important game, but I’m not convinced it’s THE game.
If you consider a game like WoW, where the endgame is arguably the PvE content (given their lack of PvP-centric design), you still only have what, 20% of the population with gear from a 10-man or higher? I believe it was 1 million players or something as of this may, out of the 5 or 6 million people playing in US/Europe. Even if it’s higher than that now, we’re still talking about over half the playerbase that simply doesn’t consume that content.
This all reminds me of that huge WoW article I wrote last year about the state of the WoW raiding game. Arrgh. I wasn’t going to write a novel here. Okay. More on this subject incoming once I’ve looked more closely at Damion’s comments and thought about it a bit more.
Okay, having read some of the other summaries up around the web, I see what he’s saying.
I’m pretty curious to see what he’s working on.
I commented on Damien’s address here:
http://tishtoshtesh.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/endgame-in-game/
He has some good points about how the “elder game” is the potential for MMOs, but it ultimately underscores the bad design of a level grind.