 Warhammer Online Creative Director: on scheduling woes and avoiding WoW's influence |
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Jul 31, 2008 - 5:47 PM - by Development Tracker
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Warhammer - WoW's Influence
Paul Barnett, the creative director of Mythic Entertainment's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, was at the Develop Online conference where he spoke about the launch woes of their MMORPG as well as the problems they have encountered in trying to avoid the influence of the juggernaut known as World of Warcraft.
First up, he spoke about the launch. In classic Barnett fashion, he declared that "When we launch these games, we can't schedule for sh ." He further added that "We're nearly there, God help us, the fifth time we schedule it it's going to work. Lesson one: don't trust your schedulers."
With regards to how they have tried to avoid World of Warcraft's influence in the design of the game, he started out by making an interesting statement: "I believe WOW is a work of flawed genius." Why does he think it is"flawed"? Well, he explained this further:
When you dismantle [these works] you can never be sure whether you get genius or flaw.The reason I don't play other online games is that they're corrupting, they are cancerous, they change the way you think.
He backed up this observation with an experience he encountered while creating the game. Namely, one change that was made with the quest structuring which resulted in a very long discussion with the development team:
That one change took three months of meetings, because the people I was up against were corrupted by the gaming experiences they'd had. They weren't capable of thinking sideways because they knew the answer, and it worked, and resulted in a game that is very successful.
We see a number of interesting points raised by Barnett during... [Read More]
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Warhammer - War Vs WoW |
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Jul 02, 2008 - 10:10 AM - by Vuris
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Warhammer Vs WoW
An interesting comparison found at thegreenskin.com of warcraft and warhammer, while this comparsion is by no means fact proven, it is merely points felt by the public
WoW’s expansion philosophy
- Goal is to release one expansion per year (in practice, they’re on track to release one every two years if WotLK launches Q1 2009)
- Don’t plan more than one or two expansions ahead (work on one, brainstorm the next). Their IP is weaker than GW’s, so it’s hard to predict whether or not they’ll run out of ideas soon (they currently have no idea of what will be in the expansion after WotLK)
- Want to give users the best experience possible, regardless of how long it takes
- New classes are strategically implemented (there’s a general lack of tanks in WoW, so they made the new hero class a tank - that also fit really well with the lore of Northrend)
- Looking for ways to speed up the level 1-60 game for players tho start a new character or install the game for the first time (ideas include enhanced XP rate gain, mounts at earlier levels, and even starting a new character at XX rather than level 1)
WAR’s expansion philosophy
- Have not stated goals for expansion:year ratio, however, they are already working on the first two major content patches and the first expansion. I predict an intention of one expansion per
... [Read More]
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