Comments on: Quote of the Day: On Endgame

By: Anton_S (@Anton_S1)

Anton_S (@Anton_S1) — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:39:23 +0000

“Perhaps the current step is the “movie-fication” of MMOs. I would prefer that the next step be randomization of content.”

Hopefully they get better at it than Blizzard did in Cata. My character has literally saved the world, but now is apparently, without any say-so or input from me, his player, cowering in fear at the sight of a goblin with a pistol, and he needs an NPC to rescue him.

I don’t think so.

I chose to interpret the shaking as stifled chuckling…

By: Goodmongo

Goodmongo — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 17:31:22 +0000

Actually I did bet against Blizzard or more accurately their parent company. I short sold the ACTI stock last November at 13.75 a share and today it’s down to 11.48. Not a bad return for less than a year.

By: spinks

spinks — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:27:17 +0000

That would have been a great option actually. (Bit like the Bug Trio in AQ40.)

By: Chris Whyte

Chris Whyte — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 10:41:54 +0000

The problem with that is “random is random”. Blizzard tried it with Halfus Wyrmbreaker, and there were a lot of complaints about certain drake combinations being wildly more punishing than others. For longer term raiders it wasn’t a big issue, but for new players I’d suggest that Halfus was horrendously placed from a learning curve point of view (which, to me, is Blizzard’s biggest problem with WoW), not unlike Ignis the Furnace Master in Ulduar; Halfus, however, wasn’t optional and it was a bit funky to actually have the random element removed in the heroic mode.

Personally, I wonder what might have happened if you could speak to all of the drakes before hand and activate the two you wanted on normal. If you went for deliberately harder combinations, it could unlock different parts of his loot table. Amusingly, this could have entirely negated the need for a separate heroic mode if players were given the choice to scale the encounter as much as they wanted.

By: Chris K.

Chris K. — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 17:27:24 +0000

Actually, I remember a while ago that when asked about updating the older races and the animations, the answer was “the cost is too prohibitive”.

So money is always an issue.

By: Asmiroth

Asmiroth — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 12:28:50 +0000

Isn’t the word epic the opposite of common? When I play a game and go “holy crapola, that was epic”, I don’t do it on the 3rd playthrough or the 20th. Wrathgate was awesome the first time (per faction), the next few, quite a bit less. SWTOR’s flashpoints were interesting the first time or 2, then you get to the point where you remember exactly what’s going to be said. Uncharted on the PS3 is similar, everything is just crazy on playthrough 1, then the next one it drops a lot.

Perhaps the current step is the “movie-fication” of MMOs. I would prefer that the next step be randomization of content. Boss X has a list of 8 abilities, he will only use 5. A game of simon says. Leave the braindead stuff as an option but add some extra rewards for people who want the challenge of not having a repeating pattern.

By: More Blizzard Heart to Heart « In An Age

More Blizzard Heart to Heart « In An Age — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 12:05:23 +0000

[...] already pointed out this gem, but I will do so again for mine own [...]

By: Simon Jones who is Blogless

Simon Jones who is Blogless — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 07:17:05 +0000

As SWTOR so deftly reminded me, activities built under the assumption there is going to be a large group of people available tend to become frustrating, unpleasent experiences once the initial rush is over.

By: Azuriel

Azuriel — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 02:20:56 +0000

Plus, has anyone done that on multiple alts? Good lord, it’s annoying. “Gee, 10 minutes until the next Undercity bus arrives, and then I can AoE constantly for the next half hour by myself.”

By: RimeCat

RimeCat — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 01:24:22 +0000

The individual argument tends not to gain much traction. I could just as easily argue that the comparative failure of SW:ToR to gain a large (we want 12 million subscribers) audience is because that many people feel the same as I do. Without some significant market research it’s a pointless statement.

What I can say is that voice acting is hugely expensive. Unless it can be shown that this adds enough to the short, intermediate, and long term player retention numbers to earn out that cost I don’t expect it to be a common feature. And, as a player, I have a hard time understanding what it adds to an MMO. It was novel in SW:ToR but really, does it improve game play? I would argue that it degrades dailies and makes VoIP communication difficult unless you are all on the same quest.

You are likely right that it is now an uncorked bottle. It will be interesting to see the next attempt and if it can avoid the problems that BioWare encountered.

For me, though, the natural next step in an MMO is a touch-based UI. At least, once Windows 8.1 or 8.2 is out and the bugs are finally resolved.