Mythic: Warhammer Online Needs to Succeed for the Good of the Industry
"We need to show the world that it's not just Blizzard who can make a great game, and that the audience is absolutely willing to try new things and to play a game other than WoW," Jacobs explained to MTV Multiplayer.
"If we don't succeed with EA behind us, the Warhammer IP behind us, with one of the most experienced teams in the industry, that's not going to be good for the industry."
The executive also noted his previous hope that Funcom's recent PC MMO Age of Conan would have had more of an impact against Blizzard's World of Warcraft (PC).
"At some level I wanted Conan to succeed because for the last few years people have been saying it's all Blizzard and nobody else can do it," Jacobs stated. "'Only Blizzard can get those kind of numbers,' and so far they've been right. But now it's our turn."
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whistletits
replyI must save the industry! I will go out and pay $50 for the software then play the free month then move on.
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Hahaha.
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that's mainly how I play MMO games. devs have to realize you need
(i) very good repeatable content for people to keep coming back after they run out of new content to play through
(ii) core content good enough to play through more than once and multiple starting zones with several branches to blunt repetition. many WoW players barely play through to the level cap but will level another character
(iii) fun, varied classes with solid core game systems. combat, even in pve is very good in WoW. Look at how abilities progress in WoW. It's like a reward to get many of the spells and it's fun to employ them when they are new. In many other games that novelty is completely lacking as there isn't proper class progression or differentiation between abilities.
Age of Conan is a good game but it's lacking in all of these respects. The greatest novelty is the melee combat system which, to me, is good, however it's lacking in interesting strategic decisions due to half baked systems that would make it truly unique if polished, such as blocking (passive and active) which is interesting in theory but awkward in practice. CC is less interesting and things like kiting are also very awkward with fixed animations that plant the player. Ideally combat doesn't devolve into who attacks first - it depends on choices of one of several paths with outcomes changing depending on execution.
Outcomes in WoW can seem rigged due to class balance when skill levels are similar, however it's better than combat more heavily affected by chance. In either case more polish should alter systems to allow room for outcomes to be affected by level of player execution. RPG games can't have aiming like FPS games but they can have movement, timing, and choices
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