As for why? Well, look at it like this, I work, have a life, do all of that other crap, attempt to do extracurricular activities, as well as play MMOGs and write about them. Normally, enough MMOGs suck, so instead of playing them, I write about them.
Then I got into the World of Warcraft Beta. And I’ll be honest. I’ve been playing a lot. A hell of a lot. At least it feels like a lot. Funny thing is, I’m level 22 or so, and have put in around 70 hours. Which, while that feels like a ton, when I remember back to my EQ days, I think I was at like 200 or so hours by the time I hit level 20. Enough with the reminiscing though, there are a few motivating factors to explain my totally consuming interest with it.
First. The person I play with. Honestly, if it wasn’t for her, I question whether I would’ve made it through the first five levels. I suspect I would’ve, but playing with the right person turns an average experience, into a great experience, even if it’s only bitching in unison. To avoid embarrassing her more, I’ll stop now.
Second. This is going to be a massive player in the industry. This game WILL be one of the next big names, no matter your thoughts on it, so as I have a somewhat academic interest in the genre, and the evolution of these games, I feel that it’s important for me to get an all encompassing experience with a game of this caliber, so that in the future I’ll be able to refer back to it.
This is much the reason I’ve played nearly every other MMOG. I never ‘really’ had an interest in a lot of the games (Neocron? Ugh), I played them because I wanted to be able to refer to different mechanics and experiences apart from EverQuest and Ultima Online. So I made my way through games like A Tale in the Desert, Anarchy Online, EVE, Star Wars Galaxies, etc.
Which leads me to now. Now. As in, I have a bunch of E3 updates I ‘wanted’ to finish before the memory became too hazy. Unfortunately, playing World of Warcraft basically every night is where my current inspiration for ramblings lie because I have a hell of a lot I want to talk about, in regards to design, World of Warcraft, and the genre in general.
So I suppose the plans for the next few weeks will be largely World of Warcraft related material (taking things in specific and talking about them), mixed in with MMOG newsbits (when they come) and a few more E3 Impressions I want to do (Imperator, Tabula Rasa, City of Villains).
Which means, for the moment, I’ll take a quick second and talk about the first thing about World of Warcraft I liked. I liked how I downloaded it, I liked how I installed it. The bit torrent client was an excellent method of distribution, a hell of a lot better than Star Wars Galaxies, 40 dollar (if you were a Canadian anyways), CD, UPS, delivery system.
Account creation was done through the World of Warcraft website. I still don’t exactly understand why all games use this method, as opposed to the in-client account management the original EverQuest used, but it was certainly painless.
While I was going through the rigmarole, I was thinking about a similar experience I had recently. That experience was with City of Heroes. Some people I know are playing, and I was considering playing a bit with them on and off, so I heard the game was downloadable on the website. Perhaps it still is, but I couldn’t see it.
Thing is, MMOG game clients are insanely easy to get. Why don’t all MMOG companies offer the ability to buy an account code, straight out, no support, no game, nothing, for like thirty bucks? Is it because they’d lose in box sales, and need that as part of their overall revenue?
Or would the retailers, who still move a hell of a lot of copies, not support and promote the game/company if they realized the company was cutting them out of profits? Perhaps, I don’t know the exact details, I do know though that I just wish the companies had an option where I could go buy an account key, nothing else, get the client however I want, and play the game. It doesn’t even have to be cheaper, just the convenience of it is appealing to me.
This all said, while I was thinking this, it made me question what Blizzard will do to avoid the launch day horror which has quickly become legendary surrounding these games. I think it’s safe to say this game will be a very, very hot item at release (not necessarily because the game kicks so much ass it’s unbelievable, just because Blizzard could smack their name, the word ‘Craft’ on a box of Cracker Jacks, with a free prize of: ‘suck my Wang!’ inside and it would still sell a trillion copies). I’m talking preorders galore, shelf shortages, the whole bit, and that’s even with hundreds of thousands of copies available.
Okay. So. Let’s say, Blizzard actually has a demand for, hmm, 200,000 thousand copies on opening day. As we know, the maximum number of players ever on a server I believe, is 20% of the subscribers (at least that’s the number I’ve been given). This means, in general, a server of 5,000 people at peak, peak, times, can in reality hold 20,000 subscribers. Maybe even more. I don’t know how accurate this rule is, but given that it is vaguely accurate, we can assume that it would make sense for Blizzard to have anywhere from ten to twenty servers ready at release, which should be able to eventually hold upwards of 200 to 400 thousand people.
The only problem is, at release, all 200,000 people want to play. I though the Beta Application fiasco was embarrassing, but I can’t even imagine what they have in mind to deal with release day. It could be that they’re going with the route of: “MMOGs have to be released at some point in time, a week long of plugged servers is something that can’t be avoided, and will eventually calm itself down”. I don’t know. It certainly isn’t something that the B.Net kiddies seem to be concerned about, and it probably isn’t that big of a deal, but it definitely poses a question that I’m sure every company who has even considered producing an MMOG has thought about it.
What’s the best option? Is it a good option to provide more technology than needed, just for one day so you have a smooth launch? What about slowly trickling your players into the game over a period of a week? Does it really matter?
Something I’ve been thinking about, and as you guys are a hell of a lot smarter than me, maybe you’ll have a better solution because damned if I know. Personally I think players do care, even have long memories, but if their game experience when they finally get the chance to play, makes up for it, they’ll forgive the company in charge. If the game experience is not worth the hassle they went through to play, they’ll bring the experience up forever after as a foul mark against the company. That’s my general thoughts.
After that, I created a warlock by the name of Oglin, aka, The Gnomish Pervert, also known as, ‘He Who Ogles’, or 'He Who Participates in the Ass Slap Hip Thrust Gnome Dance of Hot Monkey Love' (throw me a tell, or toss me on your friends list if you play). Character creation was not really much to talk about. Felt very uninspired and about as advanced as original EQ character creation. Choose your hair. Choose the color of your hair. Choose your face texture. Go wild!
On top of this, there is no naming filter in place, as you can see by my very quickly made character. Apart from disallowing people to use numbers in their names (thankfully enough) basically everything is fair game… which is as annoying as hell. Seriously, I don’t care how annoying your fans are, they’ll live with a name filter in place, and in general, it’s a hell of a lot better than running around and seeing crap like ‘poostick’ or ‘suckme’ asking for a group or auctioning off some item in a zone. Anyways, those were my very preliminary thoughts, soon I’ll be tackling the fun stuff like the *gasp* Rest System, or as I prefer to call it the 'we hate our players, they can go suck a rock AND DIE' system, and other fun things like loot, tradeskills, death, content, graphics, depth, interface, etc. Weeee. More upcoming, it’s going to be a fun ride.