SUMMARY:
Net.Gamer consults the oracle on Warcraft's leap into the world of the massively multiplayer RPG. Beards and all...
You'll be able to create incredible heroes in WoW, complete with jazzy costumes...
What we've seen of World of Warcraft suggests it could be the game to end EverQuest's dominance in the fantasy MMORPG arena. Blizzard, creator of Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft, has a justified reputation for beautifully crafted games. In WoW, the company is taking its
fantasy universe and crafting a huge online RPG.
For Blizzard, online role-playing is new development territory - and represents a stiff design challenge. Still, the company's cheerful visionary chief Bill Roper, who came to our offices recently to talk about his new games, is confident about Blizzard's approach to the development of a massively multiplayer role-playing game.
"One of the things World of Warcraft will address is that relationship with the community," he explains. "We want to be more responsive
than anyone else, which will be a lot of work, because there are a lot of games out there that are very responsive. But we recognise more than ever before that World of Warcraft is going to be a living organism. We've always had a lot of support for our games - and we interact with the community - but it's going to be a 24/7 job with World of Warcraft. We're going to be running a team with the project; that's
going to be their sole job. How do we keep this active and fun? It's back and forth, a joint effort with the community of players."
Roper has also spent time analysing the stumbling blocks that previous MMORPGs have encountered, looking into how Blizzard could face up to them: "A problem with a lot of these games is that they're hard to get into. It's hard to know what you're supposed to do. You wander off into these massive areas with hundreds of people and you often hardly have any idea how to move or fight or anything."
He continues, "So one thing we've always worked very hard at is to make sure our games are easy to learn - the challenge is in mastering the game, after ten hours, a hundred hours, all the new tactics and abilities and ways to control the game. We want the same to be applicable to World of Warcraft. When you start the game, you're
in a tiny little outpost. There are maybe three or four NPCs you're going to interact with... The growth of the character should also reflect the growth of the player as they learn how to play."
The mechanism of progression will not just be the standard 'level' system, as Roper explains: "We'll continue to play with it, but we wanted to have some different earmarks for success for players and their achievements, wherever they go. One of these is your level - a numerical value that shows how successful you've been, through which you can expand all the standard abilities: strength, intelligence, agility. All standard RPG elements."
"But we also want to show how players can have certain focuses and specialisations within that world. So, for example, if you're a warrior, you might focus on swords or two-handed weapons. The more you use an item, the better your character gets with it. Different styles become available with the weapons, or different spells become available... We wanted to have the rewards of the level-based system, but also reward players for choosing a certain path."
And the famous Blizzard video cinematics? Do they appear in World of Warcraft? "The cinematics play a very different part in this kind of game," says Roper. "So much that happens in a massively multiplayer game is triggered by other characters. Things happen when you have a lot of players in an area. Some things are scripted, but
other things happen because there are 35 characters in an area and they just want to try something no-one has tried that before."
Roper further explained, ""You can't plan out pre-rendered sequences to take account of that, but we do want to set the stage for what players will be doing here. Some of them will not be avid fans of the strategy games - it's an RPG, so we want to get people ready for what they're going into, what
their place in this new world is."
With chaps as talented as Mr Roper working on it, it's hard to see how WoW could fail. After all, the company thoroughly rejuvenated the real-time strategy genre with its splendid Craft titles. We'll know the truth of it all by winter. Until then, if you want to know more, check out Blizzard's comprehensive website for artwork, background stories, and much, much more. It's all very exciting indeed.
Source:
Gamesradar.com
Article Source: www.warcry.com
