World of Warcraft - Case Study Example

World οf Warcraft World οf Warcraft is a popular online role-playing game introduced by Blizzard Entertainment Corp. In World οf Warcraft, players presume the role οf hero characters made up οf one οf a number οf different species οf creature. The setting in each game takes place in the mythical world οf Azeroth. The Burning Crusade provides new capabilities for player characters, new playable races, new continent to explore and many other things to collect and explore. "What will Blizzard οf next?" Its a question we love to ask--those οf us who have become enslaved by their addictive games--and one we always get wrong. So when Blizzard announced that they were going to reveal their next project this September, the speculation ran rampant, as usual, as fanboys and industry dorks alike started guessing at the possibilities. STARCRAFT 2? Massively multiplayer DIABLO? A first-person shooter? The answer was finally revealed on September 2 at ECTS in London--and, as usual, everyone was wrong again. Coming next from Blizzard is WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT, a massively multiplayer RPG set in the WARCRAFT universe. And although no one expected this, it is as exciting an announcement as they could have made. Finally, Blizzard is swooping down from that eagle-eye view and letting us play inside one οf their fantasy universes. Finally, instead οf commanding troops from above, we get to be mighty heroes ourselves, creating cur own personal legends. It is Blizzard most ambitious game to date--and over the next 10 pages, the green-skinned CGW peons are ready to take you on a tour οf the now-living kingdom οf Azeroth in this exclusive first look, Zug zug! As any serious WARCRAFT geek knows, Blizzard has long had a huge story in place for its flagship universe--but most οf that story never appeared in the games themselves. But the WARCRAFT I and II designers were obviously frustrated story-tellers, because they packed the manuals and subsequent novels with details οf a deeply thought-out fantasy world (somewhat reminiscent οf Raymond Feists great Riftwar Saga) that has just begged for further enrichment. Blizzard tried to build on the story in the never-released WARCRAFT ADVENTURES, and the fact that theyre coming back to it again--this time in an online RPG--just proves the level οf their obsession. (Bessière 530-5) "The simple fact is that WARCRAFT is our flagship gig," said Chris Metzen, longtime Blizzard veteran and "keeper οf the arcane flame" οf all WARCRAFT continuity. "DIABLO kicks ass, STARCRAFT kicks ass--Im partial to all οf them. But ultimately, we were like, f**k it, this is it--the WARCRAFT universe is Blizzard. There wasnt much to think about. It was a perfect fit for this kind οf game." And while it may seem odd for Blizzard to be announcing another new WARCRAFT game while theyre still struggling to finish WARCRAFT III (now bumped to 2002), the fact is, WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT has been in development for a year already, with a team οf nearly 40 people working on it full time. When we flew down to check out the game in mid-August, the team demoed it live, on a running sewer, with other Blizzard employees for a full hour. And the great news is that while WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT may represent a quantum leap in ambition, scope, and technology over anything theyve done previously, at root, this is still going to be a Blizzard game--with all the simplicity, ease-of-use, and--in theory--fun that that implies. From the moment you launch WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT, Blizzard aims to make the experience as simple as in all οf their other games. Like all MMORPGS, youll start out by creating your character. At this point, Blizzard is announcing only three οf the player races: Human, Orc, and Tauren. The first two we all know about, while the latter is a race being introduced in WARCRAFT III (see sidebar). Players will have a healthy number οf options for making their characters stand out physically, because the team realizes that in MMORPGS, as in real life, looks do matter. As such, Blizzard is including loads οf options for character creation, including numerous facial choices, hair (or, in the Taurens case, horn) styles, skin colors, and even tattoos. Armor and weaponry will be huge, οf course, and (as in DIABLO) the acquisition and wearing οf unique, bad-ass items will be key to making your character stand out. Blizzard wont reveal character classes yet, except to say that theyll fit into the WARCRAFT universe--so you can at least expect the standard mix οf warriors, spellcasters, and rangers--and you can look to the WARCRAFT II (and III, when it ships) manuals for further ideas. (Schiesel E2-E2) The most interesting part about character creation in WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT is what you dont do. At the beginning, you dont assign any skill points at all. Thats right: no numbers. Youll pick your race, your look, and your class--and then you jump into the game. "We want this all to be really, really simple," said Bill Roper, another longtime Blizzard veteran (who at one time, long ago, provided all the voices to WARCRAFT I). "We dont went you to make choices about things without any information, we dont went you suddenly putting points into stats and skills that you have no idea about. Much like DIABLO II, were gonna start you off with the right stats for your character type. But as you play and start learning things, then youll get to assign points, and itll feel like an informed decision." Lets be clear: This isnt an attempt to dumb down the RPG elements οf the game. Its simply a matter οf Blizzard trying to do what they always do, which is create a game thats "easy to learn and hard to master," as many on the team repeated throughout the demo. "Even though we love the current massive multiplayer games," said Roper, "the truth is that they still appeal mostly to the hardcore. The interface is very difficult, the learning curve is too steep, and they punish you too severely too early." (Irwin p1) Project lead Shane Dabiri added, "For lots οf people, you gotta remember, its still scary to even go online, let alone play a massive multiplayer game. We want to give players a ramp-up period to feel comfortable first." Once you create your character and enter Azeroth, it becomes clear just how serious Blizzard is. The team has created a brandnew 3D engine for the game, which you can view from a first- or third-person perspective (easily switchable with the mouse wheel), and it is a marvel. Unlike nearly every other massively multiplayer game around, WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT is not going for a "photorealistic" look with lots οf earth tones. It is instead opting for a more surreal and colorful look that is faithful to the WARCRAFT palette, and that feels, as Roper put it, "almost like youre inside a painting." For Metzen, this look was crucial. "It was a very specific goal for us, to glom onto the WARCRAFT look and try to extrapolate it into a first-person universe. We were looking for something more iconic; we wanted a level οf mightiness not found in other games. And thats what this game is about: mighty dudes doing great deeds." To give the world a "live" feel, the team has added large environmental effects like moving water and skies, along with more subtle effects like swaying cobwebs and flying butterflies and birds. More important, all the monsters and NPCs in the gameworld are always doing something. NPCs dont stand around waiting for you to come to them; they have assignments, such as patrolling, guarding, or hunting, You may even see a line οf peons chopping wood. You traverse the world mostly on foot at first, though higher-level characters will gain items like teleport scrolls. The world is going to be huge, encompassing at least a good portion οf Azeroth as depicted in the WARCRAFT II manual, along with new areas depicted in WARCRAFT III--though Blizzard declined to be more specific on this point. Perhaps the coolest element οf travel--and a feature that all veteran massively multiplayer gamers are going to shout out loud about--is that there are no load times between zones. The world is streaming, as in DIABLO II, so that you actually experience a smooth transition as you move from one environment to the next, with no load screen whatsoever. We actually saw this work, so unless Blizzard was using smoke and mirrors to fool us, theyve already solved a major MMORPG headache. In addition, every player will have the ability to bind to a location via huge binding stones scattered throughout the world--so you wont have to beg another player to do it for you. So what, exactly, are you going to be doing in WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT? Combat, obviously, will play a huge role. (Yes, there will be player-versus-player--and yes, you can avoid it if you want.) Blizzard is promising, however, that battles will happen faster and more often than is typical οf the genre. It wont be quite as frenetic as DIABLO II, but on the other hand, you wont have to wait an hour to lure one creature out and then spend 10 minutes trying to kill him. ("We dont feel like you should be reading a book or doing your laundry during combat," said Roper.) Death is going to be made somewhat less painful than in the current crop οf MMORPGs. "We want it to be not terribly jarring," said Dabiri. "Youve gotta be sorry when you die, but you shouldnt feel like you just got punched in the stomach and want to go cry for a week. Youve got to want to jump right back in and try to do better, rather than shut the computer off and think `the game screwed me." Blizzard is also stressing, however, that players will be able to gain experience from activities other than combat, such as going on quests, practicing trade skills, helping other players, and maybe even just exploring. Quests will range from easy, solo missions that you can do in one or two hours, to large-scale quests that may involve many players roaming all over the world for weeks. Blizzard demonstrated a sample quest for us, a multipart one that required us to travel to different locations. The original quest, given to us by an NPC, is to destroy a strange tree beast that attacks folks out in a jungle. On our way, we discover that we need a specific weapon, a flaming blade called the Firestar, to defeat him, but that the hilt and the blade have been separated. To get the hilt, we have to battle some monsters in a local graveyard, and to get the blade, we need to find the thief in town who has stolen it. Once we have both pieces, a blacksmith forges them together for us and were on our way. And the bonus, after weve killed the tree beast, is that now we have a flaming sword, complete with particle effects, that we can show off to other players in the world. Οf course, the game is really all about other players. Blizzard is focusing much attention on developing rewards for participating in the community and working with others. One exciting concept theyre introducing is that οf ritual magic--spells that will require multiple casters to use. The example they demonstrated for us was a ritual spell that opens a portal to a special zone. To do this, we needed multiple casters because different players possessed different spells that all needed to be cast together. The reward for participating in such a ritual is that all the casters can then travel through the portal, but access is barred to anyone else. So if youre one οf the few people in the world who can do certain ritual magic spells, everyone will know it, and youre going to be a popular player. Another good reason to group with others is that every character class will come with an innate passive ability. When you join a group, that ability is shared automatically with everyone in the group. For example, a rangers ability may be that his minimap is filled in with more detail than maps οf other classes. If you group with a ranger, you will receive that bonus, as long as you stay with him. Because different races will have different classes, this will also encourage players οf different races to band together. Orcs and Humans, banding together? Were not sure. And Blizzard isnt telling. WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT actually takes place about five years after the conclusion οf WARCRAFT III--and whether these mortal enemies can now live in peace is a plot spoiler that Blizzard will not yet reveal. Differences in faction definitely will be a part οf the game, however, and how you conduct yourself, οf course, will also affect how the other denizens οf Azeroth respond to you. It all sounds good now, in theory. But will Blizzard really be able to pull this off, avoiding all the technical problems that have plagued nearly every other game οf this type? So far, they remain confident. "Weve learned a lot from battle.net over the years, both good and bad," said Roper. "Its still the largest online multiplayer game service, so we have lots to draw upon. Obviously were not going to be running WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT on DIABLO II realms, because its a completely different paradigm. But we can utilize the full breadth and scope οf our knowledge on getting hundreds οf thousands οf people online playing with each other really simply." Blizzard will be setting up multiple realms on servers around the world for WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT, and the company plans to maintain a full-time staff with the sole responsibility οf continuing to create new content for the game. "We think οf it as an amusement park motif," said Metzen. "We want you to keep coming back again and again, to keep trying new things. And our job will be to keep the lines short and keep changing up the rides." Blizzard is also promising to conduct extensive beta testing and swears theyre going to take their time with it. "The beta test is actually the big x-factor here," said Roper. "We cant tell you if its going to be one month or one year. We put the biggest pressure on ourselves. If a game ships on time, but it doesnt work and its not fun, then who cares? Weve always felt its much more important to get a game right when it comes out, so that four years later people are still playing it because its a good game." So what does that mean for a release date? it means, unfortunately, that there isnt one. "No matter what date we tell you, youre not gonna believe us," said Roper. "So we dont have a release date." And that was the only lousy thing wed heard all day. With WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT, Blizzard is veering away from familiar terrain and entering an extremely competitive gaming landscape fraught with hazard--as the frazzled teams οf EVERQUEST, ANARCHY ONLINE, WORLD WAR II ONLINE, and others would all attest. But its a challenge that clearly has Blizzard jazzed. "Huge communities have always built up around our games, from WARCRAFT II on." said Roper. "Every time we come up with a new product, we work on how we can better integrate the community and get people to interact. So a massive multiplayer game is just the next logical step. Whats really exciting to us is sitting around and talking about a game that wont have a chat room. Youll now finally be talking to other layers as your character, all the time. Its exciting to us as developers and gamers." And that last part is why Blizzard always gets it right: At root, they are just geeky gamers like the rest οf us. Theyre making WORLD ΟF WARCRAFT because this is the game that they want to play. World οf Warcraft is change in taste in PC games. It is so good it should appear with a warning label: Danger! Creation inside is habit-forming. Do not take without strictly monitoring the progress οf your life in the real, non-virtual world! There are many reasons that why people spend 20, 40 or 80 hours a week playing massively multiplayer online game World οf Warcraft. Its to meet hot chicks . Thats why a band οf intrepid entrepreneurs has developed a cleverly-named social network to "facilitate the building οf relationships between World οf Warcraft enthusiasts." World οf Warcraft onlie starts by having you create a character, a person who will be your envoy in game. You can select which side οf the games epic encounters you want to be on: Alliance (humans, dwarves, night elves, gnomes) or Horde (orcs, trolls, bull-like tauren and undead). There is option οf selecting basic options for what your character which will look like and you choose what class the character will belong to. After that you hop into a fantasy world online, where there are missions to complete alone and with other people, dungeons to explore, items to acquire and crafting skills to perfect. You will see many monsters and some people which are being controlled automatically by the online servers the game runs on, but each οf the other characters you see running around the landscape is in fact a different person. In this game, players usually separate their time among a number οf activities: questing, crafting, player-versus-player competitions and so-called running instances, which involve exploring the games dungeons either in small groups or in 40-person mobs called raids. Works Cited Bessière, K., The ideal elf: identity exploration in World οf Warcraft. Cyberpsychology & Behavior: The Impact Οf The Internet, Multimedia And Virtual Reality On Behavior And Society, 2007, Vol. 10 (4), pp. 530-5 Irwin, Mary Jane., Datecraft to provide Warcraft players with virtual social life [Virtual Worlds]. Gawker: Valleywag, 11/12/2007, p1 Schiesel, Seth., World οf Warcraft Expands. New York Times, 1/17/2007, Vol. 156 Issue 53827, pE2-E2 Villarreal, Phil., WoW (World οf Warcraft): Fans οf World οf Warcraft have own reasons for allure. Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, AZ), 09/20/2007 Read More