MMO Roundup: Cataclysm linearity and The Old Republic's innovation
by Alex Ziebart 
Jan 17th 2012 at 6:00PM
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Blizzard thinks Cataclysm was too linear Designing MMOs is often the art of shepherding players in a given direction while at the same time giving them a sense of freedom. World of Warcraft's most recent expansion, Cataclysm, has frequently been accused of giving players nowhere to go but a series of rails -- and according to a recent response from a community manager, Blizzard agrees. |
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James Ohlen hits back against critics, defends SWTOR's innovation Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Director James Ohlen isn't surprised that the game's received the flak it has from a segment of reviews and fans. In a candid interview with Eurogamer, Ohlen addresses both the issues of being a "big target" for critics and the claims that SWTOR's lacking innovation. |
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Blizzard kills Diablo III's RMT to appease South Korea Blizzard Entertainment made waves last year when it announced that Diablo III would be supporting real-money trading (RMT) through its in-game auction house system. While it proved to be a divisive topic among fans, apparently it was too much with the South Korean rating board, which sees such activities as potentially violating the country's anti-gambling rules. |
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TERA launching May 1 in North America En Masse Entertainment is launching its long-awaited TERA MMO on May 1 in North America. A posting on the game's website confirms the date, and it also mentions both standard and collector's edition offerings, the contents of which will be revealed in February. In the meantime, En Masse is accepting beta applications, and the company also promises "lots more in store" for the month of January. |
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Massively Speaking Episode 181 Massively Speaking, Massively's MMO podcast, is back this week with special guest Shawn Schuster! He's so handsome and charming. Anyway, Shawn joins Rubi and Justin this week to discuss the week in MMO news. |
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Massively's week in review Don't let WoW Insider do all of the talking when it comes to Massively's best content of the week. The Massively staff themselves have picked out what they think is the best content their site has to offer in their own weekly roundup. |
Filed under: MMO Roundup
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Eldoron Jan 17th 2012 6:20PM
Innovations of SW:TOR: How to lie to your customers and call low textures "high"
Thundrcrackr Jan 18th 2012 10:06AM
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted for this. SWTOR has had multiple graphics issues since launch. No AA, forced low or mid res textures in certain areas of the game despite having them set to high in the options, slow loading textures, broken shadows, multiple frame rate issues, even on high end systems, etc.)
Things will get better with patches I'm sure (I think they are adding AA in today's patch) but I don't see why people get downvoted for expecting something better out of a 2011 game, even if it is an MMO.
Eldoron Jan 18th 2012 10:15AM
I'm not surprised. This is wow insider. Hypocrisy all the way! i.e. you can't say anything negative even if it's true. Except if you're some celebrated "comment star" like cutaia or sht
jfofla Jan 17th 2012 6:49PM
Massively is the biggest nest of WOW Haters on the Internet.
Imnick Jan 17th 2012 7:05PM
A wretched hive of scum and villainy?
VioletArrows Jan 17th 2012 7:46PM
@jfofla ...So?
Ant Jan 17th 2012 9:11PM
So, so true. I understand they're bloggers but if they're aspiring to be journalist... you kind have to be impartial on what you report. And they fail badly at it.
The commentors are even worse and it's amazing to see the shit they spout off about things are blatant lies.
Al Jan 17th 2012 10:36PM
I thought that was the WoW forums?
perderedeus Jan 17th 2012 6:59PM
SWTOR did innovate by providing a class-specific narrative throughout the entire game, driven by a very high amount of voice acting. Light Side/Dark Side choices are also fairly innovative, whether some detractors will admit or not, in that they do present a choice -- you can turn a quest chain on its head and complete it differently, which is something rarely seen in the MMO space and sorely lacking from The Other Huge MMO Out There right now.
Is it perfect? Nope. The Other Huge MMO Out There isn't perfect either -- and look at that, it's still got 10 million subscribers, 7 years after launch.
brain314 Jan 18th 2012 3:49AM
I don't know if I'd call the Light/Dark side choices innovative. It was in KOTOR years ago, and SWTOR, IMHO, plays just like KOTOR, but multiplayer. This is not a bad thing, but not innovative.
I would say their companion system is innovative, along with the way crafting and gathering works.
The Warzone PVP is insteresting. I like the fact that they found a way to get 1-50s PVPing together. But they need more warzones. You have 3 warzones technically, but one is football. Always struck me as odd that Sith and Jedi would gather together to play football. I believe the next patch will subdivide the PVP into level 1-49 and 50. That should fix the matter of geared 50's whipping everybody else. The game also needs a better AFK system, like a user-oriented vote kick.
The vendors and Trade Network (aka auction house) are horrible, tho. Some filters just plain don't work, making buying, selling and just trying to find certain items a huge pain.
The 100% voice acting is a good feature, esp for an RPG. That certainly raises the bar on what's doable in an MMO. Adds a lot to the storytelling. Sure, some people will just want to spacebar the whole thing, but you at least have both options.
Saeadame Jan 17th 2012 7:31PM
"Blizzard thinks Cataclysm was too linear"
Thank god, I have especially high hopes for Mists 85-90 questing. It wasn't that the linearity was bad story-wise, but it just made things annoying when you would miss that ONE quest and then you couldn't continue until you'd found it again.
Pyromelter Jan 17th 2012 9:22PM
hopefully MoP will use the Wrath model of quest chains with hubs that will take you from one hub to the next, but you can choose which hub to go to, or skip over certain hubs if you wish. This also leads to minimal phasing, which, while cool as an abstract idea, leads to big headaches when you are talking about a persistent world (like people not being able to see each other, herb/ore nodes out of phase, etc).
Philster043 Jan 17th 2012 11:03PM
This is actually the best news I've heard in a while. If Mists will be a bit more non-linear again, that will do wonders for my desire to play more of my alts. I love the first 1-60 zones and how they were redesigned, but it helped that you didn't necessarily have to do them. It's hard enough for me to get through the Outlands and Northrend again but these 80-85 zones have turned out to even more of a drag to do again and again. Plus, there's nothing wrong with being spontaneous and exploring for the fun of it, to be rewarded by something surprising that you didn't expect to find! Blizzard needs to bring that back into the game in a big way.
Dude Jan 17th 2012 7:43PM
WoW 4ever and ever and ever and.. oh yeah, SWTOR, yeah I heard of it, yawn. WoW forever and ever and ever ever ever etc.
rhorle Jan 18th 2012 2:43AM
The WoW article linked to is misleading because Blizzard has never said the quest linearity was an error nor did Daxxari's comment qouted only as "error" reference quests. It was talking about not giving people a reason to go out into the world dealing with end game content.
The correct article and correct blue response can be found in this thread : http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/215868-please-dont-make-all-questing-linear-gated/ in which they state "As Dave Kosak and others have said before, we think we may have gone a bit too linear with Cataclysm". It is the same general response but is a slightly different tone from what is being reported.
Its understandable for certain massively writers to take any chance to hate on WoW but it really doesn't need to be rounded up for here. Even more so when the rounded up article is spreading false statements and claims.
Amaxe Jan 18th 2012 5:11PM
I think TOR avoids the appearance of linearity because of the combination of class quests and area quests. Yes, the class quests take you to the same areas regardless of quest, but doing both of these together makes it different... especially when race and gender can bring up different tones in dialogue.
Also, when choosing a LS or DS resolution it can make a quest play differently.
Not sure if WoW can do this however, since TOR makes use of cutscenes and conversations and WoW makes use of "click accept." Still, if we could have each class have their own story through WoW's leveling and cutting out the "you must hit every quest before advancing" perspective, it would be an interesting change and perhaps remove some of the "dammit, not Harrison Jones again!"
goldeneye Jan 25th 2012 2:28AM
I'm fairly interested in SWTOR after participating in a beta weekend. But no dungeon finder = no sub from me. I don't have the time to go advertising in chat for half an hour.