Does Blizzard know what they are doing?

[Etadanik]

He is right.

But he sucks at implementation.

Balance between classes, as people tend to talk about it, is bullshit. A detail. Far more important is whether a class is fun. The problem comes when your whole game is based on fighting and you make classes that no one wants in groups and who can't solo. That ain't fun. The poor mathematical balance is simply an afterthinker's way of labeling it.

Meanwhile, no one would ever claim that baking is balanced with adventuring in EQ. Yet people do baking nonetheless. Because it's fun.

[masteen]

I still don't know why Raph Koster has cred in the MMOG industry. You gotta be some special kinda retard to do what he did with a Star Wars license.

RK: Hey guys, what do you think when I say "Star Wars?"
Dev1: Giant space battles!
Dev2: Lightsabre duels!
Dev3: Jedi!
RK: You're all wrong! The answer is CANTINA DANCERS!

[Itzena]

SW:G is to UO as EQ2 is to EQ.
Once you understand that, all becomes clear.

[masteen]

Originally Posted by Itzena

SW:G is to UO as EQ2 is to EQ.
Once you understand that, all becomes clear.

The eqivalent of a chicken with its head cut off?

[Malakie Torsade]

I'd like to have Pandareans on the Horde... but what happens if we get busty female Pandareans? Manginas are bad enough, mangina furries though...

As for Blizzard, I'd imagine it's a lot like it was at SOE. You have the core developers (ie, the ones who actually break their backs) who want WoW to be the best game possible. But then you have the MBA_90234*'s who go home at 5 and only care about the bottom line.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by masteen

The eqivalent of a chicken with its head cut off?

Well, that too but primarily an attempt to take a previous game and 'fix' all the 'problems' with it. So you end up with a bland pastiche designed by commitee.

[ElGallo]

Originally Posted by Taggle

This is crazy talk. Both of the above are accomplished designers, but they have a completely different view of how these games should feel and play.

The cliffnotes:

McQuaid - Massively Multiplayer Online Games
Koster - Virtual Worlds

I generally agree with that. I was just referring to the fact that McQuaid has referred to his own posts as "Kosterian" a couple times lately. Though, if you want my honest opinion, McQuaid's #1 goal is to foster community. He'll sacrifice entertaining gameplay for community's sake. Community is what they both want, though they take obviously different routes to get there.

[RunningDog]

Blizzard know what they are doing, but I think they've lost touch with the players.

On the PvP side the horde / alliance imbalance means there is no good solution to faction vs faction combat, someone is going to get left out, or one side will get overwhelmed. An obvious solution would be to allow alliance to fight alliance or horde against horde, since it will be easier to come up with lore that explains that rather than code in some balancing mechanism. Or they could just pretend the problem doesn't exist.

On the PvE side it's interesting that Blizzard are creating end-game raid dungeons and yet are also accused of not catering to the hardcore crowd. I'd say they need level 60 Dire Maul style instances based upon the kind of time most of their players are willing to put in. Leave the BWL areas to the expansion. This might not be what the people here want, and it doesn't seem to be what the designers want, but I think it's what most of the level 60 players would prefer.

[keflex]

Originally Posted by Vaclav

Where's the "I don't know, but I care less than Blizzard (which is hard to manage)" option?

Probably somewhere in the "I <3 EQ like I <3 Penis up the ass" thread.