There is sort of a public outrage about Bartle’s latest interview with Michael Zenke of Massively (I posted about this in my last blog post). I’ve never heard so many idiotic sounding replies about this article in my life. One blog post in particular that I need to highlight is Tobold’s. Now normally, I’m a fan of Tobold and enjoy reading his blog – but this blog post had some things that just NEEDED to be commented on.
WAR is no more identical to WoW than WoW is to Everquest.
Bartle could have said Everquest. He said WoW because it was a better comparison in today’s current market. These games are all the same. I don’t care what everyone says is so different about WAR, it’s still fundamentally the same. Once you’ve done the grind, leveled up to max level and done the end game thing in one of these games – you’ve done it all. If you had fun with it and want to do it again in a different setting with different people, that’s where buying and playing another MMO comes in. It’s not because you’re looking for a radically different and unique play experience (if you are, then you’re sort of foolish IMHO) it’s because you’re bored with one game, have done what you can do in it, and need to move on. The better way to phrase that sentence could have been “WAR will be exactly as overwhelmingly identical to WoW as WoW was to Everquest.”
In the genre of MMORPGs the games of today already appear to be much different from Everquest.
Wait, what? They do? They’re the same game with different hardware requirements, art, and a bit of added usability. Is that a problem? Not for me, because I liked Everquest. I’d still play it today if my friends were still playing it. If my friends moved onto WAR, I’d be there too. If my friends went back to EQ2, I’d play there. It doesn’t matter what game it is…it’s the same leveling, it’s the same pvp, its the same questing, grinding, raiding, etc. Really it just depends on A) where your friends are, and B) what setting/art style you enjoy.
All this outrage about his comparison about a game that hasn’t even been released yet. Even those of you in beta, you are wasting breath supporting a game that isn’t out yet against the comments of one of the most intelligent people in the industry. Bartle was giving his opinion on WoW in that article, that’s it. His opinion based on having played three level 70’s (which is two more than me, btw). Part of being a good blogger is taking a step back and being objective, even when the topic is on a game you’re anticipating and salivating for.
That is why Richard Bartle’s statement of WAR being the same as WoW only makes him look foolish.
I don’t see that at all. I see it as an intelligent man making an opinionated comment (probably with a grin on his face) from a designer’s standpoint that players/bloggers just can’t comprehend. I think the fools are all the people who’ve responded with comments like “Sure, he made MUDs 10 years ago, but what now?”. Players/bloggers who’ve never made a game calling a man foolish who is the grandfather of MMOs, who is an advisor for many of the game companies you’re following, who lives and breaths this industry…who is the fool?
Richard Bartle is the co-author of MUD, one of the ancestors of modern MMORPGs. But as he failed to patent any of the inventions he did while creating it, all he got was a Wikipedia entry.
I don’t really have anything to say about that comment except, wow. If I were to come up with a comment it would probably include the words “fuck” and “asshat” but I’m too professional for that. =)
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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I think it really helps to know they guy and how he talks. When I read it, I read it as if he was talking and it all made sense to me. I understand his jokes and jibes just fine. Reading the transcript did not do it justice really.
Still, glad you said something about these anti-Bartle rants.
Well put cuppy. I too think that journalistic transcripts have too often been construed to mean something they don’t just for incendiary and sensational value. As far as WAR being like WOW… and WOW being like everquest, I dunno I have only played WOW but I also don’t see the big deal about WAR. I will play it and get bored of it just like every other pulp fiction game. It might keep me interested for a while though, we’ll see.
Indeed. However, it would be an interesting study to look at the subtle differences between different styles of game mechanics. Just in the realm of healing:
Instant heals
HoTs
Cast heals with varying casting time to damage ratio (or different interrupt potentials)
Heal auras (not used much)
Easy to interrupt, channeled heals (bandages in WoW)
Heal per point of damage inflicted on others (can’t think of one)
Heal based on total damage inflicted upon yourself or others (tank’n'heal)
Healing which deprives allies of abilities (WoW Paladin’s invul shield)
and so on and so forth, made more complex by the effects of varying cooldown times.
Raising mana, on the other hand is so powerful that it’s quite rare and there is no ‘mana battery’ typical role in a group as there is a ‘health battery’.
Now try this experiment: re-skin WoW and tell people that there’s a new great MMO out. See how many of them claim that it’s inherently superior/worse/etc than WoW and totally different
I think this is a debacle is spawned by two things:
1, People stating their opinion like it is fact.
2, People failing to realize that opinions are not facts.
I thought what Bartle said made a lot of sense and wasn’t stupid. Especially when it comes from a designers point of view, design of Warhammer is WoW is EQ. The reasoning behind not having a buy/purchase request option on the WoW auction would provide lots of insight into the design of the economy (or lack of).
Behind on blogs and the drama bot LOVE the new color scheme.
Well no matter how you look at it. Wow will be the template most people judge these games by. Just because of the number of subscribers.
I didn’t get why people were so riled up over that comment either (WAR == WoW). I’ve either played or been heavily exposed to just about every western MMO that’s come out since UO. The way I see it there’s 2 ‘types’ of MMO we’ve seen – the UOs (early SWG, Eve, skill & community-based and not so heavily level) and the EverQuests (EQ2, WoW, FFXI, level and raid based) with a subset of the EverQuests being the PvP set (DAoC, AoC, kill-a-fool based). Oh, and I guess there’s the crazy kingdom-based Asian set. Kind of like how an FPS is an FPS is an FPS, no matter what gun graphic you’re using and whether it’s zombies, aliens, or counter terrorists you’re aiming at. These types of categories aren’t a negative in that sense either, no more than the headings on the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble that tell you what to expect out of the stories in that aisle.
wow. cuppy. you’re mean.
m3mnoch.
Oh, yes, yes indeed. So many people took that statement the wrong way… And I completely agree with you. Almost every MMO (I won’t say all, certainly not, but many) are all excessively similar to each other. That isn’t a problem, no. Most games of the same genre are similar, and the specific “MMORPG” genre is the most popular form of MMO.
The interview would probably have gone over better if it had been a video.
lol, too professional? At write, it couldn’t be gaming. ok, lets see…
“Once you’ve done the grind, leveled up to max level and done the end game thing in one of these games – you’ve done it all.”
WRONG, have you not noticed the difference in grinding in one game compared to another? the way quests function in one game vs another? The exp needed in one game vs another? You speak foolishing and come off very naive as your statement is just plain wrong.
“His opinion based on having played three level 70’s (which is two more than me, btw).”
His opinion is based on 70s that did not raid max areas. What good is an opinon of someone on a game they didn’t fully play compared to a game that is in beta. Foolish
“I see it as an intelligent man making an opinionated comment (probably with a grin on his face) from a designer’s standpoint that players/bloggers just can’t comprehend.”
wow, no wonder I’ve ever visited this site, nonsense breeds here.
“If I were to come up with a comment it would probably include the words “fuck” and “asshat” but I’m too professional for that. =)”
If I didn’t control my language in your sections, which I’m sure you will delete, it would contain an F, add an N, and then summarize with idiot.
Dude, you have to be blind, maybe you are, or slow, you could be, to think his comment is intelligent. And intelligent from that old fool would have been “Why play WAR, I’ve played many MMOGs and they are all the same, do something new for a change”. To compare 1vs1 is to look like an Ass, sort of how you look now.
Popcorn -
You’re right. I forgot to mention how some games can have different NAMES then one another. How games can be made by DIFFERENT DESIGNERS.
Regardless how much experience it takes to level, it’s still a grind. You can wrap a piece of shit in pretty wrapping paper, but you’re still going to be getting a piece of shit. I’m not usually down for getting into arguments here on my blog, but I’m guessing you are a newbie to the MMO scene. Some of us have been doing this for almost a decade and we’re qualified to call it as we see it.
I must confess that as long as the turd in the golden wrapper is fun to play with I *WILL* play with it.
Nobody, absolutely NOBODY, is qualified to “call it”. High horses and all that, but mainly because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Bartle and everyone else is entitled to having opinions, but stating them like it is scripture is just plain nonsense. Personally I think there is some truth in the sentiment that most stuff is similar. I think that is just natural, just like all cars are similar, but not equal. I have a Volvo, by the way. And it sucks.
Your calling something a piece of shit that is unopened. I have not issues with calling something after trying it. And MMOGs always adjust, they pretty much need yearly reviews due to all the changes.
But to speak like you, WotLK is a PoS, just like BC was. (I would think it will be but I won’t judge until it comes out)
Apparently you are jaded with MMOGs so quit playing them and do something constructive with your life.
WRONG, have you not noticed the difference in grinding in one game compared to another? the way quests function in one game vs another? The exp needed in one game vs another?
And that’s why Cuppycake’s laughing at you, Popcorn. Because you think that “kill ten rats in a basement so that you get 90 experience points to hit level 2″ is meaningfully different from “kill nine rats in an attic so that you get 97 experience points to hit level 2″.
Thanks Anticorium, you said it better than me =)