What will Blizzard do differently in their Next-Gen MMO.

[Deleted]

When Blizzard came out with WoW in 2004/05 they immediately dominated the market, becoming the most dominant MMO within a matter of months. Despite the huge success of WoW, it really wasn't that revolutionary rather than evolutionary at its release. Actually, the leveling experience via questing rather than grinding was the main strong-point.

Well, since WoW has dominated the market for almost 6 years now many games have tried to copy the success, but all attempts fell short. Sometime around 2008 rumors and hints arose that Blizzard was beginning to work on its next MMO title. However, this time around Blizzard is in a new and somewhat unknown role as a potential market innovator. This is unusual for Blizzard who seem far better at perfecting established game-concepts rather than coming up with their own.

But since the MMO market has hardly changed in the past 5 years....what can we expect? What conceptional differences will the next-gen MMO have? What mistakes do you think Blizzard would like to prevent and how will they evlove the genre? Will consoles be part of the plan this time around? Since WoW was such a huge success, there is actually a strong argument to be made that fundamentally very little will actually change.

This thread isn't supposed to be so much about whether it will be Sci-Fi or Fantasy, or whatever, but rather game-mechanic evolutions.

-I could imagine that Blizzard might choose to reduce the core-group experiences to less than 5 people, down to maybe 4. WoW was pretty revolutionary when it announced 5-man dungeons because up to that point, dungeon-raids in MMOs usually featured around 8 players.

-The "holy-trinity" of tanking/DPS and healing might come to an end. Maybe Blizzard will find a way to open up the system.

-I still think instances will play a major part, even in a future title. It's just way easier to deal with large player numbers that way.

-PvP will be part of the whole design concept, rather than the afterthought it was in WoW. Kaplan admitted that WoW was never originally designed for serious PvP. This might lead to large scale PvP objectives although the strong instancing of WoW PvP has served it well.

-I think streaming content will play a much larger role in the next-gen title. This really should affect game-play features much but the technology might allow much easier and more seamless patching and changes to the game-world.

-Rudimentary physics might be part of the next-gen engine, allowing greater player interaction with the online world. Could prove to be technically challenging though.

-If there continues to be something similar to PvE raids I think the group-size will be further reduced to around 15 players.

-3D effects of some kind are sure to play a major role. After all, were talking about a game 3+ years from now.

[manageri]

Will consoles be part of the plan this time around?

I hope Blizz ain't that stupid, but who knows. Selling out to consoles has fucked up many games that otherwise could have been really awesome.

[Deleted]

I hope Blizz ain't that stupid, but who knows. Selling out to consoles has fucked up many games that otherwise could have been really awesome.

XBox 360 and PS3 aren't every likely candidates but their successors might be. This begs the question which new technologies and input devices might be used.

[Yooya]

The big problem with HMO's and consoles is that the developers would be driven to breach the inequality. Meaning, that maybe, the PC users wouldn't be able take full advantage of their system/platform. It happened with Final Fantasy -- not that they would be the same in anyway but it is a possibility.

I would definitely say an advanced physics engine, interactive terrain, mostly full voice acting, and I think the would try to revolutionize the questing system. Definitely get rid of the whole "question mark".

[Enkidulgaa]

mostly full voice acting

In the end every npc will be voiced by Metzen anyway.

[Yooya]

In the end every npc will be voiced by Metzen anyway.

Battle Cruiser operational.

But really... He doesn't do a bad job.

[MilitantCasual]

In a word, Social. There are 500 million Facebook users. Zynga is making money hand over fist with Farmville and it's ilk. Now, I don't think Blizz is going to go down that bath directly, or that they'll buy into the 'free-to-play' microtransactions idea whole heartedly, but they HAVE to do something to give the game a more social aspect. Look at all of the guild web-sites out there, look at MMO-Champ, look at all the page-views that are happening, all the community discussion that Blizz isn't part of. Blizz needs to come up with a way that you can participate in the new MMO from your browser, from your mobile phone, from your tablet, from your PC, maybe even from your Console.

Now, this couldn't all be the core-game, as we'd think of it. If you imagine WoW as 'the core game experience' of a next gen MMO (not that WoW will be the next gen, just that what we do in WoW will be what the core-game is like) then what can you build around it that draws people in from those disparate media?

What if someone that really liked FarmVille could set up a crafting shop? They could happily queue up stuff to sell, but it could be accessible in the Core-Game, think 'Preferred storefronts' in the AH, with no need to log into the core-game.

What if people with a smart phone could check that custom shop and do things there? What if there were mini-games that had some minor effect on the core-game that were available via a smart phone?

What if you could have a FPS-type BG using your core-game character, but it was only open to consoles? Again, you could influence the core-game via a console. Say Wintergrasp was console only.

What if guild-housing INCLUDED a battle-net social network? What if Blizz worked something out with Facebook to do guild site-hosting, or they built a Facebook app to do that that pulled your Facebook calendar and linked it to the Guild Calendar. Sign up for Raids from Facebook.

I think Blizz WILL do something interesting in the core-game of the Next Gen MMO, but the real win would be a MMMMORPG... Multi-Media Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. I'm just not sure that Blizz has the people to do it. They'd need a Zuckerburg level brain/luck to really nail it.

[septor]

The reason so many games jump to the console is because there's no difference in system specs when a game is released on a console. If I develop a game for the 360 I know exactly what type of system my user has, thus I don't need to leave something out because I'm worried Uncle Jerry couldn't play the game on full settings because he just put his kid through law school and can't afford to upgrade his graphics card.

I can think of one game off the top of my head that didn't release a demo for their game on the PC because of this (Borderlands). They wanted the game to be tested without the system spec variables getting in the way.

[Riboe]

It might be a MMOFPS game with social aspects.

Source: http://www.blizzardnewmmo.com/Leaks

[Gorrtan]

No offense, but this is written from a fan-boy point of view. Many MMO's are doing quite well. WoW Continues to do well today not because of content, but because of reputation.

[xxAkirhaxx]

-I could imagine that Blizzard might choose to reduce the core-group experiences to less than 5 people, down to maybe 4. WoW was pretty revolutionary when it announced 5-man dungeons because up to that point, dungeon-raids in MMOs usually featured around 8 players.

I think the next successful MMO will feature scaling instances or difficulty with group size. As in you could solo an instance but it would ramp up in difficulty as you invited friends to play with you. Quick question too, which MMO's featured 8 players as the max for a single group?

-The "holy-trinity" of tanking/DPS and healing might come to an end. Maybe Blizzard will find a way to open up the system.

This is a difficult one, Blizzard tried this in vanilla, and many MMO's have tried it. If you've played DAOC you're all to familiar with very pigeon holed builds and specs. Everquest did the same thing, adding to the trinity, AOE dps(only, they did horrible single target) CC classes, Buffing classes, Support classes. Although it's not impossible, I just don't see there being more than the holy 3 in any game based off of the mechanics in WoW.

-I still think instances will play a major part, even in a future title. It's just way easier to deal with large player numbers that way.

Dynamic world changes similar to phasing but on a massive level. Instances are nice but they make the game feel very single player. This may just be my opinion though. Also I started in EQ so I'm used to steam rolling or being steam rolled in raids. lol

-PvP will be part of the whole design concept, rather than the afterthought it was in WoW. Kaplan admitted that WoW was never originally designed for serious PvP. This might lead to large scale PvP objectives although the strong instancing of WoW PvP has served it well.

This, this a thousand times. The next great MMO will have WoW's feel and netcode with Warhammers PvP.

-I think streaming content will play a much larger role in the next-gen title. This really should affect game-play features much but the technology might allow much easier and more seamless patching and changes to the game-world.

Not quite sure what you mean here. On the fly changes from the dev team? I think the current system is fine, but being able to stream content and never have your game go down is a huge plus.

-Rudimentary physics might be part of the next-gen engine, allowing greater player interaction with the online world. Could prove to be technically challenging though.

This, but it will never happen. The technology and bandwith just aren't there

-If there continues to be something similar to PvE raids I think the group-size will be further reduced to around 15 players.

While I am a fan of massive raids. This model would pick up more customers.

-3D effects of some kind are sure to play a major role. After all, were talking about a game 3+ years from now.

This ^ Plays a very large role that you don't even consider until you play a game with bad effects.


I'll throw in my two cents as well.

-I've said this in many posts, I'll repeat it here. The next MMO needs to be easy to pick up and very entertaining, but very VERY difficult to master.

-Targeting systems on Characters and NPC's would add new depth to combat. FF11 tried it on some bosses. Fallout 3 has a nice example of it.

-Self sustainable AI. Basically it's this. Imagine there's a kobold, it's set to spawn in the same place every 30 minutes. If the kobold is alive long enough it spawns another kobold. When enough kobolds spawn a hut spawns, and maybe a fire. If the kobolds go on living to long they create a large fortress. Eventually they're programed to move out with scouts. If they find other NPCs, or characters they start attacking/defending.

-Timed/daily events. Yea STV fishing, and holidays are cool. They need to expand this though. Daily things happening give a look and feel to the game you don't even notice until they're there, and it's very entertaining.

-Guild V Guild combat. I like guilds, but sometimes I just want to pwn another guild. Put up control points all over the world map that increase the guilds effectiveness (extra xp gained, more gold gained, Achievements, Mass rez) This would do two things, 1) BE AWESOME, and 2) Bring world PvP to a new game(or an old one Blizzard)

If anyone sat through this winded post thank you.

[ScorchHellfire]

No offense, but this is written from a fan-boy point of view. Many MMO's are doing quite well. WoW Continues to do well today not because of content, but because of reputation.

Yes many do well but no where close to the millions that WoW has gained. I would disagree with the reputation thing as well. If there were more new people coming into it all the time then yeah I would say it's based on reputation but the population is mostly people that have been around for a couple years or so and stay for the content updates.

[Chaotiz]

Battle Cruiser operational.

But really... He doesn't do a bad job.

He doesn't, but his voice is far too recognizable.

[Deleted]

I think the next successful MMO will feature scaling instances or difficulty with group size. As in you could solo an instance but it would ramp up in difficulty as you invited friends to play with you. Quick question too, which MMO's featured 8 players as the max for a single group?

-DAOC iirc. Everquest as well...maybe (never played it myself)

This is a difficult one, Blizzard tried this in vanilla, and many MMO's have tried it. If you've played DAOC you're all to familiar with very pigeon holed builds and specs. Everquest did the same thing, adding to the trinity, AOE dps(only, they did horrible single target) CC classes, Buffing classes, Support classes. Although it's not impossible, I just don't see there being more than the holy 3 in any game based off of the mechanics in WoW.

-I was thinking more along the lines of having less than 3 roles, rather than adding more. The issues is that all players want to be able to do well solo, and that DPSing is by nature the easiest way to do this. Playing a full-time supporter might be fun in raids, but not solo. Maybe Blizz will differentiate solo/raid roles.

Dynamic world changes similar to phasing but on a massive level. Instances are nice but they make the game feel very single player. This may just be my opinion though. Also I started in EQ so I'm used to steam rolling or being steam rolled in raids. lol

-I'm not sure I agree. While having people out in the world is great, I think a lot of players enjoy the isolation and "us vs. the monsters" aspect of dungeon instances.

This, this a thousand times. The next great MMO will have WoW's feel and netcode with Warhammers PvP.



Not quite sure what you mean here. On the fly changes from the dev team? I think the current system is fine, but being able to stream content and never have your game go down is a huge plus.



This, but it will never happen. The technology and bandwith just aren't there

-I think the bandwidth is most certainly there. Original WoW was designed with 56k modems and ISDN in mind. Those forms have almost died out and the minimum of 1Mbit/second is pretty wide/spread. But this is a technical issue I lack the expertise on.

While I am a fan of massive raids. This model would pick up more customers.



This ^ Plays a very large role that you don't even consider until you play a game with bad effects.


I'll throw in my two cents as well.

-I've said this in many posts, I'll repeat it here. The next MMO needs to be easy to pick up and very entertaining, but very VERY difficult to master.

-Targeting systems on Characters and NPC's would add new depth to combat. FF11 tried it on some bosses. Fallout 3 has a nice example of it.

-Self sustainable AI. Basically it's this. Imagine there's a kobold, it's set to spawn in the same place every 30 minutes. If the kobold is alive long enough it spawns another kobold. When enough kobolds spawn a hut spawns, and maybe a fire. If the kobolds go on living to long they create a large fortress. Eventually they're programed to move out with scouts. If they find other NPCs, or characters they start attacking/defending.

-Timed/daily events. Yea STV fishing, and holidays are cool. They need to expand this though. Daily things happening give a look and feel to the game you don't even notice until they're there, and it's very entertaining.

-Guild V Guild combat. I like guilds, but sometimes I just want to pwn another guild. Put up control points all over the world map that increase the guilds effectiveness (extra xp gained, more gold gained, Achievements, Mass rez) This would do two things, 1) BE AWESOME, and 2) Bring world PvP to a new game(or an old one Blizzard)

If anyone sat through this winded post thank you.

-One thing that always made be skeptical about the appeal of World PvP was how well WoW did despite not having it. I think part of WoWs attractiveness to the casual market comes from the fact that PvP is purely optional and easy to avoid. Yu can't be ganked and you don't have to participate in PvP if you don't want to.

[Odexy]

-One thing that always made be skeptical about the appeal of World PvP was how well WoW did despite not having it. I think part of WoWs attractiveness to the casual market comes from the fact that PvP is purely optional and easy to avoid. Yu can't be ganked and you don't have to participate in PvP if you don't want to.

I still think it'd be cool if we could see more world PvP action on PvP servers. I mean, the only real difference between a PvP and a PvE server is you get ganked while leveling in the former. (Which isn't what I signed up for a few years ago.)

[Deleted]

I fully agree with MilitantCasual. I think we will be seeing a really social game that can be at least interacted with via your phone/mobile device and/or web browser. I think its a logical step from mobile armoury type development and it is where the largest market is.

I also see a micro-transition model being used. What if you make it free to play like Guild Wars but you offer a subscription for the phone app service (which would probs have large importance in the game) and the purchase of in-game vanity items.

Ofc this is all conjecture but I wouldn't be surprised if this is what we see. I doubt we will see a game that requires lots of computing power (a high end PC) and i also doubt that the game will be aimed at hardcore gamers but I wouldnt mind being proven wrong. I enjoy games of both types and I can't imagine not enjoying the new MMO so I am looking forward to it.

EDIT: Adding to the convo above me. The only reason I play other MMOs sometimes as well as WoW is because they have Guild vs Guild battles and/or Faction vs Faction battles over objectives like fortresses on the map but I do agree with Crowe that this might not be a money spinner for Blizz because again it is a more "hardcore" type activity. The key would be opening it up but I fear we would just have another WG on our hands.

[marrakoosh]

Why don't they make a Timesplitters MMO....?

[Nahte]

Why don't they make a Timesplitters MMO....?

They allready did in the future.

It just has to get shipped back in time for release.

[Deleted]

It might be a MMOFPS game with social aspects.

Source: http://www.blizzardnewmmo.com/Leaks

mmo FPS ?
you said 3 magic letters, gonna cash the characters then :P

[Herecius]

I post the same thing in every one of these threads.

Steampunk MMO Steampunk MMO Steampunk MMO Steampunk MMO Steampunk MMO Steampunk MMO Steampunk MMO Pretty pretty please, Blizzard.