I’ve posted this on the Beta forums. I wonder why I bothered:

I’m following various boards that are frequented by jaded mmorpg veterans and even boards where I can discuss with players less experienced.

Till now the Stress Test is a success. The server was supposed to explode, instead everything seems quite smooth and, so far, beyond the level of many games at release. This made the players complain about smaller issues, like the customization of the characters, the interface, the camping of spawn points and so on.

I tried to gather a list of the complaints to examine them and see what could be the possible solutions.

– Problem: Players complain about the lack of customization, in particular after we all got spoiled by games like SWG, CoH and even EQ2. WoW feels like a 1st generation mmorpg where everyone looks the same and where you are forced to choose one of the few combinations that the devs prepared.

– Solution: The discussion got deeper and I think we started to agree that the customization doesn’t mean that much when just after a few levels your body will be completely covered by the armor. So we concluded that the possibility to customize and look differently with the use of equipment is way more important for this game. The fact that all the players will directly min/max the equipment will mean that if an objects is powerful everyone will use it. So the solution is about working on the “aspect” of the equipment even more that its power. Having the same stats on something, but a different aspect, could help to offer a graphical customization without having to loose “power”. On the other side Blizzard could work to, at least, add the height for a model. DAoC has three choices: small, medium, tall. I think the same system can be implemented in WoW without ruining the racial differences. It was stated before that there could be problems with animations but what I ask is a simple “rescale” of the model. So you rescale everything, animations and equipment included. It shouldn’t be hard to implement and won’t affect the performance. On the other level we’ll have a possibility of customization that will matter above the equipment.

– Problem: Crowded newbie zones. Considering that the servers held the stress, this became the biggest problem. As too many players join the game, various bottlenecks are created, ruining the experience for everyone.

– Solution: I don’t think that making the newbie zone large will help. We must remember that this is a situation that will only last a few days and a mmorpg, instead, has a value on the long distance, along the years. Blizzard could as well completely ignore this issue and let the players suffer this problem for the first days. But at the same time we all know that it’s *crucial* the impression you get of the game right at the start. So. My opinion is that nothing should be done aside working perhaps on the respawn rules. A good idea should be about tweaking them by looking constantly at the number of player in the zone. Another good idea could be about adding a “cool off” effect to a spawning mob, so that it won’t aggro a player before 15-20 seconds have passed (like spawning the mob in a shaded form and make it 100% solid after the cool off timer is over). This will avoid the problem of mobs popping over players but it’s also a cheap trick that may broken even more the suspension of disbelief. Another, even better, solution could be to instance the newbie zones. This could happen in the very few occasions when the place gets *too* crowded. So you put an “emergency” limit to these newbie zones and create another instance when things go beyond that limit. In this way we erase overcrowding during the first days without messing and triggering other problems (like making newbie zones too dispersive when the number of players will decrease).

Dealing with instances is dangerous, though. The problem is deeper and I’ve wrote about this back in May:
http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/view/162

– Problem: Players complain about default options and general interface issues. For example it’s *not acceptable* that an user must edit a config file to play in windowed mode or to set the Hertz of the monitor. Other questionable choices are about not showing NPCs names by default and the drag and drop occurring to equip an object (peoples complain about the inventory being separated from the character sheet).

– Solution: If the game is going to be released soon it’s time to focus even on the polish. You need to figure out what’s the best for the default options. EQ players complain that the inventory doesn’t come up if you press “i”. This isn’t a big issue but you need to go throughout all the options and define what’s better for a default mode that is easy to manage for a new user. In particular NPC names MUST be on by default. It’s important that everything you need should be enabled so that the user, with the experience, can choose something else. Not acceptable is when you cannot access the options from the interface. This needs to go *completely*. We must be allowed to choose the windowed mode, the refresh of the monitor and other more “hard-core” issues by the options menu. Perhaps in an “advanced” tab. But noone should be forced to mess with a config file. It’s actually ridiculous that you just put up a page for the screenshots explaining to the players how they can use the console to type a command and remove the “onscreen names” (I’m referring to the screenshot page). These options MUST be in the game and keymapped. About the issue of “drag and drop” equipment: clicking to equip isn’t possible because of the “risk” to sell stuff while fiddling with a vendor. My suggest solution is to create a “drop area” near where the bags are so that we drag and drop there, and not throughout the screen. This worked back in Beta 2 when it was possible to drag an item to an empty bag slot to equip it. Another important feature that vanished without a reason.

– Problem: Players love the “discovery exp” when you discover a new place on the map.

– Solution: Well, this isn’t a problem. but we know that it’s a broken system later on, because the experience you gain remains ridiculous. So I suggest Blizzard to look into this. Players love this feature so you need to make it a bit more valuable. Balancing the experience so that it will still matter even at high levels.

– Problem: The Rest System is incomprehensible.

– Solution: This is an issue. You cannot expect players to read complex patch notes to figure out a mechanic. If the Rest System is supposed to remain in the game it must be polished so that the players will understand how it works easily. They should be able to check how much they have rested and the exact effect that the rest will have in “x” hours. This should become easy to understand with the use of the interface. Right now I don’t know if the system is bugged or not but it’s absolutely impossible to understand its behaviour.

– Problem: The game needs a more social environment. Players complain about the lack of depth aside mob-bashing.

– Solution: This is a complex issue that I’ll partially dodge here. My solution is about giving more depth to the cities without forcing downtimes into the players. We need fun and interesting activities to pass time in a city. A lot, a lot of potential lies here. So please step down from EverQuest’s model for a moment and start to develop something that will offer this. Different activities not directly involved with achieving more power (treadmills). Different development paths, different aims. I’m not asking for a completely new game but just for something that will give the game some depth aside the treadmill. I have too many ideas about this. Just use some creativity and detach on this aspect the game from the mmorpg model.

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Now I want to add a few words on the “general impression”. The impression of the players varies a lot. There are some who love the game but I think that in general everyone is pleased but absolutely not surprised or particularly excited. Many have already branded the game as EQ 1.5. A lot is about the expectations. My personal expectations are set *extremely low* after years of experience in the genre and in fact I love WoW. I love the setting and I love how it plays. But one thing is sure: this is far from being a “dream mmorpg”. It feels like a single player game and, as you see, as we introduce the “massive” aspect everyone starts to fight because there’s competition for a spawn point.

After a bit all this feels faked, pointless and boring. WoW is really, really polished but not different from a single player game with basically no purpose and depth that tries hard to roleplay as a “mmorpg”. Because this is what I criticize in the game from months: a single player/cooperative game roleplaing as a mmorpg.

What this Stress Test teaches is about the genre as a whole. This time we are not at Star Wars Galaxies launch, dealing with server and client crashing and broken design and bugs everywhere. This game isn’t about broken promises. WoW delivers what it is expected to deliver:

Yes, it’s a polished EQ type game. That is the aim, that is what they are delivering.

Or as someone else defines it: “It’s a nifty world as a background for a specific narrow type of gameplay”.

So peoples are pleased and at the same time already bored because things have improved without really changing. Something that is shared with other games. For example this is what Loral wrotes on Mobhunter, one of the most places discussing EverQuest:

Omens of War brings us over a dozen new zones, half of them instanced. It expands the physical worlds of Norrath even further. I wonder if SOE might best spend their time working on new expansions that take Everquest into directions other than new zones to explore. Everquest is certainly wide, it is the largest physical game I’ve ever played, but it isn’t very deep. The vast majority of content builds around combat against bosses. The numbers increase but the gameplay is generally the same. New lines of progression need to be developed.

I really think that it’s still possible to push on the experimentation without loosing the touch with the mass market. Actually I think that this genre still isn’t mass market BECAUSE there’s little to no improvement.

One of the directions that WoW should explore is about creating systems and dynamics. In particular when it comes to PvP. Systems make the game lively, with a purpose. This without throwing continuously at the players “more of the same”. Rising the level cap to excuse the process.

I think that veteran players are bored of this but I’m also sure that new players are full of dreams that will shatter when they’ll touch what this genre really delivers:
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/swgteamcomment.html sorry Raph ;)

I keep hearing that Blizzard is working on a PvP reward and I really fear this because noone talks about a PvP “purpose”. A reward without a purpose is “yet another treadmill” and this is depressing.

A lot should be done to polish and work out the problems that will become manifest with the time. In particular the combat can result fast and fun in the initial levels but after a bit it also becomes completely chaotic and messy. This is due to many technical problems like a lack of integrity. Mobs warp everywhere, have strange pathing issues, lack of a Line of Sight. The animation system is broken with stuck and out-of-synch animations. And the spells behave strangely when offscreen, appearing in wrong locations. The last straw was about adding Hunters and enormous pets that in a dungeon take the whole screen making nearly impossible to play.

What will happen when we are supposed to fight in large raids both in PvE and PvP? The game will become a random mess of colored polygons? Things must be looked at. The animations and spell effects must be polished and synchronized. The mobs should move around in a realistic way and should stop “cheating”. Hunters’ pets must be rescaled.

And along this work about basic issues, the design should be developed to give some depth to the game. To stop adding treadmills and attach to the game a real purpose. Without it the PvP will continue to be a grief fest. Because griefing is still the only “impact” possible you have on the world.

I also suggested some time ago a complete system to make the PvP fun and interesting:
http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/view/135

What is important is that a different path must be choosed and developed to give the game a future and some ambition *after* release. Both for new players and mmorpg veterans.