Originally posted by Axehilt

I'm sorry, I'd forgotten we can't be silly or use exaggerations here at MMORPG.com.

(Lighten up, man :P )

Damn, I though you are serious. :)

Originally posted by nickelpat

I believe Blizzard will make their next MMO with more engaging combat and crafting, and probably with the mechanics that allow you to craft and still level.

If they make a second game in addition to WoW, that's pretty much what it will have to be.  Very few people are out there thinking "WoW, I wish I could be playing the same game as WoW, just set in the future instead of the past."  The game mechanics are going to have to be materially different.  And, let's face it, they can't be much simpler than they are right now.

It made perfect sense for Blizzard to make a button-flashing minigame that the average six-year-old can easily master.  They had the best engine, so why NOT make it easily accessible to the least-common-denominator of players?  What makes absolutely no sense whatsoever is what most MMO producers are doing today:  re-making the same game that Blizzard has already perfected.

It may well turn out that Blizzard is the only MMO company with enough sense to know that it's stupid to try to compete with Blizzard.

If they have any business sense whatsoever (and they do - in spades) they aren't trying to copy WoW; they're trying to find out all they can about the people who may be interested in MMORPG's, but AREN'T playing WoW, so they can target that market.  Especially the millions of people who played the game for a short while and then left it.  It's safe to say there aren't a lot who left because WoW was too complex to master. 

Blizzard's execs have said their biggest single surprise with WoW was finding out how high a percentage of the players are adults.  Of course children (and drug addicts) represent a sizeable portion of the gaming world.  But they're not nearly as gigantic a segment of the PC gaming community as they are in the console world.  And in the case of MMO's - where you have to consider the number of potential customers who have their own credit cards - lucid adults might even comprise more than half of the customer base.

Right now, WoW is where EQ was six years ago:  more people have left it than are currently playing, and a huge percentage of the people still there are desperate for something new.  Those people aren't going to be stolen by a smoother engine than WoW's, because there aren't that many rough edges left.  If Blizzard can do essentially the same thing they did with WoW, but add a strategic element to the combat system, they'll bring back enough players to essentially double their subscription base practically overnight.  If another company does that first, they'll cut Blizzard's playerbase in half.

Originally posted by Josher

 It might have some sandboxy elements like good ways for players to create quality content, but it won't be a sandbox.  No way in hell.  They actually want to make money and a sandbox won't make them enough.  It might make a 10 man indy company some money, but not Blizzard.  They're too big to take that gamble.

Like others have said, Blizzard makes fun games first.  Sandboxes generally aren't games and sometimes just aren't fun.  Blizzard likes people to have a consistent high quality experience and thats not a sandbox at all.   Sandboxes don't provide any sort of consistent experience, which is why most people don't find them fun.   10 people playing a sandbox could provide 10 different experiences and thats a bad thing for Blizzard.  Its about quality control and in a sandbox, the developer hands that control over.  The players just do what they want for better or worse.  Look at how people bitch and moan when something doesn't go EXACTLY right in WOW.   These people can't tolerate a sandbox where everything can go wrong all the time and its often by design or by accident=)  Imagine if Blizzard told someone, "Yes, in our game other players can basically prevent you from ever leaving the starter area."  If you can't hack it, quit."  OR, "Yes, we're going to let you figure out how to play.  There is no tutorial.  Theres no right or wrong."  "If you want a map or an explaination for anything, go look it up online."  Yeah, that'll go over really well=)

 

Interesting opinion about what makes a sandbox game.