He seems to know what a majority of us like, so I will be looking forward to this "secret project" :)

Even in WoW, the majority of players don't raid, so I'm not sure where you get the idea that he has a clue about what the majority of us want.  Kaplan is stuck in EQ mode and is not in touch with today's player base.

There goes the new MMO.  The only thing that matters to this guy is bigger and harder raids.  And you have to have that respawning trash that violates the basic core of what an instances is.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by banthis 

So Goodie for the WoWers and the Raiders them they got a game what about the rest of us? Where's games that appeal to things that other MMO gamers like?

Where is the game that appeals to other mmo gamers?  Why don't you go ask other game companies that same question instead of crying spilled milk over the one game he made that you don't like.  You are whining as if he personally directed every single mmo on the market to not deliver what you want.  

 

Also 10 humor points for saying EQ had more to do than raiding.  I haven't laughed that hard in some time.

You didnt' have to raid to be a crafter, you didn't have to be a raider to enjoy good RP and explore different areas.  Sorry Raiding was popular with a set number but there were alot of us that simply enjoyed the community, crafting, and RPing you cuold enjoy in EQ.   In WoW even to be a top notch crafter you still have to Raid.  
 

WoW ultimately fails for people  who enjoy something more indepth then killing the same raid boss 50 times to get some sparkling kiddie gear.

Its good to see I'm not the only one who thinks Kaplan is a raid loving asshat.  Kaplan sucks ... I could careless Blizzard has 11 million subscribers..its popular because its easy and fast cheap fun with little consequence to your actions.    Over half that population isnt' even a fan of raids.

Originally posted by Rohn

I think I understand the sentiment of his comment, but I stand by the spirit of my remark.

You understand what you assume to know. Near the end-game of both PvP and PvE, I found WoW to be incredibly repetitive, the RP environment nearly non-existent (as I was on an RP server) with no hope of any decent enforcement, and the actual "game" to be challenging myself to see what I could take on single-handedly while other people actually did stuff. After you have raid/Arena gear, there's little point in doing some of the other quests unless you want to find out about the storyline. After that 10 minutes is done, you're left with dailies for sub-par gear, or nothing.

I never said WoW wasn't successful. I'm not that stupid. Nor will I say it's a bad game. Again, not that stupid (though you may assume I am). WoW is the hallmark of its genre, the paragon of preceding innovations and technology which has lead up to its ultimate ascent to godhood in the gaming world.

What Blizz has about their new project is that it's a "Next Gen MMO." Re-making WoW is not Next Gen. Borrowing significantly from WoW is not Next Gen. To me, Next Gen means that they're going to look at WoW and go, "Hmmm... You know, that's great, but we now have the technology and funds to grind that into the dust and do what we REALLY want." WoW is nothing more than a conglomerate of the best parts of previous MMOs. There's nothing "Next Gen" about it, to put it bluntly.

Just about anything, games included, will become repetitive if you do it long enough.  I haven't played an MMO that had major features that couldn't become repetitive.  The concepts and design of WoW have attracted more players than any other MMO in history, with no other game even coming close.  I'm guessing they did a few things right.

So why would Blizzard remake it? The market can't hold two highly-successful WoWs. You can argue all you want, but I think most rational people know it can't. There's absolutely no point in creating a World of Starcraft in an attempt to repeat WoW's success using the mechanics of WoW -- some one of which happen to be the PvE Raid and PvP Arena/BG/etc. setup.

My post was (though futile in its effectiveness) telling Kaplan to think outside of what he knows and loves. He's played WoW every day now for more time than anyone can comfortably conceive of. Now he's being asked to do something different. Perhaps vastly different. Like someone crab-walking instead of going around upright. It just doesn't pique my enthusiasm to see that they're asking someone who's entrenched in his pet project to work on a piece that is supposed to be very distant from that pet project.

"Thinking outside the box" does not guarantee a fun game, or a profitable one.  Different does not always equate to good.  Change is not always positive.  There are gamers that fervently believe that they know exactly what a fun MMO should be like.  Oddly enough, I believe that if gamers like that were actually to design a game, using their strategy of "thinking outside the box", more often than not said game would become a ridiculously niche one that only the creator and his best friends would like.  Eventually, even the creator would tire of his own game.

Oh, please. This is the fallback excuse of an arrogant individual. I, by no means, gave any details on how Blizzard should develop their new MMO. I firmly not under the illusion that I, alone, could create a better game. However, change is needed in the genre. Personally, I think WoW has killed the traditional MMO genre - you're not ever going to do better than WoW did at PvE raiding and PvP arenas/battlegrounds. It ist he epitomy of its kind, and what's needed is a different race of the MMO species.

Does change always equate to positive results? No. That's an obvious given. However, if I were to trust anyone to actually do change correctly -- it might be Blizzard. They have the funds, they have the experience, they have the time, and they have the human resources to do so.

Recreating the success of WoW with another WoW is never going to happen, whether you want to take it as an individual game or the genre itself embodied through the game. If they want to see numbers, Blizzard has to offer a different experience. My trepidation at Kaplan's signing onto their new project stems from the tentative notion that perhaps he can't create a different experience.

However, if you'd like to continue assuming what my thoughts are, by all means, don't let the author of those thoughts stop you.

Originally posted by banthis 

You didnt' have to raid to be a crafter, you didn't have to be a raider to enjoy good RP and explore different areas.  Sorry Raiding was popular with a set number but there were alot of us that simply enjoyed the community, crafting, and RPing you cuold enjoy in EQ.   In WoW even to be a top notch crafter you still have to Raid.  
 

WoW ultimately fails for people  who enjoy something more indepth then killing the same raid boss 50 times to get some sparkling kiddie gear.

Its good to see I'm not the only one who thinks Kaplan is a raid loving asshat.  Kaplan sucks ... I could careless Blizzard has 11 million subscribers..its popular because its easy and fast cheap fun with little consequence to your actions.    Over half that population isnt' even a fan of raids.

Sorry, but I am just not buying your ridiculous arguments that everquest was not the biggest raid focused game in the history of mmos.  Sure you could craft what little the crafting had to offer and sit around rping and exploring, but you can do that in any game.  It wasn't something unique to everquest.  In fact everquest is the king of raid or die games.

You say 1/2 of wows population doesn't even like to raid, so what do you think they are doing?  Don't be afraid to acknowledge that the game offers other things to cater to people that don't want to raid.  Its ok, it won't kill you.

On my server the gem market was dominated by a few people all in the same guild.  No one could touch them.  According to you they must be raiders to do so well, but funny thing is that guild struggled to kill 1-2 bosses in any non karazhan dungeon.  I wonder how they did it...  Oh I know, you don't need to raid to be a crafter.  Of course you don't know that, because you live in some world were everquest was a game of crafting and roleplaying that took priority over raiding.  

If you don't like raiding and that is all you see wow as, then by all means play another game.  Ignore all the quests, dungeons and pvp and find another game.  Just because it doesn't cater directly to your personal preferences doesn't mean there is something wrong with the game does it?

This isn't about WoW, this is about our dread over Kaplan's inlfuence on the new MMO and his proven penchant for catering to raiders above all other play styles.  The thought of him getting his grubby little fingers into this new MMO makes me very, very sad.  If they don't put this rabid raider on a leash, then my time and money will never again support Blizzard games.

Originally posted by Vrazule

This isn't about WoW, this is about our dread over Kaplan's inlfuence on the new MMO and his proven penchant for catering to raiders above all other play styles.  The thought of him getting his grubby little fingers into this new MMO makes me very, very sad.  If they don't put this rabid raider on a leash, then my time and money will never again support Blizzard games.

He helped create the most succesful p2p mmo to date.  Wildly succesful.  Why would they put a leash on him?  Why should they?

I personally don't think it would make sense to make yet another wow clone to compete with wow, especially from blizzard.  Then again blizzard has a track record for success in whatever they make.  Based on that I expect more high quality game that refines or innovates features to make better gameplay.  

Sorry if they don't make games that you personally like, but there is little compelling evidence that they should change to cater to you.  I do suspect it will be different enough from wow so that they capture and hold more of the market, but that is besides the point.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Vrazule

This isn't about WoW, this is about our dread over Kaplan's inlfuence on the new MMO and his proven penchant for catering to raiders above all other play styles.  The thought of him getting his grubby little fingers into this new MMO makes me very, very sad.  If they don't put this rabid raider on a leash, then my time and money will never again support Blizzard games.

 

He helped create the most succesful p2p mmo to date.  Wildly succesful.  Why would they put a leash on him?  Why should they?

 

I personally don't think it would make sense to make yet another wow clone to compete with wow, especially from blizzard.  Then again blizzard has a track record for success in whatever they make.  Based on that I expect more high quality game that refines or innovates features to make better gameplay.  

Sorry if they don't make games that you personally like, but there is little compelling evidence that they should change to cater to you.  I do suspect it will be different enough from wow so that they capture and hold more of the market, but that is besides the point.

 

 

In truth it would have to go in the complete opposite direction to WoW to generate new income rather than players from WoW migrating to it, otherwise you won't recoup your development costs because in essence you won't be using your own product to generate income you would be still using WoWs.

Even if Diablo was made into an MMO it still isn't enough of a departure from WoW to entice a whole new breed of MMO subscribers, there is proof that the Superhero business is becoming more popular, with 1 title already out in the form of CoH/CoV and 2 upcoming games DCU and Champions Online, then you have the Sci/Fi option with Starcraft, I'm sure there are RTS players who haven't wanted to play WoW but would love to try out Starcraft MMO.

However the speculation can stop once Blizzard announces what the project is, but ofc they usually keep things close to their chest until the have the product more or less ready to ship, so who knows how long we've got until we hear something definate.

Anyway good luck to them in trying to recreate the success of WoW into another new MMO, I wait with baited breath to see what it will be.

Blizzard can go in any number of directions right now.  They could create something completely different to try to capture market share of players who do not like wow style games.  They could also make a game different enough from wow that it attracts those who left or are thinking of leaving.  They could create a game that is an evolution to wow in the hopes that it helps retain players and gains a few new.

At this point I don't think blizzard is expecting another mmo to get 10+ million brand new players.  Their biggest investment is in retaining the 10+ million they already have.  As the old business saying goes, replace yourself before someone else does. 

If they can make a game the works in conjunction with wow (appeals to many of its players) and somehow offer some attractive subscription/package pricing that will make it all the more difficult for any competitor to steal customers away. 

To those complaining about end game raids, that is what has been a best selling formula for mmos for over 10 years.  PvP end game is a distant second and everything else is either a small niche or a failed concept.  As long as mmos measure progression by filling up experience or skill bars there will always be an end game when players run out of those bars to fill up.  Once the goal of filling up bars has been exhausted, then players will look for other goals to complete and so far raids and pvp have been effective solutions.  There is no reason not to expect more from every company in the future.

Personally I wouldn't mind another raid or pvp game as long as it was built more toward forming community building features.  Something like swg or ultima online.  Not true sandbox, but a hybrid maybe.  It would be nice to have player run areas and meaningful crafting.  Other objectives than raids and pvp.  Not that they can't exist also. 

World of Transformers, yep thats it

That is goodd news, they need Kaplan if they want the new game to succed, most of the best guys guys who worked at Blizzard have been quitting (they really made a misstake when they lost Strain, he is brilliant) but Kaplan is one of the best they ever had.

You really need a good guy to lead a project like this.

I really hope that they go a more PvP route.

Maybe they could make an RvR game and blow Warhammer out of the water...lol

I would laugh so hard...they's just have to make DAoC, only simpler and with all their little Blizzard touches.

Then you would have WoW for PvE and the new MMO for PvP. That would be awesome.

Problem is that DAoC and WAR are both at best medicore games and boring PVP.

If you want good PVP you need rick vs. reward to matter - and with that balanced out you wont get the mainstream players, which is where the money is.

They'll make a game that's different that WoW, but similar at the core.