5. Shadowmourne -- meh, don't care.
4. Tier 10 armor sets -- you're kidding, right?
3. Quest Tracking -- I'm actually happy about this one, since I don't use addons.
4. New 5-Man Dungeons -- I pretty much stopped running the dungeons with TBC, so ... whatever
1. The Lich King -- Yawn

What I would rather see would be the introduction of new mechanics that would allow the many solo-oriented and SMALL-group-oriented players of WoW (i.e., 1 to 3 players -- NOT 5) to play the instances in this game. As it is, once I finished up the solo content of WoW (and had great fun doing so, by the way), I moved on to something else.

If Blizzard were ever to offer custom servers that allowed this, I'd resuscribe to WoW in a heartbeat. Otherwise, no thanks.

The game sounds interesting to me, but all this talk of complex tactics and micromanagement, in addition to dying a lot, is very off-putting, I must say.

Having to constantly pause, reposition party members, assign their spells and actions and whatnot during combat sounds very not fun to me.

In Guild Wars, you can manage a party of 8, including 3 heroes, 4 henchies, and your own character -- and it is not too terribly complicated. How does the AI party in DAO stack up next to the Heroes/henches in GW?

I guess I want to play a good story RPG but not have to lurch "stop-start-stop-start" through every encounter. :(

I am also put off by the blood spatters all over everyone that I see in the cut scene clips I've come across. It just seems distracting and over the top to me. Can it be turned off?

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Originally posted by Xasapis
The textures certainly need work, especially compared to other recently released games. However, the bigger issue is the character animations. Unfortunately, the avatars move like mannequins, too stiff robotic like movement.

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^^ This, more than anything, is spot on.

What I would like to see, in a level-based game like WoW, is an adjustment made for the lower level group content to make it soloable once new content comes out so that, as a population starts to thin out and groups become harder to find, the group content gets "solo-fied" either by being scaled down, de-elitized, or else NPC Heroes are added to help players experiance and complete the lower-level INSTANCED content.

Using WoW as an example, once WotLK was released, the Old World instances and those in Burning Crusade, imo, should have been made soloable, either through the use of NPC "henchmen" (as is done in Guild Wars) or by scaling.

Most MMOs are only actually multiplayer for the newest content, where the vast majority of players dwell. The rest, the early, low-level stuff (e.g., Old Azeroth and Burning Crusade) is basically a single-player game and should be treated as such.

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Originally posted by Ihmotepp
What do solo players do when they get to the end game of WoW? Quit the game? All of them? You mean NO ONE is raiding in WoW? Really? 

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I'm not sure I'm really getting your point here. I used to group a lot in WoW's pre-BC days. It was fun, but life has crowded in too much, and most group activities (i.e., running the instances) just take too darned long or are too much of a hassle, imo.

So now I almost exclusively solo. Once I've maxxed out at 80 (in WoW) and pretty much milked the solo content dry, I (i) either work on alts or (ii) quit the game for something else.

People that stay on and raid do so because they enjoy it; people like me just leave or roll an alt. It's not complicated. :)

I rather like the way scaling, grouping, and the optional use of NPCs are handled in DDO:U, since that game offers players a variety of ways to complete the content. Unfortunately, I do not like the clunkiness of the UI in DDO:U, nor the combat/skill/stats system, nor the lack of a truly persistent MMO world, else I would play it.

Nosto, you say 2 people is not "massive" to you, and I see your point. But somehow 5 people *is* "massive"? That's the standard group size in WoW and I wouldn't call it massive. Most MMOs are played out based on probably 80 to 90% solo content and 10 to 20% small-group -- not "massive" -- content. That should tell developers something right there.

You say you have no problems getting groups, well, I do. Just try getting a group together for Uldaman or Mauradon on my server. I'd rather at least have the option to solo these dungeons (scaled or with NPCs) than just routinely level past them, with quests not done and eventually abandoned. That's just a broken system, and one that Blizzard and LotRO and many other level-based games (apparently) choose to ignore, although I will say that WoW is getting better about dealing with the "accessibility issue" with each additional expansion.

I think games like WoW and LotRO have a problem in basic design: 5- or 6-man instancing works when a game or expansion is just released and popular -- there are lots of people around then -- but I think these games need to make adjustments as a game ages, the population at a certain level thins, and it becomes harder and harder to find groups.

WoW made certain accommodations to this problem by "de-elitizing" a lot of its group-oriented areas (Stromgarde in Arathi Highlands comes to mind) a few years ago, so that players can now complete quests on their own that used to require groups. Something similar ought to be done for the lower-level instances.

Scaling seems like as good a suggestion for dealing with this problem as any. I think that if WoW and LotRO continue to ignore this problem, they are are going to lose subscribers to games that offer a greater variety of options.

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Originally posted by nosto
I guess something I'm seeing several times from people in this thread is that they want to be able to do things in the game with 1 person that others who actually socialize, meet players, group up and form a community do.  If I wanted to have a group of people that are mindless npc drones fighting alongside me - then I'll play neverwinter nights, or KOTOR.  If i want to play a game by myself and conquer the world - I'll play Zelda, Fable, Halo, (insert any console game here that I dont have to pay 15 a month for).  WTH is the purpose of playing online if you do everything yourself?  I guess I'd also kind of find it funny to dump money into a companies lap for something you don't really utilize.  Play MUDDs if you want to play solo some times and online others.  Not trying to be a dick or talk down but I think its a bit funny.  The more i thought about it I don't know if I even agree with scaling in the first place - if you can't meet the requirements - meet more people, form a community, and get out there and conquer the world in the way (I believe) most MMO companies want the game to be played.

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You really aren't getting it.

In Guild Wars, you use mindless drones when you cannot find real players. In WoW, however, you simply have to SKIP content. How is that an "improvement"? As for me, I'd rather actually PLAY content using drones than not play it at all, which is basically what is happening now in WoW.

Another thing you are not getting is the fact that, sometimes, I want to play with just one or two players. In WoW, you have to find FIVE people to do anything in an instance at your own level. In Guild Wars, you group up with your friends and fill in the rest with NPCs and actually PLAY.

Guild Wars made it possible for people to play solo or in small groups of 2 or 3, the latter of which you CANNOT do in KOTOR, etc.

I'd say no to scaling in WoW -- even though I enjoy soloing and often wish I could solo the instances somehow.

What I'd kill for, however, in WoW, is the addition of Heroes (as in Guild Wars). This is a much better (and more fun, imo) way to scale dungeons to party size.

If Blizzard would just add a pack of 5 NPC Heroes (say, a Tanking Spec Warrior; a DPS specced Mage, Rogue, and Shaman, and a Healer spec Priest) with fairly reasonable AI and customizability, and allow them to be used within roughly the following parameters:

--Only to be summonable/usable in dungeons/instances
--Only to be summonable by players with active quests in a given dungeon (i.e., the player would have to have at least green instance quests)
--The NPCs would match the level of the player who summoned it/them
--The NPCs "shared the loot" (as in Guild Wars). (i.e., you'd only get your share of the loot)
--The NPCs rolled "Need" on all items (as would you). (i.e., you'd only have a 1-in-5 chance on any roll.)
--The NPC set consisted of 1 tank, 3 dps, and 1 healer (from whom you could pick any combo you wanted)
--The NPCs cannot use crowd control skills (sap, sheep, etc.)
--The NPCs could only be used in Old Azeroth and Outland instances -- NOT newer instances (such as in WotLK) since you can still find groups for these newer areas.

This is basically how the system works in Guild Wars and it is pretty effective. I would vastly prefer a system like this to a scaling setup, as I enjoy the party dynamic without the hassle it is sometimes to find a full group of players. Heck, I'd even pay extra to open a set of NPC Heroes on my WoW account. As it is now, I just skip past the instances nowadays.

In my opinion, WoW's single biggest flaw is the inaccessibility of it's group content to people unable to find full groups. Even on my (populous) server, you simply CANNOT find groups for any dungeon in Old World Azeroth or Outlands.

Good article, Dana. I really enjoyed reading it.

I would, however, have included Guild Wars in the list.

Yes, I know all about Guild Wars 2, and it sounds like it's going to be a great game. BUT... while Guild Wars 2 is a "remake" of Guild Wars, it is a remake that -- very sadly, in my opinion -- cuts out the single best feature of the original Guild Wars game: customizable henchmen that you can use when your friends and guildmates are not online or that you can use to complete a party if you can't find enough people for a particular dungeon or mission.

I would really like to see a quality party-based MMO (Atlantica Online is totally not it!) in which you can play with a small group composed of either NPCs, players, or any combination of both.

Only Guild Wars had a feature like this; I really felt the concept still had a lot of life left in it. :(

On the horizon, GW2 and SWTOR offer 1 henchman apiece, which is ... OK, I guess, but this is not nearly as good as what Guild Wars had to offer. STO, alone among the upcoming MMOs, offers anything close to a feature like this, with its customizable NPC crews.

What made WoW so enjoyable for me was how solo friendly it is, for the most part, for the leveling up part of the game. I could group when I felt like it, but I never *had* to group.

Why is it that "endgame content", then, must always be group-oriented?

Blizzard and other MMOs need to offer alternatives to the standard raid-style endgame content. If I'm going to grind a dungeon or instance, then let at least a few of them be scaled for single, level 80 players or allow the use of pet NPCs (as is done in Guild Wars). Grinding an endgame dungeon is not ideal, but trying to find a group AND THEN grinding a dungeon on top of that is just ... insufferable.

Smart MMOs of the future are going to start offering a wider variety of types of worthwhile endgame content: solo, small group (2 to 3 players), and raid. Blizzard, as far as I can tell from Cataclysm, just hasn't figured this out yet.

As such, I strongly suspect WoW: Cataclysm will be eclipsed, at least for me, by a number of other MMOs now in the pipeline.

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Originally posted by GrumpyMel2
Janitor #127....no, probably not. However a Trek Role-Playing game that doesn't offer you the ABILITY to play the role of Spock, Scotty, McCoy, Chekov, Sulu, Uhura..... your ONLY choice is Kirk..... I'd call that pretty lame.

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I wonder how the game would fare if you could "dual role": (i) play as a captain for the main portion of the game as currently designed but (ii) also play as a specialized crew member (science officer, medical officer, etc.) in other parts of the game, which could possibly set up the way PvP is set up in a game like WoW.

Thus, you go ahead and play your captain, but you could put yourself in a queue/LFG for player-crew mission "XYZ" as an engineer. Then, when an opening comes up/group forms, depending on the mission you specified, whoosh! You are whisked away to join a team of like-minded crew members, with the party leader as the designated "captain." In other words, instead of being whisked to a PvP battleground, you are whisked to a player-crew mission/series of missions (equivalent to running a dungeon in a typical MMO). This is just a bit of "thinking out loud here."

Personally, I like the way Cryptic is going with STO, but I can also see the point of the critics: five-captain away teams seems a bit ... absurd to me.

Cryptic could then add additional "Player Crew" versus "I Am the Captain" content as expansions or patches depending on how well that content is received. Maybe even allow characters to use different versions of their primary avatar: one being your engineer back as an ensign and the other being your engineer now promoted to captain.

From a logic standpoint, you could view the player-crew missions and content as your character's "history" and training. It'd mean bouncing back and forth in time, of course, but, hey, this is Star Trek, after all. :)

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Originally posted by Neanderthal

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Originally posted by MikeB

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Originally posted by Neanderthal

I noticed she kept saying "we".  We did this and we did that.  I thought that was odd when relating a solo play experience.  I suppose she was refering to the AI henchmen crew.
Anyway, it sounds like an ok single player game.  Do you have to be online to play it?

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"We" is more inclusive to the reader.

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Ahh...we understand now.  We were confused before but now it makes sense to us.  You have given us something to think about.  We are trying to decide if we will utilize this method in our own posts.  Yes, we think we will. 
 PS:  resistance is futile.

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Originally posted by MMO_Doubter
Even if the game remained only about combat. I am sure most Trek fans would prefer to be members of a flight crew on a single ship, with each player manning a vital station with individual and distinct UI displays.
Hell, take a thousand hardcore Trek fans, and they could no doubt design the interfaces and gameplay elements themselves.
 

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I can't speak for most Star Trek fans; I can only really speak for one: me. But I would have hated the type of setup you are proposing. It would be unwieldy and unworkable, in my opinion. I would not be interested in playing STO if it were set up that way.

If Cryptic had offered players the *option* of playing with EITHER AI or player crews, I would have been OK with that.

My best guess, however, is that, given the choice, most players would prefer AI crews (or possibly AI plus a player friend or two) to full-player crews.

Thus, I really like the direction Cryptic is taking this game.

I tried this game out but could not get past the general silliness and comedy; it became old very quickly for me.

I was also very put off by the limited top-down camera view.

It'll be interesting to see whether similarly designed games on the horizon -- Mythos and Torchlight come to mind -- are able to make a more successful go of it.

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Egged on by the same young fan, Craig showed every ship she could name ...

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It was cool how Craig changed gender by the end of the demonstration. Now that's customization! ;)

(And yes, I know the "she" probably referred to the fan, but I still did a double-take.)

Thanks for the article. I look forward to hearing more about this game.

As for me, I'd like to see a Guild Wars and/or a Fallen Earth movie.

Yes, I know there have been both fantasy and post-apocalyptic movies, but I like the setting and lore for both of these games particularly well.

I also think The Secret World or Hellgate: London would make for pretty cool film settings.

Of the five games you mentioned, I think I'd be most inclined to see the movie version of Tabula Rasa, based solely on its setting, assuming the five films were all roughly equal in quality.

Frankly, STO sounds pretty good to me thus far.

It sounds like not only a fairly good IP-to-MMO conversion (imo) but also just a fun game structure regardless of whether it is Star Trek or some other, wholly original sci-fi universe. The fact that it is such a familiar IP to many means some people will never be satisfied with it, as happened with LotRO.

But I'm inclined to be very lenient regarding "IP-correctness" provided the game is fun to play.

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Originally posted by toord

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Originally posted by Kelador
That just means its like your standard MMO (wow/ etc) where the world is open and not made up of private instances like Guild wars is now.

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Right. To me this is a deal breaker. The only reason I tried GW was because of instanced content. Since that's gone in GW2, I won't even bother with that game.
 
Peace.

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As long as the game is as solo-friendly as the original GW (i.e., with lots of "grouping-optional content"), I think the addition of persistence is just fine and enhances the game. The deal-breaker for me is if they restrict the instanced portions of GW2 to player groups only. THAT will be a deal-breaker for me. From what I have read about GW2, however, they are *not* planning to do this.

I am greatly looking forward to GW2, although I am really going to miss the AI/Hero component of the original game. :(

I am greatly looking forward to Dragon Age. I would love to see a multiplayer/MMO version of this game some day.

I sure wish I could port Bioware's vivid and colorful NPC party members into WoW or DDO with me.

Interesting stuff, Dana. Thanks for posting this.

As I mentioned in the thread for yesterday's article, the game has possibilities. Yes, it looks WoW-ish, at least from the screenshots, but I am not put off by the UI or the graphics. In some ways, they are pleasantly familiar.

One of the advantages this company has is that, conceivably, the game's direction can adjust and evolve more easily than say, the ten-ton behemoth that is WoW/Blizzard. The ability to make creative and unique course corrections in a small company might just give QOL the edge in the market that they need. It's like comparing the "turning radius" of a sports car to that of an aircraft carrier. Sure, an aircraft carrier is huge and formidable, and nobody's about to "take it down", but sometimes being small and maneuverable has its advantages.

I wish this company well. A number of people asked in yesterday's thread why an MMO player would choose this game over WoW since (I imagine) WoW has more content, more options, and a greater level of polish. I think that's a really REALLY good question.

My feeling is that if Alganon turns out to be very WoW-like BUT, for example, leaned toward being more solo-friendly than WoW (something I'd sure like to see), or more PvP-oriented (eventually), or less expensive, for example, this game will find the sling it needs to -- if not slay "Goliath" (I hardly expect that!) -- at least hold its own on the MMO battlefield and stay viable.

Alganon has some nice features, but I am curious as to what will really set it apart from the "Big Boys" out there.