Avoid the Corruption!
Paul Barnett discouraged developers from playing WoW? The thought is that playing other games, especially market leaders like World of Warcraft, can corrupt a designer into copying them to some degree. I agree that the game is a work of flawed genius, but I don’t really agree with not playing other massively multiplayer games for your own purity.
I’m more of the mind that you should try all MMOs, even the all-corrupting World of Warcraft, in order to learn from their mistakes (and triumphs) and outdo them. Without knowing the game rather intimately, you’re not going to avoid making the same mistakes, and you’re not going to know what made aspects of the game brilliant.
“Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.” - George Santayana
A good designer won’t ever copy a system because it “seemed to work.” If the (good) designer copies a system, it’s because he did his research, explored the alternatives, retraced all the same steps as the original designer, and determined that it was the right approach.
Sometimes evolving an existing system into something better makes for more fun (and that’s what we’re after) than intentionally avoiding implementing a similar system entirely or, God forbid, covering your eyes and hoping the monsters go away (not playing other MMOs is bad, mkay?).
Different isn’t necessarily better, but better is necessarily different.
A baby-step evolution, a minor tweak, a more elegant presentation — these often make for a better system that is (at least a little) different. But, making something different for the sake of being different is both flawed and often inferior to the solution it’s attempting to outdo.
Yes, I am advocating evolution. Revolution is risky and can be an outright bad idea, but it has its place as well in the right hands and in the right game.
The MMO-avoidance approach may work for Paul, but for me, I need to play every MMO I can get my hands on and be informed by those experiences. And, luckily for me, I’ve become pretty good at identifying the good and bad in a game so I’m less likely to repeat some else’s failures, and more likely to repeat someone else’s triumphs… you should see my list of “goods” and “bads” for World of Warcraft — there are about three times as many bads, but there are still a bunch of goods.
As much as I like Paul, it seems like he’s drinking his own Kool-Aid lately.
I think it’s instructional that Brad McQuaid famously swore off WoW, and never played it. Game design issues aside, he then didn’t have the proper perspective about what (to some degree) gamers wanted in a game. He then went out and made one that they didn’t want.
It’s more than checking and aping the mechanisms and systems of your competition. It’s looking at something and saying; “Well this seems to be the new standard for downtime between fights, and making sure that your game paces at least as well. It’s seeing how single or multi-player oriented it is, and knowing what that generation of gamers is going to expect going forward. Not knowing these things and other similar issues is going to preclude you from understanding what is expected of you.
I’m not advocating cloning other’s games. Just the opposite. But your game better be cleaner, faster, more engaging, and offer more options than the last generation. And how are you going to know if it does if you never played it?
Play WoW, learn from what they did right and what they did wrong, and move along.
As an aside, people say they want revolution, but they really don’t. They want warm and familiar with some twists.
There’s an observation that fits; What’s the difference between Pioneers and Settlers? Pioneers got arrows and Settlers got land. Same hold true in game design.
“you should see my list of “goods†and “bads†for World of Warcraft”
Yeah, can we?
Odds are most of them played WoW before, so it’s not turning a blind eye to ask them to not play WoW now.
Besides, it’s a tradeoff. Fresh isn’t necessarily better, but avoiding much exposure to other games will help the designers to approach things from the fundamental goals and pressures, rather than starting with models.
Beethoven wrote his best work when he was deaf. He had been influenced and trained by many other composers beforehand, but the silence allowed him to explore in a way he couldn’t have done otherwise. It was a tradeoff.
As with most things, balance is good. Designers should alternate between periods of studying others and periods of quiet seclusion (from other games). One truth every world religion pinpointed thousands of years ago is that periodic silence leads to clarity and due reflection.
I think you may be reading too much into that statement…
If they just based all their game systems on another iteration of DIKU, wouldn’t they be accused of just copying Wow? (Even if they were actually copying EQ?)
I think what he’s refering to is the process that resulted in The Tome of Knowlege. Which everyone (else) who has gotten to play WAR (grr.) tells me is brilliant.
I’d rather not make my list public for now. I’ve seen most of the things I dislike about WoW listed elsewhere, but some of them might give an edge to some designer out there that I’d rather retain myself. Probably not, but I want to remain on the safe side and keep my observations a little more under wraps… it’s also a competing product (an MMO), and I try not to comment thoroughly on any MMOs (good or ill) in a public fashion as a rule.
Yeah I guess I can agree with that if only because I do it unintentionally. I go through periods of heavy MMO play, to FPS play, to RPG play, etc. Sometimes I don’t play any games at all for a while and instead dive into a few books in a row. Sometimes I don’t play games or read books, and instead watch movies. All the time I listen to music, but I consume that in genre waves as well. There are even times when I consume nothing and write or design for fun instead.
He might be trying to mimic Asimov, who refused to review any modern robotic leaps, for fear it would taint his writing. But that’s too far of a leap. In every tradeskill that incorporates some level of design (architecture, carpentry, plumbing, clothing, etc.), designers learn by reviewing one another’s work.
If he (Barnett) was just talking about WoW then I’d agree with him, but he goes on to call all online games ‘cancerous’ and that he doesn’t play them. Seems to me to be shooting himself in the foot – how can you make something better if you don’t know what has gone before, and what’s happening now?
I’d be directing the team to play every damn game, online/offline/board/minatures/word/puzzle/rpg etc that they could get their hands on (as long as it was not done to the exclusion of actually getting work done).