Game Development Giant - Chapter 866

c860 Expansion packs are actually the exit environment for MMORPGs

Why are these settings great?

Because it is very simple, these materials with levels ranging from 30 to 40 levels, equipped to the final level, and dungeon settings have a great effect.

It just expands the playability at different levels to a great extent.

Let players at level 30, players at level 40, and players at level 50 have their own fun at their level. Even when they are fighting monsters, they will have some aspirations. If I can fight How nice would one be.

If there is such a situation, then playing will not be boring.

But in the expansion pack, this situation has changed. The content of the old world is ten times that of the expansion pack. However, in order to enhance the status of the expansion pack, almost 99% of the things in the old world have become useless. In this way, when players play the game at a level below level 60, they feel that at this level, no matter what they do or what they get, it doesn’t matter.

In this case, it means that most of the time, players feel that their efforts are not rewarded at all.

Players may have been able to accept the first expansion pack, and barely accepted the second expansion pack, but by the third expansion pack, the emotions accumulated in the previous two expansion packs burst out in an instant. Only after a player has gone through a long upgrade process can his character become somewhat useful and want to participate in various activities.

It also takes a lot of effort to put together the outfit and so on.

Is such an RPG still called an RPG?

RPG is role-playing in a world, but the core gameplay of this game is that it can only be enjoyable when everyone becomes a legendary professional.

So what is this RPG?

In fact, it not only allows players to become legendary professionals, but also allows players to obtain a set of quasi-epic equipment to meet the entry requirements for experiencing the fun of the game. How is this kind of game design different from NC?

You can even say something that offends NC.

The design of WOW since the first expansion pack has made a fatal mistake, that is, in order to infinitely enhance the status of the expansion pack and let everyone play the expansion pack, it is simply impossible to upgrade the items in the expansion pack to those in the old world. Incomparable. The design of the entire old world has become a complete waste-like existence. This method does not consider whether it is suitable or fun.

The reason why WOW has not been replaced is that others are worse than them.

This design idea is not recognized by Jester.

Of course, Blizzard also has difficulties with opening expansion packs.

One of the biggest problems is. The expansion pack had reached a point where it had to be developed.

Why do you say that?

It’s very simple. Anyone who has played the expansion pack of The Burning Crusade will be familiar with the classic copy of Karazhan.

But there is a very strange thing here, that is, why does a team copy of the Burning Crusade appear in the classic old world of Azeroth? And it’s on a map called Deadwind Trail that was made in the 1960s?

In fact, the reason is very simple.

This dungeon was actually planned to be opened in the 1960s, but after NAXX was opened, Blizzard suddenly discovered it. The attributes after NAXX have been inflated to the point where they are out of proportion. The attributes of NAXX equipment have been inflated to more than twice that of the equipment produced in the first team copy. If Karazhan is opened again, the attributes need to be inflated to To what extent?

It was under the pressure of this attribute expansion that Blizzard had to open the expansion pack and changed Karazhan, a dungeon originally planned to be released at level 60, to the expansion pack.

In fact, it can be seen from the fact that NAXX can make a drumstick that the Karazhan dungeon is obviously in the plan.

Of course, there are still many unfilled holes left in the 1960s.

For example, the reputation of the thieves’ Ravenholdt Manor and the follow-up of the mission.

Attribute inflation is actually a very big problem faced by this kind of MMORPG. You want to open it for a long time and you want to attract players to new maps. If you want to play in a new copy, then you must make sure that the new map in the new copy is higher than the original copy of the map.

Therefore, this kind of expansion is inevitable. At most, it can only continue the process of expansion.

In the end, opening an expansion pack became a last resort.

In fact, this way of opening information is very similar to a game mode of another game. Players who like to play trading cards may know that in games like Magic: The Gathering, where cards are released very frequently, There will be a game mechanism called retreat environment. First of all, we must understand what a card environment is. As the name suggests, it is the range of cards that can be used.

After understanding the meaning of environment, it is obvious to think about retreating from the environment.

That is to remove some cards from the usable range.

What to use to exit?

It’s very simple, produce new and stronger cards.

Does it have the same effect as the expansion packs of MMORPG games that forcibly drive previous content out of the game environment?

In fact, Jester had imagined it. There must have been many people in the WOW development team who were fans of card games, especially fans of Magic: The Gathering. This can be seen from the video of their development journey of “Hearthstone”.

When they encounter the problems of attribute expansion and slowdown in population growth, they will naturally learn from other games and look at other games. How would you deal with similar problems?

As some of the best game designers, it is natural to think of the way a certain type of game they like is handled, so the idea of ​​​​retreating from the environment also appeared.

Can’t say whether this way is right or wrong.

Because Jester himself didn’t actually have a better way, or to put it another way, everyone in the game industry later didn’t come up with a better way, but it doesn’t mean that he can’t delay the occurrence of this expansion. , a big reason why the attributes expanded so much in the later stages of WOW is that after Blizzard discovered expansion packs as a good way to retreat from the environment, they did not pay attention to the control of attributes.

In fact, in the original classic world and the first expansion pack, this phenomenon was relatively rare.

Of course, a big reason for the inflated attributes of the classic old world is because Blizzard’s development team miscalculated the potential of this game from the beginning.

Of course, they have certain goals to do WOW.

How many paying players did EQ have at that time? More than 200,000 and less than 300,000.

This is still the most successful 3D online game in the world, and WOW’s goal is to surpass EQ. They are a stronger team than EQ, have spent more investment industry, and have more people, of course. Their goals will also be higher.

Maybe some later WOW players don’t know what Blizzard’s original goal was for the WOW game?

Half a million paying players.

Yes, this is what Blizzard’s developers at the time said in the ten-year history of WOW. They said that it could only reach 500,000 paying players. They can insist on making this game. Yes, Blizzard’s goal for the WOW game at the beginning was only 500,000 paying players.

They did it in a month.

Then they did ten times that number in one year!

In other words, when the game WOW was first designed and planned, I never thought it would be so popular and played by so many people.

Therefore, if there are design problems later, especially the attribute expansion in the later stage, it must be because there was no planning in the early stage, or to put it another way. There must be no extremely detailed planning, and there is an inevitable connection.

Of course, Jester will not make such a mistake. The first thing he needs to make clear is that the game WOW must be an MMORPG that can be operated and developed for a long time. The vitality of this game may be as long as ten data There are so many pieces, so its life cycle and its attribute curve. It needs to be determined and made clear at the beginning.

Indeed, as many people said later, attribute inflation is an inevitable problem for such a game. At least there was no way to end this problem when Jester traveled through time.

But there is no way to solve it, which does not mean that we have to condone this attribute inflation like Blizzard did.

Of course, many people say that Blizzard has compressed attributes once before? It shows that they are also troubled by this. How can we say that they condone it?

the reason is simple.

This is not at all attribute compression for the sake of attribute expansion.

It’s entirely because of the 32-bit system.

WOW was originally developed using a 32-bit system. On this system, there is a threshold for digital display.

It may be that Blizzard at the time believed that it was impossible for WOW to develop to this threshold.

But here’s the thing. When it comes to MOP, WOW’s numerical display has exceeded this display by a lot. If attributes are not compressed, then the game will not be able to display normally.

This is also the reason why the brainless roar of the final BOSS in MOP is divided into so many stages and so many scenes. Do you think it is really for the epic level?

There is no need for so many scenes and stages for an epic BOSS battle.

This was entirely because the WOW client at the time did not have the ability to display that many numbers.

So, that’s how they designed it.

Then, the attributes were compressed in the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor – and then, after solving the problem of thirty-two clients, some videos from Legion and items Judging from the introduction, the attributes that were compressed in “Warlords of Draenor” have been expanded again.

In fact, the fact that T who graduated from “Warlords of Draenor” can reach one million health points is enough to verify this.

This is the attribute inflation that Jester hates most within the same version.

This is intolerable.

In fact, Jester also doesn’t understand what Blizzard is doing, or they simply don’t know how to make an MMORPG, what kind of MMORPG players want, and what kind of design is immersive.

WOW shouldn’t be like this.

In the era of “Warlords of Draenor” and “Legion”, the reason why WOW is still the WOW with the most players is because the accumulation and foundation are too huge.

The MMORPG market is getting smaller and smaller, and fewer and fewer games can survive at the same time.

Developing a game that is comparable to WOW requires a huge investment. When big companies feel that this investment is not proportional to the risks they face and the possible benefits they can obtain, they will not invest their own money. The power to develop such a game.

This is the key to WOW’s survival.

However, Jester feels that there is a limit to this kind of seeking death, and there is also a limit to the player’s patience.

Indeed, it is true that a large number of players will join this game in every version, but to be honest, there are no players who may be recruited, recruited, this way, or that way. Players who have experienced many versions of WOW and have not even experienced the plot baptism of the WAR era have no feelings for WOW at all.

You can also experience the charm and fun of RPG role-playing in this game.

All he felt was that he had no idea of ​​reaching the level, then he had no idea of ​​gathering equipment and waiting, and then he had no idea of ​​joining the team book or spending money on that equipment.

What’s the fun in a game like this?

No fun at all.

If the way a game is played is no longer fun, how long will it last?

For Blizzard, WOW is an almost irreplaceable game. The reason why Blizzard has been able to develop from a small studio to being on par with Activision is because of the game WOW. The success of its Hearthstone is, of course, Hearthstone is indeed a high-quality game, and it can even be said that there is no comparable game among similar games.

However, his success, at least initial success, was due to WOW bringing it the first wave of users.

In fact, even Blizzard itself said that their idea for making Hearthstone was just to prepare a casual game for WOW players, and have a game for entertainment in the dungeon.

In fact, they didn’t think that the later Hearthstone would be so popular.

But even if Hearthstone is so popular, so what?

Hearthstone’s revenue in 2014 was just over US$100 million, while WOW’s revenue was more than US$800 million, close to US$900 million.

His income doubled in 2015, which is simply not enough for a giant like WOW. (~^~)