I’ve done a bit of a round trip on the MMO train recently, trying to figure out what World of Warcraft has going for it that all of the other competitors have failed to provide. Since each game has different successes and failures, let’s go through them individually. On today’s menu:
Age of Conan vs. World of Warcraft
Age of Conan: I finally bit the bullet and decided to try this game out when they introduced the $20 digital download. I didn’t even make it out of Tortage, which is the single player introductory segment that takes you from level 1-20. The game suffers from a few fatal design flaws that will forever limit its subscriber base.
1. Melee combat feels like playing Fable with a broken controller. The combo system is innovative in theory but is executed poorly, and the lack of a proper swing time indicator means that you either have to button-mash and queue up swings that may mess up your combos, or you play it cautious and lose out on DPS.
2. Casters spam the same offensive ability repeatedly. Starting off with a Tempest of Set, I was sick of the lightning bolt sound by the time I hit level 5. To be fair, I felt the same way with my priest in WoW, but at least in WoW the levels go by fast enough that you gain new abilities before the old ones start to wear on you.
3. Difficulty. This game is actually legitimately difficult, and requires some degree of skill. I enjoyed actually being challenged in an MMO for once. In WoW, by the time I realized how zone progression worked, I only ever died if I tried to push the limits of my class or if I ran an instance with bads. In AoC, I pulled 2 apes in one pull by accident and took a dirt nap FAST. Though this will definitely attract a certain niche market of gamers, this in and of itself pretty much kills any mass market appeal for the game. Simply put, most people want easy mode.
The game definitely does things right in a few areas. The scenery was beautiful, and the spell effects were very well done. It’s a beautiful game built around a broken engine. Maybe next time Funcom will apply the same hiring standards to their devs that they did to their artists.
World of Warcraft is simply a more polished game. The combat engine, though essentially transplanted from Everquest, is fluid and intelligently designed, fast-paced without being overly spammy, and works without min-maxing. The main advantage that WoW has over AoC, however, is the accessibility. Very little skill as a gamer is needed to enjoy WoW. Though complete newbies to gaming will die frequently, the lack of any real death penalty and the relative proximity of graveyards removes that sense of banging your head against a wall due to repeated deaths (I’m looking at you, Everquest… Don’t think I don’t remember de-leveling due to XP debt.)
As far as marketing demographics goes, it’s pretty simple. If more people can get enjoyment out of your game, more people will hand you money to keep playing it. When you market your game to a small group of gamers, don’t be surprised when you only get a small subscriber base. It’s pretty easy to see why the numbers ended up the way they did. Next competitor: Everquest 2
- Scarce
Sun, Mar 1, 2009
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