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Blizzard may not expect World of Warcraft to grow again in the future, but that doesn’t mean it’s giving up on the game. In fact, Tom Chilton, lead game designer at Blizzard, says the studio has actually expanded the game’s development team over the past couple of years.
It’s inevitable that a game as long-lived as World of Warcraft will lose players, and new players aren’t as likely to stick with it over the long term as those from ten years ago, according to Chilton. That, and the sheer volume of new content that’s been added to the game over the past decade, has led Blizzard to change its approach to creating new expansions.
“The game can only get so complicated before it starts to collapse under its own weight, and becomes very cumbersome to do anything new with,” he told MCV. “So we are always trying to simplify the game, while at the same time add new things so that the total complexity does not get completely out of control. And you could already argue that the complexity of WoW is already huge. That can be overwhelming to new people coming in.”
The World of Warcraft development team has actually expanded from 150 employees to 220, he explained, which will be good for the game in the long run. But it’s also one of the reasons the Warlords of Draenor expansion took so long to come to fruition.
“By growing by 50 per cent, you don’t get people in off the street who can make content exactly in the way that we would want. There’s an acclimatization process,” Chilton said. “That has resulted in slowing us down. But in the long-term we are now positioned to release expansions more frequently.”
The truth is that even though World of Warcraft’s numbers have tumbled precipitously over the past few years, 6.8 million subscribers is the kind of user base most MMOs would kill to have. Sustained, long-term growth may not be on the table anymore, but it’s clear that the game is going to be around for a long time yet.
10 weeks ago myself and the team from the station held a 48 hour charity event on Twitch in aid of GamesAid, a fantastic charity that is close to my heart.
Over the weekend we managed to raise just £236 of the £1500 we had hoped to raise via our Just Giving page and through a combined use of the station radio stream and Twitch streaming, we had some great shows and some fantastic input from our fans
The stand out moments we have kept on Youtube here:
During the weekend we played LOADs of great games, both PC and console based. (and got very little sleep that weekend too)
But thank you to all the team and the fans for chipping in, plus to the great guys over at Subterranean Games for joining us and talking about War for the Overworld
DCAU mastermind Bruce Timm will executive producer a new digital Justice League cartoon for Machinima to debut in spring of 2015. Titled Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles, it will be be co-produced by his Batman: The Animated Series partner Alan Burnett.
Originally announced as another DC direct-to-home video animated movie, Gods and Monsters Chronicles will now be a three-part digital series; according to Comic Book Resources it’s an original story by Timm which has nothing to do with the 2001 Justice League comic of the same name. Most tellingly (via Variety):
“Chronicles” is said to revolve around a newly conceived reality in the DC universe where Justice League members Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are much darker versions of the superheroes that people know.
I can’t be upset at the idea of any Bruce Timm-led DC animation, but does it really need to be darker? I swear, if DC continues this trend, eventually we’re going to get a Justice League that spends all its time murdering hoboes.
Over the last few years, Free to Play has not only become a staple of the MMO market, but big companies have moved their MMO from subscription, to Free to Play to entice new players in.
Blizzard, seem to think the opposite.
As announced on our forums on August 15, a change is coming to World of Warcraft subscription pricing for players who use pounds sterling.
We regularly look at our pricing around the world and from time to time we make changes in light of local and regional market conditions. As such, we want to give everyone a heads-up that we will shortly be adjusting the pound sterling subscription price of World of Warcraft.
The new price for recurring subscriptions will be £9.99 for one month, £28.17 for three months (£9.39 per month), and £52.14 for six months (£8.69 per month). The suggested retail price of the 60-day prepaid time card will be £20.99.
As a thank you for current World of Warcraft subscribers, we guarantee that players with recurring (auto-renewing) subscriptions at the time of the price change will retain their current price for two years, as long as they remain in the same recurring subscription without interruption. This applies to anyone who is already in, or signs up for, a recurring subscription prior to the price change, which is scheduled to take place at the Warlords of Draenor release. We will reach out to relevant players approximately two months prior to the price change with a reminder.
So what do you think? With other high profile MMO’s going Free to Play over the last couple of years (yes Star Wars, we’re looking at you, you loser…), do you think Blizzard are going the wrong way, or cashing in on the market they know they have?
Forza 5 launched with some nasty micro-transactions, made more upsetting by the fact that people already spent $60 to buy it.
Players were pissed, and creator Turn 10 spent months re-tuning the otherwise solid racer. What does this mean for open-world spin-off Forza Horizon 2? No micro-transactions whatsoever. At first.
Ralph Fulton, of Playground Studios’ (Forza Horizon 2’s primary developer) talked openly about the prospect of being able to spend real money on things—cars, upgrades, and the like—otherwise earn-able in-game at a recent preview event in San Francisco, and he didn’t mince words: the firestorm that came down on Forza 5 provided a valuable—though indirect—learning experience for the Horizon team.
“Obviously we couldn’t help but notice what happened with Forza 5,” he said. “Absolutely. But at the same time, I did feel bad for the team [at Forza Motorsport creator Turn 10]. They worked incredibly hard on that game and then things erupted.”
Their solution, then, is to launch at the end of this month with no in-game micro-transactions, no cars buy-able for real money, whatsoever.
You either earn your way to the top or stall out at the starting line. Why? Playground wants to make sure the game’s economy isn’t broken—that is, obnoxiously slow for people who don’t spend real money—like Forza 5’s initially was. They also want to show fans that this game is designed to be fair and rewarding first and foremost, that it won’t repeat the sins of its series cousin.
“We’re not trying to short-change anybody out of the experience,” he said. “We want a massive amount of content available to everyone on day one.”
“There’s a twofold strategy to that. First, we want to make sure our economy is as we planned it. From the start, we want to make sure progression, the economy, the amount of credits you get in the game—that all of that is fair and rewarding. Our job is to make you feel good about your progression. We need to make sure that’s the case once the game is out in the wild and people can play it.”
“The second half of that is to demonstrate to everyone else—to the players—that we have a game which is balanced such that you never need to spend a penny on it. It will reward you. You will feel great. You’ll feel like a rockstar for the progression you make through it.”
How exactly will that work, though? What’s the difference between “feeling like a rockstar” (or, you know, a famous race car driver, which might have been a more apt analogy) and feeling like you’re being swindled by a used car salesman? Fulton explained it like this:
“We tried to make the game really generous. We give you two or three cars in the first hour. The wheelspin mechanic [that gives you a random reward when you level up] is really important too. Everybody loves a slot machine, and you have that sense that you’ll be leveling up every 15 or 20 minutes. With that, you have this next opportunity to get more cash or even to get a car.”
Horizon 2’s world is allegedly three times larger than that of the first Forza Horizon, too. Fulton boasted that doing everything in it would take at least 100 hours.
Of course for now, that’s just a boast… empty air, no substance. What I can say with certainty is that in my experience of the game’s first hour, rewards came fast and furious. I leveled twice and got pretty good in-game money both times. I also won a championship in my muddy, thoroughly-dented-from-driving-like-a-maniac Camaro, which netted me even more glittering prizes. Also my car’s mutant healing factor kicked in after I crossed the finish line, so I didn’t have to pay pesky repair fees or anything like that.
As is, Forza Horizon 2’s economy—at least, at this early point—inspires confidence. We’re not entirely in the clear, though. Assuming players largely get on well with Forza’s new, more generous side, Playground hopes to add micro-transactions at a later date.
“I’m sure there will come a time when we want to offer our players more choice,” said Fulton. “But we won’t do that at first. The crucial thing is to make this point [about our economy] to our fans.”
An admirable goal. I’ll confess, I’m not in love with the idea of putting micro-transactions in a $60 game at all, but—for the time being—it’s looking like The Way Of The Future. Here’s hoping more creators opt to nail down the, you know, fun side of their reward systems first and then sweat the other details. If Playground keeps to its word, Forza Horizon 2 will at least provide a good model to follow.
