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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
What do you think the single biggest pitfall of this game as it develops will be?
I realize this is a hot issue and some of you think the game is hopeless. Some of you think the game is basically fine. Some hate to speculate.
My biggest anxiety with this game is that developers will look at other games, both actively developing MMOs and upcoming releases like TOR, and be too ready to say, "That's not what we do. We aren't focused on our competitors."
Truth is, Warcraft has achieved a lot of its success pretty much actively borrowing, emulating or taking the best parts of other MMOs and games. Maybe imperfectly. Maybe a shallow copy in some respects. But I look at their achievements system and I see XBox Live and City of Heroes' badge system. I look at their flying mounts and I see Neverwinter Nights mods.
Right now, the Cryptic development team could be looking at the Bioware dev diaries for The Old Republic and saying, "What can we swipe from this and what would never work in a million years for our game?" And they could beat TOR to the punch on half a dozen core features if they choose to be cut throat. The "fully voiced" and cinematic aspects of TOR could be live in Star Trek Online by June; it's not a complicated system and it's something the Cryptic Engine supports.
Look at Warcraft reputations and Path of the Titans. Look at their phasing system, which is entirely co-opt-able in a very instanced game like this. Look at City of Heroes' "Going Rogue" and steal their Praetorian thunder with a taste of Mirror Universe content.
The standard approach is "our game is our game" and it's true; that should be an overriding design choice. But I hope STO's devs are not ashamed to shamelessly copy, borrow, reverse engineer or one up other developers whenever an idea seems like it could add to STO, to the point where they're willing to take a chance and implement other people's ideas before they do and make the other guy look like the slowpoke or the copycat.
TOR wants to claim they're the first fully voiced MMO with interactive cinematics that shape gameplay. Take the idea and rip that claim away from them before they launch. Cryptic has the tech to do that. Be ruthless. It will pay off.
I realize this is a hot issue and some of you think the game is hopeless. Some of you think the game is basically fine. Some hate to speculate.
My biggest anxiety with this game is that developers will look at other games, both actively developing MMOs and upcoming releases like TOR, and be too ready to say, "That's not what we do. We aren't focused on our competitors."
Truth is, Warcraft has achieved a lot of its success pretty much actively borrowing, emulating or taking the best parts of other MMOs and games. Maybe imperfectly. Maybe a shallow copy in some respects. But I look at their achievements system and I see XBox Live and City of Heroes' badge system. I look at their flying mounts and I see Neverwinter Nights mods.
Right now, the Cryptic development team could be looking at the Bioware dev diaries for The Old Republic and saying, "What can we swipe from this and what would never work in a million years for our game?" And they could beat TOR to the punch on half a dozen core features if they choose to be cut throat. The "fully voiced" and cinematic aspects of TOR could be live in Star Trek Online by June; it's not a complicated system and it's something the Cryptic Engine supports.
Look at Warcraft reputations and Path of the Titans. Look at their phasing system, which is entirely co-opt-able in a very instanced game like this. Look at City of Heroes' "Going Rogue" and steal their Praetorian thunder with a taste of Mirror Universe content.
The standard approach is "our game is our game" and it's true; that should be an overriding design choice. But I hope STO's devs are not ashamed to shamelessly copy, borrow, reverse engineer or one up other developers whenever an idea seems like it could add to STO, to the point where they're willing to take a chance and implement other people's ideas before they do and make the other guy look like the slowpoke or the copycat.
TOR wants to claim they're the first fully voiced MMO with interactive cinematics that shape gameplay. Take the idea and rip that claim away from them before they launch. Cryptic has the tech to do that. Be ruthless. It will pay off.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments
Personally I think the biggest pitfall for this game is content, especially non-combat content. I don't envy the developers for the sheer amount of time that they are going to have to spend to fill this game with enough, and varied enough, content that would keep players with priorities like mine coming back month after month.
As it is, it's rare for an MMORPG to launch with only 80 hours (their words) of content.