WAR and the Formalization of Games in Games

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I wish I remember who said it, but in the past year I read one of my favorite descriptions of video games.

It is not really a primary definition of video game, but more definition from an engineering standpoint. (I really wish I could find the quote, but all I can remember is that some developer said it.) The quote was that “Video Games are collections of smaller games.”

WoW as a collection of smaller games

Being really into WoW at that time, you could really see that WoW is the “video game”, but there are numerous fully supported smaller games. Levelling to max is a game. Each available reputation is a game. Making money is a game. Getting better gear is a game. Each individual PvP battleground instance is a game, and getting the honor from PvP is another game. Arenas are a game. Quests are games. You could go on and on.

There are also a number of “unsupported” games. For example, you can collect as many non-combat pets as you want, but the game does not recognize this or reward you for it. The most famous unsupported game in WoW is probably the most famous game, period : PvE progression. While you do get gear and rep, WoW does not have any sort of formal recognition of PvE progression. There are official no scoreboards for it, even though end-game progression is considered by most players to be the most important aspect of the game — the biggest small game.

This always bewildered me, honestly. The guys at Blizzard are quite smart and I never understood why they didn’t implement this basic feature.

(I didn’t realize it until later, but I wrote a mod that formalized part of the existing game of WoW. It was a mod to show you missing recipes called FGTradeLacker*. This made a semi-formal game out of an informal game. And at least one of my guildies then religiously played the ‘recipe collection game’ after I created the mod, which I thought was really cool.)

Mythic and innovation in small games

Mythic is making two big moves to formalize existing “small” games in WAR. With the Tome of Knowledge they are adding trophies and logs of past accomplishments. This is not totally new even in a massive game, but WAR’s dedication to this mechanic via the Tome of Knowledge is staggering. This is not some tacked-on achievement system : the devs have clearly put a lot of work into the Tome and it’s a major part of the game.

The second way WAR is formalizing the smaller games is the Guild system. Not only do guilds gain XP, they also gain their own trophies and (allegedly) have their own point system. This advances far beyond even what Mythic did previously in Dark Age of Camelot. It takes an existing small game (guild achievement) and makes it much more fun by formalizing it.

I think that this mechanic is a major innovation of WAR. In fact, I believe that in time that these formalizations will be seen, over PvP innovations, as the major innovation of WAR.

* In fact if you use one of the current recipe mods they tend to use my original data — although so far none of the subsequent mod authors who “requisitioned” my data have fleshed out the acquisition info for the cooking recipes, which irritates me to no end. If I can do the research for like 1600 recipes, surely somebody who filched my db can cover the remaining 300!

The Massive Multireader Online Rolereading Blog

*** This blog has moved, it is now hosted at http://boathammer.com ***

To truly serve the fans of the MMORPG, Warhammer : Age of Reckoning, we here at Boathammer have decided you need a new type of blog. A web 4.0 blog. A blog that is actually a game.

(At this point you should start humming some theme music in your head. If you hum something public domain that would save us some money, we would appreciate it.)

Welcome to Boathammer : Age of Bloggening! Thanks to our innovative design, we guarantee that we’ll be the best game blogging game that you’ve ever seen!

Just look at our feature list (WARNING : NOT YET IMPLEMENTED)

• Multiple Modes of Advancement : You can advance in comments posted, trolling, lurking, or cursing
• Comment Dyes : Earn the right to post in custom colors! Pre-orders will get unique comment dyes that will never be available again!
• Guilds : Just respond to a comment to join that person’s guild! To quit a guild, don’t respond to that person’s comments!
• Comment Combat : Players of the opposing faction can delete or alter your comments!
• RVR : RVR included!

Or take a look at our implemented features :

• 15 dollar monthly subscription fee : Just stick 15 dollars cash in an envelope, go to the park, and duct tape it to the bottom of the bench by the tree. It’s that easy!
• For non-US residents : please attach the envelope to helium balloon, wait until the wind is blowing towards the US, and release.
• For US residents, if you find a balloon with an envelope attached to it : That’s mine. Please stick an additional 15 dollars into it, go to the park, and duct tape it to the bottom of the bench by the tree.
• Released in 2011 : YEAH!

Five Things That Worry Me or Encourage Me About Warhammer

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There have been a number of these lists floating around. You’ll notice I spend a lot of time comparing WAR to WoW. In my mind there’s really no other game in town.

Five Things That Worry Me About Warhammer

1. The NDA is Still Up
   With less than three months to the projected launch date the NDA is still up. Although that kind of secrecy isn’t unprecedented, WoW had dropped its NDA around seven months before the game was released.

   Especially considering that you can easily close off “unfinished” portions of the game — what isn’t the general public ready to see?

   One thought is that, while the NDA will allegedly still be active during the guild beta, it might be smoke and mirrors since Mythic may be waiting until the Guild Beta starts to announce the drop.

2. There are still CE’s available
   Mythic has made it clear that there are only 60,000 CE’s available. The CE should be attractive to players because it offers a head start and guaranteed access to the beta.

   However, there are evidently still a number of CE’s still available. Considering the recent success of Age of Conan, selling 60,000 beta keys shouldn’t be that hard.

3. Bastion Stair
   Mythic recently released a video of one of the end game dungeons, the Bastion Stair.

   What can I say about it? Well, the exterior looks great. The inside … well, the inside has an awful lot of red hallways with blue columns connecting small red rooms.

   A raider is going to spend a lot of time in a twenty-five man dungeon and it helps if the dungeon reminds you of how great the game looks instead of how you’re sick of looking at the same wall texture for 20 hours a week. If I were Mythic I would hold off on the Stair at release.

4. Variety of Gameplay
   Most MMORPGs have PvE as the main game and PvP as the sideshow. That’s OK, because there’s generally a lot of solo PvE to jump into, and since PvP is always easy to jump into there are always two options for players who can’t find a group.

   Warhammer inverts the equation. Crafting seems a little sparse, and there doesn’t seem like there is much solo PvE at max, via repeatable quests or honor or what have you. So what do you do in Warhammer when you’re bored of PvP?

5. The Wife Doesn’t Think She’s Going To Play
   I realize this doesn’t affect most of you, but the single most important factor in my MMO adoption has always been my wife’s tastes. When I start a game and she doesn’t pick it up, I tend to quit. I also tend to quit if she quits.

   It’s really for a number of reasons. It’s nice to chat with her in game, and I’m not trying to schedule my game playing around hanging out with her (since it’s fun to play together). Really , a game doesn’t seem massively multiplayer to me unless I’m playing with my wife.

Five Things That Encourage Me About Warhammer

1. What we’ve seen so far looks good
   With the exception of Bastion Stair I haven’t seen any feature of the game that seems poorly designed or just un-fun. Indeed, there are a lot of nice things in the game, like the dynamic landscape (capturing, leveling cities), and the Tome of Knowledge. Not to mention that the Warhammer IP is just rich, fun, and … old.
2. The devs seem to say the right things
   The interviews with Jeff Hickman and Paul Barnett seem to go well. They talk a good game and talk like they know what a good game is. They seem spontaneous but never seem to throw any red flags.

   Of course I never really understand what Paul Barnett is saying. Who knew Canadians could be so silly?

3. It’s the Age of the MMO
   Many people worry about the effect of WoW on WAR, but not me. Nearly everybody who plays WoW needs a break sooner or later. What do you play during your break? How about something a lot like WoW but with some cool, different features?

   I played one MMORPG that I took seriously before WoW. During breaks from WoW I’ve now tried out four or five.

   In an age where lackluster MMORPG’s survive and flourish, an even half-decent Warhammer has little to fear.

4. How successful does it have to be?
   We often talk about WoW’s 10 million players but not much about how relatively small other MMOG’s have been. It took EVE online two or three years just to hit 100,000 users. And how long have they been around? 100,000 users paying 15 bucks a month gives you almost 20 million dollars a year. When you’re paying a lot of technical people that’s not an infinite number of money, but it does let you staff more than enough to keep your game going.

   If Warhammer manages 100,000 players in North America and 100,000 players in Europe, subscription fees alone will get them about 35 million a year, which should be more than enough to keep the devs, EA, and the fans fat and happy.

5. They’ve done this all before
   The game doesn’t seem to have the polish of WoW, but I’m also fairly confident that we’ll never see a WoW-original-honor-system level catastrophe from Mythic. They have run a successful MMO in the past and hopefully have all their big design mistakes behind them.