Taking on World of Warcraft

What do you need to take on Blizzard's cash-cow juggernaut? What are the ingredients that go into making an amazing MMO, can anyone topple Blizzard's behemoth? We take a look at the factors

The right technology:

There's no getting around the fact that World of Wacraft is as popular as it is because it'll play on just about every desktop PC or laptop made in the last six or seven years.

It's a massive ask to expect a developer to make an MMO that doesn't just look great, but also plays on aging PC's. That said, the wizards at Blizzard did it in style by crafting a look for Azeroth that was charming, bright, colorful, and had tremendous mainstream appeal. The low system requirements mean that even grandma can quest, explore and rack up wow gold with the best of them.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you've got games like Age of Conan, and to a lesser extent, Aion, which rely on bleeding edge, top of the line graphics to wow audiences. The problem with this approach is that it limits your player base to those with relatively high end PC's. You might argue that it future proofs your MMO, but Sony Online Enterrainment thought the same thing when they released EverQuest II (with insanely high system requirements for the time) and look how that turned out.

In the PC world, scalability is just as, if not more important than whiz-bang graphics, because it directly impacts playability. Developers and publishers need to keep this in mind.

The right Intellectual Property:

A powerful intellectual property is worth its weight in gold. It's going to be an audiences first impression when they year your game name, even before they've seen screenshots or seen any videos. If your game happens to carry the prefix "Star Wars", or Marvel, you can bet there's going to be a large pre-existing fan base.

Warcraft might not have had quite the cache or mainstream appeal when WoW launched so long ago, but the name, and Blizzard both had a massive amount of goodwill with gamers. It's also worth noting that the MMO genre is a lot more competitive today, and as such a good IP is even more important.

SOE blew it with Star Wars: Galaxies, there's little else to say on the matter, however, the combination of that IP, and a developer with a lot of goodwill in the form of Bioware, seem to be combining to great effect with the next Sta Wars MMO, The Old Republic. Only time will tell is TOR is successful, but it's obvious fans and gamers want it to be.

Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Star Trek Online, all these MMO's had powerful intellectual properties to help launch them, and succeeded to varying degrees, but games like SOE's Free Realms and CCP's Eve Online should indicate that while a good IP is important, it's not the last word.

Having a great IP doesn't necessarily guarantee success though - no need to bring up Star Wars Galaxies, the most high profile failure in that area. Right now, folks are flying around the galaxy, earning sto energy credits, scanning anomalies and making first contact in Star Trek Online, but it remains to be seen whether that game will have the long term success that the currently in-demand Star Trek license demands.

How do you make the most of a great IP? Simple, always treat your core audience first. Blizzard did it with Warcraft, and it worked a peach, making compromises to try and broaden the appeal of your license only serves to undercut its strengths.

The right community:

The importance of a great community cannot be understated, it's what keeps people coming back. Publishers and developers realise this, it's why they include friend invites, have free trials and bonuses for folks who get the pals to sign up. It's not just that they want to increase their subscriber base, they realise that friends who play together are likely to keep coming back, stable subscribers are even more valuable that those that play for a month here and a month there, disappearing for stretches at a time.

The right community is also important to help make new players feel welcome. Consider that at one point during Age of Conan's lowest post launch point, bands of player characters would group together outside the game's starting city of Tortage to shake them down, stealing all their aoc gold, and items, not exactly the best first impression. In stark contrast you've got games like World of Warcraft and Star Trek Online, whose community's are welcoming, helpful and open, always willing to lend the noob guy a hand.

The right economy:

This goes hand in hand with the community really, but a healthy economy is vital to the well being of a successful MMO. When people spend time crafting items to sell for wow gold, or aoc gold, or aion kinah, they want to feel as though they're making a real difference to the world, and a vibrant economy helps in this instance.

For an example of a game that's doing it wrong, take a look at Star Trek Online. As it stands there's no crafting system per-se, players locate anomalies on their travels, and take them beck to a designated Memory Alpha system, where they're turned in, in exchange for sto energy credits and rare items. So what's the problem with this? It removes that hand made element. When you plonk down some wow gold to buy a new crafted item in WoW, you can see who made it, and that's huge, because they've created something, they've affected the community, they've made their mark. STO's stand-in crafting system takes that power away from players.

Before we close this article, we'd like to mention one other factor; the right luck. STO had the misfortune of launching during the Death of the Lich King, and Warhammer Online launched close to Blizzard's release of Wrath of the Lich King. A bit of friendly advice to publishers; avoid Blizzard's release dates like the plague. There's no shame in shifting your release date, because what inevitably happens is that gamers go off to play the hot new thing - in this case Warhammer Online, and then after the first free month, they're lured back to the big new events going on in Azeroth, in this case, the rise of the Lich King.