World of Warcraft Feature Feature

At the recent European Computer Trade Show the only really big news was the unveiling of Blizzard’s new project World of Warcraft, which is a massively multiplayer online game set in the Warcraft world, which in its ways is not dissimilar to Everquest! Derek dela Fuente had the golden opportunity of speaking with Chris Metzen, the creative director on the project... <br /> <br /> World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online RPG set in the Warcraft Universe and takes place after Warcraft III. The mere fact that with WarCraft III on the way and this huge project also well into development, Blizzard is proving a force to be reckoned with. Although debate is divided as to the significance of online games you could not ask for a more enticing world. From what we have seen, and it early days yet, release could be a year or two off, it looked pretty impressive and could well pull in a new base of gamers who have never considered online gaming! The world looked lush with flagship graphics and everything from buildings to life forms appeared so good you just wanted to walk into the screen and immerse yourself! World of Warcraft conjures up all the very best when it comes to RPG so an online experience could be even more enticing! <br /> <br /> We could only scratch the surface of this new offering but Blizzard’s Chris was keen to expound on things where he could! <br /> <br /> So what’s on offer? <br /> <br /> At this point details are sparse on the game but we have announced three races, which everyone who is au fait with Warcraft will know – humans, Orcs and Taurens which were introduced in Warcraft III as allies of the Orcs – this time they will be a fully playable race. World of Warcraft takes place four years following the aftermath of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, where great tension has settled over the ravaged world of Azeroth. As the various races begin to rebuild their shattered kingdoms, new threats, both ancient and terrifying, have arisen to plague the world once again. Players must explore the lands of Azeroth, forge fellowships with other players, and build their strength in order to prevail. <br /> <br /> We are ‘shooting’ for a wider breadth of world where there will be number of different kingdoms and zones/sub zones to adventure in. We are trying to focus on core quest systems for hard core players. So that if you are the kind of gamer with the massively multi player element that spends 40 hours a week, you’ll be able to join guilds and go on massive extended quests that could take weeks to play. <br /> <br /> For the casual gamer as well you will be able to join the game in your lunch hour or whenever you can and still have a meaningful play experience. You will have any number of tasks or quests, which do not involve that much time. There will always be an element of completion – you will feel that there are things you can accomplish in a short time. The world will be dynamic, constantly changing! <br /> <br /> So it is not aimed at the specialised user then? <br /> <br /> No, we are aiming it at as many people as we can. There is a problem that online games are sometimes aimed at the specialist on line gamer and technically they are the core market. However, we wanted to find a way where we can bring as many people into the Warcraft environment as possible, which means trying to blend the best of both worlds. This in turn means a real hard core game for the higher end gamers but with ease of use and ease of interface - which has drawn people to games like Diabalo which is simplistic - but it is tricky to achieve this! <br /> <br /> What of the new features that will be on offer? <br /> <br /> As mentioned a very easy user interface and the first element would be that there are various camera controls – where you can look around the zone. When for instance you are in 3rd person and your cursor falls over your character, it will become transparent and you can click on anything ‘through’ your character. When I want to ‘effect’, confront a buddy, the onscreen icon turns into a little sword, so that I know that I am in attack mode. If you see a dead bad guy, the icon will turn into a loot icon - you can see how intuitive things are. If I felt like being in first person mode then the mouse wheel can intuitively roll in and interact. <br /> <br /> There is also an action-packed combat system delivering fast, furious combat against multiple opponents, while minimising delays between battles to keep players on the move. A rich, evolving story and questing system will keep players engrossed as the world is regularly updated with new content. <br /> <br /> <br /> Hmm, so what’s the advantage of 1st of 3rd person view then? <br /> <br /> Typically I enjoy first person view cause it is a little bit more immersive. I feel like I’m <br /> specially running around in the game and it helps me to role play and to explore in a much more immersive mode. Third person typically is more tactical especially for combat. You have a much wider range of peripheral vision so as enemies approach you are exploring tricky areas! <br /> <br /> So is there anything you can pull in from other Warcraft games? <br /> <br /> Certainly a lot but cause we have only announced three races I can’t say what else but more than likely all that we have shown in the strategies games will be critical elements in this. We intend to use all the lands, cities, kingdoms, magic items, spells, unit types (in various strategy games, we will finally extrapolate into whole tribes and whole groups) and really pulling on the mythos of the Warcraft universe. After Warcraft III it will be far bigger than anything anyone has ever seen. Look this makes Warcraft III look small but it will also say, heh, this type of world is viable for this kind of game! <br /> <br /> It sounds big!! <br /> <br /> Yes, I can’t give you an exact size of the world but it will have around 6 major continents and to compare that most people have seen Warcraft II and that only had 2 major continents! You will have a much grander sense of scale and of the world! <br /> <br /> On offer there will be fully customisable character classes, innovative races, and thousands of weapons to allow for a truly diverse gameplay experience that will appeal to both hard-core and novice gamers alike. A simple, intuitive user interface will allow players of various skill levels to easily join the adventure. World of Warcraft also features support for advanced graphics hardware, giving the player superlative graphical enhancements, as well as a sophisticated, massively multiplayer network architecture capable of supporting thousands of players in a world simultaneously. <br /> <br /> <br /> So tell us about character creation and how you start! <br /> <br /> We have attempted to put in costuming and body design that represent, iconically, the core races of Warcraft up to this point. There are endless costume combinations and once playing the game it will lend more to customising your character more! So starting off you can choose from the three races, male or female. This will be significant for most people haven’t seen female orcs. There are options for face styles (different beards, hair) for Taurens, specifically, you can change the look and breadth of your horns – different colourations – even different skin tones, pony tails, etc The same deal applies with humans, loads of options! <br /> <br /> <br /> World of Warcraft will let you create a persistent character who will live, learn, and fight in the land of Azeroth. You'll have plenty of options even at the outset.. The characters look extremely impressive already, as does the rest of the game, if only from a visual standpoint.. On your character creation screen you can scroll around to see how some of the 3D elements will look. The characters do look strange but they are fantasy characters and have lots of personality and facial expressions! <br /> <br /> <br /> The characters and the attention to detail is only matched by that of the world you move around in. Only when you think of say different weather conditions and look for them and spot them do you understand that everything is seamless and expertly put together. The Non playing cast was just as interesting and indeed clever as created characters and the hustle and bustle of the towns and cities were a delight to see. One can’t imagine how much better this can get in around 6 months! <br /> <br /> <br /> So Chris you have your character and then place him in the World - Then what? <br /> <br /> You will start out in say West Falls but the start point will not always be the same but could be specific to the race you choose. It will be in a little hamlet near one of their cities for we want to give the feeling that your character is an average entity and could grow to become a hero and move onto a big city. We would not want to put you into a big city to start for that could be very intimidating. Think of many characters running around competing for monster and NPC time. We wish to start you off slowly and intuitively. In a rural area it will be a nice learning curve! <br /> <br /> So, how will you get the balance right between novice and good game player if you are all in the same world? <br /> <br /> We want everyone in the world and at present that is one of our focuses. The true draw of community play is to have a good mix of players but yes we do not want a novice killed too fast or find the good player becomes bored. Player V player would be nice to include but at present we are working on the community balance. We may have it that Player V Player is a voluntary option! Nothing has yet been decided! <br /> <br /> In effect are there any new spells, etc. included? <br /> <br /> Yes, there are a few and players will learn as they play for you can pull up your spell book. There are all the familiar ones that Warcraft users will be familiar with plus some new ones. The casting of <br /> will be simply by point click <br /> <br /> So what of combat and dying then? <br /> <br /> By your character portrait you will see your hit and manna bars. You will see it ticking down if you are facing defeat – losing energy. When you roll up on creatures or monsters with a very quick mouse scroll, in the centre of your screen you will see the character name and or hitpoint bar at the same time, very much like the interface on Diablo 2. You can gauge how tough it is and how many hit points it has. If you manage to defeat the baddie your icon will turn from combat icon to loot meaning you can loot his body of any valuables. We are aiming for a combat mode that pulls from the simplicity of Diablo, which is hyper simplistic in terms of interface. The combat itself as anything else, has complexity of play in terms of difficulty to master different combat moves or class abilities but the ease of interface is critical. It must be easy to do and understand things but not so easy in winning and achieving things! We want the difficulty curve hard to master so people will come back for more with the flow of play constant! There will always be things to master, learn and improve on. <br /> <br /> So what of weapons, rewards, etc? <br /> <br /> There will be 100s – 1000s of goodies to find and I do not know if we will get into randomising things. Any number of weapons, clothing, items, artefacts, magic will be available. We want people to have fun first and foremost! <br /> <br /> How about the player making or designing their own weapons, equipment, or items? <br /> <br /> That’s possible? Hmm, not sure if we will do that. May be later. Good idea! <br /> <br /> Give us what you see as the perfect Massively Multi Player world? <br /> <br /> With World of Warcraft we are trying to immerse you in a world full of not only NPC’s but also world type characters. Just like any other online game we love the element of random people running around, helping you out, being supportive or people playing, as they want. There is nothing better than playing in a role-playing game with anonymity! It is not AI or computer generated characters it’s people running around developing friendships and relationships and guilds which we want to encourage. How many is too many and how few is not enough is yet to be decided! Getting everything right from how you go from class to class, how you grow, we are working on. Too many Online games have been too combat based we intend to make this the prefect challenge. We are devising ways and alternate modes to ensure this. <br /> <br /> - Thank you Chris! - <br /> <br /> Although there were as many questions unanswered as answers - like as to what the penalty for dying was, info on the skill system, the character classes, weapons, armour, - detailing more about combat etc, - the idea for Blizzard as this early stage was to build up excitement and interest in this epic online game way before its completion. Although what we saw was a specially made version for the show the combat looked fast and detailed, this being the basis to make this game one of the best and most challenging around. In 6 months time this should be near perfect?