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Reader Comments (7)

Posted: Feb 21st 2008 8:36PM Scopique said

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My gawd...for all the crap Tobold gets, I'd say he's right in this case. OK, maybe throwing all of those eggs in the same basket won't REALLY out-WoW WoW, but some of the points are pretty sound IMO.

Posted: Feb 21st 2008 11:12PM (Unverified) said

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Hey don't get me wrong, if I didn't like Tobold I wouldn't read his blog. However when you over-simplify in a game it looses its appeal to the mid-core and hard-core -- which isn't bad if you just want casuals. However, as we all know, WoW isn't just casuals. Plenty of people are in-between mid-cores.


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Posted: Feb 22nd 2008 12:18PM (Unverified) said

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WoW developers have stated before that their games are easy to learn, difficult to master. Guitar Hero is the same, it's not just about being 'casual', but being accessible and recognisable to everyone. If a 6 year old can pick up the game as easily as an 60 year old then to do otherwise risks alienating a big audience. Being casual is part of why Wow is successful, but it's the whole package which attracts players too.

Posted: Feb 23rd 2008 8:25AM (Unverified) said

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Did you read the article?

"Now some of you are going to shout that they would never play such a game. Which is totally okay, because you are a gamer and aren't the target audience anyway. The game isn't supposed to be good from a game critic point of view."

Point proved?

Posted: Feb 23rd 2008 1:30PM (Unverified) said

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Like I said, going all-casual isn't the answer to "Out-WoWing" WoW. Over-simplification can hurt a casual game just as much as complexity. You need Chess, not Go Fish.
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Posted: Feb 24th 2008 6:23AM (Unverified) said

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http://www.playfuls.com/news_12072_Guiness_Book_of_World_Records_for_video_games_.html

Take a look down the list of popular games..best sellers? Tetris (in excess of 40m), Mario. Simple games who's mechanics are laid out the first minutes of gameplay... A player could complete the first level and warp straight to the last know exactly what to do....

Now fair enough, your average player didn't put as much time into Tetris as people put into WoW. As popular as Tetris was nobody would pay a tenner a month to keep playing.

The challange for the casual MMO described will be remaing simple at the core while adding new content that's original enough (and with production values high enough to give a sense of value for money) to keep people paying their subscriptions.

But there's no denying that the masses love simplicity, it's what's got my Mum playing Wii Tennis in place of Virtua Tennis 3.
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Posted: Feb 24th 2008 10:32PM (Unverified) said

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The problem? This game already exists, pretty much, in two forms. Runescape. A game with no real classes, where you can be anything just by levelling yourself, and has tons of minigames. Puzzle Pirates. A game which exists /just/ as a collection of puzzle games, of 'casual' games.

Isn't that pretty much what he's stating, mostly?

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