Tracey John over on the MTV multiplayer blog recently caught up with Mark Jacobs, General Manager of EA Mythic and lead Warhammer Online designer. Some of the questions posed have already been covered, and we've been busy giving out all the information we can get our eager little hands on, but possibly the most loaded of them all has been left until the day of WAR's launch: why should a World of Warcraft player come over and play WAR?Jacobs' response is what you'd expect: it's all about the Realm Versus Realm, baby. 'This is what we do well. This is the most core reason to play our game.' He's also subtly (or not so subtly) dismissive of games that require major time commitments from their players, insisting on WAR's friendliness for the casual player.
Finally, Jacobs stresses something that WAR unarguably has going for it: newness. There's nothing wrong with WoW, he explains, but it's not going to live forever. No MMO does. In a manner reminiscent of Paul Barnett's characteristic way with words, he chooses a rather unfortunate analogy to make the point: 'Whether it's a job or a relationship or a game, why would you want to do the same thing forever?' We're sure many of the happily married gaming contingent would have a few choice words to say about that, but even if people can be enough for each other indefinitely, the same might not apply to games. Or might it? People still play EverQuest, though it's been around for years, because it's all they want.
[Thanks, Tracey!]
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