Where World of Warcraft Screwed up

Released in November 2004, World of Warcraft (WoW) currently has over 11.5 million subscribers raking in over $100 million a month for Activision/Blizzard. It can safely be called a success, but it is not without its failures.

At this weeks Game Developer's Conference (GDC), Blizzard lead designer Jeffrey Kaplan discussed mistakes in WoW that Blizzard is aware of.

1 Christmas Tree Effect - This is when a player shows up to a new quest hub, and his or her mini-map is lit up like a Christmas tree with new quest opportunities.

2 "Too long, didn't read" Quests - Medium envy, where writers of one medium (in this case videogame writers) envy another medium's writers. (writers of books) And I quote, “We need to stop writing fucking books in our games because there are lots of better books out there". I remember playing WoW and constantly hearing this line.

3 Mystery - Trying to give subtle hints to where the next quest begins or consists of translates into when-players-aren't-clear-on-what-to-do,-they-become-confused,-and-that-provides-for-a-bad-game experience.

4 Poorly-Paced Quest Change - A long WoW quest that is impossible to complete until the player reaches a certain level. For players below that level who are failing at that quest, frustration sets in, which leads them to lose trust in the game's design. This also leads to frustration, and a bad experience.

5 Gimmick Quests without Polish - These are quests that are more fun for the game designer than the player. Kaplan described a vehicle quest in WoW. The game's engine isn't really designed for vehicles. If it's only designed as a gimmick, it's probably not really fun for the player.

6 Bad Flow - In WoW when players are given an inordinate amount of collection quests or kill quests in a row. It gets boring and repetitive.

Kaplan has a lot of great points. I remember those low points in an otherwise perfect game. He was previously a director in WoW, but is currently working on an unannounced Blizzard MMO. People have speculated that it will be World of Starcraft. That should be interesting.