Civilization 5 - WoW style.

[LordShiva]

I feared something like this when I saw the first Civ4 screenshot.

It's the perfect way to kill Civ as a TBS, just like Blizzard killed WarCraft.

[snoopy369]

By making a highly successful MMORPG based on it?

If they released a Warcraft 4 I wonder how many WoW players would buy it just for the name recognition...

Not that they needed a MMORPG to kill it by the way, Warcraft 3 did that adequately.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Sn00py
I can see its brilliance. That's my gift of power over you.

Paying some Chinese schmuck $0.30/hr to earn you coins so you don't have to do any work is brilliance (and lazy beyond belief, but I digress), "grind games" as Blake calls it are not brilliance.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Sn00py
I can see its brilliance. That's my gift of power over you.

World of Warcraft makes a good first impression. If you judge it by it's cover, it may appear brilliant. One could even says it makes a brilliant first impression. The deeper you go, the more you realize it... isn't, or at very least it becomes recycled brilliance to the Nth degree.

I'll help by explaining this. I was watching a WoW video on YouTube, I thought a scene was from Maraudon with the tint changed (for artistic/comedic effect) so it looked like Lava-water with lava-hydra things. Only once a new mob type came on screen did I realize it was actually a part of Molten Core I had never gotten to (for that matter it may really have been retinted Maraudon with the mob edited in post-production - it's impossible to tell the difference! That's my point!)

Everything past lvl30 is recycled. Heck, most things past lvl10 are recycled, it just becomes more obvious the higher level you get. In the end you grind for 60 hours to see a single new bit of content.

[Blake]

Now, why that's HORRIBLE.

Yes if you play Half Life 2, play the single player, and then play it again 20 more times, you'll get the same recycling thing.

But the thing is, with Half Life 2, you can play it once, say "been there done that" and happily put it down, forever if you want.

But World of Warcraft is DESIGNED to entrap players into the long boring mind-numbing intellect-killing grind. It may be brilliant from a corporate profits perspective, but it's not brilliant from an intellectual or moral perspective, it's reprehensible.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sn00py


I remember the first week of WoW's announcement; A LOT of people said it's a bad idea; but I could see that it was brilliant, lo' and behold.. it is.

Thus, I see things you don't, this makes me a designer and you a negative follower.

This certainly makes you a proponent of very poor logic.

The difference being WoW (love it or hate it) is spectacularly good at what it does, and your idea (and suggested execution so far) is pants.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Blake

But World of Warcraft is DESIGNED to entrap players into the long boring mind-numbing intellect-killing grind. It may be brilliant from a corporate profits perspective, but it's not brilliant from an intellectual or moral perspective, it's reprehensible.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Civ5 needs to have built-in demogame support, with even additional rules to handle player interactions*. That's the sort of direction it should go in.

* does anyone remember the economic minigame that was developed during the Civ3 demogame? That's the sort of thing I'm thinking of.

Ah...that's some memories...

Look for that to be the next concept team I form, btw. A team where players own individual cities and units.

Unless another merc team crops up. They are just too fun.

[Kuciwalker]

I would definately join something like that.

[mactbone]

GameBanshee has a preview of Depth of Peril. Maybe that's similar to what you're looking for?

The most important thing to understand about Depths of Peril is that it is a hybrid game. It combines an action role-playing engine with some empire building concepts to create a new kind of experience. You control a “covenant,” which consists of your hero, some recruits (who can follow you around), and some guards (who have to stay at home). Your goal in the game is to bring your covenant to dominance by making your hero as powerful as possible and by defeating the other covenants.

From what we’ve seen, the action role-playing elements to the game look pretty standard. You left click to cause your hero to move or to start attacking an enemy, and you use hotkeys to trigger spells (like frost nova and ball lightning) and special fighting moves (like whirlwind and power strike). Depths of Peril includes four classes -- warrior, rogue, mage and priest -- and while each class gets a large number of unique skills and spells, they play about how you’d expect. For example, warriors have to build up rage when they fight, and then they can use that rage to power their special moves.
...
What makes Depths of Peril unique is the covenant aspect of the game. Each covenant has a house in Jorvik, and the house functions as a base of operations. You can store items in your covenant house (including special relics that give bonuses to everybody on your side), you can heal yourself for free in your house, and you can hire guards to protect your house. Each house also contains a lifestone, which represents the health of your covenant, and if your lifestone is destroyed, then your covenant is eliminated from the game.
...
However, when I play a role-playing game, I always hope for three things -- story, characters, and dialogue -- and Depths of Peril doesn’t look like it’s going to have any of them.

[MJW]

Blake; World of Warcraft is the best Everquest-style MMORG (whatever) on the planet. I do agree that it's bad though. One just grinds his way to level 60 then it's a crappy action game. But the point of that game is to role-play not power game. Just like Civ4. The real issue of that game is there is not enough room to role-play (just like the other Everquest clones before it.)

The only two gaming-styles where you can powergame (without it being a long micro only-fest) is RTS and Action games (MP shooters and things like Guild Wars). That's it. That's why they sell a lot. Everything else just breaks down after a bit of playing and research. It does not matter what the game makers intend-- it matters how the game works.

[Blake]

I am extra critical of WoW on the grounds of intellect-dulling, it doesn't do a particularly good job of keeping the brain engaged. This is in contrast with other games like TBS, which you'd probably just stop playing, or play less, when they stop keeping the brain engaged.

Well, WoW does keep the brain engaged - but it's more at an instinctive reward level, WoW keeps the monkey engaged - "I want stuff! Ooh aah!". Intellect killing. The game is really firmly grounded on that mechanism for keeping players.

I enjoyed playing WoW for the warcraft Lore and stuff, but in all honesty it's a more productive use of time to just whore the website and forums, can get all the tasty information with only a tiny fraction of the time investment.

[DrSpike]

But you can't get teh epix. Monkeys want more phat epix.

[Nostromo]

But World of Warcraft is DESIGNED to entrap players into the long boring mind-numbing intellect-killing grind. It may be brilliant from a corporate profits perspective, but it's not brilliant from an intellectual or moral perspective, it's reprehensible.

QFT

I've been saying this for a while now. But nobody seems to agree with me. The poor sods are all under the spell. I stopped playing at level 25. Couldn't stand the grind anymore.

[MJW]

Oh, thats what you meant? That the WHOLE game is about grinding? I agree then. Thanks Blake.

Edit: The longer the day goes on the siller I act. Saying that grinding sucks when the whole game is about grinding is silly. I had to call it. I played WoW for sometime and it's addictive. I once played 6 hours straight.