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Finit
Member Posts: 145
Please read the entirety of this message before jumping to conclusions.
(This is an excerpt from a blog on Guild Wars 2 that I have been working on. The blog can be found in my signature, thanks.)
Other MMO's have undoubtedly had impacts on the creation of Guild Wars 2. Whether it be DAoC for its 3 faction PvP or Warhammer for it's Public Questing system (as well as several other MMOs), the developers at ArenaNet have really learned from the benefits and mistakes of several big MMOs. Guild Wars 2, albeit arguably, has really brought some existing or new concepts to the forefront of the AAA MMO spotlight. Whether it be the lack of a holy trinity, overflow servers, or how the game encourages teamwork and cooperation among the community, there are many areas where Guild Wars 2 has broke new ground or brought an existing concept into the foreground.
It is traditionally less common for newer games to have impact on older games, Today, Blizzard has announced that for World of Warcraft there will be "Cross-Realm Zones" to be implemented in Mists of Pandaria. What is surprisingly, is how strikingly similar some parts of this concept are to Guild Wars 2.
From a Developer Mists of Pandaria Q&A session:
Q. What about zones that are already overpopulated, like new race starting zones?
With this technology, we can also flag zones to allow for more than one copy of that zone per realm. Players on that realm will be split among those copies in order to alleviate problems due to overpopulation. Players won’t normally see or interact with those on a different instance of their zone, although joining a party will relocate all party members to a single instance of that zone.
It should be noted that Blizzard has actually advanced the concept of Overflows, and not just copied the idea. Instead of only working on high population zones, the Cross-Realm Zone's will also be to help low population zones. Low population zones will now merge multiple zones from different realms and put the entire population together. For example: Realm A has 5 people in Darkshire, Realm B has 7 people there, and Realm C has 10 people there. The Cross Realm Zone's will now seamlessly place all 22 of these people in the same zone. I think it should also be noted that that members of a party will be in the same instance of the zone regardless of population. If they didn't have that in their design originally, they definitely added it due to feedback from GW2's first BWE. Blizzard has assuredly been watching the field of competitors, all the while learning what is popular and what is not. It's one of the many small reasons that Blizzard's games in general have enjoyed success.
The takeaway message is that successful companies need to look at the field around them. In a year where more AAA MMOs are being launched than ever before, the field is becoming increasingly more competitive. A game can not be successful just by copying the big, successful MMO, often referred to as a "WoW clone". A game that will be sustainable over the long term will need to look at more than just WoW, and will need to take a look at the field around them. Overtime it will be interesting to see which companies have learned this and which haven't.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
Comments
This is a great thread, and I agree 100%. I think that if MMO's build off of foundations set by other sources they can turn it into something greater and possibly revolutionary.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
Thanks, I think its really interesting to see the effects of MMOs on the industry as a whole.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
I'd point out that the GW2 guesting system will allow players from different servers to play together, but it's optional, rather than automatic and mandatory. In the distant future if the lower level zones in GW2 start to feel sparse, I can imagine the community picking servers where people can gather for lower level play. With cross server guilds and the ability to belong to more than one guild, it will be easy to put together regular gatherings of people for this "server tourism", rather than having the game just arbitrarily lump you together with random people.
I appreciate the point from the OP though. GW2 probably began influencing other games the moment they announced particular features and as the game gains more traction and attention, I'm sure that it's impact on other games will grow exponentially.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
This system was already in Champions Online. And Guild Wars 1. And pretty much any game that doesn't have traditional "servers".
It seems similar to overflow servers, but each of them is really an evolution of the same idea. It can't be said who decided to implement them first, but both would have to have been in development for quite some time before their announcements. It's also important to realize that WoW has had cross-realm dungeons for quite some time.
Very frequently, two developers will come up with the same idea at around the same time. Innovations are usually solutions to a problem, and sometimes that solution is so obvious that the next two developers to create something are bound to find that solution at the same time.
EQ2 and WoW had many similarities, to the point that EQ2 seems somewhat like a WoW-clone, in spite of the facts that they were developed concurrently and EQ2 launched a few weeks before WoW. We cannot say if GW2 has had any impact on WoW.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
This is a good point to make. However, while LFG has been around for a while in WoW. I think it can be somewhat safely assumed that GW2 had this impact on WoW.
Let's look at the facts: Guild Wars 2 annouced overflow servers in February and by the time they had annouced it, it was functionally in the game according to several closed beta testers and press members. In Blizzard's case, they are annoucing their idea today, and have not shown it in actual use in game. This causes speculation that they are still in the design process of building this system. Unless Blizzard was significantly slower in the designing process, Guild Wars 2 most likely was able to implement this idea first. Whether Blizzard intentionally let this affect them or not, is countered by the GW2 beta weekend. One of the main complaints of GW2 from the BWE, was your party would often get split due to overflow servers. The fact that Blizzard made this annoucement today and specifically mentioned party availablity, at least means they are watching Guild Wars 2 intensely. There is a slim possiblity that these companies came up with parallel ideas at similar time frames, but I think it's far more likely that they are affecting each other, and will continue to affect each other for at least the short-term future.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach