zone-design
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World of Warcraft examines the art of designing proto-Nagrand
Part of designing an MMO is putting a whole lot of work into things that no one will really notice. If you're playing World of Warcraft and running through Nagrand in Outland, you might be vaguely curious about how the zone is going to translate into its original form in Warlords of Draenor. Odds are, though, that you'll notice only in passing what the latest development blog from art director Chris Robinson talks about extensively. Robinson details the challenges of building the temporal prototype of an iconic existing zone, especially since the original Nagrand was marked partly by the contrast between its peaceful plains and the floating bits of rock in the distance. The intent was to give the area an almost delicate feel, as if parts of the landscape could rise up and start floating away. Take a look at Robinson's whole piece for more insights about weaving the story of the zone into the art, and take a moment to stop and look around when you reach the zone in-game.
Trion Worlds overhauls RIFT's Iron Pine Peak
Mid-level RIFT players have a new place to adventure after the game's 2.5 update; Iron Pine Peak has been completely redesigned. According to Trion Worlds, the zone has been rebuilt from the ground up with the challenges inside being tweaked to accommodate players from levels 27-35 instead of 40-48. The questing content has been reworked, with main story arcs being marked more clearly and providing greater rewards. Additionally, kill quests have been converted to Carnage quests and paths through each set of quests have been streamlined to reduce repetition. Trion explained that the zone's level requirements were reduced so that RIFT players would encounter the Storm Legion storyline earlier in their RIFT careers, and so that give mid-level players more freedom in how and where they level. Trion originally planned to rework Iron Pine Peak before RIFT's initial launch but put the plan on the backburner due to the risk of changing so many things so close to release.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV breaks the narrative rules (and still works)
Monday was the end of the line for me in Final Fantasy XIV, if you consider clearing the last story-based instance in the game the end. (I don't.) The final rush of dungeons ends with at least five different grudge matches that had been built up over the course of the game, villains who were put in their place, and all of the plot revelations you could ask for. None of which I really want to talk about in detail here, because there are a lot of people who have not yet cleared the story. What I can talk about is how the game presents its story, which is straight out of the huge book of mistakes that games are advised not to make. It sends you all over the map, back and forth for fetch quests and to convey simple messages. It gleefully mixes in forced group content along with forced solo content, meaning that you can't even rush the whole thing with a good group. The story only changes in the initial levels based on what nation you start with; beyond that it's the same every time through. And yet it works wonderfully.
The Road to Mordor: Stepping into Fangorn Forest
Without a doubt, Riders of Rohan is one of the best expansions Lord of the Rings Online has delivered to date. True, it's not without its rough spots, but overall I'm impressed. The storytelling is excellent, the landscape is engaging, the mounted combat is pretty fun, the music is incredible, and the amount of stuff to do is mind-boggling. But it wasn't until a week ago when my slow-but-steady Captain finally encountered my favorite aspect of this expansion: the Eves of Fangorn. I wasn't expecting to be so enchanted and engaged, but LotRO threw me for a loop and there I was -- grinning at the zone design and happy that the game can still produce a sense of wonder and adventure in my soul. Why is it so good? What won me over? If you're thinking, "He's got a tree fetish, he does," then you might not be too far off base.
WildStar's Jeremy Gaffney discusses sandboxes and themeparks
While WildStar has been offering a lot of previews to eager fans, that hasn't stymied player questions. It's been known for some time that the game aims at being a sandpark-style game, midway between themepark and sandbox principles, but what does that mean in execution? Executive producer Jeremy Gaffney penned a piece today responding to player discussion on the topic and explaining how the team at Carbine Studios is trying to offer something for everyone. Gaffney explains that the team wants to ensure that players aren't lost or unsure of what to do next while at the same time not keeping the entire game on rails. The main method of doing this is by having coherent quests and missions coupled with more spontaneous content dependent on the state of the zone -- so while there might always be a quest hub to the north, more dynamic events are roaming to the south that you won't always encounter. Read the full article for more on the game's content layout and the importance of zone-by-zone player feedback.
The Mog Log: The zone design of Final Fantasy XIV
I love Final Fantasy XIV, something that comes as no surprise to regular readers of this column. But the game's zone design is not its highlight. This is one of those design aspects that really bothered everyone in the world when the game launched, and it was for good cause, but I think there's more to it than simply condemning the whole thing out of hand. There are several places where the zone design isn't actually bad and in fact is downright brilliant. You could say that it's a variation on Final Fantasy XIV's theme right there: brilliance mixed in with average and awfulness. Obviously, zone design will be changing in a big way when version 2.0 launches, something that gets closer with each passing day. Still, it's worth examining where we are now if for no other reason than to hopefully identify what a good revision would look like. This is not a horrible mess; this is a few great elements mixed in with several elements that just aren't well thought out.
Breakfast Topic: What sort of zone would you create for WoW?
I recently wrote a Breakfast Topic about your WoW Zone, where I asked you about your playing space. As I keep saying, I read all the comments on Breakfast Topics I write, and this time, one caught my eye in my eternal search for more Breakfast Topics. Commenter Mix had assumed from that BT's title that it would be about what WoW zone you would craft in the game if you had a free rein to do whatever you liked. What a great question! Mix reckoned a zone that would be "an addition to the Goblin Starting Area or the Darkmoon Faire ... a rickety run down amusement park taken over by Gnolls or Troggs or Undead ..." This sounds fantastic. I love the dark, eerie feel of the Darkmoon Faire -- in fact, I find myself far more drawn to shady, spooky zones than to happy, sunny ones like the plains of Mulgore. After massive overexposure to Firelands, I'm really not down with fiery zones, and I find forested zones a bit dull. The creeping blackness of the Sha in the Mists beta looks great, though; I like its incongruity in the lush world of Pandaria. I also love snowy zones -- I like how your tracks remain in the snow -- so I reckon I'd want to create something like Darkshire but in a snowy area, with dark, greenish-blue tones and ghostly figures in a frozen world. It would be like Narnia might look if the Ice Queen had her wicked way! What about you? If you could create a WoW zone from scratch, what would you make? The sky's the limit, and it definitely doesn't have to be inspired by existing zones. Go wild!
Did flying mounts ruin Azeroth?
The question of whether flying mounts may have ruined Azeroth is a hard question for me to even posit, because I love flying mounts. I love being able to fly right over things that annoy me, drop right in on quest objectives and soar right out again. I loved that we could finally fly in Azeroth when Cataclysm shipped, and I was absolutely in favor of being able to use my flying mount to skip over stuff I disliked when questing and leveling up. But it's worth considering: Did that convenience that I so love come at too high a cost? Did being able to fly over obstacles keep me from appreciating how much detail went into the zones? Did it ruin world exploration, something that a lot of players got a lot of enjoyment out of for a great deal of vanilla WoW's run? Did incorporating flying mounts into Azeroth, in addition to forcing a complete redesign of the world, also end up stripping out interesting and cool places you had to really work at to find and visit? Let's discuss the pros and cons.
Blizzard seems to think that Cataclysm was too linear
Designing MMOs is often the art of shepherding players in a given direction while at the same time giving them a sense of freedom. Even in a themepark environment, players want to be invested in areas, to have reasons to come back and explore and go off of the rails should they want to. World of Warcraft's most recent expansion, Cataclysm, has frequently been accused of giving players nowhere to go but a series of rails, and according to a recent response from a community manager, Blizzard agrees. A very long thread on the official forums has spawned some interesting discussions about the game's overall endgame philosophy, with community manager Draxxari stating that Cataclysm's tightly linear design was an "error" on the design level. He goes on to state that Mists of Pandaria is meant to give players more reason to venture out and explore the world, although players will have to wait to see whether that promise holds true or not. [Thanks to SgtBaker for the tip!]
EverQuest video features new zone from Veil of Alaris expansion
EverQuest's latest content bomb was announced earlier this summer, and Sony Online Entertainment is slowly trickling out the details for the new Veil of Alaris patch. The game's 18th expansion will take players to a land long hidden by magic, and a new video gives us our first glimpse of the environment itself along with some of its ornerier inhabitants. Players will initially encounter the zone while traveling on a giant airship, and among the challenges are mobs made of molten steel as well as deadly free-floating swords. SOE's video clip features game designer David Stewart and environment artist Shannon Parnell discussing their work on the new zone, as well as various fly-through angles of the finished product. Check out all the details after the break.
The Daily Grind: What's the most poorly designed zone?
We've all been there: trekking through the levels, traversing the world, and eventually arriving at... that place. The zone that seems to have been designed to irritate you, personally. Either it's laid out too confusingly, or the quest objectives are too hard to reach, or you get turned around every two feet. It's a poorly designed area, plain and simple. I was pondering this during a recent expedition to the Foundations of Stone in Lord of the Rings Online's Moria. It's not a horrible zone; the creatures are terrifying, the atmosphere is spot-on, and it contains a few of the signature landmarks of the game world. And yet I have to contend that it is a poorly designed place. It's difficult to navigate, the walls are tough on the eyes, and the key quest hub is incredibly hard to find on your first (or second) try. With a few tweaks and a moderate redesign, it could be much more accommodating to the odd traveler. What other zones fall into this category for you? What zones aren't necessarily bad so much as they're just poorly laid-out and structured? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
