29th October 2005, 2:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 29th October 2005, 3:34 PM by A Black Falcon.)
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcra...576p1.html
Nice article about the story/backstory of The Burning Crusade (some spoilers, but read it anyway. Nothing really surprising.)... Blizzard always has excuses to explain how the improbable works, of course. :) It doesn't make the things any less hard to believe, but they have excuses anyway...
As for alliances... yes, it'd make the game more complex, but it'd be so much more accurate and believable... 'it'd be too hard to figure out'? But in an RTS game you've got maybe eight players, all fighting against eachother... you'd just need a screen to remind you of the status (this does not have to change during the game of course, they would probably be best to be set... -- allied, neutral, or enemies with each other culture... okay, it'd be more complex... but it could also be more interesting... (like, should the Night Elves be allied to anyone, or just neutral to all but the worst (Blood Elves and Forsaken probably would stay enemies)?
Of course, the real problem is that in an online world it's too hard to have a truly realistic world -- I mean, how would you represent in a MMORPG like this the current Human/Orc status, where the Kalimdor Humans (led by Jaina Proudmoore) are more friendly to the Orcs, while the Azeroth Humans may well still consider them enemies... or that Trolls (even Jungle Trolls, like the playable ones are) and Elves never should be allies... etc... I guess you've got to simplify some things for a MMORPG aimed at the mass market, but still, it's too bad.
Nice article about the story/backstory of The Burning Crusade (some spoilers, but read it anyway. Nothing really surprising.)... Blizzard always has excuses to explain how the improbable works, of course. :) It doesn't make the things any less hard to believe, but they have excuses anyway...
As for alliances... yes, it'd make the game more complex, but it'd be so much more accurate and believable... 'it'd be too hard to figure out'? But in an RTS game you've got maybe eight players, all fighting against eachother... you'd just need a screen to remind you of the status (this does not have to change during the game of course, they would probably be best to be set... -- allied, neutral, or enemies with each other culture... okay, it'd be more complex... but it could also be more interesting... (like, should the Night Elves be allied to anyone, or just neutral to all but the worst (Blood Elves and Forsaken probably would stay enemies)?
Of course, the real problem is that in an online world it's too hard to have a truly realistic world -- I mean, how would you represent in a MMORPG like this the current Human/Orc status, where the Kalimdor Humans (led by Jaina Proudmoore) are more friendly to the Orcs, while the Azeroth Humans may well still consider them enemies... or that Trolls (even Jungle Trolls, like the playable ones are) and Elves never should be allies... etc... I guess you've got to simplify some things for a MMORPG aimed at the mass market, but still, it's too bad.