Wish Developer Journal #1
-
Category: News ArchiveHits: 1046
Where many new games are headed towards a more single-player RPG feeling, with the heavy use of instancing and personal content, Wish is going in the exact opposite direction. We have always been disappointed that somewhere in the translation of pen and paper role-playing games into massively multiplayer online games, the focus had been lost. The emphasis has shifted to items, levels and mechanics, and away from what these games were really all about - socialization and a good story. Wish realigns the focus, and puts it squarely back where it belongs.
We began by examining the role of the traditional MMORPG quest. At E3 2004, many eyebrows were raised when we confidently proclaimed that in Wish, no quest would ever illogically repeat. Players do not enjoy running back and forth across the world, nor do they enjoy camping for monster spawns along with 10 other people who also need that monster to finish the same quest. Quests have become tedious time sinks, where the reward is all that matters, and the experience is simply something you had to trudge through in order to achieve it. Again, the focus has been lost.
