魔兽世界前瞻

World of Warcraft
Release Date: 12/07/2004   Genre: Role-Playing

In Depth Look
By GD Staff, Special to Yahoo! Games

No massively multiplayer game has garnered the success of Sony's EverQuest, but if anyone can steal the crown, it's Blizzard. Producing hit after hit, the company's last major title, Warcraft 3, shipped four million units worldwide on pre-orders alone. We cornered Mark Kern, team lead for World of Warcraft, to fill us in on the latest developments.

Games Domain: Hi Mark -- please give us a little background on what you do and what you've worked on in the past.

Mark Kern: I basically facilitate the development of the game by helping set goals and priorities, while at the same time, serving as a bridge between the development team and all the other departments that must work together to launch this game.

In the past, I've worked on a number of Blizzard games, such as Diablo II and StarCraft. Diablo II probably prepared me the best for World of Warcraft, since it was our first game that required a game server. We learned a lot from the issues that we had to solve on Diablo II.

GD: Which area of the gameworld are you most pleased with? Which needs the most work?

MK: I'd have to say that I'm really happy with the way the world feels alive and full of things to do. Our quest system is very prevalent throughout our game and really drives players forward into exploring new lands and features. Our zones are also very richly populated with characters, little creatures, camps, and other things which help ground the monsters and encounters of our game. It makes it feel as if these creatures have been here all along, and that they belong and have purpose in the world. Still, screenshots don't do the game justice. You really have to stroll through the world to appreciate how it feels.

Our biggest task now is to get our player vs player interaction going. We recently launched a PvP server where players are free to attack each other in certain zones. While this is not our ultimate goal for PvP, we wanted to get some early feedback on the balance of the classes as they fought with each other on the server. We'll use this information to help create the PvP zones where players can fight over Warcraft-style towns, almost as if they were in Warcraft III, but directly on the ground, swinging a sword and casting spells.

GD: How do you propose to address the "mudflation" problem? [This is a common scenario in massively multiplayer games when oversupply of powerful items devalue too quickly. -Ed]

MK: We are currently in the middle of our big "economy-pass" on the gameplay. We've done several things already, such as making quest items and certain rare items bind to you when you acquire them. A bound item cannot be traded to other players, which helps keep the quest rewards meaningful while reducing inflation. Also, various money sinks are starting to become available in the beta. Mounts are very expensive, for example, and the mail system has some nominal postage attached to sending a letter or item to another player. Given how popular the mail system is becoming, those postage stamps will add up! As the beta progresses, we'll continue to refine the economy.

GD: Do you expect World of Warcraft to predominantly acquire subscribers from other MMORPGs, or to attract new players to the genre?

I think the most exciting thing we are seeing with the beta is how we are attracting people who normally don't play MMORPGs, or even video games, very much. It has always been one of our goals to expand the genre to more gamers by making the game easier to use, with a faster pace of action and rewards. We've actually had to expand upon our plans for launch based on the positive feedback we've been getting from these players.

GD: Will you be allowing players to have both Horde and Alliance characters on the same server?

MK: Currently, there are no restrictions. Depending on the results of the beta, that could always change. Right now, we're leaning towards allowing you to have either.

GD: What plans do you have for the game after its release?

MK: Live updates. We've got the whole team planning out our first couple of updates to make sure they are really stellar. Support and new content is really the key to growing an online game. We want to make sure that there are lots of little events, tournaments, and other things to keep the game lively and interesting.

GD: Have you been surprised at the desirability of beta accounts?

MK: We got around the same number of beta signups as for our other games, so the numbers didn't seem very surprising. What is interesting is the amount of interest that is being shown by fans in our forums. I think that is largely due to the fact that we have a community manager for the first time, and as a result, we are interacting more with the forums and actually building a community.

GD: What new content or features do you have lined up for the next update in the beta test?

MK: We are trying very hard to get the hunter class online for the next push, but it is a very complicated class and it might take a push or two to complete. His specialty is taming pets that he can keep and name, while specializing in ranged weapons like muskets. The pet system we have planned is pretty extensive, so that's what is taking so much time. It's our last class and one that I, and many other players, are really looking forward to.

GD: Your "rest state" feature was controversial at first. [Blizzard imposed experience penalties on players who leveled up their characters for long periods of time without logging off. -Ed] The complaining seems to have settled down now -- do you plan to make any more changes to it?

MK: Rest state was a hot topic, but as players started playing with it and realizing that we were going to be make changes to it, the fervor died down. By tweaking the rate of recovery and allowing you to rest to some degree anywhere in the world, we addressed some of the real issues that players were having. It is an example of why we have the beta: so we can try out new, even controversial ideas, and get player feedback. This is not something we could do as freely during or after launch.

GD: Do you see the beta primarily as a chance to receive player feedback on features like these or more as a "bug hunt?"

It's definitely been for player feedback as we balance the game. We've never done a player wipe during beta, and we hope that we never have to do so. We want to have people play the content nearly all the way through, because you can't just artificially test gameplay at the higher levels by "bumping" players up to the max level.

Our thanks to Mark for his time. World of Warcraft is planned to release this holiday season

魔兽世界
发售日期：2004年12月7号
类型：RPG

[::艾泽拉斯国家地理 BBS.NGACN.CC::]

没有什么多人游戏能超越Sony的EQ，但如果有人能做到，那必定是暴雪。在一个接一个经典的作品之后，暴雪的最新主打产品，魔兽争霸3，在世界范围内仅预定就达到四百万之多。我们找到了魔兽世界开发小组的组长马克.克恩，请他告诉我们这款游戏最新的开发情况。

Games Domain：你好，马克，请告诉我们一些你们以前和现在工作的背景么？
马克.克恩：我基本上是以制定目标和任务的优先级的形式来推动游戏的开发的。在同一时刻，我就像连接开发团队和其他部门的桥梁一样，帮助他们共同工作来推出这款游戏。以前，我做过许多暴雪的游戏，例如diablo2和星际争霸。diablo2可能为我准备魔兽世界提供了最大的帮助，因为那是我们第一个需要服务器的游戏。我们从我们解决的diablo2的问题中学到了不少东西。


Games Domain：这款游戏哪个地方是你最满意的？而那个地方需要投入的精力最多呢？
马克.克恩：我得说我为我们创造的世界那样鲜活，充满等待着你去做的事情而高兴。我们的任务系统在我们的游戏中非常普遍，他却是引导这玩家去探索新的大陆和场景。我们的游戏区域也被居住着丰富的人物，小动物，营地，还有其他的东西，这些事物为怪物和我们在游戏中遇到的事件打下基础。看起来那些生物好像一直就在那儿，它们属于这个世界并且为这个世界发挥着自己的作用。然而，你不能凭截图来评判一款游戏，你真的需要亲历这个世界然后评价评价感觉如何。我们现在最大的任务是让我们的PVP交互运作起来。我们最近开了一个PVP服务器，在这个服务器里万家能在特定区域内不受限制的互相攻击。虽然这不是我们PVP的最终目标，但我们想通过玩家在PVP服务器的战斗得到一些及早的关于职业间平衡的反馈。我们会参考这些信息来建立一个PVP区域，在那，玩家可以在一个魔兽争霸式的城镇中打斗，他们就好像在魔兽争霸3里一样，只不过是亲历那片土地，挥舞长剑和施放魔法。


Games Domain：你对网络游戏物价稳定的问题有什么建议吗？（在大多数网络游戏中都存在这个问题，高级物品过剩，物品快速贬值）
马克.克恩：我们目前正在进行我们游戏中大“经济流通”计划。我们已经作了一些工作，例如当你得到任务物品和稀有物品的时候进行绑定。被绑定的装备不能进行交易。这种设定让任务的奖励更加有意义，同时减少通货膨胀。同时，各种消耗金钱的手段开始在beta中变得可用了。例如马非常贵，邮政系统允许邮寄信件或物品给其他玩家。当邮政系统变得非常流行的时候，我们就会加上邮票了~！随着beta测试的进行，我们会继续精炼经济系统。


Games Domain：你认为WOW会从其他MMOrpg中吸引玩家，或者吸引新的玩家吗？
马克.克恩：我认为我们看到的最令人兴奋的事情是beta测试吸引了平时不玩MMORPG，甚至不玩视频游戏的人。我们还有一个目标就是把游戏做得让人更容易上手，行动和回报的节奏更快。我们的确需要根据玩家反馈的好的意见来开发我们的游戏。


Games Domain：你会允许玩家在一个服务器里同时拥有联盟和部落的角色吗？
马克.克恩：目前，没有限制。根据beta测试的结果，也有可能改变。不过目前我们倾向于允许你拥有两方的人物。


Games Domain：游戏发售以后你们还有什么计划？
马克.克恩：实时的更新。我们已经组建了一个完整的队伍来计划最初的几次更新来保证游戏真正完美。维护和新的内容的确是网络游戏成长的关键，我们想保证许多小事件，比赛以及其他的事情让游戏保持活泼和有趣。


Games Domain：你对大家对beta账户的渴望感到惊讶吗？
马克.克恩：我们发送了跟以前游戏相同数量的账号，所以对此数目看清来并不那么让人惊讶。有趣的是fans在论坛上表现出的浓厚兴趣，我想这可能主要因为我们有一个交流主管在第一时间对玩家进行回复，因此我们和玩家之间在论坛上更加互动，并且确实达成了一致。


Games Domain：下一个beta测试中会有什么新的内容和场景吗？
马克.克恩：我们努力在下一次更新中把猎人这个职业推上前台，但是这是一个非常复杂的职业，我们可能需要一到两次的push来完成。他的特点是驯服宠物并给他起名字，同时精通于类似步枪的远程武器。我们计划的宠物系统非常庞大，这就是为什么我们用了那么长时间的原因。这是最后一个职业，也是包括我在内很多其他玩家真正期待的职业。


Games Domain：你的休息状态要素已开始是有争议的，抱怨现在看来似乎平息了，你们计划作更多的改变吗？
马克.克恩：休息状态曾经是一个热门话题，但是当玩家开始游戏并意识到我们将要改变它的时候，热情消退了。利用调整回复速率并且允许你在世界的任何地方进行一些休息，我们得到了玩家真正遇到的问题。这就是我们为什么进行beta测试的例子。所以我们会试验新的，甚至有争议的主意，同时搜集玩家的反馈。这些改动到了正式发售的时候就不能轻易进行了。


Games Domain：你认为beta是通过玩家的反馈寻找bug的过程吗？或者还有别的意图？
马克.克恩：我们绝对根据玩家的反馈平衡游戏，我们从没有在beta中删除玩家的资料，我们希望我们永远不会这么做。我们希望人们玩到游戏的所有内容，因为你不能人为的把玩家的等级提升到最大来测试在高等级时的游戏情形。

感谢马克抽出时间，WOW将计划在这个假期发售！