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Successful MMO design corrupts new ideas, says Warhammer dev

Mythic director discourages team from playing World of Warcraft

The creative director of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, has said that successful design in MMO's like World of Warcraft has had a corrupting effect on the way games designers think.

Paul Barnett of Mythic Entertainment has discouraged his team from playing Blizzard's market-leading online game for fear it will influence their design decisions too strongly, reports Eurogamer.net.

"I believe WOW is a work of flawed genius," Barnett said during the Develop Online conference in Brighton.

"When you dismantle [these works] you can never be sure whether you get genius or flaw. The reason I don't play other online games is that they're corrupting, they are cancerous, they change the way you think."

He gave an example of a change in quest structure in Warhammer Online, away from the standard set by World of Warcraft.

"That one change took three months of meetings, because the people I was up against were corrupted by the gaming experiences they'd had.

"They weren't capable of thinking sideways because they knew the answer, and it worked, and resulted in a game that is very successful."

And emulation of the market leader isn't a wise tactic either, according to Barnett.

"You can't be the Beatles. If you try and be the Beatles, you'll end up as the Monkees," he joked.

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Matt Martin

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Matt Martin joined GamesIndustry in 2006 and was made editor of the site in 2008. With over ten years experience in journalism, he has written for multiple trade, consumer, contract and business-to-business publications in the games, retail and technology sectors.