Above all, it must be Fun
Funcom has Fun in their name, but of course, fun is subjective.
As Age of Conan approaches its release date, I'm noticing the MMO blogosphere is questioning whether it will perform on launch.
Syncaine @ Hardcore Casual outlines the most important part of all this in "Too WoW-like, a positive or negative?": The Fun Factor.
While a good point, it makes me wonder how far we have to get away from WoW in order to be ‘different enough’, and what exactly are we aiming for here. The bottom line of course is to have a game that’s fun to play, regardless of which design you follow.
When WoW was released, it had plenty of problems. It wasn't a clean launch by any stretch of the imagination. In fact I'd say WoW was downright messy even compared to most MMOs, but.. and here's an all-important but... it was still a good launch. Why? Because it was clearly and uninhibitedly fun in a mass-market way. It was obvious within the first couple of weeks that WoW was going to be a resounding success, that it was going to surpass just the Blizzard fanbois and EQ migrators, it was going over the top.
Not too many people remember the problems associated with WoW's messy first few months, because why bother dwelling on it when it no longer matters?
Tycho writes eloquently about WoW's state of dominance, better than I could have put it.
This doesn't mean that there isn't room for other games, in fact I think there's plenty of room within WoW's shadow.
It doesn't matter whether there are bugs, or even if the launch is messy, a game.. any game makes or breaks on the fun factor. The question you should ask yourself when you're deciding to buy a game or not, to invest your dollars and your time, is whether you think you'll enjoy yourself.
