World of Starcraft won’t be.

Over the past week, much speculation has hit the web concerning an announcement Blizzard is soon to make in Korea. The speculation began when word got out that Blizzard would make a product announcement on May 19th, in front of thousands of rabid real-time-strategy (RTS) gamers. Immediately, rumours began that Blizzard was clearly ready to reveal Starcraft II, the successor to their most popular (especially in Korea) RTS game. Combined with recent news that Blizzard is looking for a “next-gen” massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) developer, the speculation evolved into a story about Blizzard revealing a Starcraft-themed MMORPG. Not to disappoint the blogosphere, I will add my two cents into the speculation-mix: Blizzard’s announcement will be neither Starcraft II, nor a Starcraft-themed World of Warcraft (WoW) clone.

While corroboration is difficult given the lack of studies, current research suggests that MMORPG gamers only spend about six months on any given title. Even if we were to double this timeframe, the figure suggests that WoW’s player pool is waning. This may be true, but WoW is still picking up new players, and getting some old ones to come back, especially given the current draught in the MMORPG scene. While it’s true that in a year from now, new competitors will be at the gate, to dismiss WoW’s evolution would be foolhardy, especially from Blizzard’s perspective. As it stands, even if WoW were to lose half its player population, the game would still make a significant amount of money, and likely more than any new entrant into the MMORPG arena will be able to muster at the get-go. This said, it stands that Blizzard would be foolish to cannibalize its own players, especially if it’s only to maintain its current player base. As a company clearly aimed at financial success, often to the extent that gameplay evolution will be ignored, any new gaming project Blizzard is soon to announce will be targeted at a market that does not entirely overlap with WoW’s current players.

So, while Blizzard would not be inclined to duplicate its efforts with WoW, especially since it intends to continue making expansions for it, Blizzard recognizes that WoW’s shortcomings will be improved upon by the competition, especially as former WoW players move on to the next “new” thing. At the same time, Blizzard wouldn’t want its content customers to move on as well, and so Blizzard needs to fill in a gap in the gaming world that can benefit from the much-recognized Blizzard polish that was previously applied to the MMORPG world. But, it’s not just a matter of what area of gaming could use refinement, but rather, what area can use refinement that Blizzard already has experience in?

To date, Blizzard’s projects extend mainly to MMORPGs and the RTS genre. When one considers these two focal points, one game immediately springs to mind: EVE Online. With only one massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) leveraging space combat over the typical character-driven MMORPG, Blizzard has a means to compete, especially considering the financial success EVE has shown, the funding Blizzard can throw at such a project, and the experience Blizzard has gained regarding the infrastructure necessary to run an EVE-like MMOG.

The world of Starcraft is also familiar territory for gamers, since Starcraft is one of the most popular RTS games ever developed, despite its age. With a reasonable amount of backstory, Starcraft has the races and familiarity to make for a decent foray into an EVE-like project that would further develop a gaming genre similar to MMORPGs, but still different enough to attract more than just MMORPG gamers. Despite its popularity. EVE Online has a rather steep learning curve, with a tutorial far more intense than other online games. With Blizzard’s magic, however, learning from the mistakes that EVE has made, Blizzard would be able to capitalize on a hybrid MMORPG/RTS genre, and bring the Starcraft franchise into something more than global, but extraterrestrial.

While Starcraft, as a typical RTS, took place on a map of limited size, imagine a fully explorable galaxy that Blizzard can expand over time. Imagine that players can control a unit capable of traversing this galaxy, be it in space, or on planets, to accomplish quests in a war-torn atmosphere where one’s accomplishments directly influence the state of the game. Much like Mythic’s upcoming Warhammer game, this “Worlds of Starcraft” (WoS) project would be heavy in player-versus-player (PvP) content, while still allowing for player-versus-environment (PvE) content. Blizzard could not only allow for the outfitting of one’s vehicle, but of the controlled player themselves, to improve their skills as well as their equipment. This would play nicely into the emphasis Blizzard has previously placed on WoW’s PvP content, as well as their infatuation with “hero” characters from Warcraft III and their “in-development” conceptualizations of hero classes in WoW.

More than this, however, Blizzard could foster more familiar RTS content in WoS, by allowing character’s to build their financial success in trading and privateering into one of faction leadership; characters can begin to build deployable units that, albeit weaker than the player’s own character, defend the player’s bases/resources, and ultimately serve the character’s own faction in the game’s ongoing faction war.

Be WoS driven by a single character or an extended posse, such a project would most certainly triumph over the genre’s pioneer, EVE Online. The fanfare would be spectacular by both American fans of the company, as well as the extended base of players in Korea and the rest of Asia, who are quite familiar with the Starcraft franchise, and now doubly so with WoW. A quasi-RTS in MMOG fashion, albeit with the character emphasis that grinding and leveling jockeys love about MMORPGs, WoS would be a logical project for the Blizzard empire, and one that I would gladly expect coming out of Blizzard’s upcoming announcement.

Tagged as: mendax.org, mmogs, sci-fi