In today’s gaming industry it seems the companies are trying to make games better looking, and more demanding on your system. They have made hardcore gamers increase their machines with every newly published game. It has come down to if you can’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars on an upgrade, or even an overhaul of your computer you will not have any good new software to run on it. The best gaming companies are trying to beat each other to the new, more complex engines/graphics, which make their games cost $50.00, plus any upgrades to your computer required to run the game.

The gender MMORPG is not new to the gaming industry anymore, but many of the games released for this genre are similar in game play. Most MMORPGs revolve around killing countless monsters and beasts in a party of different skilled warriors and mages. Without much more content then this, any new game would fail due to it’s likeness to so many before them. So we now have companies trying to make new and intuitive content to let the player have a good experience in their virtual world over
any other.

Another factor game designers have to look at is their customer. The majority of those who will play this game is between the ages of __ and __. The larger the difference between those 2 numbers the wider the intended audience will be, which is a good thing to make profits. What the newer companies are not thinking is the percentage that won’t buy their game because of heavy requirements put on their system in order to run the software smoothly. The lower the requirements, the larger the audience in this category.

Player vs. Player combat is now highly recommended in new MMORPGs by their customers. This adds more content and an increased difficulty that can either attract or repel gamers from their software. Some gamers think it is funnier to be able to attack another PC, anytime and anywhere without penalty. Others believe that a game where both PC’s must agree to a battle in order for it to happen. This option eliminates the “what if” factor of surprise described in anytime anywhere rule. If there was an option between these two forms of combat that would attract both kinds of gamers, the game will have a larger player base.

Graphics and sound, and how they illustrate their characters and monsters battling on a land area huge factor on weather today’s gamers will buy into the product. Immersing their players into a believable world with all kinds of graphical “eye candy” and a surround sound quality of depth in their music/sound effects appeal to many types of gamers. The role-player wants the “smell the roses” kind of quality when in a game. Where every sound herd, to every sight saw, has depth to it, and feel like a peace of a puzzle that fits in the virtual world. The first person gamer feels similar to how a role player feels, but he likes to be able to interact with the world, and have
an impact on it. The PvPer of the gaming world wants to see violence and mayhem in the world that is alive and can be interacted with. Let it be violence made by the programmers, or that brought from interaction with other PCs. He is a diehard fan of competition to see who is best. All these
factors must be added, and many more to create a immersing feeling to all forms of gamers, and be A++ quality and worthy of “best of…” awards. It at the same time has to try to keep the requirements as low as possible to let the game be able to be played on a large number of systems.

Compatibility with many PC types is also needed to attract the largest number of customers. There are many PC companies out there, each with their own hardware used to run the same programs. This hardware however has to be supported by the software companies properly. Making sure it works by the software developers for a large variety of video cards, sound cards, and computer processing units. Including Personal Computers and MACs. If possible translation to gaming machines such as
Nintendo’s Gamcube, Sony’s Playstation 2, or Microsoft’s Xbox, may attract gamers that don’t have a PC capable of playing their game and therefor bring in more potential customers.

The last thing, but more attractive part of a game is its series. If a game has had a series with all types of thought, history, and background placed into it from past games, books, and other lore making materials it will attract “fan boys.” They are the people who enjoyed previous stories and events in a series and want to know what happens next. The story being told makes the world believable and entertaining to the audience remembering the good times that where brought by times gone past. This creates a large community, of people who all enjoyed the game and support future games being made by the said company.

That is why World of Warcraft is such anticipated, hyped up, and overall future best game, in my opinion, the year it is released. It has the best of everything placed in it with a group of people known to be reliable and that have created products that where always worth their price. Anyone who has played their past games, read their old books do not need to be told this however. To those who have never played a game made by Blizzard Entertainment, all of the hype put into this game has a reason, in which it will be unparalleled by any other game in the genre. No other game could possibly be better then the quality, time, and money put into this game. For something
that has nothing new to show to the genre, it sure takes the best of the best from everything anyone has ever wanted in a game where thousands of gamers will play.

By James Crouthamelt

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