There is one outstanding feature in the WoW client, which can get me pretty excited, and that’s the ability to modify the client user interface with Addons.
Addons can not only modify the user interface elements already on the screen, but also add completely new functionality. Need help remembering which herbs you picked on what part of the game world? It’s there. Fancy a game of Texas Hold’em while your raid leader blathers away about the tactics to take down the next boss? Why don’t you play one?
Still, not all is good with the Addons to WoW. Here’s my take on what could be improved.
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If you’ve followed my series on the design mistakes of World of Warcraft, you’ll likely have noticed that I haven’t spoken a single word of criticism about the game’s mechanics. Truth be told, there are things that could be tweaked here and there, but I get the impression that not only do things work very smoothly in that department, they also are pretty much what Blizzard set out to do.
I’ve criticized the game from a completely different angle, which you might have noticed by the word I repeated over and over again: community.
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Yesterday I mentioned an article on game design, which tries, among other things, to give some pointers towards “fun” game design. Having recently finished a series on the design of World of Warcraft, I felt reminded of that game and it’s particular flaws.
I suppose I should explain first why this particular post you’re reading is also part of the above series. To be honest, I felt the series was ended with it’s seventh entry. This post however exemplifies that such a large topic is never really finished — consider this (and possibly following posts) to be appendices to the original seven part series.
This particular post deals with player skills vs. character skills.
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