14 DAY TRIAL // Mark Kern, the leader of the studio working on Firefall, believes that the increased accessibility of experiences like World of Warcraft has killed the old-school MMO genre. This has created a community of players who are dissatisfied with the games they are playing.
The developer, who is the chief executive officer at Red 5 Studios, has also worked for Blizzard during a crucial stage in the creation of World of Warcraft.
He states in an article on MMORPG that, “As WoW grew in population, reaching ever more casual gamers, new expansions introduced even more refinements. Quest trackers were added, and xp was increased so that it was easier to level through all the old content to get to the ‘new stuff’ of the expansion.”
The increased experience that players received also allowed them to level up very fast, gain abilities and make the end game much less challenging than it should have been.
Most gamers have failed to appreciate the actual experience of playing an MMO because they are only interested in reaching the level cap as soon as possible so that they can then ask the developers for more content and abilities.
Kern adds, “We feel bored by the same formula over and over. We never explore the world, having been indoctrinated to just follow a laundry list of tasks,” he said. “It may be great for relaxing and having a fun couple hours of gameplay, but it doesn’t last.”
World of Warcraft continues to be the most successful subscription-based MMO in the world of gaming, although its audience has dropped by a couple of millions in early 2013.
Firefall is designed as a more complete experience, a game where players are free to focus on exploring the world.
Firefall is set to launch in open beta stage on July 9.