NTES – NCTY – TX2 – WOW – Guilds War – Shootout (Part 1)

3 Games Shootout (Part 1) –

Now I have investigated all 3 games, I am able to do some comparison about the three games. One is also able to get an idea of how successful can each game be in China. In part 1, I will provide all the background information. In part 2, I will provide my guess on how successful each game is going to be in China. Part 3 is the conclusion.

Information on my blog on these games:

WOW:

http://chinese-net-gaming-stock.blogspot.com/2007/03/ncty-wow-game-review.html

Guilds War:

http://chinese-net-gaming-stock.blogspot.com/2007/03/ncty-guild-wars.html

TX2:

http://chinese-net-gaming-stock.blogspot.com/2007/03/netease-tx2-my-prediction.html

http://chinese-net-gaming-stock.blogspot.com/2007/02/netease-tx2-open-beta-preview.html

http://chinese-net-gaming-stock.blogspot.com/2007/02/ntes-tx2-video.html

Server:

WOW – many servers, each server can support thousands of players.

TX2 – many servers, each server can support up to 5000 (?) players.

Guilds War – One server (supported by many computers). Player can interact with millions of other players.

PvE:

WOW – basically a PvE game. Dominate by thousands of quests. Have instance dungeon for high level players. In this case, each “instance” of dungeon is created for the player (or players group) and the player (group) won’t interact with other players (players play in a LAN type of setting).

Guild War – Basically a PvP game. Its PvE aspects are dominated by quests. In PvE, the player plays in a setting like a single player or LAN setting.

TX2 – I am guessing it will be a PvP dominated game. Its PvE is dominated by a few (5 or 6) main story lines. At this point, there is no quest. There might be a few quests in the future (for high level players?), but this won’t be a quest dominated game.

The PvE aspect of TX2 is most likely main story lines plus monsters hack. The bad thing about main story lines are a lot of other players are doing the same thing as you are. There will be conflicts (other player might steal your monster kill, etc.). The advantage is you are always interact with thousands of other users, one might make friends easier.

Another big advantage of TX2 will be its many activities. It had always been Netease’s calling card and I don’t expect it to change.

PvP:

WOW – Has PvP server – Player vs. Player battles are allowed here.

Battleground – allows 2 groups (up to 40 players) to do battle. This is very much like the LAN games battle over many maps.

For a PvE dominated game, WOW has many PvP features as well.

Guilds War – This is basically a PvP game. Players form guild (up to 12 players) and fight it out with other guild. This is just a glorified old battle.net on a global scale. Almost like a LAN game where the sides are matched by the game and can come from anywhere in the world. The chief designer of this game was the chief designer of battle.net. This is the reason that they don’t charge fees for this game in the US. They make money by selling expansion pacts. It is rather difficult to see how Guild War can make money in China.

TX2 – Pure speculation on my part at this point. I believe the core of TX2 is going to be castle warfare. There is no theoretical upper limits for the number of players. But as more and more players get congregated to a small area, it will start to lag on the player with not-so-powerful computers. At this point, I would guess it would be 200 vs. 200 on each side. But as Netease optimize its programming code and as players get more powerful PCs (as time goes by), I would guess it might even be up to 500 vs. 500 in the future.

For WOW and Guilds War, the result of battleground or guilds warfare don’t really impact the story of the game. But for TX2, the result of these castle warfare is the main story. The story of the game is going to be controlled by the players themselves and not by the game designers.

Continue to part 2