Blizzard “very happy” with subscription model, say free to play can “burn out” player

[Furby]

When Blizzard announced that they were ditching the talent tree system from World of Warcraft, they proved that there was no aspect of the MMORPG that they weren’t willing to shine a critical light on. Talent trees were one of WoW’s great innovations, and a model that has been borrowed wholesale by almost every game to chase WoW’s crown – but even then they weren’t safe from the march of progress.

This comes as Mists of Pandaria introduces features to WoW that’d be ideal hooks for microtransactions. Pets are among WoW’s existing premium items, and the ones you buy will be just as useful in pet battling as the ones you capture in the wild. The new Harvest Moon-style farming minigame being introduced to Pandaria’s Valley of the Four Winds zone also bears a passing resemblance to another incredibly successful online farming game. Lagrave dismisses the idea of taking WoW in this direction, but does acknowledge the comparison. “If we were to add Farmville to WoW, we’d make it awesome.”

Read more here.

 

[tommerbob]

Well, the author was wrong on at least one point. Talent trees were not an innovation of Wow. Wow borrowed that system from Diablo 2.

 

[Sajin]

Well, the author was wrong on at least one point. Talent trees were not an innovation of Wow. Wow borrowed that system from Diablo 2.

But both Diablo and WoW were made by Blizzard, so they were made by the same company. I also believe WoW was the first MMO to use the talent tree, and all the games after "WoW's crown" are MMO's. So in essence it is correct.

 

[Accname]

Talent-Trees are far from being innovative. And i can firmly believe blizzard was not the first guys to use it. Thats as old as old can be.

 

[C-Death]

I think the concept of "talents" has been used, perks for example, but I think WoW may be the first MMO to actually call them "Talents"

 

[Accname]

Just because they name it different doesnt make it innovativ.

 

[Inflicted]

The idea of skills/talents/perks (whatever you want to call it) is extremely common in RPG games nowdays, and well alot of older ones also had them.

I doubt Diablo was the very first to bring in a system like that.