Lagrave speculates about bringing World of Warcraft to iPhone

[BORTZ]

​

"We won’t do it until we think it’s decent. But it’s interesting and the world is evolving towards that little handheld device – I’d have fun on it, that’s absolutely the case. It would be foolish for any game developer to not be looking at that and we’re not – we don’t think- we’re foolish!

Source and way more reading here

 

[MelodieOctavia]

WoW certainly is not a game you can play "on the go". Can anyone imagine popping out a raid while waiting for your frappuchino at Starbucks? fuck no.

The only reason this would be a good idea would be to fuck around at the Auction House while you're away from the computer.

 

[Hells Malice]

Meh it's simple enough to be completely mobile. There's no skill involved in the game and the mechanics are all pretty much automated to begin with.

But yeah it'd be more for screwing around than anything, since later game WoW is a bigger timesink. Since time = gear = skill. You can't spend much time if you're on a phone, clearly. Unless you're at school goofing off in class I guess.

 

[ferofax]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

 

[Hells Malice]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

accuracy?
What accuracy? There's no such thing as accuracy in WoW outside of a stat that determines if your character is accurate or not.
As for clutter, you'd be right there. Even if they vastly simplified the display, phones are tiny.

 

[Midna]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

accuracy?
What accuracy? There's no such thing as accuracy in WoW outside of a stat that determines if your character is accurate or not.
As for clutter, you'd be right there. Even if they vastly simplified the display, phones are tiny.

And there's sure ass hell no such thing as accuracy on a standard capacitive touch screen.

 

[Hells Malice]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

accuracy?
What accuracy? There's no such thing as accuracy in WoW outside of a stat that determines if your character is accurate or not.
As for clutter, you'd be right there. Even if they vastly simplified the display, phones are tiny.

And there's sure ass hell no such thing as accuracy on a standard capacitive touch screen.

All they really need is a button for the tab key and a button to do a standard skill rotation for whatever class you are.
Though damned if I know how they'd handle movement. Tilt controls hell yeah. The iPhone is definitely one of the shittier phones to try and stick a game on. Its lack of buttons makes it completely useless as a gaming medium (even more-so than being a phone does).

 

[FireGrey]

Too hardcore to be on a phone imo.

 

[Zerosuit connor]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

accuracy?
What accuracy? There's no such thing as accuracy in WoW outside of a stat that determines if your character is accurate or not.
As for clutter, you'd be right there. Even if they vastly simplified the display, phones are tiny.

We have these things nowadays called tablets, that can have 10" screens.

 

[FAST6191]

Interesting. I have no real interest in Wow or any other MMORPG other than them tending to have larger more interesting worlds than many single player offerings (although the last few years have been kind to me) and being about the only chance to do multiplayer RPGs in a sensible fashion these days (even mousekillers have tended to drop the multiplayer aspect).

Raid on a phone (the problem posed being it is too long a time investment). Perhaps and perhaps not but I have seen several people knock together a portable wow setup to put in an hour here and there between lessons or over lunch or indeed alt and tab in and out. Equally auction house and for want of a better term minigames that tie into larger aspects of games have been around for years (see the PocketStation and VMU for the PS1 and dreamcast respectively for a somewhat older example and I am sure if I plumb the depths of the c64 archive I might find something even older without resorting to passcode transference although I guess it is equally valid).

On the matter of controls- yet I have first person shooters on a console with a controller? I am not saying it would be easy (I have various ideas and one might also want to look at the likes of the GBA and DS to see how they did their complex RPGs) but not impossible. No argument that a lack of buttons does not do well to idevice abilities for the existing styles of games but a complete dealbreaker I am not sure the logic exists for. Equally no bet that any such port (or probably client) will get endless bitching on the eventual control scheme.

"too hardcore"
Although I have still yet to hear an acceptable definition or even a definition that does not leave me wanting to headbutt (either through stupidity or them failing to appreciate what defining a term entails- "definition is when you define" and other such things) the one that offered it one must surely look to subscriber numbers (hint although you can probably find those that take it to extremes (see competitive pac man for instance) there are also a large chunk of people that do not require such things although this probably feeds back into the points of earlier paragraphs at this point) and more than a few people fall into the former category. Equally should I pay the mass effect whiners (surely that much whining qualifies as hardcore?) some attention did they not have an IOS game or perhaps it is similar to the thing that I would never type a thesis/report on a tablet but touch screen exasperated fat fingers syndrome and all I will still be grateful for the ability to knock out a quick email reply on one.

Equally and somewhat unrelated to other posts so far I would put a good chunk of change on Wow or something similar becoming a browser game in the not too distant future- although Java, flash and such are thankfully possibly considering being on the way out their death rattles are making for some interesting things not to mention the likes of onlive. Phones as a thin client is something I am quite interested to see (I already have several clients very much enjoying basic VNC on their phones).

 

[Hells Malice]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

accuracy?
What accuracy? There's no such thing as accuracy in WoW outside of a stat that determines if your character is accurate or not.
As for clutter, you'd be right there. Even if they vastly simplified the display, phones are tiny.

We have these things nowadays called tablets, that can have 10" screens.

We also have laptops, which are like the same thing except more functional and practical, lol.

 

[Foxi4]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

accuracy?
What accuracy? There's no such thing as accuracy in WoW outside of a stat that determines if your character is accurate or not.
As for clutter, you'd be right there. Even if they vastly simplified the display, phones are tiny.

Hide/Unhide menu + hotkeys (if buttons are present), it's actually quite simple.

 

[Hells Malice]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

accuracy?
What accuracy? There's no such thing as accuracy in WoW outside of a stat that determines if your character is accurate or not.
As for clutter, you'd be right there. Even if they vastly simplified the display, phones are tiny.

Hide/Unhide menu + hotkeys (if buttons are present), it's actually quite simple.

I was thinking more HP, rage, buffs/debuffs, target (and their buffs/dedebuffs), quests, party members, etc. The screen can get pretty cluttered, even if you can hide most things it'd be a pain.

 

[Foxi4]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

accuracy?
What accuracy? There's no such thing as accuracy in WoW outside of a stat that determines if your character is accurate or not.
As for clutter, you'd be right there. Even if they vastly simplified the display, phones are tiny.

Hide/Unhide menu + hotkeys (if buttons are present), it's actually quite simple.

I was thinking more HP, rage, buffs/debuffs, target (and their buffs/dedebuffs), quests, party members, etc. The screen can get pretty cluttered, even if you can hide most things it'd be a pain.

I'm pretty sure an app like that wouldn't be meant for hardcore raids, just for some basic farming or exp'ing in easy areas. Next Target --> Attack, two buttons is all you need for that. Besides, who has the time for a long raid on a phone? The battery would be dead before you're done. Those are reserved to the PC, the rest can be done mobile.

 

[Hells Malice]

how are they gonna fit all those icons on the screen anyway without cluttering at least half the screen? and touch movements? so much for accuracy...

accuracy?
What accuracy? There's no such thing as accuracy in WoW outside of a stat that determines if your character is accurate or not.
As for clutter, you'd be right there. Even if they vastly simplified the display, phones are tiny.

Hide/Unhide menu + hotkeys (if buttons are present), it's actually quite simple.

I was thinking more HP, rage, buffs/debuffs, target (and their buffs/dedebuffs), quests, party members, etc. The screen can get pretty cluttered, even if you can hide most things it'd be a pain.

I'm pretty sure an app like that wouldn't be meant for hardcore raids, just for some basic farming or exp'ing in easy areas. Next Target --> Attack, two buttons is all you need for that. Besides, who has the time for a long raid on a phone? The battery would be dead before you're done. Those are reserved to the PC, the rest can be done mobile.

If I can't kill people there ain't no point to it

 

[Fear Zoa]

I really just don't see how this could work. I understand everyone suddenly wants to but absolutely everything on mobile phones, but some things just wont work and a game known for having a ton of buttons and where people download countless mods and spend large amounts of time customizing the UI to be manageable to them.

 

[Hells Malice]

I really just don't see how this could work. I understand everyone suddenly wants to but absolutely everything on mobile phones, but some things just wont work and a game known for having a ton of buttons and where people download countless mods and spend large amounts of time customizing the UI to be manageable to them.

WoW can be dumbed down to 2-3 buttons, excluding movement.
So movement and UI are the two only problems, and they're basically idea breaking ones. Though an incredibly dumbed down UI would actually work, but again...movement. That's the only thing that would be really hard to work around.

 

[awssk8er]

Even if the iPhone can run it, the game would be impossible to play.

Well, it would be possible to basically run around and kill stuff by yourself, but you would never be able to do anything useful playing via iPhone.

 

[Just Another Gamer]

I want to say awesome but I can't see this working at all.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Just when people thought it couldn't get any worse than keyboard turners.....