I recently tested all my other mmo accounts, EQ2 (didn't bother with EQ since it is way too old now), Vanguard, Age of Conan, Lotro, SWG (This one I didnt really give much playtime as it closes soon anyway) Rift, DDO and even some free 2 play ones Forsaken world, Runes of magic and Allods.
So this last friday I opened my wow account again and ended up playing through the weekend like the weak weak addict I am.
The biggest difference I noted was how smooth controlling your character feels and how responsive your abilities feel when you fire them off. It's also very easy to know what happens to your character in terms of crowd control and what is killing you.
Although I hate the Cataclysm expansion there is nothing else worth playing at the moment.
Dont confuse most sales with the best. WoW is not the best MMO int he world. It is the most accessible and user friendly, meaning 11 year olds can play it at a competetive level. That doesnt make it the best.
World of Warcraft and Blizzard deserves its success. Maybe they got lucky. Maybe they're prodigies. It doesnt really matter.
Its, as far as I know, the most successful computer game of all time. I said GAME. Not even mmo. Im looking forward to what comes next. Stopped playing years ago.
But I have to give Blizzard props. I did enjoy my time there.
I would say that there are 2 more succesful games.
The Sims because it got so many people, particularly women that never played a computer game before to start.
Tetris, because no game have been played and cloned more than it. You can find thousands of versions on it just like online javagames.
i dont understand why people are saying wow caters to the "least common denominator".
i'm pretty sure 11 million subs is not the "least common".
wow is the best because it appeals to SO MANY people. 11 million people plop their behind down in their computer chair to play wow because you dont need a ridiculous computer to play the game, and it is more "noob" friendly than it has ever been, and i as a veteran am actually somewhat enjoying leveling alts because leveling has been made so fluid compared to what it has been in the past.
so many mmo's have come and so many people have said "THIS WILL BE THE WOW KILLER", and they all have fallen because nobody can make a game as well as blizzard has made with wow.
wow will be no means be brought to its deathbed anytime soon. it will live out its expected final 2 expansions ON TOP of the mmo world like it has been for the past 6 years.
Best is not defined by popularity it comes down to personal taste and other options.
For example how many people eat at macdonalds everyday? Surely one of the best restaurants in the world? Not to me I prefer some of my local restaurants for a proper meal and would pick subway or a hot potatoe from a guy on a stall for a quick meal.
i dont understand why people are saying wow caters to the "least common denominator".
I believe the statement refers to giving everything to the player without a lot of effort. Ease of play, mounts, etc. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme = WoW adding (or subtracting) something frequently.
Best is not defined by popularity it comes down to personal taste and other options.
For example how many people eat at macdonalds everyday? Surely one of the best restaurants in the world? Not to me I prefer some of my local restaurants for a proper meal and would pick subway or a hot potatoe from a guy on a stall for a quick meal.
I always thought ppl eat in macdonalds coz its cheap
i dont understand why people are saying wow caters to the "least common denominator".
I believe the statement refers to giving everything to the player without a lot of effort. Ease of play, mounts, etc. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme = WoW adding (or subtracting) something frequently.
the game has been made easier to play yes. if it was still just as hard to play as it was in vanilla/bc it would not be the juggernaught it is today.
that being said, it is still quite a task to level up. the majority of the players that play wow are casuals, and don't have the time to sit in front of their computer all day and level. the same with end game. raids are still fairly hard and require coordination, and it still takes time to get the gear, level the professions, get better at pvp, get better at pve, etc etc.
and the give/take situation is a delicate balancing act in any mmo. if enough people complain, they implement the change. it makes more people happy than it does make people upset most of the time. you can't give everyone what everyone wants in a game like this, so they give what the majority wants, and just brush off the minority that rages and leaves the game because keeping the majority happy is always better for business than keeping the minority happy.
Most popular yes,however Wow is a direct rip off/copycat of Everquest so that is being two faced to call out other developers yet the game he is bragging about is perhaps the worst copy cat there is.
The game that TRULY did not copy and thoguht for themselves was FFXI,they broke many industry standards and created a few ideas that to this day have not been done,the languiage translator for one.
Blizzard introduced a few ideas also,the authenticator is a security thing ,nothing to do with actual game developement.they also brought in cross server grouping ,this is a good idea for sure,but does have drawbacks to community on your own server.
IMO Both Eq and Wow do several things that are good [not great] but there is also MANY ideas which make no sense and to outright copy those ,shows Blizzard to not think at all.One example that really miffs me is questing,EQ did this by giving XP for questing,the most ridiculous idea i ever heard of.I played RPGs from way back and you don't get xp for questing lol.
Oh you delivered my Stein to that npc?Oh great here you go you look more experienced now,here is some xp ..lmao...just dumb.
I made this point because ,YES there are some ideas worth copying from other games,but things liek this ar jsu tdumb to copy,FFXI did NOT need to do this and imo it is the maybe the greatest mmorpg there ever was [not anymore].This is why copying is so bad,even my beloved FFXI has begun to copy cat the easier hand fed game play and totally ruined the best game ever,i do not play it anymore.
Other ideas not worth copying,markers over npcs heads,just lame [not realistic]and treating gamers like babies.Markers on maps to show you exactly where to go,again hand fed babies,why even bother to call it gaming?You don't need to spend money or waste your time to just have it handed to you,why not let your friend do it all and just take over his game when everything is done for you?FFXI did not need to do ANY of these lame copy cat ideas,so Blizzard shoud lkhave taken the OP's advice and learn to think for themselves before blatantly copying Everquest.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I always thought ppl eat in macdonalds coz its cheap
In many countries, like Russia is it actually pretty dang expensive.
I think it is because it is so fast, you usually can go in, get your food and eat it in less than 10 minutes. That is why I eat there sometimes at least.
Heck, I was in Cuba and eating something there usually took 2 hours or more, even thir only fastfood joint "el rapido" who sold microwave pizza took half an hour.
In Wows case is it probably more to do with the fact that close to all PCs can run it even if the PC is 10 years old.
Most popular yes,however Wow is a direct rip off/copycat of Everquest so that is being two faced to call out other developers yet the game he is bragging about is perhaps the worst copy cat there is.
The game that TRULY did not copy and thoguht for themselves was FFXI,they broke many industry standards and created a few ideas that to this day have not been done,the languiage translator for one.
Blizzard introduced a few ideas also,the authenticator is a security thing ,nothing to do with actual game developement.they also brought in cross server grouping ,this is a good idea for sure,but does have drawbacks to community on your own server.
IMO Both Eq and Wow do several things that are good [not great] but there is also MANY ideas which make no sense and to outright copy those ,shows Blizzard to not think at all.One example that really miffs me is questing,EQ did this by giving XP for questing,the most ridiculous idea i ever heard of.I played RPGs from way back and you don't get xp for questing lol.
Oh you delivered my Stein to that npc?Oh great here you go you look more experienced now,here is some xp ..lmao...just dumb.
I made this point because ,YES there are some ideas worth copying from other games,but things liek this ar jsu tdumb to copy,FFXI did NOT need to do this and imo it is the maybe the greatest mmorpg there ever was [not anymore].This is why copying is so bad,even my beloved FFXI has begun to copy cat the easier hand fed game play and totally ruined the best game ever,i do not play it anymore.
Other ideas not worth copying,markers over npcs heads,just lame [not realistic]and treating gamers like babies.Markers on maps to show you exactly where to go,again hand fed babies,why even bother to call it gaming?You don't need to spend money or waste your time to just have it handed to you,why not let your friend do it all and just take over his game when everything is done for you?FFXI did not need to do ANY of these lame copy cat ideas,so Blizzard shoud lkhave taken the OP's advice and learn to think for themselves before blatantly copying Everquest.
i never played everquest, i was a DAoC guy before wow. but obviously wow wasn't the "worst" of anything.
it took the ideas from a previously successful game, put their own ideas in the mix, gave it a facelift, and created the most popular online game ever played.
and i never played FFXI either, but i had quite a few friends play it regularly and it did look pretty cool. but that was a niche playerbase, and while it was successful to that playerbase, it was overshadowed by wow. nobody has been able to make an mmo that grabs the interest of more people than wow.
To quote my avatar, "Dog pile on the rabbit!". Let's see how Blizz is doing in a few years, they had a great cash run but all things come to an end.
This is what i'm thinking aswell, once the tower starts to fall, they can't pile it up again. I think their "project titan" will attract alot of attention in the beginning, but once the gamers realize it has nothing new to offer, it'll go down in flames like other "new and innovative" mmorpg's launched after 2004
and to clarify, WoW was nothing new and innovative, it copied all of its mechanic from MMO's before it, Everquest, Asherons Call etc. They just made all the elements work and the level of polish was their ace in the sleeve, even tho there are plenty of MMO's launched since WITH topnotch level of polish and atleast the amount features wow had after 2 years in the market.
What seems to be the "fault" why projects being launched nowadays don't quite cut it, is the fact that people think they should get the same amount of content in a NEW game (developed maybe 3-5 years, as they get with WoW (in its current form) which has over 10 years of developement and 3 expansion under it's belly, people don't give any chances to games launching these days and they've not the patience to wait for expansions and wait for them to grow.
WoW at launch had 0 raid instances (onyxia came first and propably like 3 months after launch Molten Core opened.) So if you compare that to MMO's launching these days, with minimum of 2 raids ONTOP of everthing else, they've far more content in them, than what WoW had at launch, yet people expect to get atleast the amount of content wow has NOW, i find it silly and utterly ignorant.
Most popular yes,however Wow is a direct rip off/copycat of Everquest so that is being two faced to call out other developers yet the game he is bragging about is perhaps the worst copy cat there is.
The game that TRULY did not copy and thoguht for themselves was FFXI,they broke many industry standards and created a few ideas that to this day have not been done,the languiage translator for one.
Blizzard introduced a few ideas also,the authenticator is a security thing ,nothing to do with actual game developement.they also brought in cross server grouping ,this is a good idea for sure,but does have drawbacks to community on your own server.
IMO Both Eq and Wow do several things that are good [not great] but there is also MANY ideas which make no sense and to outright copy those ,shows Blizzard to not think at all.One example that really miffs me is questing,EQ did this by giving XP for questing,the most ridiculous idea i ever heard of.I played RPGs from way back and you don't get xp for questing lol.
Oh you delivered my Stein to that npc?Oh great here you go you look more experienced now,here is some xp ..lmao...just dumb.
I made this point because ,YES there are some ideas worth copying from other games,but things liek this ar jsu tdumb to copy,FFXI did NOT need to do this and imo it is the maybe the greatest mmorpg there ever was [not anymore].This is why copying is so bad,even my beloved FFXI has begun to copy cat the easier hand fed game play and totally ruined the best game ever,i do not play it anymore.
Other ideas not worth copying,markers over npcs heads,just lame [not realistic]and treating gamers like babies.Markers on maps to show you exactly where to go,again hand fed babies,why even bother to call it gaming?You don't need to spend money or waste your time to just have it handed to you,why not let your friend do it all and just take over his game when everything is done for you?FFXI did not need to do ANY of these lame copy cat ideas,so Blizzard shoud lkhave taken the OP's advice and learn to think for themselves before blatantly copying Everquest.
i never played everquest, i was a DAoC guy before wow. but obviously wow wasn't the "worst" of anything.
it took the ideas from a previously successful game, put their own ideas in the mix, gave it a facelift, and created the most popular online game ever played.
and i never played FFXI either, but i had quite a few friends play it regularly and it did look pretty cool. but that was a niche playerbase, and while it was successful to that playerbase, it was overshadowed by wow. nobody has been able to make an mmo that grabs the interest of more people than wow.
But as many have pointed out, best is subjective and this factor you raise is not really a measure of best, just more of a popularity factor.
For the players of FFXI, that game's mechanics were "best" and you'll not convince it's fan's otherwise, no matter how many subs WOW has.
Now, it might be fairer to compare large MMO's based on their features they contain, including PVP, crafting, and complexity of crafting, housing, questing, leveling trees, social interaction etc and based on those criteria, WOW might not come out on top.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Do not allow your dislike for WoW blind you to the simple fact that Blizz is the best in this MMO business. That is beyond dispute, if you do dispute and argue about it then look at the figures(if you still argue then you are arguing with your own self). Give credit where it is due, WoW is a cracking MMO, so good that it attracted masses of new players to the genre.
And also remember that Blizz did not just make WoW. They made Diablo series which was hugely successful and the Star Craft series. They are of course about to release DB3 which we all know will be equally successful and 99% of people here moaning about Bliz will be buying it lol.
Then there is Titan or whatever there new MMO is called, which again we all know will be a success. So, this shows that WoW was not a fluke, Blizzard know how to make games and they are the best in the MMOs world.
Who cares who copied what from whom? There was one guy who made a car, all the rest are copies, same with planes, houses, burgers, everything really, even our own names are copies of someone else ffs.
Most popular yes,however Wow is a direct rip off/copycat of Everquest so that is being two faced to call out other developers yet the game he is bragging about is perhaps the worst copy cat there is.
The game that TRULY did not copy and thoguht for themselves was FFXI,they broke many industry standards and created a few ideas that to this day have not been done,the languiage translator for one.
Blizzard introduced a few ideas also,the authenticator is a security thing ,nothing to do with actual game developement.they also brought in cross server grouping ,this is a good idea for sure,but does have drawbacks to community on your own server.
IMO Both Eq and Wow do several things that are good [not great] but there is also MANY ideas which make no sense and to outright copy those ,shows Blizzard to not think at all.One example that really miffs me is questing,EQ did this by giving XP for questing,the most ridiculous idea i ever heard of.I played RPGs from way back and you don't get xp for questing lol.
Oh you delivered my Stein to that npc?Oh great here you go you look more experienced now,here is some xp ..lmao...just dumb.
I made this point because ,YES there are some ideas worth copying from other games,but things liek this ar jsu tdumb to copy,FFXI did NOT need to do this and imo it is the maybe the greatest mmorpg there ever was [not anymore].This is why copying is so bad,even my beloved FFXI has begun to copy cat the easier hand fed game play and totally ruined the best game ever,i do not play it anymore.
Other ideas not worth copying,markers over npcs heads,just lame [not realistic]and treating gamers like babies.Markers on maps to show you exactly where to go,again hand fed babies,why even bother to call it gaming?You don't need to spend money or waste your time to just have it handed to you,why not let your friend do it all and just take over his game when everything is done for you?FFXI did not need to do ANY of these lame copy cat ideas,so Blizzard shoud lkhave taken the OP's advice and learn to think for themselves before blatantly copying Everquest.
i never played everquest, i was a DAoC guy before wow. but obviously wow wasn't the "worst" of anything.
it took the ideas from a previously successful game, put their own ideas in the mix, gave it a facelift, and created the most popular online game ever played.
and i never played FFXI either, but i had quite a few friends play it regularly and it did look pretty cool. but that was a niche playerbase, and while it was successful to that playerbase, it was overshadowed by wow. nobody has been able to make an mmo that grabs the interest of more people than wow.
definitely, i played Everquest, both versions, Everquest was pretty much my first real MMO, but.. saying that WoW is a direct copy of it, ignores the fact that WoW actually took a few, and only a few, factors that worked in EQ and actually improved on it.. a lot.. not to mention they also added way more functionality and content.. improved the interface etc, WoW is popular because, its a lot of fun, for a wider range of player types than you atypically get from games like EQ, or DAoC, etc.. though i do think that PvP wise.. DAoC definitely had the advantage, the RvRvR thing is hard to beat, WoW's battlegrounds arent a patch on DAoC's.. which GW2 appears to be trying to copy, how successful they will be remains to be seen, but.. in terms of PvP at least, its a step in the right direction.. but theres a reason why games are referred to as WoW clones, rather than EQ clones... its because the changes Blizzard made were innovative, rather than 'carbon copies' so that the result was far greater than the original. Though some might say that EQ had been on a slippery slope even since the introduction of the luclin expansion, possibly even before that..
Most popular yes,however Wow is a direct rip off/copycat of Everquest so that is being two faced to call out other developers yet the game he is bragging about is perhaps the worst copy cat there is.
Other ideas not worth copying,markers over npcs heads,just lame [not realistic]and treating gamers like babies.Markers on maps to show you exactly where to go,again hand fed babies,why even bother to call it gaming?You don't need to spend money or waste your time to just have it handed to you,why not let your friend do it all and just take over his game when everything is done for you?FFXI did not need to do ANY of these lame copy cat ideas,so Blizzard shoud lkhave taken the OP's advice and learn to think for themselves before blatantly copying Everquest.
WoW did copy a lot of features, but to say it was a complete copy cat of EQ is a denial of reality.
What was definitely innovative and something that MMO's before didn't have was something that you won't find in the cold, bland listing of features, and that is Blizzard's philosophy towards MMO design and gameplay. Something that made WoW the huge success that it became. Their focus on game instead of world building was what they did differently, something that no MMO including EQ before had. Polish, accessibility, smooth controls and removing anything that could be considered detrimental to a fun gameplay experience. And that meant annoyances like a steep learning curve, harsh death penalties, multitude of bugs, overtly long travel times, and so on.
People might hate them and WoW for following and popularising that particular philosophy in MMO gameplay design, but there's no denying that Blizzard was the first to follow that type of MMO design throughout the whole game and MMO features encompassed.
So no, it's true that WoW was inspired by EQ and other MMO's and all the features that came with it, but they were both totally different MMO's with a completely different design philosophy that permeated these 2 games, which was obvious when you heard the devs of both games talk about their core values for their MMO design.
Originally posted by Phry
Though some might say that EQ had been on a slippery slope even since the introduction of the luclin expansion, possibly even before that..
Definitely not before that: Ruins of Kunark and Scars of Velious was the peak and highlight in EQ's long life, and true to the original game and vision. After that, things started to change.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I give blizzard the credit for setting a new standard for MMO polish, hopefully we'll see less and less AO/AoC launches these days
FFXI was,still is and will always be the most polished game ever and it was delivered on multi platform.I played the game for 8 years,NOT one single problem ever.Yes RMT problems YES other player problems but the game itself,most polished ever.Wow nor any other game comes even close.Heck even the recent Cata expansion was just horrible TONS of glitches in both game play and maps/graphics and i saw several broken quests.I can use the term best ever for polish,because since i never had one single problem,no game can ever top that ..ever!.
I will also add that if you try to bring UI into it,i absolutely had no problem what so ever in FFXI UI nor macros either,i could do more with them than anything Wow offers.When i chat in FFXI ,i just start typing no need to hit any other button.Everything i need is right on my keypad area,no finger fumbling or searching for keys.
Also since most Wow players are using outside apps,it shows Wow is not so polished for even UI.I never used nor needed any outisde apps for FFXI,i played the game easily.
Yes WoW is better over all polish than almost every game out there,i will give it that,but to say it set new standards is a farcry from the truth.Also FFX Idoes NOT have well it didn't have any test servers to test things before releasing them,Wow DOES have test servers yet delivers quite a few problems.so imo not very polished at all,Cata was proof of that.Blizzard even shut dow nthe forums because a ton of negative feedback was being posted on Cata release bugs graphic glitches.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Sorry, but from a business stand point (which is ALL investors care about...) most popular DOES equal best. Just about any game company in the world, would give just about anything to have the massive, sustained player base that Blizzard has developed over the last almost seven years in WoW. Hell, most of them would be EXTREMELY happy with 1/3 of WoW's player base. For all of its faults (which are legion...) WoW is still a good game up to level cap. Then its mostly raiding and/or PvP.
Originally posted by Wraithone Originally posted by jessie360 You're forgetting one thing: most popular =/= best /thread
Sorry, but from a business stand point (which is ALL investors care about...) most popular DOES equal best. Just about any game company in the world, would give just about anything to have the massive, sustained player base that Blizzard has developed over the last almost seven years in WoW. Hell, most of them would be EXTREMELY happy with 1/3 of WoW's player base. For all of its faults (which are legion...) WoW is still a good game up to level cap. Then its mostly raiding and/or PvP.
WoW is the best it is at what it does. If you're a player that doesn't like what WoW does, then it doesn't matter how good WoW is at what it does, you're not going to want to play it.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
Sadly nobody beats wow.
I recently tested all my other mmo accounts, EQ2 (didn't bother with EQ since it is way too old now), Vanguard, Age of Conan, Lotro, SWG (This one I didnt really give much playtime as it closes soon anyway) Rift, DDO and even some free 2 play ones Forsaken world, Runes of magic and Allods.
So this last friday I opened my wow account again and ended up playing through the weekend like the weak weak addict I am.
The biggest difference I noted was how smooth controlling your character feels and how responsive your abilities feel when you fire them off. It's also very easy to know what happens to your character in terms of crowd control and what is killing you.
Although I hate the Cataclysm expansion there is nothing else worth playing at the moment.
And what would u say, what MMO is the best?
yeah right
well the game itself isnt as bad but its the community that realy sucks BLEEP.
and ofc the security, now a days account r getting hacked by the seconds
check out the best video on youtube, it has the most views
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffacxfA7G4
!(haha you guys are funny)
I would say that there are 2 more succesful games.
The Sims because it got so many people, particularly women that never played a computer game before to start.
Tetris, because no game have been played and cloned more than it. You can find thousands of versions on it just like online javagames.
Wow is surely the most succesful MMO though.
Fair play to Blizzard, WoW is still highly playable. Vanilla models could do with a brush up however. If they gave Jaina Proudmoore a facelift then...
i dont understand why people are saying wow caters to the "least common denominator".
i'm pretty sure 11 million subs is not the "least common".
wow is the best because it appeals to SO MANY people. 11 million people plop their behind down in their computer chair to play wow because you dont need a ridiculous computer to play the game, and it is more "noob" friendly than it has ever been, and i as a veteran am actually somewhat enjoying leveling alts because leveling has been made so fluid compared to what it has been in the past.
so many mmo's have come and so many people have said "THIS WILL BE THE WOW KILLER", and they all have fallen because nobody can make a game as well as blizzard has made with wow.
wow will be no means be brought to its deathbed anytime soon. it will live out its expected final 2 expansions ON TOP of the mmo world like it has been for the past 6 years.
Best is not defined by popularity it comes down to personal taste and other options.
For example how many people eat at macdonalds everyday? Surely one of the best restaurants in the world? Not to me I prefer some of my local restaurants for a proper meal and would pick subway or a hot potatoe from a guy on a stall for a quick meal.
I believe the statement refers to giving everything to the player without a lot of effort. Ease of play, mounts, etc. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme = WoW adding (or subtracting) something frequently.
I always thought ppl eat in macdonalds coz its cheap
the game has been made easier to play yes. if it was still just as hard to play as it was in vanilla/bc it would not be the juggernaught it is today.
that being said, it is still quite a task to level up. the majority of the players that play wow are casuals, and don't have the time to sit in front of their computer all day and level. the same with end game. raids are still fairly hard and require coordination, and it still takes time to get the gear, level the professions, get better at pvp, get better at pve, etc etc.
and the give/take situation is a delicate balancing act in any mmo. if enough people complain, they implement the change. it makes more people happy than it does make people upset most of the time. you can't give everyone what everyone wants in a game like this, so they give what the majority wants, and just brush off the minority that rages and leaves the game because keeping the majority happy is always better for business than keeping the minority happy.
Most popular yes,however Wow is a direct rip off/copycat of Everquest so that is being two faced to call out other developers yet the game he is bragging about is perhaps the worst copy cat there is.
The game that TRULY did not copy and thoguht for themselves was FFXI,they broke many industry standards and created a few ideas that to this day have not been done,the languiage translator for one.
Blizzard introduced a few ideas also,the authenticator is a security thing ,nothing to do with actual game developement.they also brought in cross server grouping ,this is a good idea for sure,but does have drawbacks to community on your own server.
IMO Both Eq and Wow do several things that are good [not great] but there is also MANY ideas which make no sense and to outright copy those ,shows Blizzard to not think at all.One example that really miffs me is questing,EQ did this by giving XP for questing,the most ridiculous idea i ever heard of.I played RPGs from way back and you don't get xp for questing lol.
Oh you delivered my Stein to that npc?Oh great here you go you look more experienced now,here is some xp ..lmao...just dumb.
I made this point because ,YES there are some ideas worth copying from other games,but things liek this ar jsu tdumb to copy,FFXI did NOT need to do this and imo it is the maybe the greatest mmorpg there ever was [not anymore].This is why copying is so bad,even my beloved FFXI has begun to copy cat the easier hand fed game play and totally ruined the best game ever,i do not play it anymore.
Other ideas not worth copying,markers over npcs heads,just lame [not realistic]and treating gamers like babies.Markers on maps to show you exactly where to go,again hand fed babies,why even bother to call it gaming?You don't need to spend money or waste your time to just have it handed to you,why not let your friend do it all and just take over his game when everything is done for you?FFXI did not need to do ANY of these lame copy cat ideas,so Blizzard shoud lkhave taken the OP's advice and learn to think for themselves before blatantly copying Everquest.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
In many countries, like Russia is it actually pretty dang expensive.
I think it is because it is so fast, you usually can go in, get your food and eat it in less than 10 minutes. That is why I eat there sometimes at least.
Heck, I was in Cuba and eating something there usually took 2 hours or more, even thir only fastfood joint "el rapido" who sold microwave pizza took half an hour.
In Wows case is it probably more to do with the fact that close to all PCs can run it even if the PC is 10 years old.
WoW is nowhere near Farmville that had 80 million players
now its only 36 millions
i never played everquest, i was a DAoC guy before wow. but obviously wow wasn't the "worst" of anything.
it took the ideas from a previously successful game, put their own ideas in the mix, gave it a facelift, and created the most popular online game ever played.
and i never played FFXI either, but i had quite a few friends play it regularly and it did look pretty cool. but that was a niche playerbase, and while it was successful to that playerbase, it was overshadowed by wow. nobody has been able to make an mmo that grabs the interest of more people than wow.
This is what i'm thinking aswell, once the tower starts to fall, they can't pile it up again. I think their "project titan" will attract alot of attention in the beginning, but once the gamers realize it has nothing new to offer, it'll go down in flames like other "new and innovative" mmorpg's launched after 2004
and to clarify, WoW was nothing new and innovative, it copied all of its mechanic from MMO's before it, Everquest, Asherons Call etc. They just made all the elements work and the level of polish was their ace in the sleeve, even tho there are plenty of MMO's launched since WITH topnotch level of polish and atleast the amount features wow had after 2 years in the market.
What seems to be the "fault" why projects being launched nowadays don't quite cut it, is the fact that people think they should get the same amount of content in a NEW game (developed maybe 3-5 years, as they get with WoW (in its current form) which has over 10 years of developement and 3 expansion under it's belly, people don't give any chances to games launching these days and they've not the patience to wait for expansions and wait for them to grow.
WoW at launch had 0 raid instances (onyxia came first and propably like 3 months after launch Molten Core opened.) So if you compare that to MMO's launching these days, with minimum of 2 raids ONTOP of everthing else, they've far more content in them, than what WoW had at launch, yet people expect to get atleast the amount of content wow has NOW, i find it silly and utterly ignorant.
But as many have pointed out, best is subjective and this factor you raise is not really a measure of best, just more of a popularity factor.
For the players of FFXI, that game's mechanics were "best" and you'll not convince it's fan's otherwise, no matter how many subs WOW has.
Now, it might be fairer to compare large MMO's based on their features they contain, including PVP, crafting, and complexity of crafting, housing, questing, leveling trees, social interaction etc and based on those criteria, WOW might not come out on top.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Do not allow your dislike for WoW blind you to the simple fact that Blizz is the best in this MMO business. That is beyond dispute, if you do dispute and argue about it then look at the figures(if you still argue then you are arguing with your own self). Give credit where it is due, WoW is a cracking MMO, so good that it attracted masses of new players to the genre.
And also remember that Blizz did not just make WoW. They made Diablo series which was hugely successful and the Star Craft series. They are of course about to release DB3 which we all know will be equally successful and 99% of people here moaning about Bliz will be buying it lol.
Then there is Titan or whatever there new MMO is called, which again we all know will be a success. So, this shows that WoW was not a fluke, Blizzard know how to make games and they are the best in the MMOs world.
Who cares who copied what from whom? There was one guy who made a car, all the rest are copies, same with planes, houses, burgers, everything really, even our own names are copies of someone else ffs.
definitely, i played Everquest, both versions, Everquest was pretty much my first real MMO, but.. saying that WoW is a direct copy of it, ignores the fact that WoW actually took a few, and only a few, factors that worked in EQ and actually improved on it.. a lot.. not to mention they also added way more functionality and content.. improved the interface etc, WoW is popular because, its a lot of fun, for a wider range of player types than you atypically get from games like EQ, or DAoC, etc.. though i do think that PvP wise.. DAoC definitely had the advantage, the RvRvR thing is hard to beat, WoW's battlegrounds arent a patch on DAoC's.. which GW2 appears to be trying to copy, how successful they will be remains to be seen, but.. in terms of PvP at least, its a step in the right direction.. but theres a reason why games are referred to as WoW clones, rather than EQ clones... its because the changes Blizzard made were innovative, rather than 'carbon copies' so that the result was far greater than the original. Though some might say that EQ had been on a slippery slope even since the introduction of the luclin expansion, possibly even before that..
WoW did copy a lot of features, but to say it was a complete copy cat of EQ is a denial of reality.
What was definitely innovative and something that MMO's before didn't have was something that you won't find in the cold, bland listing of features, and that is Blizzard's philosophy towards MMO design and gameplay. Something that made WoW the huge success that it became. Their focus on game instead of world building was what they did differently, something that no MMO including EQ before had. Polish, accessibility, smooth controls and removing anything that could be considered detrimental to a fun gameplay experience. And that meant annoyances like a steep learning curve, harsh death penalties, multitude of bugs, overtly long travel times, and so on.
People might hate them and WoW for following and popularising that particular philosophy in MMO gameplay design, but there's no denying that Blizzard was the first to follow that type of MMO design throughout the whole game and MMO features encompassed.
So no, it's true that WoW was inspired by EQ and other MMO's and all the features that came with it, but they were both totally different MMO's with a completely different design philosophy that permeated these 2 games, which was obvious when you heard the devs of both games talk about their core values for their MMO design.
Definitely not before that: Ruins of Kunark and Scars of Velious was the peak and highlight in EQ's long life, and true to the original game and vision. After that, things started to change.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I give blizzard the credit for setting a new standard for MMO polish, hopefully we'll see less and less AO/AoC launches these days
FFXI was,still is and will always be the most polished game ever and it was delivered on multi platform.I played the game for 8 years,NOT one single problem ever.Yes RMT problems YES other player problems but the game itself,most polished ever.Wow nor any other game comes even close.Heck even the recent Cata expansion was just horrible TONS of glitches in both game play and maps/graphics and i saw several broken quests.I can use the term best ever for polish,because since i never had one single problem,no game can ever top that ..ever!.
I will also add that if you try to bring UI into it,i absolutely had no problem what so ever in FFXI UI nor macros either,i could do more with them than anything Wow offers.When i chat in FFXI ,i just start typing no need to hit any other button.Everything i need is right on my keypad area,no finger fumbling or searching for keys.
Also since most Wow players are using outside apps,it shows Wow is not so polished for even UI.I never used nor needed any outisde apps for FFXI,i played the game easily.
Yes WoW is better over all polish than almost every game out there,i will give it that,but to say it set new standards is a farcry from the truth.Also FFX Idoes NOT have well it didn't have any test servers to test things before releasing them,Wow DOES have test servers yet delivers quite a few problems.so imo not very polished at all,Cata was proof of that.Blizzard even shut dow nthe forums because a ton of negative feedback was being posted on Cata release bugs graphic glitches.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Sorry, but from a business stand point (which is ALL investors care about...) most popular DOES equal best. Just about any game company in the world, would give just about anything to have the massive, sustained player base that Blizzard has developed over the last almost seven years in WoW. Hell, most of them would be EXTREMELY happy with 1/3 of WoW's player base. For all of its faults (which are legion...) WoW is still a good game up to level cap. Then its mostly raiding and/or PvP.
Sorry, but from a business stand point (which is ALL investors care about...) most popular DOES equal best. Just about any game company in the world, would give just about anything to have the massive, sustained player base that Blizzard has developed over the last almost seven years in WoW. Hell, most of them would be EXTREMELY happy with 1/3 of WoW's player base. For all of its faults (which are legion...) WoW is still a good game up to level cap. Then its mostly raiding and/or PvP.
WoW is the best it is at what it does. If you're a player that doesn't like what WoW does, then it doesn't matter how good WoW is at what it does, you're not going to want to play it.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
What?
"The Ice Stone is Melting"
If you don't like a game don't play it, and quit running to MMORPG.com to trash it.