Elephants are one of, if not the second longest living mammal on land thats the comparison I make. Why is everyone trying to always poach the elephant? They always want its golden ivory. Dont they realise if they kill the elephant for that reason the habitat around it will perish too. Would someone please think of the dung beatles and the birds that eat the ticks in its skin?!
On a serious note I have tried and pre-ordered many games but all have failed me in keeping a persistent online world alive with many features lacking. I am not talking about tricks here I am talking about things that are essential like a good deep crafting system thats missing from e.g Warhammer Online.
So many games I have payed for, so much money I have wasted (aion collectors anyone), my family are gamers I still get teased about that purchase. I would have saved it all if I just stuck to wow which has polished and complete features you might call the new mount a trick but polished complete features are what players want its just a shame the rest of the games quite simply sink.
Unless after 6 months a new release still is getting great reviews and people power approval posts I will not touch it not even starwars, I trust EA less. You may insult my elephant but its still my elephant and I will help it get back to africa its not its fault a journalist put it in a room full of people and made it stand on a ball.
Nicely written article for a provoking one, did its job.
Interesting article. I had 3 level 60's and was close in several others when I quit. None of the expansions convinced me to go back. The incessant raiding while at first fun became a job and I lost interest. I don't intend to go back at this point. I do miss the friends I made, but the game was taking too much of my time.
I think the time of Wow's dominance is nearing the end. There are some up coming titles that might give it a run for it's money. I think the MMO development community has finally realized that the Wow design is not as great as it used to seem and is digressing from it finally.
We will just have to wait to see what the future brings, but Bioware is going be a big player in this market, they are that good. Some of the f2p games are getting very good also, if they can refrain from scalping the players piggy banks. 38 studios has some possibilities also.
I don't think this elephant will die, at least not for the foreseeable future. It's undoing will (eventually) be same old, same old quests/graphics/sound while newer games will come out with the latest and greatest, at least sound and graphics. While the pillars supporting the elephant won't topple immediately, I expect titles like the upcoming Final Fantasy and Star Wars releases will take a number of sizable chips out of the stone that comprises them.
IMO WoW will be plugging away 5-6 years from now with a sizable fan base still supporting it. The 'aging' process will begin when we see larger numbers of servers merging, a sign of scant populations and an attempt to downsize on overhead. That is often a signal for the rats (mice?) to flee the sinking ship ( or swaying elephant?)...
WoW won for many reasons. And like other things, the product is greater than the sum of its parts.
WoW has:
Never before seen levels of polish from the start
Very regular updates
In-depth lore and history
Ease of accessiblility
Plenty of in-game and out-of-game information
Intuitive and unobtrusive gameplay
Thats to name a handful. There are more.
Also, people poke fun at Fireball 1, 2, 3... 47, 48...
But it serves a purpose. To the gamer its boring. To the non-gamer it makes sense. There are lots of little things that make the game easier to understand and play. My wife doesn't play video games but she would play WoW with me because she can understand WoW to the point she can enjoy it. Even though she has zero interest in video games in general.
The "WoW Killers" only seem to take a few items from the list and focus on that but never really pay attention to the market.
To what is high lighted in this post. I always wonder when I read comments like this if people have really bad memories or if they were really not there at the start. I am sorry but WoW was anything but polished at launch. There was tons of bugs that made the game crash, like harvesting any resource. Pick a flower = Crash, Mine a copper = Crash, try to kill boss troll outside of Sen'Jin Village = Crash. Of course this is not counting all of the server and login crashes that happened constantly for the first few months the game was out. I honestly was glad I rolled horde on Silverhand since the alliance land mass kept crashing. This was of course was at launch when there was not millions of people playing yet, in fact when I started there was a pretty low population on most of the servers.
WoW won for many reasons. And like other things, the product is greater than the sum of its parts.
WoW has:
Never before seen levels of polish from the start
Very regular updates
In-depth lore and history
Ease of accessiblility
Plenty of in-game and out-of-game information
Intuitive and unobtrusive gameplay
Thats to name a handful. There are more.
Also, people poke fun at Fireball 1, 2, 3... 47, 48...
But it serves a purpose. To the gamer its boring. To the non-gamer it makes sense. There are lots of little things that make the game easier to understand and play. My wife doesn't play video games but she would play WoW with me because she can understand WoW to the point she can enjoy it. Even though she has zero interest in video games in general.
The "WoW Killers" only seem to take a few items from the list and focus on that but never really pay attention to the market.
To what is high lighted in this post. I always wonder when I read comments like this if people have really bad memories or if they were really not there at the start. I am sorry but WoW was anything but polished at launch. There was tons of bugs that made the game crash, like harvesting any resource. Pick a flower = Crash, Mine a copper = Crash, try to kill boss troll outside of Sen'Jin Village = Crash. Of course this is not counting all of the server and login crashes that happened constantly for the first few months the game was out. I honestly was glad I rolled horde on Silverhand since the alliance land mass kept crashing. This was of course was at launch when there was not millions of people playing yet, in fact when I started there was a pretty low population on most of the servers.
Well I think your describing server instability due to the huge amount of players - the servers just could not cope at the start. In Europe Blizzard stopped suppying copies of the game for 2 months while they got a new server farm online.
nice article but you painted a bad picture of f2p and went straight to swtor and tera as saviours
you shouldve mentioned battle of the immortals even if it was a small plug on the f2p side it is a graphically nice game with alot of stuff to do
unfortunately the closed beta ends today but the open beta starts on may 4th with no character wipes after that point if anyone is interested it is a nice game
He painted a bad picture of F2P because that's all there is to paint of them in the western market. They are exactly as he described them, and they will never be popular in the West. Their business model is directly related to trying to swindle people out of money in order to buy an advantage... its a losing concept and it will never pick up and carry any significant wind in the West.
There is only one game on the horizon that has the potential to challenge WoW (and actually its the only game I've ever actually believed had the potential in the first place)... thats SWTOR.
Bioware/EA is the only combination of coding talent and funding that has a chance of competing with Blizzard/Activision in the MMO market... and even then they still need the popularity of the Starwars IP.
WoW won for many reasons. And like other things, the product is greater than the sum of its parts.
WoW has:
Never before seen levels of polish from the start
Very regular updates
In-depth lore and history
Ease of accessiblility
Plenty of in-game and out-of-game information
Intuitive and unobtrusive gameplay
Thats to name a handful. There are more.
Also, people poke fun at Fireball 1, 2, 3... 47, 48...
But it serves a purpose. To the gamer its boring. To the non-gamer it makes sense. There are lots of little things that make the game easier to understand and play. My wife doesn't play video games but she would play WoW with me because she can understand WoW to the point she can enjoy it. Even though she has zero interest in video games in general.
The "WoW Killers" only seem to take a few items from the list and focus on that but never really pay attention to the market.
To what is high lighted in this post. I always wonder when I read comments like this if people have really bad memories or if they were really not there at the start. I am sorry but WoW was anything but polished at launch. There was tons of bugs that made the game crash, like harvesting any resource. Pick a flower = Crash, Mine a copper = Crash, try to kill boss troll outside of Sen'Jin Village = Crash. Of course this is not counting all of the server and login crashes that happened constantly for the first few months the game was out. I honestly was glad I rolled horde on Silverhand since the alliance land mass kept crashing. This was of course was at launch when there was not millions of people playing yet, in fact when I started there was a pretty low population on most of the servers.
Intresting you mention just one of those... and then go back to talking about the start of the game 5 years ago.....
How long have games like AOC and WAR been out for example ? 2years ? Last time I looked both these games had some very huge issues to cope with STILL at this point in time. PPL are still complaining about unstable servers in AOC .. Not to mention sieges issues in over 50% of city battles. And WAR is just crap when it comes to polish. If you dont belive me try rolling white lion and see him run in the air besides you when you fly. Or choosen shield on the feets.... I mean ... that is the standards of these games. And they are P2P games.
New class feature and intresting things that new games might add does not matter one bit... You have to have the whole package and NONE of the games today have got even HALF the package that BLizzard is offering overall. Thats why we talk about "niche" games. Niche in this case stands for low level of polish that some gamers find ok - but majority does nOT.
WoW won for many reasons. And like other things, the product is greater than the sum of its parts.
WoW has:
Never before seen levels of polish from the start
To what is high lighted in this post. I always wonder when I read comments like this if people have really bad memories or if they were really not there at the start. I am sorry but WoW was anything but polished at launch. There was tons of bugs that made the game crash, like harvesting any resource. Pick a flower = Crash, Mine a copper = Crash, try to kill boss troll outside of Sen'Jin Village = Crash. Of course this is not counting all of the server and login crashes that happened constantly for the first few months the game was out. I honestly was glad I rolled horde on Silverhand since the alliance land mass kept crashing. This was of course was at launch when there was not millions of people playing yet, in fact when I started there was a pretty low population on most of the servers.
Intresting you mention just one of those... and then go back to talking about the start of the game 5 years ago.....
How long have games like AOC and WAR been out for example ? 2years ? Last time I looked both these games had some very huge issues to cope with STILL at this point in time. PPL are still complaining about unstable servers in AOC .. Not to mention sieges issues in over 50% of city battles. And WAR is just crap when it comes to polish. If you dont belive me try rolling white lion and see him run in the air besides you when you fly. Or choosen shield on the feets.... I mean ... that is the standards of these games. And they are P2P games.
New class feature and intresting things that new games might add does not matter one bit... You have to have the whole package and NONE of the games today have got even HALF the package that BLizzard is offering overall. Thats why we talk about "niche" games. Niche in this case stands for low level of polish that some gamers find ok - but majority does nOT.
First @memoir44: history is there to learn from, and then to look on towards the future. And the future has lots of other fun MMO's in store. If you really like games you should find that exciting too. If not, you can always stick to WoW and be happy with WoW ofc, nothing wrong with that.
Daedalon, your info is dated, AoC servers and gaming is stable and smooth these days, and frankly as the game should've been at launch. Sieges are laggy, and there's the occasional crash, but frankly I have to encounter any massive battles (60-70+) in any MMO yet where there's zero lag.
About polish in WoW: Blizzard is famous for the polish they strive for their games, and sure, the amount of polish compared to other MMO launches and theme park experience that was there from start made it a fun smooth gaming experience. That didn't mean other MMO's didn't have polish or addictive gameplay, far from. I had bucket loads of fun in EQ, and Guild Wars was smooth fun ride from the start.
Describing the WHOLE field of MMO's besides WoW as "niche" is moronic beyond words, and tends to indicate someone who hates MMO's in general.
WoW will certainly be around for a while, from the 11 million subs there's 6+ million coming from China, that number I expect will rise even if the subs numbers in Europe, US and other continents will diminish. Next to that, I expect many people to try out Caraclysm as well (I certainly will), so that'll boost sub numbers too, at least for some months.
I think I've figured it out btw: the most fervent WoW gloaters are really people who actually don't like MMO's. I mean, why else would they get giddy and gleeful about other MMO's failing and be happy if upcoming MMO's will fail as well? WoW is probably the only reason they came and be into the field of MMO's, the rest of what's going around regarding MMO's doesn't interest them (except for all the rest to fail so they can gloat even more and feel happy about it).
Luckily that's only a small, although loud, part of the crowd of people playing WoW.
Next to that, there's the group of people who really like MMO gaming in general, and who're looking forward to other upcoming MMO's for the variety and different kind of fun it can bring.
A MMO is not your girlfriend. You're not married to it.
I do not stop at watching just one movie, or one tv-show. I watch many shows, play all kinds of games and have several hobbies and interests. So why would I want to stop at just playing 1 MMO? I like my gaming experience to be as diverse as possible, so that includes multiple MMO's I enjoy from time to time.
So let there be a Cataclysm, and a FFXIV, a TSW, Incarna, GW2, WoD, ToR and so many, many more. I can only applaud having a thriving, dynamic MMO market, because that means more to choose from and having fun with.
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."
nice article but you painted a bad picture of f2p and went straight to swtor and tera as saviours
you shouldve mentioned battle of the immortals even if it was a small plug on the f2p side it is a graphically nice game with alot of stuff to do
unfortunately the closed beta ends today but the open beta starts on may 4th with no character wipes after that point if anyone is interested it is a nice game
He painted a bad picture of F2P because that's all there is to paint of them in the western market. They are exactly as he described them, and they will never be popular in the West. Their business model is directly related to trying to swindle people out of money in order to buy an advantage... its a losing concept and it will never pick up and carry any significant wind in the West.
There is only one game on the horizon that has the potential to challenge WoW (and actually its the only game I've ever actually believed had the potential in the first place)... thats SWTOR.
Bioware/EA is the only combination of coding talent and funding that has a chance of competing with Blizzard/Activision in the MMO market... and even then they still need the popularity of the Starwars IP.
So I take it you havent paid any attention to Trion then? A company that is producing 3 extremely promising high quality mmos that are all bringing something new to the genre. One is an mmo that runs alongside a tv series, another is a fantasy mmo (Rift: Planes of Telara) that introduces dynamic content in which the players actions can change events in the game world for everyone (Guildwars 2 is the only other mmo I have seen which is trying that) and the other is the first mmorts that anyone has ever made. There literally is no game in existence which can compare to End of Nations. It truly will be the first of its kind.
On top of that Trion and Arenanet are actually focusing on what has been missing from mmos for a very long time. They are giving players plenty of reasons to come together in their games (massively multiplayer......does anyone remember what that means?) and also making their actions matter by allowing the players to shape the world they inhabit. Bioware in contrast are focusing on telling a story to each player which is the very thing that has been causing players to ignore each other and take the solo route in mmos. Stories are great and involving things in single player games but they really arent as neccessary or important in an mmo. Having things to do and reasons to interact with other human beings is what the focus of mmos should be.
I'm sure SWTOR will be a good game though as Bioware are great at making storytelling games. However I'm not sure that yet another story based mmo that lends itself to the style of a single player game will really stick with people for a particularly long time. Of course its Starwars so all the fans will rush at it like usual so I'm sure it will do pretty well for that reason alone. Regardless of the quality of SWTOR though Bioware is most definately NOT the only company that will be in a position to challenge Blizzard. There is too much competition coming up over the next year or two for that to be true.
First off... WOW is not just big. It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for. None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"
You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.
First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.
You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".
A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.
It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.
Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.
No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to. Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.
Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I've been playing Wow since 2005. I cleaned everything from MC to the heroic lich king ( not dead yet ). Casualclysm is the last straw for me, once we finish ICC I will quit WoW without any regrets and in my opinion and what I've heard from my guildmates so will many serious 25 man raiders.
I think the end of WoW isn't so far between Casualclysm and their new "next-gen" MMORPG, in 1 or 2 years it'll be done for.
WoW won for many reasons. And like other things, the product is greater than the sum of its parts.
WoW has:
Never before seen levels of polish from the start
Very regular updates
In-depth lore and history
Ease of accessiblility
Plenty of in-game and out-of-game information
Intuitive and unobtrusive gameplay
Thats to name a handful. There are more.
Also, people poke fun at Fireball 1, 2, 3... 47, 48...
But it serves a purpose. To the gamer its boring. To the non-gamer it makes sense. There are lots of little things that make the game easier to understand and play. My wife doesn't play video games but she would play WoW with me because she can understand WoW to the point she can enjoy it. Even though she has zero interest in video games in general.
The "WoW Killers" only seem to take a few items from the list and focus on that but never really pay attention to the market.
To what is high lighted in this post. I always wonder when I read comments like this if people have really bad memories or if they were really not there at the start. I am sorry but WoW was anything but polished at launch. There was tons of bugs that made the game crash, like harvesting any resource. Pick a flower = Crash, Mine a copper = Crash, try to kill boss troll outside of Sen'Jin Village = Crash. Of course this is not counting all of the server and login crashes that happened constantly for the first few months the game was out. I honestly was glad I rolled horde on Silverhand since the alliance land mass kept crashing. This was of course was at launch when there was not millions of people playing yet, in fact when I started there was a pretty low population on most of the servers.
I get really tired of posts like this one. Posters that attempt to remember Wow at the beginning. Yes there were a few bugs, but as usual they get over exaggerated. E.G. resources, some did not work, but the game did not crash. Some of the game for higher level things were not finished yet. But I rarely crashed and the bugs were not that bothersome.
So exaggerate all you want, but those of us who know will point it out.
It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.
I have this theory that WoW is being made easier and easier simply because it's old now and not important enough to the bulk of the player base to warrant endless wiping in murky dungeons. As an example, see the official forums (the European ones, anyway). There's hardly any traffic anymore, and even the recently announced changes for Cataclysm failed to make much of an impact. Some half-hearted protests, and that was it. When the game was hot, new topics would be trucked down to page 3 or 4 before anyone even got a chance to read it.
WoW is a good game, but it's not terribly exciting anymore. If the game was to require the same dedication as it once did, a lot of the subscribers might simply not bother.
That said, the release of a new expack is always a more intensive time, and it should be "worth it" for a month or two.
First off... WOW is not just big. It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for. None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"
You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.
First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.
You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".
A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.
It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.
Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.
No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to. Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.
Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.
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."
WoW won for many reasons. And like other things, the product is greater than the sum of its parts.
WoW has:
Never before seen levels of polish from the start
Very regular updates
In-depth lore and history
Ease of accessiblility
Plenty of in-game and out-of-game information
Intuitive and unobtrusive gameplay
Thats to name a handful. There are more.
Also, people poke fun at Fireball 1, 2, 3... 47, 48...
But it serves a purpose. To the gamer its boring. To the non-gamer it makes sense. There are lots of little things that make the game easier to understand and play. My wife doesn't play video games but she would play WoW with me because she can understand WoW to the point she can enjoy it. Even though she has zero interest in video games in general.
The "WoW Killers" only seem to take a few items from the list and focus on that but never really pay attention to the market.
To what is high lighted in this post. I always wonder when I read comments like this if people have really bad memories or if they were really not there at the start. I am sorry but WoW was anything but polished at launch. There was tons of bugs that made the game crash, like harvesting any resource. Pick a flower = Crash, Mine a copper = Crash, try to kill boss troll outside of Sen'Jin Village = Crash. Of course this is not counting all of the server and login crashes that happened constantly for the first few months the game was out. I honestly was glad I rolled horde on Silverhand since the alliance land mass kept crashing. This was of course was at launch when there was not millions of people playing yet, in fact when I started there was a pretty low population on most of the servers.
I get really tired of posts like this one. Posters that attempt to remember Wow at the beginning. Yes there were a few bugs, but as usual they get over exaggerated. E.G. resources, some did not work, but the game did not crash. Some of the game for higher level things were not finished yet. But I rarely crashed and the bugs were not that bothersome.
So exaggerate all you want, but those of us who know will point it out.
You also have to remember that just because you didn't experience the crashes there are a lot of other people who did. It's not an exaggeration just because it never happened to you. Hell, the crashes hardly happened to me but a few of my friends had a hell of a time with them. The 'stuck-looting' bug was annoying to many players, so much so that there was a 30+ page thread on the forums in the first few days.
Thing is saying it was an exaggeration is like saying people who suffered through a hurricane, losing thier homes and loved ones are exaggerating because all you experienced was a little rain...
There are 3 types of people in the world. 1.) Those who make things happen 2.) Those who watch things happen 3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Originally posted by elocke ... I think instead of looking at WoW as something huge and intimidating, companies should be looking at it as inspiration. Showing that this genre can really blow up with more elephants in the room if focus, time and polish as well as quality designing is allowed to flourish.
Devs have been looking on Wow for inspirations a long time now. Games like LOTRO and WAR was very inspired by Wow, a little bit too much actually. Wow did many things right and that should be inspiring but the basic mechanics of the game (who is mostly taken from EQ) have been done too many times now. Be inspired by the polish and how Blizzard always been good with their fans, do not try to rip the game off.
That's why I chose my wording carefully. I didn't say copy WoW or mimic WoW, I said be inspired by WoW. Basically what you said, copy the polish and fan comminication, the attention to detail that Blizzard applies to their games that makes them "feel" right. But do that with your own game mechanics and world lore, etc.
So I take it you havent paid any attention to Trion then? A company that is producing 3 extremely promising high quality mmos that are all bringing something new to the genre. One is an mmo that runs alongside a tv series, another is a fantasy mmo (Rift: Planes of Telara) that introduces dynamic content in which the players actions can change events in the game world for everyone (Guildwars 2 is the only other mmo I have seen which is trying that) and the other is the first mmorts that anyone has ever made. There literally is no game in existence which can compare to End of Nations. It truly will be the first of its kind.
On top of that Trion and Arenanet are actually focusing on what has been missing from mmos for a very long time. They are giving players plenty of reasons to come together in their games (massively multiplayer......does anyone remember what that means?) and also making their actions matter by allowing the players to shape the world they inhabit. Bioware in contrast are focusing on telling a story to each player which is the very thing that has been causing players to ignore each other and take the solo route in mmos. Stories are great and involving things in single player games but they really arent as neccessary or important in an mmo. Having things to do and reasons to interact with other human beings is what the focus of mmos should be.
I'm sure SWTOR will be a good game though as Bioware are great at making storytelling games. However I'm not sure that yet another story based mmo that lends itself to the style of a single player game will really stick with people for a particularly long time. Of course its Starwars so all the fans will rush at it like usual so I'm sure it will do pretty well for that reason alone. Regardless of the quality of SWTOR though Bioware is most definately NOT the only company that will be in a position to challenge Blizzard. There is too much competition coming up over the next year or two for that to be true.
Yep, I've read all about them... Rift is the only one worth mentioning, and it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of even tickling WoW. It's SWTOR or nothing. Rift will be amazingly lucky to break Aion numbers.
I'm not saying they will be good or bad games. I don't have an opinion either way since the company hasn't actually released anything. Rift looks good on paper, but then so do a lot of games... and the reality is far less impressive. But your as goofy as the WAR and AOC fanboys if you think that company is going to achieve anything outside of mediocre numbers with any of their titles.
Sorry, but the truth is that if SWTOR fails to truly challenge WoW... the next game that is likely to actually challenge WoW will be another Blizzard MMO.
WOW is like everything else that becomes popular and mainstream. There will always be those that will dislike the most popular whatever it is just because it is popular.
Not sure I follow you. The grudge people have against things going mainstream, is that the thing itself often completely changes character. When loads of new people come in, they start redefining what the genre is about, and all of a sudden you're seen as an old-fashioned oddball because you were there first and continue to like what you always liked before the transformation to mainstream happened.
I liked heavy metal in the early 80s. The reason I didn't care for Bon Jovi and the likes wasn't because it was popular, but because it had nothing at all to do with what heavy metal was to me. Iron Maiden became a mainstream act, but they managed to stay true to their roots, so I still like them. In the same vein, I don't care for what WoW is doing to the RPG genre, as these changes do absolutely nothing for me.
First off... WOW is not just big. It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for. None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"
You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.
First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.
You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".
A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.
It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.
Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.
No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to. Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.
Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.
I bought EQ and played it the month before WOW came out. It just wasnt' good enough game. It was that simple. I did not like Warcraft games but I played MMOs before that... I dont know where you get the idea into your head that WOW was only played by Warcraft fans.
About your "easy mode". MMOs are games.. they are NOT work... and neither are they your only life. Many of the old MMO fans consider MMORPGs to be their only life - forgetting that they should be about fun first and foremost. Thats probalby the thing that irritates ppl the most... WOW IS actually fun while many other MMOs are grindy and repetitive. Lets look at WAR and AOC again.. they offer pretty much the exact same questing mecanics as WOW did 3 years ago. WOW moved on and created a new lvl with flying mounts - they are still expanding on it.. at the same time AOC and WAR are still on the gound doing the same crap over and over... Still fixing what was badly broken at launch.
First off... WOW is not just big. It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for. None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"
You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.
First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.
You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".
A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.
It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.
Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.
No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to. Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.
Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.
I bought EQ and played it the month before WOW came out. It just wasnt' good enough game. It was that simple. I did not like Warcraft games but I played MMOs before that... I dont know where you get the idea into your head that WOW was only played by Warcraft fans.
About your "easy mode". MMOs are games.. they are NOT work... and neither are they your only life. Many of the old MMO fans consider MMORPGs to be their only life - forgetting that they should be about fun first and foremost. Thats probalby the thing that irritates ppl the most... WOW IS actually fun while many other MMOs are grindy and repetitive. Lets look at WAR and AOC again.. they offer pretty much the exact same questing mecanics as WOW did 3 years ago. WOW moved on and created a new lvl with flying mounts - they are still expanding on it.. at the same time AOC and WAR are still on the gound doing the same crap over and over... Still fixing what was badly broken at launch.
Fun is subjective. I don't find trivial unchallenging gameplay fun. I find it boring. I find WoW's easy dungeon zergs with no CC, no chance of death boring. I play games to enjoy over coming a challenge. At this point in WoW's life there is no challenge left.
If I wanted to instant win, I wouldn't even play a game. I would rather lay back and watch a movie.
First off... WOW is not just big. It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for. None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"
You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.
First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.
You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".
A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.
It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.
Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.
No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to. Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.
Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.
I bought EQ and played it the month before WOW came out. It just wasnt' good enough game. It was that simple. I did not like Warcraft games but I played MMOs before that... I dont know where you get the idea into your head that WOW was only played by Warcraft fans.
About your "easy mode". MMOs are games.. they are NOT work... and neither are they your only life. Many of the old MMO fans consider MMORPGs to be their only life - forgetting that they should be about fun first and foremost. Thats probalby the thing that irritates ppl the most... WOW IS actually fun while many other MMOs are grindy and repetitive. Lets look at WAR and AOC again.. they offer pretty much the exact same questing mecanics as WOW did 3 years ago. WOW moved on and created a new lvl with flying mounts - they are still expanding on it.. at the same time AOC and WAR are still on the gound doing the same crap over and over... Still fixing what was badly broken at launch.
Fun is subjective. I don't find trivial unchallenging gameplay fun. I find it boring. I find WoW's easy dungeon zergs with no CC, no chance of death boring. I play games to enjoy over coming a challenge. At this point in WoW's life there is no challenge left.
If I wanted to instant win, I wouldn't even play a game. I would rather lay back and watch a movie.
Again - your kind of fun is the old days MMOs - Those that had 100k ppl playing. Plenty of those around now too... noone forcing you to play WOW. I just dont understand why you got the urge to tell the masses that their game is the problem - When its not.
But I agree with you that the dungeon runs in WOTLK are to easy. Hopefully we will see some real heroic versions in Cata. But...RPGs are ALOT about character progression... Thats the part that Bioware have been lacking in their RPGs in some ways. It might be a problem in SW too.
I bought EQ and played it the month before WOW came out. It just wasnt' good enough game. It was that simple. I did not like Warcraft games but I played MMOs before that... I dont know where you get the idea into your head that WOW was only played by Warcraft fans.
About your "easy mode". MMOs are games.. they are NOT work... and neither are they your only life. Many of the old MMO fans consider MMORPGs to be their only life - forgetting that they should be about fun first and foremost. Thats probalby the thing that irritates ppl the most... WOW IS actually fun while many other MMOs are grindy and repetitive. Lets look at WAR and AOC again.. they offer pretty much the exact same questing mecanics as WOW did 3 years ago. WOW moved on and created a new lvl with flying mounts - they are still expanding on it.. at the same time AOC and WAR are still on the gound doing the same crap over and over... Still fixing what was badly broken at launch.
Fun is subjective. I don't find trivial unchallenging gameplay fun. I find it boring. I find WoW's easy dungeon zergs with no CC, no chance of death boring. I play games to enjoy over coming a challenge. At this point in WoW's life there is no challenge left.
If I wanted to instant win, I wouldn't even play a game. I would rather lay back and watch a movie.
Again - your kind of fun is the old days MMOs - Those that had 100k ppl playing. Plenty of those around now too... noone forcing you to play WOW. I just dont understand why you got the urge to tell the masses that their game is the problem - When its not.
But I agree with you that the dungeon runs in WOTLK are to easy. Hopefully we will see some real heroic versions in Cata. But...RPGs are ALOT about character progression... Thats the part that Bioware have been lacking in their RPGs in some ways. It might be a problem in SW too.
It's all true. People play MMO's to have fun, and fun is subjective.
Some people like the smooth, easy-ride for fun. Some people like challenging gameplay and the game they're playing to offer challenges they need to overcome. That's why single player games have several difficulty settings, because some gamers like to play on the harder modes, modes that other gamers would find too frustrating and detriment to their fun.
Some people have gotten so used to the typical flavor and gameplay of the MMO they're playing that they don't like any other MMO that hasn't that style of gameplay. Others don't like playing the same MMO for years doing the same things over and over, because they don't think that's fun. Some people get most of their fun from the community they're in, regardless what MMO they're playing in at the moment.
See? Everyone needs something else to have their fun in gaming. It's no problem if you can only find the fun in the MMO you're currently playing, or if you dislike other MMO's. That's why it's lucky that there are so many MMO's available and coming, so we can all seek our own fun in games. Thank god that we're not all the same with exactly the same taste.
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."
WOW is a social game. This is a key to its success. There are alot of old school MMO gamers out here that hate WOW - cause they are not looking for socializing with other ppl to the same degree that WOW is offering.
The highlighted part is a bit off. As a social game WoW has probably the least amount of socializing going on. No one hardly talks in groups (pulling, AFK, OOM, LOL, BRB =/= socializing). You even try to start a conversation in pugs and you are met with the sound of crickets for the entire 15 minutes it takes to clear the instance. The only real time you get any socializing in a group is when an item drops and people start arguing over who gets it...
Agree with your highlighted part - I don't even know what is meant here by wow is so social people don't like it. I think wow used to be social like 5 years ago - but now everyone is so nasty and mean. And the worst part is that blizzard does absolutely nothing to police players. 3 hour bans are laughable! And that's if they even do anything at all. Also, I haven't gotten a GM in game since BC first came out. Now the only response you get is a pre-written copied and pasted script. With all that money - you think they could at least keep it enjoyable for the people lining their pockets by keeping all of the rotten ones under control.
But what is socializing? To some people it is to blabber in global chat about the soccer match in their own language. This is annoying enough perhaps for Americans, but in Europe with dozens of languages, it quickly becomes the hallmark of anti-social behavior.
Here is a hint, if I was intrested in the score of a match, I would be watching, not playing.
If you want to see real non-socializing, get into an asian F2P mmo. EVERYbody is solo all the time. For some, the "social" in WoW is the working together part. Not blabbing like a teenage girl.
And to some, just working together mostly silent is all ready for to social. They just want to kill stuff, fast with a minimum of fuzz and everyone else should piss off.
And frankly, you could wonder why any of them play a MMO. The chatters should just go to IRC, the middle group is better suited to Multi-Player games and the latter needs to be locked up.
Yet somehow, a MMO has to cater to all of them, or face the fury that is nerd rage.
The forum is rife with it. "SW:TOR better be free to play" Or what? You not going to play? Like Bioware cares about your penniless arse.
"It must have PK" because every other game with PK has been such a stellar success? Yes, every new MMO company wishes for their game to fade into obscurity faster then a porn star.
"I won't play until their is a demo out" well, demo's cost resources and most game companies struggle at launch to cater to all paying customers at once. Non-paying can wait a bit.
MMO's are hard to do. You need to create a game that lasts for months, caters for all kinds of people and be good enough to be payed for so you can continue development. Blizzard got it right and everyone else didn't.
It is kinda the same way Microsoft won with DOS, it was hardly the most advanced OS out there, but everyone else from IBM to Apple and Amiga screwed up so badly that MS was the winner by default. It is as if you had horse race and the all the other races knocked on the butchers door asking for his special on horse steak.
WoW is not the elephant because it is so big, but because everyone is so small. Think about it, there are 7 billion people on this planet, and 10 million of them play WoW. That is NOT a lot. WoW is a mouse in the room that is the world, but its competition are fleas.
Comments
Elephants are one of, if not the second longest living mammal on land thats the comparison I make. Why is everyone trying to always poach the elephant? They always want its golden ivory. Dont they realise if they kill the elephant for that reason the habitat around it will perish too. Would someone please think of the dung beatles and the birds that eat the ticks in its skin?!
On a serious note I have tried and pre-ordered many games but all have failed me in keeping a persistent online world alive with many features lacking. I am not talking about tricks here I am talking about things that are essential like a good deep crafting system thats missing from e.g Warhammer Online.
So many games I have payed for, so much money I have wasted (aion collectors anyone), my family are gamers I still get teased about that purchase. I would have saved it all if I just stuck to wow which has polished and complete features you might call the new mount a trick but polished complete features are what players want its just a shame the rest of the games quite simply sink.
Unless after 6 months a new release still is getting great reviews and people power approval posts I will not touch it not even starwars, I trust EA less. You may insult my elephant but its still my elephant and I will help it get back to africa its not its fault a journalist put it in a room full of people and made it stand on a ball.
Nicely written article for a provoking one, did its job.
Interesting article. I had 3 level 60's and was close in several others when I quit. None of the expansions convinced me to go back. The incessant raiding while at first fun became a job and I lost interest. I don't intend to go back at this point. I do miss the friends I made, but the game was taking too much of my time.
I think the time of Wow's dominance is nearing the end. There are some up coming titles that might give it a run for it's money. I think the MMO development community has finally realized that the Wow design is not as great as it used to seem and is digressing from it finally.
We will just have to wait to see what the future brings, but Bioware is going be a big player in this market, they are that good. Some of the f2p games are getting very good also, if they can refrain from scalping the players piggy banks. 38 studios has some possibilities also.
I don't think this elephant will die, at least not for the foreseeable future. It's undoing will (eventually) be same old, same old quests/graphics/sound while newer games will come out with the latest and greatest, at least sound and graphics. While the pillars supporting the elephant won't topple immediately, I expect titles like the upcoming Final Fantasy and Star Wars releases will take a number of sizable chips out of the stone that comprises them.
IMO WoW will be plugging away 5-6 years from now with a sizable fan base still supporting it. The 'aging' process will begin when we see larger numbers of servers merging, a sign of scant populations and an attempt to downsize on overhead. That is often a signal for the rats (mice?) to flee the sinking ship ( or swaying elephant?)...
To what is high lighted in this post. I always wonder when I read comments like this if people have really bad memories or if they were really not there at the start. I am sorry but WoW was anything but polished at launch. There was tons of bugs that made the game crash, like harvesting any resource. Pick a flower = Crash, Mine a copper = Crash, try to kill boss troll outside of Sen'Jin Village = Crash. Of course this is not counting all of the server and login crashes that happened constantly for the first few months the game was out. I honestly was glad I rolled horde on Silverhand since the alliance land mass kept crashing. This was of course was at launch when there was not millions of people playing yet, in fact when I started there was a pretty low population on most of the servers.
Well I think your describing server instability due to the huge amount of players - the servers just could not cope at the start. In Europe Blizzard stopped suppying copies of the game for 2 months while they got a new server farm online.
He painted a bad picture of F2P because that's all there is to paint of them in the western market. They are exactly as he described them, and they will never be popular in the West. Their business model is directly related to trying to swindle people out of money in order to buy an advantage... its a losing concept and it will never pick up and carry any significant wind in the West.
There is only one game on the horizon that has the potential to challenge WoW (and actually its the only game I've ever actually believed had the potential in the first place)... thats SWTOR.
Bioware/EA is the only combination of coding talent and funding that has a chance of competing with Blizzard/Activision in the MMO market... and even then they still need the popularity of the Starwars IP.
Intresting you mention just one of those... and then go back to talking about the start of the game 5 years ago.....
How long have games like AOC and WAR been out for example ? 2years ? Last time I looked both these games had some very huge issues to cope with STILL at this point in time. PPL are still complaining about unstable servers in AOC .. Not to mention sieges issues in over 50% of city battles. And WAR is just crap when it comes to polish. If you dont belive me try rolling white lion and see him run in the air besides you when you fly. Or choosen shield on the feets.... I mean ... that is the standards of these games. And they are P2P games.
New class feature and intresting things that new games might add does not matter one bit... You have to have the whole package and NONE of the games today have got even HALF the package that BLizzard is offering overall. Thats why we talk about "niche" games. Niche in this case stands for low level of polish that some gamers find ok - but majority does nOT.
Evrybody keeps wanting to kill wow.
How about this, make something new and great that is nothing like wow. Instead of trying to be the wow imatation.
I am ready for SWTOR, and other great things.
First @memoir44: history is there to learn from, and then to look on towards the future. And the future has lots of other fun MMO's in store. If you really like games you should find that exciting too. If not, you can always stick to WoW and be happy with WoW ofc, nothing wrong with that.
Daedalon, your info is dated, AoC servers and gaming is stable and smooth these days, and frankly as the game should've been at launch. Sieges are laggy, and there's the occasional crash, but frankly I have to encounter any massive battles (60-70+) in any MMO yet where there's zero lag.
About polish in WoW: Blizzard is famous for the polish they strive for their games, and sure, the amount of polish compared to other MMO launches and theme park experience that was there from start made it a fun smooth gaming experience. That didn't mean other MMO's didn't have polish or addictive gameplay, far from. I had bucket loads of fun in EQ, and Guild Wars was smooth fun ride from the start.
Describing the WHOLE field of MMO's besides WoW as "niche" is moronic beyond words, and tends to indicate someone who hates MMO's in general.
WoW will certainly be around for a while, from the 11 million subs there's 6+ million coming from China, that number I expect will rise even if the subs numbers in Europe, US and other continents will diminish. Next to that, I expect many people to try out Caraclysm as well (I certainly will), so that'll boost sub numbers too, at least for some months.
I think I've figured it out btw: the most fervent WoW gloaters are really people who actually don't like MMO's. I mean, why else would they get giddy and gleeful about other MMO's failing and be happy if upcoming MMO's will fail as well? WoW is probably the only reason they came and be into the field of MMO's, the rest of what's going around regarding MMO's doesn't interest them (except for all the rest to fail so they can gloat even more and feel happy about it).
Luckily that's only a small, although loud, part of the crowd of people playing WoW.
Next to that, there's the group of people who really like MMO gaming in general, and who're looking forward to other upcoming MMO's for the variety and different kind of fun it can bring.
A MMO is not your girlfriend. You're not married to it.
I do not stop at watching just one movie, or one tv-show. I watch many shows, play all kinds of games and have several hobbies and interests. So why would I want to stop at just playing 1 MMO? I like my gaming experience to be as diverse as possible, so that includes multiple MMO's I enjoy from time to time.
So let there be a Cataclysm, and a FFXIV, a TSW, Incarna, GW2, WoD, ToR and so many, many more. I can only applaud having a thriving, dynamic MMO market, because that means more to choose from and having fun with.
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."
So I take it you havent paid any attention to Trion then? A company that is producing 3 extremely promising high quality mmos that are all bringing something new to the genre. One is an mmo that runs alongside a tv series, another is a fantasy mmo (Rift: Planes of Telara) that introduces dynamic content in which the players actions can change events in the game world for everyone (Guildwars 2 is the only other mmo I have seen which is trying that) and the other is the first mmorts that anyone has ever made. There literally is no game in existence which can compare to End of Nations. It truly will be the first of its kind.
On top of that Trion and Arenanet are actually focusing on what has been missing from mmos for a very long time. They are giving players plenty of reasons to come together in their games (massively multiplayer......does anyone remember what that means?) and also making their actions matter by allowing the players to shape the world they inhabit. Bioware in contrast are focusing on telling a story to each player which is the very thing that has been causing players to ignore each other and take the solo route in mmos. Stories are great and involving things in single player games but they really arent as neccessary or important in an mmo. Having things to do and reasons to interact with other human beings is what the focus of mmos should be.
I'm sure SWTOR will be a good game though as Bioware are great at making storytelling games. However I'm not sure that yet another story based mmo that lends itself to the style of a single player game will really stick with people for a particularly long time. Of course its Starwars so all the fans will rush at it like usual so I'm sure it will do pretty well for that reason alone. Regardless of the quality of SWTOR though Bioware is most definately NOT the only company that will be in a position to challenge Blizzard. There is too much competition coming up over the next year or two for that to be true.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I've been playing Wow since 2005. I cleaned everything from MC to the heroic lich king ( not dead yet ). Casualclysm is the last straw for me, once we finish ICC I will quit WoW without any regrets and in my opinion and what I've heard from my guildmates so will many serious 25 man raiders.
I think the end of WoW isn't so far between Casualclysm and their new "next-gen" MMORPG, in 1 or 2 years it'll be done for.
I get really tired of posts like this one. Posters that attempt to remember Wow at the beginning. Yes there were a few bugs, but as usual they get over exaggerated. E.G. resources, some did not work, but the game did not crash. Some of the game for higher level things were not finished yet. But I rarely crashed and the bugs were not that bothersome.
So exaggerate all you want, but those of us who know will point it out.
I have this theory that WoW is being made easier and easier simply because it's old now and not important enough to the bulk of the player base to warrant endless wiping in murky dungeons. As an example, see the official forums (the European ones, anyway). There's hardly any traffic anymore, and even the recently announced changes for Cataclysm failed to make much of an impact. Some half-hearted protests, and that was it. When the game was hot, new topics would be trucked down to page 3 or 4 before anyone even got a chance to read it.
WoW is a good game, but it's not terribly exciting anymore. If the game was to require the same dedication as it once did, a lot of the subscribers might simply not bother.
That said, the release of a new expack is always a more intensive time, and it should be "worth it" for a month or two.
+1.
Nice post :-)
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."
You also have to remember that just because you didn't experience the crashes there are a lot of other people who did. It's not an exaggeration just because it never happened to you. Hell, the crashes hardly happened to me but a few of my friends had a hell of a time with them. The 'stuck-looting' bug was annoying to many players, so much so that there was a 30+ page thread on the forums in the first few days.
Thing is saying it was an exaggeration is like saying people who suffered through a hurricane, losing thier homes and loved ones are exaggerating because all you experienced was a little rain...
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Wow did many things right and that should be inspiring but the basic mechanics of the game (who is mostly taken from EQ) have been done too many times now.
Be inspired by the polish and how Blizzard always been good with their fans, do not try to rip the game off.
That's why I chose my wording carefully. I didn't say copy WoW or mimic WoW, I said be inspired by WoW. Basically what you said, copy the polish and fan comminication, the attention to detail that Blizzard applies to their games that makes them "feel" right. But do that with your own game mechanics and world lore, etc.
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Yep, I've read all about them... Rift is the only one worth mentioning, and it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of even tickling WoW. It's SWTOR or nothing. Rift will be amazingly lucky to break Aion numbers.
I'm not saying they will be good or bad games. I don't have an opinion either way since the company hasn't actually released anything. Rift looks good on paper, but then so do a lot of games... and the reality is far less impressive. But your as goofy as the WAR and AOC fanboys if you think that company is going to achieve anything outside of mediocre numbers with any of their titles.
Sorry, but the truth is that if SWTOR fails to truly challenge WoW... the next game that is likely to actually challenge WoW will be another Blizzard MMO.
Not sure I follow you. The grudge people have against things going mainstream, is that the thing itself often completely changes character. When loads of new people come in, they start redefining what the genre is about, and all of a sudden you're seen as an old-fashioned oddball because you were there first and continue to like what you always liked before the transformation to mainstream happened.
I liked heavy metal in the early 80s. The reason I didn't care for Bon Jovi and the likes wasn't because it was popular, but because it had nothing at all to do with what heavy metal was to me. Iron Maiden became a mainstream act, but they managed to stay true to their roots, so I still like them. In the same vein, I don't care for what WoW is doing to the RPG genre, as these changes do absolutely nothing for me.
I bought EQ and played it the month before WOW came out. It just wasnt' good enough game. It was that simple. I did not like Warcraft games but I played MMOs before that... I dont know where you get the idea into your head that WOW was only played by Warcraft fans.
About your "easy mode". MMOs are games.. they are NOT work... and neither are they your only life. Many of the old MMO fans consider MMORPGs to be their only life - forgetting that they should be about fun first and foremost. Thats probalby the thing that irritates ppl the most... WOW IS actually fun while many other MMOs are grindy and repetitive. Lets look at WAR and AOC again.. they offer pretty much the exact same questing mecanics as WOW did 3 years ago. WOW moved on and created a new lvl with flying mounts - they are still expanding on it.. at the same time AOC and WAR are still on the gound doing the same crap over and over... Still fixing what was badly broken at launch.
Fun is subjective. I don't find trivial unchallenging gameplay fun. I find it boring. I find WoW's easy dungeon zergs with no CC, no chance of death boring. I play games to enjoy over coming a challenge. At this point in WoW's life there is no challenge left.
If I wanted to instant win, I wouldn't even play a game. I would rather lay back and watch a movie.
Again - your kind of fun is the old days MMOs - Those that had 100k ppl playing. Plenty of those around now too... noone forcing you to play WOW. I just dont understand why you got the urge to tell the masses that their game is the problem - When its not.
But I agree with you that the dungeon runs in WOTLK are to easy. Hopefully we will see some real heroic versions in Cata. But...RPGs are ALOT about character progression... Thats the part that Bioware have been lacking in their RPGs in some ways. It might be a problem in SW too.
It's all true. People play MMO's to have fun, and fun is subjective.
Some people like the smooth, easy-ride for fun. Some people like challenging gameplay and the game they're playing to offer challenges they need to overcome. That's why single player games have several difficulty settings, because some gamers like to play on the harder modes, modes that other gamers would find too frustrating and detriment to their fun.
Some people have gotten so used to the typical flavor and gameplay of the MMO they're playing that they don't like any other MMO that hasn't that style of gameplay. Others don't like playing the same MMO for years doing the same things over and over, because they don't think that's fun. Some people get most of their fun from the community they're in, regardless what MMO they're playing in at the moment.
See? Everyone needs something else to have their fun in gaming. It's no problem if you can only find the fun in the MMO you're currently playing, or if you dislike other MMO's. That's why it's lucky that there are so many MMO's available and coming, so we can all seek our own fun in games. Thank god that we're not all the same with exactly the same taste.
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."
But what is socializing? To some people it is to blabber in global chat about the soccer match in their own language. This is annoying enough perhaps for Americans, but in Europe with dozens of languages, it quickly becomes the hallmark of anti-social behavior.
Here is a hint, if I was intrested in the score of a match, I would be watching, not playing.
If you want to see real non-socializing, get into an asian F2P mmo. EVERYbody is solo all the time. For some, the "social" in WoW is the working together part. Not blabbing like a teenage girl.
And to some, just working together mostly silent is all ready for to social. They just want to kill stuff, fast with a minimum of fuzz and everyone else should piss off.
And frankly, you could wonder why any of them play a MMO. The chatters should just go to IRC, the middle group is better suited to Multi-Player games and the latter needs to be locked up.
Yet somehow, a MMO has to cater to all of them, or face the fury that is nerd rage.
The forum is rife with it. "SW:TOR better be free to play" Or what? You not going to play? Like Bioware cares about your penniless arse.
"It must have PK" because every other game with PK has been such a stellar success? Yes, every new MMO company wishes for their game to fade into obscurity faster then a porn star.
"I won't play until their is a demo out" well, demo's cost resources and most game companies struggle at launch to cater to all paying customers at once. Non-paying can wait a bit.
MMO's are hard to do. You need to create a game that lasts for months, caters for all kinds of people and be good enough to be payed for so you can continue development. Blizzard got it right and everyone else didn't.
It is kinda the same way Microsoft won with DOS, it was hardly the most advanced OS out there, but everyone else from IBM to Apple and Amiga screwed up so badly that MS was the winner by default. It is as if you had horse race and the all the other races knocked on the butchers door asking for his special on horse steak.
WoW is not the elephant because it is so big, but because everyone is so small. Think about it, there are 7 billion people on this planet, and 10 million of them play WoW. That is NOT a lot. WoW is a mouse in the room that is the world, but its competition are fleas.