I tried WoW when it was released and then again later, when it was huge, to see what all the fuss was about. Never understood the appeal though.
But then again I am an old school MMO player with favourites like Asheron's Call 1 and Ultima Online. WoW just felt way on-the-rails and easy/casual to keep me interested.
World of Warcraft if it had been launched earlier would've likely ended up like Everquest, good profit but mediocre overall, circumstances and pure dumb luck on the part of the publisher meant it became the game of the first global generation of PC gamers to have near unrestricted access to the internet. That is all. Innovation-wise the true success story of that generation which is a game which is still growing and still very much alive is EVE-Online, if the devs play their cards right that game will outlive any other game out there (they could easily squeeze another decade of life from it but if they start expanding wormhole space and 0.0 again all bets are truly off as to how long it could last).
Would have to pretty much disagree with most of that last paragraph, i don't think you can attribute 'dumb luck' to what Blizzard have done with WoW or any of their other successes, but if you go down that road you could also say that EvE was damned lucky that EA killed Earth & Beyond which left those players starved for a space bound MMO.
Played Eve for quiet a while, had two accounts in there for several months and enjoyed the gate wars with other corps in 0.0, planning mining ops with my corp friends and building my ravens to pilot them into battle, but when people talk of games with a long grind that is always the one that comes to mind for me. I have never known any other game that was such a time sink as that one. I returned to it recently and even after all of the updates, it is still essentially the same game that i used to enjoy, but again still the same three reasons i would never return full time;
1 - Training is just designed to keep you there as long as possible
2 - Only 1 meaningful character per account
3 - Time sink, if you can't dedicate sevarl hours per session there is little point playing
I can take your point of them being able to keep the game running for many years to come as they have built a sustainable model, but i don't think that it will ever become a mainstream game for the reasons above, the niche subject of the game and the few large corporations that now in all reality run it.
Fixed class system, ~12 solar systems to play in, fixed ways to gain experience for each class... yeah I am sure if that was still around EVE woulda had issues...
1 - training only requires an active account and if you really can't wait you can legally buy characters for in-game isk;
2 - again, you can train one and buy 2 more.
3 - grinding in EVE is asset based not skill based, it is a far more cerebral game than other games including E&B.
I can't really say there's another game like EVE around, maybe Repopulation or Perpetuum will be/are similar but neither of them have space game elements to the depths of EVE so in truth only one company really rules the roost in that niche and that's CCP but don't worry Dust 514 is out and World of Darkness (which by what I've heard is gonna be... Vampire: The Masquerade Online with sandbox elements in the Carbon engine) is on the horizon ^^ so CCP games will stop being so niche fairly shortly, Hell EVE's niche has started expanding because the noob experience has been... curved in terms of masochism required to survive it.
I played World of Warcraft for 6.5 years, starting in May 2005 after quitting Star Wars Galaxies when the infamous Combat Upgrade / Wookies expansion was unleashed.
I played until about a year after the launch of Cataclysm (an expansion I hated, it basically was the last nail in the coffin of my stay with WoW). I grew increasingly disillusioned with the things the devs were doing, particularly the actions of Ghostcrawler and his attitude.
After quitting World of Warcraft, I've read articles about the game, witnessed the launch of the panda expansion from a distance, but had absolutely NO desire to return the the game. WoW just no longer feels like the game I loved during the vanilla / Burning Crusade / Wrath of the Lich King days.
Are you playing WoW, did you come back for MOP, are you having fun?
I just noticed this on the front page and laughed, so I thought that I would pop in here and comment:
I played WoW for about 6 months after it came out, leveled 2 characters to 60 (the max at the time), and quit.
BO-RING!
Seriously, how many, "collect 15 Dragon toe-nail clippings" quests can you stand? Interestingly enough, that has become my initial test of whether a new MMO is worth playing: Are the quests just excuses to go kill stuff to loot random nonsense that you would never use in a million years otherwise?
I then proceeded to play Dungeons & Dragons Online for almost 6 years, until they "upgraded" it to be just another WoW clone last fall.
Currently looking for a game that doesn't want to be WoW when it grows up.
I've quit WoW multiple times. I'm on my 6th WoW account. I get burnt out on it, but all the new mmos scratch my itch for only a handful of months. Then out of boredom I start playing again, remember how much fun I had; play the game like crazy and then reburn myself out.
I'm hoping AA, TESO, and Neverwinter will be strong enough games to hold my interest. I think WoW is still a lot of fun but is really begining to show its age and I want a replacement with some lasting appeal.
I just had a friend who said they were over WoW, after playing it since vanilla. Gave up all of his accounts last summer. Two hours after telling me how he is over sub based games and never going back to WoW, he FB me to tell me Blizzard gave him the battle chest for free. In which he reinstalled and has been playing the shit out the game eversense, and is planning on grinding to 90 by the start of the next pvp season in 3 weeks.
I wanted to share a show I did about coming back to WoW and what the game is really about. I have been enjoying it and hope you ejoy hearing my thoughts on why "no one ever really quits WoW."
Are you playing WoW, did you come back for MOP, are you having fun?
Cheers 0/
Meh, I quit WoW and went back due to roommate peer pressure. That last for about one day, and I knew it would happen. I just wanted to shut them up. It's just a meaningless PvP deathmatch with some PvE. The key is accepting that it's not what you want and feeling okay about admitting it and the scrutiny you will recieve for saying so.
WoW in my estimation has made it easier than any other game to start with a lvl 1 toon and end up with a raid worthy toon in a pretty quick timeframe.
Seems like it is a philosophy they had on day 1 and they hold to it today.
Sooooo much is getting crammed into that progression now as compared to vanilla it has made the game feel vastly different, even if the end result is the same.
The shear amount of content you roll through in 1 - 90.....just for example, think about Gnomergon.
In the old days, you prepared, did the pre-quests, got ready, and worked out a schedule to get into a dungeon, and you remembered it forever.
But today, it's hard to even remember if you went there at all.....did I even hit Gnomergon on the rfd? <checks achievements>
The pro's are obvious. WoW has remained as accessible as it ever was; arguably more accessible in many ways. Whether it is a factor or not, their focus has kept them as the juggernaut, even as they begin to slip.
The con's are what we argue about...
accessibility is great, but can be overdone
some feel the sacrifice for the old 'feel' for the accessibility is too high
I imagine if WoW wants to remain the juggernaut that it is, it needs to dial back the accesssibility and find the balance for what makes us feel ownership in a 'world'.
Otherwise, we are all doomed to quit and return over and over, trying to see if they've yet restored the balance.
Otherwise, we are all doomed to quit and return over and over, trying to see if they've yet restored the balance.
Blizzard, in the meantime, will happily replace your fifteen bucks with the fifteen bucks from this week's newb (and have a happier in-game environment without the grumbling).
The human race breeds fast enough to keep refreshing the newbs endlessly.
The old guys who grumbled and quit just keep getting older, to the glee of their proctologists.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I too have played wow from Beta back in the day and I left dring Wrath as i saw it as an incomplete expansion. All the bugs and exploits in Wrath drove me nut and it wasnt fun at all.
Then a friend got ahold of me and told me i had to come back because of the sundering... Why not? it sounded interesting. So i paid another sub and started playing again, but i didnt start with my old characters. I created characters on a new realm (Bonechewer) and Started from Level one. Then it hit me. I was level 80 in under a week and was thinking... this is too easy.
Then Mists came out and I continued, but as with both Wrath and Cataclysm i saw MoP as another rushed incomplete expansion. Not only that but the sheer number of dailies over content disappointed me.
I am an anti farmer.. I grinded through Blacksmithing and enchanting and all the others and realized i didnt want to do it any more. And then dailies came into existance.. sure back in BC they were something additional to do in the zones. But they werent all over and were added in a patch. They werent considered main stream content. With Wrath that changed Dailies were given more focus as end game content and it has gotten worse with MoP.
Now as I nderstand the Devs made the tabards available for dungeon running as opposed to doing the dailies for the rep. good move on that but it was too late. I quit WoW. The game has been dumbed down and yes there ar emany who claim its just made it easier, or "Change is inevitable" all i can say is good for you you like it. I dont.
I have moved on into other games, and many of my friends also did the same. We look back on WoW fondly but with new games coming on the horizon and others still in beta that offer new content and eye candy its just time to move on.
Of all the changes from the expansions in WoW there is only one that realy comes to mind that i actually welcomed. The shattering of the world and the new content in the lower zones. The devs took thier time and put alot of effort into it and when I came back it was like a brand new game.. still on cartoony graphics but what the hell it was fun.
People do quit wow, many millions have. and as far as i know the last announcement had it at 400k accounts lost and that was a few weeks ago. So yes people quit it happens with every game, but with WoW being the biggest of them all its the most noticable. As someone said earlier if they didnt quit WoW would have over 20 million Subscribers.
*Waves* Hi I quit wow near the end of BC and rejoined during Wotlk and quit mid way through, played for about 2 weeks and quit again.
...and I have yet to buy the game since. I did play briefly for a month in cataclysm but it was my friend using my account and wanting me to play. Otherwise I've had no desire to return and the fact the talent tree is now removed my desire to play WoW again is an astonishing 0.0001%. See, slightly there but considering how since wotlk its been going down hill. they effectively killed any urge to play, specially with competition that is amazing.
I played it a bit and quit just after the dragon expansion (Cataclysm I believe? - the one where they re-did everything). I think that if WoW was your first mmo, you probably will come back, or never quit as you like to put it. In my case, I had played others and never found WoW to be particularly compelling. When I did play it, it was only to join my rl friends. Really, it could have been any game. Once I left, whatever interest I had evaporated completely. On the other hand, for one of my rl friends, WoW was his first love and I'm pretty sure he returns to it every once in a while.
I wanted to share a show I did about coming back to WoW and what the game is really about. I have been enjoying it and hope you ejoy hearing my thoughts on why "no one ever really quits WoW."
Are you playing WoW, did you come back for MOP, are you having fun?
Cheers 0/
Quit 1 month after hitting 85 in Cata because of the dumbind down of the game and the refusal to acknowledge the faulty development and improper use of time. That was over 2 years ago and I havn't looked back. I used to follow path updates but I do not even do that any more. The game is a huge borefest and a failure on so many levels in my eyes.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Haven't played wow for more than a year and before that since WotLK came out i mainly logged on only once every 30th day, really MOBA is the new mmorpg, and action rpg.
This game is a joke, I quit after level 35 I was angry at getting killed by Orks when I finally got off Darnasus, I knew I needed to level up some more doing some easier quests but I thought to my self "What is the point of this game"?
Went on 2 Private servers and quit within 4 months on both. I just get bored of it. What I like about WoW is the Lore and the amazing looking world but the gameplay is horrible and graphics cartoon like. Have I quit for good? Yes, the theory is wrong. I have thought about returning but there are other games I rather play like Skyrim mods.
Comments
I tried WoW when it was released and then again later, when it was huge, to see what all the fuss was about. Never understood the appeal though.
But then again I am an old school MMO player with favourites like Asheron's Call 1 and Ultima Online. WoW just felt way on-the-rails and easy/casual to keep me interested.
My gaming blog
------------
2024: 47 years on the Net.
Fixed class system, ~12 solar systems to play in, fixed ways to gain experience for each class... yeah I am sure if that was still around EVE woulda had issues...
1 - training only requires an active account and if you really can't wait you can legally buy characters for in-game isk;
2 - again, you can train one and buy 2 more.
3 - grinding in EVE is asset based not skill based, it is a far more cerebral game than other games including E&B.
I can't really say there's another game like EVE around, maybe Repopulation or Perpetuum will be/are similar but neither of them have space game elements to the depths of EVE so in truth only one company really rules the roost in that niche and that's CCP but don't worry Dust 514 is out and World of Darkness (which by what I've heard is gonna be... Vampire: The Masquerade Online with sandbox elements in the Carbon engine) is on the horizon ^^ so CCP games will stop being so niche fairly shortly, Hell EVE's niche has started expanding because the noob experience has been... curved in terms of masochism required to survive it.
I played World of Warcraft for 6.5 years, starting in May 2005 after quitting Star Wars Galaxies when the infamous Combat Upgrade / Wookies expansion was unleashed.
I played until about a year after the launch of Cataclysm (an expansion I hated, it basically was the last nail in the coffin of my stay with WoW). I grew increasingly disillusioned with the things the devs were doing, particularly the actions of Ghostcrawler and his attitude.
After quitting World of Warcraft, I've read articles about the game, witnessed the launch of the panda expansion from a distance, but had absolutely NO desire to return the the game. WoW just no longer feels like the game I loved during the vanilla / Burning Crusade / Wrath of the Lich King days.
I'm now happily playing the Secret World.
I just noticed this on the front page and laughed, so I thought that I would pop in here and comment:
I played WoW for about 6 months after it came out, leveled 2 characters to 60 (the max at the time), and quit.
BO-RING!
Seriously, how many, "collect 15 Dragon toe-nail clippings" quests can you stand? Interestingly enough, that has become my initial test of whether a new MMO is worth playing: Are the quests just excuses to go kill stuff to loot random nonsense that you would never use in a million years otherwise?
I then proceeded to play Dungeons & Dragons Online for almost 6 years, until they "upgraded" it to be just another WoW clone last fall.
Currently looking for a game that doesn't want to be WoW when it grows up.
I've quit WoW multiple times. I'm on my 6th WoW account. I get burnt out on it, but all the new mmos scratch my itch for only a handful of months. Then out of boredom I start playing again, remember how much fun I had; play the game like crazy and then reburn myself out.
I'm hoping AA, TESO, and Neverwinter will be strong enough games to hold my interest. I think WoW is still a lot of fun but is really begining to show its age and I want a replacement with some lasting appeal.
I just had a friend who said they were over WoW, after playing it since vanilla. Gave up all of his accounts last summer. Two hours after telling me how he is over sub based games and never going back to WoW, he FB me to tell me Blizzard gave him the battle chest for free. In which he reinstalled and has been playing the shit out the game eversense, and is planning on grinding to 90 by the start of the next pvp season in 3 weeks.
like others, Cata was a turnoff for me
I'm sure ill try WOW again someday
but I dislike that the 1-60 content has been changed forever (for the worse in my eyes)
the old 1-60 content used to be my favorite part of WOW
EQ2 fan sites
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I quit WOW 2 weeks after release and have never been back
When I heard about the pokemo... pet battle system in Mysts of Pandaria my initial thought was:
XD
Meh, I quit WoW and went back due to roommate peer pressure. That last for about one day, and I knew it would happen. I just wanted to shut them up. It's just a meaningless PvP deathmatch with some PvE. The key is accepting that it's not what you want and feeling okay about admitting it and the scrutiny you will recieve for saying so.
No one quits WoW. WoW quits you. ,)
WoW in my estimation has made it easier than any other game to start with a lvl 1 toon and end up with a raid worthy toon in a pretty quick timeframe.
Seems like it is a philosophy they had on day 1 and they hold to it today.
Sooooo much is getting crammed into that progression now as compared to vanilla it has made the game feel vastly different, even if the end result is the same.
The shear amount of content you roll through in 1 - 90.....just for example, think about Gnomergon.
In the old days, you prepared, did the pre-quests, got ready, and worked out a schedule to get into a dungeon, and you remembered it forever.
But today, it's hard to even remember if you went there at all.....did I even hit Gnomergon on the rfd? <checks achievements>
The pro's are obvious. WoW has remained as accessible as it ever was; arguably more accessible in many ways. Whether it is a factor or not, their focus has kept them as the juggernaut, even as they begin to slip.
The con's are what we argue about...
accessibility is great, but can be overdone
some feel the sacrifice for the old 'feel' for the accessibility is too high
I imagine if WoW wants to remain the juggernaut that it is, it needs to dial back the accesssibility and find the balance for what makes us feel ownership in a 'world'.
Otherwise, we are all doomed to quit and return over and over, trying to see if they've yet restored the balance.
Blizzard, in the meantime, will happily replace your fifteen bucks with the fifteen bucks from this week's newb (and have a happier in-game environment without the grumbling).
The human race breeds fast enough to keep refreshing the newbs endlessly.
The old guys who grumbled and quit just keep getting older, to the glee of their proctologists.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I too have played wow from Beta back in the day and I left dring Wrath as i saw it as an incomplete expansion. All the bugs and exploits in Wrath drove me nut and it wasnt fun at all.
Then a friend got ahold of me and told me i had to come back because of the sundering... Why not? it sounded interesting. So i paid another sub and started playing again, but i didnt start with my old characters. I created characters on a new realm (Bonechewer) and Started from Level one. Then it hit me. I was level 80 in under a week and was thinking... this is too easy.
Then Mists came out and I continued, but as with both Wrath and Cataclysm i saw MoP as another rushed incomplete expansion. Not only that but the sheer number of dailies over content disappointed me.
I am an anti farmer.. I grinded through Blacksmithing and enchanting and all the others and realized i didnt want to do it any more. And then dailies came into existance.. sure back in BC they were something additional to do in the zones. But they werent all over and were added in a patch. They werent considered main stream content. With Wrath that changed Dailies were given more focus as end game content and it has gotten worse with MoP.
Now as I nderstand the Devs made the tabards available for dungeon running as opposed to doing the dailies for the rep. good move on that but it was too late. I quit WoW. The game has been dumbed down and yes there ar emany who claim its just made it easier, or "Change is inevitable" all i can say is good for you you like it. I dont.
I have moved on into other games, and many of my friends also did the same. We look back on WoW fondly but with new games coming on the horizon and others still in beta that offer new content and eye candy its just time to move on.
Of all the changes from the expansions in WoW there is only one that realy comes to mind that i actually welcomed. The shattering of the world and the new content in the lower zones. The devs took thier time and put alot of effort into it and when I came back it was like a brand new game.. still on cartoony graphics but what the hell it was fun.
People do quit wow, many millions have. and as far as i know the last announcement had it at 400k accounts lost and that was a few weeks ago. So yes people quit it happens with every game, but with WoW being the biggest of them all its the most noticable. As someone said earlier if they didnt quit WoW would have over 20 million Subscribers.
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
*Waves* Hi I quit wow near the end of BC and rejoined during Wotlk and quit mid way through, played for about 2 weeks and quit again.
...and I have yet to buy the game since. I did play briefly for a month in cataclysm but it was my friend using my account and wanting me to play. Otherwise I've had no desire to return and the fact the talent tree is now removed my desire to play WoW again is an astonishing 0.0001%. See, slightly there but considering how since wotlk its been going down hill. they effectively killed any urge to play, specially with competition that is amazing.
Quit 1 month after hitting 85 in Cata because of the dumbind down of the game and the refusal to acknowledge the faulty development and improper use of time. That was over 2 years ago and I havn't looked back. I used to follow path updates but I do not even do that any more. The game is a huge borefest and a failure on so many levels in my eyes.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
I started playing WOW in November 2004 and quit in Aug 2005. Never looked back
Your theory is incorrect
This game is a joke, I quit after level 35 I was angry at getting killed by Orks when I finally got off Darnasus, I knew I needed to level up some more doing some easier quests but I thought to my self "What is the point of this game"?
Went on 2 Private servers and quit within 4 months on both. I just get bored of it. What I like about WoW is the Lore and the amazing looking world but the gameplay is horrible and graphics cartoon like. Have I quit for good? Yes, the theory is wrong. I have thought about returning but there are other games I rather play like Skyrim mods.