Come on we have had all these arguments before, if an industry is still making money that does not mean the newer product is better. You can have an inferior product, which you sell to more people and make lots of money. That's where MMO's are rigjht now.
Well more people are buying the product .. they must like it better .. so "better" for them.
If you don't like the product, it does not mean that it is inferior.
To me, modern MMOs are much better games. And i don't think my preference is any less valid than yours. And i vote with my feet & wallet.
yes more people buy them but then there are more people that actully play games now that the generation raised on them has grown up, it is not as much that MMOsa are better but that it is no longer a niche market like it used to be and because of this its been flooded.
you know cars are bought in more numbers now then ever before but the quality is not as good, they may hve more bells and whistles but the are still not made as well as they used to be. its the same thing.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
Come on we have had all these arguments before, if an industry is still making money that does not mean the newer product is better. You can have an inferior product, which you sell to more people and make lots of money. That's where MMO's are rigjht now.
Well more people are buying the product .. they must like it better .. so "better" for them.
If you don't like the product, it does not mean that it is inferior.
To me, modern MMOs are much better games. And i don't think my preference is any less valid than yours. And i vote with my feet & wallet.
yes more people buy them but then there are more people that actully play games now that the generation raised on them has grown up, it is not as much that MMOsa are better but that it is no longer a niche market like it used to be and because of this its been flooded.
you know cars are bought in more numbers now then ever before but the quality is not as good, they may hve more bells and whistles but the are still not made as well as they used to be. its the same thing.
Cars ARE better now. Safer, more bells and whistles, better MPG.
Do you want a new Civic or a model T?
And better are subjective for entertainment prodcuts. MMOs are better for me now than in EQ & UO time. Don't tell me you know my preference better than me. And people obviously like modern MMOs than classical ones ... all of them still exist for comparison.
If you want a good analogy of MMO's selling more but getting worse, there is our old favourite fast food. I know you modern MMO apologists love that one!
As for your model T, nice choice, what about a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow? How does that compare to modern cars? I will give you that modern cars are safer, as are modern MMO’s. That was a link to the thread on how we have no danger in modern MMO’s in case I was being too obtuse. Less danger in a car is good, but less danger in a game?
Here is another, mass produced goods. That’s what all these analogies boil down to. There is a reason why antiques cost so much, the quality is so much better. You may not like that old style, but it took a lot more craftsmanship than that flat pack you put up at home. But if you want to sit in your minimalist home, on a stool that passes for a chair and tell us that making games for the lowest common denominator to sell as many boxes as possible is going to result in better gaming quality, then do carry on.
lol great analogy You can expand that even further, when the antique chair is in need of repair it is lovingly restored with no expense spaired, the primary goal is to return the item to its original glory. with our modern piece of furniture (i will call it my wow chair), we fix it by repainting it green because thats this years favourite colour and screwing on a cheap plastic cup holder because people who like cup holders want it and so on and so forth - hey now more people want the chair, it must be better!
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
Been playing the gener since 1999 starting with eq and then ac when it first came out. I'm fine with where the gener is today a lot more polished gameplay. I tried reto gaming eq a couple of years back and I couldn't believe I ever liked that shit.
As far as the social aspect goes you get out what you put in. I know a lot of people who still go into these games with a social mindset and bond and make new friends all the time.
I think a lot of these people complaining about a lack of sociability are players who got older and now have less time for that aspect of the gameplay, because its still there if you really want it. Plenty of people that hop on to spend the whole day chatting with people.
As for your model T, nice choice, what about a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow? How does that compare to modern cars? I will give you that modern cars are safer, as are modern MMO’s. That was a link to the thread on how we have no danger in modern MMO’s in case I was being too obtuse. Less danger in a car is good, but less danger in a game?
How much does the Rolls Royce cost? All new games are more or less the same cost. Is it the same for car? Or even food?
If McDonald costs $50 a burger, you think it will be that popular?
Less danger in a game? I die probably more often in D3 than in EQ.
Valid points made, but was it the Germans that caused WW2 or their leader??? The needs to be made good MMO's in order for us to play them, that I the issue I believe. Not MMO's dying or losing in intrest.
....Being Banned from MMORPG's forums since 2010, for Trolling the Trolls!!!
OP i agree with you whole heartedly. Just yesterday in my guild mumble i talked about MMO's arent MMO's any more.
WoW is no longer a Successful MMO, but a successful Game. Sadly it is the mass's that are pushing this.
While MMO's use to be a Niche group, and companies didnt really have the temptation to try to appeal to the mass's, now they do, and they have forgot about the loyal true MMO'ers of this world and try to cater to the new generation that has mirgrated over to MMO"s from where ever they came from.
Hence i have now put my gaming future into those of the Indie companies. Like:
Divergence and Darkfall.
In Reality SWTOR runned by who it was runned by should have never failed, but its the exact opposite, Companies will not take a chance so they just reskin and change the flavor thats it. All because it is runned by big corps.
Well that's my conclusion after thinking about it.
While MMO do well and sell well, they are not really MMO anymore, they're all small scale dungeon instancers (LoL, Vindictus), solo quest grinders (WoW SWOTOR), , or glorified action Hack & Slash multiplayer games (Tera, GW2).
I haven't seen a game with a true community where the primary focus was the world and human interaction and the gameplay came second in MMO in a number of years. Now the gameplay is frist and if it isn't too much trouble maybe you'll be interacting with someone too, and if no ones interacts, join an artificial bubble called a guild and interact in the bubble.
Most people don't need MMO to interact online, there are plenty of chat opportunities, facebook, twitter, disqus, liveFire, forums, email, messengers, smartphones, youtube. You have all these ways to interact with people you want, there is way too much noise to make a world where people will be truly immersed and willing to spend time with each other in a game outside of gameplay.
There's no need for it anymore, there are thousands of other and arguably better ways to interact online.
I think the term MMO lives on even though the games are now becomes multiplayer action games, but the idea behind MMO is long gone I think, it's replaced by other communities online that are far easier and more effective way to interact.
Agreed, classic EQ1 was the last MMO I played. if other players don't matter neither does the game.
People also don't need MMOs to group with 2-3 people and go through instanced scripted dungeons, but here we are.
There has been a huge influx of MMO players after the "WoW age" had begun (lol, there's no end in phrases for it). So for a lot of them it's all the exposure they've had since mainstream MMOs have lost their "all for one" feeling.
Once a new title(s) come out with more emphasis on everyone we'll see how many will enjoy it. I think it's naive to assume people choose something of it's all they have known.
Once a new title(s) come out with more emphasis on everyone we'll see how many will enjoy it. I think it's naive to assume people choose something of it's all they have known.
Didn't people choose EQ over UO by a huge margin? (hence we know open pvp is not popualr).
Didn't people choose WOW or EQ/EQ2 by a huge margin? (hence we know the problems in EQ needs to be fixed).
Once a new title(s) come out with more emphasis on everyone we'll see how many will enjoy it. I think it's naive to assume people choose something of it's all they have known.
Didn't people choose EQ over UO by a huge margin? (hence we know open pvp is not popualr).
Didn't people choose WOW or EQ/EQ2 by a huge margin? (hence we know the problems in EQ needs to be fixed).
Well that is the debate isn't it (not so much in IMO) how many people from the EQ, DAOC, UO, AO... generation left those games for WoW. IMO the majority of their population left the game for WoW however other people say they didn't they just left the genre and WoW's success is due to new people.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
If someone can provide numbers to back up that x amount of people left EQ/UO for WoW that would be great. I'm sure there were plenty of people considering Warcraft was a hugely popular franchise even back then. Just how many and for what reasons would remain speculation. Also, WoW was a different kind of game back then, right?
Speaking of speculation and assumption just because people left EQ for WoW back towards '04 does not point to any speculation for right now. Players would have been exposed to the same model featured in various titles, something not seen back then.
Once a new title(s) come out with more emphasis on everyone we'll see how many will enjoy it. I think it's naive to assume people choose something of it's all they have known.
Didn't people choose EQ over UO by a huge margin? (hence we know open pvp is not popualr).
Didn't people choose WOW or EQ/EQ2 by a huge margin? (hence we know the problems in EQ needs to be fixed).
Well that is the debate isn't it (not so much in IMO) how many people from the EQ, DAOC, UO, AO... generation left those games for WoW. IMO the majority of their population left the game for WoW however other people say they didn't they just left the genre and WoW's success is due to new people.
I consider myself a first generation gamer. I did walk away from UO over some GM BS, but I am still in a fairly active EQ guild.. 14+ years now and counting.
I did play WoW for a couple of months but found the game to be concieved and designed for morons and idiots too stupid or lazy to think for themselves, basically " gamer wannabes " not real gamers. Hence why it was so popular and had so much success.
Oh and on your list there you forgot one of the best real gamer games of all time AC ( Ascheron's Call ). And I am not real sure I would consider AO and DAoC a real first generation MMO they were kinda like a 1.5 generation.
Once a new title(s) come out with more emphasis on everyone we'll see how many will enjoy it. I think it's naive to assume people choose something of it's all they have known.
Didn't people choose EQ over UO by a huge margin? (hence we know open pvp is not popualr).
Didn't people choose WOW or EQ/EQ2 by a huge margin? (hence we know the problems in EQ needs to be fixed).
Well that is the debate isn't it (not so much in IMO) how many people from the EQ, DAOC, UO, AO... generation left those games for WoW. IMO the majority of their population left the game for WoW however other people say they didn't they just left the genre and WoW's success is due to new people.
I consider myself a first generation gamer. I did walk away from UO over some GM BS, but I am still in a fairly active EQ guild.. 14+ years now and counting.
I did play WoW for a couple of months but found the game to be concieved and designed for morons and idiots too stupid or lazy to think for themselves, basically " gamer wannabes " not real gamers. Hence why it was so popular and had so much success.
Oh and on your list there you forgot one of the best real gamer games of all time AC ( Ascheron's Call ). And I am not real sure I would consider AO and DAoC a real first generation MMO they were kinda like a 1.5 generation.
I really can't see how you can justify the hate towards WoW. I didnt directly play EQ but saw my older cousin play it a lot and i enjoyed that, if i was around teen years like him when it came out i probably would have played it as well. However, fate had it that i start my MMORPG history with WoW. Well sort of, originally i played Runescape if that counts, but WoW was the big one. I started playing it late Vanilla, so more or less i experienced it from TBC up until Cata launch when i left. It was a great game, amazing lore, and just fun, which is what matters. Who cares if its a bit on the easy side, it had some difficult content, and there was always someone who could pose a challenge to you in pvp being as unbalanced as it may have been at certain points.
At this point WoW is dead to me because its lost its luster, its old, and i've moved on, but i can still honestly say i had a great experience with it, which has yet to happen again with something newer.
Well that is the debate isn't it (not so much in IMO) how many people from the EQ, DAOC, UO, AO... generation left those games for WoW. IMO the majority of their population left the game for WoW however other people say they didn't they just left the genre and WoW's success is due to new people.
Unfortunately this kind of data is hard to come by.
Personally, I played UO beta (hate it, bad game), EQ for a year, and WOW for multiple years. So count me as one.
Originally posted by Scot If you want a good analogy of MMO's selling more but getting worse, there is our old favourite fast food. I know you modern MMO apologists love that one! :)As for your model T, nice choice, what about a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow? How does that compare to modern cars? I will give you that modern cars are safer, as are modern MMOs. That was a link to the thread on how we have no danger in modern MMOs in case I was being too obtuse. Less danger in a car is good, but less danger in a game?Here is another, mass produced goods. Thats what all these analogies boil down to. There is a reason why antiques cost so much, the quality is so much better. You may not like that old style, but it took a lot more craftsmanship than that flat pack you put up at home. But if you want to sit in your minimalist home, on a stool that passes for a chair and tell us that making games for the lowest common denominator to sell as many boxes as possible is going to result in better gaming quality, then do carry on.
So many fallacies in single post. Sadly same fallacies keep repeating over these boards over and over...
1) Better =/= better quality. Those are 2 different things.
Product may be overall better and preferred more, despite being lower quality.
2) There is no such thing as "quality" when it comes to entertainment.
There is no quality, there is taste. Taste changes over time and so do change the qualifiers.
3) Antiques do not cost more because they are better "quality" or because they are old, they cost more because they are rare and/or unique - that includes branded products.
Just because something is handcrafted does not make it better than something mass produced. Quality, the objective one, is just a single attribute among many that contributes to product value.
4) More sales means better product since it is the people speaking with their wallets.
You might not like what other people do but that does not make it inferior product, it makes it only a product that is not your taste.
Once a new title(s) come out with more emphasis on everyone we'll see how many will enjoy it. I think it's naive to assume people choose something of it's all they have known.
Didn't people choose EQ over UO by a huge margin? (hence we know open pvp is not popualr).
Didn't people choose WOW or EQ/EQ2 by a huge margin? (hence we know the problems in EQ needs to be fixed).
Well, going back to someone that was actually playing UO at the time and switched to EQ....UO had a LOT of server problems at the time, they double the size of their world, and had severe lag/rubberbanding that made the game almost unplayable for a bit....So they made it easy for someone to try the new shiney, and mmos were newer and the technology was a learning as you go thing, so I cannot kill them for having these problems.
Their are factors in everything, but in large, yes, people prefer non-open pvp, but that does not mean their is not a market for open-pvp, or more limited to non-existant pvp sandbox type games.
I think it would be fair to say that people and developers are seeing the merit in more sandbox type play, and making more hybrid type games, that are releasing and in the development cycle, along with more that are closer to sandbox.
People are chewing through the railed themepark content too fast. So you are seeing tools to make your own stuff, and a shift in style for a lot of the stuff in the cycle.
Well that is the debate isn't it (not so much in IMO) how many people from the EQ, DAOC, UO, AO... generation left those games for WoW. IMO the majority of their population left the game for WoW however other people say they didn't they just left the genre and WoW's success is due to new people.
Unfortunately this kind of data is hard to come by.
Personally, I played UO beta (hate it, bad game), EQ for a year, and WOW for multiple years. So count me as one.
I played UO, and EQ for probably 6-8 years each total, tried WoW in beta and didn't hate it, but it felt like a mash of wanting to be DAoC with the two factions, but without much of a purpose in beta, and a direction of EQ on steriods (a direction I wasn't a huge fan of, the later content)....So it was kind of meh to me at the time.
I think WoW was easy for people to get into, people with computers and internet connections were soaring, and it was like a perfect storm that they were smart and rolled with. EQ2 was too prohibitive, the computer needed to play it properly was way above what was needed for WoW, and the mechanics were less new mmo player friendly imo. So it was a perfect storm for them, and to their credit they didn't drop the ball to grow the game....Which left a lot of 'Vanilla WoW' people that disliked the newer direction, but they grew the game for mass appeal.
Well that is the debate isn't it (not so much in IMO) how many people from the EQ, DAOC, UO, AO... generation left those games for WoW. IMO the majority of their population left the game for WoW however other people say they didn't they just left the genre and WoW's success is due to new people.
Unfortunately this kind of data is hard to come by.
Personally, I played UO beta (hate it, bad game), EQ for a year, and WOW for multiple years. So count me as one.
I played UO, and EQ for probably 6-8 years each total, tried WoW in beta and didn't hate it, but it felt like a mash of wanting to be DAoC with the two factions, but without much of a purpose in beta, and a direction of EQ on steriods (a direction I wasn't a huge fan of, the later content)....So it was kind of meh to me at the time.
I think WoW was easy for people to get into, people with computers and internet connections were soaring, and it was like a perfect storm that they were smart and rolled with. EQ2 was too prohibitive, the computer needed to play it properly was way above what was needed for WoW, and the mechanics were less new mmo player friendly imo. So it was a perfect storm for them, and to their credit they didn't drop the ball to grow the game....Which left a lot of 'Vanilla WoW' people that disliked the newer direction, but they grew the game for mass appeal.
Mass appeal is not a bad thing. The issue with UO & EQ is that they are not very fun games to me. UO allows others to make the game extremely aggravating. EQ (at least in the beginning) requires long stretch of boring time.
WOW solves all these problems for me, and i reward it with years of subs.
Once a new title(s) come out with more emphasis on everyone we'll see how many will enjoy it. I think it's naive to assume people choose something of it's all they have known.
Didn't people choose EQ over UO by a huge margin? (hence we know open pvp is not popualr).
Didn't people choose WOW or EQ/EQ2 by a huge margin? (hence we know the problems in EQ needs to be fixed).
Well that is the debate isn't it (not so much in IMO) how many people from the EQ, DAOC, UO, AO... generation left those games for WoW. IMO the majority of their population left the game for WoW however other people say they didn't they just left the genre and WoW's success is due to new people.
I consider myself a first generation gamer. I did walk away from UO over some GM BS, but I am still in a fairly active EQ guild.. 14+ years now and counting.
I did play WoW for a couple of months but found the game to be concieved and designed for morons and idiots too stupid or lazy to think for themselves, basically " gamer wannabes " not real gamers. Hence why it was so popular and had so much success.
Oh and on your list there you forgot one of the best real gamer games of all time AC ( Ascheron's Call ). And I am not real sure I would consider AO and DAoC a real first generation MMO they were kinda like a 1.5 generation.
I really can't see how you can justify the hate towards WoW. I didnt directly play EQ but saw my older cousin play it a lot and i enjoyed that, if i was around teen years like him when it came out i probably would have played it as well. However, fate had it that i start my MMORPG history with WoW. Well sort of, originally i played Runescape if that counts, but WoW was the big one. I started playing it late Vanilla, so more or less i experienced it from TBC up until Cata launch when i left. It was a great game, amazing lore, and just fun, which is what matters. Who cares if its a bit on the easy side, it had some difficult content, and there was always someone who could pose a challenge to you in pvp being as unbalanced as it may have been at certain points.
At this point WoW is dead to me because its lost its luster, its old, and i've moved on, but i can still honestly say i had a great experience with it, which has yet to happen again with something newer.
I played WoW back before they added diminishing returns and had this really nice guy hold me as a sheep for 18 hours.
I tried logging off and playing an alt for an hour, logging off and watching a movie for 2 hours, but everytime I logged back in he was standing there waiting to resheep me.
Upon contacting a GM the GM actually laughed at me and told me so sad too bad that's part of the game mechanic.
Did not matter than some 12 year old asshat was intentionally just sitting there to deliberately ruin my gaming enjoyment, but that the GM would outright laugh about it.
But anyway that was just one of the many pisspoor experiences I had with the WoW community and Customer Support.
Comments
yes more people buy them but then there are more people that actully play games now that the generation raised on them has grown up, it is not as much that MMOsa are better but that it is no longer a niche market like it used to be and because of this its been flooded.
you know cars are bought in more numbers now then ever before but the quality is not as good, they may hve more bells and whistles but the are still not made as well as they used to be. its the same thing.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
Cars ARE better now. Safer, more bells and whistles, better MPG.
Do you want a new Civic or a model T?
And better are subjective for entertainment prodcuts. MMOs are better for me now than in EQ & UO time. Don't tell me you know my preference better than me. And people obviously like modern MMOs than classical ones ... all of them still exist for comparison.
If you want a good analogy of MMO's selling more but getting worse, there is our old favourite fast food. I know you modern MMO apologists love that one!
As for your model T, nice choice, what about a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow? How does that compare to modern cars? I will give you that modern cars are safer, as are modern MMO’s. That was a link to the thread on how we have no danger in modern MMO’s in case I was being too obtuse. Less danger in a car is good, but less danger in a game?
Here is another, mass produced goods. That’s what all these analogies boil down to. There is a reason why antiques cost so much, the quality is so much better. You may not like that old style, but it took a lot more craftsmanship than that flat pack you put up at home. But if you want to sit in your minimalist home, on a stool that passes for a chair and tell us that making games for the lowest common denominator to sell as many boxes as possible is going to result in better gaming quality, then do carry on.
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
As far as the social aspect goes you get out what you put in. I know a lot of people who still go into these games with a social mindset and bond and make new friends all the time.
I think a lot of these people complaining about a lack of sociability are players who got older and now have less time for that aspect of the gameplay, because its still there if you really want it. Plenty of people that hop on to spend the whole day chatting with people.
How much does the Rolls Royce cost? All new games are more or less the same cost. Is it the same for car? Or even food?
If McDonald costs $50 a burger, you think it will be that popular?
Less danger in a game? I die probably more often in D3 than in EQ.
I agree with the OP 100%.
Its amazing how much we did back in 1999 with a sub par game by todays standards like EQ.
Yet, each new MMO is now worse than the one before it.
....Being Banned from MMORPG's forums since 2010, for Trolling the Trolls!!!
"MMO are Dying"
Then Revive it:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/divergence-online
OP i agree with you whole heartedly. Just yesterday in my guild mumble i talked about MMO's arent MMO's any more.
WoW is no longer a Successful MMO, but a successful Game. Sadly it is the mass's that are pushing this.
While MMO's use to be a Niche group, and companies didnt really have the temptation to try to appeal to the mass's, now they do, and they have forgot about the loyal true MMO'ers of this world and try to cater to the new generation that has mirgrated over to MMO"s from where ever they came from.
Hence i have now put my gaming future into those of the Indie companies. Like:
Divergence and Darkfall.
In Reality SWTOR runned by who it was runned by should have never failed, but its the exact opposite, Companies will not take a chance so they just reskin and change the flavor thats it. All because it is runned by big corps.
People also don't need MMOs to group with 2-3 people and go through instanced scripted dungeons, but here we are.
But MMO devs want that audience. Why else do you think MMO would be so popular?
Once a new title(s) come out with more emphasis on everyone we'll see how many will enjoy it. I think it's naive to assume people choose something of it's all they have known.
Didn't people choose EQ over UO by a huge margin? (hence we know open pvp is not popualr).
Didn't people choose WOW or EQ/EQ2 by a huge margin? (hence we know the problems in EQ needs to be fixed).
Well that is the debate isn't it (not so much in IMO) how many people from the EQ, DAOC, UO, AO... generation left those games for WoW. IMO the majority of their population left the game for WoW however other people say they didn't they just left the genre and WoW's success is due to new people.
Speaking of speculation and assumption just because people left EQ for WoW back towards '04 does not point to any speculation for right now. Players would have been exposed to the same model featured in various titles, something not seen back then.
I consider myself a first generation gamer. I did walk away from UO over some GM BS, but I am still in a fairly active EQ guild.. 14+ years now and counting.
I did play WoW for a couple of months but found the game to be concieved and designed for morons and idiots too stupid or lazy to think for themselves, basically " gamer wannabes " not real gamers. Hence why it was so popular and had so much success.
Oh and on your list there you forgot one of the best real gamer games of all time AC ( Ascheron's Call ). And I am not real sure I would consider AO and DAoC a real first generation MMO they were kinda like a 1.5 generation.
I really can't see how you can justify the hate towards WoW. I didnt directly play EQ but saw my older cousin play it a lot and i enjoyed that, if i was around teen years like him when it came out i probably would have played it as well. However, fate had it that i start my MMORPG history with WoW. Well sort of, originally i played Runescape if that counts, but WoW was the big one. I started playing it late Vanilla, so more or less i experienced it from TBC up until Cata launch when i left. It was a great game, amazing lore, and just fun, which is what matters. Who cares if its a bit on the easy side, it had some difficult content, and there was always someone who could pose a challenge to you in pvp being as unbalanced as it may have been at certain points.
At this point WoW is dead to me because its lost its luster, its old, and i've moved on, but i can still honestly say i had a great experience with it, which has yet to happen again with something newer.
Unfortunately this kind of data is hard to come by.
Personally, I played UO beta (hate it, bad game), EQ for a year, and WOW for multiple years. So count me as one.
So many fallacies in single post. Sadly same fallacies keep repeating over these boards over and over...
1) Better =/= better quality. Those are 2 different things.
Product may be overall better and preferred more, despite being lower quality.
2) There is no such thing as "quality" when it comes to entertainment.
There is no quality, there is taste. Taste changes over time and so do change the qualifiers.
3) Antiques do not cost more because they are better "quality" or because they are old, they cost more because they are rare and/or unique - that includes branded products.
Just because something is handcrafted does not make it better than something mass produced. Quality, the objective one, is just a single attribute among many that contributes to product value.
4) More sales means better product since it is the people speaking with their wallets.
You might not like what other people do but that does not make it inferior product, it makes it only a product that is not your taste.
Billions of McDonald's burgers sold.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Well, going back to someone that was actually playing UO at the time and switched to EQ....UO had a LOT of server problems at the time, they double the size of their world, and had severe lag/rubberbanding that made the game almost unplayable for a bit....So they made it easy for someone to try the new shiney, and mmos were newer and the technology was a learning as you go thing, so I cannot kill them for having these problems.
Their are factors in everything, but in large, yes, people prefer non-open pvp, but that does not mean their is not a market for open-pvp, or more limited to non-existant pvp sandbox type games.
I think it would be fair to say that people and developers are seeing the merit in more sandbox type play, and making more hybrid type games, that are releasing and in the development cycle, along with more that are closer to sandbox.
People are chewing through the railed themepark content too fast. So you are seeing tools to make your own stuff, and a shift in style for a lot of the stuff in the cycle.
I played UO, and EQ for probably 6-8 years each total, tried WoW in beta and didn't hate it, but it felt like a mash of wanting to be DAoC with the two factions, but without much of a purpose in beta, and a direction of EQ on steriods (a direction I wasn't a huge fan of, the later content)....So it was kind of meh to me at the time.
I think WoW was easy for people to get into, people with computers and internet connections were soaring, and it was like a perfect storm that they were smart and rolled with. EQ2 was too prohibitive, the computer needed to play it properly was way above what was needed for WoW, and the mechanics were less new mmo player friendly imo. So it was a perfect storm for them, and to their credit they didn't drop the ball to grow the game....Which left a lot of 'Vanilla WoW' people that disliked the newer direction, but they grew the game for mass appeal.
Mass appeal is not a bad thing. The issue with UO & EQ is that they are not very fun games to me. UO allows others to make the game extremely aggravating. EQ (at least in the beginning) requires long stretch of boring time.
WOW solves all these problems for me, and i reward it with years of subs.
I played WoW back before they added diminishing returns and had this really nice guy hold me as a sheep for 18 hours.
I tried logging off and playing an alt for an hour, logging off and watching a movie for 2 hours, but everytime I logged back in he was standing there waiting to resheep me.
Upon contacting a GM the GM actually laughed at me and told me so sad too bad that's part of the game mechanic.
Did not matter than some 12 year old asshat was intentionally just sitting there to deliberately ruin my gaming enjoyment, but that the GM would outright laugh about it.
But anyway that was just one of the many pisspoor experiences I had with the WoW community and Customer Support.