The only criteria important to me is who makes games I like to play. That would be Bethesda they've released few games I didn't enjoy thoroughly, the bugs and issues I can deal with to have the types of games I most enjoy.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Originally posted by Icewhite I feel that gamers are unable to fairly assess publishers without the fog of Brand Loyalty.Many believe that they are (unbiased, that is). Until you can point out their consistent posting history as a fanboy or hater.
I feel that gamers are unable to fairly assess publishers without the fog of Brand Loyalty.
Many believe that they are (unbiased, that is). Until you can point out their consistent posting history as a fanboy or hater.
Isn't this a subject just begging for people to show their brand loyalty or fanboyism, as well as the why's behind it? We're all brand loyal to something as well as fanbois of something.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Since the question was pretty open to interpretation, I am going to say that the best developer I have ever worked at was Iron Lore Entertainment. It was one of the best places I have ever worked at in any industry.
It's a tie for second place between SoE and Blizzard ... both have great people, great locations, awesome workplaces.
As far as who makes better games .... it is hard to argue with Blizzards resume, but I am going to say SoE puts out a more complete game than Blizzard (Blizz is more polish, but less complete).
Yeh that's too bad about Iron Lore. I would have really liked to have seen more done with the Titan Quest IP. Out of curiosity, which aspect of the industry do work in?
Spent almost 15 years as a programmer before moving into QA automation/tools/whitebox
SOE? Seriously? Whats' the deal with 'taking chances'..how bout actually making a good game? If we are grading publishers by the amount of hype they generate out of a legacy of garbage then they are number 1.
Without someone to test out new innovations there will never be advances across the board between all competitors.
SOE might be crap in terms of quality and support however the different game mechanics and engines they tries are a lot more diverse than many other developers.
I guess you are probably one of those people that believe space programs are a waste of money as well judging by your comment, lol
They're the only MMO company that has managed to grow year after year, and learn from their mistakes.
Blizzard is laughably bad. They never come up with any ideas on their own, just snip ideas from other games and make them casual and usually worse.
At its core, WoW is a disaster, from a design standpoint.
And all other companies I used to admire got too big for their britches and ruined their own games and communities. Turbine, Mythic, Verant, all fucking awful. But CCP has managed to stay level.
You might not like blizzards games but saying they are laughable just makes you out to be a bitter hater. I am not a huge fan of their games but i can accept that their games are developed to a very high standard of quality that most other companies can't get near.
I'm not denying that their games are polished and that their marketing is masterful. But the actual design of the game, and what they've done with WoW is laughably bad. Its got the most budget and devs of any MMO in history and they're only JUST adding housing. Their PvP and crafting are still terrible, there are no variety in their dungeons.
They've done nothing but sit on WoW, really.
You don't find it a tad bit arrogant to sit on a forum telling the most commercially successful game ever made they could of done it better ? And what they have done is....laughably bad.
Do you make a billion dollars a year on your ideas ? Do you make anything off your ideas ?
Sorry but most of that money comes from activision titles, not blizzard alone.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Originally posted by goldtoof FoomerI will still by valve games on the name alone.God if half life 3 was announced!Almost there with a few others like bethseda, arkane, croteam, cdprojekt, blizzard etc..But devs change. Once over I would have rushed out to buy the latest games from Id, monolith, bullfrog & mythic. Vary wary on them now.
Ive always had a lot of respect for the developers at Valve. I just wish I enjoyed FPS
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
They're the only MMO company that has managed to grow year after year, and learn from their mistakes.
Blizzard is laughably bad. They never come up with any ideas on their own, just snip ideas from other games and make them casual and usually worse.
At its core, WoW is a disaster, from a design standpoint.
And all other companies I used to admire got too big for their britches and ruined their own games and communities. Turbine, Mythic, Verant, all fucking awful. But CCP has managed to stay level.
You might not like blizzards games but saying they are laughable just makes you out to be a bitter hater. I am not a huge fan of their games but i can accept that their games are developed to a very high standard of quality that most other companies can't get near.
I'm not denying that their games are polished and that their marketing is masterful. But the actual design of the game, and what they've done with WoW is laughably bad. Its got the most budget and devs of any MMO in history and they're only JUST adding housing. Their PvP and crafting are still terrible, there are no variety in their dungeons.
They've done nothing but sit on WoW, really.
You don't find it a tad bit arrogant to sit on a forum telling the most commercially successful game ever made they could of done it better ? And what they have done is....laughably bad.
Do you make a billion dollars a year on your ideas ?
Nope, and neither does WoW make money off their ideas. Because they don't have their own ideas. WoW is a reskinned hollowed out EverQuest.
And yes, I feel more than qualified to "sit here" and point out why WoW has terrible design.
Does WoW have the best raid system? No. Does it have the best PvP? No. Does it have the best crafting? No. Does it have the best housing? No. Does it have the best classes? No.
WoW was a solidly average game with a lot of good polish. But the biggest factor to its success was brand name. People seem to forget that it was the first big budget MMO based on a popular IP by a company that was insanely popular with all kinds of gamers. A company that spent a year before WoW's launch advertising in every website and magazine, and on Battle.net.
It was the first MMO to get its name in the mainstream, so now when people hear MMO they think WoW. That fact alone gets WoW more players and money than the quality of their game.
I guess it depends on what you value. Do you value a company's ability to make money, even if it screws its players (Diablo 3) and polish their very simple game that does nothing new? Or do you value daring, innovation, and quality?
Gotta go with Blizzard on this one. It's hard to knock their track record, and their ability to say "nope, don't like it" and scrap a game instead of risking their reputation with a broken product. Hell, taking Titan back to the drawing board shows how smart they are.
WoW still has millions playing after 9 years. SC2 is wildly popular and has a tremendous following in esport venues. D3 was successful, but Blizzard wasn't happy with the RMT/AH b.s. and are removing it and revamping the game via expansion pack to make it into a better ARPG. Hearthstone, a total darkhorse, has come out of left field and is extremely popular.
It's going to be interesting to see how Heroes of the Storm manages vs. LoL (king of the MOBAs) and DOTA 2.
I'll agree with other's though and say that Blizzard isn't know for breaking molds, which is ok since they bring a ton of polish to existing systems. I would also like to see them delve into some other game types as well. Open world rpg using the Diablo setting (Diablo Skyrim). How cool would a StarCraft based FPS be?
Honorable mentions have to be Bethesda, SoE and SquareEnix though. All have made some extremely memorable and entertaining games over the years.
They're the only MMO company that has managed to grow year after year, and learn from their mistakes.
Blizzard is laughably bad. They never come up with any ideas on their own, just snip ideas from other games and make them casual and usually worse.
At its core, WoW is a disaster, from a design standpoint.
And all other companies I used to admire got too big for their britches and ruined their own games and communities. Turbine, Mythic, Verant, all fucking awful. But CCP has managed to stay level.
You might not like blizzards games but saying they are laughable just makes you out to be a bitter hater. I am not a huge fan of their games but i can accept that their games are developed to a very high standard of quality that most other companies can't get near.
I'm not denying that their games are polished and that their marketing is masterful. But the actual design of the game, and what they've done with WoW is laughably bad. Its got the most budget and devs of any MMO in history and they're only JUST adding housing. Their PvP and crafting are still terrible, there are no variety in their dungeons.
They've done nothing but sit on WoW, really.
You don't find it a tad bit arrogant to sit on a forum telling the most commercially successful game ever made they could of done it better ? And what they have done is....laughably bad.
Do you make a billion dollars a year on your ideas ?
Nope, and neither does WoW make money off their ideas. Because they don't have their own ideas. WoW is a reskinned hollowed out EverQuest.
And yes, I feel more than qualified to "sit here" and point out why WoW has terrible design.
Does WoW have the best raid system? No. Does it have the best PvP? No. Does it have the best crafting? No. Does it have the best housing? No. Does it have the best classes? No.
WoW was a solidly average game with a lot of good polish. But the biggest factor to its success was brand name. People seem to forget that it was the first big budget MMO based on a popular IP by a company that was insanely popular with all kinds of gamers. A company that spent a year before WoW's launch advertising in every website and magazine, and on Battle.net.
It was the first MMO to get its name in the mainstream, so now when people hear MMO they think WoW. That fact alone gets WoW more players and money than the quality of their game.
I do love to read posts like this.
10 years not only at the top but so far above every other game on the market ..they look like ants to it and here you sit saying it's a crappy game design ppl only played because of marketing pre launch and brand name.
If this was 500 years ago...you'd have a hat will bells on it.
They're the only MMO company that has managed to grow year after year, and learn from their mistakes.
Blizzard is laughably bad. They never come up with any ideas on their own, just snip ideas from other games and make them casual and usually worse.
At its core, WoW is a disaster, from a design standpoint.
And all other companies I used to admire got too big for their britches and ruined their own games and communities. Turbine, Mythic, Verant, all fucking awful. But CCP has managed to stay level.
You might not like blizzards games but saying they are laughable just makes you out to be a bitter hater. I am not a huge fan of their games but i can accept that their games are developed to a very high standard of quality that most other companies can't get near.
I'm not denying that their games are polished and that their marketing is masterful. But the actual design of the game, and what they've done with WoW is laughably bad. Its got the most budget and devs of any MMO in history and they're only JUST adding housing. Their PvP and crafting are still terrible, there are no variety in their dungeons.
They've done nothing but sit on WoW, really.
You don't find it a tad bit arrogant to sit on a forum telling the most commercially successful game ever made they could of done it better ? And what they have done is....laughably bad.
Do you make a billion dollars a year on your ideas ?
Nope, and neither does WoW make money off their ideas. Because they don't have their own ideas. WoW is a reskinned hollowed out EverQuest.
And yes, I feel more than qualified to "sit here" and point out why WoW has terrible design.
Does WoW have the best raid system? No. Does it have the best PvP? No. Does it have the best crafting? No. Does it have the best housing? No. Does it have the best classes? No.
WoW was a solidly average game with a lot of good polish. But the biggest factor to its success was brand name. People seem to forget that it was the first big budget MMO based on a popular IP by a company that was insanely popular with all kinds of gamers. A company that spent a year before WoW's launch advertising in every website and magazine, and on Battle.net.
It was the first MMO to get its name in the mainstream, so now when people hear MMO they think WoW. That fact alone gets WoW more players and money than the quality of their game.
I guess it depends on what you value. Do you value a company's ability to make money, even if it screws its players (Diablo 3) and polish their very simple game that does nothing new? Or do you value daring, innovation, and quality?
They're the only MMO company that has managed to grow year after year, and learn from their mistakes.
Blizzard is laughably bad. They never come up with any ideas on their own, just snip ideas from other games and make them casual and usually worse.
At its core, WoW is a disaster, from a design standpoint.
And all other companies I used to admire got too big for their britches and ruined their own games and communities. Turbine, Mythic, Verant, all fucking awful. But CCP has managed to stay level.
You might not like blizzards games but saying they are laughable just makes you out to be a bitter hater. I am not a huge fan of their games but i can accept that their games are developed to a very high standard of quality that most other companies can't get near.
I'm not denying that their games are polished and that their marketing is masterful. But the actual design of the game, and what they've done with WoW is laughably bad. Its got the most budget and devs of any MMO in history and they're only JUST adding housing. Their PvP and crafting are still terrible, there are no variety in their dungeons.
They've done nothing but sit on WoW, really.
You don't find it a tad bit arrogant to sit on a forum telling the most commercially successful game ever made they could of done it better ? And what they have done is....laughably bad.
Do you make a billion dollars a year on your ideas ?
Nope, and neither does WoW make money off their ideas. Because they don't have their own ideas. WoW is a reskinned hollowed out EverQuest.
And yes, I feel more than qualified to "sit here" and point out why WoW has terrible design.
Does WoW have the best raid system? No. Does it have the best PvP? No. Does it have the best crafting? No. Does it have the best housing? No. Does it have the best classes? No.
WoW was a solidly average game with a lot of good polish. But the biggest factor to its success was brand name. People seem to forget that it was the first big budget MMO based on a popular IP by a company that was insanely popular with all kinds of gamers. A company that spent a year before WoW's launch advertising in every website and magazine, and on Battle.net.
It was the first MMO to get its name in the mainstream, so now when people hear MMO they think WoW. That fact alone gets WoW more players and money than the quality of their game.
I do love to read posts like this.
10 years not only at the top but so far above every other game on the market ..they look like ants to it and here you sit saying it's a crappy game design ppl only played because of marketing pre launch and brand name.
If this was 500 years ago...you'd have a hat will bells on it.
Sorry, guess you just don't understand how market trends work or how game design works.
I said WoW was solidly average. Bad in some areas (raids, classes, dungeons) but solidly average is all you need if your brand name is synomous with MMO.
They're the only MMO company that has managed to grow year after year, and learn from their mistakes.
Blizzard is laughably bad. They never come up with any ideas on their own, just snip ideas from other games and make them casual and usually worse.
At its core, WoW is a disaster, from a design standpoint.
And all other companies I used to admire got too big for their britches and ruined their own games and communities. Turbine, Mythic, Verant, all fucking awful. But CCP has managed to stay level.
You might not like blizzards games but saying they are laughable just makes you out to be a bitter hater. I am not a huge fan of their games but i can accept that their games are developed to a very high standard of quality that most other companies can't get near.
I'm not denying that their games are polished and that their marketing is masterful. But the actual design of the game, and what they've done with WoW is laughably bad. Its got the most budget and devs of any MMO in history and they're only JUST adding housing. Their PvP and crafting are still terrible, there are no variety in their dungeons.
They've done nothing but sit on WoW, really.
You don't find it a tad bit arrogant to sit on a forum telling the most commercially successful game ever made they could of done it better ? And what they have done is....laughably bad.
Do you make a billion dollars a year on your ideas ?
Nope, and neither does WoW make money off their ideas. Because they don't have their own ideas. WoW is a reskinned hollowed out EverQuest.
And yes, I feel more than qualified to "sit here" and point out why WoW has terrible design.
Does WoW have the best raid system? No. Does it have the best PvP? No. Does it have the best crafting? No. Does it have the best housing? No. Does it have the best classes? No.
WoW was a solidly average game with a lot of good polish. But the biggest factor to its success was brand name. People seem to forget that it was the first big budget MMO based on a popular IP by a company that was insanely popular with all kinds of gamers. A company that spent a year before WoW's launch advertising in every website and magazine, and on Battle.net.
It was the first MMO to get its name in the mainstream, so now when people hear MMO they think WoW. That fact alone gets WoW more players and money than the quality of their game.
I guess it depends on what you value. Do you value a company's ability to make money, even if it screws its players (Diablo 3) and polish their very simple game that does nothing new? Or do you value daring, innovation, and quality?
Wow was average in comparison to what mmo?
Most of the ones that came before it. It didn't do anything new at the time it came out. The only real difference was that it had good animations and ran on lower end machines. But feature wise, it was (and still is, amazingly) far far behind games like Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, ect.
It's raids and PvP were a shit load worse than DAoC. It's storyline and events were and dungeons were way worse than Asheron's Call and EverQuest. It's crafting was way worse than SWG and UO. It's level of depth and freedom was far far FAR under UO. Everything that WoW did had already been done by EverQuest and DAoC, usually in a better way.
For the best overall developer...I'd have to go with Blizzard. They haven't made a game or expansion that I didn't like in the last 20 years.
For my favorite developer...I'd have to say Nintendo. Granted they don't make PC games, but a lot of my favorite games of all time come from Nintendo. They have some of the best series of all time as well, Mario, Zelda, Yoshi, Metroid, etc. They're all good.
Not a big fan of Wow but I will agree with an above poster about the decision to "reset" a title instead of going "oh well" tossing it into the market to shill whatever you can out of it. That's pretty rare in this industry actually.
They're the only MMO company that has managed to grow year after year, and learn from their mistakes.
Blizzard is laughably bad. They never come up with any ideas on their own, just snip ideas from other games and make them casual and usually worse.
At its core, WoW is a disaster, from a design standpoint.
And all other companies I used to admire got too big for their britches and ruined their own games and communities. Turbine, Mythic, Verant, all fucking awful. But CCP has managed to stay level.
You might not like blizzards games but saying they are laughable just makes you out to be a bitter hater. I am not a huge fan of their games but i can accept that their games are developed to a very high standard of quality that most other companies can't get near.
I'm not denying that their games are polished and that their marketing is masterful. But the actual design of the game, and what they've done with WoW is laughably bad. Its got the most budget and devs of any MMO in history and they're only JUST adding housing. Their PvP and crafting are still terrible, there are no variety in their dungeons.
They've done nothing but sit on WoW, really.
You don't find it a tad bit arrogant to sit on a forum telling the most commercially successful game ever made they could of done it better ? And what they have done is....laughably bad.
Do you make a billion dollars a year on your ideas ?
Nope, and neither does WoW make money off their ideas. Because they don't have their own ideas. WoW is a reskinned hollowed out EverQuest.
And yes, I feel more than qualified to "sit here" and point out why WoW has terrible design.
Does WoW have the best raid system? No. Does it have the best PvP? No. Does it have the best crafting? No. Does it have the best housing? No. Does it have the best classes? No.
WoW was a solidly average game with a lot of good polish. But the biggest factor to its success was brand name. People seem to forget that it was the first big budget MMO based on a popular IP by a company that was insanely popular with all kinds of gamers. A company that spent a year before WoW's launch advertising in every website and magazine, and on Battle.net.
It was the first MMO to get its name in the mainstream, so now when people hear MMO they think WoW. That fact alone gets WoW more players and money than the quality of their game.
I guess it depends on what you value. Do you value a company's ability to make money, even if it screws its players (Diablo 3) and polish their very simple game that does nothing new? Or do you value daring, innovation, and quality?
Wow was average in comparison to what mmo?
Most of the ones that came before it. It didn't do anything new at the time it came out. The only real difference was that it had good animations and ran on lower end machines. But feature wise, it was (and still is, amazingly) far far behind games like Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, ect.
It's raids and PvP were a shit load worse than DAoC. It's storyline and events were and dungeons were way worse than Asheron's Call and EverQuest. It's crafting was way worse than SWG and UO. It's level of depth and freedom was far far FAR under UO. Everything that WoW did had already been done by EverQuest and DAoC, usually in a better way.
To be honest older mmo's ran like shit and most of them were buggy messes. Blizzard changed the industry standards of how an mmo should be polished. That is good development regardless if you like the games features are not. Old mmo's used take ages to load up, wow was on your screen in seconds. My first mmo was horizons and it took about 10 minutes to render the game world.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
They're the only MMO company that has managed to grow year after year, and learn from their mistakes.
Blizzard is laughably bad. They never come up with any ideas on their own, just snip ideas from other games and make them casual and usually worse.
At its core, WoW is a disaster, from a design standpoint.
And all other companies I used to admire got too big for their britches and ruined their own games and communities. Turbine, Mythic, Verant, all fucking awful. But CCP has managed to stay level.
You might not like blizzards games but saying they are laughable just makes you out to be a bitter hater. I am not a huge fan of their games but i can accept that their games are developed to a very high standard of quality that most other companies can't get near.
I'm not denying that their games are polished and that their marketing is masterful. But the actual design of the game, and what they've done with WoW is laughably bad. Its got the most budget and devs of any MMO in history and they're only JUST adding housing. Their PvP and crafting are still terrible, there are no variety in their dungeons.
They've done nothing but sit on WoW, really.
You don't find it a tad bit arrogant to sit on a forum telling the most commercially successful game ever made they could of done it better ? And what they have done is....laughably bad.
Do you make a billion dollars a year on your ideas ?
Nope, and neither does WoW make money off their ideas. Because they don't have their own ideas. WoW is a reskinned hollowed out EverQuest.
And yes, I feel more than qualified to "sit here" and point out why WoW has terrible design.
Does WoW have the best raid system? No. Does it have the best PvP? No. Does it have the best crafting? No. Does it have the best housing? No. Does it have the best classes? No.
WoW was a solidly average game with a lot of good polish. But the biggest factor to its success was brand name. People seem to forget that it was the first big budget MMO based on a popular IP by a company that was insanely popular with all kinds of gamers. A company that spent a year before WoW's launch advertising in every website and magazine, and on Battle.net.
It was the first MMO to get its name in the mainstream, so now when people hear MMO they think WoW. That fact alone gets WoW more players and money than the quality of their game.
I guess it depends on what you value. Do you value a company's ability to make money, even if it screws its players (Diablo 3) and polish their very simple game that does nothing new? Or do you value daring, innovation, and quality?
Wow was average in comparison to what mmo?
Most of the ones that came before it. It didn't do anything new at the time it came out. The only real difference was that it had good animations and ran on lower end machines. But feature wise, it was (and still is, amazingly) far far behind games like Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, ect.
It's raids and PvP were a shit load worse than DAoC. It's storyline and events were and dungeons were way worse than Asheron's Call and EverQuest. It's crafting was way worse than SWG and UO. It's level of depth and freedom was far far FAR under UO. Everything that WoW did had already been done by EverQuest and DAoC, usually in a better way.
To be honest older mmo's ran like shit and most of them were buggy messes. Blizzard changed the industry standards of how an mmo should be polished. That is good development regardless if you like the games features are not. Old mmo's used take ages to load up, wow was on your screen in seconds. My first mmo was horizons and it took about 10 minutes to render the game world.
Here's the thing. The ability to polish a game is less a function of the quality of developers and more a function of the budget.
WoW was the first MMO being made by a veteran game company with shit loads of money. Of COURSE it was going to release polished.
And no, you're wrong about all MMOs being buggy messes before WoW. The only MMO I played that I would call "a buggy mess" was Star Wars Galaxies on launch day. In the 7 years I played DAoC, the only bug I ever ran into was getting stuck inside a tent. Once. One time.
Though Horizons WAS notoriously known for being a bad game, so I understand your bias.
To be honest older mmo's ran like shit and most of them were buggy messes. Blizzard changed the industry standards of how an mmo should be polished. That is good development regardless if you like the games features are not. Old mmo's used take ages to load up, wow was on your screen in seconds. My first mmo was horizons and it took about 10 minutes to render the game world.
Lol that reminds me, The chat room in EQ's login....spent a lot of time in that thing.
Sorry, guess you just don't understand how market trends work or how game design works.
I said WoW was solidly average. Bad in some areas (raids, classes, dungeons) but solidly average is all you need if your brand name is synomous with MMO.
Your posts always have such high comedic value because unlike some of the other more opinionated people who get confused once in a while, you legitimately don't seem to understand the concept of opinion vrs fact. You actually seem to believe that if you say it, it must be true because....you said it.
Like in your post above where you list off that it has bad raids, classes etc etc. You really believe that is just a fact in the gaming industry and not just your opinion of it's features correct ?
So while no one will ever "win" an argument with he who can have the last word, you'll never be anything more than a good laugh along the way because you can't take someone with that type of attitude seriously in any kind of discussion.
Comments
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Isn't this a subject just begging for people to show their brand loyalty or fanboyism, as well as the why's behind it? We're all brand loyal to something as well as fanbois of something.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Spent almost 15 years as a programmer before moving into QA automation/tools/whitebox
Without someone to test out new innovations there will never be advances across the board between all competitors.
SOE might be crap in terms of quality and support however the different game mechanics and engines they tries are a lot more diverse than many other developers.
I guess you are probably one of those people that believe space programs are a waste of money as well judging by your comment, lol
Sorry but most of that money comes from activision titles, not blizzard alone.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Ive always had a lot of respect for the developers at Valve. I just wish I enjoyed FPS
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Web & Graphic Design - www.xdrac.com
Nope, and neither does WoW make money off their ideas. Because they don't have their own ideas. WoW is a reskinned hollowed out EverQuest.
And yes, I feel more than qualified to "sit here" and point out why WoW has terrible design.
Does WoW have the best raid system? No. Does it have the best PvP? No. Does it have the best crafting? No. Does it have the best housing? No. Does it have the best classes? No.
WoW was a solidly average game with a lot of good polish. But the biggest factor to its success was brand name. People seem to forget that it was the first big budget MMO based on a popular IP by a company that was insanely popular with all kinds of gamers. A company that spent a year before WoW's launch advertising in every website and magazine, and on Battle.net.
It was the first MMO to get its name in the mainstream, so now when people hear MMO they think WoW. That fact alone gets WoW more players and money than the quality of their game.
I guess it depends on what you value. Do you value a company's ability to make money, even if it screws its players (Diablo 3) and polish their very simple game that does nothing new? Or do you value daring, innovation, and quality?
Gotta go with Blizzard on this one. It's hard to knock their track record, and their ability to say "nope, don't like it" and scrap a game instead of risking their reputation with a broken product. Hell, taking Titan back to the drawing board shows how smart they are.
WoW still has millions playing after 9 years. SC2 is wildly popular and has a tremendous following in esport venues. D3 was successful, but Blizzard wasn't happy with the RMT/AH b.s. and are removing it and revamping the game via expansion pack to make it into a better ARPG. Hearthstone, a total darkhorse, has come out of left field and is extremely popular.
It's going to be interesting to see how Heroes of the Storm manages vs. LoL (king of the MOBAs) and DOTA 2.
I'll agree with other's though and say that Blizzard isn't know for breaking molds, which is ok since they bring a ton of polish to existing systems. I would also like to see them delve into some other game types as well. Open world rpg using the Diablo setting (Diablo Skyrim). How cool would a StarCraft based FPS be?
Honorable mentions have to be Bethesda, SoE and SquareEnix though. All have made some extremely memorable and entertaining games over the years.
I do love to read posts like this.
10 years not only at the top but so far above every other game on the market ..they look like ants to it and here you sit saying it's a crappy game design ppl only played because of marketing pre launch and brand name.
If this was 500 years ago...you'd have a hat will bells on it.
Wow was average in comparison to what mmo?
Sorry, guess you just don't understand how market trends work or how game design works.
I said WoW was solidly average. Bad in some areas (raids, classes, dungeons) but solidly average is all you need if your brand name is synomous with MMO.
Most of the ones that came before it. It didn't do anything new at the time it came out. The only real difference was that it had good animations and ran on lower end machines. But feature wise, it was (and still is, amazingly) far far behind games like Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, ect.
It's raids and PvP were a shit load worse than DAoC. It's storyline and events were and dungeons were way worse than Asheron's Call and EverQuest. It's crafting was way worse than SWG and UO. It's level of depth and freedom was far far FAR under UO. Everything that WoW did had already been done by EverQuest and DAoC, usually in a better way.
For the best overall developer...I'd have to go with Blizzard. They haven't made a game or expansion that I didn't like in the last 20 years.
For my favorite developer...I'd have to say Nintendo. Granted they don't make PC games, but a lot of my favorite games of all time come from Nintendo. They have some of the best series of all time as well, Mario, Zelda, Yoshi, Metroid, etc. They're all good.
To be honest older mmo's ran like shit and most of them were buggy messes. Blizzard changed the industry standards of how an mmo should be polished. That is good development regardless if you like the games features are not. Old mmo's used take ages to load up, wow was on your screen in seconds. My first mmo was horizons and it took about 10 minutes to render the game world.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Here's the thing. The ability to polish a game is less a function of the quality of developers and more a function of the budget.
WoW was the first MMO being made by a veteran game company with shit loads of money. Of COURSE it was going to release polished.
And no, you're wrong about all MMOs being buggy messes before WoW. The only MMO I played that I would call "a buggy mess" was Star Wars Galaxies on launch day. In the 7 years I played DAoC, the only bug I ever ran into was getting stuck inside a tent. Once. One time.
Though Horizons WAS notoriously known for being a bad game, so I understand your bias.
Lol that reminds me, The chat room in EQ's login....spent a lot of time in that thing.
Your posts always have such high comedic value because unlike some of the other more opinionated people who get confused once in a while, you legitimately don't seem to understand the concept of opinion vrs fact. You actually seem to believe that if you say it, it must be true because....you said it.
Like in your post above where you list off that it has bad raids, classes etc etc. You really believe that is just a fact in the gaming industry and not just your opinion of it's features correct ?
So while no one will ever "win" an argument with he who can have the last word, you'll never be anything more than a good laugh along the way because you can't take someone with that type of attitude seriously in any kind of discussion.