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State of MMORPGs and WoW

SirAgravaineSirAgravaine Member RarePosts: 520

I remember a time when WOW was the standard by which MMORPGs were measured. Now it seems to be the butt of any joke and the heart of any insult in the MMO-culture. I have been delving into this genre for going on 12 years, almost as long as it has existed in its 3D form and I have never witnessed quite so harsh of a backlas toward such a beloved game.

It seems the majority of MMORPG.COM players who spent hours, months and years of enjoyment in Azeroth have all piled into the we-want-something-different bandwagon and relentllessly insult WOW. Why? World of Warcraft released only one year after SWG, which
will be closing down its servers because of bad developer decisions, and was one of the few big titles from the third generation of MMORPGs. We're now on the brink of what I would consider the seventh generation and I think we have come a long way in terms of gameplay since WoW's launch. Many blame the current state of MMORPGs on WOW's success, and those complaints are not unfounded but most who complain probably played WoW for several years before their experience became stale and they started insulting the game.

There is no need to bash a game that simply feels old, because it is old. Yes, there are many titles to look forward to and many innovations that have yet to be attempted, but one must realize that WoW is a senior citizen in MMO years, coming up on its 7th this November. It wasn't innovative, it wasn't flawless, it wasn't the best possible world or IP for an MMO, it simply came at the right time and in the right way, and was fun.

If you want to blame anyone particular person for the current state of MMORPGs, you might want to blame yourself for innocently making it so popular, if you did indeed play. Because we...the population sold it to each other by word of mouth. If you want your next MMO to be the bee's knees like WoW was/is, sell it, make it popular, but for the love of my favorite genre, please be kind to the elderly.

Comments

  • delete5230delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 7,081

    Originally posted by ~Oblivion~

    I remember a time when WOW was the standard by which MMORPGs were measured. Now it seems to be the butt of any joke and the heart of any insult in the MMO-culture. I have been delving into this genre for going on 12 years, almost as long as it has existed in its 3D form and I have never witnessed quite so harsh of a backlas toward such a beloved game.

    It seems the majority of MMORPG.COM players who spent hours, months and years of enjoyment in Azeroth have all piled into the we-want-something-different bandwagon and relentllessly insult WOW. Why? World of Warcraft released only one year after SWG, which

    will be closing down its servers because of bad developer decisions, and was one of the few big titles from the third generation of MMORPGs. We're now on the brink of what I would consider the seventh generation and I think we have come a long way in terms of gameplay since WoW's launch. Many blame the current state of MMORPGs on WOW's success, and those complaints are not unfounded but most who complain probably played WoW for several years before their experience became stale and they started insulting the game.

    There is no need to bash a game that simply feels old, because it is old. Yes, there are many titles to look forward to and many innovations that have yet to be attempted, but one must realize that WoW is a senior citizen in MMO years, coming up on its 7th this November. It wasn't innovative, it wasn't flawless, it wasn't the best possible world or IP for an MMO, it simply came at the right time and in the right way, and was fun.

    If you want to blame anyone particular person for the current state of MMORPGs, you might want to blame yourself for innocently making it so popular, if you did indeed play. Because we...the population sold it to each other by word of mouth. If you want your next MMO to be the bee's knees like WoW was/is, sell it, make it popular, but for the love of my favorite genre, please be kind to the elderly.

    No one should feel burnt out on WoW. Blizzard is responsible because instead of adding more starting areas and mid level game they went in a direction of making the game candy. In fact that was not even a good idea if they were trying to cater to younger people as they would have welcomed the Vanilla WOW format ( and would have been able to play it ).  Blizzard decided on there own that they should make it easy mode.

    No one asked them to candy down the game. Many like the new WoW, but many more don't !......More land mass would be far more excepted than the crap they gave us.

  • PioneerStewPioneerStew Member Posts: 874

    The seventh generation???

    I think a lot of people loved vanilla WOW but dislike what it has become. 

  • KothosesKothoses Member UncommonPosts: 921

    Part of wows Problem is its phenomenal success, when you get to that level of income and reinvestment from it, you start to become more and more risk averse.  Plus the direction since the new guy took over is very different to what it started out as, while on paper it is now a better game than it was at launch, in practise many people miss the community elements and character investment that was required back in the day.

     

    Theres no doubt a lot of the changes have been good for wow, but equally a lot of them have been bad for the players, as always fun is subjective and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but most veteran wow players dislike where the game has gone, and most of the new generation of wow players enjoy it for the instant gratification it gives.

     

    Horses for courses, but wow has lost a lot of its soul in my opinion.

  • KothosesKothoses Member UncommonPosts: 921

    Originally posted by Cothor

    Why would you even waste time posting this? This has been debated and discussed heavily from every possible angle for the last 3 years. Delete this useless thread.

     

     

    Or just dont post in it if you dont like it, just because "You" might have debated it 3 years ago doesnt mean the OP has, and it doesnt mean all of the 10s of thousands of visitors this site gets every day have done so.

     

    There is only one post in this thread that is "useless" and its not the OP's :)

  • PioneerStewPioneerStew Member Posts: 874

    Originally posted by Kothoses

    Part of wows Problem is its phenomenal success, when you get to that level of income and reinvestment from it, you start to become more and more risk averse.  Plus the direction since the new guy took over is very different to what it started out as, while on paper it is now a better game than it was at launch, in practise many people miss the community elements and character investment that was required back in the day.

     

    Theres no doubt a lot of the changes have been good for wow, but equally a lot of them have been bad for the players, as always fun is subjective and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but most veteran wow players dislike where the game has gone, and most of the new generation of wow players enjoy it for the instant gratification it gives.

     

    Horses for courses, but wow has lost a lot of its soul in my opinion.

    What he said

  • WalicWalic Member Posts: 41

    I am not going to lie I used to play WOW and now I am the one making fun of people for playing but thats not the point I am trying to make.  I enjoyed playing during the time, but like everything now days things get old.  With WOW a game that pretty much defined MMOs and has been around for years and doing well, there is only so much they can do to the game before it just dies out or they run out of ideas.  Its just the nature of the beast.  Plus when you have hardcore games like they do, they have to worry about keeping their attention and adding more content then adding cool little things or fix small problems.  Its a tough business and even tougher when you have crazy gamers with no life.

  • StoneRosesStoneRoses Member RarePosts: 1,771

    Originally posted by page  Many like the new WoW, but many more don't !......More land mass would be far more excepted than the crap they gave us.

    Us?

    You are refering to all the insatiable players whinning and bitching about every MMO released even before WoW.  Rage quiting previous titles because of changes developers made, then jump back to it as if you always loved the game in 1st place because WoW exploded. You're not the Big Fish anymore, casual gamers are in huge numbers.

    MMORPGs aren't easy, You're just too PRO!
  • SuperXero89SuperXero89 Member UncommonPosts: 2,551

    Blizzard designed World of Warcraft to be the next generation Everquest, not some gimmicky alternative.  It's understandable then why Blizzard has chosen to focus on verticle rather than horizontal progression.  After the first expansion, EQ's expansion packs were almost entirely endgame focused just like in WoW, so it's not that Blizzard is doing anything inherently wrong rather people are finally growing tired of the gear grind.  WoW is just the scapegoat because it's the gear grind that eveyrone's playing these days.

    I see a lot of complaints from people who have grown tired of the level increase dog and pony show that is WoW, and I myself am beginning to tire of it.  The problem is that even with 300,000 lost subscribers, WoW still has probably more subs than every other NA MMORPG combined and then some, so I'm not sure that Blizzard is entirely  concerned with adding new features to expand horizontal progression when they can keep so many players hooked simply by adding onto the endgame.

    I don't buy that WoW feels old when almost every MMORPG out there and almost any upcoming MMORPG views WoW as the industry standard and does little to separate their game from the industry leader.  WoW may be 7 years old, but in reality, the only thing that has really progressed since then has been graphics.  WoW looked old in 2004, but its strengths were never in its polygon count.  The game has superb art direction that has withstood the test of time better than many other games released around the same time period.

    It's time though that we see an MMORPG that stops outright copying WoW or that simply claim to be an alternative.  It's time we see an MMORPG that takes the spirit of what made WoW so successful to the next level by putting its own spin on all of WoW's unique features. 

    That or we need to finally see a sandbox MMORPG come from a developer that doesn't intentionally try to scare off the mainstream gamer.

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