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I hope Vanilla proves their is a market for social interaction
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
Blizzard announced that it will be releasing a 2004 version of Vanilla World of Warcraft.
This news stirs a lot of controversy on how popular it will be. Some say temporary nostalgia, some say they will play it for ever, and everything in between........ My opinion, this doesn't need to be discussed or debated. In fact if one were to think about it, It doesn't matter, Blizzard will always adjust server size where everyone will be happy regardless.
The real topic:
Will it be studied ?..... Will marketing take a step back and say " people like to interact and make communities" ?
After all Blizzard created a narrative campaign that everything should be auto-handed to the player with the assumption of "capturing everyone" from 6 to 60.
I'll admit, capturing everyone isn't a bad idea ON PAPER !.....But did it work ?
All other mmorpgs followed this campaign, keeping a blind eye that it's best to follow the money (Blizzard)....But did this work ?
Important:
It's impossible to chart !!!....... Something that worked STOPPED, then re-tooled differently with no turning back and forced.
How can you gage "then vs. now" if now is fixated and absolute ?.......Forced is a harsh word, I hate using it, but that's what happened, capture everyone.
6 million players..... Could it have been 12 million ?....... It's impossible to chart the unknown!
I hope Vanilla will prove something to the close minded executives that marketing can't reach into the souls of players. If not we have Pantheon Rise of the Fallen, Ashes of Creation and Saga of Lucimia.... Let's hope their quality games and not broken.
This news stirs a lot of controversy on how popular it will be. Some say temporary nostalgia, some say they will play it for ever, and everything in between........ My opinion, this doesn't need to be discussed or debated. In fact if one were to think about it, It doesn't matter, Blizzard will always adjust server size where everyone will be happy regardless.
The real topic:
Will it be studied ?..... Will marketing take a step back and say " people like to interact and make communities" ?
After all Blizzard created a narrative campaign that everything should be auto-handed to the player with the assumption of "capturing everyone" from 6 to 60.
I'll admit, capturing everyone isn't a bad idea ON PAPER !.....But did it work ?
All other mmorpgs followed this campaign, keeping a blind eye that it's best to follow the money (Blizzard)....But did this work ?
Important:
It's impossible to chart !!!....... Something that worked STOPPED, then re-tooled differently with no turning back and forced.
How can you gage "then vs. now" if now is fixated and absolute ?.......Forced is a harsh word, I hate using it, but that's what happened, capture everyone.
6 million players..... Could it have been 12 million ?....... It's impossible to chart the unknown!
I hope Vanilla will prove something to the close minded executives that marketing can't reach into the souls of players. If not we have Pantheon Rise of the Fallen, Ashes of Creation and Saga of Lucimia.... Let's hope their quality games and not broken.
Comments
People still want MMO with social interaciton
You will have a vanilla community that will hopefully embrace the "old ways" but most others will try it out for the sheer novelty and then move on. And by others i mean the people with no real interest in the "old ways". Who have no emotional connection to it or cant be arsed.
I am sure there will be some who stay and prosper. But it highly doubt it will change the view of the market in large.
This have been a good conversation
I believe what you say, I don't like it but I believe it !
I fear, the ones that try it will be its already fixated players of auto-handed game play..... They will not like having to go the extra mile, of something they can have easily in their already replica.
Key word accustomed, to what they had been doing !
There is a entire "generation" of gamers that rightfully so see games like EQ1 UO and classic WoW as relics of a bygone era. Limited by their design and lack of development.
After all... It is all true. We look at the old arcade and console games in the same way. That does not equal that nobody likes them. In fact there are very strong communities around these things.. like most things "classic". But much like the Morris Minor appreciation clubs... They have very little effect on the world at large.
Heck... vanilla WoW was sort of outdated by the time it came out. Games like City of Heroes and Star Wars Galaxies had many QoL features that it would take WoW years to get. Such as in-game quest area tracking, group que and transmog.
But what it had was momentum. A metric ton of momentum.
This have been a good conversation
Other things may have been the cause, but not the lack of features in vanilla.
World of Warcraft at launch was at best "as difficult" and more commonly much easier than any previous MMO that had launched...
Social Interaction and Community in say Ultima Online wasn't based around "group content" or even "needing something". It was certainly easy enough to get gear and reagents etc in UO... People stood around town being Social... or created "Player Towns" because they were lucky enough to get houses down in an area to do it...
In EQ Social/Community probably was based more on grouping... because there was so much forced down time you often did talk to your group. So obviously when you decided you liked someone you were going to look for them when you were on. Then there was also the whole trade setup in the Tunnel.... where players knew they could go to see if someone had something they wanted or needed something they had.
For me personally the Social or Community option changes when players leave the game. Because... if your friends or the people you know leave... then obviously you notice. Some people leave because the game changed and others leave due to things in real life and sometimes they just vanish.... and that could be for any reason or maybe even that they just started over on another server and wanted to vanish.
I don't like WoW as it is now... but I can log in and be all kinds of social and thus feel there is a community. I just don't actually know any of the people I interact with...
Personally I would say the fact that people want everything as fast as possible and will put themselves to task to get it done... has had the larger impact on social interaction and/or community. (edit: and you are certainly going to see this on classic.)
One MMO I was playing at launch I was invited to a guild and then put in a group with the guild leader. The only thing the lead and their "right hand" really cared about was getting to max level. I remember watching guild chat and seeing people struggle and the guild slowly ripping its self apart. Which is a fairly common scenario these days... (edit to add: This wasn't really knew I remember people in EQ that had been in my UO guild.. would group hop to get the items they needed. Leaving other guildies behind that had helped them and still needed items. That type of thing had a pretty negative impact.)
or TLDR The reason Social Interaction and/or Community in games changed.. is mostly due to the people playing the games.
Game design isn't going to fix that... but if you actually enjoy playing the game.. you will over look a lot of it.
"that kind of mechanics will never be popular again" ? lol , they now standard FORCED to solo few level then get FORCED to grouping to do instances then again get FORCED to solo .
"Never be popular again" ? funny .
in wow vanilla u interacted with your guild the most (like always) and joined pugs for dungeons or even PVP, had some friends in other guilds or 2 guilds were friendly to each other , there was some competition and in pvp u remembered your opponents since it was just your server not shared bg, there were player events but outside that....oh just gonna add 2 words
Barrens chat.
I hope it'll do alright. I don't think it'll be popular if it don't get updated. But as long as someone is enjoying it, it is a good thing.
Without instant travel, people had to coordinate getting to dungeons and places. Usually, there would be some super extrovert people who would go around inviting everyone to dungeon through word of mouth. EQ was like this as well. Sometimes it led to some dialogue.
Quest trackers and markers removed player interaction in terms of helping with quests via general chat. Players would often shout where is x location or mob and 20 people would say over there!
As discussed in the crowd control discussion there were group tactics that required some coordination. It might not seem like much or simple, but when it needs to be executed over and over again fairly precisely one small mistake can cause a wipe. Getting everyone to target the same mob was not always so easy as it sounds. This was especially the case in games like Everquest, but also to a lesser degree in WoW. Getting everyone to be on the same page and cooperate was important in group scenarios.
Social interaction can occur now in any game at any time should the players deem such interaction worthwhile. The lack of LFG tools didn't promote such interaction, it was a product of the times.
The internet was new. The concept of even talking to someone online was new. There wasn't a plethora of information out there about every nook and cranny of the game, so players had to rely on each other.
The internet is not new anymore. Most games are dissected before they are even released. MMO-Champion broadcasts every little detail they can datamine, players with access to beta write copious wikis about what they see and do. It took quite some time for said information to be disseminated in the past, now it happens in almost real-time.
So no, vanilla WoW reboot won't prove anything about the need for social interaction because that occurred without any input on Blizzards part. And it is why it will or will not happen only if YOU make it happen.
You choose to go to a Bar and gather with friends. You choose to stay home and read a book alone. You choose to watch the game with friends. You choose to watch it alone. You choose to text someone that you are at a stop light waiting for the light to change. You choose to not text anyone at all.
More people than not were enamored with the whole idea of communicating with complete strangers from around the world back then than they are now. Social interaction is a function of choice, not design.
You want social interaction? You make it happen. You don't want to make it happen, it's not going to happen on it's own. You're playing with a bunch of people that don't have anything to say to you... out of choice, not design.
It proves that a few people will play the game but not enough to support it. Just because they can get a preexisting game to run does not make it smart or doable. If these people had to actually design and code everything from the ground up they wouldn't be doing it either. Comparing a develop company who must create everything to a group of people who appropriated someone else's work is like comparing apples and oranges.
Could more focus on group play and a general higher difficulty be fun? Yeah, certainly.
Can you earn money on nostalgia? Oh, yes.
But even if vanilla Wow suddenly steal most players from regular Wow and hit an insane amount of players it doesn't really prove much, just that people missed classic Wow. The one impact it would make is that if Blizz make a Wow2 it will be closer to vanilla if the server becomes a huge hit. It is also possible that Wows next expansion would be influenced by it but I ain't betting any money on it.
On other MMOs it wont have much if any impact. They already know that vanilla Wow was popular, a successful vanilla serversetting would have no impact on ESO or GW2 no matter what. If it do badly it would prove that people think a 13 year old game are dated, that doesn't help anyone either.
At best Blizzard will change things because of it and that is just if it does extremely good or bad.
I agree,
My OP is a lot of wishful thinking. A lot more than Vanilla WoW would have to happen.
However the wishful thinking could become a reality. I'm not totally up to speed on upcoming but I do know 3 games with social interaction in the future.
Pantheon Rise of the Fallen, Ashes of Creation and Saga of Lucimia.... Let's hope their quality games and not broken. This along with a popular Vanilla WoW could turn some tables.
I also believe their will be a World of Warcraft 2 someday. After all Blizzard is an established company that wouldn't allow a fading existence when numbers start dropping.
Most people here had solo in older games and have to use LFG/LFR to do WOW clones instance contents . It mean FORCED group still here and a chose to solo existent in older game .
It suffers from the same problems as all other themeparks that use vertical progression - your community is constantly segregated, making it harder and harder to work together. The only reason WoW got away with it compared to competitors is due to it's size - it doesn't matter if you segment your community as long as each segment is large enough to support itself. I think that within a few months of launch, the community will not be large enough to support lots of grouping during leveling so all you'll have is the endgame crowd.
So, I think what you'll find is a bunch of old-school WoW players who go over with their guilds and enjoy the game within their little circle of friends, plus a bunch of random people who are curious about vanilla WoW who will give it a shot before quickly moving on.
I wondered a bit when I first heard Blizzard's plan to release a vanilla version of WoW. The most interesting thing I thought of was a version of the WoW engine, with classes, skills and combat at some specific level, but with completely new lore as its core. Instead of producing WoW circa 2005, there would be a brand new game world to explore. That might be the best of all worlds, and might actually encourage the social contacts the OP was asking for due to the new lore pretty much invalidating all the spoiler sites. (For awhile, anyway)
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I don't naturally interact with others so an assist from the game's mechanics is welcome in my case.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
But even if it is faster it is still rather messy considering you need people at the exact same place in the questchain as you, that is why so few bother with it.
Also, you have to add the fact that soloing most those quests are already mindnumbingly easy, run them at several players is so easy & boring that our brains will try to escape through the ear canals. People might be lazy but they at least want to have a little fun as well. Saving 25% of the time leveling but making the whole thing like watching paint dry sounds llike a loose-loose situation, particularly since the endgame tend to suck.
There is being lazy and there is being stupid.
Last night I watched a live stream of someone playing SWTOR solo. His health bar never went below 80% even with bosses.
Mind-numbingly..... All of them.... What's the attraction ?
Here's the thing,
Vanilla World of Warcraft blew everything out of the water for several reasons.
#1 Large game...... It had something for everyone, everything solo could be done as a duo or groups. If the solo player was feeling a little frisky they can choose to get a small group and do something harder.
Now every game is round up the entire zone and wipe them out, no questions asked