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If things were different
Funseiki
Member UncommonPosts: 263
I always wondered whether or not an MMORPGamer's point of view of this genre would be any different if a game like Darkfall (or any other answer-to-our-prayers MMO) actually became successful and was the answer to many of our annoyances with the current genre.
Would we be asking for a WoW type game, if a game with Darkfall's / DnL's (I am not making any comparisons to either - one is old news, the other is still being developed) promised features actually saw the light of day and delivered on their promises? Would we want more of a game and less of an open world?
I understand all people have differing viewpoints on the current MMO state, but just something I thought I might share with others to see what you all think.
I am not throwing insults at any games out right now, so fanbois can relax.
Just a thought.
Comments
When WoW was first released it was a breath of fresh air. It was a polished new world with a decent classes, a good soundtrack and plenty of players to make it a vibrant community (if a little irritating at times).
Still, it was largely designed to appeal to the masses and much of the MMO community on this site soon missed aspects of gameplay that we enjoyed on earlier games. I guess everyone hoped a game would come along as polished and well made as WoW but catering to a different form of gameplay. This has still not really happened, particularly for those that want more freedom and an open world (a.k.a. Sandbox).
If WoW had not happened the MMO community would be smaller in size as it clearly bought a lot of people into the genre; but perhaps we would not have missed it so much if it had never come along. We were already used to doing things the hard way and did not need the ease that WoW provided. Still, it was a good blast when we first played it.
This site has a good number of posters that are dedicated players, that like to put time into a game and like to have plenty of different - perhaps difficult - things to try. The site is not a fair reflection of the MMO community as a whole. As such, this place will always attract players that prefer the old-school style of game.
Furthermore, the players that wish for a 'Theme Park' style MMO are less vocal, because they are busy playing the games they enjoy.
I agree with the above poster. Wow as much as people hate it helped the MMO world. It made it a viable and lucrative buisness model. Before WoW MMO's were a niche market that a couple companies were trying to come into. Prior to WoW the games i remember playing were either too complcated for the people i knew or they just felt too geeky playing them so they chose not to. It wasn't untill WoW came along and started apealing to the mass audience that alot of the people i knew who Shy'd away from MMO's started to go "Hey i know alot of people playing that let me give it a shot".
Wows Succsess then started this RUSH of hundreds of smaller and bigger MMO's being made all to get a piece of the market. Pre-WoW i can remember about i dunno a little over 10 MMO's that i knew of, now that list is just too long to even count viably.
I, by no means am saying WoW is the best game. But it did make a persistant world enviroment fun, exciting, and most importantly "accesable" to the mass market. We sometimes need to remember though that games ARE a buisness and although everyone likes to remember the couple of good aspects of those old games we enjoyed ther is a reason no ones playing them anymore and it's not just because of graphics. Everything evolves and wether good or bad is always the way of things.
It's a slippery slope. Don't put out any expansions and people put you do the dogs for taking too long. Put out expansions that add really nothing but new armor and weapons and a level cap and you get sunk at sea. Put out expansions that add new gameplay options and new things to do and Vets scream for the old ways. Theres no winning with every players these days and unfortunatly having 100k active subscribers is no longer a companies goal as much as it would have been a raging success in the olden days.
I don't think we can really speculate what would have been cause honestly WoWs success was as much about Great timing and putting the bait in at the right moment as it was the game itself.
If it was about votes, we would get a WoW type MMO. Just learn to accept that gamers like us who like to have a longer learning curve and more challenge in a game or a sandbox MMO are in the minority.
I really doubt that games like SWG or Dark and Light would have WoW's amount of subs if they lived up to their promises combined with WoW's level of polish and marketing.
You probably can compare it to music/movies. If its good, it doesnt mean that also most people find it entertaining. Not everyone likes David Lynch or Miles Davis.
Makes sense to me.
I think WoW's success, though, has to do with the success and amount of active players on Blizzard's previous games - those on Bnet. With an insane amount of people still playing Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo (even overheard a convo of ppl playing Wc2 battlenet edition), the majority of those players went to WoW to check out an actual world created by the people that made their favorite games. There was always an advertisement on Bnet for WoW on the top banner well before the game actually came out.
If all the hundreds of thousands of players were seeing that ad regularly, I'm guessing many of them got just as psyched about it as I did, especially after learning about what could be done in the world.
Is that what needs to be done? Create a player base large enough and loyal enough for a long period of time on different types of games (RPGs/RTSs in Blizzard's case) and advertise through that. They took a large amount of people from a different style of game play and introduced them to the unfamiliar MMO genre, but eased the transition with a familiar world.
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