I can see my self doing this many many years from now when i am old and grey, with no teeth and a cane. ... Why yes Tommy we did have MMOS when I was young.... Why back in my day we had to group to get the good experience!! We had to make naked corpse runs uphill in the snow!! Dying could cost you hours worth of experience!! Wa actually took long boat rides to get around, we lost poor Bob once when he fell off!! We didn't have these fancy "addons" for our games, if you had an addon back then you were a hacker!! We didn't have fancy ventrillo, we actually had to type!! Those were the good old days! *shakes his cane at you* Get off my lawn you young whippersnappers!!!
I could not have said that better. Excellent visualization Bathnor. Although coming off humorous, that is exactly how it was ... he is not exagerating. Games back then and before everquest are from a different era completely, computers back then were not on everyones desk. In fact back then the only people to even own a computer was few and far between and of those who did own one most people labeled em geeks, nerds, and thier views on those type of people were dim indeed. When MMO's first appeared they were pretty much looked upon in awe and confusion as they were beyond most peoples comprehension and playing online fantasy games back then was considered akin to devil worshiping by some. The gameplay back then was more mental stimulating than anything we have today. It is kinda hare to grasp if you hadn't been there. I could go on but im cutting this short due to interuptions in household................................
I can see my self doing this many many years from now when i am old and grey, with no teeth and a cane. ... Why yes Tommy we did have MMOS when I was young.... Why back in my day we had to group to get the good experience!! We had to make naked corpse runs uphill in the snow!! Dying could cost you hours worth of experience!! Wa actually took long boat rides to get around, we lost poor Bob once when he fell off!! We didn't have these fancy "addons" for our games, if you had an addon back then you were a hacker!! We didn't have fancy ventrillo, we actually had to type!! Those were the good old days! *shakes his cane at you* Get off my lawn you young whippersnappers!!!
I could not have said that better. Excellent visualization Bathnor. Although coming off humorous, that is exactly how it was ... he is not exagerating. Games back then and before everquest are from a different era completely, computers back then were not on everyones desk. In fact back then the only people to even own a computer was few and far between and of those who did own one most people labeled em geeks, nerds, and thier views on those type of people were dim indeed. When MMO's first appeared they were pretty much looked upon in awe and confusion as they were beyond most peoples comprehension and playing online fantasy games back then was considered akin to devil worshiping by some. The gameplay back then was more mental stimulating than anything we have today. It is kinda hare to grasp if you hadn't been there. I could go on but im cutting this short due to interuptions in household................................
1999 was not that long ago my friend. Most if not everyone had computers, although not necessarily good ones, but EQ didn't take a gaming PC to run. You act like EQ released in the 1970s. Don't talk about a time when you weren't even born yet, because you don't know anything about it.
How did WoW manage to take many EQ players? Didnt EQ come out before WoW? So how come that game didnt out polish Blizzard's WoW mmo?
Troll question, or clueless question. Which is it? Or both?
Answer 1). Because EQ had already been out 4 years, people grow tired after awhile.
Answer 2) EQ was one of the few grandfather games of the MMORPG genre, so it was crude. Just like an Atari game compared to a Nintendo game (Or later). Good for it's time, but outdated.
How did WoW manage to take many EQ players? Didnt EQ come out before WoW? So how come that game didnt out polish Blizzard's WoW mmo?
It has nothing to do with polish, it's two totally different target audiences. EQ is targeted at true MMORPG players, seeking a virtual world with heavy social focus and risk vs reward gameplay.
WoW is targeted at people who don't normally play games, or have short attention spans. There are far more of this kind than the first kind.
You can only do so much with a game - graphics, engine, UI, etc - without completely remaking it. WoW will hit that point eventually as well, and will not be able to incorporate some of the new functionality other games introduce without a complete engine overhaul.
Well, that's not technically correct. The vast majority of initial WoW players, were at some time EQ players.
The main appeal to WoW is that it gives a sense of achievement, much more easily than did it's predecestors - primarily EQ on which it was unabashadly based.
What do you mean by 'polish' though? EQ probably has 4 times the content of WoW and did it with much less money, so it may lack some 'polish'.
EQ gave plenty of sense of achievement...just in a different way.
Not dying in a tough area and hence, not having to lose xp and recover your corpse/gear was an accomplishment in itself. Downing that tough mob, traveling through a dangerous area to get to your intended destination (Not every area graduated in lvl as you progressed), etc, etc.
Yes, I played WoW for awhile after having played EQ for 4 years, but I didn't switch because I didn't feel I was getting enough gratification and sense ofachievement. It was just tiring after playing that long and I wanted to try something different.
but that still doesnt explain why WoW out polished EQ. EverQuest came out way before WoW. Remember like the Early WARHAMMER release, and how fans would say, "you cant compare War to WoW, because WoW had 4 years to polish,,,,Bah Bahh BAhhh" Well EQ is older right? So what happened?
A lot of this had to do with the way the original code was written.
The game had an expected life expectancy of less than a year and was not intended to be expanded upon.
Add in the fact that the original game was written in a very convoluted, non-modular manner and that none of the original programmers are left to sort through that old code..........
EQ is rife with outdated mechanics that were never intended to be extended beyond level 50. Updating those mechanics is extremely difficult, and can often break many unrelated systems.
WoW, and most other MMO's, are built in a much more modular fashion. This makes polishing or updating core game mechanics much simpler.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
It is like racing a 1977 corvette to a new one and wondering why the new one kicked the shit of the old one.
Or wondering why GM did just keep working on that old 1977 corvette to make it better instead of flushing it down the toilet and starting from the beginning and making a all new better car with the same name.
Of course you run the risk of having a bad design and making something worse the the original, um like maybe the early 80's corvettes or well EQ2 but anyway..
The point is sometimes it is just better to start new because it would be more work then trying to rework something older.
To Thwart any complaining: in my car analogy I know there maybe be only 5 years difference in the games and 30 years in the cars but technology advances MUCH faster then the auto industry.
WarCraft and Blizzard as a whole already had a fan base of millions before WoW came into being. There is your reason for the sub numbers. Nuff said. It's not the polish, it's not the content. It's the pre-existing IP.
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
How did WoW manage to take many EQ players? Didnt EQ come out before WoW? So how come that game didnt out polish Blizzard's WoW mmo?
Troll question, or clueless question. Which is it? Or both?
Answer 1). Because EQ had already been out 4 years, people grow tired after awhile.
If thats the case, then why is WoW still at the Top? EQ didnt pull off a WoW effect on the market. Even to this day, WoW still has growing numbers, yet it came out newer then EQ just like AoC,DF,WAR, Etc
Answer 2) EQ was one of the few grandfather games of the MMORPG genre, so it was crude. Just like an Atari game compared to a Nintendo game (Or later). Good for it's time, but outdated.
Oh I guess using that logic. WoW should be dead by now. Guess not. Blizzard manages to keep their gamers, and gain new ones, why couldnt EQ (THE GRANDDADDY OF THEME PARK MMOS) do the same?
WarCraft and Blizzard as a whole already had a fan base of millions before WoW came into being. There is your reason for the sub numbers. Nuff said. It's not the polish, it's not the content. It's the pre-existing IP.
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
Difference is, Blizzard had a great deal MORE fans that were playing actual computer games, and Blizzard created the ultimate shallow casual experience to ease these fans into the game. WAR was fairly different in terms of MMO designs, and those that may have been pulled into it already were already playing WoW.
I can see my self doing this many many years from now when i am old and grey, with no teeth and a cane. ... Why yes Tommy we did have MMOS when I was young.... Why back in my day we had to group to get the good experience!! We had to make naked corpse runs uphill in the snow!! Dying could cost you hours worth of experience!! Wa actually took long boat rides to get around, we lost poor Bob once when he fell off!! We didn't have these fancy "addons" for our games, if you had an addon back then you were a hacker!! We didn't have fancy ventrillo, we actually had to type!! Those were the good old days! *shakes his cane at you* Get off my lawn you young whippersnappers!!!
haha -- I LOVE IT !! I started up with EQ in '99 and I have thought/said this sort of thing for a few years now. Good stuff -- and all true. On a side note, I loved EQ until they started with the forced raiding crap. Sorry, I dont have 8 hours to form a raid group -- yes I said FORM...then you still need to set aside some time to actually do the raid --- sorry, not this guy.
I spent a few minutes looking but I couldn't find any statistics about it, but I remember reading it somewhere.
WoW is not growing, it has been dwindeling for some time now. If you read the advertisements WoW gives, 11 Million "Have tried the game". It's actual current subscription base is lower than it was a year ago. It's a "dieing" game. Dieing meaning the total actual subscribers are getting lower and lower. Heck, because of Aion, they lost something close to 500k subscribers from the Asian market alone. Granted WoW is still the most populated P2P game on the market, but let's be honest, there are so many F2P games out there, is there really a need to pay anymore? I jump between several F2P games right now as it is and am enjoying myself. If you want to talk about "Tried the game", there are F2P games out there in the 200 million "Have tried the game" areas. WoW is not the mega giant you believe it is. It's has "crafty" advertisment. WoW is for tourists, not purists. Forgive my english, it's not my primary language.
WarCraft and Blizzard as a whole already had a fan base of millions before WoW came into being. There is your reason for the sub numbers. Nuff said. It's not the polish, it's not the content. It's the pre-existing IP.
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
Difference is, Blizzard had a great deal MORE fans that were playing actual computer games, and Blizzard created the ultimate shallow casual experience to ease these fans into the game. WAR was fairly different in terms of MMO designs, and those that may have been pulled into it already were already playing WoW.
That still doesnt excuse the fact that Warhamer was developed by the DAoC team.
WarCraft and Blizzard as a whole already had a fan base of millions before WoW came into being. There is your reason for the sub numbers. Nuff said. It's not the polish, it's not the content. It's the pre-existing IP.
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
Difference is, Blizzard had a great deal MORE fans that were playing actual computer games, and Blizzard created the ultimate shallow casual experience to ease these fans into the game. WAR was fairly different in terms of MMO designs, and those that may have been pulled into it already were already playing WoW.
You can also add to the fact that if GW let Blizzard make the WH RTS series, there'd be no such thing as WarCraft or WoW and where you have WoW, you'd have WAR. But GW botched that, told Blizzard no and so Bliz just made their own WH.
WarCraft and Blizzard as a whole already had a fan base of millions before WoW came into being. There is your reason for the sub numbers. Nuff said. It's not the polish, it's not the content. It's the pre-existing IP.
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
Difference is, Blizzard had a great deal MORE fans that were playing actual computer games, and Blizzard created the ultimate shallow casual experience to ease these fans into the game. WAR was fairly different in terms of MMO designs, and those that may have been pulled into it already were already playing WoW.
That still doesnt excuse the fact that Warhamer was developed by the DAoC team.
Which is not even the point of this thread. You're just trolling.
Seriously I could run into BG's with my warrior and slide my face across the keyboard and completely own people because I could spin around them faster.
I wish I could record the sound of my brother pvping in WoW it sounds like hes having hardcore sex with his keyboard.
There is no skill or tactics involved in combat like that just strafing around a players spamming a few keys faster than the other guy.
My kids play a game with just as much skill its called Hungry, hungry hippos.
Sex, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and WOW PVP all sound an awful lot more fun than 1/3rd speed WOW combat. So I guess we've hit on at least one of the reasons EQ failed to deliver.
Faster isn't always better, but if you feel you can still faceroll your way to victory in WOW, then quite obviously it would've been that much more boring at 1/3rd speed.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Blizzard is the only MMORPG maker that also published succesful other games in other genres.
They let gameplay prime and that starts with:
1. Fluid movement and extreme polish and control of the avatars.
2. A huge open world design without useless loading screens and channeling. You only port to instances for gaming purposes.
3. Eliminate all elements that don't add anything to their final goal: gaming pleasure. Like extreme basement situations.
Is Blizzard perfect? Nope. In fact they made several small errors in the past and will continue to do so.
The problem is that by stacking so much know how and money, they always catch up quicker than the competition and apparently have the time to implement the changes faster than the competition (cross server content in combo with realm based worlds is going to be huge).
The question remains how anyone could even compete with their next MMO?
But start with the 3 above and you have a nice answer to your specific question.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Gates of Discord upon it's release was unfinished, broken, bugged to hell, & built for level 70 characters but without an increase to the level cap, in essence players had already left EQ in droves, in whole guilds of leavers before World of Warcraft was released, WoW hurt EQ in far less a disastrous way than SoE's own poorly implimented expansion.
EQ released it's expansions to a 1-yearly or 6-monthly schedule, basically providing a forecastable revenue model, rather than focusing on "getting it right" they focused on delivering it on time, which played the biggest part in the content being delivered unpolished, this is SoE's inherant problem of it's "money-men" having too big an influence over game development.
World of Warcraft, based off the Warcaft universe (itself a emulation of the Warhammer IP, shouldn't of happened as it did, but due to Games Workshop's stubborn attitude towards videogames Blizzard decided to say screw em & emulated their IP anyway) gave them a huge following, which alongside their other successes in Starcraft & Diablo had them as a very sucessful developer with a vastly higher profile than SoE had, they made their MMO & had therefore a double following of Warhammer fans that wanted a computer game variant, Blizzard fans of their other games, and capitalised on all that with a massive Ad-campaign, something longtime EQ players had despaired of because SoE had such a tiny pathetic marketing, most of it;'s playerbase was gained via word-of-mouth.
As far as polish goes, it's down to when the polish gets applied & when the content is available, WoW does the polish now release later method, SoE does the release now, polish later method, both are in fact highly polished games, the merits of the 2 approaches are different.
WoW was built for videogamers, console gamers that moved to the PC and the native PC-game buying masses, EQ & MMO's are still a niche market because despite it's similarities to an MMO WoW is in essence a single - player game that was expanded for online gaming, EQ was built for an online audience from the ground up around the concept of providing online gamers with a sandbox world to play in, they however learned from UO went 3d & added theme-park design elements to offset the parts of UO they thought hadn't worked, indeed UO itself altered radically as a result of what EQ did to their formula.
Emulation, improvement & borrowing of ideas are what all MMO's have done so far, but WoW is still an aberration, no other MMO has come close to it's 5- year reign at the top but the majority of it's early fans were not EQ players but Blizzard players, EQ players that did play WoW were dwarfed in numbers by Blizzard fans from other games, WoW brought Blizzards own audience into the MMO gamespace, generating new players of the genre in the process via it's success, it actually "took away" from other games only marginally, now the other games get "tourists" FROM WoW as they grow bored or disenchanted or simply curious to explore what exists outside of the game that brought them into the genre.
But polish, meh, OP I humbly submit you don't actually know what polish is.
I can see my self doing this many many years from now when i am old and grey, with no teeth and a cane. ... Why yes Tommy we did have MMOS when I was young.... Why back in my day we had to group to get the good experience!! We had to make naked corpse runs uphill in the snow!! Dying could cost you hours worth of experience!! Wa actually took long boat rides to get around, we lost poor Bob once when he fell off!! We didn't have these fancy "addons" for our games, if you had an addon back then you were a hacker!! We didn't have fancy ventrillo, we actually had to type!! Those were the good old days! *shakes his cane at you* Get off my lawn you young whippersnappers!!!
I could not have said that better. Excellent visualization Bathnor. Although coming off humorous, that is exactly how it was ... he is not exagerating. Games back then and before everquest are from a different era completely, computers back then were not on everyones desk. In fact back then the only people to even own a computer was few and far between and of those who did own one most people labeled em geeks, nerds, and thier views on those type of people were dim indeed. When MMO's first appeared they were pretty much looked upon in awe and confusion as they were beyond most peoples comprehension and playing online fantasy games back then was considered akin to devil worshiping by some. The gameplay back then was more mental stimulating than anything we have today. It is kinda hare to grasp if you hadn't been there. I could go on but im cutting this short due to interuptions in household................................
1999 was not that long ago my friend. Most if not everyone had computers, although not necessarily good ones, but EQ didn't take a gaming PC to run. You act like EQ released in the 1970s. Don't talk about a time when you weren't even born yet, because you don't know anything about it.
Like I said you have no idea what kind of mindset people had back then unless you were there. My friend I am old enough to be your daddy several times trust me. And if I was your daddy you would not have the shitty attitude you have because your ass would be so sore all you would be able to do is stand there and whine like a little girl cause you damn sure wouldn't be sitting down. And you sure wouldn't smart off to your elders like that no more.
Shit! I was almost 30 in 1999! EQ was among the first mmo's to crawl out of the basement and into the light of day. I played many other games before EQ..early ultima online,wizardry games MUD's internet address games with the freak down the street... now those were the days....Again you have no concept of what that was even remotely like...sigh...
How did WoW manage to take many EQ players? Didnt EQ come out before WoW? So how come that game didnt out polish Blizzard's WoW mmo?
WoW came out as the new and improved theme-park, cruise-controlled EQ many years ago. It's not much different in it's game-play purpose, that of shallow appeal of whacking computer generated and tethered pixels, for the most-part.
Simple explanation: Blizzard is the only MMORPG maker that also published succesful other games in other genres. They let gameplay prime and that starts with: 1. Fluid movement and extreme polish and control of the avatars. 2. A huge open world design without useless loading screens and channeling. You only port to instances for gaming purposes. 3. Eliminate all elements that don't add anything to their final goal: gaming pleasure. Like extreme basement situations. Is Blizzard perfect? Nope. In fact they made several small errors in the past and will continue to do so. The problem is that by stacking so much know how and money, they always catch up quicker than the competition and apparently have the time to implement the changes faster than the competition (cross server content in combo with realm based worlds is going to be huge). The question remains how anyone could even compete with their next MMO? But start with the 3 above and you have a nice answer to your specific question.
I think it more the fact that Blizzard first put Strain and then Kaplan in charge of Wow. SOE doesn't have anyone of their caliber.
Some people are better bosses and programmers than others and you just can't find people like that easy.
But someone can compete with Blizzards next MMO.
Arenanet have still some of the better old Blizzard employees and Strain have made the programming of the engine (like he did for Wow) and a lot of decisions before he jumped off (he is currently working on a zombie MMO). Guildwars 2 will have a full persistant world and no monthly fees, that is hard to compete with.
Bioware is Bioware and are currently working on 2 MMOs, one secret and TOR. They have as much experience as Blizzard and many great devs, don't count them out.
CCPs "World of darkness online" have some of the best pen and paper RPGs devs on it, mix that in with the know how from Eve and things will be interesting.
69 Studio have Salvatore writing the lore (the dude with Drizzt and the darkelfs) and MC Fairlane (Spawn) doing the art for upcoming "Copernicus". Interesting and popular people if they just can get as good programmers things will be interesting. But that is the most insecure card of the games I mentioned.
It is true that it is unlikely that a low budget company like Cryptic, Turbine or Funcom could make the next big game, the lack the resources for that but what really makes a hit is good people. Blizzard might make the next big game also but the company is very different now compared to what it was when the work on Wow started, few people who still works there are from that time.
I personally don't think there will just be one large game in the future. I think there will be 3-5 larger with 2-3 million subs each instead. But that would be better for us players, competition makes better games.
Originally posted by tro44_1 How did WoW manage to take many EQ players? Didnt EQ come out before WoW? So how come that game didnt out polish Blizzard's WoW mmo?
WoW took Everquest and removed all the annoying things basically.
EQ2 sort of had the same idea as WoW, but ultimately failed. Imagine Blizzard releasing a new MMO tomorrow which was WoW with better graphics but ran like crap and had a quarter of the content. That's EQ2 at launch.
WoW took Everquest and removed all the annoying things basically. EQ2 sort of had the same idea as WoW, but ultimately failed. Imagine Blizzard releasing a new MMO tomorrow which was WoW with better graphics but ran like crap and had a quarter of the content. That's EQ2 at launch.
In late 2004 EQ was suffering from a ton of annoying issues. Massive timesinks, gameplay itself that forced you to group or to multibox. Out of combat downtime and regen were punishing to the point that people would kill something, then vacuum the house while medding.
WoW was designed by people that played EQ and played it a lot. They knew what they wanted to change to take the good things of EQ while stripping out the bad. By the time WoW was released, lots of old school EQ players were happy for the relief from what had become tedious gameplay. It took SOE years to realize some things needed to be changed - and to their credit they did change. EQ plays much more like WoW today - whether you feel that's good or bad.
EQ still suffers from limitations of their 10 year old game engine and that shows and makes the game look aged. Looks aren't everything though - many people really dislike the cartoony look of WoW but still log in for a quick 30 min fix of MMO achievement. EQ has finally mirrored this in that you can log in, take a task, and complete it for a reward in half an hour. Still, too little too late. Getting players back to a dated game engine and graphics is an uphill battle and SOE seems to have accepted this. They don't advertise much. It's a shame because with all the changes over the years, EQ is now a better game than WoW because the one thing that WoW has always been missing is the inherent challenge of play. Sure WoW puts that in for the end game, but that just trivializes the rest of the game world in my opinion.
Comments
I could not have said that better. Excellent visualization Bathnor. Although coming off humorous, that is exactly how it was ... he is not exagerating. Games back then and before everquest are from a different era completely, computers back then were not on everyones desk. In fact back then the only people to even own a computer was few and far between and of those who did own one most people labeled em geeks, nerds, and thier views on those type of people were dim indeed. When MMO's first appeared they were pretty much looked upon in awe and confusion as they were beyond most peoples comprehension and playing online fantasy games back then was considered akin to devil worshiping by some. The gameplay back then was more mental stimulating than anything we have today. It is kinda hare to grasp if you hadn't been there. I could go on but im cutting this short due to interuptions in household................................
I could not have said that better. Excellent visualization Bathnor. Although coming off humorous, that is exactly how it was ... he is not exagerating. Games back then and before everquest are from a different era completely, computers back then were not on everyones desk. In fact back then the only people to even own a computer was few and far between and of those who did own one most people labeled em geeks, nerds, and thier views on those type of people were dim indeed. When MMO's first appeared they were pretty much looked upon in awe and confusion as they were beyond most peoples comprehension and playing online fantasy games back then was considered akin to devil worshiping by some. The gameplay back then was more mental stimulating than anything we have today. It is kinda hare to grasp if you hadn't been there. I could go on but im cutting this short due to interuptions in household................................
1999 was not that long ago my friend. Most if not everyone had computers, although not necessarily good ones, but EQ didn't take a gaming PC to run. You act like EQ released in the 1970s. Don't talk about a time when you weren't even born yet, because you don't know anything about it.
Troll question, or clueless question. Which is it? Or both?
Answer 1). Because EQ had already been out 4 years, people grow tired after awhile.
Answer 2) EQ was one of the few grandfather games of the MMORPG genre, so it was crude. Just like an Atari game compared to a Nintendo game (Or later). Good for it's time, but outdated.
It has nothing to do with polish, it's two totally different target audiences. EQ is targeted at true MMORPG players, seeking a virtual world with heavy social focus and risk vs reward gameplay.
WoW is targeted at people who don't normally play games, or have short attention spans. There are far more of this kind than the first kind.
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You can only do so much with a game - graphics, engine, UI, etc - without completely remaking it. WoW will hit that point eventually as well, and will not be able to incorporate some of the new functionality other games introduce without a complete engine overhaul.
Well, that's not technically correct. The vast majority of initial WoW players, were at some time EQ players.
The main appeal to WoW is that it gives a sense of achievement, much more easily than did it's predecestors - primarily EQ on which it was unabashadly based.
What do you mean by 'polish' though? EQ probably has 4 times the content of WoW and did it with much less money, so it may lack some 'polish'.
EQ gave plenty of sense of achievement...just in a different way.
Not dying in a tough area and hence, not having to lose xp and recover your corpse/gear was an accomplishment in itself. Downing that tough mob, traveling through a dangerous area to get to your intended destination (Not every area graduated in lvl as you progressed), etc, etc.
Yes, I played WoW for awhile after having played EQ for 4 years, but I didn't switch because I didn't feel I was getting enough gratification and sense ofachievement. It was just tiring after playing that long and I wanted to try something different.
A lot of this had to do with the way the original code was written.
The game had an expected life expectancy of less than a year and was not intended to be expanded upon.
Add in the fact that the original game was written in a very convoluted, non-modular manner and that none of the original programmers are left to sort through that old code..........
EQ is rife with outdated mechanics that were never intended to be extended beyond level 50. Updating those mechanics is extremely difficult, and can often break many unrelated systems.
WoW, and most other MMO's, are built in a much more modular fashion. This makes polishing or updating core game mechanics much simpler.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
The funniest part about this to me is:
It is like racing a 1977 corvette to a new one and wondering why the new one kicked the shit of the old one.
Or wondering why GM did just keep working on that old 1977 corvette to make it better instead of flushing it down the toilet and starting from the beginning and making a all new better car with the same name.
Of course you run the risk of having a bad design and making something worse the the original, um like maybe the early 80's corvettes or well EQ2 but anyway..
The point is sometimes it is just better to start new because it would be more work then trying to rework something older.
To Thwart any complaining: in my car analogy I know there maybe be only 5 years difference in the games and 30 years in the cars but technology advances MUCH faster then the auto industry.
Why, the answer is simple young man/lady and it can be summarized as follows :
SoE.
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
Troll question, or clueless question. Which is it? Or both?
Answer 1). Because EQ had already been out 4 years, people grow tired after awhile.
If thats the case, then why is WoW still at the Top? EQ didnt pull off a WoW effect on the market. Even to this day, WoW still has growing numbers, yet it came out newer then EQ just like AoC,DF,WAR, Etc
Answer 2) EQ was one of the few grandfather games of the MMORPG genre, so it was crude. Just like an Atari game compared to a Nintendo game (Or later). Good for it's time, but outdated.
Oh I guess using that logic. WoW should be dead by now. Guess not. Blizzard manages to keep their gamers, and gain new ones, why couldnt EQ (THE GRANDDADDY OF THEME PARK MMOS) do the same?
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
Difference is, Blizzard had a great deal MORE fans that were playing actual computer games, and Blizzard created the ultimate shallow casual experience to ease these fans into the game. WAR was fairly different in terms of MMO designs, and those that may have been pulled into it already were already playing WoW.
Darkfall Travelogues!
haha -- I LOVE IT !! I started up with EQ in '99 and I have thought/said this sort of thing for a few years now. Good stuff -- and all true. On a side note, I loved EQ until they started with the forced raiding crap. Sorry, I dont have 8 hours to form a raid group -- yes I said FORM...then you still need to set aside some time to actually do the raid --- sorry, not this guy.
I spent a few minutes looking but I couldn't find any statistics about it, but I remember reading it somewhere.
WoW is not growing, it has been dwindeling for some time now. If you read the advertisements WoW gives, 11 Million "Have tried the game". It's actual current subscription base is lower than it was a year ago. It's a "dieing" game. Dieing meaning the total actual subscribers are getting lower and lower. Heck, because of Aion, they lost something close to 500k subscribers from the Asian market alone. Granted WoW is still the most populated P2P game on the market, but let's be honest, there are so many F2P games out there, is there really a need to pay anymore? I jump between several F2P games right now as it is and am enjoying myself. If you want to talk about "Tried the game", there are F2P games out there in the 200 million "Have tried the game" areas. WoW is not the mega giant you believe it is. It's has "crafty" advertisment. WoW is for tourists, not purists. Forgive my english, it's not my primary language.
-Karnage
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
Difference is, Blizzard had a great deal MORE fans that were playing actual computer games, and Blizzard created the ultimate shallow casual experience to ease these fans into the game. WAR was fairly different in terms of MMO designs, and those that may have been pulled into it already were already playing WoW.
That still doesnt excuse the fact that Warhamer was developed by the DAoC team.
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
Difference is, Blizzard had a great deal MORE fans that were playing actual computer games, and Blizzard created the ultimate shallow casual experience to ease these fans into the game. WAR was fairly different in terms of MMO designs, and those that may have been pulled into it already were already playing WoW.
You can also add to the fact that if GW let Blizzard make the WH RTS series, there'd be no such thing as WarCraft or WoW and where you have WoW, you'd have WAR. But GW botched that, told Blizzard no and so Bliz just made their own WH.
You mean just like Warhammer has a Fanbase from TT and RTS? Ooh wait, I remember how that went
Difference is, Blizzard had a great deal MORE fans that were playing actual computer games, and Blizzard created the ultimate shallow casual experience to ease these fans into the game. WAR was fairly different in terms of MMO designs, and those that may have been pulled into it already were already playing WoW.
That still doesnt excuse the fact that Warhamer was developed by the DAoC team.
Which is not even the point of this thread. You're just trolling.
WoW combat is EQ combat turned up to 300% speed.
Seriously I could run into BG's with my warrior and slide my face across the keyboard and completely own people because I could spin around them faster.
I wish I could record the sound of my brother pvping in WoW it sounds like hes having hardcore sex with his keyboard.
There is no skill or tactics involved in combat like that just strafing around a players spamming a few keys faster than the other guy.
My kids play a game with just as much skill its called Hungry, hungry hippos.
Sex, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and WOW PVP all sound an awful lot more fun than 1/3rd speed WOW combat. So I guess we've hit on at least one of the reasons EQ failed to deliver.
Faster isn't always better, but if you feel you can still faceroll your way to victory in WOW, then quite obviously it would've been that much more boring at 1/3rd speed.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Simple explanation:
Blizzard is the only MMORPG maker that also published succesful other games in other genres.
They let gameplay prime and that starts with:
1. Fluid movement and extreme polish and control of the avatars.
2. A huge open world design without useless loading screens and channeling. You only port to instances for gaming purposes.
3. Eliminate all elements that don't add anything to their final goal: gaming pleasure. Like extreme basement situations.
Is Blizzard perfect? Nope. In fact they made several small errors in the past and will continue to do so.
The problem is that by stacking so much know how and money, they always catch up quicker than the competition and apparently have the time to implement the changes faster than the competition (cross server content in combo with realm based worlds is going to be huge).
The question remains how anyone could even compete with their next MMO?
But start with the 3 above and you have a nice answer to your specific question.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Gates of Discord upon it's release was unfinished, broken, bugged to hell, & built for level 70 characters but without an increase to the level cap, in essence players had already left EQ in droves, in whole guilds of leavers before World of Warcraft was released, WoW hurt EQ in far less a disastrous way than SoE's own poorly implimented expansion.
EQ released it's expansions to a 1-yearly or 6-monthly schedule, basically providing a forecastable revenue model, rather than focusing on "getting it right" they focused on delivering it on time, which played the biggest part in the content being delivered unpolished, this is SoE's inherant problem of it's "money-men" having too big an influence over game development.
World of Warcraft, based off the Warcaft universe (itself a emulation of the Warhammer IP, shouldn't of happened as it did, but due to Games Workshop's stubborn attitude towards videogames Blizzard decided to say screw em & emulated their IP anyway) gave them a huge following, which alongside their other successes in Starcraft & Diablo had them as a very sucessful developer with a vastly higher profile than SoE had, they made their MMO & had therefore a double following of Warhammer fans that wanted a computer game variant, Blizzard fans of their other games, and capitalised on all that with a massive Ad-campaign, something longtime EQ players had despaired of because SoE had such a tiny pathetic marketing, most of it;'s playerbase was gained via word-of-mouth.
As far as polish goes, it's down to when the polish gets applied & when the content is available, WoW does the polish now release later method, SoE does the release now, polish later method, both are in fact highly polished games, the merits of the 2 approaches are different.
WoW was built for videogamers, console gamers that moved to the PC and the native PC-game buying masses, EQ & MMO's are still a niche market because despite it's similarities to an MMO WoW is in essence a single - player game that was expanded for online gaming, EQ was built for an online audience from the ground up around the concept of providing online gamers with a sandbox world to play in, they however learned from UO went 3d & added theme-park design elements to offset the parts of UO they thought hadn't worked, indeed UO itself altered radically as a result of what EQ did to their formula.
Emulation, improvement & borrowing of ideas are what all MMO's have done so far, but WoW is still an aberration, no other MMO has come close to it's 5- year reign at the top but the majority of it's early fans were not EQ players but Blizzard players, EQ players that did play WoW were dwarfed in numbers by Blizzard fans from other games, WoW brought Blizzards own audience into the MMO gamespace, generating new players of the genre in the process via it's success, it actually "took away" from other games only marginally, now the other games get "tourists" FROM WoW as they grow bored or disenchanted or simply curious to explore what exists outside of the game that brought them into the genre.
But polish, meh, OP I humbly submit you don't actually know what polish is.
I could not have said that better. Excellent visualization Bathnor. Although coming off humorous, that is exactly how it was ... he is not exagerating. Games back then and before everquest are from a different era completely, computers back then were not on everyones desk. In fact back then the only people to even own a computer was few and far between and of those who did own one most people labeled em geeks, nerds, and thier views on those type of people were dim indeed. When MMO's first appeared they were pretty much looked upon in awe and confusion as they were beyond most peoples comprehension and playing online fantasy games back then was considered akin to devil worshiping by some. The gameplay back then was more mental stimulating than anything we have today. It is kinda hare to grasp if you hadn't been there. I could go on but im cutting this short due to interuptions in household................................
1999 was not that long ago my friend. Most if not everyone had computers, although not necessarily good ones, but EQ didn't take a gaming PC to run. You act like EQ released in the 1970s. Don't talk about a time when you weren't even born yet, because you don't know anything about it.
Like I said you have no idea what kind of mindset people had back then unless you were there. My friend I am old enough to be your daddy several times trust me. And if I was your daddy you would not have the shitty attitude you have because your ass would be so sore all you would be able to do is stand there and whine like a little girl cause you damn sure wouldn't be sitting down. And you sure wouldn't smart off to your elders like that no more.
Shit! I was almost 30 in 1999! EQ was among the first mmo's to crawl out of the basement and into the light of day. I played many other games before EQ..early ultima online,wizardry games MUD's internet address games with the freak down the street... now those were the days....Again you have no concept of what that was even remotely like...sigh...
WoW came out as the new and improved theme-park, cruise-controlled EQ many years ago. It's not much different in it's game-play purpose, that of shallow appeal of whacking computer generated and tethered pixels, for the most-part.
I think it more the fact that Blizzard first put Strain and then Kaplan in charge of Wow. SOE doesn't have anyone of their caliber.
Some people are better bosses and programmers than others and you just can't find people like that easy.
But someone can compete with Blizzards next MMO.
Arenanet have still some of the better old Blizzard employees and Strain have made the programming of the engine (like he did for Wow) and a lot of decisions before he jumped off (he is currently working on a zombie MMO). Guildwars 2 will have a full persistant world and no monthly fees, that is hard to compete with.
Bioware is Bioware and are currently working on 2 MMOs, one secret and TOR. They have as much experience as Blizzard and many great devs, don't count them out.
CCPs "World of darkness online" have some of the best pen and paper RPGs devs on it, mix that in with the know how from Eve and things will be interesting.
69 Studio have Salvatore writing the lore (the dude with Drizzt and the darkelfs) and MC Fairlane (Spawn) doing the art for upcoming "Copernicus". Interesting and popular people if they just can get as good programmers things will be interesting. But that is the most insecure card of the games I mentioned.
It is true that it is unlikely that a low budget company like Cryptic, Turbine or Funcom could make the next big game, the lack the resources for that but what really makes a hit is good people. Blizzard might make the next big game also but the company is very different now compared to what it was when the work on Wow started, few people who still works there are from that time.
I personally don't think there will just be one large game in the future. I think there will be 3-5 larger with 2-3 million subs each instead. But that would be better for us players, competition makes better games.
WoW took Everquest and removed all the annoying things basically.
EQ2 sort of had the same idea as WoW, but ultimately failed. Imagine Blizzard releasing a new MMO tomorrow which was WoW with better graphics but ran like crap and had a quarter of the content. That's EQ2 at launch.
In late 2004 EQ was suffering from a ton of annoying issues. Massive timesinks, gameplay itself that forced you to group or to multibox. Out of combat downtime and regen were punishing to the point that people would kill something, then vacuum the house while medding.
WoW was designed by people that played EQ and played it a lot. They knew what they wanted to change to take the good things of EQ while stripping out the bad. By the time WoW was released, lots of old school EQ players were happy for the relief from what had become tedious gameplay. It took SOE years to realize some things needed to be changed - and to their credit they did change. EQ plays much more like WoW today - whether you feel that's good or bad.
EQ still suffers from limitations of their 10 year old game engine and that shows and makes the game look aged. Looks aren't everything though - many people really dislike the cartoony look of WoW but still log in for a quick 30 min fix of MMO achievement. EQ has finally mirrored this in that you can log in, take a task, and complete it for a reward in half an hour. Still, too little too late. Getting players back to a dated game engine and graphics is an uphill battle and SOE seems to have accepted this. They don't advertise much. It's a shame because with all the changes over the years, EQ is now a better game than WoW because the one thing that WoW has always been missing is the inherent challenge of play. Sure WoW puts that in for the end game, but that just trivializes the rest of the game world in my opinion.