Before WOW it was okay to release an MMO that was an unpolished mess. Now that the masses have tasted a quality MMO, game companies know they have to make a high quality game or GTFO and not even bother.
I am a relic that predates MMO, playing from UO beta. Many people even before reaching my age understand that things don't last, even for MMO. Basically, that millions wine drinkers that you talked about may have moved on to other things, if they don't like punch. WoW simply replaces an old legacy, and is itself another legacy. The war is long gone. Rather I look forward to a new legacy, or perhaps legacies; a new way to play, to social, and to PvPkvPEvGMvBot. If you can't appreciate what is out there now, you definitely won't like what is installed in the future. Your salvation is perhaps for some old timers to get together and launch a retro-MMO, which of course will be immediately flooded by millions of savvy punch drinkers.
I will not spend a large amount of time on this post, but I want to be the devil's advocate for WoW here. I played WoW since beta, bought the collector's edition of the original and Burning Crusade. I loved WCI, II, and III and is why I played WoW too. I was the guy that put a few maps up on bnet, such as Hero Wars EE, Battle for Helms deep, and etc. So I have a love for the Warcraft world and its lore. When WoW launched I remember the original servers - and I remember them being absolutely flooded. Blizzard did not anticipate WoW becoming this huge. This was a fluke that was never ever intended by the original developers and story writers. I would go as far and say that WoW became its own "abomination" a patched together game that grew way too big for its own original skin. The original WoW was deep and the customizations and depth was going to be there for those original players - like me. Anyone remember that mages were eventually going to have combination spells? Remember hero classes that were supposed to be put out there that had no level, but were based on quests and overall contribution to the server? WoW was to be a very RPG type game, but it mutated due to demand beyond comprehension at Blizzard. So, the top brass took the game and moved it towards what it is now. Post is being kept short, use your imagination. If you were part of the original WoW crowd you may remember some of the stuff they were doing originally and remember how large the game world was and how much depth they were placing into it. The armor was incredibly varied, I ran a tank hunter - tanked Dire Maul, Stratholme, and etc. Look up the Savage Gladiator set (what I used to tank with), there was depth to the game originally, people could design characters that were not the norm. Today players are forced into a mold. I hope the core of Blizzard has not been lost though and we will see it in their future games.
Thank you for that. I liked it.
Yes, I was playing WoW at launch, all the way through to WoTLK.
I'm not saying that it was not a fantastic game, and in general gaming quality standards, it still IS a great game. Polished, active, time consuming, yeah... all that stuff. I'm not questioning any of the qualities of the game. Not even putting too much effort in pointing out the flaws, considering many of the flaws are only face value and wouldn't be considered a 'flaw' in certain respects considering what games used to be.
No, they did not expect it to get so big so fast. However, I was working there when BC launched, and from that point on, I saw where the company changed it's values and goals. I don't want to continue blaming them for wanting to make a gazillion dollars anymore. They simply didn't seem concerned over how much their product influenced the shift in industry/genre standards, but I don't think that was intentional.
BUT - Can we all agree that it's a disgrace for all the rest of the MMOGaming devs to let WoW sit at the top for 6 years? I don't care about a "wow killer". Now that there's about 10million EXTRA mmo players in the community that I do NOT want to play with, I really hope wow stays around to keep them entertained.
I was W R O N G to say that WoW killed the mmo legacy. It did not. It originally just refreshed the genre with something new and solid, and that is commendable, and all of you reading this need to understand that i RESPECT Blizzard for this.
However, once it did blow up into mainstream, it only started to go downhill, and Blizz didn't do anything to stop it because they were making more and more money. It just sped up the process that was going to happen inevitably once the mainstream got it's hands on the untapped world of MMO PC gaming.
That's fine. Bravo. I'm happy their getting rich. Now, It's just time for someone else to refresh the market/genre and mayyyybe they will get rich too.
Anyone who thinks we shouldn't have more OPTIONS is obviously just trying to defend WoW and keep their precious Guild intact.
First you need to seperate your own personal bias from the facts. The MMO genra did not go downhill, it only went downhill for you and others. To many others including those of us that did play in EQ or AC or UO it has gotten better and better.
What facts do we have so far, we should list them
1. There are more people playing MMO's than before
2. There are more games being developed than before
3. Because there are more games and more players it is safe to say there is more money being put into games than before.
All of these things are good for the genre. The genre will go through changes and probably end up developing many subgenras but more games, more people and more money means there will be more choices, and some of those choices you may even like.
Venge Sunsoar
edit: So WoW could also be held responsible for all the money that is being pumped into the genre (many of the games may be crappy now, but others won't be). Again more money means more games.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I stand corrected. - I cannot 'blame' WoW, or Blizzard for the extreme shift in the MMO genre's standards. - I should put some 'blame' the other developers who won't shift it somewhere else... - I should put some 'blame' on the new-gen MMO players that are the cause of the shift. The kids that say "only the nerds lost out"... the "nerds" were the entire community of MMORPG's, son. [You] stole the whole genre from [us]. [You] wanted to change it from being what 'nerds' like to being what 'everyone can like' -- don't sit there and act like the 'nerds' are some hidden unwanted portion of MMORPG fans. [YOU]are the hidden portion. Luckily for you, the MMO devs realized they can make more money off your crappy taste, and easily entertainable sensibilities than the "nerds", so the market shifted to cater the garbage you're probably -queued up- for right now. -Yes, I am taking a break from MMO's currently, but that does not mean I don't want something worth playing. I still have a taste for much of what MMO's offer, as opposed to console gaming. Just because I am not a mainstream fan, does not mean I, or any of us "nerds" don't deserve consideration from the -devs/company- If it wasn't for us, MMO's wouldn't have been successful, so I think we frickin deserve SOME titles that aren't mainstream friendly.
The "kids" you are blaming for taking away your "nerd" genre did no such thing. When the genre catered exclusively to nerds as you put it (which included myself at the time), the "kids" simply did not join the available mmos and played other games. They didn't come to forums to cry about how there were no mmos for them to enjoy and blame you for keeping them out.
Now that there are more options it is suddenly a problem?
That is not to say there isn't room for many various types of mmos that cater to many different groups of people, including yourself. However you are holding one game and one company responsible for not making every possibility a reality.
Blizzard cannot force other companies to stop rushing out busted games. They can't force them to make better oldschool time sink filled mmos. Blizzard cannot force them to not try to emulate their gameplay and ignoring the true reasons behind wows success.
There is nothing stopping the numerous other gaming companies from looking at what gamers want and creating a game to meet those demands, except the companies in charge of their own products.
In the end there are countless other companies failing to deliver what you want in an mmo for a countless number of reasons and you have chosen to single out 1 company to blame for the failures of many. I will never understand why the failures of the many are placed on the successes of the few.
I will not spend a large amount of time on this post, but I want to be the devil's advocate for WoW here. I played WoW since beta, bought the collector's edition of the original and Burning Crusade. I loved WCI, II, and III and is why I played WoW too. I was the guy that put a few maps up on bnet, such as Hero Wars EE, Battle for Helms deep, and etc. So I have a love for the Warcraft world and its lore. When WoW launched I remember the original servers - and I remember them being absolutely flooded. Blizzard did not anticipate WoW becoming this huge. This was a fluke that was never ever intended by the original developers and story writers. I would go as far and say that WoW became its own "abomination" a patched together game that grew way too big for its own original skin. The original WoW was deep and the customizations and depth was going to be there for those original players - like me. Anyone remember that mages were eventually going to have combination spells? Remember hero classes that were supposed to be put out there that had no level, but were based on quests and overall contribution to the server? WoW was to be a very RPG type game, but it mutated due to demand beyond comprehension at Blizzard. So, the top brass took the game and moved it towards what it is now. Post is being kept short, use your imagination. If you were part of the original WoW crowd you may remember some of the stuff they were doing originally and remember how large the game world was and how much depth they were placing into it. The armor was incredibly varied, I ran a tank hunter - tanked Dire Maul, Stratholme, and etc. Look up the Savage Gladiator set (what I used to tank with), there was depth to the game originally, people could design characters that were not the norm. Today players are forced into a mold. I hope the core of Blizzard has not been lost though and we will see it in their future games.
I'm surprised that someone who played War 1-3 (like myself) would refuse to see the fact that blizzard's designers simply know how to create a fun game. The game's quality wan't a fluke. Even the overall runaway success wasn't a fluke. It was a direct result of the quality (and also of the quality of their non-gameplay staff: their marketing team.)
On Hunter Tanks and Oddball Playstyles: Nothing has changed. If you're overgeared (and your hunter was.) you have always been able to choose inefficient playstyles. It's still true today.
On Customization: My shaman's customization in retail was "you're a healer, live with it." Nowadays I could make that character magic DPS, melee DPS, or a Healer. WOW has more than double the number of viable playstyles it had at launch.
Basically all I'm hearing is extreme nostalgia from your post.
Until I find a MMORPG that I enjoy more than WOW, I can't help but feel WOW's success is 100% justified.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Everquest wasn't known by the general population like WoW was. Heck, when I was playing Everquest my friends (who were console gamers) had no idea what it was. WoW brought MMORPGs to the mainstream, not Everquest. Everquest had a max of what... 400k subs? Compare that to WoW's 12.5 million... Heck, even UO had ~200k subs and was widely known within the MMORPG community, so why not claim that's the reason a normal gamer knows what a MMORPG is? First of all, what is a "normal" gamer? I don't think we, as a people group, have enough similarities between us to define a "norm."
Secondly, many people who claim WoW as their first MMO, had never (and some STILL have never) heard of UO. Then some who HAD heard of Everquest heard of it on the national news networks because of the controversy surrounding it due to so many wrecked relationships and divorces that spawned from addiction TO it.
You have to remember that some (a sizable portion) of WoW's player base is under the age of 18 and were either not born yet, or very young children when UO and EQ were "popular." There's a big difference in half a million people world-wide playing a game, and 13 million. I don't think I EVER remember seeing a national advertisement for UO. My 19 year old step son, who IS a gamer (mostly consoles) had never heard of UO OR EQ until he started playing WoW and heard mention of them from older people playing WoW.
I don't think anymore WoW have 12.5 millions of players, not even close.
Well, regardless of what you think...that would be wrong.
Yeah. Reading OPs writings I feel same feelings - golden years of MMO are gone. When they start, esp. after launch of EQ1 (btw I played it 4,5 years at average rate for 5 hrs/day spending more than 8200 hrs total in the world of Norrath), there were a few gamers in MMO, mostly MUD- and pen'n'paper D&D-players. And this stuff was elititists, yea, they felt themselves better and higher than "console-kiddies", they understand each other and community was great, more mature, more intellectual than now-a-days average MMO's one. As sayed wisely - sum of IQ on Earth is constant but the number of population grows...
And we can't blame only WoW - Blizzard worked til end and perfected what was started by SoE. Ol' gamers - remember how we blame SoE & Smedley for corrupting our game. And I had look to EQ what it is now - there's nearly nothing from that hard and dangeroous gameplay we remember. Sure, time makes it's work - everyone can remember his first love, all the new and so.... exciting. Being ol' Casanova there is nothing new, nothing except of memories of past. Same with games: grass was greener, sun was golder.
And from business-side one can't expect more than what Blizzard had done - most effective money-mill in gaming world. Yes, when they start, devs were big fans and made games they would like. Then started to speak money - be you stock exchange company or not - shareholders waiting not for only profit, they want that you'll show growth, every next year more, or they go away. And then companys hit devs, and when they disagree, they take new ones - India is full of talented programmists, who cares they don't know nothing about previous lore. They DO what they are ordered.
Latest such kind of bad turns was with my next big love - LOTRO. That was very promising game and adventuring and thrilling graphics etc. til invention of Moria. OK, that radiance grinding and repetitable instance whacking was annoying. But when they now introduced those skirmishes, more grind counting all your previous grind to zero - thank you turbine. I vote with my legs leaving that game.
Game we old-school gamers wait can't emerge in economical situation as we know it. We can meet it only when one formerly (why not even alltimer) hard-core gamer with similar thought makes from himself multibillioner and founds some kind of MMO-charity organisation, hires most soficated brains in gaming world with similar views of life - drawns big amounts of money into it not even hoping to get them back - then maybe we can see such kind of game again. (Very sad that Bill III wasn't MMOer *wink-wink*).
Actually, I think the "golden age" of mmo Role Playing Games never really took off anyway.
If you compare them to pen&paper RPG, they turned into something completely different.
Even from the beginning that was apparent. The first RPG on computers were terrible translations of those P&P games.
At least now they turned into something completely different: multi mass on line games with a progression of avatars.
Which btw ... was the exact same progression line you had in the original p&p role playing games but adapted to video games.
I am amazed of how little competition to WOW is brought these days. Even in the other gaming departments you hardly see any innovation. Other genres tend to be even more shallow in gameplay options.
The only (r)evolution I saw in the other game departments was a. to bring a very scripted story line to a shooter (yawn) and b. bringing an achievement system to games on the XBox (the first).
In fact, WOW is ages in front of the other kind of "games" we saw in terms of evolution, updates, carrot on a stick, long term goals, updates, server maintenance, content progression...
The games industry is only evolving at a very, very , very slow rate. You hardly can stay awake.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Yes, and talking how best were EQ and Co. remember how many flame-wars was against them from the side of "Real Players", MUD-society ones who blamed all graphic MMOs as The End of real gaming, hard-core PvP etc.
Some even don't tryed graphical games. So - nil novi sub sole - as sayed old Romans. Every age have it's pros and contras.
I'm sure that after 10 years we hear new whining now from lair of ol'timer WoWers how bad all things are and how company XXX with his MMO YYY ruined all the gaming. but not only bad things - my dissappointing of now-a-day MMOs takes me back to pen'n'paper D&D to discover new 4th Edition etc. (and too to read whining how 4th ed. ruins all good that was done in 3rd and 3.5th editions:P).
Blizzard has not released hard numbers ever because they are false . They recently said 11.5 million wow that must mean that china banning WoW from there country didnt affect there 6 million subs that China brought to WoW???
You realize that financial report is realesed in accordance with applicable law and other regulations so they can't make false claims in it?
And for your information, WOW is again operating in Chaina.
Honestly being troll is one thing, but attacking sub numbers of WOW, one of very few MMOs that actually regularly publish official info on active subscriptions makes you look like retard. Again, validity of these documents is regulated by the law so they can't lie in them or they would be in for some serious shitstorm
Blizzard does not have to disclose sub numbers and never had to. They give out SUBSCRIPTION numbers not individual unique player count. Many serious WoW players have multiple accounts. There are also gold farmers, which are not a drop in the bucket. Finally, and most importantly, the way they count China subs is very misleading due to how Chinese MMO players pay per hour in game rooms, not per month. So if a Chinese player comes in once a month and logs in for an hour, that counts as a sub, which is then perceived by people like you are paying a regular sub. By the way, most of their subs are in Asia, while the revenue and profit is from USA & Europe. Had you actually ever read their financial reports, you would know that.
So yes, Blizzard does make misleading statements but they do not lie IF you read the fine print. There are not 11.5 million players or even 10 million and never were. Those are SUBs, and the definition used for subs allows it to be very inflated due to the Asian market. There are, probably, around 2- 3 million somewhat active players between US and Europe that you would actually care about in terms getting a gauge on player population. That is my opinion, at least, I could be wrong, it may actually be less.
If anything, any research into Blizzards sub numbers & the methodology used behind them, shows that they know how to hype up a game. Their whole "10, 11 12 million players" marketing campaign runs on inflating their sub numbers by the Chinese market.
Blizzard (NOT Activision), I am talking Blizzard here, had a turnover for its MMO of ... 325 million dollars in the last 3(!) months of 2009....Actually Blizzard made 329 million (so 4 million came from its old games department).
325 million dollars ... in 3 months: at 15 dollar per sub, that's more than 7.22 million subscriptions at... the US rate of 15 dollars.
Now everyone knows the subs in Russia, China etc are much lower than the $15 dollars. China only contributes for around 9% of the total money flow because subs are much cheaper there.
So actually the 11.5 million subscribers divided 50/50 between Asia and the rest is quite accurate.
In other words: the money comes in and it is a hell lot more than "your guess" of 2 million subs....
As the money is there, the subscriptions are confirmed through ... hard cash audited financial results.
Or to quote Blizzard :
"Overall, we’re very pleased with our performance over the past year. Our non-GAAP net revenue for the year 2009 was about $1.2 billion with an operating margin of more than 46%.
For the fourth quarter of 2009, our non-GAAP net revenue was $329 million, with an operating margin of more than 49%. The fact that we've been able to maintain revenue and operating margin at these levels is remarkable, given the current state of the economy and how it has affected the industry and the fact that we did not ship a new game in 2009.
The stability of our World of Warcraft business has obviously played a big role, and we currently have about 11.5 million World of Warcraft subscribers. That subscribership is on par with the last time we announced subscriber figures."
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
You have one little problem with your "theory". Blizzard (NOT Activision), I am talking Blizzard here, had a turnover for its MMO of ... 325 million dollars in the last 3(!) months of 2009....Actually Blizzard made 329 million (so 4 million came from its old games department). 325 million dollars ... in 3 months: at 15 dollar per sub, that's more than 7.22 million subscriptions at... the US rate of 15 dollars. Now everyone knows the subs in Russia, China etc are much lower than the $15 dollars. China only contributes for around 9% of the total money flow because subs are much cheaper there. So actually the 11.5 million subscribers divided 50/50 between Asia and the rest is quite accurate.
In other words: the money comes in and it is a hell lot more than "your guess" of 2 million subs.... As the money is there, the subscriptions are confirmed through ... hard cash audited fianincial results. Or to quote Blizzard : "Overall, we’re very pleased with our performance over the past year. Our non-GAAP net revenue for the year 2009 was about $1.2 billion with an operating margin of more than 46%. For the fourth quarter of 2009, our non-GAAP net revenue was $329 million, with an operating margin of more than 49%. The fact that we've been able to maintain revenue and operating margin at these levels is remarkable, given the current state of the economy and how it has affected the industry and the fact that we did not ship a new game in 2009. The stability of our World of Warcraft business has obviously played a big role, and we currently have about 11.5 million World of Warcraft subscribers. That subscribership is on par with the last time we announced subscriber figures."
Before WOW it was okay to release an MMO that was an unpolished mess. Now that the masses have tasted a quality MMO, game companies know they have to make a high quality game or GTFO and not even bother.
Hurray for Blizzard and WOW!
Well....you'd THINK this would be true. Sadly, however, people keep BUYING unfinished and unpolished CRAP because they desperately want something ELSE to play that is good.
There are still PLENTY of games that are released unfinished, unpolished, and some...unplayable. So while what you said would SEEM to be a logical conclusion....experience tells me that it's unfortunately not the case.
Before WOW it was okay to release an MMO that was an unpolished mess. Now that the masses have tasted a quality MMO, game companies know they have to make a high quality game or GTFO and not even bother.
Hurray for Blizzard and WOW!
Well....you'd THINK this would be true. Sadly, however, people keep BUYING unfinished and unpolished CRAP because they desperately want something ELSE to play that is good.
There are still PLENTY of games that are released unfinished, unpolished, and some...unplayable. So while what you said would SEEM to be a logical conclusion....experience tells me that it's unfortunately not the case.
Well said Girlgeek.
We all want a decent alternative to playing a very high standard produced game which is actually "fun" to play.
The sad fact remains that Blizzard simply gets all that money for free .... because of a lot of underdevelopped products hit the market on a regular basis.
God I would give 500 dollars for a game that could be played on an equal basis. But I am more disillusioned in the complete video game market.
Apart from some liniair story telling added to FPS and the achievement system of the XBOX, in every aspect of current gaming there is sooooo little to look for. ok Wii was al about control. But the standard video games are just awful (not only the mmo part).
I think everyone would like to have a magnificent game experience with evolution and progress etc.
Video games are so hollow. No wonder that Mr one eye is King of the blind people.
It is sickening these days (and yes professional reviewers are finally giving the points in their reviews instead of hyping each new high budget game).
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
OP I would disagree. It was Brad Mc Grind the Jolly Green Ranger that made design choices stripping much that was good about MUDs and early MMO's from EQ1 and adding much that is still bad. WoW simply polished that. It was because EQ1 was a big commercial success that people (including bliz) emulated it. Of course when WoW was a massive commercial success that was aset back for innovation I agree.
I disagree that MMO's and video games should remain 'niche' that's just all wrong. Anyway plenty of niche games exist still and are being developed (including MUDs). There are more than there have ever been largely due to the market burgeoning.
Comments
Before WOW it was okay to release an MMO that was an unpolished mess. Now that the masses have tasted a quality MMO, game companies know they have to make a high quality game or GTFO and not even bother.
Hurray for Blizzard and WOW!
I am a relic that predates MMO, playing from UO beta. Many people even before reaching my age understand that things don't last, even for MMO. Basically, that millions wine drinkers that you talked about may have moved on to other things, if they don't like punch. WoW simply replaces an old legacy, and is itself another legacy. The war is long gone. Rather I look forward to a new legacy, or perhaps legacies; a new way to play, to social, and to PvPkvPEvGMvBot. If you can't appreciate what is out there now, you definitely won't like what is installed in the future. Your salvation is perhaps for some old timers to get together and launch a retro-MMO, which of course will be immediately flooded by millions of savvy punch drinkers.
Thank you for that. I liked it.
Yes, I was playing WoW at launch, all the way through to WoTLK.
I'm not saying that it was not a fantastic game, and in general gaming quality standards, it still IS a great game. Polished, active, time consuming, yeah... all that stuff. I'm not questioning any of the qualities of the game. Not even putting too much effort in pointing out the flaws, considering many of the flaws are only face value and wouldn't be considered a 'flaw' in certain respects considering what games used to be.
No, they did not expect it to get so big so fast. However, I was working there when BC launched, and from that point on, I saw where the company changed it's values and goals. I don't want to continue blaming them for wanting to make a gazillion dollars anymore. They simply didn't seem concerned over how much their product influenced the shift in industry/genre standards, but I don't think that was intentional.
BUT - Can we all agree that it's a disgrace for all the rest of the MMOGaming devs to let WoW sit at the top for 6 years? I don't care about a "wow killer". Now that there's about 10million EXTRA mmo players in the community that I do NOT want to play with, I really hope wow stays around to keep them entertained.
I was W R O N G to say that WoW killed the mmo legacy. It did not. It originally just refreshed the genre with something new and solid, and that is commendable, and all of you reading this need to understand that i RESPECT Blizzard for this.
However, once it did blow up into mainstream, it only started to go downhill, and Blizz didn't do anything to stop it because they were making more and more money. It just sped up the process that was going to happen inevitably once the mainstream got it's hands on the untapped world of MMO PC gaming.
That's fine. Bravo. I'm happy their getting rich. Now, It's just time for someone else to refresh the market/genre and mayyyybe they will get rich too.
Anyone who thinks we shouldn't have more OPTIONS is obviously just trying to defend WoW and keep their precious Guild intact.
First you need to seperate your own personal bias from the facts. The MMO genra did not go downhill, it only went downhill for you and others. To many others including those of us that did play in EQ or AC or UO it has gotten better and better.
What facts do we have so far, we should list them
1. There are more people playing MMO's than before
2. There are more games being developed than before
3. Because there are more games and more players it is safe to say there is more money being put into games than before.
All of these things are good for the genre. The genre will go through changes and probably end up developing many subgenras but more games, more people and more money means there will be more choices, and some of those choices you may even like.
Venge Sunsoar
edit: So WoW could also be held responsible for all the money that is being pumped into the genre (many of the games may be crappy now, but others won't be). Again more money means more games.
The "kids" you are blaming for taking away your "nerd" genre did no such thing. When the genre catered exclusively to nerds as you put it (which included myself at the time), the "kids" simply did not join the available mmos and played other games. They didn't come to forums to cry about how there were no mmos for them to enjoy and blame you for keeping them out.
Now that there are more options it is suddenly a problem?
That is not to say there isn't room for many various types of mmos that cater to many different groups of people, including yourself. However you are holding one game and one company responsible for not making every possibility a reality.
Blizzard cannot force other companies to stop rushing out busted games. They can't force them to make better oldschool time sink filled mmos. Blizzard cannot force them to not try to emulate their gameplay and ignoring the true reasons behind wows success.
There is nothing stopping the numerous other gaming companies from looking at what gamers want and creating a game to meet those demands, except the companies in charge of their own products.
In the end there are countless other companies failing to deliver what you want in an mmo for a countless number of reasons and you have chosen to single out 1 company to blame for the failures of many. I will never understand why the failures of the many are placed on the successes of the few.
I'm surprised that someone who played War 1-3 (like myself) would refuse to see the fact that blizzard's designers simply know how to create a fun game. The game's quality wan't a fluke. Even the overall runaway success wasn't a fluke. It was a direct result of the quality (and also of the quality of their non-gameplay staff: their marketing team.)
On Hunter Tanks and Oddball Playstyles: Nothing has changed. If you're overgeared (and your hunter was.) you have always been able to choose inefficient playstyles. It's still true today.
On Customization: My shaman's customization in retail was "you're a healer, live with it." Nowadays I could make that character magic DPS, melee DPS, or a Healer. WOW has more than double the number of viable playstyles it had at launch.
Basically all I'm hearing is extreme nostalgia from your post.
Until I find a MMORPG that I enjoy more than WOW, I can't help but feel WOW's success is 100% justified.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I don't think anymore WoW have 12.5 millions of players, not even close.
Well, regardless of what you think...that would be wrong.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Yeah. Reading OPs writings I feel same feelings - golden years of MMO are gone. When they start, esp. after launch of EQ1 (btw I played it 4,5 years at average rate for 5 hrs/day spending more than 8200 hrs total in the world of Norrath), there were a few gamers in MMO, mostly MUD- and pen'n'paper D&D-players. And this stuff was elititists, yea, they felt themselves better and higher than "console-kiddies", they understand each other and community was great, more mature, more intellectual than now-a-days average MMO's one. As sayed wisely - sum of IQ on Earth is constant but the number of population grows...
And we can't blame only WoW - Blizzard worked til end and perfected what was started by SoE. Ol' gamers - remember how we blame SoE & Smedley for corrupting our game. And I had look to EQ what it is now - there's nearly nothing from that hard and dangeroous gameplay we remember. Sure, time makes it's work - everyone can remember his first love, all the new and so.... exciting. Being ol' Casanova there is nothing new, nothing except of memories of past. Same with games: grass was greener, sun was golder.
And from business-side one can't expect more than what Blizzard had done - most effective money-mill in gaming world. Yes, when they start, devs were big fans and made games they would like. Then started to speak money - be you stock exchange company or not - shareholders waiting not for only profit, they want that you'll show growth, every next year more, or they go away. And then companys hit devs, and when they disagree, they take new ones - India is full of talented programmists, who cares they don't know nothing about previous lore. They DO what they are ordered.
Latest such kind of bad turns was with my next big love - LOTRO. That was very promising game and adventuring and thrilling graphics etc. til invention of Moria. OK, that radiance grinding and repetitable instance whacking was annoying. But when they now introduced those skirmishes, more grind counting all your previous grind to zero - thank you turbine. I vote with my legs leaving that game.
Game we old-school gamers wait can't emerge in economical situation as we know it. We can meet it only when one formerly (why not even alltimer) hard-core gamer with similar thought makes from himself multibillioner and founds some kind of MMO-charity organisation, hires most soficated brains in gaming world with similar views of life - drawns big amounts of money into it not even hoping to get them back - then maybe we can see such kind of game again. (Very sad that Bill III wasn't MMOer *wink-wink*).
Actually, I think the "golden age" of mmo Role Playing Games never really took off anyway.
If you compare them to pen&paper RPG, they turned into something completely different.
Even from the beginning that was apparent. The first RPG on computers were terrible translations of those P&P games.
At least now they turned into something completely different: multi mass on line games with a progression of avatars.
Which btw ... was the exact same progression line you had in the original p&p role playing games but adapted to video games.
I am amazed of how little competition to WOW is brought these days. Even in the other gaming departments you hardly see any innovation. Other genres tend to be even more shallow in gameplay options.
The only (r)evolution I saw in the other game departments was a. to bring a very scripted story line to a shooter (yawn) and b. bringing an achievement system to games on the XBox (the first).
In fact, WOW is ages in front of the other kind of "games" we saw in terms of evolution, updates, carrot on a stick, long term goals, updates, server maintenance, content progression...
The games industry is only evolving at a very, very , very slow rate. You hardly can stay awake.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Yes, and talking how best were EQ and Co. remember how many flame-wars was against them from the side of "Real Players", MUD-society ones who blamed all graphic MMOs as The End of real gaming, hard-core PvP etc.
Some even don't tryed graphical games. So - nil novi sub sole - as sayed old Romans. Every age have it's pros and contras.
I'm sure that after 10 years we hear new whining now from lair of ol'timer WoWers how bad all things are and how company XXX with his MMO YYY ruined all the gaming. but not only bad things - my dissappointing of now-a-day MMOs takes me back to pen'n'paper D&D to discover new 4th Edition etc. (and too to read whining how 4th ed. ruins all good that was done in 3rd and 3.5th editions:P).
You realize that financial report is realesed in accordance with applicable law and other regulations so they can't make false claims in it?
And for your information, WOW is again operating in Chaina.
Honestly being troll is one thing, but attacking sub numbers of WOW, one of very few MMOs that actually regularly publish official info on active subscriptions makes you look like retard. Again, validity of these documents is regulated by the law so they can't lie in them or they would be in for some serious shitstorm
Blizzard does not have to disclose sub numbers and never had to. They give out SUBSCRIPTION numbers not individual unique player count. Many serious WoW players have multiple accounts. There are also gold farmers, which are not a drop in the bucket. Finally, and most importantly, the way they count China subs is very misleading due to how Chinese MMO players pay per hour in game rooms, not per month. So if a Chinese player comes in once a month and logs in for an hour, that counts as a sub, which is then perceived by people like you are paying a regular sub. By the way, most of their subs are in Asia, while the revenue and profit is from USA & Europe. Had you actually ever read their financial reports, you would know that.
So yes, Blizzard does make misleading statements but they do not lie IF you read the fine print. There are not 11.5 million players or even 10 million and never were. Those are SUBs, and the definition used for subs allows it to be very inflated due to the Asian market. There are, probably, around 2- 3 million somewhat active players between US and Europe that you would actually care about in terms getting a gauge on player population. That is my opinion, at least, I could be wrong, it may actually be less.
If anything, any research into Blizzards sub numbers & the methodology used behind them, shows that they know how to hype up a game. Their whole "10, 11 12 million players" marketing campaign runs on inflating their sub numbers by the Chinese market.
Playing: EvE, Warhammer free unlimited trial, Allods Online
Played: Anarchy Online, WoW, Warhammer, AoC, Ryzom. Aion
Strongly Recommend: Ryzom, EvE, Allods Online
@Hydroblunt.
You have one little problem with your "theory".
Blizzard (NOT Activision), I am talking Blizzard here, had a turnover for its MMO of ... 325 million dollars in the last 3(!) months of 2009....Actually Blizzard made 329 million (so 4 million came from its old games department).
325 million dollars ... in 3 months: at 15 dollar per sub, that's more than 7.22 million subscriptions at... the US rate of 15 dollars.
Now everyone knows the subs in Russia, China etc are much lower than the $15 dollars. China only contributes for around 9% of the total money flow because subs are much cheaper there.
So actually the 11.5 million subscribers divided 50/50 between Asia and the rest is quite accurate.
In other words: the money comes in and it is a hell lot more than "your guess" of 2 million subs....
As the money is there, the subscriptions are confirmed through ... hard cash audited financial results.
Or to quote Blizzard :
"Overall, we’re very pleased with our performance over the past year. Our non-GAAP net revenue for the year 2009 was about $1.2 billion with an operating margin of more than 46%.
For the fourth quarter of 2009, our non-GAAP net revenue was $329 million, with an operating margin of more than 49%. The fact that we've been able to maintain revenue and operating margin at these levels is remarkable, given the current state of the economy and how it has affected the industry and the fact that we did not ship a new game in 2009.
The stability of our World of Warcraft business has obviously played a big role, and we currently have about 11.5 million World of Warcraft subscribers. That subscribership is on par with the last time we announced subscriber figures."
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Do you have a link for these quarterly numbers?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/187939-activision-blizzard-inc-q4-2009-earnings-call-transcript?source=feed&page=6
and the complete website of Activision Blizzard is full of it.
http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=444224
where they confirm the 11.5 M subs ...
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Well....you'd THINK this would be true. Sadly, however, people keep BUYING unfinished and unpolished CRAP because they desperately want something ELSE to play that is good.
There are still PLENTY of games that are released unfinished, unpolished, and some...unplayable. So while what you said would SEEM to be a logical conclusion....experience tells me that it's unfortunately not the case.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Well....you'd THINK this would be true. Sadly, however, people keep BUYING unfinished and unpolished CRAP because they desperately want something ELSE to play that is good.
There are still PLENTY of games that are released unfinished, unpolished, and some...unplayable. So while what you said would SEEM to be a logical conclusion....experience tells me that it's unfortunately not the case.
Well said Girlgeek.
We all want a decent alternative to playing a very high standard produced game which is actually "fun" to play.
The sad fact remains that Blizzard simply gets all that money for free .... because of a lot of underdevelopped products hit the market on a regular basis.
God I would give 500 dollars for a game that could be played on an equal basis. But I am more disillusioned in the complete video game market.
Apart from some liniair story telling added to FPS and the achievement system of the XBOX, in every aspect of current gaming there is sooooo little to look for. ok Wii was al about control. But the standard video games are just awful (not only the mmo part).
I think everyone would like to have a magnificent game experience with evolution and progress etc.
Video games are so hollow. No wonder that Mr one eye is King of the blind people.
It is sickening these days (and yes professional reviewers are finally giving the points in their reviews instead of hyping each new high budget game).
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
OP I would disagree. It was Brad Mc Grind the Jolly Green Ranger that made design choices stripping much that was good about MUDs and early MMO's from EQ1 and adding much that is still bad. WoW simply polished that. It was because EQ1 was a big commercial success that people (including bliz) emulated it. Of course when WoW was a massive commercial success that was aset back for innovation I agree.
I disagree that MMO's and video games should remain 'niche' that's just all wrong. Anyway plenty of niche games exist still and are being developed (including MUDs). There are more than there have ever been largely due to the market burgeoning.