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WoW Killer
Now that I have your attention:
First, although I never could get into WoW, and I have gotten tired of the(hopefully) small but(ridiculously) vocal part of the community that seems to think Blizzard invented gaming, I don't understand why everyone wants a game to come along and 'kill' WoW. There was an article, in fact, about this not long ago. The conclusion seemed to be that companies should try to make a game they believe in, and do everything they can to make it the best it can be. It doesn't matter what everyone else is playing as long as your game is making enough to stay in business, and the players enjoy it.
After getting in on the last beta event, I am impressed with Rift in it's current state, and hope that it has great success. I will certainly be playing it at release, as will many others here. Rather than talk about how Rift does such-and-such better, or worse, than WoW, I thought I'd look at some games that have failed, some that have survived, and see what can be learned.
EQ(or EQ1 as it is commonly called now) and AC came out in the very early days of MMOs. Although I sound like an old man with the following comments, kids today can't really understand what it was like to walk out of Grobb into the swamp for the first time, or climb a mountain in Dereth and look out across the landscape below. I can't recall how AC was at launch, but EQ was SO bad and unstable that everyone with a sub at the time got a free month to make up for it. Dispite this, they made lots of money, are still being played, and are probably two of the reason this website even exists.
Anarchy Online had a horrible launch, as well. I was in that beta from early stages, back when you'd get a CD in the mail because most people didn't have the bandwidth to download that much data. It spent the first year of it's life in agony, before Funcom brought in some outside help to get it back on track. Not only did it not die, but it came back strong, received accolades from the community, and is still going today.
ShadowBane, a GvG game which allowed guilds, and alliances called nations, to build whole cities and war against each other had a great many new, exciting features. Your stats at character creation effected your appearance, the races had some interesting and unique abilities beyond the normal MMO racial traits, and the guild/nation cities were truly impressive. It also had one of the smoothest, bug and lag free launches I can remember. It is, sadly, no longer with us. What happened? Although I'm sure there are a great many theories, and details, it just didn't hold the attention of enough people, long enough, to keep making money.
EVE Online was released in May of 2003, a year and a half before WoW or EQ2, and I'm not sure it was ever, at any point, a huge smash hit. EVE is like a cult band that every one has heard of, and a lot have listened to at some point, but it continues to survive because of a quiet, moderately sized fan base of the faithful. It is one example of a game that did something different, and made it work. I have played other sci-fi and space-centric games, but I don't know of anything else like EVE.
In late 2004, when Blizzard launched WoW, there were technical issues, long wait times to get into your server, and the usual calamity that comes with the genre. The game also lacked much of the beloved content and features that fans enjoy today. Blizzard did what others had done before them, and kept at it, making improvements, fixing issues, and staying their course. In the end this, coupled with the clout of the Blizzard/Warcraft name and some good marketing, kept people around long enough for the game to mature, and today it is so ubiquitous that people use it to explain to non-gamers what an 'mmo' is.
Other games with strong name recognition haven't done as well, although both LOTRO and STO are still doing well enough to have no end in sight, SWG and Matrix fared poorly in SOE's care.
I guess what I get from all this is that beta doesn't make or break a game. A good release doesn't always mean that you'll be around in a few years. What seems to make one game shine while another fails is the vision of the publishers and developers, and their willingness(and fiscal ability) to stay with a game they believe in long enough for the players to become true fans.
Will Rift kill WoW?
No. WoW is the only thing that can kill WoW, and I don't see that happening any time soon.
What I hope, because I have enjoyed my brief time in Telera so far, is that Trion is financially able, and conceptually willing, to stay with Rift though sickness and health. Those that have, seem to eventually find their crowd, and make money on a game they love. Those that falter... well... they aren't on the 'Game List' anymore.
Comments
An excellent, well-written post; I agree fully. Killing World of Warcraft is impossible in general, but for Rift to become a "WoW Killer" for some is entirely possible. I really don't understand why kids these days can't just stop every once in a while and smell the roses. Appreciate the work the artists put into the world; let its music captivate you; let the story carry you.
A lot of people's problem is that they've invested too much time into their precious WoW, and are unwilling to leave it. But what does Warcraft REALLY offer? There is nothing WoW offers now that can verify as a valid reason to stay, and so far Rift has proven to be greater than WoW, in my book. But it seems a lot of MMORPGs are having to either shut down or dumb themselves down to meet the market's standards to be successful, because not enough people are willing to give other games a shot.
I really am loving Rift, though. I honestly was not very impressed (truthfully I didn't research much of it), and didn't expect to be when I was invited to the beta. Lo and behold, I have pre-ordered it and am looking forward to seeing how the game carries out with its more-than-responsive GMs.
It's interesting how many people complain about the new games being the same as the old, but the games that have done the best have been the ones who stuck close to the formula, and only made variations in one or two ways. I think EVE is a really important exception, since it's been around for almost 8 years, and doesn't seem to pay attention to what other games are doing. Most of those that tried to truly break the mold found that people didn't like that much change.
As for your linked post about what WoW offers that other games don't, I agree. The draw IS the draw. In other words, "Nothing attracts a crowd, like a crowd." I have drifted in and out of EQ2 almost since release. It's a perfectly good game, and has some things that are hard to find in other games(especially the nearly psychotic home decoration options), but the only reason I have played it for several years is because I have friends there. The opposite, a lack of people I know, is one of the main reasons I stop playing games, although recently I've taken to simply making new friends in new games.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
No mmo will ever kill WoW. Just like no mmo ever killed UO, EQ, DAoC or the other succesful mmo's. Only one thing will... time. Sooner or later ppl will get bored and move on.
What does WoW really offer? Community. See at this point in time, WoW is a bit more than a game. It's basically a social network like Facebook and Myspace. People have friends on there, family and guildmates, co-workers, etc. Besides the responsive combat, which is still one of the best in the industry, and the fun and varied quests, that's probably one of the main reason people continue playing it.
Rift has proven to be greater than WoW in your book? Agreed, in your book. In my book, it proved to be almost the same game only with slightly better graphics, less responsive and dull combat, worse animations and incredibly bland quests and even more linear progression than WoW. Personally, I didn't think it was possible to get more linear but Rift proved my wrong. I'm glad that you like Rift and I hope that you have a great time playing it though.
As far as dumbing down, game developers do that on their own because they try to get some of that WoW money, which has not worked in the past and probably will not work even when SWTOR and GW2 get released. Although those two games are the most likely to take a good chunk of WoW subscribers. The point is that dumbing down doesn't make it a successful game as EVE Online has proved--being one of the more difficult MMOs and one of the more successful ones. Compare that to the sleu of dumbed down WoW clones like WAR, Aion, AoC and you see that making the game as much like WoW as possible does not make it a successful game.
Personally, I think that a lot of people are not willing to give these games a shot because the games are very similar to WoW.
lol hasnt this conversation been done to death enougth in game chat?
It's on a 5min recycle loop it seems, and I stopped hearing anything but regurgitated views on it about 3 games ago.
Let it go guys... Rift has it's issues, but WoW isnt one of them.
I certainly agree with you that WoW has a very strong community. I'm not sure if came across, but that's what I was trying to get at in my second post, above. It's also the reason that no game can 'kill' WoW. At some point in the future people will simply move on, but it's not likely to be soon.
I haven't played WoW in years, and I didn't play a lot even then, so I can't comment on technical aspects like animations or combat. I don't recall WoW being overly impressive in those realms, nor disappointing. It seemed pretty standard on both, at the time. I also disagree on how linear Rift is, but maybe we're defining the word differently. To me, Half Life 2 is an example of a linear game. Although I enjoyed the story, there is only one way for it to unfold. At no point can you decide to truly do something different. It's been my experience that the quest lines of most MMOs are similarly without branches in narrative. The fact that the world is more open, however, keeps most MMOs from feeling so tightly controlled. I don't think the appearance of rifts at different places throughout the world can be overstated. I feel it adds a level of randomness that isn't found in most games.
I agree that developers tend to dumb games down in order to make more money, and that it's rarely successful. EVE is, indeed, an excellent example of a game that forged it's own path, and found great rewards for doing so. I do take issue with the idea that any game which comes out, and does not totally reinvent the genre, is a 'dumbed down WoW clone'. I think it's wording like that which earns the game a great deal of it's enmity, especially from people who have played these games since EQ, UO, or the text days. Games try to be like WoW in the fact that they want to make that kind of money, have that many fans, etc., but you can't assume that any design element which resembles WoW was copied directly, especially given that most of those elements came from older games. I never played Aion, but I felt that WAR and AoC both have a number of differences from WoW, and are no more like it that they are like EQ2, or many other games which came out over the past decade.
As for the last bit, I'm sure you're right. As we already discussed, people who play WoW have friends and family who play WoW, and aren't likely to leave just because a new title hits the market. That said, I don't know if the new generation of gamers will continue flocking to is the way the old one did. With so many more games on the market now than when EQ2/WoW released, back in 2004, I think the younger crowd have become more fickle, and WoW may one day become a pariah to the younger crowd simply BECAUSE it has been so successful.
Ahh the Rift vs WoW thread...fun fun.
Read some of it but for the most part this thread is a wall of text lol
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
If you read anything, I hope you read enough of my original post to know this wasn't really a Rift vs WoW post. WoW is mentioned for two reasons. First, it brings in views, and second, it's a very successful game. I simply sought to examine what has, and has not, worked in the past, and what they may say about the future of Rift, and the genre in general.
Its nice to see a second decent pvp fantasy mmo out there . Not sure how many will play due to the high specs required . I found my PC struggled with it on low settings when I can play the likes of AoC on high and lotro on very high . Now that could be that it was the beta and the release client may be better . But I'm going to wait till I see the game on offer sometime later in the year or for a trial after release .
going down down down, WoW is going down!
Reading your post and looking at the MMOs, I start wondering why some MMOs fail where others succeed. I wonder what the market actually wants. WoW was my second MMO, and the beta for me was so awesome, I'd never seen anything like it. After that, every beta I joined and every MMO I tried was an inevitable comparison to WoW; most positive. I thought LOTRO was a better experience, AoC was a better experience, and WAR was worse (all beta). But in the end, all 3 of these titles "failed". Now I know they're still alive, but LOTRO went free2play, and both AoC and WAR, the supposed WoW killers of 2009, did not live up to the expectations.
It makes me wonder what the MMO audience actually is. How many people are actually interested in a new MMO, and are willing to stick with it? Obviously the people on this site are, but if you look at WoW's audience and scratch off the asian market, you're left with about 5 million people. How many of those are actually ready for something else? How many are casual players? Nowadays, when an MMO sells less than a million copies or 500k subscribers, it is automatically deemed a failure. I remember AoC shipping 1 million boxes. When they only had 300k subscribers after 3 months, panic arose everywhere, the director of their company quit and AoC was stamped with the "FAIL" mark. However, before WoW came out, 300k subscribers was a pretty impressive number. It's a number other MMOs can do just fine with. What bothers me is that all these MMOs aim for the stars, and because of that, they're all crashing and burning. Because of *that*, you only reinforce the image that WoW is the best thing out there to its fanboys. After all, everything else is 'failing'
When looking at MMOs, I think we should really just forget about WoW. It's like you said, nothing can kill WoW. You have an amazing developer with a hugely popular brand releasing something that after a short while, was more polished than anything in its genre. It did the right things at the right time, and Blizzard took advantage of it perfectly. Once you're stuck in an MMO that you've been playing for 2 years or so, switching to something else will initially always disappoint you, as nobody can have all the features your 2-year-old MMO has at release. You can't convert its casual playerbase to a new game that easily. Within 20 minutes of logging in they'll find missing features. Within 5 seconds of looking at screenshots they'll realize they'd be starting all over and it would cost them a full year to do fun stuff with guilds again. It's not happening.
As for RIFT, I don't know how it will fare. I have a pretty good idea. I think it'll sell decent, hopefully500k-1 million copies within a few months with the right marketing and word of mouth, and hold a solid number of subscribers. It won't kill WoW, it doesn't need to. What developers need to do, and what I hope TRION did, is launch a solid MMO that makes a lot of money off 100k+ subscribers. If you need 500k+ to not be disappointed, then just stop developing your title because it's not going to happen.
Damn that turned out longer than I planned. I'm not spell checking this.
haha this game is a joke, it will never kill WoW you must be an idiot haha
Read much?
Hahaha yeah it's a fat joke.
Blizzard will be lol when rift is released. hahahaha
Well put, I couldn't agree more.
Nicely said
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
I stopped reading posts after the first page when someone attempted to say Aion was a WoW clone.. Lol?
You know I almost ALMOST posted without reading. Then I thought to myself I don't want to be a fucktard asshole who see's a title and just assumes what its about.
Honestly You've said it almost as good as this one guy I know. Sept now I have a copy of yours and I'll be blasting it around the world. Enjoy.
Well first off let me say i was a wow fan and now a rift fan. I dont want a game to kill wow i want rift to compete with wow, competition makes better games, i feel blizzard has had a stranglehold on the market for so long that they are not making a good product anymore which is why i left.
rift is by no means a copy of wow, things they do differently off the top of my head.
Rifts- to me they are fun as hell, either fighting them with people or running from them if not very many people are on. people always so pve is boring, mobs dont change, they dont move, well in this game mobs will come hunt you down, kill your questgivers, kill the whole town, i went afk for a little while and died to a rift, dont afk in this game.
soul system- best thing about rift right now, makes each character feel unique, less cookiecutter, and so many choices to choose from plus the combinations you can get is really awesome.
everything else yeah its a themepark quest mmo, i like that, sandboxes are generally just annoying, they put you in the world and tell you nothing, if you like that kind of game that is great, but what are you doing on a forum for a themepark game. It does the themepark very well and that is the type of game i like, plus it has the added advantage of being a dangerous world. this is the first game i died at level 3, this is the first game ive ever died this much and had fun dying. this is the first game where i didnt even realize i was leveling up and could train higher ranks of skills, basically i was having so much fun i forgot to go back to the trainer i just kept fighting.
rift is definitely different than wow, they just happen to be the same type of game, which is fine.
MMO's are just another addiction and for those of us who have the addiction it is very difficult to walk away from a game we have played for years. So for any reasonably good MMO there will always be a pool of loyal followers that refuse to try a new MMO and let their old game go.
That being said, unsubscribing from a game you have been playing for a long time is very liberating. Almost like getting the monkey off your back. Once you are playing your new MMO game it won't be too long before you forget how much of your life you invested in your previous MMO.
In other words, I agree with OP, WOW is not going away from anywhere until some new technology for MMOs come out, like a 3D Everquest or something.
OP your post was very well put together, and very well written. I do agree with you completely. WoW will only be killed by time. Unless they really invest in updating the game. However I do not see WoW holding the reigns 10 to 15 years from now. Something new and far more innovative will have come out. At least I hope so.
Now I am not flaming WoW. I do not play anymore, nor can I go back. I have tried, but the gear grind just turns me off, as well as all of the scripted battlegrounds. Back when I first started wow, at release, it was exillerating. The battles at tauren Mill and other places where an inspiration to really HATE the alliance. People came together, talked with one another and worked as a group. Things like this bring a community together. The game, I fell, has lost this side of it. Everything is Qued up, so that you can take part in a dungeon or BG with people you don't know and from different servers.
However people still play WoW because they have friends that play. I tried very hard to get some RL friends to play some other MMO's with me, but they didn't want to cause they had to many RL friends in WoW. For me WoW doesn't work, but for many others, including my dad, and many RL friends it does.
Someone mentioned other games failing because they where dumbed down. Well I would not say dumbed down, but they think that everyone wants the same style of game with just a new twist. Which is just not true. The MMO community wants something new and innovative as a whole. However, I do not see GW2, Rift, or SWtOR doing this. Not to say that these games will not be great and fun, just nothing great and innovative. Minor changes only, but nothing that will leave people awestruck. TSW I think has the best shot. However it is owned by Funcom.... yeah we all know the track record there.
This bit here reminded me of a much troubled game which is still hanging on, after several bankruptcies and changes of ownership. If ever an MMO deserved to title 'sandbox', it's Ryzom. Originally released in Spetember of 2004, it has had ISSUES.
First, it was released only 2 months before a much anticipated sequel(EQ2) and a much anticipated new game based on a very popular IP(WoW). It was like releasing an odd, indie movie the same weekend that something monster like Avatar hits the screen. It's not a death sentence, but it isn't doing you any favors.
Second, it was buggy at launch, and also had lore and mechanics which varied a good deal from many other games. Had the release been perfect, it still would have appealed to a smaller audience, I think, than the more 'traditional' games that came out shortly after.
Third, there is almost no content.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this game. I've played off and on for years, through at least three different ownerships. I think the world is interesting, the skill based advancement is cool(there are no classes at all, of any sort, except those you define in your own head), and the environment felt more alive and organic than most other games, especially at the time it came out.
What it doesn't have are predefined story arcs, quests of any real substance, or famous NPC's to go talk to about saving the world. It is truly a sandbox: here's the world, you can do whatever you want, have fun.
It's interesting that, although people complain often about the 'theme park' mmos(a term I just recently encountered, actually), very few games which are truly open and unfettered make it big.
Ryzom is still going, and I hope it continues to do so. It did a lot of cool things(first game I know of that allowed user-generated content, long before CoH and others did), and even though the graphics at technologically dated at this point, it still has a very good sense of style that makes it look better than the polygon counts would imply(something I feel that it shares with WoW, actually).
The point is that I don't feel like people actually want an MMO that doesn't have at least some of the 'theme park' aspect to it. Although such games can and do survive, they aren't what the majority seem to be interested in paying for.
First, it was released only 2 months before a much anticipated sequel(EQ2) and a much anticipated new game based on a very popular IP(WoW). It was like releasing an odd, indie movie the same weekend that something monster like Avatar hits the screen. It's not a death sentence, but it isn't doing you any favors.
Second, it was buggy at launch, and also had lore and mechanics which varied a good deal from many other games. Had the release been perfect, it still would have appealed to a smaller audience, I think, than the more 'traditional' games that came out shortly after.
Third, there is almost no content.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this game. I've played off and on for years, through at least three different ownerships. I think the world is interesting, the skill based advancement is cool(there are no classes at all, of any sort, except those you define in your own head), and the environment felt more alive and organic than most other games, especially at the time it came out.
What it doesn't have are predefined story arcs, quests of any real substance, or famous NPC's to go talk to about saving the world. It is truly a sandbox: here's the world, you can do whatever you want, have fun.
It's interesting that, although people complain often about the 'theme park' mmos(a term I just recently encountered, actually), very few games which are truly open and unfettered make it big.
Ryzom is still going, and I hope it continues to do so. It did a lot of cool things(first game I know of that allowed user-generated content, long before CoH and others did), and even though the graphics at technologically dated at this point, it still has a very good sense of style that makes it look better than the polygon counts would imply(something I feel that it shares with WoW, actually).
The point is that I don't feel like people actually want an MMO that doesn't have at least some of the 'theme park' aspect to it. Although such games can and do survive, they aren't what the majority seem to be interested in paying for.
There are several possible reasons you don't see the existing open world sandboxes make it "big".
* The sandbox crowd is actually a small, but vocal minority.
* Just having sandbox features isn't enough any longer. You need something flashy to attract people.
* The games are old, and the graphics are dated.
* The games are poorly done, regardless of their sandbox/theme park style.
* The sandbox crowd doesn't actually want to pay for anything (this is just a random possibility)
* The existing games are OK, but they aren't $15 a month OK.
Those are just some possibilities.
And I would consider myself a fan of Rift, but I don't think it's a WoW killer. Nothing is going to "kill" WoW except something Blizzard creates.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.