I have to say I have to disagree with this entire thread.
1. By putting MMOs onto the Mass market it has caused developers to only care about one thing, and that is profit. I would rather the market grow at a more casual pace than what has happened with WOW.. WOW has created a game style monopoly in a way. Which has caused for a bunch of clone style games to follow in its footsteps, it has caused creative new games that could have seen success lose its financing if they dont follow the WOW trend.
2. Cross server grouping is one of the worst thing I have seen in MMOs.. I want to make friends. I want to group with those friends. Not a bunch of random queued up people. In games like Everquest People on their respective servers made a reputation for themselves, and had to live with those reputations. It forced people in many ways to play a little bit more politely. Yes you still had -sshats, but at least they are not as common in games with cross server queues, who could care less about what you think about them..Also queuing in general and instant popping into a dungeon.. Sorry I like my virtual worlds to actually be worlds.. Not lobby games. I guess thats just me.
3. Wrath of the Lich king being number 3? come on seriously?.. Whoopy effen doo... That effected the MMO world how? I didnt play during Wrath of the Lich King.. It has not effected my gaming in the least.
MMORPG.. Seriously this got a spotlight why? What a garbage article that has no merit whatsoever.
So why exactly are you so raging?
More people are playing MMOs, whether it is 'WoW-clones' or 'sandbox'.
Mass appeal goes both ways, more people are playing your type of game as well.
Now take a deep breathe and relax.
I think the point some folks are trying to make is that MORE people DOESN'T directly translate to a POSITIVE for the MMORPG industry.....especially when said people have migrated from other game generes that have VERY different ideas of what constitues a "FUN" game.
FUN for a FPS gamer might be a quick 15-20 minute IN / OUT gameing experience
Now look at how long the average 5 man dungeon or Battleground takes to complete....coincidence?
FUN for a Console Gamer might be being able to solo content so that they can start & stop (formerly pause) when ever they want without having other people dependent on you to progress
Now look at how much content in WOW is soloable...and infact one of the most optimal ways to level at lower levels IS soloing....coincidence?
So the argument is that MORE people doesn't automaticly mean that its a positive thing for the genere. MORE traditional MMORPG minded people in the mix of things would be nice.....but infusing more casual gamers into the mix hasn't exactly been a good thing for the MMORPG industry...from a traditional MMORPG standpoint. If your a former FPS or Console gamer....well then things have turned out rather nicely haven't they?
1. It main streamed mmorpg's by taking the EQ grind out of them. Sorry heard about people killing each other over items and grinding for days with no results did not encourage me to want to put down my play station controller.
2. It showed these genre can be money makers and brought financing into the market. To be honest we are still 5+ years behind Korea on mmo's, but that is also caused by American infrastructure being complete crap compared to Korea.
3. They made raiding fun and simple to get into which made the game social.
Bad:
1. This game single handely stagnated the entire mmorpg market for the past 7 years. Devs have been flat out scared due to massive financial losses to try anything different.
2. Blizzard has completely monopolized the mmorpg market. The game has grown on itself so much that there is literally no chance any other mmorpg released can ever be as big or ever "have enough content" to compete. No other mmo has been able to stay alive long enough to get that far outside of EQ
3. They proved that lazy design choices and charging for things that should be free can be tolerated by their player base. There is literally NOTHING Blizzard can do that will kill WoW short of shutting down the servers. They have far too many people convinced that WoW invented a lot of the stuff it did not and that given time it will get better.
Everytime a WoW fan leaves a new games claiming it does not have x or y and goes back to WoW it just confirms to Blizzard that doing the above 3 "bad" things is acceptable.
1. It main streamed mmorpg's by taking the EQ grind out of them. Sorry heard about people killing each other over items and grinding for days with no results did not encourage me to want to put down my play station controller.
2. It showed these genre can be money makers and brought financing into the market. To be honest we are still 5+ years behind Korea on mmo's, but that is also caused by American infrastructure being complete crap compared to Korea.
3. They made raiding fun and simple to get into which made the game social.
Bad:
1. This game single handely stagnated the entire mmorpg market for the past 7 years. Devs have been flat out scared due to massive financial losses to try anything different.
2. Blizzard has completely monopolized the mmorpg market. The game has grown on itself so much that there is literally no chance any other mmorpg released can ever be as big or ever "have enough content" to compete. No other mmo has been able to stay alive long enough to get that far outside of EQ
3. They proved that lazy design choices and charging for things that should be free can be tolerated by their player base. There is literally NOTHING Blizzard can do that will kill WoW short of shutting down the servers. They have far too many people convinced that WoW invented a lot of the stuff it did not and that given time it will get better.
Everytime a WoW fan leaves a new games claiming it does not have x or y and goes back to WoW it just confirms to Blizzard that doing the above 3 "bad" things is acceptable.
Thats a fair post....and I'll preface my following comments by saying that what is GOOD or BAD is largely subjective. The "dumbing down" of MMO mechanics is viewed as a bad thing from a traditional MMORPG gamers perspective...but a positive for the average casual gamer.
SO whats good & bad can be debated till the cows come home....
What you can say is that "mainstreaming" EQ's model did lower that barrier to entry for many OTHER types of gamers. As you pointed out, the grind kept you on your console.
My argument is that you don't need to "mainstream" or "dumb down" the mechanics & content to remove the Grind. All you had to do was make the meticulous mechanics more meaningful....and reduce the gear dependency (that drives much of the grinding....even today). Utlima Online did this. But you'd still have alot of casual gamers turning their nose up at such a game.......hence my reasoning that the "mainstreaming" was done to increase the subscriber base moreso than to improve the overall quality of the MMORPG game experience.
Secondly, whats the point of all this MONEY in the MMORPG market if its all going to Themepark Clones? Yes, more money floating around the MMO genere is good....but ONLY if its being used to create new and exciting games. What we've gotten has been a bunch of warmed over rince & repeat.....because that's what the new MMO playerbase majority wants. Bioware is rummored to spend 200-300 million dollars on SW:TOR.....GREAT! But its another story driven themepark MMORPG on rails that is largely gear dependent and requires you to run a bunch of kill or delivery quests to advance......NOT GREAT!
And to your point about making raiding & dungeon crawling more accessable increases sociability.....I disagree.
Instancing was introduced to make raiding / dungeon crawling more enjoyable and accessable.......and as a result over half the server population is hiding in some instanced version of the world.....leaving the open world pretty barren.
A LFG tool was created to help get people looking for a group automagicly put together and warped inside the dungeon......and as a result, many players will drop group at the instant there is any disagreement or problem in the group. Why....because they can just click 1 button and get right back in. No problem solving, no soft skills development, and lots of anti-social behavior.
Cross Server grouping was implemented to reduce players wait time for their automagic grouping tool (because not having to put the group together yourself wasn't easy enough).........and as a result, you have even more anti-social behavior on display from people who have little regard to their behaivor or attitude because more than likely they will never see that player from another server again. Gone are the days of black lists (or having to behave in a way to keep of said blacklists) because your thrown in with a bunch of people that you'll never had to play with again.
Yes, its refined the hack n' slash componet of MMORPG gaming, but it's removed many of the intagible behaviors that are shapped from doing some of the hard knocks manual things in MMORPG gaming.
Originally posted by Puremallace To be fair I will do this: Good: 1. It main streamed mmorpg's by taking the EQ grind out of them. Sorry heard about people killing each other over items and grinding for days with no results did not encourage me to want to put down my play station controller.
2. It showed these genre can be money makers and brought financing into the market. To be honest we are still 5+ years behind Korea on mmo's, but that is also caused by American infrastructure being complete crap compared to Korea.
3. They made raiding fun and simple to get into which made the game social.
Bad: 1. This game single handely stagnated the entire mmorpg market for the past 7 years. Devs have been flat out scared due to massive financial losses to try anything different.
2. Blizzard has completely monopolized the mmorpg market. The game has grown on itself so much that there is literally no chance any other mmorpg released can ever be as big or ever "have enough content" to compete. No other mmo has been able to stay alive long enough to get that far outside of EQ
3. They proved that lazy design choices and charging for things that should be free can be tolerated by their player base. There is literally NOTHING Blizzard can do that will kill WoW short of shutting down the servers. They have far too many people convinced that WoW invented a lot of the stuff it did not and that given time it will get better.
Everytime a WoW fan leaves a new games claiming it does not have x or y and goes back to WoW it just confirms to Blizzard that doing the above 3 "bad" things is acceptable.
Under 'Bad', #1. The financial losses other games have suffered has nothing to do with WoW and everything to do with an inability to write a game. This is related to #2 under 'Bad' as well.
Under 'Bad', #2. The only thing WoW has to compete with is their product. Unlike most other markets (at least in the U.S.) they don't have any sort of legal shenanigans to limit competition. If other developers wouldn't write such cr@ppy games, people would play them. It may be true that no one game will have 11 Million players, but two or three good games? Certainly.
Under 'Bad', #3. I'm not sure what to do with this. Blizzard isn't forcing anyone to spend money on their game. They just know what to put in their cash shop and people buy it. Obviously those people see whatever they're getting as worth the money they're spending. That's why people buy things.
** edit ** I don't have much to say about the 'Good' section. I stopped playing WoW a long time ago. I do agree with #2 - WoW showed that it could be done.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
1. It main streamed mmorpg's by taking the EQ grind out of them. Sorry heard about people killing each other over items and grinding for days with no results did not encourage me to want to put down my play station controller.
2. It showed these genre can be money makers and brought financing into the market. To be honest we are still 5+ years behind Korea on mmo's, but that is also caused by American infrastructure being complete crap compared to Korea.
3. They made raiding fun and simple to get into which made the game social.
Bad:
1. This game single handely stagnated the entire mmorpg market for the past 7 years. Devs have been flat out scared due to massive financial losses to try anything different.
2. Blizzard has completely monopolized the mmorpg market. The game has grown on itself so much that there is literally no chance any other mmorpg released can ever be as big or ever "have enough content" to compete. No other mmo has been able to stay alive long enough to get that far outside of EQ
3. They proved that lazy design choices and charging for things that should be free can be tolerated by their player base. There is literally NOTHING Blizzard can do that will kill WoW short of shutting down the servers. They have far too many people convinced that WoW invented a lot of the stuff it did not and that given time it will get better.
Everytime a WoW fan leaves a new games claiming it does not have x or y and goes back to WoW it just confirms to Blizzard that doing the above 3 "bad" things is acceptable.
Under 'Bad', #1. The financial losses other games have suffered has nothing to do with WoW and everything to do with an inability to write a game. This is related to #2 under 'Bad' as well.
Under 'Bad', #2. The only thing WoW has to compete with is their product. Unlike most other markets (at least in the U.S.) they don't have any sort of legal shenanigans to limit competition. If other developers wouldn't write such cr@ppy games, people would play them. It may be true that no one game will have 11 Million players, but two or three good games? Certainly.
Under 'Bad', #3. I'm not sure what to do with this. Blizzard isn't forcing anyone to spend money on their game. They just know what to put in their cash shop and people buy it. Obviously those people see whatever they're getting as worth the money they're spending. That's why people buy things.
** edit **
I don't have much to say about the 'Good' section. I stopped playing WoW a long time ago. I do agree with #2 - WoW showed that it could be done.
I don't think WOW specifically bears any sort of responsibility for the stagnation of the genere over the last 7 years....they are doing what they set out to do, and they do it VERY WELL.
HOWEVER, you can link WOW's presense (and popularity) to the stagnation of the genere over the last 7 years. WOW broke down those barriers of entry that existed in previous MMORPG games to allow the LARGEST subsection of the gamer market to access MMORPGs.....casual gamers.
Now you have a new landscape in the MMORPG market. No longer is the genere filled with a majority of players that like to role play, live and socialize in virtual worlds, or play in a highly competitive and challenging environment. The new majority in the MMO market are casual gamers that like short play cycle experiences (15-20min then out), like soloable content, and are more interested in hack n' slash action than the "metagame" of sandbox type MMORPGs. They don't like to be "punished" for taking risks, and are far less loyal to any one specific game. And WOW owns 60% of this market.
It's not so much that developers are scared to take chances....as it is the publishers. Publishers are the ones that fork over the millions of dollars to make the game happen. Publishers see the earning potential in this new casual MMO market and don't want to risk it on smaller niche games that appeal to substantially smaller audiences.
If you look at Mortal Online or Darkfall on paper....they look amazing. When it comes down to launch.....the launchs are filled with crashes & bugs. The code is incomplete and half the features promised haven't made it to the game. It's not because the game is bad, its because the implementation was crap.....and thats largely due to no publishers wanting to touch anything outside of a Themepark game with a 10 foot pole.
And why is that?
Because EVE's 300k subs are small fries. If they can shave off atleast a few million subscribers from the themepark side of MMORPGs, then they have a success on their hands (see Rift)
So yes, WOW isn't responsible......but certianly set the stage for the craptastic state the industry is in.
And to your 2nd point, its not so much the games are crappy.....its that they aren't WOW. Think about this for a second. Lets say you were one of the early adopters in WOW and have several seasoned characters that you can just jump right in to endgame with all your buddies. You have a completely customizable User Interface and you have it set JUST right.
Now jump into Warhammer, Aion, LOTR, etc.....and you have the EXACT same experience (kill this....run over there and deliver this), except you have to start ALL over again.....and the UI isn't customizable so your out of your comfort zone. So what do people do......reactivate WOW.
I think if people weren't so sick of running quests or raiding instanced dungeons.....they might have been more receptive to games like Warhammer and LOTR.
Originally posted by RajCaj....but certianly set the stage for the craptastic state the industry is in.
And to your 2nd point, its not so much the games are crappy.....its that they aren't WOW. Think about this for a second. Lets say you were one of the early adopters in WOW and have several seasoned characters that you can just jump right in to endgame with all your buddies. You have a completely customizable User Interface and you have it set JUST right.
Now jump into Warhammer, Aion, LOTR, etc.....and you have the EXACT same experience (kill this....run over there and deliver this), except you have to start ALL over again.....and the UI isn't customizable so your out of your comfort zone. So what do people do......reactivate WOW.
I think if people weren't so sick of running quests or raiding instanced dungeons.....they might have been more receptive to games like Warhammer and LOTR.
Probably one of the things I will miss most the UI interface customization, there are some creative folks behind a lot of great addons.
Originally posted by RajCaj Originally posted by lizardbones
Originally posted by Puremallace <snip>
Under 'Bad', #1. The financial losses other games have suffered has nothing to do with WoW and everything to do with an inability to write a game. This is related to #2 under 'Bad' as well.
Under 'Bad', #2. The only thing WoW has to compete with is their product. Unlike most other markets (at least in the U.S.) they don't have any sort of legal shenanigans to limit competition. If other developers wouldn't write such cr@ppy games, people would play them. It may be true that no one game will have 11 Million players, but two or three good games? Certainly.
Under 'Bad', #3. I'm not sure what to do with this. Blizzard isn't forcing anyone to spend money on their game. They just know what to put in their cash shop and people buy it. Obviously those people see whatever they're getting as worth the money they're spending. That's why people buy things.
** edit ** I don't have much to say about the 'Good' section. I stopped playing WoW a long time ago. I do agree with #2 - WoW showed that it could be done.
<snippity snip snip>
And to your 2nd point, its not so much the games are crappy.....its that they aren't WOW. Think about this for a second. Lets say you were one of the early adopters in WOW and have several seasoned characters that you can just jump right in to endgame with all your buddies. You have a completely customizable User Interface and you have it set JUST right. Now jump into Warhammer, Aion, LOTR, etc.....and you have the EXACT same experience (kill this....run over there and deliver this), except you have to start ALL over again.....and the UI isn't customizable so your out of your comfort zone. So what do people do......reactivate WOW. I think if people weren't so sick of running quests or raiding instanced dungeons.....they might have been more receptive to games like Warhammer and LOTR.
I played most of the mmorpg that have launched in the past 5 years. They were all pretty cr@ppy. WoW or no WoW those games were poor examples of game design, programming or both.
If the argument is that WoW upped the bar for what's acceptable, then I consider that a good thing. Trion proved you could do it. Bioware and ArenaNet will probably do it too. Mmorpg should be better than they have been since WoW's release.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
A big example has to be PvP balance. Every time, they say the game is more balanced than ever. They say that in the face of being dropped from tournament organizations. They say that in the face of not being more balanced, but just having even more tools spread around. The reason balance is so bad in WoW? They are too tunnel focused on issues, they build the game with different goals for PvP and PvE in terms of tools, DPS, and support actions/buffs. They build the dungeon to require one level of damage and then don't adjust PvP to accommodate those levels of damage. How many times have they upped HP levels and PvP is still over in a blink? How many times have they gutted crowd control and stuns for some classes but leave frost mages in tact? Then they say they need all that control. It's not for dungeons/PvE, so even though it's too much in PvP, they can't adjust it?
It happens in all holy trinity games.
PvE mobs fight in a specific way while humans think and act really diffrently.
You could of course force PvP so that when yiou get a taunt you get that player in target and can't change until something breaks it but I am not sure that would be popular.
But the only real balance you can get otherwise is if you make PvE mobs act more like humans. Or if you have totally different skills in PvE and PvP (or to have one side play monsters like in LOTRO).
As long as they keep the trinity the issues will still be around. That is why Guildwars is balanced while games like Wow and EQ2 isn't. And it isn't really because Blizzard made a bad job with the balance or aren't listening to feedback, the whole thing isn't possible at all.
While I would never say that perfect balance is possible. While I would say that there will always be a so called best and worst class. They could make it WAY more balanced than it is. As aluded to, they need to look at the big picture and how each class/spec fits into it, stop trying to throw numbers(rated BGs and removal of 2s for points) on the pile to hide balance issues, stop trying to homogenize every spec and give people a reason to choose and play one, listen and look at their beta feedback in expansions, and step down off the podium once in a while and actually engage in some serious discussion with their customers.
Balance is not that their is a supposed best and worst class. Balance is the distance/gap between supposed best and worst.
People tend to think WoW did everything word of mouth, but really now? I remember seeing magic the gathering ads and world of warcraft ads, shouldering on celebrities advocating for the game back in the good old days when I grew up. It was around the coming of age at 18 when wow pumped their ads. I was soo damned psyched when I saw the mix of playing magic the gathering and world of warcraft. I never got to play world of warcraft, but I surely did know about it. A game that has sucked me up is Mu Online, which I beta tested about 1 year before WoW release with my best friend Shane.
Really, advertising made WoW a success story, and the fact that Lineage 2 burried it for x number of years at 14M subscriptions. Now, Lineage 2 is a shadow of it's former self, but it still holds the crown for being a top game. Argue for or against WoW, but to me only it's success can be credited to the remarkable advertising and marketing campaigns that were solely focused on where casual people looking for something to do would go. Now, people tend to make up stories or forget how WoW really got it's popularity. The hate from that popularity sparks the interest for new players to come. If anyone wants to really become a WoW slayer, do a bigger and more focused advertising campaign that WoW did, and then shut up and watch your subscription numbers climb.
It did surely help a lot but the fact that Warcraft 3 was so popular was as important for Wows success as the adds.
Blizzard is one of the companies that have many fans who try out all their suff, it have been so since 1997. Valve and Rockstar are similar to that as well.
Actually, I think Warcraft 3 was the worst of that line as far as actual RTS goes. It had tons of story, but the hero building and zerg it down playstyle was horrible. Defense was never much of a strat in Warcraft, but 3 was the epitomy of bad in that design. That was the point that I started not buying every thing Blizzard made. I waited until TBC to join WoW. I left in WotLK. WoW and how Blizzavision acted in it(toward their own game and customers) is the reason I'll never play another Blizzavision game. DiabloIII drove railroad size spikes into the coffin.
Under 'Bad', #1. The financial losses other games have suffered has nothing to do with WoW and everything to do with an inability to write a game. This is related to #2 under 'Bad' as well.
Under 'Bad', #2. The only thing WoW has to compete with is their product. Unlike most other markets (at least in the U.S.) they don't have any sort of legal shenanigans to limit competition. If other developers wouldn't write such cr@ppy games, people would play them. It may be true that no one game will have 11 Million players, but two or three good games? Certainly.
Under 'Bad', #3. I'm not sure what to do with this. Blizzard isn't forcing anyone to spend money on their game. They just know what to put in their cash shop and people buy it. Obviously those people see whatever they're getting as worth the money they're spending. That's why people buy things.
** edit **
I don't have much to say about the 'Good' section. I stopped playing WoW a long time ago. I do agree with #2 - WoW showed that it could be done.
<snippity snip snip>
And to your 2nd point, its not so much the games are crappy.....its that they aren't WOW. Think about this for a second. Lets say you were one of the early adopters in WOW and have several seasoned characters that you can just jump right in to endgame with all your buddies. You have a completely customizable User Interface and you have it set JUST right.
Now jump into Warhammer, Aion, LOTR, etc.....and you have the EXACT same experience (kill this....run over there and deliver this), except you have to start ALL over again.....and the UI isn't customizable so your out of your comfort zone. So what do people do......reactivate WOW.
I think if people weren't so sick of running quests or raiding instanced dungeons.....they might have been more receptive to games like Warhammer and LOTR.
I played most of the mmorpg that have launched in the past 5 years. They were all pretty cr@ppy. WoW or no WoW those games were poor examples of game design, programming or both.
If the argument is that WoW upped the bar for what's acceptable, then I consider that a good thing. Trion proved you could do it. Bioware and ArenaNet will probably do it too. Mmorpg should be better than they have been since WoW's release.
WoW only proved that people want to play an MMO so bad they will settle easily. They continued on the path of poor QA in expansion after expansion and patch after patch. The sheer number of times reported and unfixed bugs were pushed to live to hit a deadline is sad. WoW did not start it, but they are carrying the torch.
WoW only proved that people want to play an MMO so bad they will settle easily. They continued on the path of poor QA in expansion after expansion and patch after patch. The sheer number of times reported and unfixed bugs were pushed to live to hit a deadline is sad. WoW did not start it, but they are carrying the torch.
Seeing how WoW is this massive MMO of course they carry the torch. They make a mistake they eventually fix it. People make mistakes, it's not like they are doing CPR on millions of subscribers, it's a fucking game.
More people are playing MMOs, whether it is 'WoW-clones' or 'sandbox'.
Mass appeal goes both ways, more people are playing your type of game as well.
Now take a deep breathe and relax.
I think the point some folks are trying to make is that MORE people DOESN'T directly translate to a POSITIVE for the MMORPG industry.....especially when said people have migrated from other game generes that have VERY different ideas of what constitues a "FUN" game.
FUN for a FPS gamer might be a quick 15-20 minute IN / OUT gameing experience
Now look at how long the average 5 man dungeon or Battleground takes to complete....coincidence?
FUN for a Console Gamer might be being able to solo content so that they can start & stop (formerly pause) when ever they want without having other people dependent on you to progress
Now look at how much content in WOW is soloable...and infact one of the most optimal ways to level at lower levels IS soloing....coincidence?
So the argument is that MORE people doesn't automaticly mean that its a positive thing for the genere. MORE traditional MMORPG minded people in the mix of things would be nice.....but infusing more casual gamers into the mix hasn't exactly been a good thing for the MMORPG industry...from a traditional MMORPG standpoint. If your a former FPS or Console gamer....well then things have turned out rather nicely haven't they?
Once again, what's the issue?
You don't like the MMO that is the most popular, fine.
There are heaps of others that you might find more suited to you.
Ryzom, A Tale in the Desert etc.
More people are playing BOTH (themepark/sandbox) sets of MMOs than ever before.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
WoW only proved that people want to play an MMO so bad they will settle easily. They continued on the path of poor QA in expansion after expansion and patch after patch. The sheer number of times reported and unfixed bugs were pushed to live to hit a deadline is sad. WoW did not start it, but they are carrying the torch.
Seeing how WoW is this massive MMO of course they carry the torch. They make a mistake they eventually fix it. People make mistakes, it's not like they are doing CPR on millions of subscribers, it's a fucking game.
I don't you understand what I'm trying to describe.
I'm talking about already known or very simple bugs getting patched into live with the general attitude of "We'll patch it later.". I'm not naive to think there are no bugs in any software project. I'm not talking about very limited, very specific, odd combination of circumstances bugs. I'm talking about bugs that are found within 10 minutes of play using very common actions. Have you not noticed the "hate" from a lot of players when games launch like this? And then, they look at PTR discussions and find out that the new bug that is irritating them was known and reported well before the patch/expansion went live. That's bad QA and poor QA policies being in place.
I think the key word in your post is "Eventually". What do you consider an ok amount of time to fix something that was known to be broken/bugged before it ever made it into the live game? Now think about other products in your life. How would you feel if those products came from the factory with known problems that they didn't bother to fix because they can always do a recall later?
I say a product, because that's what a game is. A subscription is a service purchase. Real money pays for those. And in the case of WoW, for example, rather substantial amounts of money is made off of that product and the service provided in playing it. Houses, cars, vacations, etc are all paid for by the money people pay to play games. Why is it ok that "it's just a game"? Why is the money paid for a game of any less worth than the money paid for anything else you pay for? Because that's basically what you are saying when you say "it's just a game". A dollar is a dollar. A million dollars is a million dollars. Why would you hold someone less accountable because it's a game? Like I said, compare it to the smallest and largest purchases you make. If that product came with known flaws, missing parts, incorrect flavors, in the wrong color, or whatever, how would you feel about the company that knowingly sold you it. How likely would you be to buy from them again? Would you ask for a refund, an exchange, or a competitor's product in replacement?
I played most of the mmorpg that have launched in the past 5 years. They were all pretty cr@ppy. WoW or no WoW those games were poor examples of game design, programming or both. If the argument is that WoW upped the bar for what's acceptable, then I consider that a good thing. Trion proved you could do it. Bioware and ArenaNet will probably do it too. Mmorpg should be better than they have been since WoW's release.
WoW only proved that people want to play an MMO so bad they will settle easily. They continued on the path of poor QA in expansion after expansion and patch after patch. The sheer number of times reported and unfixed bugs were pushed to live to hit a deadline is sad. WoW did not start it, but they are carrying the torch.
What the heck is wrong with the MMORPG.com post editor? Why is it borking posts so badly?
Anyway, if WoW showed that people were willing to settle, they would have settled for AoC, WAR, Aion, Champions, STO, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Hellgate London, etc. intead of WoW. They didn't. WoW's overall quality exceeded those games by a long margin. As much as people bring them up on these forums, game play mechanics aren't as important as the overall quality of the game.
Games released since WoW were cr@ppy games. They may have had great ideas, but the implementations were poor. That's not Blizzard's fault. Those developers should have done a better job. The only developer that did do a better job is Trion, and they are doing very well for themselves.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I don't you understand what I'm trying to describe.
I'm talking about already known or very simple bugs getting patched into live with the general attitude of "We'll patch it later.". I'm not naive to think there are no bugs in any software project. I'm not talking about very limited, very specific, odd combination of circumstances bugs. I'm talking about bugs that are found within 10 minutes of play using very common actions. Have you not noticed the "hate" from a lot of players when games launch like this? And then, they look at PTR discussions and find out that the new bug that is irritating them was known and reported well before the patch/expansion went live. That's bad QA and poor QA policies being in place.
I think the key word in your post is "Eventually". What do you consider an ok amount of time to fix something that was known to be broken/bugged before it ever made it into the live game? Now think about other products in your life. How would you feel if those products came from the factory with known problems that they didn't bother to fix because they can always do a recall later?
I say a product, because that's what a game is. A subscription is a service purchase. Real money pays for those. And in the case of WoW, for example, rather substantial amounts of money is made off of that product and the service provided in playing it. Houses, cars, vacations, etc are all paid for by the money people pay to play games. Why is it ok that "it's just a game"? Why is the money paid for a game of any less worth than the money paid for anything else you pay for? Because that's basically what you are saying when you say "it's just a game". A dollar is a dollar. A million dollars is a million dollars. Why would you hold someone less accountable because it's a game? Like I said, compare it to the smallest and largest purchases you make. If that product came with known flaws, missing parts, incorrect flavors, in the wrong color, or whatever, how would you feel about the company that knowingly sold you it. How likely would you be to buy from them again? Would you ask for a refund, an exchange, or a competitor's product in replacement?
Those patches/expansions eventually got fix right? Either in a timely manner or over the course of time. These changes and bugs have upset people through those years, even for many used that as the reason why they stopped playing the game. If it's such a bad QA or poor QA policies why is that they continue to have subs in the millions? At least they take the time fix them unlike many other games where they don't provide any support for their games.
Far as it being a product, do the research before buying it. I rarely put myself in a position where I am unhappy about a product. I agree with you that WoW is a product and a service being provided, but I also think there are other issues to be upset about rather over a video game like Wow.
More people are playing MMOs, whether it is 'WoW-clones' or 'sandbox'.
Mass appeal goes both ways, more people are playing your type of game as well.
Now take a deep breathe and relax.
I think the point some folks are trying to make is that MORE people DOESN'T directly translate to a POSITIVE for the MMORPG industry.....especially when said people have migrated from other game generes that have VERY different ideas of what constitues a "FUN" game.
FUN for a FPS gamer might be a quick 15-20 minute IN / OUT gameing experience
Now look at how long the average 5 man dungeon or Battleground takes to complete....coincidence?
FUN for a Console Gamer might be being able to solo content so that they can start & stop (formerly pause) when ever they want without having other people dependent on you to progress
Now look at how much content in WOW is soloable...and infact one of the most optimal ways to level at lower levels IS soloing....coincidence?
So the argument is that MORE people doesn't automaticly mean that its a positive thing for the genere. MORE traditional MMORPG minded people in the mix of things would be nice.....but infusing more casual gamers into the mix hasn't exactly been a good thing for the MMORPG industry...from a traditional MMORPG standpoint. If your a former FPS or Console gamer....well then things have turned out rather nicely haven't they?
Once again, what's the issue?
You don't like the MMO that is the most popular, fine.
There are heaps of others that you might find more suited to you.
Ryzom, A Tale in the Desert etc.
More people are playing BOTH (themepark/sandbox) sets of MMOs than ever before.
I think the point I was driving at is the net effect WOW has had on the MMORPG community. This isn't a "You don't like it, GTFO" thread.
I think I've done a pretty good job at displaying how WOW's move to make MMORPG gaming more casual has had an undeniable effect on the MMORPG community as a whole in the direction of modern MMORPG gaming.
Sure, I can go to Ryzom......and you can go play EQ1, another game with terrible astetics, buggy mechanics, and a low pop.
The sandbox community is more sensetive to a living and thriving community than a themepark game is. As such, ALL the recent sandbox games that have been released in the last 5 years have come from independent developers with VERY small bank rolls. The astetics aren't appealing, the game is released half baked with tons of bugs and half the features they promised the would be adopters of the game. The community gets turned off and doesn't stick around. It becomes fruitless for the dedicated....because without a community, what point is there to play in a sandbox?
IMO, had a AAA publisher threw 60-100 million dollars at Darkfall or Mortal Online....maybe they could have afforded to have a smoother launch, with better astetics, less bugs, and a all the features promised. Maybe more people would have stuck around.....and as a result, attracted more late adopters because of the existing community.
BECAUSE of WOW's success at appealing to casual gamers, you will be hard pressed to find a AAA publisher willing to take that kind of risk on (the now minority) sandbox audience.
There is a polished AAA sandbox game being developed in Korea called Arch Age....it has incredible graphics, lots of features the sandbox audience has been calling for....and appears to be the second comming of UO, and they can't find a single publisher to pick it up in the West.
So why exactly are you so raging? More people are playing MMOs, whether it is 'WoW-clones' or 'sandbox'. Mass appeal goes both ways, more people are playing your type of game as well. Now take a deep breathe and relax.
I think the point some folks are trying to make is that MORE people DOESN'T directly translate to a POSITIVE for the MMORPG industry.....especially when said people have migrated from other game generes that have VERY different ideas of what constitues a "FUN" game. FUN for a FPS gamer might be a quick 15-20 minute IN / OUT gameing experience
Now look at how long the average 5 man dungeon or Battleground takes to complete....coincidence?FUN for a Console Gamer might be being able to solo content so that they can start & stop (formerly pause) when ever they want without having other people dependent on you to progressNow look at how much content in WOW is soloable...and infact one of the most optimal ways to level at lower levels IS soloing....coincidence?
So the argument is that MORE people doesn't automaticly mean that its a positive thing for the genere. MORE traditional MMORPG minded people in the mix of things would be nice.....but infusing more casual gamers into the mix hasn't exactly been a good thing for the MMORPG industry...from a traditional MMORPG standpoint. If your a former FPS or Console gamer....well then things have turned out rather nicely haven't they?
Once again, what's the issue? You don't like the MMO that is the most popular, fine. There are heaps of others that you might find more suited to you. Ryzom, A Tale in the Desert etc. More people are playing BOTH (themepark/sandbox) sets of MMOs than ever before.
I think the point I was driving at is the net effect WOW has had on the MMORPG community. This isn't a "You don't like it, GTFO" thread. I think I've done a pretty good job at displaying how WOW's move to make MMORPG gaming more casual has had an undeniable effect on the MMORPG community as a whole in the direction of modern MMORPG gaming. Sure, I can go to Ryzom......and you can go play EQ1, another game with terrible astetics, buggy mechanics, and a low pop. The sandbox community is more sensetive to a living and thriving community than a themepark game is. As such, ALL the recent sandbox games that have been released in the last 5 years have come from independent developers with VERY small bank rolls. The astetics aren't appealing, the game is released half baked with tons of bugs and half the features they promised the would be adopters of the game. The community gets turned off and doesn't stick around. It becomes fruitless for the dedicated....because without a community, what point is there to play in a sandbox? IMO, had a AAA publisher threw 60-100 million dollars at Darkfall or Mortal Online....maybe they could have afforded to have a smoother launch, with better astetics, less bugs, and a all the features promised. Maybe more people would have stuck around.....and as a result, attracted more late adopters because of the existing community.
BECAUSE of WOW's success at appealing to casual gamers, you will be hard pressed to find a AAA publisher willing to take that kind of risk on (the now minority) sandbox audience.
There is a polished AAA sandbox game being developed in Korea called Arch Age....it has incredible graphics, lots of features the sandbox audience has been calling for....and appears to be the second comming of UO, and they can't find a single publisher to pick it up in the West.
Why?
Because it doesn't appeal to the WOW audience.
Darkfall and Mortal Online would have done much better if they attracted $50 Million in investment money. One wonders why they didn't attract such developer money. Perhaps they had little to no experience in developing games and/or mmorpg? Investors didn't want to risk $50 Million on a freshmen developer? Shocking.
Blizzard didn't make developing games so expensive. Developers who don't have enough money to finish their games but forge ahead anyway are just wasting money and they're wasting the time of everyone who tries their games.
Developers having no real experience writing mmorpg, doing a poor job on their mmorpg or having no idea of how many people actually want to play their mmorpg cannot be attributed to Blizzard. Those developers failed at what they were trying to do.
** edit ** Also, ArcheAge isn't finished and it's not being written for a Western audience...it's being written for Asia. They aren't going to release the game simultaneously in the West and in Asia.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I don't you understand what I'm trying to describe.
I'm talking about already known or very simple bugs getting patched into live with the general attitude of "We'll patch it later.". I'm not naive to think there are no bugs in any software project. I'm not talking about very limited, very specific, odd combination of circumstances bugs. I'm talking about bugs that are found within 10 minutes of play using very common actions. Have you not noticed the "hate" from a lot of players when games launch like this? And then, they look at PTR discussions and find out that the new bug that is irritating them was known and reported well before the patch/expansion went live. That's bad QA and poor QA policies being in place.
I think the key word in your post is "Eventually". What do you consider an ok amount of time to fix something that was known to be broken/bugged before it ever made it into the live game? Now think about other products in your life. How would you feel if those products came from the factory with known problems that they didn't bother to fix because they can always do a recall later?
I say a product, because that's what a game is. A subscription is a service purchase. Real money pays for those. And in the case of WoW, for example, rather substantial amounts of money is made off of that product and the service provided in playing it. Houses, cars, vacations, etc are all paid for by the money people pay to play games. Why is it ok that "it's just a game"? Why is the money paid for a game of any less worth than the money paid for anything else you pay for? Because that's basically what you are saying when you say "it's just a game". A dollar is a dollar. A million dollars is a million dollars. Why would you hold someone less accountable because it's a game? Like I said, compare it to the smallest and largest purchases you make. If that product came with known flaws, missing parts, incorrect flavors, in the wrong color, or whatever, how would you feel about the company that knowingly sold you it. How likely would you be to buy from them again? Would you ask for a refund, an exchange, or a competitor's product in replacement?
Those patches/expansions eventually got fix right? Either in a timely manner or over the course of time. These changes and bugs have upset people through those years, even for many used that as the reason why they stopped playing the game. If it's such a bad QA or poor QA policies why is that they continue to have subs in the millions? At least they take the time fix them unlike many other games where they don't provide any support for their games.
Far as it being a product, do the research before buying it. I rarely put myself in a position where I am unhappy about a product. I agree with you that WoW is a product and a service being provided, but I also think there are other issues to be upset about rather over a video game like Wow.
Sorry if I didn't tie my earlier posts into my latest very well. It all goes back to the original topic of this thread. As has been said, WoW isn't the best game ever. It's just better than a lot of the horrible crap and quick profit projects that keep getting turned out. Which, some of them are WoW clones or just looking to make a quick buck based on what is seen as a high profit game design. WoW continues to help drive that "we'll patch it later...eventually...soon" ideal by being popular and using this approach throughout it's existence.
Other companies look at what WoW is doing because of it's sheer success. Even if it's not where the market should be. QA in online game design is probably the low point of the entire software market. And, as I said in an earlier post, I do not understand why people blow it off with "it's just a game" when real money is being paid and being made. It's entertainment, but people would not go for such things in their other forms of purchased entertainment. The problem is, people continue to pay and lay praise to companies treating their customers as unimportant, uniformed, dismissable children. People to continue to pay them regardless of how bad their product is at times. All the companies that look to what WoW is doing, has done, and what they can get away with will continue to follow in their model.
Lastly, I think one important thing to keep in mind when judging WoW's popularity is that a large number of people continue to play it because of time investment, familiarity, and friends who play it. They do that while looking for the new thing constantly. To them, it's not the greatness of WoW that keeps them playing, but rather the lack of a viable alternative to play.
[edit] I forgot to add that your post is somewhat self contradicting to me. You agree about it being a product and service, but still dismiss it as just a game as a write off for allowing it have lower standards than other producs and services that you pay for. Personally, that just doesn't make sense to me even though it seems a popular sentiment. [/edit]
[edit2] Yeah, the built in post mechanisms are acting very weird for me as well. Things are getting added often. Spacing is completely bezerk for me. Even if I manually remove extra spacing from a post or quote, it comes back and even adds more sometimes.[/edit2]
More people are playing MMOs, whether it is 'WoW-clones' or 'sandbox'.
Mass appeal goes both ways, more people are playing your type of game as well.
Now take a deep breathe and relax.
I think the point some folks are trying to make is that MORE people DOESN'T directly translate to a POSITIVE for the MMORPG industry.....especially when said people have migrated from other game generes that have VERY different ideas of what constitues a "FUN" game.
FUN for a FPS gamer might be a quick 15-20 minute IN / OUT gameing experience
Now look at how long the average 5 man dungeon or Battleground takes to complete....coincidence?FUN for a Console Gamer might be being able to solo content so that they can start & stop (formerly pause) when ever they want without having other people dependent on you to progressNow look at how much content in WOW is soloable...and infact one of the most optimal ways to level at lower levels IS soloing....coincidence?
So the argument is that MORE people doesn't automaticly mean that its a positive thing for the genere. MORE traditional MMORPG minded people in the mix of things would be nice.....but infusing more casual gamers into the mix hasn't exactly been a good thing for the MMORPG industry...from a traditional MMORPG standpoint. If your a former FPS or Console gamer....well then things have turned out rather nicely haven't they?
Once again, what's the issue?
You don't like the MMO that is the most popular, fine.
There are heaps of others that you might find more suited to you.
Ryzom, A Tale in the Desert etc.
More people are playing BOTH (themepark/sandbox) sets of MMOs than ever before.
I think the point I was driving at is the net effect WOW has had on the MMORPG community. This isn't a "You don't like it, GTFO" thread.
I think I've done a pretty good job at displaying how WOW's move to make MMORPG gaming more casual has had an undeniable effect on the MMORPG community as a whole in the direction of modern MMORPG gaming.
Sure, I can go to Ryzom......and you can go play EQ1, another game with terrible astetics, buggy mechanics, and a low pop.
The sandbox community is more sensetive to a living and thriving community than a themepark game is. As such, ALL the recent sandbox games that have been released in the last 5 years have come from independent developers with VERY small bank rolls. The astetics aren't appealing, the game is released half baked with tons of bugs and half the features they promised the would be adopters of the game. The community gets turned off and doesn't stick around. It becomes fruitless for the dedicated....because without a community, what point is there to play in a sandbox?
IMO, had a AAA publisher threw 60-100 million dollars at Darkfall or Mortal Online....maybe they could have afforded to have a smoother launch, with better astetics, less bugs, and a all the features promised. Maybe more people would have stuck around.....and as a result, attracted more late adopters because of the existing community.
BECAUSE of WOW's success at appealing to casual gamers, you will be hard pressed to find a AAA publisher willing to take that kind of risk on (the now minority) sandbox audience.
There is a polished AAA sandbox game being developed in Korea called Arch Age....it has incredible graphics, lots of features the sandbox audience has been calling for....and appears to be the second comming of UO, and they can't find a single publisher to pick it up in the West.
Why?
Because it doesn't appeal to the WOW audience.
Darkfall and Mortal Online would have done much better if they attracted $50 Million in investment money. One wonders why they didn't attract such developer money. Perhaps they had little to no experience in developing games and/or mmorpg? Investors didn't want to risk $50 Million on a freshmen developer? Shocking.
Blizzard didn't make developing games so expensive. Developers who don't have enough money to finish their games but forge ahead anyway are just wasting money and they're wasting the time of everyone who tries their games.
Developers having no real experience writing mmorpg, doing a poor job on their mmorpg or having no idea of how many people actually want to play their mmorpg cannot be attributed to Blizzard. Those developers failed at what they were trying to do.
** edit **
Also, ArcheAge isn't finished and it's not being written for a Western audience...it's being written for Asia. They aren't going to release the game simultaneously in the West and in Asia.
You make a good point, but I still think that the reason publishers haven't invested in anything other than Thempark MMOs is because they are after that big piece of the MMO player pie.....and thats casual gamers. You can't prove that the programmers for Adventurine or Star Valut were sucky or inept. YOU CAN prove that the largest opprotunity (monitarily) in the MMO space IS the Casual Gamer audience.
Dark Fall had a cult like following for YEARS. It WAS built as Ultima Online 2.0. It WAS the savior of sandbox MMORPGs......and had a good following among traditional MMORPG gamers. If Electronic Arts thought they could make bank with the Dark Fall Intelectual Property, they would have swooped in with all the money & resources needed to hire the talent to make the game happen. They could have used that 50 million to hire the best & brightest animators, programmers, and award winning orchestras. Mortal Online could have used that 50 million dollars to use a more up to date 3D Engine & server hardware. Point being, you can bridge those Operational Capability gaps with the Money from a would be Publisher....IF they thought there was enough financial opprotunity. It's obvious they aren't confident in anything outside of a Themepark Hack / Slash experience.
And to your point on ArcheAge, it was actually written with a Western & Eastern audience in mind. I can't find the specific article right now, but Jake Song was interviewed and his intention was to take this game international.
So if you're saying that Western Publishers haven't invested in non-themepark type MMORPGs because the development teams have largely been unexperienced & lacking Operational Capability....how do you explain why Jake Song's ArcheAge title isn't being picked up by Western Publishers?
It has plenty of talent from the Lineage 1 & 2 series, and has PLENTY of pop & polish. It's got just enough "themepark" to not scare away newbies....and then goes off the rails for mid-end game play. This development team is plenty capable....so why haven't they been picked up considering the game was written with a Western Audience in mind?
BECAUSE it doesn't appeal to the majority of the 11 million subs currently playing WOW.
I think the funniest part of WoW is how they react at certain times. When WoW was booming, everything was on rails. "Just keep doing what you are doing." type of approach. Adding more of the same without much change. That was even in the face of people complaining and wanting change. Discussions with WoW staff was at an all time low. One sided blogs and twitter posts that were not a part of the forums at all were their main form of communication. Now, after a second dip in subs, they want feedback. They want to talk to their customers. It's sad really. They go on and on about how they know best and how the forums are just for discussions between players until things start to slip. Now they want to be friends again.
The point of this post is to again show my opinion on how greed driven they are and how that affects other companies following in their footsteps. How will other companies react to their flip flops, which they've done quite a few times, on issues and policies in the face of sub dips? Will they learn from it and think about how to prevent these situations? Or, will they just think they should do the same if they are in the same spot? If subs turn around in their next expansion, how fast will WoW go back to their old ways of keeping the status quo?
Will they ever look at the game as a whole instead of just working on part of it and not carrying about it impacts another part of the game until it becomes another vocal problem? Will they ever compare design goals of PvP and PvE to better balance performance in both? Personally, I just see more 3 card monte with a carrot instead of a ball.
I think the funniest part of WoW is how they react at certain times. When WoW was booming, everything was on rails. "Just keep doing what you are doing." type of approach. Adding more of the same without much change. That was even in the face of people complaining and wanting change. Discussions with WoW staff was at an all time low. One sided blogs and twitter posts that were not a part of the forums at all were their main form of communication. Now, after a second dip in subs, they want feedback. They want to talk to their customers. It's sad really. They go on and on about how they know best and how the forums are just for discussions between players until things start to slip. Now they want to be friends again.
The point of this post is to again show my opinion on how greed driven they are and how that affects other companies following in their footsteps. How will other companies react to their flip flops, which they've done quite a few times, on issues and policies in the face of sub dips? Will they learn from it and think about how to prevent these situations? Or, will they just think they should do the same if they are in the same spot? If subs turn around in their next expansion, how fast will WoW go back to their old ways of keeping the status quo?
Will they ever look at the game as a whole instead of just working on part of it and not carrying about it impacts another part of the game until it becomes another vocal problem? Will they ever compare design goals of PvP and PvE to better balance performance in both? Personally, I just see more 3 card monte with a carrot instead of a ball.
Sadly, after reading that new Ghostcrawler interview about 4.3(if it's legit), they are just going to say the hell with all the problems and add zone/raid buffs to "fix" their balance issues. How silly and lazy can they be? "Balance is again the best it's ever been... as long as you are in this raid/zone...". Oh yeah, they also promised to spread the legendary love around, and then give rogues another set of legendaries only for them because they were performing a little low compared to the top of the list. What about people under them? What about specs that have never had access to actually use ANY legendary? How GC got his job is beyond rational thought. Oh yeah, realitive size of Cata stays on rails as being lackluster.
More examples of what not to do with your game and relationship with your customers, but will be followed anyway because they make/made crazy money.
Too many people here are so into bashing WoW they can't see the good that bringing millions of new potential subs into a market like this will have.
Sure, there will always be the elite-purist who think that the games of today can't come close to comparing to the MUDs and ORPG's of their time. However, WoW showed game development companies that they don't HAVE to develop for small niches anymore and that they can develop for a wider base of players and be a success.
RPG Purists will always look at the themepark types of games and proceed to bitch and moan that they're horrible games and continue to damage the RPG landscape of old. Well, you guys keep on complaining and go back to Dragon Realms since that's what you insist on campaingning for while the rest of us watch, with glee, as you readily sub-up for the games being released every month.
Too many people here are so into bashing WoW they can't see the good that bringing millions of new potential subs into a market like this will have.
Sure, there will always be the elite-purist who think that the games of today can't come close to comparing to the MUDs and ORPG's of their time. However, WoW showed game development companies that they don't HAVE to develop for small niches anymore and that they can develop for a wider base of players and be a success.
RPG Purists will always look at the themepark types of games and proceed to bitch and moan that they're horrible games and continue to damage the RPG landscape of old. Well, you guys keep on complaining and go back to Dragon Realms since that's what you insist on campaingning for while the rest of us watch, with glee, as you readily sub-up for the games being released every month.
Hypocrisy, I love it.
It's not hypocrisy. It's not even tinted glasses on a lot of things. Content has gotten a lot smaller lately. Content has been more and more rehashed. Encounter design has become so bad they are adding a melee buff just to make melee viable compared to range. This is not their first dragon encounter. PvP balance is still horrid after all the simplifying of homogenization. Instead of balancing/fixing a class, they just give them yet another legendary. Wait, not 1, 2 legendaries. Oh, and before someone says again that the 1-60 remake was content, it was wasted content. As much as it needed a change because of how long they left it and the horrid flow of spec progression, they put it in something they themselves don't expect people to stay in. With all the + exp gear and guild perks, with their proclaimed content goals always being "end game", and with the bonuses to exp from the quests themselves, only completionists see it all. Even before the revamp, people powered through it and didn't complete zones anymore. The game has been on rails for the pure purpose of profit only for quite a while in the face of all the developers continuing to pat themselves on the back for how awesome everything they do is. All that, while people complain more than ever and subs continue to dip. Hell, even their lore is worse. Why? Because game lore is no longer explained in the game. It's in novels that are sold separately. That's when they aren't retcon'n one or the other because they conflict heavily. Even their QA has actually gotten worse. They push out patches with patch notes that never match up to what they did. They push found bugs on the PTR to live. And finally, they have gotten even worse about contradicting everything they said to be their design goals from patch to patch/expansion to expansion. They aren't building on anymore, they are trying to reinvent the wheel every time.
For the record, I don't play any MMORPGs at the moment. I've been playing them for 11+ years at least, and it seems like they all are half assed or for pure profit instead of entertainment, challenges, or fun. The genre is not growing atm, it's degrading into whatever allows them to get the most profit for the least amount of effort.
I used to buy every Blizzard game. From Orcs and Humans on. Now, I won't buy another one. They changed and not for the better.
Comments
I think the point some folks are trying to make is that MORE people DOESN'T directly translate to a POSITIVE for the MMORPG industry.....especially when said people have migrated from other game generes that have VERY different ideas of what constitues a "FUN" game.
FUN for a FPS gamer might be a quick 15-20 minute IN / OUT gameing experience
Now look at how long the average 5 man dungeon or Battleground takes to complete....coincidence?
FUN for a Console Gamer might be being able to solo content so that they can start & stop (formerly pause) when ever they want without having other people dependent on you to progress
Now look at how much content in WOW is soloable...and infact one of the most optimal ways to level at lower levels IS soloing....coincidence?
So the argument is that MORE people doesn't automaticly mean that its a positive thing for the genere. MORE traditional MMORPG minded people in the mix of things would be nice.....but infusing more casual gamers into the mix hasn't exactly been a good thing for the MMORPG industry...from a traditional MMORPG standpoint. If your a former FPS or Console gamer....well then things have turned out rather nicely haven't they?
To be fair I will do this:
Good:
1. It main streamed mmorpg's by taking the EQ grind out of them. Sorry heard about people killing each other over items and grinding for days with no results did not encourage me to want to put down my play station controller.
2. It showed these genre can be money makers and brought financing into the market. To be honest we are still 5+ years behind Korea on mmo's, but that is also caused by American infrastructure being complete crap compared to Korea.
3. They made raiding fun and simple to get into which made the game social.
Bad:
1. This game single handely stagnated the entire mmorpg market for the past 7 years. Devs have been flat out scared due to massive financial losses to try anything different.
2. Blizzard has completely monopolized the mmorpg market. The game has grown on itself so much that there is literally no chance any other mmorpg released can ever be as big or ever "have enough content" to compete. No other mmo has been able to stay alive long enough to get that far outside of EQ
3. They proved that lazy design choices and charging for things that should be free can be tolerated by their player base. There is literally NOTHING Blizzard can do that will kill WoW short of shutting down the servers. They have far too many people convinced that WoW invented a lot of the stuff it did not and that given time it will get better.
Everytime a WoW fan leaves a new games claiming it does not have x or y and goes back to WoW it just confirms to Blizzard that doing the above 3 "bad" things is acceptable.
Thats a fair post....and I'll preface my following comments by saying that what is GOOD or BAD is largely subjective. The "dumbing down" of MMO mechanics is viewed as a bad thing from a traditional MMORPG gamers perspective...but a positive for the average casual gamer.
SO whats good & bad can be debated till the cows come home....
What you can say is that "mainstreaming" EQ's model did lower that barrier to entry for many OTHER types of gamers. As you pointed out, the grind kept you on your console.
My argument is that you don't need to "mainstream" or "dumb down" the mechanics & content to remove the Grind. All you had to do was make the meticulous mechanics more meaningful....and reduce the gear dependency (that drives much of the grinding....even today). Utlima Online did this. But you'd still have alot of casual gamers turning their nose up at such a game.......hence my reasoning that the "mainstreaming" was done to increase the subscriber base moreso than to improve the overall quality of the MMORPG game experience.
Secondly, whats the point of all this MONEY in the MMORPG market if its all going to Themepark Clones? Yes, more money floating around the MMO genere is good....but ONLY if its being used to create new and exciting games. What we've gotten has been a bunch of warmed over rince & repeat.....because that's what the new MMO playerbase majority wants. Bioware is rummored to spend 200-300 million dollars on SW:TOR.....GREAT! But its another story driven themepark MMORPG on rails that is largely gear dependent and requires you to run a bunch of kill or delivery quests to advance......NOT GREAT!
And to your point about making raiding & dungeon crawling more accessable increases sociability.....I disagree.
Instancing was introduced to make raiding / dungeon crawling more enjoyable and accessable.......and as a result over half the server population is hiding in some instanced version of the world.....leaving the open world pretty barren.
A LFG tool was created to help get people looking for a group automagicly put together and warped inside the dungeon......and as a result, many players will drop group at the instant there is any disagreement or problem in the group. Why....because they can just click 1 button and get right back in. No problem solving, no soft skills development, and lots of anti-social behavior.
Cross Server grouping was implemented to reduce players wait time for their automagic grouping tool (because not having to put the group together yourself wasn't easy enough).........and as a result, you have even more anti-social behavior on display from people who have little regard to their behaivor or attitude because more than likely they will never see that player from another server again. Gone are the days of black lists (or having to behave in a way to keep of said blacklists) because your thrown in with a bunch of people that you'll never had to play with again.
Yes, its refined the hack n' slash componet of MMORPG gaming, but it's removed many of the intagible behaviors that are shapped from doing some of the hard knocks manual things in MMORPG gaming.
Under 'Bad', #1. The financial losses other games have suffered has nothing to do with WoW and everything to do with an inability to write a game. This is related to #2 under 'Bad' as well.
Under 'Bad', #2. The only thing WoW has to compete with is their product. Unlike most other markets (at least in the U.S.) they don't have any sort of legal shenanigans to limit competition. If other developers wouldn't write such cr@ppy games, people would play them. It may be true that no one game will have 11 Million players, but two or three good games? Certainly.
Under 'Bad', #3. I'm not sure what to do with this. Blizzard isn't forcing anyone to spend money on their game. They just know what to put in their cash shop and people buy it. Obviously those people see whatever they're getting as worth the money they're spending. That's why people buy things.
** edit **
I don't have much to say about the 'Good' section. I stopped playing WoW a long time ago. I do agree with #2 - WoW showed that it could be done.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I don't think WOW specifically bears any sort of responsibility for the stagnation of the genere over the last 7 years....they are doing what they set out to do, and they do it VERY WELL.
HOWEVER, you can link WOW's presense (and popularity) to the stagnation of the genere over the last 7 years. WOW broke down those barriers of entry that existed in previous MMORPG games to allow the LARGEST subsection of the gamer market to access MMORPGs.....casual gamers.
Now you have a new landscape in the MMORPG market. No longer is the genere filled with a majority of players that like to role play, live and socialize in virtual worlds, or play in a highly competitive and challenging environment. The new majority in the MMO market are casual gamers that like short play cycle experiences (15-20min then out), like soloable content, and are more interested in hack n' slash action than the "metagame" of sandbox type MMORPGs. They don't like to be "punished" for taking risks, and are far less loyal to any one specific game. And WOW owns 60% of this market.
It's not so much that developers are scared to take chances....as it is the publishers. Publishers are the ones that fork over the millions of dollars to make the game happen. Publishers see the earning potential in this new casual MMO market and don't want to risk it on smaller niche games that appeal to substantially smaller audiences.
If you look at Mortal Online or Darkfall on paper....they look amazing. When it comes down to launch.....the launchs are filled with crashes & bugs. The code is incomplete and half the features promised haven't made it to the game. It's not because the game is bad, its because the implementation was crap.....and thats largely due to no publishers wanting to touch anything outside of a Themepark game with a 10 foot pole.
And why is that?
Because EVE's 300k subs are small fries. If they can shave off atleast a few million subscribers from the themepark side of MMORPGs, then they have a success on their hands (see Rift)
So yes, WOW isn't responsible......but certianly set the stage for the craptastic state the industry is in.
And to your 2nd point, its not so much the games are crappy.....its that they aren't WOW. Think about this for a second. Lets say you were one of the early adopters in WOW and have several seasoned characters that you can just jump right in to endgame with all your buddies. You have a completely customizable User Interface and you have it set JUST right.
Now jump into Warhammer, Aion, LOTR, etc.....and you have the EXACT same experience (kill this....run over there and deliver this), except you have to start ALL over again.....and the UI isn't customizable so your out of your comfort zone. So what do people do......reactivate WOW.
I think if people weren't so sick of running quests or raiding instanced dungeons.....they might have been more receptive to games like Warhammer and LOTR.
Probably one of the things I will miss most the UI interface customization, there are some creative folks behind a lot of great addons.
Under 'Bad', #1. The financial losses other games have suffered has nothing to do with WoW and everything to do with an inability to write a game. This is related to #2 under 'Bad' as well.
Under 'Bad', #2. The only thing WoW has to compete with is their product. Unlike most other markets (at least in the U.S.) they don't have any sort of legal shenanigans to limit competition. If other developers wouldn't write such cr@ppy games, people would play them. It may be true that no one game will have 11 Million players, but two or three good games? Certainly.
Under 'Bad', #3. I'm not sure what to do with this. Blizzard isn't forcing anyone to spend money on their game. They just know what to put in their cash shop and people buy it. Obviously those people see whatever they're getting as worth the money they're spending. That's why people buy things.
** edit **
I don't have much to say about the 'Good' section. I stopped playing WoW a long time ago. I do agree with #2 - WoW showed that it could be done.
<snippity snip snip>
And to your 2nd point, its not so much the games are crappy.....its that they aren't WOW. Think about this for a second. Lets say you were one of the early adopters in WOW and have several seasoned characters that you can just jump right in to endgame with all your buddies. You have a completely customizable User Interface and you have it set JUST right.
Now jump into Warhammer, Aion, LOTR, etc.....and you have the EXACT same experience (kill this....run over there and deliver this), except you have to start ALL over again.....and the UI isn't customizable so your out of your comfort zone. So what do people do......reactivate WOW.
I think if people weren't so sick of running quests or raiding instanced dungeons.....they might have been more receptive to games like Warhammer and LOTR.
I played most of the mmorpg that have launched in the past 5 years. They were all pretty cr@ppy. WoW or no WoW those games were poor examples of game design, programming or both.
If the argument is that WoW upped the bar for what's acceptable, then I consider that a good thing. Trion proved you could do it. Bioware and ArenaNet will probably do it too. Mmorpg should be better than they have been since WoW's release.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
While I would never say that perfect balance is possible. While I would say that there will always be a so called best and worst class. They could make it WAY more balanced than it is. As aluded to, they need to look at the big picture and how each class/spec fits into it, stop trying to throw numbers(rated BGs and removal of 2s for points) on the pile to hide balance issues, stop trying to homogenize every spec and give people a reason to choose and play one, listen and look at their beta feedback in expansions, and step down off the podium once in a while and actually engage in some serious discussion with their customers.
Balance is not that their is a supposed best and worst class. Balance is the distance/gap between supposed best and worst.
Actually, I think Warcraft 3 was the worst of that line as far as actual RTS goes. It had tons of story, but the hero building and zerg it down playstyle was horrible. Defense was never much of a strat in Warcraft, but 3 was the epitomy of bad in that design. That was the point that I started not buying every thing Blizzard made. I waited until TBC to join WoW. I left in WotLK. WoW and how Blizzavision acted in it(toward their own game and customers) is the reason I'll never play another Blizzavision game. DiabloIII drove railroad size spikes into the coffin.
WoW only proved that people want to play an MMO so bad they will settle easily. They continued on the path of poor QA in expansion after expansion and patch after patch. The sheer number of times reported and unfixed bugs were pushed to live to hit a deadline is sad. WoW did not start it, but they are carrying the torch.
Seeing how WoW is this massive MMO of course they carry the torch. They make a mistake they eventually fix it. People make mistakes, it's not like they are doing CPR on millions of subscribers, it's a fucking game.
Once again, what's the issue?
You don't like the MMO that is the most popular, fine.
There are heaps of others that you might find more suited to you.
Ryzom, A Tale in the Desert etc.
More people are playing BOTH (themepark/sandbox) sets of MMOs than ever before.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I don't you understand what I'm trying to describe.
I'm talking about already known or very simple bugs getting patched into live with the general attitude of "We'll patch it later.". I'm not naive to think there are no bugs in any software project. I'm not talking about very limited, very specific, odd combination of circumstances bugs. I'm talking about bugs that are found within 10 minutes of play using very common actions. Have you not noticed the "hate" from a lot of players when games launch like this? And then, they look at PTR discussions and find out that the new bug that is irritating them was known and reported well before the patch/expansion went live. That's bad QA and poor QA policies being in place.
I think the key word in your post is "Eventually". What do you consider an ok amount of time to fix something that was known to be broken/bugged before it ever made it into the live game? Now think about other products in your life. How would you feel if those products came from the factory with known problems that they didn't bother to fix because they can always do a recall later?
I say a product, because that's what a game is. A subscription is a service purchase. Real money pays for those. And in the case of WoW, for example, rather substantial amounts of money is made off of that product and the service provided in playing it. Houses, cars, vacations, etc are all paid for by the money people pay to play games. Why is it ok that "it's just a game"? Why is the money paid for a game of any less worth than the money paid for anything else you pay for? Because that's basically what you are saying when you say "it's just a game". A dollar is a dollar. A million dollars is a million dollars. Why would you hold someone less accountable because it's a game? Like I said, compare it to the smallest and largest purchases you make. If that product came with known flaws, missing parts, incorrect flavors, in the wrong color, or whatever, how would you feel about the company that knowingly sold you it. How likely would you be to buy from them again? Would you ask for a refund, an exchange, or a competitor's product in replacement?
What the heck is wrong with the MMORPG.com post editor? Why is it borking posts so badly?
Anyway, if WoW showed that people were willing to settle, they would have settled for AoC, WAR, Aion, Champions, STO, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Hellgate London, etc. intead of WoW. They didn't. WoW's overall quality exceeded those games by a long margin. As much as people bring them up on these forums, game play mechanics aren't as important as the overall quality of the game.
Games released since WoW were cr@ppy games. They may have had great ideas, but the implementations were poor. That's not Blizzard's fault. Those developers should have done a better job. The only developer that did do a better job is Trion, and they are doing very well for themselves.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Those patches/expansions eventually got fix right? Either in a timely manner or over the course of time. These changes and bugs have upset people through those years, even for many used that as the reason why they stopped playing the game. If it's such a bad QA or poor QA policies why is that they continue to have subs in the millions? At least they take the time fix them unlike many other games where they don't provide any support for their games.
Far as it being a product, do the research before buying it. I rarely put myself in a position where I am unhappy about a product. I agree with you that WoW is a product and a service being provided, but I also think there are other issues to be upset about rather over a video game like Wow.
I think the point I was driving at is the net effect WOW has had on the MMORPG community. This isn't a "You don't like it, GTFO" thread.
I think I've done a pretty good job at displaying how WOW's move to make MMORPG gaming more casual has had an undeniable effect on the MMORPG community as a whole in the direction of modern MMORPG gaming.
Sure, I can go to Ryzom......and you can go play EQ1, another game with terrible astetics, buggy mechanics, and a low pop.
The sandbox community is more sensetive to a living and thriving community than a themepark game is. As such, ALL the recent sandbox games that have been released in the last 5 years have come from independent developers with VERY small bank rolls. The astetics aren't appealing, the game is released half baked with tons of bugs and half the features they promised the would be adopters of the game. The community gets turned off and doesn't stick around. It becomes fruitless for the dedicated....because without a community, what point is there to play in a sandbox?
IMO, had a AAA publisher threw 60-100 million dollars at Darkfall or Mortal Online....maybe they could have afforded to have a smoother launch, with better astetics, less bugs, and a all the features promised. Maybe more people would have stuck around.....and as a result, attracted more late adopters because of the existing community.
BECAUSE of WOW's success at appealing to casual gamers, you will be hard pressed to find a AAA publisher willing to take that kind of risk on (the now minority) sandbox audience.
There is a polished AAA sandbox game being developed in Korea called Arch Age....it has incredible graphics, lots of features the sandbox audience has been calling for....and appears to be the second comming of UO, and they can't find a single publisher to pick it up in the West.
Why?
Because it doesn't appeal to the WOW audience.
Darkfall and Mortal Online would have done much better if they attracted $50 Million in investment money. One wonders why they didn't attract such developer money. Perhaps they had little to no experience in developing games and/or mmorpg? Investors didn't want to risk $50 Million on a freshmen developer? Shocking.
Blizzard didn't make developing games so expensive. Developers who don't have enough money to finish their games but forge ahead anyway are just wasting money and they're wasting the time of everyone who tries their games.
Developers having no real experience writing mmorpg, doing a poor job on their mmorpg or having no idea of how many people actually want to play their mmorpg cannot be attributed to Blizzard. Those developers failed at what they were trying to do.
** edit **
Also, ArcheAge isn't finished and it's not being written for a Western audience...it's being written for Asia. They aren't going to release the game simultaneously in the West and in Asia.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Sorry if I didn't tie my earlier posts into my latest very well. It all goes back to the original topic of this thread. As has been said, WoW isn't the best game ever. It's just better than a lot of the horrible crap and quick profit projects that keep getting turned out. Which, some of them are WoW clones or just looking to make a quick buck based on what is seen as a high profit game design. WoW continues to help drive that "we'll patch it later...eventually...soon" ideal by being popular and using this approach throughout it's existence.
Other companies look at what WoW is doing because of it's sheer success. Even if it's not where the market should be. QA in online game design is probably the low point of the entire software market. And, as I said in an earlier post, I do not understand why people blow it off with "it's just a game" when real money is being paid and being made. It's entertainment, but people would not go for such things in their other forms of purchased entertainment. The problem is, people continue to pay and lay praise to companies treating their customers as unimportant, uniformed, dismissable children. People to continue to pay them regardless of how bad their product is at times. All the companies that look to what WoW is doing, has done, and what they can get away with will continue to follow in their model.
Lastly, I think one important thing to keep in mind when judging WoW's popularity is that a large number of people continue to play it because of time investment, familiarity, and friends who play it. They do that while looking for the new thing constantly. To them, it's not the greatness of WoW that keeps them playing, but rather the lack of a viable alternative to play.
[edit] I forgot to add that your post is somewhat self contradicting to me. You agree about it being a product and service, but still dismiss it as just a game as a write off for allowing it have lower standards than other producs and services that you pay for. Personally, that just doesn't make sense to me even though it seems a popular sentiment. [/edit]
[edit2] Yeah, the built in post mechanisms are acting very weird for me as well. Things are getting added often. Spacing is completely bezerk for me. Even if I manually remove extra spacing from a post or quote, it comes back and even adds more sometimes.[/edit2]
You make a good point, but I still think that the reason publishers haven't invested in anything other than Thempark MMOs is because they are after that big piece of the MMO player pie.....and thats casual gamers. You can't prove that the programmers for Adventurine or Star Valut were sucky or inept. YOU CAN prove that the largest opprotunity (monitarily) in the MMO space IS the Casual Gamer audience.
Dark Fall had a cult like following for YEARS. It WAS built as Ultima Online 2.0. It WAS the savior of sandbox MMORPGs......and had a good following among traditional MMORPG gamers. If Electronic Arts thought they could make bank with the Dark Fall Intelectual Property, they would have swooped in with all the money & resources needed to hire the talent to make the game happen. They could have used that 50 million to hire the best & brightest animators, programmers, and award winning orchestras. Mortal Online could have used that 50 million dollars to use a more up to date 3D Engine & server hardware. Point being, you can bridge those Operational Capability gaps with the Money from a would be Publisher....IF they thought there was enough financial opprotunity. It's obvious they aren't confident in anything outside of a Themepark Hack / Slash experience.
And to your point on ArcheAge, it was actually written with a Western & Eastern audience in mind. I can't find the specific article right now, but Jake Song was interviewed and his intention was to take this game international.
So if you're saying that Western Publishers haven't invested in non-themepark type MMORPGs because the development teams have largely been unexperienced & lacking Operational Capability....how do you explain why Jake Song's ArcheAge title isn't being picked up by Western Publishers?
It has plenty of talent from the Lineage 1 & 2 series, and has PLENTY of pop & polish. It's got just enough "themepark" to not scare away newbies....and then goes off the rails for mid-end game play. This development team is plenty capable....so why haven't they been picked up considering the game was written with a Western Audience in mind?
BECAUSE it doesn't appeal to the majority of the 11 million subs currently playing WOW.
I think the funniest part of WoW is how they react at certain times. When WoW was booming, everything was on rails. "Just keep doing what you are doing." type of approach. Adding more of the same without much change. That was even in the face of people complaining and wanting change. Discussions with WoW staff was at an all time low. One sided blogs and twitter posts that were not a part of the forums at all were their main form of communication. Now, after a second dip in subs, they want feedback. They want to talk to their customers. It's sad really. They go on and on about how they know best and how the forums are just for discussions between players until things start to slip. Now they want to be friends again.
The point of this post is to again show my opinion on how greed driven they are and how that affects other companies following in their footsteps. How will other companies react to their flip flops, which they've done quite a few times, on issues and policies in the face of sub dips? Will they learn from it and think about how to prevent these situations? Or, will they just think they should do the same if they are in the same spot? If subs turn around in their next expansion, how fast will WoW go back to their old ways of keeping the status quo?
Will they ever look at the game as a whole instead of just working on part of it and not carrying about it impacts another part of the game until it becomes another vocal problem? Will they ever compare design goals of PvP and PvE to better balance performance in both? Personally, I just see more 3 card monte with a carrot instead of a ball.
Sadly, after reading that new Ghostcrawler interview about 4.3(if it's legit), they are just going to say the hell with all the problems and add zone/raid buffs to "fix" their balance issues. How silly and lazy can they be? "Balance is again the best it's ever been... as long as you are in this raid/zone...". Oh yeah, they also promised to spread the legendary love around, and then give rogues another set of legendaries only for them because they were performing a little low compared to the top of the list. What about people under them? What about specs that have never had access to actually use ANY legendary? How GC got his job is beyond rational thought. Oh yeah, realitive size of Cata stays on rails as being lackluster.
More examples of what not to do with your game and relationship with your customers, but will be followed anyway because they make/made crazy money.
Too many people here are so into bashing WoW they can't see the good that bringing millions of new potential subs into a market like this will have.
Sure, there will always be the elite-purist who think that the games of today can't come close to comparing to the MUDs and ORPG's of their time. However, WoW showed game development companies that they don't HAVE to develop for small niches anymore and that they can develop for a wider base of players and be a success.
RPG Purists will always look at the themepark types of games and proceed to bitch and moan that they're horrible games and continue to damage the RPG landscape of old. Well, you guys keep on complaining and go back to Dragon Realms since that's what you insist on campaingning for while the rest of us watch, with glee, as you readily sub-up for the games being released every month.
Hypocrisy, I love it.
It's not hypocrisy. It's not even tinted glasses on a lot of things. Content has gotten a lot smaller lately. Content has been more and more rehashed. Encounter design has become so bad they are adding a melee buff just to make melee viable compared to range. This is not their first dragon encounter. PvP balance is still horrid after all the simplifying of homogenization. Instead of balancing/fixing a class, they just give them yet another legendary. Wait, not 1, 2 legendaries. Oh, and before someone says again that the 1-60 remake was content, it was wasted content. As much as it needed a change because of how long they left it and the horrid flow of spec progression, they put it in something they themselves don't expect people to stay in. With all the + exp gear and guild perks, with their proclaimed content goals always being "end game", and with the bonuses to exp from the quests themselves, only completionists see it all. Even before the revamp, people powered through it and didn't complete zones anymore. The game has been on rails for the pure purpose of profit only for quite a while in the face of all the developers continuing to pat themselves on the back for how awesome everything they do is. All that, while people complain more than ever and subs continue to dip. Hell, even their lore is worse. Why? Because game lore is no longer explained in the game. It's in novels that are sold separately. That's when they aren't retcon'n one or the other because they conflict heavily. Even their QA has actually gotten worse. They push out patches with patch notes that never match up to what they did. They push found bugs on the PTR to live. And finally, they have gotten even worse about contradicting everything they said to be their design goals from patch to patch/expansion to expansion. They aren't building on anymore, they are trying to reinvent the wheel every time.
For the record, I don't play any MMORPGs at the moment. I've been playing them for 11+ years at least, and it seems like they all are half assed or for pure profit instead of entertainment, challenges, or fun. The genre is not growing atm, it's degrading into whatever allows them to get the most profit for the least amount of effort.
I used to buy every Blizzard game. From Orcs and Humans on. Now, I won't buy another one. They changed and not for the better.