Soooo, alot of peaple are angry because before "WoW" mmo players were "rare", a special breed, non-conformists who were the free thinkers of computer gaming?
Now, since World of Warcraft came along they are common, ordinary, dime a dozen, no longer special, is that what I am hearing?
I also feel that in catering to a larger audience, it brought in a wave of morons and children. Yes, I'm cynical as hell. No, I'm not elitist. The fact is, there are people I like and people I don't like. If anyone wishes to remain ignorant to the fact that the gaming community has changed, you're either blind or you weren't around. It has become mainstream, and quality tends to deteriorate when that happens. This isn't some kind of new aspect. I could go into great detail about all of this, but I don't really see the point.
Is WoW's overarching success bad for the genre as whole? Thats a whole different order of a question.
The genre as a whole does seem to need less "hate" and more rational discussion, but that might be the problem with MMO's, they are designed to engage our emotions and people are surprised at the players emotional reactions.
I enjoyed vanilla WoW, but it has just gone downhill for me. It seems each expansion, people have less choices how to customize their characters, less variety. I went back for cata because they gave me 2 free weeks. I easily maxed a char not even playing much and had enough. I don't even go back when they offer me free time anymore, heh.
The thing i hate about WoW is not the game itself (which I find to be soso now) but what it has done for the genre. Everyone seems to copy somewhat WoW trying to cash in on its success, but end up doing an inferior job. Beyond that, we get a slew of quest based progression games which really aren't my favorite. There is no variety. And when there is something different, it is done by a crappy company with no funds.
It just seems games offer less choices now, and I see WoW as the start of that direction. All the older games I played (which I've gone back to) seem to be a mix of sandbox and themepark. not quite linear, with choices, variety, many things to do. A world to immerse in, and not just a game.
Most of the games that people are playing, or will play, owe their very existence to WoW's success. It takes money to make an MMO. People who invest their hard-earned money into something want a decent rate of return. Developers bend over backwards trying to convince investors that their game is going to be just as successful as WoW.
There's nothing wrong with that. They would be fools not to. The problem is that not one of them has been able to pull it off.
All they have to do is ask themselves one question:
"Why is WoW so successful?"
1. Open, fully explorable world with no invisible walls? Check.
2. Multiple races, each with their own starting area, to encourage replayability? Check.
3. Low system requirements to ensure that any 5-year old computer can run it? Check.
4. No forced grouping from level 1 to max level? Check.
5. Accessible to ages 10 through 75? Check.
All of the other things (crafting, collections, pets, raids, etc.) are an afterthought.
Today's developers need to make sure that they look at the top reasons for WoW's success, and build their game with those things in mind. Of course, they also need to make sure that they pay attention to all the things that WoW did (does) wrong, too.
If they do that, then they'll have a successful game with a huge playerbase, just like WoW. If they don't, then they'll end up on the outside looking in, just like Age of Conan, Aion, Warhammer Online, and Rift. (To name but a few.)
tldr: WoW is successful. If you want your game to be successful, then you'd better figure out why WoW is successful, and build those features into your game. If you don't, then you're just wasting time and money.
Well, I will say this: I'm a WoW noob. I have only been playing for 6 months. And I'm having a blast. And I'm not a "kid". I was 20 when Pearl Jam's "Ten" was released. I can't relate with players who trash the Cata expac, comparing it to TBC or Lich King. As such, you vets may honestly have a worthy gripe, a gripe I just don't "get". The graphics are fine, in fact, I enjoy the WoW toony style. I've tried RIFT and yeah, the graphics are better, but I don't find the UI, mechanics or fun factor to be superior. As a matter of fact, I find it to the quite the opposite. I've read all the threads about declining subs and such, but the realm I'm on is quite active and the pop is always high at peak times. A good gauge of this can simply be the AH. I rarely have problems selling my wares. Sure people have left, but new players are there, and MoP is sure to bring more. I'm not saying the game will see 11M+ subs ever again, but c'mon...this is a 7 year old game. The fact it still has 10M faithful is phenomenal. Is it so hard to give credit where its due? I can't wait to give SWTOR a try, or even GW2. Do I think I'll quit playing WoW in the process? Nope. The lore in WoW differs to greatly from Lucas for me to consider it a successor. I'll keep getting drawn back to the dungeons n dragons of WoW. Not to say GW2 won't be some personal competition, but still. I'm having way too much fun playing Blizzard's beast. And I can't wait for MoP ... in all its goofy, new talent system glory.
I've been playing WoW for the past 4-5 years now and can say this:
At the start i thought wow was stupid didnt like it bad graphics, a friend had asked that i try it and id get hooked if i did... that wasnt the case, i tried it didnt really grab my attention all that well, about a year later he said man WoW is getting a new expansion soon you should try it again. well i tried it, it still didnt get my attention ( im extremely pickey to what games i play they gotta keep me active in my brain haha) i said in my head well lets just stick with it and just play it out, well as i progressed through the game getting higher in levels (by the way my first char was a huntard) i started liking it more and more, i wouldn't say im addicted to it because i havent played in over 2months but it's a fun game if you get into the right group of people...
Moral of my story is, you just cant try it get 5 levels or 20 levels and say blahh this sucks or blahh this game doesnt get my attention, its like any MMO out there its gets better at higher levels, i never played vanilla but i hear about it all the time how much better it was, Great to hear but things have to change, its like going to the store you've been to for all your life and all of a sudden they move everything around and now you cant find the stuff you once knew where it was... sorrry for the bad analogy but you get the jist of it
Moral of my story is, you just cant try it get 5 levels or 20 levels and say blahh this sucks or blahh this game doesnt get my attention, its like any MMO out there its gets better at higher levels, i never played vanilla but i hear about it all the time how much better it was, Great to hear but things have to change, its like going to the store you've been to for all your life and all of a sudden they move everything around and now you cant find the stuff you once knew where it was... sorrry for the bad analogy but you get the jist of it
I'm in a different camp than the one underscored above.
For me, if a game doesn't "grab me" in the first 10-20 levels it's history. I'm not going to force myself to slog through 50+ levels of boredom just so I can get to the good stuff.
In WoW's case, however, that wasn't a problem. As a matter of fact, I didn't become bored with a character until endgame. At that point I just rolled an alt of a different race/class and started it all over again. Endgame was, in my opinion, the worst part of the WoW experience.
When it comes to gaming, I want fun now, please. Not later. Having to do a bunch of crap that I don't enjoy, just so I can get to do some stuff that I do enjoy, is too much like real life.
I don't hate the game i hate the devs that have been lazy, that are on the fast track of killing it, and who decided not to use all that wonderful money per month per millions of customers to pour back into the game at patches large content but instead spent it on unnecessary and costly commercials with Chuck Norris in them. Where's the content per every 2 months we were promised when Cata was released? Where's the customizable dances we were promised when LK was to be released? Where are these things? Because i'm angry at the devs for lying to the public and for wasting away the money they could have used to improve the problems with the game/classes they instead want to once again gain more money from us greedily by "fixing" the class issues in an expansion instead of doing it after cata was released. So basically 7 months ago when we all had to relearn our class rotations every weak that meant nothing huh...Just one example.
Just because we are angry it doesn't mean we are wrong in ANY sense of the word.
It's obvious that WoW only gets this criticism because it's so prevalent in the mind of the populace when thinking of a MMORPG. Then there's also the fact that there are people playing the game thinking that it makes them belong. i.e. Hipsters. But that also reveals that WoW is so very PC with its world events that tend to support only Christian Americans. (I'm not one mind you, I'm a misplaced heritage Europeon heathen.
"I have a confession to make: I have never reached the level cap. Not 70. Not 80. And not 85. "
Kinda hard to take your opinion seriously while you have not really played the game. Its much like taking opinion of a eunuh on sexual positions.
Not saying that comunity gets much better on cap lvl, but during leveling its mostly sludge fest of challenged players that word key binding brings menatl images of glue on their fingers and being stuck to a keyboard.
wow came with dumbed down everything. and because it was huge success (more marketing and PR) the mmorpg scene was killed with wow clones. before wow games were more inclining towards sandboxy direction and making true virual worlds. I hate wow because wow came and pushed the mmorpgs back. Hell because of wow SWG NGE happend.
This may take a while, and is just an opinion like all of yours (though some of you speak as if your every word is gospel and should be studied so we can all "see the light".
Opinion: I thought this Website was about MMO's. A place to come hear about new games and what they might have to offer. To maybe get my interest so that I can look deeper to see if I wanna try it. To weigh others opinion of the actual game.
However the articles that do (except for the few reviews ... or Hands on articles) are few and far between. Most of the articles are like this one. A psycobabble promulgation of esoteric cogitations to try to delve into why a gamer feels the way he does. Maybe this site could be called MMORPG Psycocology 101. Ok enough negativity.
What is wow anyway. Well it is a piece of software designed to give people something to play with that they will enjoy enough to pay for. It has no life or thoughts or motives or any of that human stuff. Its authors do, just as the builder of a car does.
Wow provides the best product of its kind. People have said that SWTOR's graphics are better or that wow uses an old engine and so can't put out good graphics. To analyse thesee statements, lets define graphics first.
Graphics is the result of some software and hardware displaying someone's Art. Or in the case of a game "animated" art. I just put a new graphics card in my sister's computer so she can play wow in 1020p on her 50 inch HD TV. It looks unbelivsbly crisp and clean. Then you notice the animation part. The annimation and the artwork (no it is not real life realistic ... besides a huge artificial world and varied characters and locales and a plethora of fun (for some) things to do, in my opinion is what sets Wow head and shoulders. above all the other MMO's made so far. Especially the annimation. I have played a few and tried out many MMO's (In fact I just spent the weekend playing SWTOR for a stress test. weekend thingy.)
Someone earlier in these comments said SWTOR is a wow clone with better graphics. Balderdaqsh say I. Yes the interface and the play content management systems are extremly wow like. Mainly because Blizzard over the yers has come up with a great and intuitive desigh (i Know, copied from Ideas in older games mostly) and Bioware probably wanted all the wow players they want to steal to feel instantly comfortable with the ease of play .... which I was. However, the Content was presented in a completly different manner than in wow. The zillions of cut scenes and choices for conversation were astounding and wonderful compared to wow. The artwork (except for the terrain and beasty things) was very well done too. My chaqracters looked marvelous and the animations of them in the cut scenes was damned near perfect as well. But here's the rub. The animation during gameplay (though better than warhammer or AOC or starwars galaxy or Lotro just to name a few) did not bring my character (or the NPC's) "to life" like wow does. There were no night elf hops or gnome shoulder rolls anywhere. Also there wasn't that "weight" and "momentum" ... or footprints for that matter. Running faster just moved the legs faster with the same length of stride. All the races ran and walked the same. My character had a hitch in her running steps as if an animation loop wasn't seamlessly spliced together. I thought it was lag at first but it was too consistent ande ever present. When standing in one spot there was little if any fidgiting or movement to trick you into believing you characters were alive. But I must say, the cut scenes almost made up for the lack in the animation. Like a lot of MMO's the colors (especially of the terrain) were pretty drab as well. Wow's display and animation of their art is much better than SWTORs.
That aside, In spite of the distracting play aqnimations, and because of the cutscenes (remember when you got mysty eyed the first time you triggered Wrathgate?) I found myself getting attached to my characters ... especally my little cyborg companion ( who helped with the killing as well as healing me fairly effectivly). I really enjoyed trying to "Be" Tic, the fledgling bounty hunter by making her responses match the personality I was being able to build for her.
Ok enough .... I think articles on MMORPG should be moare about the MMO's (rather than just a link to the companies site), than about how we feel about a "geanra" ( MMO is the Genre ), or why we prefer a certain payment model or what an MMO has done to the industry ( Wow has not dumbed down anything ) The makers of the new games are making products that they hope people will like enough so they can make money ... if they copy other companies, it is they who are responsible, not the company they copy)
Good question for some psychiatrist that could work on problem with haters. Because wow is not problem, haters and their attitute is. And I'm pretty sure wow is not only thing hated in their lives. I'm positive they spend great deal of time hating many other things.
My only problem with Wow, is actually the fact that everyone seems to believe its the genesis of the mmorpg. Because every new game that comes out is refered to as a "Wow-clone" .. as if anything in World of Warcraft is that original to the MMORPG genre. Wow is a clone of the games that came before it. Much of its layout and playstyle especially at release was taken from games like DAOC and EQ. Thats not a bad thing.. you take what works and expands on it. That does not however make it a clone.. it makes a MMORPG. The things everyone wants to attribute as being Wow, are just earmarks of this genre of game. Its like saying <Insert newest FPS of choice> is a clone of Call of Duty. Well.. Call of Duty wasnt the first FPS, nor did it define the genre... and to that same end, WOW .. populated as it may be.. does not define the mmo genre, its just a good example of it.
I'd also add for ever 1 WOW hater, there are at least 3 WOW fans who will bash ANY new game that comes along to defend the honor of thier precious WoW rather then allow for the fact that another good game could possibly exist in the market. Thats fairly annoying too. And maybe thats what the WoW haters hate the most. I know why I quit WoW .. wasn't the game.. it was the community.
I seriously do not hate Wow or any game, imight not like many but hate nah.
I think myslf and many others just respond to the MANY Wow topics that crop up.Being the most popular game will of course have the most threads releated to the game.So of course that adds up to seeing the most hate,but is it really hate or just the game is not that good and people are not afraid to say it?
When i disect Wow down piece by piece i am be extremely honest in saying ,i would not use one single idea from Wow in my own game.That does not mean "i hate WOW" that just means i do not think they made any game systems worth keeping.
A simple example to show how it is a NEVER ending debate would be to try and convince an end game looter that it does not a game make and they are trying to convince me that is what gaming is all about.It is all about "opinions" and i feel mine are right lol.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Ok my view. I don't really hate World of Warcraft itself, I just don't like what it did to the genre, or how the genre became due to WoW. No one can argue that the game didn't have an effect on the last 7 years of MMOing.
I think, contrary to Tingle's feelings, EQ, DAoC and UO were different games. I didn't play DAoC and UO but I know they were different. DAoC and UO were much more PvP focused than EQ and DAoC had its factions. EQ was a straitforward explorer.
Games that have followed WoW in the last 7 years have almost always been trying to emulate the big boy in some way, or at least the majority have. There was Vanguard that tried to be a little brother to EQ until it decided it needed to have some of its brother's cousin to make it more successful. Vanguard ended up trying to be too much and didn't appeal to either...shall we call them factions...of MMO gaming.
That's what I dislike; this trend to have to be a bit of what WoW was in order to achieve. In reality WoW was another branch of the MMO tree, along with DAoC, UO and EQ. It took a different direction and that branch has become the staple taste through no fault of WoW or Blizzard. The fault lies with the developers who have followed and not been able to drag themselves in a different direction. Or perhaps the fault lies with the producers for insisting on making more dosh. Either way everyone seems to want to follow WoW's path because WoW made so much impact.
As for the community, well there'll always be opinions and, let's be frank, the internet is a better place for many voices all having their opinions. If we all sat back and said "WoW is great and I hope all new games are WoW" then we really would be in a pile of poo. Yeah, I don't like the kids and their exclamations that WoW is gay either. I still see gay as a word to describe a happy, joyous experience. I'm private Godfrey watching the gay children in their little fancy dress costumes. I don't like the word "dude" either, and I despair when a paladin runs up to me and says "wanna join my guild, dude". You can't shut them all up though, and I even find myself smiling at the "barren's chatter" we see in every game that has followed WoW. Oh look, another tip of the hat to WoW. I was playing SWTOR's beta this weekend and the number of mentions I saw of general /1 being the new Barren's chat made me chuckle. It's there as a background that reminds me I'm playing an MMO as well as being a reason why I like MMOs; the people. I join in more than a few times because I like the distraction, no matter how insane it often is.
WoW changed the genre for the last 7 or 8 years, but that's not WoW's fault. I just hold some resentment towards it for that reason. The game was good at what it did. It opened up another branch of MMOs and I even enjoyed the game for a while. It opened up my first furrows in to PvP and I enjoy that immensely now.
It's those that have followed that need to be scandalised. It's those games, such as Rift and all those free-to-play games where questing is the path to 80, where zones are so small you can't fit a grape in them and where rewards are so big you could kill a top EQ raiding warrior in one stroke of your level 1 sword. They're the fault here.
If you want to hate a game, hate Rift. I hope they're the final leaf on the WoW tree.
Say hello to the new branches on the tree. The SWTORs, the GW2s and the TSWs. Finally some games where the the developers have had some guts and tried to do something new instead of emulating WoW.
People need to keep calling out the genre as uninspiring and always a new WoW. It's certainly made the developers at Bioware, ArenaNet and Funcom take notice.
Of course, maybe I'm wrong and they haven't. Maybe they just saw the bundle of moolah that Blizzard have made and decided to do it themselves. But I do think they saw the resentment that WoW has caused and decided to do it their way instead of the WoW way. Would they have if people had all sat back and not said they hated WoW...however wrong that may be or might be?
I say keep making your feelings known and keep calling the developers out. If we find ourselves in 2020 and every game is a copy of GW2 then I think it'll all repeat, but it won't be ArenaNet to blame. As much as I might turn out to love GW2 so much that I play it for 5 years, I still won;t wnat every game that follows to be son of GW2. I wouldn't have wanted every game that followed EQ to have been son of EQ.
Variety is the spice of life. Someone once said that, and I bet they were referring to MMOs, MMO communities and the MMO community's thoughts on WoW.
There are only a fistful of reasons I can think of to not be able to reach max level in WoW:
1. You got bored before max and quit
2. You do not want to and switch always to a new char before max
3. Blizzard constantly bans your Account
4. A terrible accident happend which makes continued playing impossible (I really hope thats NOT the case here).
I seriously do not belive anyone who tells me hes not able to reach WoW max LvL regardless of how much trying. And yes Mr. Tingle, regarding Reason 4 I just called you a liar.
I do not hate WoW. It just not evolved the way I consider interesting and devolved in parts I found interesting. Had a fun time playing and MAYBE go back into it at some point in the future.
Okay.... I read the article and, frankly, there are a lot of generalizations made which simply do not hold up to everyone.
For one, you state as fact that everyone's first MMO is their favorite, and it's the one they compare everything else too, etc. etc.
That is a huge generalization and is not true of everyone.
My first MMO was Asheron's Call 2 which might have become my favorite game if it hadn't been so badly botched and eventually shut down. My second one was Shadowbane, which didn't make the cut as my "first" nor "favorite". My third was Anarchy Online which came much closer to being my "all-time favorite" than the previous two as I played it longer than either of them.
The first MMO that finally hooked me and became my all-time favorite was the 4th one I ever played.. FFXI. And later, after that, I played Lineage 2 which became my 2nd favorite, and a regularly played PvP counterpart to the PvE gameplay of XI.
I have met, spoken to or otherwise read posts by plenty other people for whom their first MMO was not their "favorite" either. So, frankly, that statement - while I know it sounds clever and insightful and all - needs to go, because it's frankly lazy, presumptuous and dismissive of an entire portion of the gaming community that does not fit neatly in its little "one-size-fits-all" box.
That said, one statement in the OP jumps out at me and seriously makes me wonder if the OP even played these games, perhaps beyond a half-hearted trial. They certainly didn't get very deep into them to make such a remark. That statement is this:
'"To this I can concede that Rift looks a little too similar to Warhammer Online, and Age of Conan and Aion are not that different-but wasn't this the same for Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest, and Anarchy Online? Oh sure we may have an abundance of traditional fantasy themed games, but even the Sci-Fi imaginings of Anarchy Online shared common traits with the high-fantasy antics of EverQuest. "
The pertinent part is bolded and italicized.
No. No. No.
The only thing Anarchy Online shared with Everquest are the things that make them both MMORPGs (massive, persistent worlds, etc). Beyond that, they are entirely different games. While the term "EQ Clone" has been tossed around plenty for WoW and other MMOs from that general time period... Anarchy Online is one that I have never - not once - seen such a comparison made.
DAoC - again.. Beyond the base similarities making them each MMORPGs, DAoC and EQ were and are quite different in almost every other way.
Anarchy Online is nothing like EQ which is nothing like AC1 which is nothing like DAoC... and so on... That's part of what made each of those games so special to so many people... they were each a unique offering in the MMO space; each offering an entire style of gameplay that set them apart from the others. That's the difference. You didn't play Anarchy Online, working out the best setup for your implants, collecting the best gear to help boost the right attributes to help squeeze you into that next QL up for some added punch and think "Gee.. this feels just EQ". You didn't jump into a massive PvP fight in DAoC's 3-Faction war and think "Gee, this feels just like I'm playing AC1". And so on.
One of the biggest things that people look back who played those games is that they were so unique from one another. That's what makes the sameness of newer MMOs that much more obvious.
No intention to bash here, but I seriously doubt the OP has experienced nearly enough of any of those games for them to make such a plain out wrong statement about them.
And in case someone's going to come back with the fallacious argument of "Well people only played those because there weren't as many options"... again... nonsense. If people didn't like the games, they simply didn't have to play them. "Not playing a MMORPG at all" was every bit as valid an option as "playing a different MMO". It's not like we were forced, with guns at our heads - to pick a MMO and play it and so we had to choose the lesser of all evils. No... We chose and played MMOs because we enjoyed them. Maybe difficult for some to accept these days, but true nonetheless.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Old school gamers hate WoW because there is exactly ZERO challenge or mystery. You log in, go where the arrow tells you to go...and repeat that until you hit level cap. There is no strategy, no teamwork, no community building, and the biggest kicker: There is absolutely no reason for this game to be multiplayer/online....other than showing off your stupidly oversized and ridiculously shaped armor and weapons in an epic epeen measuring contest.
WoW singlehandedly destroyed the genre by removing everything that made RPGs great (aka challenge, critical player involvement) and substituted it with "golden path" and "silver platter" style gameplay in order to draw in the masses and collect their subs. Which is the only thing WoW did well...because with their watered down game they opened the genre to 4 year olds and 90 year olds whose previous experience with technology included banging two rocks together to make fire.
While WoW isn't my first MMO, it certainly won't be my last.
An avid fan of other Blizzard products I was drawn to the game primarily due to Orcs and Humans, "werk werk werk" - being able to play in a world I'd pvp matched in for years sounded like fun.
Nope it wasn't EQ, it was DAOC or others, it was WOW - arriving at a time when all that was Star Warsy changed, collapse and was corrupted.
Does WoW deserve hate? Well, does any game? Not really but it'll receive it regardless, it'll also protection from the fanbois.
I do like that any schmo can pick up a game card and play even with a pretty basic computer - a huge selling point for many players.
I do like that they do some mass marketing, as in using the TV where so many already have attention drawn to, others could learn well from this expensive, yet profitable tool.
The turning point for me was Cataclysm, and I'm surprised Adam Tingle missed this "Hate". It's a great storyline, I get that - but a storyline worthy of a sequel, not an overhaul of every system including the story.
Blizzard failed to heed the history lesson from it's forefathers and was thus doomed to repeat it. By revamping the game from the ground up, brings it into the new era, it leaves behind the magic that made it what it was.
Sony has been by far the worst forefather for this with Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, Planetside and even The Matrix Online suffering all of this, and when the dust settles, 20 expansions later only Everquest will remain. Other major brands have suffered to some degree on this note; Ultima Online, Lineage, Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes and even EVE - some are still there, but they have wobbled, now is the time for WoW to wobble.
And no amount of contracts will save them from such a loss.
My other hate is their lackadaisical stance on gold farming and account theft. They'd rather lock the account and force you to re-sub on another account (buying a new copy and an 'authenticator') then investigate and resolve. Seems the smart thing to do would be to ban the credit card/address/email when you have confirmation, but when a large portion of your subscription base.... ah well, another rant for another day.
Old school gamers hate WoW because there is exactly ZERO challenge or mystery. You log in, go where the arrow tells you to go...and repeat that until you hit level cap. There is no strategy, no teamwork, no community building, and the biggest kicker: There is absolutely no reason for this game to be multiplayer/online....other than showing off your stupidly oversized and ridiculously shaped armor and weapons in an epic epeen measuring contest.
WoW singlehandedly destroyed the genre by removing everything that made RPGs great (aka challenge, critical player involvement) and substituted it with "golden path" and "silver platter" style gameplay in order to draw in the masses and collect their subs. Which is the only thing WoW did well...because with their watered down game they opened the genre to 4 year olds and 90 year olds whose previous experience with technology included banging two rocks together to make fire.
While I wouldn't put it in as absolute terms, there's definitely merit to what you say.
The reasons many (not all) play MMORPGs for these days is very different from the reasons they were played in the 1st and 2nd generation.
Consequently, what is expected from MMOs, and their players, these days is much different from what was expected back then.
First and Second gen MMOs were about being dropped into an open world with many choices before you, of how you played the game, what content you chose to do, what stories you chose to follow, how you chose to develop your character, who your enemies and allies were, etc. And so the expectations of players was, in large part anyway, to have that world offer them enough options and meaningful choices (to them) to keep the gameplay fresh and interesting for as long as they played. They were very non-linear and there was very little hand-holding. They didn't tell you where to go or who to talk to or what to do, they offered you myriad places to go and myriad people to talk to and things to do and let you, the player decide.
Nowadays, it seems MMOs are designed, for the most part, to be very linear; to offer that "golden path" through the game, forever pointing players in the right direction, telling them where to go next, what to kill next, what to collect next, who to talk to next and so forth. From the ! over someone's head, to the arrow on your compass showing you where to go, to the marker on the map showing you the exact spot, to the objects you're collecting having sparkles coming off them... nothing is left up to the player to figure out for themself. It's all spelled out for them. As I like to put it, beyond connecting the clearly marked dots, the player is all but removed from the experience in newer MMOs. Almost everything is spelled out for you and all you have to do is a lot of running or teleporting around to kill or collect stuff.
There's also much more reward for much less effort. Many MMOs these days have turned into little more than success dispensers, doling out xp, loot, gold and other rewards for the most menial of tasks.
In WoW there's a questline in Darkshire where you're sent from one NPC to go talk to another NPC who is literally 20' away, in clear sight, at the top of a staircase and just inside a building. You get xp for running those 20' and talking to them. They then send you to talk to someone further inside the building... another 20' away. You're given xp for talking to them too. Finally you're sent back out to talk to the first NPC... and given more xp for that as well. You're literally rewarded for pressing your 'W' key for maybe 4 seconds between NPCs. And it's a pretty significant chunk of xp by the time you're done collecting it all.
If that's not an example of rewards being doled out for the most menial of tasks, I don't know what is. Thing is, many (not all, of course) MMO players these days absolutely eat that up. "Getting xp for doing practically nothing? Awesome! Where can I get more?".
The thing is... that's the kind of thing many players have come to expect from newer MMOs. They expect frequent reward, they expect everything to be spelled out for them leaving them with nothing to do but run from point A to point B and then back to point A for their reward... doing this over and over and over again in a race for end-game. Look how agitated people get if they're not getting a level at least once an hour or so, even at the higher levels. They expect levels (rewards, loot, etc) to come more frequently because that's what the game has taught them to expect up to that point.
The best part is... you see so many people complaining about how low and mid level content is boring and not worth doing, and how they'd be more into doing that content if it was made more interesting. Yet... make suggestions on how to make that content more engaging, by not only making the tasks more interesting, but by eliminating the quest markers, and the arrows and bringing the player back into the equation by making them find things on their own - you know... actually quest for them... and watch the reaction.
They complain about it being too boring and not interesting enough... yet react angrily to any suggestion that it be made less boring and more interesting. So they continue to get what they want... and then complain about it.
Go figure.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I don't hate WoW. I just wasn't overly impressed by it. And I was disappointed at how Blizzard keeps lowering the bar to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Form a group, work really hard, accomplish XYZ? Well, in 6 months, a random PUG of brand-new level capped folks can do the same thing without researching or planning.
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I also feel that in catering to a larger audience, it brought in a wave of morons and children. Yes, I'm cynical as hell. No, I'm not elitist. The fact is, there are people I like and people I don't like. If anyone wishes to remain ignorant to the fact that the gaming community has changed, you're either blind or you weren't around. It has become mainstream, and quality tends to deteriorate when that happens. This isn't some kind of new aspect. I could go into great detail about all of this, but I don't really see the point.
I feel that world of warcraft has had a negative impact on the MMO industry due to its apparent success as a linear mmorpg.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Is Wow bad? Not inherantly.
Is WoW's overarching success bad for the genre as whole? Thats a whole different order of a question.
The genre as a whole does seem to need less "hate" and more rational discussion, but that might be the problem with MMO's, they are designed to engage our emotions and people are surprised at the players emotional reactions.
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
Except WoW didnt achieve its success as a linear MMORPG
I enjoyed vanilla WoW, but it has just gone downhill for me. It seems each expansion, people have less choices how to customize their characters, less variety. I went back for cata because they gave me 2 free weeks. I easily maxed a char not even playing much and had enough. I don't even go back when they offer me free time anymore, heh.
The thing i hate about WoW is not the game itself (which I find to be soso now) but what it has done for the genre. Everyone seems to copy somewhat WoW trying to cash in on its success, but end up doing an inferior job. Beyond that, we get a slew of quest based progression games which really aren't my favorite. There is no variety. And when there is something different, it is done by a crappy company with no funds.
It just seems games offer less choices now, and I see WoW as the start of that direction. All the older games I played (which I've gone back to) seem to be a mix of sandbox and themepark. not quite linear, with choices, variety, many things to do. A world to immerse in, and not just a game.
Most of the games that people are playing, or will play, owe their very existence to WoW's success. It takes money to make an MMO. People who invest their hard-earned money into something want a decent rate of return. Developers bend over backwards trying to convince investors that their game is going to be just as successful as WoW.
There's nothing wrong with that. They would be fools not to. The problem is that not one of them has been able to pull it off.
All they have to do is ask themselves one question:
"Why is WoW so successful?"
1. Open, fully explorable world with no invisible walls? Check.
2. Multiple races, each with their own starting area, to encourage replayability? Check.
3. Low system requirements to ensure that any 5-year old computer can run it? Check.
4. No forced grouping from level 1 to max level? Check.
5. Accessible to ages 10 through 75? Check.
All of the other things (crafting, collections, pets, raids, etc.) are an afterthought.
Today's developers need to make sure that they look at the top reasons for WoW's success, and build their game with those things in mind. Of course, they also need to make sure that they pay attention to all the things that WoW did (does) wrong, too.
If they do that, then they'll have a successful game with a huge playerbase, just like WoW. If they don't, then they'll end up on the outside looking in, just like Age of Conan, Aion, Warhammer Online, and Rift. (To name but a few.)
tldr: WoW is successful. If you want your game to be successful, then you'd better figure out why WoW is successful, and build those features into your game. If you don't, then you're just wasting time and money.
I've been playing WoW for the past 4-5 years now and can say this:
At the start i thought wow was stupid didnt like it bad graphics, a friend had asked that i try it and id get hooked if i did... that wasnt the case, i tried it didnt really grab my attention all that well, about a year later he said man WoW is getting a new expansion soon you should try it again. well i tried it, it still didnt get my attention ( im extremely pickey to what games i play they gotta keep me active in my brain haha) i said in my head well lets just stick with it and just play it out, well as i progressed through the game getting higher in levels (by the way my first char was a huntard) i started liking it more and more, i wouldn't say im addicted to it because i havent played in over 2months but it's a fun game if you get into the right group of people...
Moral of my story is, you just cant try it get 5 levels or 20 levels and say blahh this sucks or blahh this game doesnt get my attention, its like any MMO out there its gets better at higher levels, i never played vanilla but i hear about it all the time how much better it was, Great to hear but things have to change, its like going to the store you've been to for all your life and all of a sudden they move everything around and now you cant find the stuff you once knew where it was... sorrry for the bad analogy but you get the jist of it
I'm in a different camp than the one underscored above.
For me, if a game doesn't "grab me" in the first 10-20 levels it's history. I'm not going to force myself to slog through 50+ levels of boredom just so I can get to the good stuff.
In WoW's case, however, that wasn't a problem. As a matter of fact, I didn't become bored with a character until endgame. At that point I just rolled an alt of a different race/class and started it all over again. Endgame was, in my opinion, the worst part of the WoW experience.
When it comes to gaming, I want fun now, please. Not later. Having to do a bunch of crap that I don't enjoy, just so I can get to do some stuff that I do enjoy, is too much like real life.
I don't hate the game i hate the devs that have been lazy, that are on the fast track of killing it, and who decided not to use all that wonderful money per month per millions of customers to pour back into the game at patches large content but instead spent it on unnecessary and costly commercials with Chuck Norris in them. Where's the content per every 2 months we were promised when Cata was released? Where's the customizable dances we were promised when LK was to be released? Where are these things? Because i'm angry at the devs for lying to the public and for wasting away the money they could have used to improve the problems with the game/classes they instead want to once again gain more money from us greedily by "fixing" the class issues in an expansion instead of doing it after cata was released. So basically 7 months ago when we all had to relearn our class rotations every weak that meant nothing huh...Just one example.
Just because we are angry it doesn't mean we are wrong in ANY sense of the word.
"I have a confession to make: I have never reached the level cap. Not 70. Not 80. And not 85. "
Kinda hard to take your opinion seriously while you have not really played the game. Its much like taking opinion of a eunuh on sexual positions.
Not saying that comunity gets much better on cap lvl, but during leveling its mostly sludge fest of challenged players that word key binding brings menatl images of glue on their fingers and being stuck to a keyboard.
wow came with dumbed down everything. and because it was huge success (more marketing and PR) the mmorpg scene was killed with wow clones. before wow games were more inclining towards sandboxy direction and making true virual worlds. I hate wow because wow came and pushed the mmorpgs back. Hell because of wow SWG NGE happend.
This may take a while, and is just an opinion like all of yours (though some of you speak as if your every word is gospel and should be studied so we can all "see the light".
Opinion: I thought this Website was about MMO's. A place to come hear about new games and what they might have to offer. To maybe get my interest so that I can look deeper to see if I wanna try it. To weigh others opinion of the actual game.
However the articles that do (except for the few reviews ... or Hands on articles) are few and far between. Most of the articles are like this one. A psycobabble promulgation of esoteric cogitations to try to delve into why a gamer feels the way he does. Maybe this site could be called MMORPG Psycocology 101. Ok enough negativity.
What is wow anyway. Well it is a piece of software designed to give people something to play with that they will enjoy enough to pay for. It has no life or thoughts or motives or any of that human stuff. Its authors do, just as the builder of a car does.
Wow provides the best product of its kind. People have said that SWTOR's graphics are better or that wow uses an old engine and so can't put out good graphics. To analyse thesee statements, lets define graphics first.
Graphics is the result of some software and hardware displaying someone's Art. Or in the case of a game "animated" art. I just put a new graphics card in my sister's computer so she can play wow in 1020p on her 50 inch HD TV. It looks unbelivsbly crisp and clean. Then you notice the animation part. The annimation and the artwork (no it is not real life realistic ... besides a huge artificial world and varied characters and locales and a plethora of fun (for some) things to do, in my opinion is what sets Wow head and shoulders. above all the other MMO's made so far. Especially the annimation. I have played a few and tried out many MMO's (In fact I just spent the weekend playing SWTOR for a stress test. weekend thingy.)
Someone earlier in these comments said SWTOR is a wow clone with better graphics. Balderdaqsh say I. Yes the interface and the play content management systems are extremly wow like. Mainly because Blizzard over the yers has come up with a great and intuitive desigh (i Know, copied from Ideas in older games mostly) and Bioware probably wanted all the wow players they want to steal to feel instantly comfortable with the ease of play .... which I was. However, the Content was presented in a completly different manner than in wow. The zillions of cut scenes and choices for conversation were astounding and wonderful compared to wow. The artwork (except for the terrain and beasty things) was very well done too. My chaqracters looked marvelous and the animations of them in the cut scenes was damned near perfect as well. But here's the rub. The animation during gameplay (though better than warhammer or AOC or starwars galaxy or Lotro just to name a few) did not bring my character (or the NPC's) "to life" like wow does. There were no night elf hops or gnome shoulder rolls anywhere. Also there wasn't that "weight" and "momentum" ... or footprints for that matter. Running faster just moved the legs faster with the same length of stride. All the races ran and walked the same. My character had a hitch in her running steps as if an animation loop wasn't seamlessly spliced together. I thought it was lag at first but it was too consistent ande ever present. When standing in one spot there was little if any fidgiting or movement to trick you into believing you characters were alive. But I must say, the cut scenes almost made up for the lack in the animation. Like a lot of MMO's the colors (especially of the terrain) were pretty drab as well. Wow's display and animation of their art is much better than SWTORs.
That aside, In spite of the distracting play aqnimations, and because of the cutscenes (remember when you got mysty eyed the first time you triggered Wrathgate?) I found myself getting attached to my characters ... especally my little cyborg companion ( who helped with the killing as well as healing me fairly effectivly). I really enjoyed trying to "Be" Tic, the fledgling bounty hunter by making her responses match the personality I was being able to build for her.
Ok enough .... I think articles on MMORPG should be moare about the MMO's (rather than just a link to the companies site), than about how we feel about a "geanra" ( MMO is the Genre ), or why we prefer a certain payment model or what an MMO has done to the industry ( Wow has not dumbed down anything ) The makers of the new games are making products that they hope people will like enough so they can make money ... if they copy other companies, it is they who are responsible, not the company they copy)
My opinion ... not gospel.
If Ya Ain't Dyin, Ya Ain't Tryin
Good question for some psychiatrist that could work on problem with haters. Because wow is not problem, haters and their attitute is. And I'm pretty sure wow is not only thing hated in their lives. I'm positive they spend great deal of time hating many other things.
My only problem with Wow, is actually the fact that everyone seems to believe its the genesis of the mmorpg. Because every new game that comes out is refered to as a "Wow-clone" .. as if anything in World of Warcraft is that original to the MMORPG genre. Wow is a clone of the games that came before it. Much of its layout and playstyle especially at release was taken from games like DAOC and EQ. Thats not a bad thing.. you take what works and expands on it. That does not however make it a clone.. it makes a MMORPG. The things everyone wants to attribute as being Wow, are just earmarks of this genre of game. Its like saying <Insert newest FPS of choice> is a clone of Call of Duty. Well.. Call of Duty wasnt the first FPS, nor did it define the genre... and to that same end, WOW .. populated as it may be.. does not define the mmo genre, its just a good example of it.
I'd also add for ever 1 WOW hater, there are at least 3 WOW fans who will bash ANY new game that comes along to defend the honor of thier precious WoW rather then allow for the fact that another good game could possibly exist in the market. Thats fairly annoying too. And maybe thats what the WoW haters hate the most. I know why I quit WoW .. wasn't the game.. it was the community.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I seriously do not hate Wow or any game, imight not like many but hate nah.
I think myslf and many others just respond to the MANY Wow topics that crop up.Being the most popular game will of course have the most threads releated to the game.So of course that adds up to seeing the most hate,but is it really hate or just the game is not that good and people are not afraid to say it?
When i disect Wow down piece by piece i am be extremely honest in saying ,i would not use one single idea from Wow in my own game.That does not mean "i hate WOW" that just means i do not think they made any game systems worth keeping.
A simple example to show how it is a NEVER ending debate would be to try and convince an end game looter that it does not a game make and they are trying to convince me that is what gaming is all about.It is all about "opinions" and i feel mine are right lol.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Ok my view. I don't really hate World of Warcraft itself, I just don't like what it did to the genre, or how the genre became due to WoW. No one can argue that the game didn't have an effect on the last 7 years of MMOing.
I think, contrary to Tingle's feelings, EQ, DAoC and UO were different games. I didn't play DAoC and UO but I know they were different. DAoC and UO were much more PvP focused than EQ and DAoC had its factions. EQ was a straitforward explorer.
Games that have followed WoW in the last 7 years have almost always been trying to emulate the big boy in some way, or at least the majority have. There was Vanguard that tried to be a little brother to EQ until it decided it needed to have some of its brother's cousin to make it more successful. Vanguard ended up trying to be too much and didn't appeal to either...shall we call them factions...of MMO gaming.
That's what I dislike; this trend to have to be a bit of what WoW was in order to achieve. In reality WoW was another branch of the MMO tree, along with DAoC, UO and EQ. It took a different direction and that branch has become the staple taste through no fault of WoW or Blizzard. The fault lies with the developers who have followed and not been able to drag themselves in a different direction. Or perhaps the fault lies with the producers for insisting on making more dosh. Either way everyone seems to want to follow WoW's path because WoW made so much impact.
As for the community, well there'll always be opinions and, let's be frank, the internet is a better place for many voices all having their opinions. If we all sat back and said "WoW is great and I hope all new games are WoW" then we really would be in a pile of poo. Yeah, I don't like the kids and their exclamations that WoW is gay either. I still see gay as a word to describe a happy, joyous experience. I'm private Godfrey watching the gay children in their little fancy dress costumes. I don't like the word "dude" either, and I despair when a paladin runs up to me and says "wanna join my guild, dude". You can't shut them all up though, and I even find myself smiling at the "barren's chatter" we see in every game that has followed WoW. Oh look, another tip of the hat to WoW. I was playing SWTOR's beta this weekend and the number of mentions I saw of general /1 being the new Barren's chat made me chuckle. It's there as a background that reminds me I'm playing an MMO as well as being a reason why I like MMOs; the people. I join in more than a few times because I like the distraction, no matter how insane it often is.
WoW changed the genre for the last 7 or 8 years, but that's not WoW's fault. I just hold some resentment towards it for that reason. The game was good at what it did. It opened up another branch of MMOs and I even enjoyed the game for a while. It opened up my first furrows in to PvP and I enjoy that immensely now.
It's those that have followed that need to be scandalised. It's those games, such as Rift and all those free-to-play games where questing is the path to 80, where zones are so small you can't fit a grape in them and where rewards are so big you could kill a top EQ raiding warrior in one stroke of your level 1 sword. They're the fault here.
If you want to hate a game, hate Rift. I hope they're the final leaf on the WoW tree.
Say hello to the new branches on the tree. The SWTORs, the GW2s and the TSWs. Finally some games where the the developers have had some guts and tried to do something new instead of emulating WoW.
People need to keep calling out the genre as uninspiring and always a new WoW. It's certainly made the developers at Bioware, ArenaNet and Funcom take notice.
Of course, maybe I'm wrong and they haven't. Maybe they just saw the bundle of moolah that Blizzard have made and decided to do it themselves. But I do think they saw the resentment that WoW has caused and decided to do it their way instead of the WoW way. Would they have if people had all sat back and not said they hated WoW...however wrong that may be or might be?
I say keep making your feelings known and keep calling the developers out. If we find ourselves in 2020 and every game is a copy of GW2 then I think it'll all repeat, but it won't be ArenaNet to blame. As much as I might turn out to love GW2 so much that I play it for 5 years, I still won;t wnat every game that follows to be son of GW2. I wouldn't have wanted every game that followed EQ to have been son of EQ.
Variety is the spice of life. Someone once said that, and I bet they were referring to MMOs, MMO communities and the MMO community's thoughts on WoW.
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There are only a fistful of reasons I can think of to not be able to reach max level in WoW:
1. You got bored before max and quit
2. You do not want to and switch always to a new char before max
3. Blizzard constantly bans your Account
4. A terrible accident happend which makes continued playing impossible (I really hope thats NOT the case here).
I seriously do not belive anyone who tells me hes not able to reach WoW max LvL regardless of how much trying. And yes Mr. Tingle, regarding Reason 4 I just called you a liar.
I do not hate WoW. It just not evolved the way I consider interesting and devolved in parts I found interesting. Had a fun time playing and MAYBE go back into it at some point in the future.
Okay.... I read the article and, frankly, there are a lot of generalizations made which simply do not hold up to everyone.
For one, you state as fact that everyone's first MMO is their favorite, and it's the one they compare everything else too, etc. etc.
That is a huge generalization and is not true of everyone.
My first MMO was Asheron's Call 2 which might have become my favorite game if it hadn't been so badly botched and eventually shut down. My second one was Shadowbane, which didn't make the cut as my "first" nor "favorite". My third was Anarchy Online which came much closer to being my "all-time favorite" than the previous two as I played it longer than either of them.
The first MMO that finally hooked me and became my all-time favorite was the 4th one I ever played.. FFXI. And later, after that, I played Lineage 2 which became my 2nd favorite, and a regularly played PvP counterpart to the PvE gameplay of XI.
I have met, spoken to or otherwise read posts by plenty other people for whom their first MMO was not their "favorite" either. So, frankly, that statement - while I know it sounds clever and insightful and all - needs to go, because it's frankly lazy, presumptuous and dismissive of an entire portion of the gaming community that does not fit neatly in its little "one-size-fits-all" box.
That said, one statement in the OP jumps out at me and seriously makes me wonder if the OP even played these games, perhaps beyond a half-hearted trial. They certainly didn't get very deep into them to make such a remark. That statement is this:
'"To this I can concede that Rift looks a little too similar to Warhammer Online, and Age of Conan and Aion are not that different- but wasn't this the same for Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest, and Anarchy Online? Oh sure we may have an abundance of traditional fantasy themed games, but even the Sci-Fi imaginings of Anarchy Online shared common traits with the high-fantasy antics of EverQuest. "
The pertinent part is bolded and italicized.
No. No. No.
The only thing Anarchy Online shared with Everquest are the things that make them both MMORPGs (massive, persistent worlds, etc). Beyond that, they are entirely different games. While the term "EQ Clone" has been tossed around plenty for WoW and other MMOs from that general time period... Anarchy Online is one that I have never - not once - seen such a comparison made.
DAoC - again.. Beyond the base similarities making them each MMORPGs, DAoC and EQ were and are quite different in almost every other way.
Anarchy Online is nothing like EQ which is nothing like AC1 which is nothing like DAoC... and so on... That's part of what made each of those games so special to so many people... they were each a unique offering in the MMO space; each offering an entire style of gameplay that set them apart from the others. That's the difference. You didn't play Anarchy Online, working out the best setup for your implants, collecting the best gear to help boost the right attributes to help squeeze you into that next QL up for some added punch and think "Gee.. this feels just EQ". You didn't jump into a massive PvP fight in DAoC's 3-Faction war and think "Gee, this feels just like I'm playing AC1". And so on.
One of the biggest things that people look back who played those games is that they were so unique from one another. That's what makes the sameness of newer MMOs that much more obvious.
No intention to bash here, but I seriously doubt the OP has experienced nearly enough of any of those games for them to make such a plain out wrong statement about them.
And in case someone's going to come back with the fallacious argument of "Well people only played those because there weren't as many options"... again... nonsense. If people didn't like the games, they simply didn't have to play them. "Not playing a MMORPG at all" was every bit as valid an option as "playing a different MMO". It's not like we were forced, with guns at our heads - to pick a MMO and play it and so we had to choose the lesser of all evils. No... We chose and played MMOs because we enjoyed them. Maybe difficult for some to accept these days, but true nonetheless.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
WoW singlehandedly destroyed the genre by removing everything that made RPGs great (aka challenge, critical player involvement) and substituted it with "golden path" and "silver platter" style gameplay in order to draw in the masses and collect their subs. Which is the only thing WoW did well...because with their watered down game they opened the genre to 4 year olds and 90 year olds whose previous experience with technology included banging two rocks together to make fire.
While WoW isn't my first MMO, it certainly won't be my last.
An avid fan of other Blizzard products I was drawn to the game primarily due to Orcs and Humans, "werk werk werk" - being able to play in a world I'd pvp matched in for years sounded like fun.
Nope it wasn't EQ, it was DAOC or others, it was WOW - arriving at a time when all that was Star Warsy changed, collapse and was corrupted.
Does WoW deserve hate? Well, does any game? Not really but it'll receive it regardless, it'll also protection from the fanbois.
I do like that any schmo can pick up a game card and play even with a pretty basic computer - a huge selling point for many players.
I do like that they do some mass marketing, as in using the TV where so many already have attention drawn to, others could learn well from this expensive, yet profitable tool.
The turning point for me was Cataclysm, and I'm surprised Adam Tingle missed this "Hate". It's a great storyline, I get that - but a storyline worthy of a sequel, not an overhaul of every system including the story.
Blizzard failed to heed the history lesson from it's forefathers and was thus doomed to repeat it. By revamping the game from the ground up, brings it into the new era, it leaves behind the magic that made it what it was.
Sony has been by far the worst forefather for this with Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, Planetside and even The Matrix Online suffering all of this, and when the dust settles, 20 expansions later only Everquest will remain. Other major brands have suffered to some degree on this note; Ultima Online, Lineage, Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes and even EVE - some are still there, but they have wobbled, now is the time for WoW to wobble.
And no amount of contracts will save them from such a loss.
My other hate is their lackadaisical stance on gold farming and account theft. They'd rather lock the account and force you to re-sub on another account (buying a new copy and an 'authenticator') then investigate and resolve. Seems the smart thing to do would be to ban the credit card/address/email when you have confirmation, but when a large portion of your subscription base.... ah well, another rant for another day.
While I wouldn't put it in as absolute terms, there's definitely merit to what you say.
The reasons many (not all) play MMORPGs for these days is very different from the reasons they were played in the 1st and 2nd generation.
Consequently, what is expected from MMOs, and their players, these days is much different from what was expected back then.
First and Second gen MMOs were about being dropped into an open world with many choices before you, of how you played the game, what content you chose to do, what stories you chose to follow, how you chose to develop your character, who your enemies and allies were, etc. And so the expectations of players was, in large part anyway, to have that world offer them enough options and meaningful choices (to them) to keep the gameplay fresh and interesting for as long as they played. They were very non-linear and there was very little hand-holding. They didn't tell you where to go or who to talk to or what to do, they offered you myriad places to go and myriad people to talk to and things to do and let you, the player decide.
Nowadays, it seems MMOs are designed, for the most part, to be very linear; to offer that "golden path" through the game, forever pointing players in the right direction, telling them where to go next, what to kill next, what to collect next, who to talk to next and so forth. From the ! over someone's head, to the arrow on your compass showing you where to go, to the marker on the map showing you the exact spot, to the objects you're collecting having sparkles coming off them... nothing is left up to the player to figure out for themself. It's all spelled out for them. As I like to put it, beyond connecting the clearly marked dots, the player is all but removed from the experience in newer MMOs. Almost everything is spelled out for you and all you have to do is a lot of running or teleporting around to kill or collect stuff.
There's also much more reward for much less effort. Many MMOs these days have turned into little more than success dispensers, doling out xp, loot, gold and other rewards for the most menial of tasks.
In WoW there's a questline in Darkshire where you're sent from one NPC to go talk to another NPC who is literally 20' away, in clear sight, at the top of a staircase and just inside a building. You get xp for running those 20' and talking to them. They then send you to talk to someone further inside the building... another 20' away. You're given xp for talking to them too. Finally you're sent back out to talk to the first NPC... and given more xp for that as well. You're literally rewarded for pressing your 'W' key for maybe 4 seconds between NPCs. And it's a pretty significant chunk of xp by the time you're done collecting it all.
If that's not an example of rewards being doled out for the most menial of tasks, I don't know what is. Thing is, many (not all, of course) MMO players these days absolutely eat that up. "Getting xp for doing practically nothing? Awesome! Where can I get more?".
The thing is... that's the kind of thing many players have come to expect from newer MMOs. They expect frequent reward, they expect everything to be spelled out for them leaving them with nothing to do but run from point A to point B and then back to point A for their reward... doing this over and over and over again in a race for end-game. Look how agitated people get if they're not getting a level at least once an hour or so, even at the higher levels. They expect levels (rewards, loot, etc) to come more frequently because that's what the game has taught them to expect up to that point.
The best part is... you see so many people complaining about how low and mid level content is boring and not worth doing, and how they'd be more into doing that content if it was made more interesting. Yet... make suggestions on how to make that content more engaging, by not only making the tasks more interesting, but by eliminating the quest markers, and the arrows and bringing the player back into the equation by making them find things on their own - you know... actually quest for them... and watch the reaction.
They complain about it being too boring and not interesting enough... yet react angrily to any suggestion that it be made less boring and more interesting. So they continue to get what they want... and then complain about it.
Go figure.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I don't hate WoW. I just wasn't overly impressed by it. And I was disappointed at how Blizzard keeps lowering the bar to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Form a group, work really hard, accomplish XYZ? Well, in 6 months, a random PUG of brand-new level capped folks can do the same thing without researching or planning.
I dislike anything that panders to the lowest common denominator.
- Jersey Shore
-American Idol
-WoW