If it came out today it would be classed as a generic copy of passed games, it was back then.
At the time of release it just two things
1)copied the best ideas of EQ/Muds/mmo out at the time.
2)made it possible to play an mmo on a calculator.
Even though a lot of better and more innovative games have come out these last few years wow ended up with "entrenched" players who like a lot of us stick with what we know.
while wow subscription are going down you have the following:
Absente players who have moved on but never cancel the subscription
People who log on to be with friends they have made over the 8 years of playing.
I can not think that many of us would log onto wow today for the gameplay/innovation if never played before.
WoW will walk on the ashes of other games for sometime to come. Reports of its decline have been greatly exaggerated but seriously the game sure has staying power. I am inclined to doff my hat to it for its remarkable staying power. It is like the terminator it refuses to die.
Like for many other games out there, because people that are trying now gw2 still aren't realizing that playing their favourite old themepark alike MMO for free instead paying a subscription would not be possible.
The other games subscriptions will fall in the following months, that's your answer.
Mainly because a huge portion of WoW players are not MMO players, they are only WoW players. They werent around before WoW to experience those games, started playing WoW because its popular and their friends play, and you often wont see very many of them outside of WoW even trying other new MMOs. They typically cant think outside the box that is WoW, and if you actually do see them in other games, whats the 1st thing you see from them "OMG why doesnt this have this thing like WoW, and that thing like WoW. This is stupid. This game sucks. WoW is awesome" even when the game is intentionally very different from WoW.
Just try to picture your typical WoW player ina completely different type of game such as EVE or Darkfall. Think of the reactions they would have just trying to survive a few days in those games. Thats why WoW stays on top.
Along with that, the majority of MMOs released since WoW dont even hide the fact that their game is a direct copy/paste of WoW with a different name and different skin. Millions of people arent going to leave WoW just to play an exact copy of it.
How does that explain why the hard core EQ raiders, when choosing between wow and eq2s release, picked wow? that must be confusing for you...............
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
It is an anomoly that has somehow managed to appeal to everyone. I played the game for years off and on, but haven't touched it in quite a while.
What I find strange is that it is supposedly still so popular, yet not a single gamer I personally knows plays it anymore. There is nothing wrong with playing the game in the least, not trying to say that. It just seemed like in 2005 every single gamer I knew was at least somewhat playing the game. Now not a single person I know plays it. There are some people I know that have the annual pass for Diablo 3, but that's it. I guess the game is still hugely popular in other parts of the world...hence the pandas.
Since Blizzard released World of Warcraft, it has been dubbed with many names like the King, 800 pound gorilla and the like. While I myself also played WoW (for many years) and agree it was a great game and in some respects, remains great, one can't help but to wonder how it is, it hasn't fallen yet.
There are now hundreds of mmo's, with hundred of millions dropped into some and billions dropped into the mmo gaming world.
With this in light; how can it be, with hundreds of companies, experts galore, gaming enthusiast galore, billions spent, and decades to achieve, that Blizzard WoW remains the King (as far as P2P mmo's go)?
When I think about it; there can only be two explanations. One, Blizzards has hired the absolute best gaming experts in the world and paid everyone else off not to assist or work for other companies. Two, there is a secret coalition of developers that have gotten together and decided that regardless of man power, money, ideas, innovations, etc. they will not under any circumstances make a game better than WoW.
imo... ;o)
Ever heard about the "to big to fail" principle. I think that is significant regardless if we talk about bad cars, banks or games. A lot of people are playing WoW. It is often difficult to leave and try other games. Because you have invested a lot of time and all your friends are still playing. There are other better games. But it would be problematic and painful to leave wow,
This is the reason why its still popular. But how long will it last? Will people still want to play after MoP?
I see many replys which mention the "fun" factor. While I agree World of Warcraft is fun, how does it stay fun? Again, I played for 4 years, mainly 1-2 hrs each day. If you do the math, that's 2920 hrs or 122, straight, 24hrs days. AFter awhile, running the same content has to get boring (no fun), doing the same quests, dailys, GQ, etc have to get boring at some point. I will agree, that having friends there, kept be in it longer than I would have.
So again, how does the average person not let this get boring to the point of finding something else to do? How does doing the same content, on a daily basis keep players entertained? There are only so many times, one should be able to use the same abilities before they say to themselfs, "Hey this is boring now".
The reason WOW has not fallen ... Simple ... it is the benchmark that other gamess are based on. It did what others wanted to do but never did fully and it gave it to the masses.
Simply put
1) it is easy for everyone
2) Fun and enjoyable
3) it will run on almost everythign out there.. no matter how old your system is (and yes I saw it running on a netbook)
Basically what this guy said.
Dragnon - Guildmaster - Albion Central Bank in Albion Online
If games like UO, AC1, and EQ1 are still around then why not WoW?...If nothing else it should be harder for WoW to fall simply because of the numbers it already has.....It can suffer a 20% loss in playerbase and not really miss a beat.
Let's not forget another major reason that WoW remains the most popular MMO: a native Mac client. Never mind Wine and Bootcamp, all Blizzard games since the original Warcraft have had PC and Mac clients. Blizzard seems to be one of the only game companys that realize Mac users like to play games too. It's one of the reasons that ALL Blizzard games are wildly popular.
1. Wow is a great game that is very, very polished. You character really feels like he's walking on the ground and fighting the other people. No other online game has come close to that for me.
2. It also has a great addon community of developers. Its macros, addons and now the armory API are really great features that make for a truly customizeable experience.
Unfortunately I never played vanilla Wow (I started at TBC) so I don't really know how big of a change it was for players. I've gone through phases of being "bored" as most players probably have. One of the things that WoW did that really made me get through those boring times was when they added the achievments to the game. It really did turn me into an achv hound and I still spend significant hours still trying to get some of the harder ones. New expansions just mean more achvs. I imagine that a lot of other MMOs have adopted this (actually, I would guess that WoW probably wasn't the first to do this), but this is definitely another reason why I believe WoW has retained some of its popularity. Just thought I'd mention this little point.
Imagine for a minute that all of us are in a desert wasteland of 2004 and we are walking endlessly in the hot sun until we come across a beautiful oasis. Huge lake, trees everywhere and plenty of food and wildlife. A perfect place to be in such a barren forsaken land. Now imagine that there is talk of even greater possibilities out there if people are willing to go forth and search for them. And you've been living at this oasis for 8 years now and naturally you want more.
Now unlike some of your counterparts you understand that even an oasis this beautiful will eventually dry up unless a substantial rainfall occurs. So you set out on a journey to find a more permanent residence. Along the way you will no doubt find other oasis with other people making them their homes. You stay for a while but you understand your journey must continue. Do you wish it upon everyone that you came across on your journey in all those oasis ill feelings or harm upon them just because they decided to take their chances and stay where they are or do you treasure each place you visited and accept that each person is free to make their own choices?
And imagine that eventually you reach a city that is teeming with everything you have ever needed or will want. And after you settled in, talks are being heard around the city that a record drought is coming. And you think back on all those oasis and people that you've encountered. Naturally the bigger oasis will last longer than the smaller ones out there and that beautiful oasis you came across at the start of your journey was the biggest you had ever seen. You don't even have to ask yourself who will last longer out there...
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Blizzard has the best marketing department out there.
Possibly.
But they really aren't facing very good competition. Most game companies are pretty awful at PR.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Originally posted by ChicagoCub Now that second coming has ended and the second crucifixion has started, how many "WoW Killers" have failed? I know what you're looking for but you're not going to find it here. This site reviews based on advertising dollars and no matter how long WoW stays on top, or how many posters played wow for years, they will still cling to their WoW hate. It's pathological.
Midnight last night all, but 3 servers were full on GW2.
Only people trying to bash GW2 are either not playing or didn't really want to play it in the first place. WoW has not offered anything exceptional in like 5 years.
Since Blizzard released World of Warcraft, it has been dubbed with many names like the King, 800 pound gorilla and the like. While I myself also played WoW (for many years) and agree it was a great game and in some respects, remains great, one can't help but to wonder how it is, it hasn't fallen yet.
There are now hundreds of mmo's, with hundred of millions dropped into some and billions dropped into the mmo gaming world.
With this in light; how can it be, with hundreds of companies, experts galore, gaming enthusiast galore, billions spent, and decades to achieve, that Blizzard WoW remains the King (as far as P2P mmo's go)?
When I think about it; there can only be two explanations. One, Blizzards has hired the absolute best gaming experts in the world and paid everyone else off not to assist or work for other companies. Two, there is a secret coalition of developers that have gotten together and decided that regardless of man power, money, ideas, innovations, etc. they will not under any circumstances make a game better than WoW.
imo... ;o)
Its quite simple actually Blizzard has made a name for itself and no matter how much people want to put them down or bring them up they still remain at the top of their game. In all honesty I don't think there will ever be another launch like WoW had and even though the sub count has waivered a bit its still hitting numbers that are mind boggling for a subbed game. Will WoW ever die off completely I doubt it it'll be up to Blizzard to decide that. Even when Titan releases and WoW is reduced to a possible F2P it will still have a following because people that have played it for so long can relate to the game.
WoW current is still the closest thing to WoW Vanilla. WoW vanilla and WoW TBC are the iterations that drew in 10M-12M players. While in it's current state, WoW is a shadow of it's former self, even I will admit that WoW 1X and WoW 2.X were the best release levels of just about any MMO to date. (For overall mass appeal). And if WoW could recapture it's formula that made it a success that it lost between 2.X and 3.X, I'd resub that day. Even now, I admit I am curious about MoP and if there is any sense that they have returned even if just a little to that original formula, I will buy it. Although I seriously doubt it, because I firmly believe that players don't have an "F"ing clue as to what they really like (See what I did there?) And catering to what players say they want has brough tthis genre to it's current sad state.
I don't know why people feel it necessary to call me a 'lowest common denominator' because I like a game (referring to the individual on page 1). Although I have tried many other games, WoW makes itself easy to return to and easy to enjoy. There is -always- something to do, something to collect, something to run, something to farm for someone else, and so on. For the pvp enthusiasts there are arenas, battlegrounds, and wpvp (yuck ). For other people there are entry-mode raids (though these are still relatively new), normal-mode raids, and heroic-mode raids. There are over 5,000 different quests not counting Pandaria. With Pandaria, there are over 400 different pets available for free. Who else has anything even -close- to that?! IOW...if you are bored in WoW, it's not from lack of things to do.
I think the Pandaria expansion looks inviting. I've long asked for playable Pandaren, as have -tons- of other users of the old WoW forums. It was -the- most requested race. The setting is beautiful, the story seems nice from what I have seen, and so on. This is why WoW is popular -- it makes itself available to other people. It doesn't demand anything (and this fact is one that drives the most hardcore -crazy-) of you that you aren't interested in doing. No other game can -really- say that that I have played. It sounds like perhaps GW2 does this same thing, although I haven't played it yet.
WoW isn't perfect by any stretch, but when it comes to the most features for the money, the most to do, the most to see...no one else even comes close to me. As I've said before...it's not that WoW does everything the -best- -- it doesn't. It's that WoW does EVERYTHING, and does so better in aggregate than anyone else. It's why McDonalds will never have the best-tasting hamburger in America, but will -always- sell more of what they do offer than the best burger ever possibly could.
Originally posted by MMOwanderer Originally posted by XiaokiOriginally posted by slickbizzleBlizzard has the best marketing department out there.
The MoP TV commercial is the first WoW TV commercial Ive seen since the Cataclysm TV commercial.So, first new TV commercial in 2 years is the best marketing?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arKpdxjHamI
Comments
If it came out today it would be classed as a generic copy of passed games, it was back then.
At the time of release it just two things
1)copied the best ideas of EQ/Muds/mmo out at the time.
2)made it possible to play an mmo on a calculator.
Even though a lot of better and more innovative games have come out these last few years wow ended up with "entrenched" players who like a lot of us stick with what we know.
while wow subscription are going down you have the following:
Absente players who have moved on but never cancel the subscription
People who log on to be with friends they have made over the 8 years of playing.
I can not think that many of us would log onto wow today for the gameplay/innovation if never played before.
Like for many other games out there, because people that are trying now gw2 still aren't realizing that playing their favourite old themepark alike MMO for free instead paying a subscription would not be possible.
The other games subscriptions will fall in the following months, that's your answer.
How does that explain why the hard core EQ raiders, when choosing between wow and eq2s release, picked wow? that must be confusing for you...............
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
It is an anomoly that has somehow managed to appeal to everyone. I played the game for years off and on, but haven't touched it in quite a while.
What I find strange is that it is supposedly still so popular, yet not a single gamer I personally knows plays it anymore. There is nothing wrong with playing the game in the least, not trying to say that. It just seemed like in 2005 every single gamer I knew was at least somewhat playing the game. Now not a single person I know plays it. There are some people I know that have the annual pass for Diablo 3, but that's it. I guess the game is still hugely popular in other parts of the world...hence the pandas.
Ever heard about the "to big to fail" principle. I think that is significant regardless if we talk about bad cars, banks or games. A lot of people are playing WoW. It is often difficult to leave and try other games. Because you have invested a lot of time and all your friends are still playing. There are other better games. But it would be problematic and painful to leave wow,
This is the reason why its still popular. But how long will it last? Will people still want to play after MoP?
I see many replys which mention the "fun" factor. While I agree World of Warcraft is fun, how does it stay fun? Again, I played for 4 years, mainly 1-2 hrs each day. If you do the math, that's 2920 hrs or 122, straight, 24hrs days. AFter awhile, running the same content has to get boring (no fun), doing the same quests, dailys, GQ, etc have to get boring at some point. I will agree, that having friends there, kept be in it longer than I would have.
So again, how does the average person not let this get boring to the point of finding something else to do? How does doing the same content, on a daily basis keep players entertained? There are only so many times, one should be able to use the same abilities before they say to themselfs, "Hey this is boring now".
There are several reasons. Here's some.
1. Low system requirements makes it run on most systems.
2. It's very accessible and easy to get into.
3. There's a lot of depth and challenge for hardcore players as well once you go beyond the casual stuff.
4. It manages to have that whole open world thing going on, despite WotLK+ adding features undermining it.
5. While a PvE game first, over the years it's gotten a decent amount of PvP stuff.
6. It has very responsive, fluid and FUN gameplay. Something nearly all other MMOs lack.
7. It's hard for a new MMO to offer the same amount of content Blizzard's been adding to the game over the years.
Basically what this guy said.
Dragnon - Guildmaster - Albion Central Bank in Albion Online
www.albioncentralbank.enjin.com
Let's not forget another major reason that WoW remains the most popular MMO: a native Mac client. Never mind Wine and Bootcamp, all Blizzard games since the original Warcraft have had PC and Mac clients. Blizzard seems to be one of the only game companys that realize Mac users like to play games too. It's one of the reasons that ALL Blizzard games are wildly popular.
1. Wow is a great game that is very, very polished. You character really feels like he's walking on the ground and fighting the other people. No other online game has come close to that for me.
2. It also has a great addon community of developers. Its macros, addons and now the armory API are really great features that make for a truly customizeable experience.
3. It caters to numerous demographics well.
Macro-Wow.com, get your Wow macros!
Imagine for a minute that all of us are in a desert wasteland of 2004 and we are walking endlessly in the hot sun until we come across a beautiful oasis. Huge lake, trees everywhere and plenty of food and wildlife. A perfect place to be in such a barren forsaken land. Now imagine that there is talk of even greater possibilities out there if people are willing to go forth and search for them. And you've been living at this oasis for 8 years now and naturally you want more.
Now unlike some of your counterparts you understand that even an oasis this beautiful will eventually dry up unless a substantial rainfall occurs. So you set out on a journey to find a more permanent residence. Along the way you will no doubt find other oasis with other people making them their homes. You stay for a while but you understand your journey must continue. Do you wish it upon everyone that you came across on your journey in all those oasis ill feelings or harm upon them just because they decided to take their chances and stay where they are or do you treasure each place you visited and accept that each person is free to make their own choices?
And imagine that eventually you reach a city that is teeming with everything you have ever needed or will want. And after you settled in, talks are being heard around the city that a record drought is coming. And you think back on all those oasis and people that you've encountered. Naturally the bigger oasis will last longer than the smaller ones out there and that beautiful oasis you came across at the start of your journey was the biggest you had ever seen. You don't even have to ask yourself who will last longer out there...
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Because people still enjoy playing. <- "Only WoW can kill WoW" derives from that statement.
[MMOs don't kill each other, they kill themselves]Possibly.
But they really aren't facing very good competition. Most game companies are pretty awful at PR.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Well put, and it's well-maintained.
Midnight last night all, but 3 servers were full on GW2.
Only people trying to bash GW2 are either not playing or didn't really want to play it in the first place. WoW has not offered anything exceptional in like 5 years.
Its quite simple actually Blizzard has made a name for itself and no matter how much people want to put them down or bring them up they still remain at the top of their game. In all honesty I don't think there will ever be another launch like WoW had and even though the sub count has waivered a bit its still hitting numbers that are mind boggling for a subbed game. Will WoW ever die off completely I doubt it it'll be up to Blizzard to decide that. Even when Titan releases and WoW is reduced to a possible F2P it will still have a following because people that have played it for so long can relate to the game.
WoW current is still the closest thing to WoW Vanilla. WoW vanilla and WoW TBC are the iterations that drew in 10M-12M players. While in it's current state, WoW is a shadow of it's former self, even I will admit that WoW 1X and WoW 2.X were the best release levels of just about any MMO to date. (For overall mass appeal). And if WoW could recapture it's formula that made it a success that it lost between 2.X and 3.X, I'd resub that day. Even now, I admit I am curious about MoP and if there is any sense that they have returned even if just a little to that original formula, I will buy it. Although I seriously doubt it, because I firmly believe that players don't have an "F"ing clue as to what they really like (See what I did there?) And catering to what players say they want has brough tthis genre to it's current sad state.
So, first new TV commercial in 2 years is the best marketing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arKpdxjHamI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OgYWLSrmlI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAibYnDUH6c
And many others like that.
I don't know why people feel it necessary to call me a 'lowest common denominator' because I like a game (referring to the individual on page 1). Although I have tried many other games, WoW makes itself easy to return to and easy to enjoy. There is -always- something to do, something to collect, something to run, something to farm for someone else, and so on. For the pvp enthusiasts there are arenas, battlegrounds, and wpvp (yuck
). For other people there are entry-mode raids (though these are still relatively new), normal-mode raids, and heroic-mode raids. There are over 5,000 different quests not counting Pandaria. With Pandaria, there are over 400 different pets available for free. Who else has anything even -close- to that?! IOW...if you are bored in WoW, it's not from lack of things to do.
I think the Pandaria expansion looks inviting. I've long asked for playable Pandaren, as have -tons- of other users of the old WoW forums. It was -the- most requested race. The setting is beautiful, the story seems nice from what I have seen, and so on. This is why WoW is popular -- it makes itself available to other people. It doesn't demand anything (and this fact is one that drives the most hardcore -crazy-) of you that you aren't interested in doing. No other game can -really- say that that I have played. It sounds like perhaps GW2 does this same thing, although I haven't played it yet.
WoW isn't perfect by any stretch, but when it comes to the most features for the money, the most to do, the most to see...no one else even comes close to me. As I've said before...it's not that WoW does everything the -best- -- it doesn't. It's that WoW does EVERYTHING, and does so better in aggregate than anyone else. It's why McDonalds will never have the best-tasting hamburger in America, but will -always- sell more of what they do offer than the best burger ever possibly could.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arKpdxjHamI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OgYWLSrmlI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAibYnDUH6c
And many others like that.
There are more TV commercials than I remember. I did see them I just forgot about them.
Also, really no need to dig up celebrity spots from 3 to 4 years ago.
But, you dont retain millions of subscribers for years with a few TV commercials.
So, saying WoW "has not fallen" because it has good marketing is not true.