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The real reason why WoW got so popular, and why Minecraft will too.
sargos7
Member UncommonPosts: 77
First off, I know Minecraft is already popular. Basically, I'm comparing how Minecraft's level of popularity rose to how WoW's did and predicting that Minecraft will become vastly more popular than WoW, but not saying it will replace WoW, that's ridiculous, they are two different types of games. In fact, the reason I'm about to give actually suggests that WoW will never die out unless they change their policy toward it. This comparison is important evidence to support my claim, which is that the reason is, simply put:
Mods.
Yes, I know the game itself has to have something going for it to begin with. I'm saying mod support is a huge enhancement to a game's potential. Wow got so popular because people were able to change things about the game to suit their needs, rather than just complain about it and rage quit. Of course there are other reasons, but I'm saying this was the biggest reason. The reason that other companies could use to make their games just as popular, like Minecraft did. Even single player games that are more easily modable tend to be more popular. Take a look at the Elder Scrolls series.
Now, this clearly is not because the average player is a modder, that's absurd to think. It's because it sort of makes the game into an open source project. When there is a need expressed among the community, the modders notice and go to town creating a mod for it. But in other cases like Minecraft and the Elder Scrolls games, it can also be modders creating content.
My suggestion is that any new MMO that is serious about becoming popular should have extensive support for modding, including creating new content. You might be thinking at this point, how would such a thing be regulated? In minecraft, it's not, obviously, but it isn't a problem because the servers are all run by players. That clearly isn't a bad idea either- poorly ran servers don't have players on them, but that doesn't discourage players from playing the game, they just play on the well ran ones instead.
If companies catch on to the potential that this system holds, could we see a time in the future where every new MMO only has player ran servers, and would that be the end of high population servers? Well, not necessarily. By the time this catches on, players might be able to host massive amounts of players on their own servers due to increases in bandwidth of consumer grade internet, once all the fiber optic systems finally get put in place.
So there may be one day where every player is able to have the MMO of their dreams.
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Comments
I mean this in the nicest way possible but you have NO idea what you're talking about.
If a game itself at it's core isn't good on it's own it won't generate anyone to Mod the game. No one is going to put effort into a game if there isn't a large playerbase that will use the Mods they create.
You're looking at this completely wrong... Without going into much detail or a paragraph on why both games are so successfull. WoW was different and a blockbuster for it's time, Minecraft was something completely new to everyone and very creative.
Both offered two unique and different things for their time. This in-turn attracted people to Mod the game.
Oh, but I know exactly what you mean. I have checked out the atrocity that is Second Life.
A game does indeed need to have something good about it to begin with, but there is no denying that mod support enhances the gameplay and boosts the game's popularity.
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Err, no. WoW and MC are really not comparable in this fashion.
For one, most things people liked about WoW had to do with the world and the mechanics of the game. Always. Nobody plays WoW for the addons.
For another, the modding capability for MC is much higher than for WoW.
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW
Currently playing: GW2, EVE
Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
please tell me your a preteen.... Mods had nothing to do with wows success. The game had a following of players who played war craft and it offered players that needed hand holding a game to play.
Mince craft on the other hand is more of create your own experience game with harsh penalties for dying. In the future I have no doubt they will make a minecraft mmorpg.
You really have no clue what your talking about.
Not trying to be mean, but it sounds like you just recently discovered Minecraft. You keep using words that imply that it isn't *already* hugely popular. You could ask almost anyone and they will know what Minecraft is even if they haven't played it.
And as most have said, mods really have nothing to do with it. An amazing game is amazing before the mods.
What do you mean "why minecraft will too" ? I think you will find that minecraft is already super popular.
Taken from the mniecraft stats site.
"11,942,776 people have bought the game."
Minecraft and wow are 100% different types of games and you cant really compare them.. WOW was not so popular because you got mod the UI and a few other things it was popular because it appealed to the masses as it was easy to get into and play.. the masses generally do not want to start messing around modding their games they just want to click a button and play.
Mods prolong a game's life. That's really all they do. It does not automatically mean that the game is going to be popular, or even good. Mods don't change core, fundamental concepts of a game. Therefore, if those concepts result in a poor game, no amount of mods outside of a complete overhaul of the entire game (Which would simply be a different game) is going to fix it.
Elder Scrolls, Minecraft, Neverwinter, Dungeon Siege, etc, etc, are all relatively good examples of it. To make a game have an extremely long potential lifespan, the modding community needs to flourish. If it doesn't, it typically doesn't matter whether the tools to mod have been given or not, as the number of mod-users outweigh the number of mod-creators by an absolutely enormous margin.
I merely meant it will get even more popular, rather than die out, like some people are already predicting.
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That's a very good point, a game must also be intuitive. Take a look at Darkfall, for example. Pretty much every complaint you hear about it is how non-intuitive it is.
And, yes, I know Minecraft is already popular, I meant it will get even more popular, not die out like some people are saying.
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Mod support may one of elements at the wow's sucsess but one of them . Wows own this sucsess to fan base , blizzards past fame , marketing ( probably they are the one of early pioners at mmo companies for viral marketing/ social marketing ) , timing yes timing ( it was the time people started to get broadband connection at alot of countries /places ) , management etc .
Every part needed for success .
Mod support has always been huge for games. Minecraft isn't anything special in that regard other than modern games tend to avoid supporting mods in favor of DLC. This is something that's always been silly to me because Bethesda games continued to encourage the use of modding and their DLC content has only given the community more to play with.
Anyway, there are all sorts of old games that supported mods that people are still playing to this day. Freelancer, which I still need to get my hands on again, I'm pretty sure still has custom servers running.
As much as I enjoy Minecraft and the idea of modding it far beyond what it was meant to be, I find that rather than modding it people are just taking the games general look and concepts to make their own games, even if they're little more than a mod or heavily limit what you would normally be doing in Minecraft.
One game that I stumbled upon that's doing a lot more with the general idea, and look, of Minecraft is a game called Starmade. Which allows players to build their own star ships and travel across space and multiple worlds. This could have been a mod, but it was made into a game. Not that I mind too much because I am a sucker for most anything Sci-Fi and I'm curious to see what other differences it has with Minecraft.
Speaking of which I totally need to go get that game now. Completely forgot to do this. xD
Kingdom of Knights - Community Manager
Your premise is flawed. One can test this by simply looking at all the games that can be modded. Only a small percentage of modded games reach the popularity of WoW or Minecraft. Thus modding can't be the 'real' reason these games are popular, otherwise all modded games would be popular.
In fact, I was having a blast in Minecraft well before I discovered the Technic mods or the Sphax texture pack.
mods are a two edged sword
Blizzard does not allow mods in D3
http://kotaku.com/5826453/diablo-iii-mods-are-forbidden-banned-not-allowed
EQ2 fan sites
Mods are the reason the genre is in the state that it's in. People keep attributing it to WoW, but it's the players who do the most damage.
People like to take the path of least resistance and they will create things to help them succeed or gain an advantage over others.
DBM/Raid announcement mods - completely diminishes the need for alertness.
DPS meters - Turns everything into the optimal spec and a race for the top.
Aggro meter - tanks don't have to know anything about their threat gen, dps doesn't need to know how to dps while holding back at times. You just look at a meter and you know how much you can do.
Healer frames - remove essentially any level of difficulty in keeping up with healing as macros will auto heal people and you can just mouse over their frame for easy casting.
Quest tracker mods - trails/arrows/big circles on the map. How many games have this now? It was a player mod!!!
Target of target spell casting - Mod made by pvpers to gain an advantage in pvp so that they could interrupt more easily.
Rare finders/ Spawn timers - again made by players so they can find and do content without having to explore. Removes that sense of wonder from the game world where you have to find things.
GEAR SCORE!!! - Player mod. Instantly destroyed the community. Online communities weren't all puppies and rainbows, but when gear score became the norm, things got exponentially nastier. One of the worst additions to gaming ever.
You can pretty much look at that list and see the damage they've done to the industry and to people's expectations. I like player mods, but not when they do what these mods did. I like stuff like UI, portraits, class resource management and stuff like that. Those meta mods that dictated how we play are terrible.
Mods were also a rather large part of the first two Diablo games, at least for me, and was just one of the many flaws with that game.
I can see mods being a double edged sword in that they can cause stability problems and the like if multiple mods don't get along or the mod just isn't very well made to begin with. But what do you mean?
@Rusque: Those are more tools than mods but eh.
Kingdom of Knights - Community Manager
A sure sign that you are in an old, dying paradigm/mindset, is when you are scared of new ideas and new technology. Don't feel bad. The world is moving on without you, and you are welcome to yell "Get Off My Lawn!" all you want while it happens. You cannot, however, stop an idea whose time has come.
Yeah I am really interested in how EQ Next.. Or Landmark or whatever it's called now will handle those voxels. Really excited to see that.
Also, Star Citizen can't come out fast enough.
Kingdom of Knights - Community Manager
So far 11,950,292 people bought the PC/Mac version of the game. and 7 523 696 peeps likes it on Facebook.
i think its pretty popular allready.
compare it to for example super hit GW2 ,954 811 likes.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Er, no. Minecraft got big before mods were even a thing, and plenty of MMOs offered mods long before WoW did.
WoW's main bread and butter is the casual audience, and they don't mod.