I disagree with the premise of the OP. Whilst I agree that, at launch, WoW was a great game and deserved the playerbase it got, I most vehemently disagree as to the reasons of it's success and it's ability to be a success if it relaunched today.
Reasons for it's success at launch:
1) Superior product compared to it's competitors 2) Massive advertising campaign
That's really it. It was the "best" MMO on the market, and they told everyone about it. No other MMO of that era even came close to the level of exposure WoW created for itself. Not only did it attract existing MMO players, but it attracts millions of other types of gamers too.
Reasons for it's continued success:
1) Because it's successful 2) Content
This is something you don't see discussed much, if at all, but WoW is still successful because its successful. It is self-perpetuating. The reason this is true is down to psychology. Playing games with friends is more fun than playing solo. WoW attracted so many people that you undoubtedly ended up playing with friends, then making more friends.
Friends will keep you playing a game for months / years after you've stopped enjoying it, because it remains social. The social aspect makes us feel good. Feeling good makes us log in more. As pure anecdotal evidence, I have about 50 RL friends who play WoW. Half of them don't do any other gaming, just WoW. the other half are regular gamers, but WoW is their only MMO. I think only 1 of them has played other MMOs. But, they all play WoW because they all play WoW!!! Most of them have never raided or done pvp, they literally just like leveling together and hanging out together.
Why WoW would fail today:
1) No longer a superior product
That's all you need to say. Vanilla WoW with updated graphics would not be the best MMO on the market. It would have less content than a lot of MMOs. The grouping would put people off. The subscription would put yet more off.
Sure, they could market the shit out of it again and it'd do OK, but it wouldn't have the success you think it would.
If you want an example, look at LotRO. Bigger world, better IP, deeper combat, less bugs and similar content / group focus, but with more social features. Vanilla LotRO > Vanilla WoW. But, by the time LotRO launched, WoW had had 2 years of new content and bug fixing, so Vanilla LotRO <= 2007 WoW.
There are plenty of other themeparks that have been released post-WoW that are better than vanilla wow, certainly in terms of pure features and content (IP is obviously subjective). Some have even had really big advertising budgets.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
A HUGE seamless world. More options than any mmo ever made.
I had a chuckle here with this part, Vanilla Everquest Has substantially more options and a larger world, Took you like 3 hours to run from one side to the other. Some things that give it more options than WoW>
- 12 Races, 12 or so Classes and 13 starter zones. - Substancially more zones/area's that WoW had on release. Although EQ had more loading screen than WoW, i felt the use of WoW instance system actualy made the game feel less seamless since u creat parallel universes every time you do dunguens (Kinda took out alot of the immersion tbh when you knew you were in a controlled environment.
Dont get me wrong Vanilla wow was a decent game however they did remove alot of things that made MMO actualy feel like a world.
Vanilla EQ1 was far better than vanilla WoW for me.
WoW took the EQ1 formula (which is DikuMUD really) and replaced grinding with questing, added instancing to dungeons and eliminated more in-depth systems (like factions etc...)
I do agree greatly with this, They removed alot of the inconvients from MMO and imo that kinda ruined the genre, Removed down times which actually help the community, removed the need for other players which also reduces the need of a good community -.-
Things i miss seeing in MMO and now this may be a shock to people but this is my list of thing i want to see come back to MMO's
-Corpse runs or some kinda death penalty, you should fear death and try and advoid it not die to get to point b quicker as its often used as nowadays (Bonus with corpse runs was that when you died people often helped you retrieve your good because they know what it like to be in those shoes, they have been there) Once got wiped near the end of a raid zone and 2 other guilds formed a raid to assist in getting back to where we were so we could retrieve out goods
- Weight/encumbrance - This had a place imo, it made the world feel a little more real when you had limited weight and had to decide if you wanted to carry this heavy item or throw it out for somthing that just dropped. There a reason why its in games like Diablo and other RPG games why was it removed for MMORPG i dont know
- Trains/No Mob leash lines, There somthing satisfying about running for your life to the nearest NPC guard or out of a dungeon, it makes the world feel more releastic where mob will chase you out of there home instead of 10meters then stopping like and be like fuck it i cant be bothered running any further. It also adds a sense of unpredictability at times which can break up a typical run of the mill grind and keeps thing interesting.
- Many many factions and u wernt locked into any, you could kill you own guards and loose faction with that city but gain faction else where. You could literaly become allies with mobs that were typically KoS to everyone else and sometimes they had secret quests
- Quests that actually felt epic, not these go fetch me 5 bones or other errand type quests.
- No instant travel, this makes the world feel so much largers and more epic, you usualy hanged round a zone or area for awhile before going on an adventure for green pastures due to XP on the current area wasnt as good anymore.
I do miss actually earning things in games, especially skills. Having to save up to buy specific skills taught you how to prioritize and not take even trash loot for granted even when you thought you had a lot of money because it could be gone almost instantly if you weren't careful about what you bought.
The excitement of finding a grey (not even white) quality 2h weapon worth over 1 gold. Now we vendor epic loot daily because it's useless.
WoW lacked completely open world, had a completely linear player experience, and horrible dungeons compared to previous mmos.
Blackrock Mountain is probably the best dungion/raid-"place" i've experienced. Long, epic and thematic dungeons with multiple paths and choices, full of interesting stories and quests. All leading up to a really satisfying climax in the raids, both story-wise and gameplay-wise.
This website has more bugs than you can shake a stick at.
Anyhoo... Blizzard may have spent a lot of money on advertising but the BULK of it's player base heard about the game from WORD OF MOUTH. Not a red cent spent there. Everyone I know who played the game heard about it from friends... they didn't even know Blizzard as a company even existed prior to trying the game on a friend's machine.
To me... players who tell other players about a game is not the same thing as a game company that promotes their product. And even Blizzard admits, that the players themselves did more for the game than anything they did to advertise the product... by a landslide.
There is no such thing as perfectly right. The way to make a great game is to make a game that is ideal for your target audience. Vanilla WoW was just one game that did this.
WoW lacked completely open world, had a completely linear player experience, and horrible dungeons compared to previous mmos.
Blackrock Mountain is probably the best dungion/raid-"place" i've experienced. Long, epic and thematic dungeons with multiple paths and choices, full of interesting stories and quests. All leading up to a really satisfying climax in the raids, both story-wise and gameplay-wise.
There were a lot of great RPG reasons to take a trip to Blackrock and I enjoyed the shit out of it.
Maybe it was 'perfect' for you, but the numbers seem to very clearly indicate that isn't true for the majority of players. As for myself, sure I miss some of the things from vanilla, but on the other hand, there was more than enough screwed up things to loathe as well.
Reasons why vanilla wow didn't do everything right.
Leveling was mostly just kill quests
Classes were extremely unbalanced with lots of broken talent trees
Crafting was mostly pointless
Servers couldn't handle large scale world PvP
Endgame was raid-or-die.
Huge problems with server queue
Patch days had a tendency to make the game unstable.
I don't agree with the Op but your reasons are quite pathetic especially the PVP bit. WOW at the start wasn't meant to be a PVP mmo it was a PVE mmo hence why they introduced battle grounds instead of Tarren Mills.
EQ end game was just the same if not worst. Crafting in EQ wasn't a dream come true. Levelling in EQ was nothing but kill quest and even to today most mmos are.
I don't the classes we're that unbalanced, all had strenth and weaknesses. As a European player I didn't suffer frombmajor server queues.
All in all your points are pretty relevant to any mmo today but you keep convincing yourself they are not lol.
The best thing about Vanilla WoW is even lower level contents was very well thought out, so the game was fun the whole way through.
One can be stuck at level 30-40 in vanilla WoW just so they can do Gnomeregan, Maraudon, Scarlett Monastery Uldaman all day and those are detailed as hell dungeons compare to the games that came after it for lower level contents.
The main thing is that back then you really had only a couple choices. MMORPGS were relatively new and you basically had EQ and WOW. Now there are hundreds of MMORPGS to choose from with several decent ones. (LOTRO, SWTOR, ESO, FFXIV, Secret World, Wildstar, GW2, BDO, Archage, etc etc) Throw in all the asian F2P games and the market is just saturated
The best thing about Vanilla WoW is even lower level contents was very well thought out, so the game was fun the whole way through.
One can be stuck at level 30-40 in vanilla WoW just so they can do Gnomeregan, Maraudon, Scarlett Monastery Uldaman all day and those are detailed as hell dungeons compare to the games that came after it for lower level contents.
EQ2 was just as good for that and it came before but Vanguard kicked WOW ass for what you describe and that came after WOW.
No mmo comes close to Vanguard for low level content IMO and I've played most.
Vanilla wow was great for its day but it also had near no competition with only EQ as competition. They did things right by using advertising and creating mass hype to get people interested and making the mmo's main stream and popular. After the big patch about a month in were all the mass bugs and lag were mostly fixed they delivered a excellent game for when it was released years in advance of anything else being released. The first expansion removed allot of what made the game good in the long haul and it has got progressively worst every expansion since. i still subscribe each expansion for a few month but thats all the time its worth and the sad thing is its an old game yet i am yet to see a developer spend the time and money to release a game as good. they are all for the quick buck.
The best thing about Vanilla WoW is even lower level contents was very well thought out, so the game was fun the whole way through.
One can be stuck at level 30-40 in vanilla WoW just so they can do Gnomeregan, Maraudon, Scarlett Monastery Uldaman all day and those are detailed as hell dungeons compare to the games that came after it for lower level contents.
EQ2 was just as good for that and it came before but Vanguard kicked WOW ass for what you describe and that came after WOW.
No mmo comes close to Vanguard for low level content IMO and I've played most.
Vanguard was a good game but the problem was it was released early and when it was released it was quite buggy, which is sad.
That and plus Vanguard's world is too big and requires too much traveling. The tyranny of distance is too big to overcome if a player only has time for shorter game sessions.
The main thing is that back then you really had only a couple choices. MMORPGS were relatively new and you basically had EQ and WOW. Now there are hundreds of MMORPGS to choose from with several decent ones. (LOTRO, SWTOR, ESO, FFXIV, Secret World, Wildstar, GW2, BDO, Archage, etc etc) Throw in all the asian F2P games and the market is just saturated
Don't know what you are taking about there were quite a few good titles and many many so so titles then. Eq eq2 coh swg daoc eve (sucked back then but it got better) istaria (then horizons) just of the top of my head.
Post edited by VengeSunsoar on
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
Reasons for it's success at launch:
1) Superior product compared to it's competitors
2) Massive advertising campaign
That's really it. It was the "best" MMO on the market, and they told everyone about it. No other MMO of that era even came close to the level of exposure WoW created for itself. Not only did it attract existing MMO players, but it attracts millions of other types of gamers too.
Reasons for it's continued success:
1) Because it's successful
2) Content
This is something you don't see discussed much, if at all, but WoW is still successful because its successful. It is self-perpetuating. The reason this is true is down to psychology. Playing games with friends is more fun than playing solo. WoW attracted so many people that you undoubtedly ended up playing with friends, then making more friends.
Friends will keep you playing a game for months / years after you've stopped enjoying it, because it remains social. The social aspect makes us feel good. Feeling good makes us log in more. As pure anecdotal evidence, I have about 50 RL friends who play WoW. Half of them don't do any other gaming, just WoW. the other half are regular gamers, but WoW is their only MMO. I think only 1 of them has played other MMOs. But, they all play WoW because they all play WoW!!! Most of them have never raided or done pvp, they literally just like leveling together and hanging out together.
Why WoW would fail today:
1) No longer a superior product
That's all you need to say. Vanilla WoW with updated graphics would not be the best MMO on the market. It would have less content than a lot of MMOs. The grouping would put people off. The subscription would put yet more off.
Sure, they could market the shit out of it again and it'd do OK, but it wouldn't have the success you think it would.
If you want an example, look at LotRO. Bigger world, better IP, deeper combat, less bugs and similar content / group focus, but with more social features. Vanilla LotRO > Vanilla WoW. But, by the time LotRO launched, WoW had had 2 years of new content and bug fixing, so Vanilla LotRO <= 2007 WoW.
There are plenty of other themeparks that have been released post-WoW that are better than vanilla wow, certainly in terms of pure features and content (IP is obviously subjective). Some have even had really big advertising budgets.
Things i miss seeing in MMO and now this may be a shock to people but this is my list of thing i want to see come back to MMO's
-Corpse runs or some kinda death penalty, you should fear death and try and advoid it not die to get to point b quicker as its often used as nowadays (Bonus with corpse runs was that when you died people often helped you retrieve your good because they know what it like to be in those shoes, they have been there) Once got wiped near the end of a raid zone and 2 other guilds formed a raid to assist in getting back to where we were so we could retrieve out goods
- Weight/encumbrance - This had a place imo, it made the world feel a little more real when you had limited weight and had to decide if you wanted to carry this heavy item or throw it out for somthing that just dropped. There a reason why its in games like Diablo and other RPG games why was it removed for MMORPG i dont know
- Trains/No Mob leash lines, There somthing satisfying about running for your life to the nearest NPC guard or out of a dungeon, it makes the world feel more releastic where mob will chase you out of there home instead of 10meters then stopping like and be like fuck it i cant be bothered running any further. It also adds a sense of unpredictability at times which can break up a typical run of the mill grind and keeps thing interesting.
- Many many factions and u wernt locked into any, you could kill you own guards and loose faction with that city but gain faction else where. You could literaly become allies with mobs that were typically KoS to everyone else and sometimes they had secret quests
- Quests that actually felt epic, not these go fetch me 5 bones or other errand type quests.
- No instant travel, this makes the world feel so much largers and more epic, you usualy hanged round a zone or area for awhile before going on an adventure for green pastures due to XP on the current area wasnt as good anymore.
When you don't want the truth, you will make up your own truth.
Current WoW looks better than GW2 IMO, art styles aside.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
As for myself, sure I miss some of the things from vanilla, but on the other hand, there was more than enough screwed up things to loathe as well.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
I don't agree with the Op but your reasons are quite pathetic especially the PVP bit. WOW at the start wasn't meant to be a PVP mmo it was a PVE mmo hence why they introduced battle grounds instead of Tarren Mills.
EQ end game was just the same if not worst. Crafting in EQ wasn't a dream come true. Levelling in EQ was nothing but kill quest and even to today most mmos are.
I don't the classes we're that unbalanced, all had strenth and weaknesses. As a European player I didn't suffer frombmajor server queues.
All in all your points are pretty relevant to any mmo today but you keep convincing yourself they are not lol.
One can be stuck at level 30-40 in vanilla WoW just so they can do Gnomeregan, Maraudon, Scarlett Monastery Uldaman all day and those are detailed as hell dungeons compare to the games that came after it for lower level contents.
EQ2 was just as good for that and it came before but Vanguard kicked WOW ass for what you describe and that came after WOW.
No mmo comes close to Vanguard for low level content IMO and I've played most.
The first expansion removed allot of what made the game good in the long haul and it has got progressively worst every expansion since. i still subscribe each expansion for a few month but thats all the time its worth and the sad thing is its an old game yet i am yet to see a developer spend the time and money to release a game as good. they are all for the quick buck.
That alone deserves respect, like it or love it.
That and plus Vanguard's world is too big and requires too much traveling. The tyranny of distance is too big to overcome if a player only has time for shorter game sessions.