I don't think your characterization of Eve as a hardcore game is accurate. At least in the sense people use "hardcore" when talking about say Vanguard.
You could never login to Eve except to assign training (literally maybe 5 hours of time over a year) and have a pretty good skill set going, and with those skills you could run missions for a fairly negligible amount of time to get a pretty well tricked out ship wise.
I'm not saying this is good or bad, but a lot of Eve people actually play the game because it can be done non-hardcore and still be quite competitive. That doesn't mean going all hardcore doesn't have its advantages etc. And Eve may attract a hardcore crowd as well. But I think games like Vanguard are more of a magnet for the crowd you are talking about.
I agree with your assessment 100%. The training of skills is not hardcore. The results of PvP death can be catastrophic which is why I called it hardcore. Losing your ship and possibly all or part of your skill set is pretty severe. I know that insurance is in game to ease the death penalty, but nonetheless the death penalty is severe. This is VERY attractive to people that frequent this site.
Also, the grind for resources and isk is hardcore. Nothing about gaining isk in that game can even be remotely compared to "fun".
Originally posted by PB&J Originally posted by gestalt11
I don't think your characterization of Eve as a hardcore game is accurate. At least in the sense people use "hardcore" when talking about say Vanguard.
You could never login to Eve except to assign training (literally maybe 5 hours of time over a year) and have a pretty good skill set going, and with those skills you could run missions for a fairly negligible amount of time to get a pretty well tricked out ship wise.
I'm not saying this is good or bad, but a lot of Eve people actually play the game because it can be done non-hardcore and still be quite competitive. That doesn't mean going all hardcore doesn't have its advantages etc. And Eve may attract a hardcore crowd as well. But I think games like Vanguard are more of a magnet for the crowd you are talking about.
I agree with your assessment 100%. The training of skills is not hardcore. The results of PvP death can be catastrophic which is why I called it hardcore. Losing your ship and possibly all or part of your skill set is pretty severe. I know that insurance is in game to ease the death penalty, but nonetheless the death penalty is severe. This is VERY attractive to people that frequent this site.
Also, the grind for resources and isk is hardcore. Nothing about gaining isk in that game can even be remotely compared to "fun".
I dunno its hard for me to say because the term "hardcore" gets thrown around in rather silly ways. For some its significant losses, which most certainly has. For others its just serious timesink/reward cycles. You must raid for 6 hours or you aren't hardcore etc. Plus they also get smooshed together like they are related.
However I don't fully agree abotu the ISK grind. I think that is true for large corporation need for resources, but individually you can earn quite a good amount of money causually by doing missions.
Now I will admit there is an active lobby in Eve that doesn't like the fact that people are making good money mission running in empire space, but I don't think they are that powerful.
I do agree that this site has an active lobby for "hardcore" but I really don't think its the majority, at least that is not the sense I get from various threads here.
Frankly hardcore has been consistently "nerfed" since before MMOs even existed. MUDs started nerfing Death penalties before EQ was ever coded. And the trend is just continuing. When my old MUD nefered the death penalty from 1/3 of total lifetime xp to 1/4 of total life time xp, 80% of the people just breathed a sigh of relief, although there were 20% that didn't like it.
Same thing happened on the Auto Assault boards at release, you got this Death Penalty lobby that got shouted down by a majority.
Originally posted by Gameloading If you have any better ways to prove that a diffrent MMO then WoW is the best, then by all means, post it here. although I seriously doubt it will be more then: "I don't like this and I like that feature in game A better"
Hmm a better method then simply counting the number of people who play a game without ever looking at their reasons for playing that game? Let me think…
How about: surveying a large number of people with experience from multiple games. Make sure you account for a number of key factors and gear it towards a western cultural perspective because that that’s the primary audience of an English language web site.
It seems like we already have a system like that, but you don’t like it because it doesn’t give the results you want to see.
I dunno its hard for me to say because the term "hardcore" gets thrown around in rather silly ways. For some its significant losses, which most certainly has. For others its just serious timesink/reward cycles. You must raid for 6 hours or you aren't hardcore etc. Plus they also get smooshed together like they are related.
However I don't fully agree abotu the ISK grind. I think that is true for large corporation need for resources, but individually you can earn quite a good amount of money causually by doing missions.
Now I will admit there is an active lobby in Eve that doesn't like the fact that people are making good money mission running in empire space, but I don't think they are that powerful.
I do agree that this site has an active lobby for "hardcore" but I really don't think its the majority, at least that is not the sense I get from various threads here.
Frankly hardcore has been consistently "nerfed" since before MMOs even existed. MUDs started nerfing Death penalties before EQ was ever coded. And the trend is just continuing. When my old MUD nefered the death penalty from 1/3 of total lifetime xp to 1/4 of total life time xp, 80% of the people just breathed a sigh of relief, although there were 20% that didn't like it.
Same thing happened on the Auto Assault boards at release, you got this Death Penalty lobby that got shouted down by a majority.
It is a little freaky how consistent it is.
EVE missions are a timesink. They are fun at the beginning but they are so repetitive that it quicly becomes a borning grind for cash or items. How many times do I need to save the damsel?
Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why people love EVE. But the game itself is not well rounded and does not belong as the top game. People that like EVE like it for one reason, corporation warfare. It is rated the top game on this site due to this one specfic feature of the game. Open ended PvP with harsh death penalties. I hope it lives a long life because people that like this sort of thing in a game do deserve to have it stay viable.
The reason that the hardcorish nature of MMOG's is changing is that "hardcore" games just don't sell well enough to make a good profit. A company looking to maximize profits is going to make a game that has broad appeal. EVE is not one of thoe games. WoW is. And it also the reason EVE is rated the top game on this site. It is popular with gamers that like their games harsh, a.k.a MMORPG.com gamers.
Not sure about all the food analogies here... a better comparison would be to the movies.
Many great films never score with the mass market, and many commercially successful films are rather forgetable.
From a business perspective, making the most money is what counts..but from an artisitic perspective, evaluations can prove to be quite different. You can bet... the people who made Eve probably would have preferred to be in Blizzards financial position if it was possible.
I play WOW regularly and enjoy my time there. I agree, the endgame is a bit weak if you don't get into high end raiding or spend dozens of hours on the BG's.
The rating spread between the top 10 games and WOW is not severe.... minor differences and of course, WOW caters to a certain audience.
Play whatever game entertains you.... heck, I've been tempted to play Eve... just to see what the top rated game is like.
And COH/COV higher than WOW? Total nonsense...there's two games with zero endgame...get to 50 and quit.... but that's just my opinion.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Originally posted by PB&J Originally posted by gestalt11
I dunno its hard for me to say because the term "hardcore" gets thrown around in rather silly ways. For some its significant losses, which most certainly has. For others its just serious timesink/reward cycles. You must raid for 6 hours or you aren't hardcore etc. Plus they also get smooshed together like they are related.
However I don't fully agree abotu the ISK grind. I think that is true for large corporation need for resources, but individually you can earn quite a good amount of money causually by doing missions.
Now I will admit there is an active lobby in Eve that doesn't like the fact that people are making good money mission running in empire space, but I don't think they are that powerful.
I do agree that this site has an active lobby for "hardcore" but I really don't think its the majority, at least that is not the sense I get from various threads here.
Frankly hardcore has been consistently "nerfed" since before MMOs even existed. MUDs started nerfing Death penalties before EQ was ever coded. And the trend is just continuing. When my old MUD nefered the death penalty from 1/3 of total lifetime xp to 1/4 of total life time xp, 80% of the people just breathed a sigh of relief, although there were 20% that didn't like it.
Same thing happened on the Auto Assault boards at release, you got this Death Penalty lobby that got shouted down by a majority.
It is a little freaky how consistent it is.
EVE missions are a timesink. They are fun at the beginning but they are so repetitive that it quicly becomes a borning grind for cash or items. How many times do I need to save the damsel?
Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why people love EVE. But the game itself is not well rounded and does not belong as the top game. People that like EVE like it for one reason, corporation warfare. It is rated the top game on this site due to this one specfic feature of the game. Open ended PvP with harsh death penalties. I hope it lives a long life because people that like this sort of thing in a game do deserve to have it stay viable.
The reason that the hardcorish nature of MMOG's is changing is that "hardcore" games just don't sell well enough to make a good profit. A company looking to maximize profits is going to make a game that has broad appeal. EVE is not one of thoe games. WoW is. And it also the reason EVE is rated the top game on this site. It is popular with gamers that like their games harsh, a.k.a MMORPG.com gamers.
Oh yeah Eve missions are definitely repetitive, I hope no one tries to argue they aren't. That's preposterous. I'm just saying time-wise its not that bad. You can get your self kitted out for a good run of pvp or whatever with a fairly quick casual run of missions.
I certainly don't consider them fun though. Some people do. Some people just run them and like it, but um well to each their own.
I made a classic mistake in economics, sure thing.
but the thing is, I am NOT talking about economics. I am talking about the quality of the game. and I wonder what this decent teacher wil tell me. "Look son, millions of people love to play WoW, it received the highest ratings, the most awards, and the most players, but its not the best game, because I say so"
gg teacher.
LOL you are the one who is insisting on ignoring the ratings and simply saying a game is the best for no other reason that you think it is. All you have presented are account numbers, but what value are they in this discussion, sure millions of people play WoW, that says nothing about why they play it and it says nothing about why they play it. Without such context the numbers mean nothing.
This is why people always bring up the McDonalds analogy when you try to claim numbers have anything to do with quality. Millions of people eat at McDonalds every day, but without looking at why they eat at McDonalds you know nothing so you can’t simply assume that because so many people eat there they make the highest quality food.
People play WoW for any number of different reasons, but one very important thing to remember is fewer then 1/2 of WoW’s North American subscribers have ever played any other MMO. In Europe that number is more like 20%. This means that 2/3 of all WoW subscriptions/monthly time cards have no point of reference with any other MMO and can therefore tell you absolutely nothing about the comparative quality of various MMOs.
Of the remaining 1/3 people can choose to play for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with quality. The primary one is because their friends, who have never tried any other MMO, play it. Another is that it’s an “in” thing to do in popular culture and you would be surprised at how many people follow the fads regardless of quality. Another is marketing, it’s often the most important factor in the success of a product and has almost nothing to do with quality.
So, at the end of the day you have only a relatively small number of subscribers who Play WoW because they have tried a lot of MMO’s and think WoW is the best one for them. In other MMO’s that percentage is much much higher so there is simply no way you can compare quality based on the number of accounts a game has.
Originally posted by Gameloading I made a classic mistake in economics, sure thing.
but the thing is, I am NOT talking about economics. I am talking about the quality of the game. and I wonder what this decent teacher wil tell me. "Look son, millions of people love to play WoW, it received the highest ratings, the most awards, and the most players, but its not the best game, because I say so"
gg teacher.
LOL you are the one who is insisting on ignoring the ratings and simply saying a game is the best for no other reason that you think it is. All you have presented are account numbers, but what value are they in this discussion, sure millions of people play WoW, that says nothing about why they play it and it says nothing about why they play it. Without such context the numbers mean nothing.
Sir, I strongly recommend you actually read my post first before you make a comment
This is why people always bring up the McDonalds analogy when you try to claim numbers have anything to do with quality. Millions of people eat at McDonalds every day, but without looking at why they eat at McDonalds you know nothing so you can’t simply assume that because so many people eat there they make the highest quality food.
Again, I shall prove why this theory is flawed. World of Warcraft is popular for a number of reasons. one, Blizzard and the warcraft tag, and two, more important, it just is a game of very high quality. why is Mcdonalds popular? Mcdonalds is everywhere. its easy to reach, and its food is cheap , and for a fast food restaurant, the food isn't all that bad. another reason are little children. the toy inside happy meal, anyone? None of those count for WoW. is WoW easy to get? Yeah, but not anymore then other MMORPG's. you can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. is WoW cheap? heck no, its just as expensive as any other mmorpg. the food branch and MMORPG gaming business simply can't be compared to each other.
People play WoW for any number of different reasons, but one very important thing to remember is fewer then 1/2 of WoW’s North American subscribers have ever played any other MMO. In Europe that number is more like 20%. This means that 2/3 of all WoW subscriptions/monthly time cards have no point of reference with any other MMO and can therefore tell you absolutely nothing about the comparative quality of various MMOs.
This has never been proven, people ASSUME its like that. and even if it is, lets say 1/2 never played an mmorpg in NA. how many subscribers does WoW have in NA? I believe it was 1,5 million. half of that is STILL 700k players which is STILL about 4x the subscriber base of ANY OTHER WESTERN MMORPG. Not to mention MMORPG's are big in Asia, close to everybody played an MMO before. I'm willing to bet that at least 80% of the asian players played another MMORPG besides WoW. for the record, there are over 2 million WoW current players in Asia.
Of the remaining 1/3 people can choose to play for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with quality. The primary one is because their friends, who have never tried any other MMO, play it. Another is that it’s an “in” thing to do in popular culture and you would be surprised at how many people follow the fads regardless of quality. Another is marketing, it’s often the most important factor in the success of a product and has almost nothing to do with quality.
Forgive me, but I have never heard somebody say :"Hey, look at me, I'm a wow player, i'm so cool now!". mind you, this DOES counts for other business such as the music branch, but this does not count for games. there is no "In" in mmorpg's. Blizzard are indeed expert when it comes to marketing, but saying they have 7 million players just because they have good marketing is ignorant. the "play with friend" thing is not any higher then other MMO's.
So, at the end of the day you have only a relatively small number of subscribers who Play WoW because they have tried a lot of MMO’s and think WoW is the best one for them. In other MMO’s that percentage is much much higher so there is simply no way you can compare quality based on the number of accounts a game has.
Originally posted by lomiller Originally posted by Gameloading If you have any better ways to prove that a diffrent MMO then WoW is the best, then by all means, post it here. although I seriously doubt it will be more then: "I don't like this and I like that feature in game A better"
Hmm a better method then simply counting the number of people who play a game without ever looking at their reasons for playing that game? Let me think…
How about: surveying a large number of people with experience from multiple games. Make sure you account for a number of key factors and gear it towards a western cultural perspective because that that’s the primary audience of an English language web site.
It seems like we already have a system like that, but you don’t like it because it doesn’t give the results you want to see.
Really? I seriously hope you don't want to name the ratings on this site, because I'm just going to laugh then. People with experience from multiple games...hmm..how about...people who's JOB is to play games (of which MMORPG's) and rate them? ah yes, reviewers! and, ding ding, WoW is rated the best mmorpg by close to every gaming magazine, website, and program.
the ratings on this site are so incredibly flawed, its not funny anymore. CCP, the people behind EVE, have made mention of mmorpg.com a lot of times. this site is home to a lot of EVE players, simple as that. not to mention that popular things are always hated the most.
Originally posted by DarthNeo I dont play WOW...I have not played anything since SWG and am about to start playign Guild Wars, but how is WOW not on this sites list of Highest Rated MMO's if sooooooooooooo many people play it?
more important, it just is a game of very high quality
And other mmos are not? What is more significant about WoW is that it is accessible and allows for casual play.
hy is Mcdonalds popular? Mcdonalds is everywhere. its easy to reach, and its food is cheap , and for a fast food restaurant, the food isn't all that bad. another reason are little children.
Food being cheap- so is every other fish and chip place. And why do you think it is everywhere?
Really? I seriously hope you don't want to name the ratings on this site, because I'm just going to laugh then. People with experience from multiple games...hmm..how about...people who's JOB is to play games (of which MMORPG's) and rate them? ah yes, reviewers! and, ding ding, WoW is rated the best mmorpg by close to every gaming magazine, website, and program.
And how many of those reviewers play the game through? Playing a mmorpg isn't about playing 1 month and thinking wow this is good! How many of those reviewers had played another mmorpg? Judging by the fact, that WoW had a lot more reviewers not very many. And are they rating it the 'best mmorpg', or are they in fact giving it a good rating and you are therefore concluding it must therefore be the best mmorpg?
And what about when all these new games are out: Age of Conan, Warhammer etc. They aren't going to get the same numbers as WoW and might very well get a general rating lower than WoW, are you still going to say ' WOW IS THE BEST MMORPG111!!!!'
Originally posted by Copeland McDonald's has sold over 20 billion hamburgers. Clearly McDonalds has the best tasting hamburgers. How is it they aren't a 5 star restaurant? Maybe it's because although millions of people will eat a Mcdonalds hamburger because it's easy and familiar they don't feel it's fine dining. WoW is a perfectly functioning game. It has familiar quests, races and abilities. It's not buggy and it has a reputable company running it. At the same time it's simplistic, lacks challenge and any originality outside of the Warcraft setting. It's been said many times that if it's your first MMO it's a great MMO. If it's not your first MMO well it's an ok game but it's nothing special. That is why a website with many veteran gamers would not rate the game as highly as a person who got their first experience with the game. It's not a bad game though.
Really? I seriously hope you don't want to name the ratings on this site, because I'm just going to laugh then. People with experience from multiple games...hmm..how about...people who's JOB is to play games (of which MMORPG's) and rate them? ah yes, reviewers! and, ding ding, WoW is rated the best mmorpg by close to every gaming magazine, website, and program.
And how many of those reviewers play the game through? Playing a mmorpg isn't about playing 1 month and thinking wow this is good! How many of those reviewers had played another mmorpg? Judging by the fact, that WoW had a lot more reviewers not very many. And are they rating it the 'best mmorpg', or are they in fact giving it a good rating and you are therefore concluding it must therefore be the best mmorpg?
You can simply see that in the history of the reviewer in question. and yes, I indeed conclude that WoW is the best mmorpg because close to every reviewer gave it a higher score then any other mmorpg, and ofcourse, all the awards WoW received. If you have any other way to conclude what the best mmorpg is, other then "Because I say so!", then by all means, post it here.
And what about when all these new games are out: Age of Conan, Warhammer etc. They aren't going to get the same numbers as WoW and might very well get a general rating lower than WoW, are you still going to say ' WOW IS THE BEST MMORPG111!!!!'
That is up to the quality of those games, ofcourse.
if AoC and Warhammer score lower then WoW, then I indeed will say those games are of lesser quality.
Originally posted by Gameloading Originally posted by lomiller
Originally posted by Gameloading I made a classic mistake in economics, sure thing.
but the thing is, I am NOT talking about economics. I am talking about the quality of the game. and I wonder what this decent teacher wil tell me. "Look son, millions of people love to play WoW, it received the highest ratings, the most awards, and the most players, but its not the best game, because I say so"
gg teacher.
LOL you are the one who is insisting on ignoring the ratings and simply saying a game is the best for no other reason that you think it is. All you have presented are account numbers, but what value are they in this discussion, sure millions of people play WoW, that says nothing about why they play it and it says nothing about why they play it. Without such context the numbers mean nothing.
Sir, I strongly recommend you actually read my post first before you make a comment
This is why people always bring up the McDonalds analogy when you try to claim numbers have anything to do with quality. Millions of people eat at McDonalds every day, but without looking at why they eat at McDonalds you know nothing so you can’t simply assume that because so many people eat there they make the highest quality food.
Again, I shall prove why this theory is flawed. World of Warcraft is popular for a number of reasons. one, Blizzard and the warcraft tag, and two, more important, it just is a game of very high quality. why is Mcdonalds popular? Mcdonalds is everywhere. its easy to reach, and its food is cheap , and for a fast food restaurant, the food isn't all that bad. another reason are little children. the toy inside happy meal, anyone? None of those count for WoW. is WoW easy to get? Yeah, but not anymore then other MMORPG's. you can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. is WoW cheap? heck no, its just as expensive as any other mmorpg. the food branch and MMORPG gaming business simply can't be compared to each other.
Rotten Ronnies is popular because it's fast, cheap and they advertise the fuck out of it. Their food is nowhere near to the 'best' when it comes to fast food, both health wise and quality wise. I also highly doubtful the crappy little toy they give with happy meals is a major factor, in case you haven't noticed almost all fast food joints give one out now. You can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. Really? When is the last time you saw EVE in stores, or AO for that matter. No only the the new MMO's or those with big publishers behind them that have the resources to pay big advertising $$ have any real shelf presence. You are disregarding advertising as a major source of new subs.
People play WoW for any number of different reasons, but one very important thing to remember is fewer then 1/2 of WoW’s North American subscribers have ever played any other MMO. In Europe that number is more like 20%. This means that 2/3 of all WoW subscriptions/monthly time cards have no point of reference with any other MMO and can therefore tell you absolutely nothing about the comparative quality of various MMOs.
This has never been proven, people ASSUME its like that. and even if it is, lets say 1/2 never played an mmorpg in NA. how many subscribers does WoW have in NA? I believe it was 1,5 million. half of that is STILL 700k players which is STILL about 4x the subscriber base of ANY OTHER WESTERN MMORPG. Not to mention MMORPG's are big in Asia, close to everybody played an MMO before. I'm willing to bet that at least 80% of the asian players played another MMORPG besides WoW. for the record, there are over 2 million WoW current players in Asia.
The fact that before WoW was released there was about 6 million MMO subscribers worldwide, and after WoW's release there are close to 14 million. WoW also has over 6.5 million subs worldwide. I'd say that's pretty conclusive evidence that the majority of WoW's playerbase are new to MMO's in general. Oh, and FYI 2/3 of WoW's playerbase is in china, over 4 million of their 6.5 million are located in china.
Of the remaining 1/3 people can choose to play for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with quality. The primary one is because their friends, who have never tried any other MMO, play it. Another is that it’s an “in” thing to do in popular culture and you would be surprised at how many people follow the fads regardless of quality. Another is marketing, it’s often the most important factor in the success of a product and has almost nothing to do with quality.
Forgive me, but I have never heard somebody say :"Hey, look at me, I'm a wow player, i'm so cool now!". mind you, this DOES counts for other business such as the music branch, but this does not count for games. there is no "In" in mmorpg's. Blizzard are indeed expert when it comes to marketing, but saying they have 7 million players just because they have good marketing is ignorant. the "play with friend" thing is not any higher then other MMO's.
You are naive if you don't think it happens with games. I have numerous non-gamer friends who were brought into WoW because another one of my friends played it. It happens ALL THE TIME. It's called word-of-mouth advertising. Same thing happens in all forms of entertainment media.
So, at the end of the day you have only a relatively small number of subscribers who Play WoW because they have tried a lot of MMO’s and think WoW is the best one for them. In other MMO’s that percentage is much much higher so there is simply no way you can compare quality based on the number of accounts a game has.
You can simply see that in the history of the reviewer in question.
No doubt some reviewers might have.
yes, I indeed conclude that WoW is the best mmorpg because close to every reviewer gave it a higher score then any other mmorpg, and ofcourse, all the awards WoW received. If you have any other way to conclude what the best mmorpg is, other then "Because I say so!", then by all means, post it here.
So by the same measures, you can deduce the best rts, best game, best movie, best book? Do you live by that? I certainly don't.
That is up to the quality of those games, ofcourse. if AoC and Warhammer score lower then WoW, then I indeed will say those games are of lesser quality.
Nope, really don't agree with your logic of how you define things. If those games are good, then there is no way I could deduce one has a better quality than the other. Usually reviewers go by certain criteria and most more prominently is their own bias.
Remember that reviewers or critics, in any area of entertainment not just MMORPGs, are not necessarily looking for the same things in a movie that the regular fan base is looking for. As an example, you can probably name a few movies that received extremely high critical acclaim, and that you went to see or rented, and thought, "Buh?? What was so great about that?" And how many times has an utter trash film received an Academy Award (Oscar), superceding a host of movies that were CLEARLY superior to it in the minds of everyone else but the Academy itself? Lots of times people will say, "They gave THIS an oscar but didn't even nominate that other one? Huh?"
Now, the reason for this isn't that critics or the academy are stupid (well, many are, but not all), or that they don't know what they're talking about. But sometimes the critics are looking for things in a film that are not entertaining to most people. For example they might give an otherwise mediocre movie that has an unexpectedly good performance by one actor on the cast, a higher rating because "even though the movies was bad, the performance was worth the box office price." Most moviegoers, however, are NOT going to a movie as critics and not evaluating the performances, and if the rest of the movie sucks they are generally not going to care whether one person turned in an oscar-winning performance. Critics can often find something to be "good" or "bad" based on aesthetics that most normal people, just going to enjoy the thing, wouldn't care about.
The same goes with rating WOW or any other MMORPG. The reviewer might be looking for things that the player is not. The things that make the reviewer give it a good rating, might not do so for the regular player. For example, if you actually look at WOW's rating here, and examine the review comments in any detail, WOW actually has a solid rating in many areas but it suffers massively in two: the community (which, to be fair, the devs can only impact in a limited way) and the Customer Service. I don't play WOW so I have no idea what these aspects of the game are actually like, but it is very liikely that these would be "below the radar" to many reviewers, who may well not have any occasion (during their review period) to contact the CSRs, and may not care one way or the other about the community. To the typical player, though, a game with a bad community and bad CSR is not going to be enjoyable over the long term.
I'm not saying these relatively low ratings in those areas for WOW here at MMORPG.COM are accurate... but I am saying that the "professional critics" often are looking at things that the players are not... that they may consider to be important, something the players couldn't care less about... and that they may consider to be of lesser importance, something that is paramount to the players. For instance, everyone I personally know who plays MMORPGS will say that the community can make or break a game. If most players feel that way, and if WOW's community is relatively poor compared to the games above it, then that would explain why the player ratings are lower than those of "the academy."
Originally posted by Minsc Originally posted by Gameloading
Originally posted by lomiller
Originally posted by Gameloading I made a classic mistake in economics, sure thing.
but the thing is, I am NOT talking about economics. I am talking about the quality of the game. and I wonder what this decent teacher wil tell me. "Look son, millions of people love to play WoW, it received the highest ratings, the most awards, and the most players, but its not the best game, because I say so"
gg teacher.
LOL you are the one who is insisting on ignoring the ratings and simply saying a game is the best for no other reason that you think it is. All you have presented are account numbers, but what value are they in this discussion, sure millions of people play WoW, that says nothing about why they play it and it says nothing about why they play it. Without such context the numbers mean nothing.
Sir, I strongly recommend you actually read my post first before you make a comment
This is why people always bring up the McDonalds analogy when you try to claim numbers have anything to do with quality. Millions of people eat at McDonalds every day, but without looking at why they eat at McDonalds you know nothing so you can’t simply assume that because so many people eat there they make the highest quality food.
Again, I shall prove why this theory is flawed. World of Warcraft is popular for a number of reasons. one, Blizzard and the warcraft tag, and two, more important, it just is a game of very high quality. why is Mcdonalds popular? Mcdonalds is everywhere. its easy to reach, and its food is cheap , and for a fast food restaurant, the food isn't all that bad. another reason are little children. the toy inside happy meal, anyone? None of those count for WoW. is WoW easy to get? Yeah, but not anymore then other MMORPG's. you can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. is WoW cheap? heck no, its just as expensive as any other mmorpg. the food branch and MMORPG gaming business simply can't be compared to each other.
Rotten Ronnies is popular because it's fast, cheap and they advertise the fuck out of it. Their food is nowhere near to the 'best' when it comes to fast food, both health wise and quality wise. I also highly doubtful the crappy little toy they give with happy meals is a major factor, in case you haven't noticed almost all fast food joints give one out now. You can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. Really? When is the last time you saw EVE in stores, or AO for that matter. No only the the new MMO's or those with big publishers behind them that have the resources to pay big advertising $$ have any real shelf presence. You are disregarding advertising as a major source of new subs.
AO and EVE are indeed hard to find these days in stores, I give you that, but in counter arguement, EVE is advertised on about every corner of the internet, it even has an ad on the official Microsoft webpage. AO is not as badly advertised, but we are talking about a really old game here.
Following a social worker course myself, and interacting with children every day, I can tell you that the stupid toy actually DOES Have a major influence on the kids.
People play WoW for any number of different reasons, but one very important thing to remember is fewer then 1/2 of WoW’s North American subscribers have ever played any other MMO. In Europe that number is more like 20%. This means that 2/3 of all WoW subscriptions/monthly time cards have no point of reference with any other MMO and can therefore tell you absolutely nothing about the comparative quality of various MMOs.
This has never been proven, people ASSUME its like that. and even if it is, lets say 1/2 never played an mmorpg in NA. how many subscribers does WoW have in NA? I believe it was 1,5 million. half of that is STILL 700k players which is STILL about 4x the subscriber base of ANY OTHER WESTERN MMORPG. Not to mention MMORPG's are big in Asia, close to everybody played an MMO before. I'm willing to bet that at least 80% of the asian players played another MMORPG besides WoW. for the record, there are over 2 million WoW current players in Asia.
The fact that before WoW was released there was about 6 million MMO subscribers worldwide, and after WoW's release there are close to 14 million. WoW also has over 6.5 million subs worldwide. I'd say that's pretty conclusive evidence that the majority of WoW's playerbase are new to MMO's in general. Oh, and FYI 2/3 of WoW's playerbase is in china, over 4 million of their 6.5 million are located in china.
Around the same time, big popular titles in Asia increased the mmorpg players by a large amount. especialy after the release of Lineage 2: The Chaotic Chronicle and Rising Force Online. that is no guarentee that the majority are new players, far from it. in fact, I'll ask you to back up the statement that the mmorpg market contained 6 million subscribers before the release of WoW. from the latest news I heard, only 2,5 million subscribers are from asia, not 4 million subscribers. again, back that up please.
Of the remaining 1/3 people can choose to play for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with quality. The primary one is because their friends, who have never tried any other MMO, play it. Another is that it’s an “in” thing to do in popular culture and you would be surprised at how many people follow the fads regardless of quality. Another is marketing, it’s often the most important factor in the success of a product and has almost nothing to do with quality.
Forgive me, but I have never heard somebody say :"Hey, look at me, I'm a wow player, i'm so cool now!". mind you, this DOES counts for other business such as the music branch, but this does not count for games. there is no "In" in mmorpg's. Blizzard are indeed expert when it comes to marketing, but saying they have 7 million players just because they have good marketing is ignorant. the "play with friend" thing is not any higher then other MMO's.
You are naive if you don't think it happens with games. I have numerous non-gamer friends who were brought into WoW because another one of my friends played it. It happens ALL THE TIME. It's called word-of-mouth advertising. Same thing happens in all forms of entertainment media.
That is something diffrent. that is playing because a friend is playing. your friend is not playing because its "in" or "cool", he's playing to play the same game as his friend.
So, at the end of the day you have only a relatively small number of subscribers who Play WoW because they have tried a lot of MMO’s and think WoW is the best one for them. In other MMO’s that percentage is much much higher so there is simply no way you can compare quality based on the number of accounts a game has.
Originally posted by Gameloading Originally posted by lomiller
Originally posted by Gameloading If you have any better ways to prove that a diffrent MMO then WoW is the best, then by all means, post it here. although I seriously doubt it will be more then: "I don't like this and I like that feature in game A better"
Hmm a better method then simply counting the number of people who play a game without ever looking at their reasons for playing that game? Let me think…
How about: surveying a large number of people with experience from multiple games. Make sure you account for a number of key factors and gear it towards a western cultural perspective because that that’s the primary audience of an English language web site.
It seems like we already have a system like that, but you don’t like it because it doesn’t give the results you want to see.
Really? I seriously hope you don't want to name the ratings on this site, because I'm just going to laugh then. People with experience from multiple games...hmm..how about...people who's JOB is to play games (of which MMORPG's) and rate them? ah yes, reviewers! and, ding ding, WoW is rated the best mmorpg by close to every gaming magazine, website, and program.
How many of those reviewers, now that the game has been out for 2 years, would go back and give it as good of or better score? When the game came out the reviewers played for a couple of weeks and gave their impressions. IMO those type of reviews are not entirely valid for MMO's. All MMO's evolve over time and should be reviewed on a yearly basis. I'm willing to bet if many of those sites were to review the current state of WoW, it would score lower in many areas than it did on launch. If you look at current reviews of gamerankings.com for EVE, it's sitting at 89%, just 2% below WoW. The newest WoW reviews are from 2005, it hasn't been reviewed by any site in over a year. You honestly think that reviewers would still hold the same opinion of the game now that they've played it to the endgame?
the ratings on this site are so incredibly flawed, its not funny anymore. CCP, the people behind EVE, have made mention of mmorpg.com a lot of times. this site is home to a lot of EVE players, simple as that. not to mention that popular things are always hated the most.
No they haven't and no it isn't. CCP has mentioned MMORPG.com a total of 1 time, when it was put up for the MMORPG.com awards. They didn't tell the players to come vote it up, just as they don't tell them to hype the game up. And if you try and come back and say they do you better damn well include links, or your just plain full of shit.
The amount of EVE players that come to this site on regular basis is less than 30 by my estimation, the rest of the 170K'ish players just don't give a shit TBH. This is a tired old argument that has been disproven many times and you need to stop using it. I'm about ready to make up a cut-and-paste response so I don't have to waste my time on it anymore.
ow many of those reviewers, now that the game has been out for 2 years, would go back and give it as good of or better score? When the game came out the reviewers played for a couple of weeks and gave their impressions. IMO those type of reviews are not entirely valid for MMO's. All MMO's evolve over time and should be reviewed on a yearly basis. I'm willing to bet if many of those sites were to review the current state of WoW, it would score lower in many areas than it did on launch. If you look at current reviews of gamerankings.com for EVE, it's sitting at 89%, just 2% below WoW. The newest WoW reviews are from 2005, it hasn't been reviewed by any site in over a year. You honestly think that reviewers would still hold the same opinion of the game now that they've played it to the endgame?
You will see plenty of new reviews for WoW after Burning Crusade comes out.
Originally posted by Minsc Originally posted by Gameloading
Originally posted by lomiller
Originally posted by Gameloading If you have any better ways to prove that a diffrent MMO then WoW is the best, then by all means, post it here. although I seriously doubt it will be more then: "I don't like this and I like that feature in game A better"
Hmm a better method then simply counting the number of people who play a game without ever looking at their reasons for playing that game? Let me think…
How about: surveying a large number of people with experience from multiple games. Make sure you account for a number of key factors and gear it towards a western cultural perspective because that that’s the primary audience of an English language web site.
It seems like we already have a system like that, but you don’t like it because it doesn’t give the results you want to see.
Really? I seriously hope you don't want to name the ratings on this site, because I'm just going to laugh then. People with experience from multiple games...hmm..how about...people who's JOB is to play games (of which MMORPG's) and rate them? ah yes, reviewers! and, ding ding, WoW is rated the best mmorpg by close to every gaming magazine, website, and program.
How many of those reviewers, now that the game has been out for 2 years, would go back and give it as good of or better score? When the game came out the reviewers played for a couple of weeks and gave their impressions. IMO those type of reviews are not entirely valid for MMO's. All MMO's evolve over time and should be reviewed on a yearly basis. I'm willing to bet if many of those sites were to review the current state of WoW, it would score lower in many areas than it did on launch. If you look at current reviews of gamerankings.com for EVE, it's sitting at 89%, just 2% below WoW. The newest WoW reviews are from 2005, it hasn't been reviewed by any site in over a year. You honestly think that reviewers would still hold the same opinion of the game now that they've played it to the endgame?
And this is exactly why I recommend Proffesional reviews over just mmorpg fans such as yourself. If we take a look at the content added then we see that hardly anything changed lvl 1~60 starting from release. only additional content, and thats the endgame. and the important fact here is that the endgame is NOT the entire game. if you want to collect gear from lvl 60 then that is YOUR choice. there are plenty of other classes, race and a new faction to chose from. WoW's review would not change, since nothing has changed in WoW. only extra content has been added.
the ratings on this site are so incredibly flawed, its not funny anymore. CCP, the people behind EVE, have made mention of mmorpg.com a lot of times. this site is home to a lot of EVE players, simple as that. not to mention that popular things are always hated the most.
No they haven't and no it isn't. CCP has mentioned MMORPG.com a total of 1 time, when it was put up for the MMORPG.com awards. They didn't tell the players to come vote it up, just as they don't tell them to hype the game up. And if you try and come back and say they do you better damn well include links, or your just plain full of shit.
the fact that those awards are mentioned means, as I'm sure without the intention ofcourse, "come vote our game! looK! we got awards!". but the fact remains the same. this website is simply full of EVE players, or there would be no way in hell EVE would knock down a game such as World of Warcraft, which has 7 million subscribers, and thus in theory should make up the majority of this website. There are no requirements to write a review. two words is enough, you don't even have to play the game. the fact CCP received the award as best company proves my point. the customer support is a joke, and it really doesn't have anything special to it. Best Graphics? Everquest 2 and Lineage 2 are both graphic wise far more impressive. just like the awards, the ratings are biased and should not be taken seriously.
The amount of EVE players that come to this site on regular basis is less than 30 by my estimation, the rest of the 170K'ish players just don't give a shit TBH. This is a tired old argument that has been disproven many times and you need to stop using it. I'm about ready to make up a cut-and-paste response so I don't have to waste my time on it anymore.
Comments
Also, the grind for resources and isk is hardcore. Nothing about gaining isk in that game can even be remotely compared to "fun".
Also, the grind for resources and isk is hardcore. Nothing about gaining isk in that game can even be remotely compared to "fun".
I dunno its hard for me to say because the term "hardcore" gets thrown around in rather silly ways. For some its significant losses, which most certainly has. For others its just serious timesink/reward cycles. You must raid for 6 hours or you aren't hardcore etc. Plus they also get smooshed together like they are related.
However I don't fully agree abotu the ISK grind. I think that is true for large corporation need for resources, but individually you can earn quite a good amount of money causually by doing missions.
Now I will admit there is an active lobby in Eve that doesn't like the fact that people are making good money mission running in empire space, but I don't think they are that powerful.
I do agree that this site has an active lobby for "hardcore" but I really don't think its the majority, at least that is not the sense I get from various threads here.
Frankly hardcore has been consistently "nerfed" since before MMOs even existed. MUDs started nerfing Death penalties before EQ was ever coded. And the trend is just continuing. When my old MUD nefered the death penalty from 1/3 of total lifetime xp to 1/4 of total life time xp, 80% of the people just breathed a sigh of relief, although there were 20% that didn't like it.
Same thing happened on the Auto Assault boards at release, you got this Death Penalty lobby that got shouted down by a majority.
It is a little freaky how consistent it is.
Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why people love EVE. But the game itself is not well rounded and does not belong as the top game. People that like EVE like it for one reason, corporation warfare. It is rated the top game on this site due to this one specfic feature of the game. Open ended PvP with harsh death penalties. I hope it lives a long life because people that like this sort of thing in a game do deserve to have it stay viable.
The reason that the hardcorish nature of MMOG's is changing is that "hardcore" games just don't sell well enough to make a good profit. A company looking to maximize profits is going to make a game that has broad appeal. EVE is not one of thoe games. WoW is. And it also the reason EVE is rated the top game on this site. It is popular with gamers that like their games harsh, a.k.a MMORPG.com gamers.
Not sure about all the food analogies here... a better comparison would be to the movies.
Many great films never score with the mass market, and many commercially successful films are rather forgetable.
From a business perspective, making the most money is what counts..but from an artisitic perspective, evaluations can prove to be quite different. You can bet... the people who made Eve probably would have preferred to be in Blizzards financial position if it was possible.
I play WOW regularly and enjoy my time there. I agree, the endgame is a bit weak if you don't get into high end raiding or spend dozens of hours on the BG's.
The rating spread between the top 10 games and WOW is not severe.... minor differences and of course, WOW caters to a certain audience.
Play whatever game entertains you.... heck, I've been tempted to play Eve... just to see what the top rated game is like.
And COH/COV higher than WOW? Total nonsense...there's two games with zero endgame...get to 50 and quit.... but that's just my opinion.
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why people love EVE. But the game itself is not well rounded and does not belong as the top game. People that like EVE like it for one reason, corporation warfare. It is rated the top game on this site due to this one specfic feature of the game. Open ended PvP with harsh death penalties. I hope it lives a long life because people that like this sort of thing in a game do deserve to have it stay viable.
The reason that the hardcorish nature of MMOG's is changing is that "hardcore" games just don't sell well enough to make a good profit. A company looking to maximize profits is going to make a game that has broad appeal. EVE is not one of thoe games. WoW is. And it also the reason EVE is rated the top game on this site. It is popular with gamers that like their games harsh, a.k.a MMORPG.com gamers.
Oh yeah Eve missions are definitely repetitive, I hope no one tries to argue they aren't. That's preposterous. I'm just saying time-wise its not that bad. You can get your self kitted out for a good run of pvp or whatever with a fairly quick casual run of missions.
I certainly don't consider them fun though. Some people do. Some people just run them and like it, but um well to each their own.
LOL you are the one who is insisting on ignoring the ratings and simply saying a game is the best for no other reason that you think it is. All you have presented are account numbers, but what value are they in this discussion, sure millions of people play WoW, that says nothing about why they play it and it says nothing about why they play it. Without such context the numbers mean nothing.
Sir, I strongly recommend you actually read my post first before you make a comment
This is why people always bring up the McDonalds analogy when you try to claim numbers have anything to do with quality. Millions of people eat at McDonalds every day, but without looking at why they eat at McDonalds you know nothing so you can’t simply assume that because so many people eat there they make the highest quality food.
Again, I shall prove why this theory is flawed. World of Warcraft is popular for a number of reasons. one, Blizzard and the warcraft tag, and two, more important, it just is a game of very high quality. why is Mcdonalds popular? Mcdonalds is everywhere. its easy to reach, and its food is cheap , and for a fast food restaurant, the food isn't all that bad. another reason are little children. the toy inside happy meal, anyone? None of those count for WoW. is WoW easy to get? Yeah, but not anymore then other MMORPG's. you can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. is WoW cheap? heck no, its just as expensive as any other mmorpg. the food branch and MMORPG gaming business simply can't be compared to each other.
People play WoW for any number of different reasons, but one very important thing to remember is fewer then 1/2 of WoW’s North American subscribers have ever played any other MMO. In Europe that number is more like 20%. This means that 2/3 of all WoW subscriptions/monthly time cards have no point of reference with any other MMO and can therefore tell you absolutely nothing about the comparative quality of various MMOs.
This has never been proven, people ASSUME its like that. and even if it is, lets say 1/2 never played an mmorpg in NA. how many subscribers does WoW have in NA? I believe it was 1,5 million. half of that is STILL 700k players which is STILL about 4x the subscriber base of ANY OTHER WESTERN MMORPG. Not to mention MMORPG's are big in Asia, close to everybody played an MMO before. I'm willing to bet that at least 80% of the asian players played another MMORPG besides WoW. for the record, there are over 2 million WoW current players in Asia.
Of the remaining 1/3 people can choose to play for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with quality. The primary one is because their friends, who have never tried any other MMO, play it. Another is that it’s an “in” thing to do in popular culture and you would be surprised at how many people follow the fads regardless of quality. Another is marketing, it’s often the most important factor in the success of a product and has almost nothing to do with quality.
Forgive me, but I have never heard somebody say :"Hey, look at me, I'm a wow player, i'm so cool now!". mind you, this DOES counts for other business such as the music branch, but this does not count for games. there is no "In" in mmorpg's. Blizzard are indeed expert when it comes to marketing, but saying they have 7 million players just because they have good marketing is ignorant. the "play with friend" thing is not any higher then other MMO's.
So, at the end of the day you have only a relatively small number of subscribers who Play WoW because they have tried a lot of MMO’s and think WoW is the best one for them. In other MMO’s that percentage is much much higher so there is simply no way you can compare quality based on the number of accounts a game has.
Incorrect. your theory is incredibly flawed.
Hmm a better method then simply counting the number of people who play a game without ever looking at their reasons for playing that game? Let me think…
How about: surveying a large number of people with experience from multiple games. Make sure you account for a number of key factors and gear it towards a western cultural perspective because that that’s the primary audience of an English language web site.
It seems like we already have a system like that, but you don’t like it because it doesn’t give the results you want to see.
Really? I seriously hope you don't want to name the ratings on this site, because I'm just going to laugh then.
People with experience from multiple games...hmm..how about...people who's JOB is to play games (of which MMORPG's) and rate them? ah yes, reviewers! and, ding ding, WoW is rated the best mmorpg by close to every gaming magazine, website, and program.
the ratings on this site are so incredibly flawed, its not funny anymore. CCP, the people behind EVE, have made mention of mmorpg.com a lot of times. this site is home to a lot of EVE players, simple as that. not to mention that popular things are always hated the most.
The Eve fans did it
Too much free time.
BLAME EVE
And other mmos are not? What is more significant about WoW is that it is accessible and allows for casual play.
Food being cheap- so is every other fish and chip place. And why do you think it is everywhere?
Because half their playerbase come from other Blizzard games and have no clue about MMO's in general.
Those who do have a clue visit this site and rate for MMO's they enjoy more.
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Do not hate it, but instead embrace the diversity.
And how many of those reviewers play the game through? Playing a mmorpg isn't about playing 1 month and thinking wow this is good! How many of those reviewers had played another mmorpg? Judging by the fact, that WoW had a lot more reviewers not very many. And are they rating it the 'best mmorpg', or are they in fact giving it a good rating and you are therefore concluding it must therefore be the best mmorpg?
And what about when all these new games are out: Age of Conan, Warhammer etc. They aren't going to get the same numbers as WoW and might very well get a general rating lower than WoW, are you still going to say ' WOW IS THE BEST MMORPG111!!!!'
This site rates QUALITY not Popularity.
WoW is a decent MMORPG but every single game rated above it, imo, deserves to be above it.
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And how many of those reviewers play the game through? Playing a mmorpg isn't about playing 1 month and thinking wow this is good! How many of those reviewers had played another mmorpg? Judging by the fact, that WoW had a lot more reviewers not very many. And are they rating it the 'best mmorpg', or are they in fact giving it a good rating and you are therefore concluding it must therefore be the best mmorpg?
You can simply see that in the history of the reviewer in question.and yes, I indeed conclude that WoW is the best mmorpg because close to every reviewer gave it a higher score then any other mmorpg, and ofcourse, all the awards WoW received. If you have any other way to conclude what the best mmorpg is, other then "Because I say so!", then by all means, post it here.
And what about when all these new games are out: Age of Conan, Warhammer etc. They aren't going to get the same numbers as WoW and might very well get a general rating lower than WoW, are you still going to say ' WOW IS THE BEST MMORPG111!!!!'
That is up to the quality of those games, ofcourse.
if AoC and Warhammer score lower then WoW, then I indeed will say those games are of lesser quality.
LOL you are the one who is insisting on ignoring the ratings and simply saying a game is the best for no other reason that you think it is. All you have presented are account numbers, but what value are they in this discussion, sure millions of people play WoW, that says nothing about why they play it and it says nothing about why they play it. Without such context the numbers mean nothing.
Sir, I strongly recommend you actually read my post first before you make a comment
This is why people always bring up the McDonalds analogy when you try to claim numbers have anything to do with quality. Millions of people eat at McDonalds every day, but without looking at why they eat at McDonalds you know nothing so you can’t simply assume that because so many people eat there they make the highest quality food.
Again, I shall prove why this theory is flawed. World of Warcraft is popular for a number of reasons. one, Blizzard and the warcraft tag, and two, more important, it just is a game of very high quality. why is Mcdonalds popular? Mcdonalds is everywhere. its easy to reach, and its food is cheap , and for a fast food restaurant, the food isn't all that bad. another reason are little children. the toy inside happy meal, anyone? None of those count for WoW. is WoW easy to get? Yeah, but not anymore then other MMORPG's. you can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. is WoW cheap? heck no, its just as expensive as any other mmorpg. the food branch and MMORPG gaming business simply can't be compared to each other.
Rotten Ronnies is popular because it's fast, cheap and they advertise the fuck out of it. Their food is nowhere near to the 'best' when it comes to fast food, both health wise and quality wise. I also highly doubtful the crappy little toy they give with happy meals is a major factor, in case you haven't noticed almost all fast food joints give one out now. You can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. Really? When is the last time you saw EVE in stores, or AO for that matter. No only the the new MMO's or those with big publishers behind them that have the resources to pay big advertising $$ have any real shelf presence. You are disregarding advertising as a major source of new subs.
People play WoW for any number of different reasons, but one very important thing to remember is fewer then 1/2 of WoW’s North American subscribers have ever played any other MMO. In Europe that number is more like 20%. This means that 2/3 of all WoW subscriptions/monthly time cards have no point of reference with any other MMO and can therefore tell you absolutely nothing about the comparative quality of various MMOs.
This has never been proven, people ASSUME its like that. and even if it is, lets say 1/2 never played an mmorpg in NA. how many subscribers does WoW have in NA? I believe it was 1,5 million. half of that is STILL 700k players which is STILL about 4x the subscriber base of ANY OTHER WESTERN MMORPG. Not to mention MMORPG's are big in Asia, close to everybody played an MMO before. I'm willing to bet that at least 80% of the asian players played another MMORPG besides WoW. for the record, there are over 2 million WoW current players in Asia.
The fact that before WoW was released there was about 6 million MMO subscribers worldwide, and after WoW's release there are close to 14 million. WoW also has over 6.5 million subs worldwide. I'd say that's pretty conclusive evidence that the majority of WoW's playerbase are new to MMO's in general. Oh, and FYI 2/3 of WoW's playerbase is in china, over 4 million of their 6.5 million are located in china.
Of the remaining 1/3 people can choose to play for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with quality. The primary one is because their friends, who have never tried any other MMO, play it. Another is that it’s an “in” thing to do in popular culture and you would be surprised at how many people follow the fads regardless of quality. Another is marketing, it’s often the most important factor in the success of a product and has almost nothing to do with quality.
Forgive me, but I have never heard somebody say :"Hey, look at me, I'm a wow player, i'm so cool now!". mind you, this DOES counts for other business such as the music branch, but this does not count for games. there is no "In" in mmorpg's. Blizzard are indeed expert when it comes to marketing, but saying they have 7 million players just because they have good marketing is ignorant. the "play with friend" thing is not any higher then other MMO's.
You are naive if you don't think it happens with games. I have numerous non-gamer friends who were brought into WoW because another one of my friends played it. It happens ALL THE TIME. It's called word-of-mouth advertising. Same thing happens in all forms of entertainment media.
So, at the end of the day you have only a relatively small number of subscribers who Play WoW because they have tried a lot of MMO’s and think WoW is the best one for them. In other MMO’s that percentage is much much higher so there is simply no way you can compare quality based on the number of accounts a game has.
Incorrect. your theory is incredibly flawed.
I certainly don't.
Nope, really don't agree with your logic of how you define things. If those games are good, then there is no way I could deduce one has a better quality than the other. Usually reviewers go by certain criteria and most more prominently is their own bias.
Remember that reviewers or critics, in any area of entertainment not just MMORPGs, are not necessarily looking for the same things in a movie that the regular fan base is looking for. As an example, you can probably name a few movies that received extremely high critical acclaim, and that you went to see or rented, and thought, "Buh?? What was so great about that?" And how many times has an utter trash film received an Academy Award (Oscar), superceding a host of movies that were CLEARLY superior to it in the minds of everyone else but the Academy itself? Lots of times people will say, "They gave THIS an oscar but didn't even nominate that other one? Huh?"
Now, the reason for this isn't that critics or the academy are stupid (well, many are, but not all), or that they don't know what they're talking about. But sometimes the critics are looking for things in a film that are not entertaining to most people. For example they might give an otherwise mediocre movie that has an unexpectedly good performance by one actor on the cast, a higher rating because "even though the movies was bad, the performance was worth the box office price." Most moviegoers, however, are NOT going to a movie as critics and not evaluating the performances, and if the rest of the movie sucks they are generally not going to care whether one person turned in an oscar-winning performance. Critics can often find something to be "good" or "bad" based on aesthetics that most normal people, just going to enjoy the thing, wouldn't care about.
The same goes with rating WOW or any other MMORPG. The reviewer might be looking for things that the player is not. The things that make the reviewer give it a good rating, might not do so for the regular player. For example, if you actually look at WOW's rating here, and examine the review comments in any detail, WOW actually has a solid rating in many areas but it suffers massively in two: the community (which, to be fair, the devs can only impact in a limited way) and the Customer Service. I don't play WOW so I have no idea what these aspects of the game are actually like, but it is very liikely that these would be "below the radar" to many reviewers, who may well not have any occasion (during their review period) to contact the CSRs, and may not care one way or the other about the community. To the typical player, though, a game with a bad community and bad CSR is not going to be enjoyable over the long term.
I'm not saying these relatively low ratings in those areas for WOW here at MMORPG.COM are accurate... but I am saying that the "professional critics" often are looking at things that the players are not... that they may consider to be important, something the players couldn't care less about... and that they may consider to be of lesser importance, something that is paramount to the players. For instance, everyone I personally know who plays MMORPGS will say that the community can make or break a game. If most players feel that way, and if WOW's community is relatively poor compared to the games above it, then that would explain why the player ratings are lower than those of "the academy."
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LOL you are the one who is insisting on ignoring the ratings and simply saying a game is the best for no other reason that you think it is. All you have presented are account numbers, but what value are they in this discussion, sure millions of people play WoW, that says nothing about why they play it and it says nothing about why they play it. Without such context the numbers mean nothing.
Sir, I strongly recommend you actually read my post first before you make a comment
This is why people always bring up the McDonalds analogy when you try to claim numbers have anything to do with quality. Millions of people eat at McDonalds every day, but without looking at why they eat at McDonalds you know nothing so you can’t simply assume that because so many people eat there they make the highest quality food.
Again, I shall prove why this theory is flawed. World of Warcraft is popular for a number of reasons. one, Blizzard and the warcraft tag, and two, more important, it just is a game of very high quality. why is Mcdonalds popular? Mcdonalds is everywhere. its easy to reach, and its food is cheap , and for a fast food restaurant, the food isn't all that bad. another reason are little children. the toy inside happy meal, anyone? None of those count for WoW. is WoW easy to get? Yeah, but not anymore then other MMORPG's. you can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. is WoW cheap? heck no, its just as expensive as any other mmorpg. the food branch and MMORPG gaming business simply can't be compared to each other.
Rotten Ronnies is popular because it's fast, cheap and they advertise the fuck out of it. Their food is nowhere near to the 'best' when it comes to fast food, both health wise and quality wise. I also highly doubtful the crappy little toy they give with happy meals is a major factor, in case you haven't noticed almost all fast food joints give one out now. You can buy a copy of MMO's everywhere. Really? When is the last time you saw EVE in stores, or AO for that matter. No only the the new MMO's or those with big publishers behind them that have the resources to pay big advertising $$ have any real shelf
presence. You are disregarding advertising as a major source of new subs.
AO and EVE are indeed hard to find these days in stores, I give you that, but in counter arguement, EVE is advertised on about every corner of the internet, it even has an ad on the official Microsoft webpage. AO is not as badly advertised, but we are talking about a really old game here.
Following a social worker course myself, and interacting with children every day, I can tell you that the stupid toy actually DOES Have a major influence on the kids.
People play WoW for any number of different reasons, but one very important thing to remember is fewer then 1/2 of WoW’s North American subscribers have ever played any other MMO. In Europe that number is more like 20%. This means that 2/3 of all WoW subscriptions/monthly time cards have no point of reference with any other MMO and can therefore tell you absolutely nothing about the comparative quality of various MMOs.
This has never been proven, people ASSUME its like that. and even if it is, lets say 1/2 never played an mmorpg in NA. how many subscribers does WoW have in NA? I believe it was 1,5 million. half of that is STILL 700k players which is STILL about 4x the subscriber base of ANY OTHER WESTERN MMORPG. Not to mention MMORPG's are big in Asia, close to everybody played an MMO before. I'm willing to bet that at least 80% of the asian players played another MMORPG besides WoW. for the record, there are over 2 million WoW current players in Asia.
The fact that before WoW was released there was about 6 million MMO subscribers worldwide, and after WoW's release there are close to 14 million. WoW also has over 6.5 million subs worldwide. I'd say that's pretty conclusive evidence that the majority of WoW's playerbase are new to MMO's in general. Oh, and FYI 2/3 of WoW's playerbase is in china, over 4 million of their 6.5 million are located in china.
Around the same time, big popular titles in Asia increased the mmorpg players by a large amount. especialy after the release of Lineage 2: The Chaotic Chronicle and Rising Force Online. that is no guarentee that the majority are new players, far from it. in fact, I'll ask you to back up the statement that the mmorpg market contained 6 million subscribers before the release of WoW. from the latest news I heard, only 2,5 million subscribers are from asia, not 4 million subscribers. again, back that up please.
Of the remaining 1/3 people can choose to play for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with quality. The primary one is because their friends, who have never tried any other MMO, play it. Another is that it’s an “in” thing to do in popular culture and you would be surprised at how many people follow the fads regardless of quality. Another is marketing, it’s often the most important factor in the success of a product and has almost nothing to do with quality.
Forgive me, but I have never heard somebody say :"Hey, look at me, I'm a wow player, i'm so cool now!". mind you, this DOES counts for other business such as the music branch, but this does not count for games. there is no "In" in mmorpg's. Blizzard are indeed expert when it comes to marketing, but saying they have 7 million players just because they have good marketing is ignorant. the "play with friend" thing is not any higher then other MMO's.
You are naive if you don't think it happens with games. I have numerous non-gamer friends who were brought into WoW because another one of my friends played it. It happens ALL THE TIME. It's called word-of-mouth advertising. Same thing happens in all forms of entertainment media.
That is something diffrent. that is playing because a friend is playing. your friend is not playing because its "in" or "cool", he's playing to play the same game as his friend.
So, at the end of the day you have only a relatively small number of subscribers who Play WoW because they have tried a lot of MMO’s and think WoW is the best one for them. In other MMO’s that percentage is much much higher so there is simply no way you can compare quality based on the number of accounts a game has.
Incorrect. your theory is incredibly flawed.
Hmm a better method then simply counting the number of people who play a game without ever looking at their reasons for playing that game? Let me think…
How about: surveying a large number of people with experience from multiple games. Make sure you account for a number of key factors and gear it towards a western cultural perspective because that that’s the primary audience of an English language web site.
It seems like we already have a system like that, but you don’t like it because it doesn’t give the results you want to see.
Really? I seriously hope you don't want to name the ratings on this site, because I'm just going to laugh then.
People with experience from multiple games...hmm..how about...people who's JOB is to play games (of which MMORPG's) and rate them? ah yes, reviewers! and, ding ding, WoW is rated the best mmorpg by close to every gaming magazine, website, and program.
How many of those reviewers, now that the game has been out for 2 years, would go back and give it as good of or better score? When the game came out the reviewers played for a couple of weeks and gave their impressions. IMO those type of reviews are not entirely valid for MMO's. All MMO's evolve over time and should be reviewed on a yearly basis. I'm willing to bet if many of those sites were to review the current state of WoW, it would score lower in many areas than it did on launch. If you look at current reviews of gamerankings.com for EVE, it's sitting at 89%, just 2% below WoW. The newest WoW reviews are from 2005, it hasn't been reviewed by any site in over a year. You honestly think that reviewers would still hold the same opinion of the game now that they've played it to the endgame?
the ratings on this site are so incredibly flawed, its not funny anymore. CCP, the people behind EVE, have made mention of mmorpg.com a lot of times. this site is home to a lot of EVE players, simple as that. not to mention that popular things are always hated the most.
No they haven't and no it isn't. CCP has mentioned MMORPG.com a total of 1 time, when it was put up for the MMORPG.com awards. They didn't tell the players to come vote it up, just as they don't tell them to hype the game up. And if you try and come back and say they do you better damn well include links, or your just plain full of shit.
The amount of EVE players that come to this site on regular basis is less than 30 by my estimation, the rest of the 170K'ish players just don't give a shit TBH. This is a tired old argument that has been disproven many times and you need to stop using it. I'm about ready to make up a cut-and-paste response so I don't have to waste my time on it anymore.
lol, why is it not rated as one of the best MMOs?
Because it takes 10 pages of rediculously long forum posts to explain why.
And how many of those reviewers play the game through?
Playing a mmorpg isn't about playing 1 month and thinking wow this is good!
THEN WHY THE HELL IS GUILD WARS UP THERE
I GOT TIRED OF THAT POS GAME IN LESS THAN A WEEK
Hmm a better method then simply counting the number of people who play a game without ever looking at their reasons for playing that game? Let me think…
How about: surveying a large number of people with experience from multiple games. Make sure you account for a number of key factors and gear it towards a western cultural perspective because that that’s the primary audience of an English language web site.
It seems like we already have a system like that, but you don’t like it because it doesn’t give the results you want to see.
Really? I seriously hope you don't want to name the ratings on this site, because I'm just going to laugh then.
People with experience from multiple games...hmm..how about...people who's JOB is to play games (of which MMORPG's) and rate them? ah yes, reviewers! and, ding ding, WoW is rated the best mmorpg by close to every gaming magazine, website, and program.
How many of those reviewers, now that the game has been out for 2 years, would go back and give it as good of or better score? When the game came out the reviewers played for a couple of weeks and gave their impressions. IMO those type of reviews are not entirely valid for MMO's. All MMO's evolve over time and should be reviewed on a yearly basis. I'm willing to bet if many of those sites were to review the current state of WoW, it would score lower in many areas than it did on launch. If you look at current reviews of gamerankings.com for EVE, it's sitting at 89%, just 2% below WoW. The newest WoW reviews are from 2005, it hasn't been reviewed by any site in over a year. You honestly think that reviewers would still hold the same opinion of the game now that they've played it to the endgame?
And this is exactly why I recommend Proffesional reviews over just mmorpg fans such as yourself. If we take a look at the content added then we see that hardly anything changed lvl 1~60 starting from release. only additional content, and thats the endgame. and the important fact here is that the endgame is NOT the entire game. if you want to collect gear from lvl 60 then that is YOUR choice. there are plenty of other classes, race and a new faction to chose from. WoW's review would not change, since nothing has changed in WoW. only extra content has been added.
the ratings on this site are so incredibly flawed, its not funny anymore. CCP, the people behind EVE, have made mention of mmorpg.com a lot of times. this site is home to a lot of EVE players, simple as that. not to mention that popular things are always hated the most.
No they haven't and no it isn't. CCP has mentioned MMORPG.com a total of 1 time, when it was put up for the MMORPG.com awards. They didn't tell the players to come vote it up, just as they don't tell them to hype the game up. And if you try and come back and say they do you better damn well include links, or your just plain full of shit.
the fact that those awards are mentioned means, as I'm sure without the intention ofcourse, "come vote our game! looK! we got awards!". but the fact remains the same. this website is simply full of EVE players, or there would be no way in hell EVE would knock down a game such as World of Warcraft, which has 7 million subscribers, and thus in theory should make up the majority of this website. There are no requirements to write a review. two words is enough, you don't even have to play the game. the fact CCP received the award as best company proves my point. the customer support is a joke, and it really doesn't have anything special to it. Best Graphics? Everquest 2 and Lineage 2 are both graphic wise far more impressive. just like the awards, the ratings are biased and should not be taken seriously.
The amount of EVE players that come to this site on regular basis is less than 30 by my estimation, the rest of the 170K'ish players just don't give a shit TBH. This is a tired old argument that has been disproven many times and you need to stop using it. I'm about ready to make up a cut-and-paste response so I don't have to waste my time on it anymore.