WOW is successful for exactly some of the reasons he noted. The fact that it is a game by Blizzard or that there were previous RTS games based on this universe has nothing to do with why I play the game. I have played several MMO's and I could really care less who publishes a game or what the history of the franchise is. Also, advertising, while it can be enticing for the initial purchase, has little to do with whether or not I play beyond the initial free month.
Originally posted by Gorukha LOL, retarded this article be. Warcraft relies heavily on the name, theres hundreds of thousands of fanbois , not unlike Finaly Fantasy fanbois, who will buy anything Blizzard. Also it's a solid game, easy to play. It's not a work of genius, just a franchise name with a decent gameplay on top of it. Editorials inherintly suck, so lets stop this garbage.
I agree with Gorukha mostly. I mean, Wow is your standerd MMO. It doesn't have much lag and anybody could run it. But if anyone but Blizzard had made it, it would flop. It's the name 'Warcraft' that sold WoW, that and all the reveiw sites that Blizzard payed off for word of mouth advertising.
I dont understand why most of you are so terribly critical everytime a writer for mmorpg.com makes a editorial. I know its not the perfect article but its mostly right. You dont have to nit pick every last detail. I know your all geniuses but please have pity on us common folk for we are so dumb and pittiful.
Gorukha, Distortion, I will agree that I know many people in WoW that played Blizzard games before WoW but GUESS WHAT, I know just as many that have never played an mmo or any Blizzard game for that matter but they still played WoW. To say that Blizzards name is the largest contributing factor to having such a popular game is very misleading.
But if anyone but blizzard would of made it, it would have flopped...... I strongly disagree with that sentiment.
However, I will agree that good advertising helped Wow's sales. But riddle me this, what great selling product didnt have good advertising? Word of mouth helps, sure, but its not everything.
Im sure EQ would of sold GREAT if it hadnt been in every game shop and retail store in America, year after year after year. /sarcasm off
I do agree with many of the points that he shows. For example, a game does need a good learning curve. Now, don't mistake this with, for example, a deep experience.
What I mean is that a game should be able to get a player into the game and get them through a bit until they really start having to "learn" about the game. One of the nice things that has been done in many games are "newbie isles". Simply an island (or space station/whatever) where your character starts out. Here, you learn a lot of the basic's about the game and how to play. You can still have a deep, great sandbox game and have it easy to learn the basics of. As you continue in the game you should slowly move people into harder and harder content and ideas.
I also agreed with the graphics. A game does need to as well run well and needs to look good to capture a good fan base. I'm not saying that good graphics == good game, because that's simply untrue. What is true however is that the game will probaly get more of a response, and lets be honest here, who wants to play a (recently made) game that has horrible graphics or runs bad?
And, of course, on the content I agree. I guess the only thing I don't agree with are the various WoW refferences (lol content).
Originally posted by IdesofMarch Does this guy work for Blizzard? Just wondering. And I was able to handle the "editorial" until this sentence spewed out: By having a completely open "sandbox" game, where players are forced to make up almost all of their own content, you severely limit the re-playability, and consequently the longevity, of the game. This is where he confirmed that he has as much of a clue as to what he's talking about as most of us. And that's no clue. ROFL
You don't need an entire page talking about the glory of WOW. I feel I need a shower just reading it. Nor will I comment on the fact that downloading an EVE skill map and reading a new users guide appears to be too "complex" for the writer.
What a game needs most to be successful wasn't even mentioned and can summed up in one line.
(1.) Finish the damn thing before releasing it.
Company after company keep releasing bug ridden, half tested games and expect the crowds to rush in to help pay to complete them.
Oh, and for the love of all that's holy... Lose the elves. Choose another genre. ANY other genre. 20 to 30 fantasy mmorpgs are enough.
Wow has it's faults. It has not best content. It has not best storyline. It has not best graphics. It is not sandbox game. It has not steep learning curve. It has no penalty upon death. The leveling process is too fast. Endgame is boring after certain point. Professions are crap. Any joe average can play it.
It also has good points. Lot of players. Easy interface. Bug free. Stuff for solo players. Any joe average can play it. You don't need high-end rig to play. Great marketing. Polished graphics. PVE realms.
Current market from where I stand: EQ2: Laggy. EQ1: Outdated SWG: Just too much bad publicity for me to try it. DaoC: Outdated Eve: Tried it, but didn't like it. It just takes too long to achieve anything. Any asian MMORPG: Sorry, they've lost me already.
And yes I know. There are lot of new mmorpgs coming out. I expect 95% of them to fail.
Reasons of failing: Catering to mmorpg elite players. No professional management. Poor quality. Poor marketing. Unfinished content on release. Ugly graphics.
=============> too few players. Not enough income. Failed.
I do agree with the article in the sense that the three items listed are very important. I don't, however, feel that the author of the article expounded sufficiently on the game's merits of success in order to give the game fair credit.
Let me do some such expounding.
1) It's the name, stupid. "World of WarCraft." What's in a name? A rose by any other name smells just as sweet, sure, but who will stick around to smell it if it is called a "stinkypoo rose"? WarCraft is a name that paved its own success over a decade ago. It practically invented the RTS genre, competing head-on with games like Command & Conquer. (Anyone feeling nostolgic right now?) The franchise is already a road paved with gold. Heck, if Duke Nukem Forever came out tomorrow but had very little content and was difficult to learn, I'd still go out and buy it because I'm still nostalgic about the Duke Nukem 3D days.
But forget for a moment the whole preestablished franchise thing. "World of WarCraft". What a simple and swallowable yet surprisingly fitting name for its gameplay and history, not to mention how it flows from the tongue. The other games just don't have that ... "The Saga of Ryzom?" How the heck do you pronounce that last word? Presumably "r`eye - zum", but who knows? And if it's a saga, does that mean it's a story? Because I sure didn't feel like I was in a story when I played that. "Guild Wars". Guild Wars? Excuse me? Did someone's creativity just take a dump? Is someone trying to ride the coattails of Star Wars's success? That word "Guild" just doesn't ring right. "EVE Online". Who's that? Is she the face of the woman on the home page there? Does she have a story that I have to be sold on? What if I don't like her or her story? Oh, not a she, you say, an acronym. Too late, I walked away before you explained that to me. "World of WarCraft". Slap on a logo of an ogre, a dwarf, or some other midevil mythical element. Ah. I understand.
2) Nothing sticks like community. Let's step away from WoW for a moment and take a look at an interesting "game" called Second Life. Second Life's moderate success is not due to the fact that you can create your own content. It's due to the fact that you can create your own content, then show it off to other people, and sell it, or buy someone else's work. You can create a vehicle and sell that, or take others for a spin. But best of all, you can sit around chatting with friends, and while everyone is pounding on their invisible computer keyboards in the world, they all enjoy the most amazing and immersive Instant Messaging service ever invented. Frankly, it took a new job and relocation for me in the Real Life to wein myself off of Second Life. I spent so much time with friends chatting, creating things, jumping around on spring shoes someone created, skating on ice rinks, riding roller coasters, perusing artwork in museums, building simple contraptions like sky-high elevators, flying around like Superman and exploring strange buildings.
Second Life's downfall, however, is the fact that most people are not artists, yet everyone has the ability to contribute. The end result is a zoo. One beautiful home will sit next door to a billboard, which sits next to a broken contraption, which sits next to a colleseum, which sits next to something else that simply does not befit its surroundings. It's utter chaos. And it's ugly. Butt ugly. Boobie ugly, even, if boobies could be ugly. Anything goes (even X-rated videos). And that's gross.
Look, just because people are running around and chatting in the chat window doesn't make the game "massively mutliplayer". Guild Wars is NOT a true MMORPG any more than GameSpy (if you recall what that was) was a MMOFPS. Sure, you can meet people in one place and spawn off new games. But the original premise of a MMORPG, harking back to AC1 and UO and EQ1, is to be able to find someone wherever you are during your adventures, maybe even hundreds of someones. It's to make the gameplay environment life-like. What's life-like about clicking on a point on the map and just being there, then suddenly being all alone as soon as you step into the unknown?
People get addicted to immersion and constant uniqueness. Content can only go so far. What makes MMORPGs sell is the human factor. Other people are unique. You always get a different adventure when you meet someone new. How you meet them uniquely is as important as spending time with them. There is a spark in an area of the brain when you develop relationships with (or against) other humans. When the content is added at the cost of the social opportunities, the trade-off is immeasurably lost.
3. Bulk appeal art direction. WoW has an almost cartoony feel. Guild Wars is very beautiful and realistic, but perhaps commonfolk might find the silly friendly monsters of WoW to be funner to control than a life-like soldier or a beautiful cleavage-sharing woman? Let's go back a decade and consider the WarCraft franchis versus Total Annihilation. Sure, TA had the same basic strategy, more realistic 3D elements, and a symphonic soundtrack. It would have barely dented WarCraft if StarCraft did not come to save the day. Mind you, I consider StarCraft franchise to be in the same basic franche. It has a common name (an X-Craft), it shares an owning company (Blizzard) to mother the community, and, yes, it has a "bulk appeal" art direction. SC blew TA out of the water, and I believe it to be, in large part, because of the art direction.
Said "bulk appeal" is easy to spot: Full color spectrum with emphasis on primaries (no brown, hazy tints across the board, no imposition of strictly steel or strictly green things to work with, but, by the end of the game, a map full of color), rounded edges, exaggerated expressions, exaggerated highlights and bulges, and scary and ugly things that are not actually scary and nauseating for the player to look at. Again, almost classic cartoon-like, in a classic Warner Bros. or classic Disney way, but not so much that it cannot reach the appeal of a serious audience at the same time. Basically, the hardcore gamers who are harder to please are not terribly impressed but aren't turned off, either, and the women and children and older folks are not turned off either. WoW has mass appeal for people of all ages, and what people look at and listen to (sound is art, too) has a very key factor in how quickly the game will be accepted.
WarCraft has also traditionally used elements of lightweight humor in the artwork and sound design, without actually trying to be funny. Consider the grunts, "yes, m'lord?" It's almost silly, their accents and pathetic tones. But the emphasis is on *almost*. The exaggerations in the artwork and sounds push beyond realism and into genuine fantasy, sparking a different kind of imagination for the player than just "hm that looks like people in everyday life, only wielding swords". A broader audience is reached when playing "let's pretend" with unrealistic but still associable primatives than life-like elements. The depth of appreciation among those who enjoy it is shallower, but broader even so.
4. Keep them trapped. I almost feel evil for saying this, but I dare say that more people play WoW rather than Guild Wars partly *because* Guild Wars has no monthly fees, rather than in spite of. When people pay each month they are driven by guilt and respect for the dollar to put in their time in WoW. For those less involved in Real Life situations (i.e. work), such diligence leads to continued and deepening addiction. It's an endless cycle. Guild Wars never introduces the cycle, at least not to that level.
5. Debug your stuff!! It's amazing to me how much of game acceptance is attributed to bugs. Getting even occasional crashes or error messages can deter me as a user away immediately, and almost certainly hinder my ability to recommend the game to others. WoW is, from what I can tell, a very clean codebase that does not suffer from serious glitches.
6. Usability is everything. Perhaps this falls under what the original article discussed about "easy to learn, dificult to master". But I'm being more specific here. The game must be approachable from a usability standpoint. Basic functions should be quick and simple to learn, certainly not take more than an hour or two of gameplay. The interface must make sense and must be readable and accessible and not confusing.
7. Keep healthy servers. Keep those servers running. It takes a certain amount of genius (and money) to master MMORPG, no doubt, but a huge amount of engineering efforts should be on those servers, not on the clients. Keeping the servers up with minimum lag or downtime is critically important. Nothing kills off devotees faster than a game where the servers are consantly going down for maintenance.
There, now there's ten (the original article's three, plus these, if #6 counts). I'd get into more, like building the better mousetrap, using classic elements in a new way rather than rehashing things in a bland way, etc., but it's late and I'm very tired.
Originally posted by Yeebo This article was dead on. Any developer that want's to capture an audience larger than around 100-200K subs would do well to heed the advice presented. A lot of the folks that come to this site are hardcore PC gamers with screaming hot shit rigs and the pateince and spare time of a nursing home retiree. They are absolutley not going to get this article and not going to see why every deveoper that releases a game that:
(1) lacks structured content,
(2) less than 5% of the PCs currently in homes can run well, and/ or
(3) doesn't become remotely fun until you've put 5-40 hours into it...
is severely restricting their target audience.
Sure, sandbox games with a steep learning curve can be quite rewarding if you have the patience to get into them. However, John Q. American does not. John Q. American is the resaon that WoW has been a smash hit, not the whiny elitists that hang out on site like this (myself included, doh!).
I couldnt agree more with this post.
Let me just point 1 thing out besides this:
For the people that say WoW is what it is because of the name and the fact that it was done by a compnay name Blizzard, I couldnt possibly disagree more.
Wow is what is becasue of the game it is. Period. In my personal experience, Ive never been able to get friends of mine to play any of the games that I play. Mind you Im not a teenager. Myself, I started playing WoW because of one ofthe most important aspects of expanding a game: word of Mouth. To be 100% honest, I was told to try WoW while shooting @ People in COD2. I was meh, I'll give it a shot. Months later, I still play the game every day and have not become bored of it. But not only that, my wife, 4 of my friends and my father (yes my 50+ year old father) have started playing. Why? word of mouth. Why do they still keep playing? Do you think they have any idea of what the RTS World of Warcraft is? No. Do they have any notion of what Blizzard is? No. They still play the game because of what the game offers. And besides word of mouth, which can only go so far, Why did they start playing to begin with? The 3 points this Author wrote about.
Period.
I blog for GamingWeez. Do you? Discuss everything MMO related in a community that lets YOU be the blogger. www.GamingWeez.com
I liked reading the topic post but had to comment on the following post from someone else
Not meaning to bash your post cause i like the table,just some statements on your opinions with my own opinions
Wow has it's faults. True It has not best content. Maybe some players need to use a littlebit of fantasy It has not best storyline. True its messy at some points It has not best graphics. Compared too? It is not sandbox game. Totaly depence on your own playstyle It has not steep learning curve. True It has no penalty upon death.?? ever noticed res-sickness or resurrect with about 30% health?? The leveling process is too fast. Very good for people with not so much time, bad for those with to much gametime. Endgame is boring after certain point. Also totaly depence on if you like prechewed food or have some fantasy of your own. Professions are crap. Untill a surten lvl, mostly profs start to pay off after lvl 35 Any joe average can play it. Any average Joe can " start " WoW but not all will stick
It also has good points. Lot of players. To bad most are only focussed on their self (especialy battlegrounds) Easy interface. True Bug free. Almost true GOLDSELLERS ARE MY BIGGEST BUG IN WOW!! Stuff for solo players. Very true Any joe average can play it. Any average Joe can " start " WoW but not all will stick
You don't need high-end rig to play. Luckely for Blizzard true Great marketing. If only i had come up with such a great marketing stratigy Polished graphics. Something i can safely say would be a nice lesson towards about 80% of new MMO's on the market !! PVE realms. RP realms and PVP realms
If people want much content in a game i would say play single player RPG games, but as a true gamer MMO's does not have to be filled with content as for me MMO just has to offer a basic content and its up to me to make my own story and use my own fantasy, for me thats all about MMO playing, think people are far to spoiled and have a hard time making stuff up along the way in a MMO, most people i see in any MMO are more themselfs then they get a grip on the charater they playing. I also rather spend money on MMO's with subs wich gives updates, new content, quest ect rather then paying for a sp game worth 10/15 hours of gameplay time.
Maybe its time GAMERS woke up and really start to game instead of always eating pre-chewed food
Originally posted by Gorukha theres hundreds of thousands of fanbois, not unlike Finaly Fantasy fanbois, who will buy anything Blizzard.
There's way more star wars fans than warcraft fans, and SWG actually implemented lots of things better than any other game; yet it never enjoyed a comparable customer base.
over this time i have seen many ppl to leave for wow and many people return from wow. i agree on all 3 points with the editorial but would make the following distinction:
pve content is like a (good) book or movie you dive in and experience it. this imho appears to be the replacement for tv.
pvp content is like a (good) sports match theres a ruleset and a field but most of the time its the contest that matters and not the shape of the stadium.
good pvp content (grp vs grp quests....) is yet to be devoleped but may be seen in the next gen of mmporpgs like warhammer and aion.
if your bored, visit my blog at: http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
a lot of the below is probably in the replies of many other people already, but your article/post really makes me want to reply in full, rather then agree or disagree with other posters.
I find it stunning that you seem to have deciphered the key principles as to how to make a good MMO. I am sure nobody else actually thought about your 3 simple rules before, and if only every MMO developer will read your article, we will be seeing some truely fantastic MMOs coming out over the next few years.
I am terribly sorry therefor that i have to disagree with the majority of your written essay. I agree on some points, on which i will ellaborate as this post goes on.
First of all your 3 points not only relate to MMOs, but pretty much to every game out there. In fact points 1 and 3 of your essay primarily apply to single player games (or online games other then MMO such as FPS games). Your whole article is such a sweeping generalization, that it is astounding you yourself seem to believe you have just discovered the holy grail.
It is quite obvious, that you are a massive fan of WoW. While that is of course fine, and WoW is a good game in many aspects, it is far from perfect and actually does not meet all your criteria (at least not in my opinion).
1. Easy to get in, hard to master This pretty much ONLY applies to offline games.
While MMOs vary in the "easy to get in or hard to get in" direction, no MMO is hard to master. In the end every MMO becomes trivial. and none so more the WoW. I would really be interested to hear what exactly you find hard to master in World of Warcraft. I certainly is not the high end raiding (which you don't seem interested in anyway), it's not the high end quests, it's not the instances, so what exactly do you find hard to master in World of Warcraft?
I really only find single player games "easy to get in, hard to master" - a perfect example would be the civilization or medieval series.
2. Content This does apply to MMOs, however again i fail to see where WoW is distinctly different then other MMOs. you mostly seem to rant about a specific developer and SWG. SWG is definitely not a shining example of content, but really neither is WoW. WoW had Ok content to start with, but you could play through it in around 3 to 5 months (and thats both alliance and horde). Content then was gradually added, and for a game thats been around for 2 years, current content is average i'd say. Again other MMOs have done the same or more.
3. Graphics Again this really applies mostly to offline games if you ask me. I currently play 9Dragons beta (having won the key in the competion here) and it looks like it's 3 years old. but it's fantastic in terms of game play. Graphics ARE secondary. I agree that a game should run on most of the systems out there, but i do think future proofing is something thats worth doing. SOE never really got that right, but honeslty if WoW looks the same in 2 or 3 years then it does now, people will not be happy.
Overall the initial success of WoW can largely be attributed to the hype caused about the game through the Warcraft and Blizzard community. That initial high player base attracted a lot of other players (partially due to wo word of mouth, but also through community) and that is one of the major reasons WoW is so successful. I think you forget this mostly and attribute things to the game that are simply either not true or not only true for WoW.
well I'd say that those 3 things are part of why blizzard were able to keep customers. Although, not sure about the hard to master part. However, the one thing blizzard did do right that I'm sure has been mentioned more then once, but needs endless repeating is...HAVE HUGE FOLLOWING. Warcraft was going to sell a ton reguardless if it was a good game or not.
What Raph Koster and Brad McQuiad don't get is that while it's ok to have players earn their levels, they must never, ever, be put in a position where they have to EARN THE RIGHT TO ENJOY THEMSELVES. If you have 60 levels, every one of those levels should be a hoot.
Brad used to know this. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of Crushbone Castle in EQ1 as a low level player because I was having so much fun there. In those days, it was ok for low level players to have fun. Some of my fondest memories were levels 1-20.
But now they look upon their low level players with scorn. You can't let a noob enjoy himself. That's the perogative of the uber, end game player! No, he needs to be in ratty gear, fighting trash, feeling the pain and paying his dues. Fun is for the folks who have played for six months to a year.
Blizzard knows bettter. They let everyone have fun. That's why their game is so popular, and that's why it is so replayable (fewer people want to be PL'd through the game because it is actually fun to play an alt).
So let Raph and Brad keep scraping the bottom of the subscription numbers. Having them talk about fun is like having an actuary explain how to meet girls at parties.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Originally posted by Lhex The replies to this editorial are unjustly scathing and down right hollow fluff, contrived by people who seem to be aggresively negative and biased for no real reason. The writer took their time and explained their opinion about the topic. Just because some dislike whatever comparisons were made there is no reason for disrespectful and possibly hurtful comments towards a writer which is obviously someone who cared alot about and put alot of effort into the editorial. If I may make a suggestion, probably in vane; but before before making a post, think critically about things, perhaps think about the other person on the recieving end, on the other side of the "interwebbings" of your verbal barrage. If you do not then I believe and many others will to, think that you are indeed "retarded".
I have to agree. All I know is that my main game is Lineage II. Essentially, you either grind, roleplay if you are into that or PvP. But the ratio to grind and PvP is very lopsided.
So, I tell the few friends of mine who would even consider playing an online game, show them the game and explain the gameplay and they think I'm nuts.
So then I show them what World of Warcraft offers and it appeals more to them.
Essentially, they don't have a lot of time nor the desire to spend hours in an online game. None of them like the open PvP (and these are people who hunt or are Martial Arts Afficionados - not florists *joke but it's true.. they do hunt and practice martial arts) hate the grind and could care less about gathering thousands of mats for crafting.
World of Warcraft, first and foremost, is for the casual gamer or the gamer/person who never would consider an online game. But it can get those people who might want something more, interested enough to seek out other games when they have finished the content.
To put it another way. Most of the music that the average person listens to is fairly simple in construction. Probably never modulates, simple square rhythms, etc. So sit them down and have them listen to a Milton Babbitt Piece and they would balk. The Babitt afficionados would roll their eyes and essentially call them weak and lacking listening skills. Essentiallly dissing them for their simple taste.
You don't win converts that way, and it doesn't mean that the "simpler" music is bad just because it is in 4/4.
As far as WoW is concerned, where the issue can be found is when die hard WoW players go to other games and expect the same type of gameplay. It's when they look down on more hardcore and possibly games with more depth which is where I can see the annoyance coming from.
other than that, WoW is a very well made game. But is easily covered by most solid MMO players. Sure, I hear that the end game is nothing but endless repetition. But quite frankly, I be their are players who still haven't come to the end game content because they do other things in their life. For the other players, well, let's see if they rectify the situation with Burning Crusade.
In the end, it is a successful game. And it doesn't matter if you are a fan of Blizzard games or not. In the end, if you don't enjoy it you will go elsewhere. It is successful because it is fun and accessible to a large amount of people. Sure, it's "name" and the company that created it draws on an already established fanbase, but again, if it wasn't fun for people they would leave. I know that many people already have left.
Quite frankly, it seems that the solution should be, "move on already". If you don't like it you don't like it, plenty of other games out there or "coming down the pike". Let's not all hang our manhood on video games. That's just plain ridiculous.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I could not agree more with the editorial and have been saying this forever and a day now. Especially when someone comes in with the: "The only reason WoW is huge is because Blizzard made it" idea.
While I agree that Blizzards fanbase and good name played heavily into the initial interest and hype of the game, I've always had reservations when it came to alloting ALL of WoWs success based purely on that fact alone.
These editorial's are getting a little stale, not MMORPG's but those with WoW as a subject matter, but it's nice to see someone not just continually harping on the game and trying to bring sense to it.
Mostly what he says is right. Coupla other things need to be said, though.
1) Sense of fun - WoW has this in spades. Everything has a bit of a sense of humor to it, and there are many little things that are just fun to see or do in the game. Wrapping paper so you can send gifts. That silly hand that reaches out and socks you in the face in the Master's Glaive, those drunk dwarves having a shooting contest in Dunmore, hilarious hats, etc, etc. The death animation of Murlocs. Wow has a nearly infinite supply of little touches that give you that extra laugh, extra enjoyment. The game is just fun.
2) Not tedious or frustrating. Some devs think 'challenge' equates to 'frustration.' Until the end game, where WoW dissolves into the tedious and frustrating, the game is a joyful romp. Death isn't a big deal, it's just enough of a step back that you want to avoid it, but not so much that you get pissed and log off, or quit the game. Fuck 'challenge'. I want to escape work, not pay $15/mo for more of it.
3) Many and varied locations and feels and sights and sounds. I actually said "WoW, look at that!" more times in WoW than any other game I've played recently. WoW is a good name for it.
4) Sense of power and uniqueness. You need to feel at all times that your character is progressing and becoming more powerful and intersting. If you feel like the low man on the totem pole, well you can get that from real life easy enough, why play a game for it? It's a turnoff. The player should be able to make his or her character unique, and have the feeling that they can, with a bit of application, conquer anything.
5) The game has to actually WORK! Seems obvious, but so many games are laggy, or have bogus combat, or other bugs and crashes. WoW runs, and runs well, pretty much all of the time.
Now don't think I'm saying WoW is perfect. Far from it. Very far. But still, it has a lot of things right, enough to make it damn fun for quite a while. Other games should certainly take note.
Brad McQuaid doesnt need to read some fanboi editorial to know how to make a mass market game because he has made one of the biggest already EQ. He just seems to be ignoring all that he has learned from EQ and making what by today standards is a niche game. EQ was a huge mass market game, it expanded the market and exposed more people into the genre, as UO did before it in its time. WoW is nothing special. It is just the evolution of THE game, as I've already stated. This should not be confused with saying the game sucks. WoW is a good game, and any WoW fanboi who flamed me should quote me as to where I trolled in this thread and where I said it sucks. Problem is with fanbois, like the guy who wrote this crappy editorial, that unless you think the game is the best most unique thing out there you are enemy no.1.
It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
I agree on some things in the article. Having a game that is easy to learn and hard to master seams like a very good idea. But stating that a game must have content is ignoring the likes of a very large playerbase. In my eyes there are two types of playerbases. Those that like Quest-based content, with levels and classes and those that like to create their own content in a sandbox, with no levels and maybe classes. The quests in WoW, aside from the instances are all boring and subpar for video games. This is why I don't like quest base content. I play Oblivion right now, and I think the quests are amazing. You cannot capture that feeling in an MMO, because there are hundreds of thousands of other people doing the same quest and getting the same reward. When you do a quest, it needs to be fun and adventerous, it also needs to end when the quest is finished and shouldn't be given out again. It should also change the way the quest giver speaks to you and the people who heard about the good deed. If the quest is large enough, it should change the whole world or a region. You cannot do that in a WoW type MMO yet. In a sandbox MMO, this content is created through player strife and politics and you can actually be a real hero or change the world.
The point on graphics is good too. Too many games concentrate on how good their game looks and forget that they are limiting their playerbase in the process. I think most of us would rather have many people to play with, like in WoW, than to only have a handfull with good computers to play with.
Originally posted by Gorukha Brad McQuaid doesnt need to read some fanboi editorial to know how to make a mass market game because he has made one of the biggest already EQ. He just seems to be ignoring all that he has learned from EQ and making what by today standards is a niche game. EQ was a huge mass market game, it expanded the market and exposed more people into the genre, as UO did before it in its time. WoW is nothing special. It is just the evolution of THE game, as I've already stated. This should not be confused with saying the game sucks. WoW is a good game, and any WoW fanboi who flamed me should quote me as to where I trolled in this thread and where I said it sucks. Problem is with fanbois, like the guy who wrote this crappy editorial, that unless you think the game is the best most unique thing out there you are enemy no.1.
I just joined this thread, I read the editorial, and this is the only post from you I read and it seams like you are trolling. The author already said that he doesn't play WoW. If he was a fanboi, like you trollishly say he is, wouldn't he be playing the game right now? Would he also name off some of the negative things that we all agree exists in it too? He is not a fanboi. He is just a writer with a different opinion that the rest of us. He had some good points and some points that weren't really helpfull. People should just take it for what it is...an editorial. It is not the gospel or anything.
Everyone keeps talking about graphics and who has the "best" graphics without really thinking about what that means.
One of the keys of a succesful MMORPG is to do the absolute best that you can with a minimal or more moderate underlying graphics engine. so it is a combination of art direction and technical design.
the kicker for MMORPG's is that while in the design phase the developers may talk about "future-proofing" and seek to build it around the most cutting edge, polygon intensive, graphics engine they can find. That in the end kills their future growth. For a MMORPG future system specs are not the problem. The ability to add new art and new content in a steady and timely manner is. The more spectacular a graphics engine is, the more man hours it takes to add anything to the game.
This phenomenon has crippled games in the past. AC2 and EQ2 being the biggest examples. EQ2 still suffers from a very look alike feel to the world. It is gorgeous, but their isn't alot of variety in terms of armor weapons etc, and very little added since release. AC2 is the worst case senario, and it contributed greatly to the games demise. AC1 was noted for its monthly content patches, which would add tons of stuff each month. 6 or 10 new dungeons, new quest items, new sparklies etc. AC2 tried to do the same thing. But for every 1 hour of art and design work to create something new for AC1 it took 10 hours or more for AC2, just because of the increased poly counts. Players were expecting full content patches, and instead they got very little new to see each month.
WoW managed to strike an almost perfect balance in this. They used a moderate graphics engine that can run on most current systems, and that uses a fairly low poly count. and they cleverly hid this fact by creative art and art direction. WoW's cartoony style isn't just for laughs, or to match the earlier RTS games. It also is there to mask the fact that they are not using the latest and greatest high poly count graphics engine. And the really weird thing about this is that to many many players, the cartoony'ness of WoW looks better and more natural than the more "realistic" avatars of other games such as EQ2. Often the high poly count super accurate character models start to look creepy to the human player.
I think the next big game might actually diverge from the path of current MMOs. Just as WoW took a genre that was exclusive to dedicated players and opened it up to casual players (the grind/loot/level format, I mean), the next big game might just open a new avenue of gameplay.
Like I've stated before, I think a deep Shadowrun MMORPG would be great. But not one that focuses on the WoW/EQ method of gameplay, one that focuses much more on the social nature of the genre. My favorite MMORPG ever was the original NWN for AOL. It was almost purely social. Leveling was easy, the cap could be reached in a week or two. Loot was abundant and quite static, except for pearl items.
The basis of the game for the majority of us? Socializing. The guilds were much closer knit, the family atmosphere was readily apparent and PvP had more of a get together aspect (even against guilds you hated) than a griefer's delight. All this without player/guild housing, or any real tools available in game to hold a guild together.
I think the next big 600 lbs gorilla will have an extremely deep guild system. Not just, here's your house, here is the guild's progression, here's the private chat. I mean strong guild structures. Take the Shadowrun example, for instance. You could choose from guild templates; military, gang, mega-corporation, free-lance runner. Then you could impose restrictions and offer bonuses, much like your class template would have. Say, for example, that a free-lance runner guild would be restricted in numbers and certain social bonuses, but could have a wider range of weaponry and use more effective tactics. Where as a gang would gain social bonuses and have higher member caps but lack the more exotic weaponry and tactical capabilities.
This way your guild reflects your playstyle. This idea is merely a microcosm for the wider aspect of the whole game. By focusing on socializing, the gameplay elements become an extension of that feel. You'd do runs and PvP and explore to augment the enjoyment of meeting up with your guild friends. You wouldn't play for loot, it would all be much more accesible and thus trivial. Then you could have FFA PvP with looting and it wouldn't hurt. So what if you lost your gear? You'll just get more later on running missions with your crew, or you'll grab something from your over-flowing stock pile. You'll be a little bitter that some fool ran off with your favorite, personalized auto-cannon but what the hey, right? You're really playing just to have fun with your friends.
That's how I feel though. The games that copy WoW might be successful, but I don't see any of them reaching the same startling status.
Very nice article. I think it is very much to the point and does identify several of the major reasons for WoW's success. However, I'd like to point out that other things (that were mentionned earlier) are just as important, albeit maybe less evident.
First, I think everybody will agree that the franchise name and company name did a lot for it. Not only because people would be more inclined to trust a name such as Blizzard, but also because Blizzard has more means -- and invested more money -- to be able to produce such a large MMORPG and being able to market it (all the PR stuff).
Second, there's also where the market was at when the game was released. MMOGs were becoming more popular than ever with success stories from around the world for various games -- and the games were getting bigger, too -- which made it so people became more aware of the genre.
Also, on the market side, the internet continued to grow and people using it for years also came to use it more and for more things then they did in the past (i.e. less for work, more for entertainement)... which leads to third part of what I define as the market evolution: videogames perception. Videogames are no more a niche entertainement for socially inept teens: it is now a phenomenon that touches almost every demograpahics and the videogame market in the past 5-6 years as grown a lot -- and has gotten a far better public image in the process.
Finally, I'd say that, yes, the game in itself was designed in a way that make it easier to be widely adopted. But as we saw for several other types of product, you might just have designed the next best thing and it might still be a flop. Why ? As we saw here, bceause of the market readiness to your product and whole perception of your company/product/industry. These two sides, IMHO, are just as important to explain the success of WoW as the 3 reasons the OP evoked.
Originally posted by Lhex Originally posted by Gorukha LOL, retarded this article be. Warcraft relies heavily on the name, theres hundreds of thousands of fanbois , not unlike Finaly Fantasy fanbois, who will buy anything Blizzard. Also it's a solid game, easy to play. It's not a work of genius, just a franchise name with a decent gameplay on top of it.
Editorials inherintly suck, so lets stop this garbage.
The replies to this editorial are unjustly scathing and down right hollow fluff, contrived by people who seem to be aggresively negative and biased for no real reason. The writer took their time and explained their opinion about the topic. Just because some dislike whatever comparisons were made there is no reason for disrespectful and possibly hurtful comments towards a writer which is obviously someone who cared alot about and put alot of effort into the editorial. If I may make a suggestion, probably in vane; but before before making a post, think critically about things, perhaps think about the other person on the recieving end, on the other side of the "interwebbings" of your verbal barrage. If you do not then I believe and many others will to, think that you are indeed "retarded".
QFT. Some people want to hate WoW, or anything, so much they don't care if their arguments make sense, make thme look like twits, or whatever, they just want to hate.
WoW does have many faults but you can't argue with numbers. They ARE doing enough right to get and most importantly keep, millions playing, period. Saying it's from the Warcraft name is just showing you're unwilling to admit that a game can have a good name (SWG) yet if it doesn't deliver on fun for players it won't make it very far (SWG).
I think the author made some very good points that devs might want to consider. Especially the "easy to learn hard to master" thing. I loved being brought into the WoW world slowly and allowed to experience the world first instead of a deluge of things to learn like complicated interfaces, running here and there in a confusing environment, etc.
Overall I don't see any games in development right now that will take the 600lb gorilla out, but we'll see.
Comments
Great article.
WOW is successful for exactly some of the reasons he noted. The fact that it is a game by Blizzard or that there were previous RTS games based on this universe has nothing to do with why I play the game. I have played several MMO's and I could really care less who publishes a game or what the history of the franchise is. Also, advertising, while it can be enticing for the initial purchase, has little to do with whether or not I play beyond the initial free month.
I dont understand why most of you are so terribly critical everytime a writer for mmorpg.com makes a editorial.
I know its not the perfect article but its mostly right. You dont have to nit pick every last detail. I know your all geniuses but please have pity on us common folk for we are so dumb and pittiful.
Gorukha, Distortion, I will agree that I know many people in WoW that played Blizzard games before WoW but GUESS WHAT, I know just as many that have never played an mmo or any Blizzard game for that matter but they still played WoW. To say that Blizzards name is the largest contributing factor to having such a popular game is very misleading.
But if anyone but blizzard would of made it, it would have flopped......
I strongly disagree with that sentiment.
However, I will agree that good advertising helped Wow's sales. But riddle me this, what great selling product didnt have good advertising? Word of mouth helps, sure, but its not everything.
Im sure EQ would of sold GREAT if it hadnt been in every game shop and retail store in America, year after year after year. /sarcasm off
What I mean is that a game should be able to get a player into the game and get them through a bit until they really start having to "learn" about the game. One of the nice things that has been done in many games are "newbie isles". Simply an island (or space station/whatever) where your character starts out. Here, you learn a lot of the basic's about the game and how to play. You can still have a deep, great sandbox game and have it easy to learn the basics of. As you continue in the game you should slowly move people into harder and harder content and ideas.
I also agreed with the graphics. A game does need to as well run well and needs to look good to capture a good fan base. I'm not saying that good graphics == good game, because that's simply untrue. What is true however is that the game will probaly get more of a response, and lets be honest here, who wants to play a (recently made) game that has horrible graphics or runs bad?
And, of course, on the content I agree. I guess the only thing I don't agree with are the various WoW refferences (lol content).
You don't need an entire page talking about the glory of WOW. I feel I need a shower just reading it. Nor will I comment on the fact that downloading an EVE skill map and reading a new users guide appears to be too "complex" for the writer.
What a game needs most to be successful wasn't even mentioned and can summed up in one line.
(1.) Finish the damn thing before releasing it.
Company after company keep releasing bug ridden, half tested games and expect the crowds to rush in to help pay to complete them.
Oh, and for the love of all that's holy... Lose the elves. Choose another genre. ANY other genre.
20 to 30 fantasy mmorpgs are enough.
Wow has it's faults.
It has not best content.
It has not best storyline.
It has not best graphics.
It is not sandbox game.
It has not steep learning curve.
It has no penalty upon death.
The leveling process is too fast.
Endgame is boring after certain point.
Professions are crap.
Any joe average can play it.
It also has good points.
Lot of players.
Easy interface.
Bug free.
Stuff for solo players.
Any joe average can play it.
You don't need high-end rig to play.
Great marketing.
Polished graphics.
PVE realms.
Current market from where I stand:
EQ2: Laggy.
EQ1: Outdated
SWG: Just too much bad publicity for me to try it.
DaoC: Outdated
Eve: Tried it, but didn't like it. It just takes too long to achieve anything.
Any asian MMORPG: Sorry, they've lost me already.
And yes I know. There are lot of new mmorpgs coming out. I expect 95% of them to fail.
Reasons of failing:
Catering to mmorpg elite players.
No professional management.
Poor quality.
Poor marketing.
Unfinished content on release.
Ugly graphics.
=============> too few players. Not enough income. Failed.
I do agree with the article in the sense that the three items listed are very important. I don't, however, feel that the author of the article expounded sufficiently on the game's merits of success in order to give the game fair credit.
Let me do some such expounding.
1) It's the name, stupid. "World of WarCraft." What's in a name? A rose by any other name smells just as sweet, sure, but who will stick around to smell it if it is called a "stinkypoo rose"? WarCraft is a name that paved its own success over a decade ago. It practically invented the RTS genre, competing head-on with games like Command & Conquer. (Anyone feeling nostolgic right now?) The franchise is already a road paved with gold. Heck, if Duke Nukem Forever came out tomorrow but had very little content and was difficult to learn, I'd still go out and buy it because I'm still nostalgic about the Duke Nukem 3D days.
But forget for a moment the whole preestablished franchise thing. "World of WarCraft". What a simple and swallowable yet surprisingly fitting name for its gameplay and history, not to mention how it flows from the tongue. The other games just don't have that ... "The Saga of Ryzom?" How the heck do you pronounce that last word? Presumably "r`eye - zum", but who knows? And if it's a saga, does that mean it's a story? Because I sure didn't feel like I was in a story when I played that. "Guild Wars". Guild Wars? Excuse me? Did someone's creativity just take a dump? Is someone trying to ride the coattails of Star Wars's success? That word "Guild" just doesn't ring right. "EVE Online". Who's that? Is she the face of the woman on the home page there? Does she have a story that I have to be sold on? What if I don't like her or her story? Oh, not a she, you say, an acronym. Too late, I walked away before you explained that to me. "World of WarCraft". Slap on a logo of an ogre, a dwarf, or some other midevil mythical element. Ah. I understand.
2) Nothing sticks like community. Let's step away from WoW for a moment and take a look at an interesting "game" called Second Life. Second Life's moderate success is not due to the fact that you can create your own content. It's due to the fact that you can create your own content, then show it off to other people, and sell it, or buy someone else's work. You can create a vehicle and sell that, or take others for a spin. But best of all, you can sit around chatting with friends, and while everyone is pounding on their invisible computer keyboards in the world, they all enjoy the most amazing and immersive Instant Messaging service ever invented. Frankly, it took a new job and relocation for me in the Real Life to wein myself off of Second Life. I spent so much time with friends chatting, creating things, jumping around on spring shoes someone created, skating on ice rinks, riding roller coasters, perusing artwork in museums, building simple contraptions like sky-high elevators, flying around like Superman and exploring strange buildings.
Second Life's downfall, however, is the fact that most people are not artists, yet everyone has the ability to contribute. The end result is a zoo. One beautiful home will sit next door to a billboard, which sits next to a broken contraption, which sits next to a colleseum, which sits next to something else that simply does not befit its surroundings. It's utter chaos. And it's ugly. Butt ugly. Boobie ugly, even, if boobies could be ugly. Anything goes (even X-rated videos). And that's gross.
Look, just because people are running around and chatting in the chat window doesn't make the game "massively mutliplayer". Guild Wars is NOT a true MMORPG any more than GameSpy (if you recall what that was) was a MMOFPS. Sure, you can meet people in one place and spawn off new games. But the original premise of a MMORPG, harking back to AC1 and UO and EQ1, is to be able to find someone wherever you are during your adventures, maybe even hundreds of someones. It's to make the gameplay environment life-like. What's life-like about clicking on a point on the map and just being there, then suddenly being all alone as soon as you step into the unknown?
People get addicted to immersion and constant uniqueness. Content can only go so far. What makes MMORPGs sell is the human factor. Other people are unique. You always get a different adventure when you meet someone new. How you meet them uniquely is as important as spending time with them. There is a spark in an area of the brain when you develop relationships with (or against) other humans. When the content is added at the cost of the social opportunities, the trade-off is immeasurably lost.
3. Bulk appeal art direction. WoW has an almost cartoony feel. Guild Wars is very beautiful and realistic, but perhaps commonfolk might find the silly friendly monsters of WoW to be funner to control than a life-like soldier or a beautiful cleavage-sharing woman? Let's go back a decade and consider the WarCraft franchis versus Total Annihilation. Sure, TA had the same basic strategy, more realistic 3D elements, and a symphonic soundtrack. It would have barely dented WarCraft if StarCraft did not come to save the day. Mind you, I consider StarCraft franchise to be in the same basic franche. It has a common name (an X-Craft), it shares an owning company (Blizzard) to mother the community, and, yes, it has a "bulk appeal" art direction. SC blew TA out of the water, and I believe it to be, in large part, because of the art direction.
Said "bulk appeal" is easy to spot: Full color spectrum with emphasis on primaries (no brown, hazy tints across the board, no imposition of strictly steel or strictly green things to work with, but, by the end of the game, a map full of color), rounded edges, exaggerated expressions, exaggerated highlights and bulges, and scary and ugly things that are not actually scary and nauseating for the player to look at. Again, almost classic cartoon-like, in a classic Warner Bros. or classic Disney way, but not so much that it cannot reach the appeal of a serious audience at the same time. Basically, the hardcore gamers who are harder to please are not terribly impressed but aren't turned off, either, and the women and children and older folks are not turned off either. WoW has mass appeal for people of all ages, and what people look at and listen to (sound is art, too) has a very key factor in how quickly the game will be accepted.
WarCraft has also traditionally used elements of lightweight humor in the artwork and sound design, without actually trying to be funny. Consider the grunts, "yes, m'lord?" It's almost silly, their accents and pathetic tones. But the emphasis is on *almost*. The exaggerations in the artwork and sounds push beyond realism and into genuine fantasy, sparking a different kind of imagination for the player than just "hm that looks like people in everyday life, only wielding swords". A broader audience is reached when playing "let's pretend" with unrealistic but still associable primatives than life-like elements. The depth of appreciation among those who enjoy it is shallower, but broader even so.
4. Keep them trapped. I almost feel evil for saying this, but I dare say that more people play WoW rather than Guild Wars partly *because* Guild Wars has no monthly fees, rather than in spite of. When people pay each month they are driven by guilt and respect for the dollar to put in their time in WoW. For those less involved in Real Life situations (i.e. work), such diligence leads to continued and deepening addiction. It's an endless cycle. Guild Wars never introduces the cycle, at least not to that level.
5. Debug your stuff!! It's amazing to me how much of game acceptance is attributed to bugs. Getting even occasional crashes or error messages can deter me as a user away immediately, and almost certainly hinder my ability to recommend the game to others. WoW is, from what I can tell, a very clean codebase that does not suffer from serious glitches.
6. Usability is everything. Perhaps this falls under what the original article discussed about "easy to learn, dificult to master". But I'm being more specific here. The game must be approachable from a usability standpoint. Basic functions should be quick and simple to learn, certainly not take more than an hour or two of gameplay. The interface must make sense and must be readable and accessible and not confusing.
7. Keep healthy servers. Keep those servers running. It takes a certain amount of genius (and money) to master MMORPG, no doubt, but a huge amount of engineering efforts should be on those servers, not on the clients. Keeping the servers up with minimum lag or downtime is critically important. Nothing kills off devotees faster than a game where the servers are consantly going down for maintenance.
There, now there's ten (the original article's three, plus these, if #6 counts). I'd get into more, like building the better mousetrap, using classic elements in a new way rather than rehashing things in a bland way, etc., but it's late and I'm very tired.
Cheers.
I couldnt agree more with this post.
Let me just point 1 thing out besides this:
For the people that say WoW is what it is because of the name and the fact that it was done by a compnay name Blizzard, I couldnt possibly disagree more.
Wow is what is becasue of the game it is. Period. In my personal experience, Ive never been able to get friends of mine to play any of the games that I play. Mind you Im not a teenager. Myself, I started playing WoW because of one ofthe most important aspects of expanding a game: word of Mouth. To be 100% honest, I was told to try WoW while shooting @ People in COD2. I was meh, I'll give it a shot. Months later, I still play the game every day and have not become bored of it. But not only that, my wife, 4 of my friends and my father (yes my 50+ year old father) have started playing. Why? word of mouth. Why do they still keep playing? Do you think they have any idea of what the RTS World of Warcraft is? No. Do they have any notion of what Blizzard is? No. They still play the game because of what the game offers. And besides word of mouth, which can only go so far, Why did they start playing to begin with? The 3 points this Author wrote about.
Period.
I blog for GamingWeez. Do you? Discuss everything MMO related in a community that lets YOU be the blogger. www.GamingWeez.com
I liked reading the topic post but had to comment on the following post from someone else
Not meaning to bash your post cause i like the table,just some statements on your opinions with my own opinions
Wow has it's faults. True
It has not best content. Maybe some players need to use a littlebit of fantasy
It has not best storyline. True its messy at some points
It has not best graphics. Compared too?
It is not sandbox game. Totaly depence on your own playstyle
It has not steep learning curve. True
It has no penalty upon death.?? ever noticed res-sickness or resurrect with about 30% health??
The leveling process is too fast. Very good for people with not so much time, bad for those with to much gametime.
Endgame is boring after certain point. Also totaly depence on if you like prechewed food or have some fantasy of your own.
Professions are crap. Untill a surten lvl, mostly profs start to pay off after lvl 35
Any joe average can play it. Any average Joe can " start " WoW but not all will stick
It also has good points.
true
Lot of players. To bad most are only focussed on their self (especialy battlegrounds)
Easy interface. True
Bug free. Almost true GOLDSELLERS ARE MY BIGGEST BUG IN WOW!!
Stuff for solo players. Very true
Any joe average can play it. Any average Joe can " start " WoW but not all will stick
You don't need high-end rig to play. Luckely for Blizzard
Great marketing. If only i had come up with such a great marketing stratigy
Polished graphics. Something i can safely say would be a nice lesson towards about 80% of new MMO's on the market !!
PVE realms. RP realms and PVP realms
If people want much content in a game i would say play single player RPG games, but as a true gamer MMO's does not have to be filled with content as for me MMO just has to offer a basic content and its up to me to make my own story and use my own fantasy, for me thats all about MMO playing, think people are far to spoiled and have a hard time making stuff up along the way in a MMO, most people i see in any MMO are more themselfs then they get a grip on the charater they playing. I also rather spend money on MMO's with subs wich gives updates, new content, quest ect rather then paying for a sp game worth 10/15 hours of gameplay time.
Maybe its time GAMERS woke up and really start to game instead of always eating pre-chewed food
i play lineage2 for almost 3 years now
over this time i have seen many ppl to leave for wow and many people return from wow.
i agree on all 3 points with the editorial but would make the following distinction:
pve content is like a (good) book or movie
you dive in and experience it. this imho appears to be the replacement for tv.
pvp content is like a (good) sports match
theres a ruleset and a field but most of the time its the contest that matters and not the shape of the stadium.
good pvp content (grp vs grp quests....) is yet to be devoleped but may be seen in the next
gen of mmporpgs like warhammer and aion.
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
a lot of the below is probably in the replies of many other people already, but your article/post really makes me want to reply in full, rather then agree or disagree with other posters.
I find it stunning that you seem to have deciphered the key principles as to how to make a good MMO. I am sure nobody else actually thought about your 3 simple rules before, and if only every MMO developer will read your article, we will be seeing some truely fantastic MMOs coming out over the next few years.
I am terribly sorry therefor that i have to disagree with the majority of your written essay. I agree on some points, on which i will ellaborate as this post goes on.
First of all your 3 points not only relate to MMOs, but pretty much to every game out there. In fact points 1 and 3 of your essay primarily apply to single player games (or online games other then MMO such as FPS games). Your whole article is such a sweeping generalization, that it is astounding you yourself seem to believe you have just discovered the holy grail.
It is quite obvious, that you are a massive fan of WoW. While that is of course fine, and WoW is a good game in many aspects, it is far from perfect and actually does not meet all your criteria (at least not in my opinion).
1. Easy to get in, hard to master
This pretty much ONLY applies to offline games.
While MMOs vary in the "easy to get in or hard to get in" direction, no MMO is hard to master. In the end every MMO becomes trivial. and none so more the WoW. I would really be interested to hear what exactly you find hard to master in World of Warcraft. I certainly is not the high end raiding (which you don't seem interested in anyway), it's not the high end quests, it's not the instances, so what exactly do you find hard to master in World of Warcraft?
I really only find single player games "easy to get in, hard to master" - a perfect example would be the civilization or medieval series.
2. Content
This does apply to MMOs, however again i fail to see where WoW is distinctly different then other MMOs. you mostly seem to rant about a specific developer and SWG. SWG is definitely not a shining example of content, but really neither is WoW. WoW had Ok content to start with, but you could play through it in around 3 to 5 months (and thats both alliance and horde). Content then was gradually added, and for a game thats been around for 2 years, current content is average i'd say. Again other MMOs have done the same or more.
3. Graphics
Again this really applies mostly to offline games if you ask me. I currently play 9Dragons beta (having won the key in the competion here) and it looks like it's 3 years old. but it's fantastic in terms of game play. Graphics ARE secondary. I agree that a game should run on most of the systems out there, but i do think future proofing is something thats worth doing. SOE never really got that right, but honeslty if WoW looks the same in 2 or 3 years then it does now, people will not be happy.
Overall the initial success of WoW can largely be attributed to the hype caused about the game through the Warcraft and Blizzard community. That initial high player base attracted a lot of other players (partially due to wo word of mouth, but also through community) and that is one of the major reasons WoW is so successful. I think you forget this mostly and attribute things to the game that are simply either not true or not only true for WoW.
What Raph Koster and Brad McQuiad don't get is that while it's ok to have players earn their levels, they must never, ever, be put in a position where they have to EARN THE RIGHT TO ENJOY THEMSELVES. If you have 60 levels, every one of those levels should be a hoot.
Brad used to know this. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of Crushbone Castle in EQ1 as a low level player because I was having so much fun there. In those days, it was ok for low level players to have fun. Some of my fondest memories were levels 1-20.
But now they look upon their low level players with scorn. You can't let a noob enjoy himself. That's the perogative of the uber, end game player! No, he needs to be in ratty gear, fighting trash, feeling the pain and paying his dues. Fun is for the folks who have played for six months to a year.
Blizzard knows bettter. They let everyone have fun. That's why their game is so popular, and that's why it is so replayable (fewer people want to be PL'd through the game because it is actually fun to play an alt).
So let Raph and Brad keep scraping the bottom of the subscription numbers. Having them talk about fun is like having an actuary explain how to meet girls at parties.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I have to agree. All I know is that my main game is Lineage II. Essentially, you either grind, roleplay if you are into that or PvP. But the ratio to grind and PvP is very lopsided.
So, I tell the few friends of mine who would even consider playing an online game, show them the game and explain the gameplay and they think I'm nuts.
So then I show them what World of Warcraft offers and it appeals more to them.
Essentially, they don't have a lot of time nor the desire to spend hours in an online game. None of them like the open PvP (and these are people who hunt or are Martial Arts Afficionados - not florists *joke but it's true.. they do hunt and practice martial arts) hate the grind and could care less about gathering thousands of mats for crafting.
World of Warcraft, first and foremost, is for the casual gamer or the gamer/person who never would consider an online game. But it can get those people who might want something more, interested enough to seek out other games when they have finished the content.
To put it another way. Most of the music that the average person listens to is fairly simple in construction. Probably never modulates, simple square rhythms, etc. So sit them down and have them listen to a Milton Babbitt Piece and they would balk. The Babitt afficionados would roll their eyes and essentially call them weak and lacking listening skills. Essentiallly dissing them for their simple taste.
You don't win converts that way, and it doesn't mean that the "simpler" music is bad just because it is in 4/4.
As far as WoW is concerned, where the issue can be found is when die hard WoW players go to other games and expect the same type of gameplay. It's when they look down on more hardcore and possibly games with more depth which is where I can see the annoyance coming from.
other than that, WoW is a very well made game. But is easily covered by most solid MMO players. Sure, I hear that the end game is nothing but endless repetition. But quite frankly, I be their are players who still haven't come to the end game content because they do other things in their life. For the other players, well, let's see if they rectify the situation with Burning Crusade.
In the end, it is a successful game. And it doesn't matter if you are a fan of Blizzard games or not. In the end, if you don't enjoy it you will go elsewhere. It is successful because it is fun and accessible to a large amount of people. Sure, it's "name" and the company that created it draws on an already established fanbase, but again, if it wasn't fun for people they would leave. I know that many people already have left.
Quite frankly, it seems that the solution should be, "move on already". If you don't like it you don't like it, plenty of other games out there or "coming down the pike". Let's not all hang our manhood on video games. That's just plain ridiculous.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I could not agree more with the editorial and have been saying this forever and a day now. Especially when someone comes in with the: "The only reason WoW is huge is because Blizzard made it" idea.
While I agree that Blizzards fanbase and good name played heavily into the initial interest and hype of the game, I've always had reservations when it came to alloting ALL of WoWs success based purely on that fact alone.
These editorial's are getting a little stale, not MMORPG's but those with WoW as a subject matter, but it's nice to see someone not just continually harping on the game and trying to bring sense to it.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
Brad McQuaid and everyone at Sigil should read this, before it's too late.
1) Sense of fun - WoW has this in spades. Everything has a bit of a
sense of humor to it, and there are many little things that are just
fun to see or do in the game. Wrapping paper so you can send gifts.
That silly hand that reaches out and socks you in the face in the
Master's Glaive, those drunk dwarves having a shooting contest in
Dunmore, hilarious hats, etc, etc. The death animation of Murlocs. Wow
has a nearly infinite supply of little touches that give you that extra
laugh, extra enjoyment. The game is just fun.
2) Not tedious or frustrating. Some devs think 'challenge' equates to
'frustration.' Until the end game, where WoW dissolves into the tedious
and frustrating, the game is a joyful romp. Death isn't a big deal,
it's just enough of a step back that you want to avoid it, but not so
much that you get pissed and log off, or quit the game. Fuck
'challenge'. I want to escape work, not pay $15/mo for more of it.
3) Many and varied locations and feels and sights and sounds. I
actually said "WoW, look at that!" more times in WoW than any other
game I've played recently. WoW is a good name for it.
4) Sense of power and uniqueness. You need to feel at all times that
your character is progressing and becoming more powerful and
intersting. If you feel like the low man on the totem pole, well you
can get that from real life easy enough, why play a game for it? It's a
turnoff. The player should be able to make his or her character unique,
and have the feeling that they can, with a bit of application, conquer
anything.
5) The game has to actually WORK! Seems obvious, but so many games are
laggy, or have bogus combat, or other bugs and crashes. WoW runs, and
runs well, pretty much all of the time.
Now don't think I'm saying WoW is perfect. Far from it. Very far. But
still, it has a lot of things right, enough to make it damn fun for
quite a while. Other games should certainly take note.
Brad McQuaid doesnt need to read some fanboi editorial to know how to make a mass market game because he has made one of the biggest already EQ. He just seems to be ignoring all that he has learned from EQ and making what by today standards is a niche game.
EQ was a huge mass market game, it expanded the market and exposed more people into the genre, as UO did before it in its time. WoW is nothing special. It is just the evolution of THE game, as I've already stated. This should not be confused with saying the game sucks. WoW is a good game, and any WoW fanboi who flamed me should quote me as to where I trolled in this thread and where I said it sucks. Problem is with fanbois, like the guy who wrote this crappy editorial, that unless you think the game is the best most unique thing out there you are enemy no.1.
It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
I agree on some things in the article. Having a game that is easy to learn and hard to master seams like a very good idea. But stating that a game must have content is ignoring the likes of a very large playerbase. In my eyes there are two types of playerbases. Those that like Quest-based content, with levels and classes and those that like to create their own content in a sandbox, with no levels and maybe classes. The quests in WoW, aside from the instances are all boring and subpar for video games. This is why I don't like quest base content. I play Oblivion right now, and I think the quests are amazing. You cannot capture that feeling in an MMO, because there are hundreds of thousands of other people doing the same quest and getting the same reward. When you do a quest, it needs to be fun and adventerous, it also needs to end when the quest is finished and shouldn't be given out again. It should also change the way the quest giver speaks to you and the people who heard about the good deed. If the quest is large enough, it should change the whole world or a region. You cannot do that in a WoW type MMO yet. In a sandbox MMO, this content is created through player strife and politics and you can actually be a real hero or change the world.
The point on graphics is good too. Too many games concentrate on how good their game looks and forget that they are limiting their playerbase in the process. I think most of us would rather have many people to play with, like in WoW, than to only have a handfull with good computers to play with.
Everyone keeps talking about graphics and who has the "best" graphics without really thinking about what that means.
One of the keys of a succesful MMORPG is to do the absolute best that you can with a minimal or more moderate underlying graphics engine. so it is a combination of art direction and technical design.
the kicker for MMORPG's is that while in the design phase the developers may talk about "future-proofing" and seek to build it around the most cutting edge, polygon intensive, graphics engine they can find. That in the end kills their future growth. For a MMORPG future system specs are not the problem. The ability to add new art and new content in a steady and timely manner is. The more spectacular a graphics engine is, the more man hours it takes to add anything to the game.
This phenomenon has crippled games in the past. AC2 and EQ2 being the biggest examples. EQ2 still suffers from a very look alike feel to the world. It is gorgeous, but their isn't alot of variety in terms of armor weapons etc, and very little added since release. AC2 is the worst case senario, and it contributed greatly to the games demise. AC1 was noted for its monthly content patches, which would add tons of stuff each month. 6 or 10 new dungeons, new quest items, new sparklies etc. AC2 tried to do the same thing. But for every 1 hour of art and design work to create something new for AC1 it took 10 hours or more for AC2, just because of the increased poly counts. Players were expecting full content patches, and instead they got very little new to see each month.
WoW managed to strike an almost perfect balance in this. They used a moderate graphics engine that can run on most current systems, and that uses a fairly low poly count. and they cleverly hid this fact by creative art and art direction. WoW's cartoony style isn't just for laughs, or to match the earlier RTS games. It also is there to mask the fact that they are not using the latest and greatest high poly count graphics engine. And the really weird thing about this is that to many many players, the cartoony'ness of WoW looks better and more natural than the more "realistic" avatars of other games such as EQ2. Often the high poly count super accurate character models start to look creepy to the human player.
Like I've stated before, I think a deep Shadowrun MMORPG would be great. But not one that focuses on the WoW/EQ method of gameplay, one that focuses much more on the social nature of the genre. My favorite MMORPG ever was the original NWN for AOL. It was almost purely social. Leveling was easy, the cap could be reached in a week or two. Loot was abundant and quite static, except for pearl items.
The basis of the game for the majority of us? Socializing. The guilds were much closer knit, the family atmosphere was readily apparent and PvP had more of a get together aspect (even against guilds you hated) than a griefer's delight. All this without player/guild housing, or any real tools available in game to hold a guild together.
I think the next big 600 lbs gorilla will have an extremely deep guild system. Not just, here's your house, here is the guild's progression, here's the private chat. I mean strong guild structures. Take the Shadowrun example, for instance. You could choose from guild templates; military, gang, mega-corporation, free-lance runner. Then you could impose restrictions and offer bonuses, much like your class template would have. Say, for example, that a free-lance runner guild would be restricted in numbers and certain social bonuses, but could have a wider range of weaponry and use more effective tactics. Where as a gang would gain social bonuses and have higher member caps but lack the more exotic weaponry and tactical capabilities.
This way your guild reflects your playstyle. This idea is merely a microcosm for the wider aspect of the whole game. By focusing on socializing, the gameplay elements become an extension of that feel. You'd do runs and PvP and explore to augment the enjoyment of meeting up with your guild friends. You wouldn't play for loot, it would all be much more accesible and thus trivial. Then you could have FFA PvP with looting and it wouldn't hurt. So what if you lost your gear? You'll just get more later on running missions with your crew, or you'll grab something from your over-flowing stock pile. You'll be a little bitter that some fool ran off with your favorite, personalized auto-cannon but what the hey, right? You're really playing just to have fun with your friends.
That's how I feel though. The games that copy WoW might be successful, but I don't see any of them reaching the same startling status.
First, I think everybody will agree that the franchise name and company name did a lot for it. Not only because people would be more inclined to trust a name such as Blizzard, but also because Blizzard has more means -- and invested more money -- to be able to produce such a large MMORPG and being able to market it (all the PR stuff).
Second, there's also where the market was at when the game was released. MMOGs were becoming more popular than ever with success stories from around the world for various games -- and the games were getting bigger, too -- which made it so people became more aware of the genre.
Also, on the market side, the internet continued to grow and people using it for years also came to use it more and for more things then they did in the past (i.e. less for work, more for entertainement)... which leads to third part of what I define as the market evolution: videogames perception. Videogames are no more a niche entertainement for socially inept teens: it is now a phenomenon that touches almost every demograpahics and the videogame market in the past 5-6 years as grown a lot -- and has gotten a far better public image in the process.
Finally, I'd say that, yes, the game in itself was designed in a way that make it easier to be widely adopted. But as we saw for several other types of product, you might just have designed the next best thing and it might still be a flop. Why ? As we saw here, bceause of the market readiness to your product and whole perception of your company/product/industry. These two sides, IMHO, are just as important to explain the success of WoW as the 3 reasons the OP evoked.
QFT. Some people want to hate WoW, or anything, so much they don't care if their arguments make sense, make thme look like twits, or whatever, they just want to hate.
WoW does have many faults but you can't argue with numbers. They ARE doing enough right to get and most importantly keep, millions playing, period. Saying it's from the Warcraft name is just showing you're unwilling to admit that a game can have a good name (SWG) yet if it doesn't deliver on fun for players it won't make it very far (SWG).
I think the author made some very good points that devs might want to consider. Especially the "easy to learn hard to master" thing. I loved being brought into the WoW world slowly and allowed to experience the world first instead of a deluge of things to learn like complicated interfaces, running here and there in a confusing environment, etc.
Overall I don't see any games in development right now that will take the 600lb gorilla out, but we'll see.