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there has never been a MMO with more subscribers and there never will be. because WoW is a fluke. It should not be the measuring stick, it's an anamoly nothing more.
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*cough, cough*
Some asian (errr, China) games have as much or even more, players then what WoW does.
Still, it is somewhat of an exception,yeah.
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Senhores da Guerra
Ok Doc.
Bull. Wow was released at the exact right time, that is timing. Blizzard is quite good on knowing what their fans wanted and the fans wanted a simpler version of EQ and linage without all the buggs.
And no, I doubt that another pay by month game will have more subscribers but there are games like perfect world that have a lot more. However, a console MMO could be as big, there is a market for it and no really good games there.
Wow is off course aging rapidly and Blizzards probably got a new ace up their sleeve for the next years. But saying Blizzard or for that matter another company that made a lot of big games just is lucky sounds stupid to me, they have given us games like Diablo and Starcraft.
And to be honest, the OP sounds like a troll to me.
So your basicly saying Blizzard doesn't have a clue about what they are doing? Wow was just a stroke of luck? I don't believe game developers leave much to luck tbh. In a swamp full of bad games Blizzard actually delivered a good one that is easy for anyone to get into. That is all. Luck has nothing to do with it.
blizzard definitely knows what the deal is here. They hit the market harder than any US mmorpg ever has- others have even lost subscribers to it. This is no way a fluke of any sort- this is business at its finest. I personally don't care for WoW, but you can't argue with what the majority demands. They like it- I dont, blizzard makes the $$ either way. The point is: who cares? Just play what appeals to you and dont worry about what these forum haters have to say about it. Me? waitin on a few games right now- I prefer more sandbox games though like pre cu swg (but mainly cause it was a f-ing star wars galaxy- greatest concept ever now destroyed). Kotor online sounds like it may repair that disaster but until that hits 20 years from now, i can maybe look forward to earthrise- and until earthrise? I guess ill just run with the crowd in WAR for now.
I totally agree with the OP! Blizzard has to be luckiest company ever!
They keep releasing crap: WoW, the Warcraft series, Diablo, Starcraft.......and everyone one of them is a monumental hit. They should be investigated by the FCC because something is clearly amok here!
Bottomline:WoW is not a fluke.
To the OP:Dont troll a game because you do not like it, or for whatever reason. Just play your game(s).
Currently Playing: Guild Wars.
Played:Guild Wars, Dungeon Runners, WoW, WC3, Starcraft, RuneScape, Wurm.
I believe the reason they did well is because all the MMOs at the time were forced grouping and long grinds. Many of the people who were playing those games including myself were looking for something more solo friendly and less time consuming. Blizzard capitalized on all those people. The main problem is people are now getting sick of playing WoW so even though companies churn out crappy clones that aren't quite as good as WoW they haven't been trying to find out what is the next step in entertainning MMO players like Blizzard did when it came out.
Exactly, you didn't have to group to have fun in WoW, at least not till high levels.
If there were more MMORPG's that you could solo, then it might have a really good chance of being huge.
Exactly, you didn't have to group to have fun in WoW, at least not till high levels.
If there were more MMORPG's that you could solo, then it might have a really good chance of being huge.
Thats not exactly what I mean. What I am saying is WoW capitalized on the MMO players that were tired of being forced into groups and long grind sessions.
Right now WoW is starting to get stale to a lot of people. I'm not sure what these people are looking for in a game, but it has to be something different from the same old WoW game mechanics. IMO this is why none of the WoW clones have done that well.
What a ridiculous thread.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
It could also be considered as the first of many.
I don't know if NES was the first real multi-game TV console, could be wrong, but I'm using it because it is still a contender today.
But many people have NES, which led to SNES, N64, Gamecube, etc.
Which also led to Xbox, Playstation.
And now you have 3 large companies fighting for sale, using different features to pull customers in. This is just the development of true games.
WoW could be considered the SNES, which will soon lead to better MMO's, where companies need to work x10 times harder then they are now to produce better games.
First of all, WoW is not a fluke (Blizzard knows what they are doing...), second, it IS the exception, or rather, the first Western MMO that hit million+ subs. (Asian MMO counted by account made, not active subs due to difference payment plans... Hence the number tends to be higher...)
WoW set a unprecedented record of world-wide subscription number, and this is why people look at it as the "measure stick". But to be honest, MMORPGs has way more elements to be judged than other genres, and that different themes has different mechanics to show for the particular theme. Therefore to use WoW as "measure stick" is the wrong thing to do. Even so, people tend to keep that in their arguments when it comes to compare different MMOs.
Then again, when compare to the extreme side of the "WoW killer" debate, it became the measure stick. And this is wrong too. MMORPGs should be measuring to itself based on what the game is trying to achieve, not measuring to previous games just on the subscription number.
Anyway, that's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.
Current MMO: FFXIV:ARR
Past MMO: Way too many (P2P and F2P)
I think fluke is the wrong word. Many take that to mean Blizzard was just lucky and they clearly are not that. However, I doubt that even the WoW developers expected it to become the behemoth that it is. There's always a certain amount of luck in putting out a new product no matter the business. Blizzard had some good timing and a very good product that appealed to the established MMO cmmunity and they drew in their own established fans who had never played MMOs. They did mainstream/primetime TV advertising which I think is a first.
However, you are more accurate to say that it is an anomoly which should not be the 'measuring stick'. A lofty goal, but not an expectation for future games (at least not in the immediate future).
I agree... so was hockey in Canada.
The fact that we have all that ice for many parts of the year, its obviously a fluke.
Soccer being popular is poor countries... FLUKE!! its not thats its cheap to play.
Oh... and wow, sure blizzard had one of the best track records when the game was released. Sure they had tons of fans, and came out with a solid game... but we all know its a fluke.
I love people who are illogically opposed to something, creating illogical evidence to support their illogical claim... man I like that word :P
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
Lol how can you say no MMO will ever have WoW's numbers. 100 years from now there will be 50 billion human beings on planet earth or something, I bet an MMO in the year 2108 will have more than 10M subs. Of course, that game might very well be WoW 3000
I don''t really know when Humankind will die out but i''m guessing about 6 years before WOW.
-BarCrow
I tend to agree that there could very possibly never be another American MMO that experiences the same success as WoW...It was just such perfect timing and execution by Blizzard...I doubt that even Bioware's KOTOR MMO will see the same numbers, regardless of pvp style, sandbox, linear, skill based, or whatever other choices the designers make.
And if anybody really believes that WAR will achieve this...then I think that they're delusional.
Your argument is like a two legged dog with an eating disorder...weak and unbalanced.
Blizzard pisses me off, because WoW is nothing but a fluke. But don't worry, because WAR is the next WoW killer in a long line of WoW killers that have come and gone throughout the years.
There, that should just about cover all the WoW threads that pop up on this forum day in and day out.
I guess we should stop calling MMO's MMO's and start calling them MMOWK (Massively Multiplayer Online WoW Killers). WoW wasn't a fluke, they played their IP, advertised it extremely well and played their cards the best they could, and this is what they get for it.
Grats to Blizzard, the unstoppable force with no immovable object.
To put in in Alterac Valley/Batman terms.
WoW isn't nearly the "fluke" that its detractors (and some of it's supporters) think it is.
Blizz took the BEST from the existing crop of MMOs and discarded the things people didn't like: the forced grouping, the heavy death penalties, the craptastic unfinishedness of the MMO.
The result is a game that is, at least at first, and for most potential players, a very fun game with just the right amount of challenge to sustain interest. Combat can be very challenging to really master, but you don't need to master combat to be successful, at least in PvE.
WoW is not for everyone, obviously, but it's for a lot of people out there. This isn't a fluke...it's part of the design. The fact that, unlike nearly every other MMO at launch, it was by comparison bug free and polished made a huge impression on many. A positive one.
Blizz deliberately "dumbed down" a lot of MMO features...not the least of which is the number of superficial graphical options available to players. This improved game performance and simplifed code maintenance, which made the polish and relative lack of bugs possible.
The catch of course is that due to WoW's financial success, it's now the standard by which a hit is measured.
It will take years for the damage that factor alone has done to the MMO industry to be overcome. It wasn't deliberate, or designed to be that way, but it is defacto what the money men see as success. I don't think anyone can beat it anytime soon.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
How has WoW damaged the industry? If game designers are so stupid that they keep making WoW clones, they deserve to fail. Blizzard already has another team at work designing a next-gen MMO which will probably be announced in a few more years. I'd wager that they encompass into that MMO everything that WoW is not and therefore break out with another hit without even hurting WoW. Why? Because their design is intelligent; they know how to appeal to the market and produce a game that people want to play. I've never, ever seen game designers that actually listen to what players want more than Blizzard has.
For example, right now in beta-- class changes are based on balance and what the players want. Game features are much the game. Player input has a huge effect on the game and that keeps people playing WoW. Other game companies seem to ignore the costumer, and seem to base their games on what other games have done-- and therefore they DESERVE to fail. Funcom deserved to have AoC flop. Let's say WoW was never created-- and being realistic with that idea, we would see a lot less MMO's being developed. Why? Because most of the MMO's that are trying to imitate WoW are realistically developed BECAUSE of WoW. They probably would not exist without it.
I couldn't agree more. In many ways, WoW is holding the industry together by its frayed seams. If these idiot devs weren't copying WoW, they'd be copying some other game instead, probably of significantly poorer quality. WoW raised the bar, like it or not, and we should all be grateful.
If you want to be mad at somebody, be mad at the idiot devs making clones. These people get so money hungry, they don't realize they are just shooting themselves in the foot. The gaming industry, and MMOs especially, are for people who care about games. If you don't... it shows.
Doesn't matter what a peon on a forum thinks about this. The industry and the market get to make the choice. I know too many people in the game industry and believe me, they consider it a type of benchmark.
The only part I agree with the OP on, is that WoW should not be a measuring stick.
I think what people mean when they say "WoW has damaged the industry", is that:
1. So many people imitate it, that there is no change or innovation.
2. It has simplified MMOs for the casual market.
Blizzard can't really take blame for point 1, so that's not their fault.
Point 2 is only a problem because of point 1. WoW is not responsible if other people copy it's flaws.
So, I think it's safe to say that WoW has not damaged the industry, the industry has damaged the industry.
If WoW is a fluke, then what recent MMO release that was out at the time WoW has released, or has released since WoW is better, or was in a position to compete with WoW, but just didn't have the circumstances WoW did on release?
The fact is, WoW WOULD be a fluke, if there were all these other GREAT MMO's out there, that for one reason or another, lack of publicity, wrong release time, etc., just didn't do as good as WoW, but can you name one?