So how did WoW compete with EQ1 and OU. I mean EQ1 and OU had tons of content and was polished yet a new game with less content and less polished still beat those games. Your logic is wrong.
They were over 5 years at Wows release for one thing.
Another is that Wow is easier so more people can play it.
Polish of course helps a lot, and Blizzards fanbase also but there are many factors that made Wow the biggest game.
i just noticed that folks corrected my post to show eves subscriber base at 240k, the funny thing is when i log into eve daily and during different times the number of active players doesnt really move much from 40k. if they got 240k well done it means 200 thousand people are paying eve to not play. either way failiure and success are relative to your company.
That actually means you didn't think it through. EvE is an international game so the count of 40K online at peak hours means that only 16% of the community is logged in at the time, which makes quite a bit of sense* since you can't expect everyone on the game to have identical log in times due to so many RL factors
*likewise this also means that the EvE community is a little more "hardcore" than the average MMO since the average login to subscriber I've normally seen is 1 to 10 or very close. Granted you don't need to look at the numbers to say that since you can just look at forum activity
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
maybe this will show Developers out there that the WoW style of game is getting old and people would rather play WoW instead of WoW with Warhammer skins, or Conan skins. thank god the NGE failed so developers can see that we don't want WoW with starwars skins (SW:TOR im looking at you).
maybe this will usher in a new era of quality MMOs, just too bad those wont be out for a couple years.
In a couple of years, those hypothetical new games will be competing with todays MMO's, only todays MMO's will, again, have several extra years of new content, balancing, and bug fixes. (This includes AoC and WoW). That will make it very difficult for those new MMO's to compete.
This is not true. New MMOs will be able to compete just fine if they meet the following.
Release is smooth
Release has all "features" enabled
Developer has good communication with its players
A good friendly community.
No! reread my statement.
The new MMO's irreguardles of the above, will still be competing against games that have years more development time and already established communities. None of todays AAA MMO's are going to be static, they will continue to add new content, add new features, and polish existing content and features.
No new game is ever going to have an easy time when compared against that kind of standard.
Possible, yes, but very, very, very difficult, and they will be making cuts somewhere.
Established mmos also have "burn out" factor. There is a very very large population of people who are actively looking for a new game to play. You can see evidence of this with conan and warhammer both selling over 1 million units each. The fact that both games struggle to retain a small percentage of those subscribers doesn't mean that it is impossible to compete with established games. Both of those games had massive problems that drove players away. People simply do not want to pay for the potential of a game being finished and fun someday down the road.
Keep in mind that warcraft entered the market when other games had long established communities with far more game content to offer and warcraft did just fine stealing massive amounts of players from those games. A game doesn't have to be the biggest and have the most content. It just has to be good.
We can speculate that players don't want a reskinned wow (which I agree with), but at the same time warcraft is just a reworked clone of everquest. LOTRO is evidence that some people will enjoy a reskinned wow if it is delivered in a polished and fun condition. It may not be a block buster, but there is enough market that will always like more of the same.
There is also enough market for many types of games to grab large slices of the mmo population from wow and other mmos. The problem is companies keep repeating the same tragic mistakes over and over again. Unfinished gameplay, poor performance and misguided-untested game mechanics at release will only damage a games ability to sustain momentum from release and quickly earn a negative word of mouth reputation.
Originally posted by donjn Originally posted by Ravanos maybe this will show Developers out there that the WoW style of game is getting old and people would rather play WoW instead of WoW with Warhammer skins, or Conan skins. thank god the NGE failed so developers can see that we don't want WoW with starwars skins (SW:TOR im looking at you). maybe this will usher in a new era of quality MMOs, just too bad those wont be out for a couple years.
I think in the end AoC will be better than Warhammer. For me personally, Lord of the Rings Online is the best MMO out right now, in my opinion. Its nice to play with a great community and an epic story..
i kinda liked lotro but after 30-ish the game got pretty boring pretty fast.... Never tried aoc....
War needs some help Its a great game but the endgame needs a lot of work...
maybe this will show Developers out there that the WoW style of game is getting old and people would rather play WoW instead of WoW with Warhammer skins, or Conan skins. thank god the NGE failed so developers can see that we don't want WoW with starwars skins (SW:TOR im looking at you).
maybe this will usher in a new era of quality MMOs, just too bad those wont be out for a couple years.
Oh yes there is nothing like the thrill i receive when a game closes that thousands of other people enjoy. After all i dont like that game or that game company so why should i care what others enjoy? I think its best not to come here and discuss what games we are playing (although that is what was intended for this site) as some "great thinker/philosopher will take it upon himself to tell us how our game sucks and its a wow clone and it gonna fail and on and on and on. I know that the LOTRO, EQ2 and DDO haters will miss me but ive decided to leave this wonderful community and explore what else the internet has to offer. I may stop in now and then to see what new games are on the horizon but as for the boards, dare i say it? Yes people not all but a growing majority of you are dead to me. Hopefully all the games you (not just the OP but, well you know who you are) will fail so you can find some happiness in your miserable existence. The anger and negativity in this place is amazing.
Like others have said, OP wishing game developers to lose their jobs and people to be heart broken about not being able to play their favorite games shows that the guy needs to sort out his priorities and maybe see a shrink. This is not healthy reasoning for an adult.
maybe this will show Developers out there that the WoW style of game is getting old and people would rather play WoW instead of WoW with Warhammer skins, or Conan skins. thank god the NGE failed so developers can see that we don't want WoW with starwars skins (SW:TOR im looking at you).
maybe this will usher in a new era of quality MMOs, just too bad those wont be out for a couple years.
In a couple of years, those hypothetical new games will be competing with todays MMO's, only todays MMO's will, again, have several extra years of new content, balancing, and bug fixes. (This includes AoC and WoW). That will make it very difficult for those new MMO's to compete.
This is not true. New MMOs will be able to compete just fine if they meet the following.
Release is smooth
Release has all "features" enabled
Developer has good communication with its players
A good friendly community.
No! reread my statement.
The new MMO's irreguardles of the above, will still be competing against games that have years more development time and already established communities. None of todays AAA MMO's are going to be static, they will continue to add new content, add new features, and polish existing content and features.
No new game is ever going to have an easy time when compared against that kind of standard.
Possible, yes, but very, very, very difficult, and they will be making cuts somewhere.
Established mmos also have "burn out" factor. There is a very very large population of people who are actively looking for a new game to play. You can see evidence of this with conan and warhammer both selling over 1 million units each. The fact that both games struggle to retain a small percentage of those subscribers doesn't mean that it is impossible to compete with established games. Both of those games had massive problems that drove players away. People simply do not want to pay for the potential of a game being finished and fun someday down the road.
Keep in mind that warcraft entered the market when other games had long established communities with far more game content to offer and warcraft did just fine stealing massive amounts of players from those games. A game doesn't have to be the biggest and have the most content. It just has to be good.
We can speculate that players don't want a reskinned wow (which I agree with), but at the same time warcraft is just a reworked clone of everquest. LOTRO is evidence that some people will enjoy a reskinned wow if it is delivered in a polished and fun condition. It may not be a block buster, but there is enough market that will always like more of the same.
There is also enough market for many types of games to grab large slices of the mmo population from wow and other mmos. The problem is companies keep repeating the same tragic mistakes over and over again. Unfinished gameplay, poor performance and misguided-untested game mechanics at release will only damage a games ability to sustain momentum from release and quickly earn a negative word of mouth reputation.
Comparing WoW to EQ is heresy sir, and it would do you good to apologize!
maybe this will show Developers out there that the WoW style of game is getting old and people would rather play WoW instead of WoW with Warhammer skins, or Conan skins. thank god the NGE failed so developers can see that we don't want WoW with starwars skins (SW:TOR im looking at you).
maybe this will usher in a new era of quality MMOs, just too bad those wont be out for a couple years.
And WOW copied EQ, and WoW copied Warhammer's ENTIRE art direction (Yes Warhammer was out way before WoW or any of the Warcraft series).
Since you failed to know that vital piece of information you lost all credit in your original post.
AoC is not much like wow. It is in the fact that you have buttons on a bar you push. You also follow quests and kill mobs with spells and swords. SO ya in those respects its like wow. WHen I first installed WAR i remember thinking to myself this is wow 2.0. But the whole idea behind the game isnt very wowish. These games failing dont show developers anything. It does show them that they have to be more like WOW to suceed. They will look at AoC and WAR and think to themselves "how can we more wowify these games?" Why be glad when any game fails. It doesnt bring the genre forward. Only money does.
Consumers speak with their money. Thats why .
When you say its ok that you false advertise and put out crap, you reward bad behavior, and make that type of business practice acceptable. Eventually, it becomes the norm.
maybe this will show Developers out there that the WoW style of game is getting old and people would rather play WoW instead of WoW with Warhammer skins, or Conan skins. thank god the NGE failed so developers can see that we don't want WoW with starwars skins (SW:TOR im looking at you). maybe this will usher in a new era of quality MMOs, just too bad those wont be out for a couple years.
I think in the end AoC will be better than Warhammer.
For me personally, Lord of the Rings Online is the best MMO out right now, in my opinion. Its nice to play with a great community and an epic story..
Nothing against LOTRO (i was a diehard for almost 2 years) but Turbine took a wrong direction imo. Moria was horrible and there is very little to do once you hit end-game.
The end-game for me ruined LOTRO...and PvMp is boring and bland after a month of running of The Moors. I'm sure LOTRO is great for some folks but for me I dropped it after 2 years of playing because I grew to dislike TURBINE.
An epic tale? LOL. Most of the epic book chapters I found lame and bland compared to tolkiens work. I hope to one day see a different MMO company try their hand at Middle Earth but its very unlikely that will happen... :-(
This discussion fails. I havent played AoC but i do play WAR regularly. People are still subscribing, new patches AND content are coming out. So to say a game has failed that is still just starting out is immature and idiotic.....It may have failed for you, but not others, and it is nothing like that quest grinding, horrible and meaningless pvping, cartoony peice of crap WoW. (I love warcraft, but not Wow). But if you were to compare the two, WAR is WoW's Hotter younger sluttier sister....i saw that on g4, it went something like that haha.
maybe this will show Developers out there that the WoW style of game is getting old and people would rather play WoW instead of WoW with Warhammer skins, or Conan skins. thank god the NGE failed so developers can see that we don't want WoW with starwars skins (SW:TOR im looking at you).
maybe this will usher in a new era of quality MMOs, just too bad those wont be out for a couple years.
And WOW copied EQ, and WoW copied Warhammer's ENTIRE art direction (Yes Warhammer was out way before WoW or any of the Warcraft series).
Since you failed to know that vital piece of information you lost all credit in your original post.
If you think being INFLUENCED in art direction somehow translates into a succesful MMO, you're bonkers. By the way, Warhammer I guess copied Tolkien and mythology. WAR the VIDEOGAME copied WOW the videogame. Considering WAR didn't exist except on paper 4 yrs ago, who really copied who?
Calm down guys. I think this was just troll bait. Don't take it so serious.
Both games are running along. They aren't as successful as WoW is....but WoW wasn't as successfull as WoW is now either. It had to grow. Unless someone wants to make a complete ass of themselves and say WoW had 10+ subs right at the start.
This discussion fails. I havent played AoC but i do play WAR regularly. People are still subscribing, new patches AND content are coming out. So to say a game has failed that is still just starting out is immature and idiotic.....It may have failed for you, but not others, and it is nothing like that quest grinding, horrible and meaningless pvping, cartoony peice of crap WoW. (I love warcraft, but not Wow). But if you were to compare the two, WAR is WoW's Hotter younger sluttier sister....i saw that on g4, it went something like that haha.
LOL! Wow owns WAR bud. You WoW haters crack me up. People like you are likely the reason I happily left WAR, not to mention WAR brought nothing unique to the table.
maybe this will show Developers out there that the WoW style of game is getting old and people would rather play WoW instead of WoW with Warhammer skins, or Conan skins. thank god the NGE failed so developers can see that we don't want WoW with starwars skins (SW:TOR im looking at you).
maybe this will usher in a new era of quality MMOs, just too bad those wont be out for a couple years.
first of all no gamer should ever be glad for games to fail, unless a person is not that much of a gamer of course or simply does not care about games.
Secondly I played all three and then some and none gave me a WOW feel of any kind, kinda am hearing this WOW driffel ever since WOW was created, I mean even in SWG people started to say it became a WOW clone, which to me just showed what I said that people have this wow playstyle and try to blame games for it.
Overall I wish people new to this genre of games would stop wishing or hoping for games to fail cause it will not do good for this industry, of course I want more polished/solid MMORPG, but thankfully I have yet to see a WOW clone as none of the games or MMO's I have played reminded me of WOW, other then those games being targetted towards MMO players.
maybe this will show Developers out there that the WoW style of game is getting old and people would rather play WoW instead of WoW with Warhammer skins, or Conan skins. thank god the NGE failed so developers can see that we don't want WoW with starwars skins (SW:TOR im looking at you).
maybe this will usher in a new era of quality MMOs, just too bad those wont be out for a couple years.
And WOW copied EQ, and WoW copied Warhammer's ENTIRE art direction (Yes Warhammer was out way before WoW or any of the Warcraft series).
Since you failed to know that vital piece of information you lost all credit in your original post.
If you think being INFLUENCED in art direction somehow translates into a succesful MMO, you're bonkers.
Fail. Please do not put words in my mouth. That's not what I said nor intended.
By the way, Warhammer I guess copied Tolkien and mythology.
Actually they all copied Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, creators of D&D. They turned Tolkien fantasy into a gaming system used till this day. They created the backbone for what would be class balance and group/solo gameplay. Bow down player.
WAR the VIDEOGAME copied WOW the videogame.
WOW the videogame copied EQ the videogame. WAR the videogame copied EQ the videogame I still remember one of WoW's infamous ads on every game magazine saying prior to release, "Tired of killing rats?" and showing a 2 page ad for WoW. Funny thing is that we later will find out that instead of killing rats we would just be killing boars
Considering WAR didn't exist except on paper 4 yrs ago, who really copied who?
There are a lot of things in WAR that are different from WoW. About the only thing I really found similar were maybe some of the graphical presentations, but even there I have seen some big differences. The gameplay is immensely different.
I'm not sure I agree with the premise of this whole thread.
I'm not going to go through 8 pages of this thread, but I will say this to the OP. WoW succeeded because of its fanbase PRIOR to releasing. By this I mean, Warcraft - Warcraft 3, Diablo I and II, Starcraft. WoW brought in a ton of gamers to MMO's that had never really seen/tried this type of gaming before.
If failing means you bring in millions more than you put out, than I hope to hell I fail... SOON!
Mythic did not expect to come close to the numbers that WoW has. They said that from the get go. WoW has a freakish population. They have something like 11 million subscribers. I believe that alone is more than the entire MMO industry had prior to Blizzard releasing WoW. A "successful" MMO was considered to have 250k+ subs prior to Blizzard. Also, Blizzard at one point had around 17 or 18 million subs if I remember correctly. That would mean that they lost 6 or 7 mil, yet they remain a sucess.
WAR is improving all the time. I'm much happier with it now than I was 2 months ago.. hell, one month ago. Not sure what exactly some people want, but Blizzard owes a huge "thank you" to Warhammer/GW. Of course, it isn't the first time a company has ripped off the "look" of something else and fooled millions into believing it was their idea.
I'm not going to go through 8 pages of this thread, but I will say this to the OP. WoW succeeded because of its fanbase PRIOR to releasing. By this I mean, Warcraft - Warcraft 3, Diablo I and II, Starcraft. WoW brought in a ton of gamers to MMO's that had never really seen/tried this type of gaming before. If failing means you bring in millions more than you put out, than I hope to hell I fail... SOON! Mythic did not expect to come close to the numbers that WoW has. They said that from the get go. WoW has a freakish population. They have something like 11 million subscribers. I believe that alone is more than the entire MMO industry had prior to Blizzard releasing WoW. A "successful" MMO was considered to have 250k+ subs prior to Blizzard. Also, Blizzard at one point had around 17 or 18 million subs if I remember correctly. That would mean that they lost 6 or 7 mil, yet they remain a sucess. WAR is improving all the time. I'm much happier with it now than I was 2 months ago.. hell, one month ago. Not sure what exactly some people want, but Blizzard owes a huge "thank you" to Warhammer/GW. Of course, it isn't the first time a company has ripped off the "look" of something else and fooled millions into believing it was their idea.
Blizzard never claimed 17 or 18 million subscribers and to date has not had a decline it population. Lineage once claimed that many accounts, but not subscribers.
Warcraft at release also took large chunks of players from just about every mmo during that time period. It wasn't just new people.
The heads in charge of warhammer were predicting MILLIONS of players subscribing to the game. They most certainly were expecting wow like numbers. Maybe not 11 million players, but you can see that just by the amount of boxed copies they sold to retails for inital sales (somewhere around 1.5 million) and the number of servers they launched the game with (somewhere around 100 which dwarfs almost every other mmo). They certainly were expecting a raging success.
There are a number of other properties that have fairly large fan bases prior to release and they have underwhelmed for the most part. Wows success goes beyond just having fans, because if that is all it takes then the sims online should be the biggest mmo ever considering it is the best selling pc title of all times.
I never considered WAR or AoC to be like WoW. There are a lot of things in WAR that are different from WoW. About the only thing I really found similar were maybe some of the graphical presentations, but even there I have seen some big differences. The gameplay is immensely different. I'm not sure I agree with the premise of this whole thread.
I didn't find aoc to be a clone either outside of the quest grind, but my experience was rather limited in the game so take that for what it is worth.
Warhammer though has a very much clone mmo gameplay. If you remove the fort seiges and public quests the game is strikingly similar to what people are calling clones right now. Compare it to warcraft or whatever game it really doesn't matter as much of the game is run of the mill stuff. Mythic even said that warhammer was going to be 80% of what already existed in mmos with 20% new on top of that. Sounds about right too.
I agree with your disagreement of this threads premise, but I hope future companies take note and allow developers enough time to polish future games before they release them.
OK first the main post. Based on what you are saying is that everyone is tired of Fantasy based MMORPG's, because that is really the only thing these games have in common that is WoWish. Don'tsay the combat system, because it has been used in several other games that predate the hell out of WoW.
No on to some of the other things in this post.
WoW did not innovate a damn thing. They took ideas from the games on the market, removed some of the tedium, and polished the hell out of them. The only two thing I would really even consider giving WoW for innovation is the Quest to level system, and the super easy to macro and mod user interface.
The Quest to level system I think was really just a development of several years of work of other devolpers coming up with ideas for quests not really anything Blizzard though of, but I do believe they were the first to really get there.
The super easy to macro and mod UI I think has actually hurt the industry, because now you have to have all these damn mods and macros that basically play the game for you instead of actually making people pay attention and actually play the game and figure it out.
I see all these post about broken promises and such as well. Don't forget that Blizzard has broken several promises they made as well. To point out a few. Hero classes are nothing, NOTHING like they promised in Beta. PvP in WoW has nothing to do with Alliance vs Horde and world PvP in WoW is a joke. You still cannot take control of enemy cities or towns. Original content is completely outdated and the only reason people do it is for achievements at this point. I am sure there are some I am missing, but I did beta test WoW, played for a few years, and even went to the first two Blizzcons. Blizzard has broken as many promises as any other company out there.
While I don't think either game is totally failing, I think the reasons they are not the huge blockbusters they could have been is because they got rushed out the door. Everyone seems to forget that WoW was in development for about 5-6 years. The reason I picked up DAOC originally was to tide me over until WoW and I started DAOC about a month after release. I knew about WoW about a year before that and DAOC came out in 2001 and WoW did not come out until 2004. All I knew back then was that Blizzard was making an MMO based on Warcraft. WAR was in developement for 3 years.
In fact I will give blizzard props on the fact that they kept everything really tight lipped until they were ready for the world to see it. Maybe other companies should take a key from that until they are ready for the world to see it so the producers wont be so quick to push it out the door.
This is coming from a big mythic fan. I loved DAOC and am currently playing it but I must say WAR was too much WOW like for me and it makes me sad because I want/wanted WAR to succeed but im afraid the problem I have probably will never be fixed...I do not like the combat in WAR that part seemed to WOW like for me compared to DAOC's combat.
AOC on the other hand is a solid game in my opinion and the combat felt nothing like WOW to me. Really the only thing I guess maybe seemed WOW like was the yellow exclamation points above quest givers heads. I actually think AOC will do a good turn around. Im just enjoying the population of DAOC right now it may be the last hurrah.
Also Im craving a new Sci-fi MMO like Anarchy Online im really sick of the fantasy setting at the moment.
These failures teach developers nothing because developers of most failed MMO games were not able to take the time and truly develop the game to a complete level before being forced to release.
AoC fails because Funcom has poor business practice and bit off more than they could handle. Plus tons of last minute changes.
WAR is not to the level people thought because the endgame is not implemented properly. Also poor decisions in class balancing are making people angry int hat game. I also believe Mythic bit a lttle more off than they could chew, but at least they are handling it well for the size company that they are.
However, WAR did not fail, it just ended up drowning in the sea of other average MMO games. Lucky for Mythic the game was cheap as hell to develop, so EA still profits from standard subscription numbers.
I think Darkfall fails more. It fails because of the 8 year development cycle. It fails because after those 8 years it looks worst thant Dark Age of Camelot in gameplay and art direction.
Comments
They were over 5 years at Wows release for one thing.
Another is that Wow is easier so more people can play it.
Polish of course helps a lot, and Blizzards fanbase also but there are many factors that made Wow the biggest game.
That actually means you didn't think it through. EvE is an international game so the count of 40K online at peak hours means that only 16% of the community is logged in at the time, which makes quite a bit of sense* since you can't expect everyone on the game to have identical log in times due to so many RL factors
*likewise this also means that the EvE community is a little more "hardcore" than the average MMO since the average login to subscriber I've normally seen is 1 to 10 or very close. Granted you don't need to look at the numbers to say that since you can just look at forum activity
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
This is not true. New MMOs will be able to compete just fine if they meet the following.
Release is smooth
Release has all "features" enabled
Developer has good communication with its players
A good friendly community.
No! reread my statement.
The new MMO's irreguardles of the above, will still be competing against games that have years more development time and already established communities. None of todays AAA MMO's are going to be static, they will continue to add new content, add new features, and polish existing content and features.
No new game is ever going to have an easy time when compared against that kind of standard.
Possible, yes, but very, very, very difficult, and they will be making cuts somewhere.
Established mmos also have "burn out" factor. There is a very very large population of people who are actively looking for a new game to play. You can see evidence of this with conan and warhammer both selling over 1 million units each. The fact that both games struggle to retain a small percentage of those subscribers doesn't mean that it is impossible to compete with established games. Both of those games had massive problems that drove players away. People simply do not want to pay for the potential of a game being finished and fun someday down the road.
Keep in mind that warcraft entered the market when other games had long established communities with far more game content to offer and warcraft did just fine stealing massive amounts of players from those games. A game doesn't have to be the biggest and have the most content. It just has to be good.
We can speculate that players don't want a reskinned wow (which I agree with), but at the same time warcraft is just a reworked clone of everquest. LOTRO is evidence that some people will enjoy a reskinned wow if it is delivered in a polished and fun condition. It may not be a block buster, but there is enough market that will always like more of the same.
There is also enough market for many types of games to grab large slices of the mmo population from wow and other mmos. The problem is companies keep repeating the same tragic mistakes over and over again. Unfinished gameplay, poor performance and misguided-untested game mechanics at release will only damage a games ability to sustain momentum from release and quickly earn a negative word of mouth reputation.
For me personally, Lord of the Rings Online is the best MMO out right now, in my opinion. Its nice to play with a great community and an epic story..
i kinda liked lotro but after 30-ish the game got pretty boring pretty fast....
Never tried aoc....
War needs some help Its a great game but the endgame needs a lot of work...
Oh yes there is nothing like the thrill i receive when a game closes that thousands of other people enjoy. After all i dont like that game or that game company so why should i care what others enjoy? I think its best not to come here and discuss what games we are playing (although that is what was intended for this site) as some "great thinker/philosopher will take it upon himself to tell us how our game sucks and its a wow clone and it gonna fail and on and on and on. I know that the LOTRO, EQ2 and DDO haters will miss me but ive decided to leave this wonderful community and explore what else the internet has to offer. I may stop in now and then to see what new games are on the horizon but as for the boards, dare i say it? Yes people not all but a growing majority of you are dead to me. Hopefully all the games you (not just the OP but, well you know who you are) will fail so you can find some happiness in your miserable existence. The anger and negativity in this place is amazing.
Like others have said, OP wishing game developers to lose their jobs and people to be heart broken about not being able to play their favorite games shows that the guy needs to sort out his priorities and maybe see a shrink. This is not healthy reasoning for an adult.
Those games don't fail because they copy allot of WoW, it's more like they forget the 1 thing that Blizzard always held high, polish.
It's more like they didn't copy enough ....
This is not true. New MMOs will be able to compete just fine if they meet the following.
Release is smooth
Release has all "features" enabled
Developer has good communication with its players
A good friendly community.
No! reread my statement.
The new MMO's irreguardles of the above, will still be competing against games that have years more development time and already established communities. None of todays AAA MMO's are going to be static, they will continue to add new content, add new features, and polish existing content and features.
No new game is ever going to have an easy time when compared against that kind of standard.
Possible, yes, but very, very, very difficult, and they will be making cuts somewhere.
Established mmos also have "burn out" factor. There is a very very large population of people who are actively looking for a new game to play. You can see evidence of this with conan and warhammer both selling over 1 million units each. The fact that both games struggle to retain a small percentage of those subscribers doesn't mean that it is impossible to compete with established games. Both of those games had massive problems that drove players away. People simply do not want to pay for the potential of a game being finished and fun someday down the road.
Keep in mind that warcraft entered the market when other games had long established communities with far more game content to offer and warcraft did just fine stealing massive amounts of players from those games. A game doesn't have to be the biggest and have the most content. It just has to be good.
We can speculate that players don't want a reskinned wow (which I agree with), but at the same time warcraft is just a reworked clone of everquest. LOTRO is evidence that some people will enjoy a reskinned wow if it is delivered in a polished and fun condition. It may not be a block buster, but there is enough market that will always like more of the same.
There is also enough market for many types of games to grab large slices of the mmo population from wow and other mmos. The problem is companies keep repeating the same tragic mistakes over and over again. Unfinished gameplay, poor performance and misguided-untested game mechanics at release will only damage a games ability to sustain momentum from release and quickly earn a negative word of mouth reputation.
Comparing WoW to EQ is heresy sir, and it would do you good to apologize!
And WOW copied EQ, and WoW copied Warhammer's ENTIRE art direction (Yes Warhammer was out way before WoW or any of the Warcraft series).
Since you failed to know that vital piece of information you lost all credit in your original post.
Consumers speak with their money. Thats why .
When you say its ok that you false advertise and put out crap, you reward bad behavior, and make that type of business practice acceptable. Eventually, it becomes the norm.
I think in the end AoC will be better than Warhammer.
For me personally, Lord of the Rings Online is the best MMO out right now, in my opinion. Its nice to play with a great community and an epic story..
Nothing against LOTRO (i was a diehard for almost 2 years) but Turbine took a wrong direction imo. Moria was horrible and there is very little to do once you hit end-game.
The end-game for me ruined LOTRO...and PvMp is boring and bland after a month of running of The Moors. I'm sure LOTRO is great for some folks but for me I dropped it after 2 years of playing because I grew to dislike TURBINE.
An epic tale? LOL. Most of the epic book chapters I found lame and bland compared to tolkiens work. I hope to one day see a different MMO company try their hand at Middle Earth but its very unlikely that will happen... :-(
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
This discussion fails. I havent played AoC but i do play WAR regularly. People are still subscribing, new patches AND content are coming out. So to say a game has failed that is still just starting out is immature and idiotic.....It may have failed for you, but not others, and it is nothing like that quest grinding, horrible and meaningless pvping, cartoony peice of crap WoW. (I love warcraft, but not Wow). But if you were to compare the two, WAR is WoW's Hotter younger sluttier sister....i saw that on g4, it went something like that haha.
And WOW copied EQ, and WoW copied Warhammer's ENTIRE art direction (Yes Warhammer was out way before WoW or any of the Warcraft series).
Since you failed to know that vital piece of information you lost all credit in your original post.
If you think being INFLUENCED in art direction somehow translates into a succesful MMO, you're bonkers. By the way, Warhammer I guess copied Tolkien and mythology. WAR the VIDEOGAME copied WOW the videogame. Considering WAR didn't exist except on paper 4 yrs ago, who really copied who?
WAR has been on paper for 25years =P
Calm down guys. I think this was just troll bait. Don't take it so serious.
Both games are running along. They aren't as successful as WoW is....but WoW wasn't as successfull as WoW is now either. It had to grow. Unless someone wants to make a complete ass of themselves and say WoW had 10+ subs right at the start.
Don't fret.
LOL! Wow owns WAR bud. You WoW haters crack me up. People like you are likely the reason I happily left WAR, not to mention WAR brought nothing unique to the table.
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
first of all no gamer should ever be glad for games to fail, unless a person is not that much of a gamer of course or simply does not care about games.
Secondly I played all three and then some and none gave me a WOW feel of any kind, kinda am hearing this WOW driffel ever since WOW was created, I mean even in SWG people started to say it became a WOW clone, which to me just showed what I said that people have this wow playstyle and try to blame games for it.
Overall I wish people new to this genre of games would stop wishing or hoping for games to fail cause it will not do good for this industry, of course I want more polished/solid MMORPG, but thankfully I have yet to see a WOW clone as none of the games or MMO's I have played reminded me of WOW, other then those games being targetted towards MMO players.
And WOW copied EQ, and WoW copied Warhammer's ENTIRE art direction (Yes Warhammer was out way before WoW or any of the Warcraft series).
Since you failed to know that vital piece of information you lost all credit in your original post.
If you think being INFLUENCED in art direction somehow translates into a succesful MMO, you're bonkers.
Fail. Please do not put words in my mouth. That's not what I said nor intended.
By the way, Warhammer I guess copied Tolkien and mythology.
Actually they all copied Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, creators of D&D. They turned Tolkien fantasy into a gaming system used till this day. They created the backbone for what would be class balance and group/solo gameplay. Bow down player.
WAR the VIDEOGAME copied WOW the videogame.
WOW the videogame copied EQ the videogame. WAR the videogame copied EQ the videogame I still remember one of WoW's infamous ads on every game magazine saying prior to release, "Tired of killing rats?" and showing a 2 page ad for WoW. Funny thing is that we later will find out that instead of killing rats we would just be killing boars
Considering WAR didn't exist except on paper 4 yrs ago, who really copied who?
Warhammer has been around since 1983.
I never considered WAR or AoC to be like WoW.
There are a lot of things in WAR that are different from WoW. About the only thing I really found similar were maybe some of the graphical presentations, but even there I have seen some big differences. The gameplay is immensely different.
I'm not sure I agree with the premise of this whole thread.
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I'm not going to go through 8 pages of this thread, but I will say this to the OP. WoW succeeded because of its fanbase PRIOR to releasing. By this I mean, Warcraft - Warcraft 3, Diablo I and II, Starcraft. WoW brought in a ton of gamers to MMO's that had never really seen/tried this type of gaming before.
If failing means you bring in millions more than you put out, than I hope to hell I fail... SOON!
Mythic did not expect to come close to the numbers that WoW has. They said that from the get go. WoW has a freakish population. They have something like 11 million subscribers. I believe that alone is more than the entire MMO industry had prior to Blizzard releasing WoW. A "successful" MMO was considered to have 250k+ subs prior to Blizzard. Also, Blizzard at one point had around 17 or 18 million subs if I remember correctly. That would mean that they lost 6 or 7 mil, yet they remain a sucess.
WAR is improving all the time. I'm much happier with it now than I was 2 months ago.. hell, one month ago. Not sure what exactly some people want, but Blizzard owes a huge "thank you" to Warhammer/GW. Of course, it isn't the first time a company has ripped off the "look" of something else and fooled millions into believing it was their idea.
~Tarqueth~
Blizzard never claimed 17 or 18 million subscribers and to date has not had a decline it population. Lineage once claimed that many accounts, but not subscribers.
Warcraft at release also took large chunks of players from just about every mmo during that time period. It wasn't just new people.
The heads in charge of warhammer were predicting MILLIONS of players subscribing to the game. They most certainly were expecting wow like numbers. Maybe not 11 million players, but you can see that just by the amount of boxed copies they sold to retails for inital sales (somewhere around 1.5 million) and the number of servers they launched the game with (somewhere around 100 which dwarfs almost every other mmo). They certainly were expecting a raging success.
There are a number of other properties that have fairly large fan bases prior to release and they have underwhelmed for the most part. Wows success goes beyond just having fans, because if that is all it takes then the sims online should be the biggest mmo ever considering it is the best selling pc title of all times.
I didn't find aoc to be a clone either outside of the quest grind, but my experience was rather limited in the game so take that for what it is worth.
Warhammer though has a very much clone mmo gameplay. If you remove the fort seiges and public quests the game is strikingly similar to what people are calling clones right now. Compare it to warcraft or whatever game it really doesn't matter as much of the game is run of the mill stuff. Mythic even said that warhammer was going to be 80% of what already existed in mmos with 20% new on top of that. Sounds about right too.
I agree with your disagreement of this threads premise, but I hope future companies take note and allow developers enough time to polish future games before they release them.
OK first the main post. Based on what you are saying is that everyone is tired of Fantasy based MMORPG's, because that is really the only thing these games have in common that is WoWish. Don'tsay the combat system, because it has been used in several other games that predate the hell out of WoW.
No on to some of the other things in this post.
WoW did not innovate a damn thing. They took ideas from the games on the market, removed some of the tedium, and polished the hell out of them. The only two thing I would really even consider giving WoW for innovation is the Quest to level system, and the super easy to macro and mod user interface.
The Quest to level system I think was really just a development of several years of work of other devolpers coming up with ideas for quests not really anything Blizzard though of, but I do believe they were the first to really get there.
The super easy to macro and mod UI I think has actually hurt the industry, because now you have to have all these damn mods and macros that basically play the game for you instead of actually making people pay attention and actually play the game and figure it out.
I see all these post about broken promises and such as well. Don't forget that Blizzard has broken several promises they made as well. To point out a few. Hero classes are nothing, NOTHING like they promised in Beta. PvP in WoW has nothing to do with Alliance vs Horde and world PvP in WoW is a joke. You still cannot take control of enemy cities or towns. Original content is completely outdated and the only reason people do it is for achievements at this point. I am sure there are some I am missing, but I did beta test WoW, played for a few years, and even went to the first two Blizzcons. Blizzard has broken as many promises as any other company out there.
While I don't think either game is totally failing, I think the reasons they are not the huge blockbusters they could have been is because they got rushed out the door. Everyone seems to forget that WoW was in development for about 5-6 years. The reason I picked up DAOC originally was to tide me over until WoW and I started DAOC about a month after release. I knew about WoW about a year before that and DAOC came out in 2001 and WoW did not come out until 2004. All I knew back then was that Blizzard was making an MMO based on Warcraft. WAR was in developement for 3 years.
In fact I will give blizzard props on the fact that they kept everything really tight lipped until they were ready for the world to see it. Maybe other companies should take a key from that until they are ready for the world to see it so the producers wont be so quick to push it out the door.
This is coming from a big mythic fan. I loved DAOC and am currently playing it but I must say WAR was too much WOW like for me and it makes me sad because I want/wanted WAR to succeed but im afraid the problem I have probably will never be fixed...I do not like the combat in WAR that part seemed to WOW like for me compared to DAOC's combat.
AOC on the other hand is a solid game in my opinion and the combat felt nothing like WOW to me. Really the only thing I guess maybe seemed WOW like was the yellow exclamation points above quest givers heads. I actually think AOC will do a good turn around. Im just enjoying the population of DAOC right now it may be the last hurrah.
Also Im craving a new Sci-fi MMO like Anarchy Online im really sick of the fantasy setting at the moment.
These failures teach developers nothing because developers of most failed MMO games were not able to take the time and truly develop the game to a complete level before being forced to release.
AoC fails because Funcom has poor business practice and bit off more than they could handle. Plus tons of last minute changes.
WAR is not to the level people thought because the endgame is not implemented properly. Also poor decisions in class balancing are making people angry int hat game. I also believe Mythic bit a lttle more off than they could chew, but at least they are handling it well for the size company that they are.
However, WAR did not fail, it just ended up drowning in the sea of other average MMO games. Lucky for Mythic the game was cheap as hell to develop, so EA still profits from standard subscription numbers.
I think Darkfall fails more. It fails because of the 8 year development cycle. It fails because after those 8 years it looks worst thant Dark Age of Camelot in gameplay and art direction.