umm..when a game as complex as SWG was is stripped down, over-simplified, and turned into a quest grind, it's pretty fucking obvious what happened. AND when reps are quoted as saying things such as "This is Star Wars....why doesn't it have more subs than WoW??" It's DAMN obvious what happened.
Again...
A skilled man jumps off a cliff and does a perfect dive into the ocean. TV cameras are there along with girls, fame and everything. This guy becomes a star.
You decide to do the same thing, you jump, and hit the side of a cliff. You barely survive and are paralyzed for life.
And you want to blame HIM?
The Dev's of SWG screwed up, don't blame anyone else...
SWG would still be going strong and the NGE would have never happened. WAR would have been designed first around open world RVR instead of battleground scenarios with the former tacked on. EQ2 would still be difficult and challenging. More games would have placed value on items such as deep crafting systems and player housing. Balance between all classes wouldn't have been such an issue as it is today. No wait, yes it still would, people like to whine. EVE would have ....300,000 paid subs.
Curious, I was under the impression that while WoW motivated many of that changes, it was because WoW had them to please the community.
In fact, wow reched 11,5M because the community loved it in every way.
So, what you are saying is, if WoW never existed, online games could still be a market niche made for a small number of people while ignoring the major chunk of market composed by people who spend TO MUCH of their lives actually working and want to have some fun when they get home?
WoW is an MMORPG on easy mode. It did away with everything that made an MMO challenging, and wrapped it all up in a pretty box. People don't go back to WOW because it's that good...they do it because it's that easy. They can't comprehend concepts such as housing, complex crafting, and having to spend more than 30 minutes engaged in the same activity. It's instant gratification, MMORPG style. Really...where is the sense of accomplishment?? The sense of wonder as you travel the world, simply exploring? WoW leads you by the nose from one zone to another, from one quest to another, everything is thought out for you. And here's the real kicker....before WoW, (and in other "niche" games since) there wre things to do in an MMORPG OTHER than combat!!! People go back to WoW because other games are overwealming to them. They don't know what to do, and how to handle not being led from point A to point B....and Hell forbid that they should have to WALK there instead of teleporting. As someone above me said....I was here before WoW. I remember how the industry used to be, and how fucking GREAT the games were. Every game was unique....and had it's own take on the "virtual world" concept that MMORPGs used to represent. We'd be better off without the huge multi-million dollar corporate cash-grabs that are churned out every year in an attempt to get a piece of the WoW pie. MUCH better off. In fact, even PNP RPGs have tried to clone WoW...look at the newest editions of AD&D. Makes me wanna vomit.
Every game looks amazing with rose colored goggles....
Pretty much, without wow, MMOs would still be tiny unheard of games, that only "basement dwellers" played. I am not calling anyone who plays/played those games that name, I am referring to that's what anyone who knew what an MMO was thought of those that played them. SWG was the first real mmo that seemed to pull in many people who had never played MMOs, but that game was still nothing to what WoW did.
I've said this a number of times on this forum, it's a pity that people become so blind with rage, jealous, or hatred of a certain game (or in the case of many real life things, religion, politics, etc) that they ignore any rational discussion, thought, or logic relating to the issue.
Eventually, without wow, a game would have been created exactly like wow. It's fine if you would like to play your sandbox game, with a small population, doing your extremely "complex" things. Since, your sandbox game is STILL limited by what the devs say can happen, and what they put into the game. But that won't change the fact that what wow did helped the industry as a whole MUCH MORE than it hurt it. People really need to accept that. No reason to cry over spilt milk...
SWG would still be going strong and the NGE would have never happened. WAR would have been designed first around open world RVR instead of battleground scenarios with the former tacked on. EQ2 would still be difficult and challenging. More games would have placed value on items such as deep crafting systems and player housing. Balance between all classes wouldn't have been such an issue as it is today. No wait, yes it still would, people like to whine. EVE would have ....300,000 paid subs.
SWG was already failing before wow and it was pretty clear soe didn't care about the playerbase since day 1. There is no reason to believe the game would have some miraculous turnaround and be going strong today. It would only take another mmo to grab a few million players to set the NGE in motion again, because the company is in an endless cycle of chasing the potential customer instead of being true to their games.
Warhammer would have been designed around whatever was the most popular mmo at the time, because that is exactly what happened. Whatever game it tried to mimic, mythic would have screwed that up too. The game engine alone prevented the game from being about open world or large scale pvp.
EQ2 was bad at release and filled with poor choices and soe would run around without a clue trying half baked ideas to fix their issues just like they did in swg. The game would still suffer massive design course changes and lack consistency as soe tried whatever they felt was working in whatever other game or could net them more customers. EQ2 was challenging to play at release, but not for good reasons.
Crafitng and housing, maybe, but I don't think so. Both of those are very tough issues to implement right and can easily cause more problems then the benefits it offers. To many companies end up making crafting the just trivializes the pve content (EQ2) or so centralized to gameplay that it makes any real pve content a serious threat to the player driven economy (swg). Housing was heading towards fake instanced "housing" that just serves as a private area to remove players from the gameworld to have a virtual 3d bank storage and leave major towns empty of players. Both are great features that I enjoy, but they are by no means easy.
One thing I am pretty sure would happen is that few people would consider games like EQ2/SWG as acceptable condition for a retail product and just stayed away from the genre all together. Eventually some company would have figured out and released a complete game that would steal millions of players and this topic would be about that game instead of wow.
umm..when a game as complex as SWG was is stripped down, over-simplified, and turned into a quest grind, it's pretty fucking obvious what happened. AND when reps are quoted as saying things such as "This is Star Wars....why doesn't it have more subs than WoW??" It's DAMN obvious what happened.
The Dev's of SWG screwed up, don't blame anyone else...
Nobody's denying this. But have you ever heard of an "Attractive nuisance"?? Say you leave your pool uncovered in your back yard and somsone drowns in it. It's YOUR FAULT.
WoW left the pool uncovered, and one by one....like lemmings....the MMORPG developers drowned in it.
Nobody's denying this. But have you ever heard of an "Attractive nuisance"?? Say you leave your pool uncovered in your back yard and somsone drowns in it. It's YOUR FAULT. WoW left the pool uncovered, and one by one....like lemmings....the MMORPG developers drowned in it.
That analogy does not work at all. Not even close. The DEVs are drowning IN THEIR OWN POOLS THAT THEY DESIGNED TO LOOK JUST LIKE WOW's POOL..
A gangbanger with a nerd friend is something only WoW can offer.
The laws of nature are broken!
Inherited Will, the Destiny of the Age, and the Dreams of its People. These are things that will not be stopped. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of freedom, these things will never cease to be! - Gol D. Roger
Nobody's denying this. But have you ever heard of an "Attractive nuisance"?? Say you leave your pool uncovered in your back yard and somsone drowns in it. It's YOUR FAULT. WoW left the pool uncovered, and one by one....like lemmings....the MMORPG developers drowned in it.
That analogy does not work at all. Not even close. The DEVs are drowning IN THEIR OWN POOLS THAT THEY DESIGNED TO LOOK JUST LIKE WOW's POOL..
The result is the same. Without "WoW's pool", the other devs would never have built these atrocities.
Instead, they likely would have built something unique, and creative.
Anarchy Online, EQ, Neocron, SWG, UO, Horizons...any number of games created before WoW were all unique. No one was making clones back then.
They were making the games they wanted to play....not searching for 11 million subs, but trying to make a profit doing what they enjoyed doing.
Now all we get (for the most part) is the same game with a different coat of paint.
Yes, there are exceptions to the rule (finally) such as EVE, Darkfall, and MO (if it ever makes it), but these games are by smaller companies, and lack any real investment because the big spenders just want to make fucking WoW clones.
Thanks to WoW, therefore, investors shy away from anything different, and instead keep re-making the same damn game.
WoW is an MMORPG on easy mode. It did away with everything that made an MMO challenging, and wrapped it all up in a pretty box. People don't go back to WOW because it's that good...they do it because it's that easy. They can't comprehend concepts such as housing, complex crafting, and having to spend more than 30 minutes engaged in the same activity. It's instant gratification, MMORPG style. Really...where is the sense of accomplishment?? The sense of wonder as you travel the world, simply exploring? WoW leads you by the nose from one zone to another, from one quest to another, everything is thought out for you. And here's the real kicker....before WoW, (and in other "niche" games since) there wre things to do in an MMORPG OTHER than combat!!! People go back to WoW because other games are overwealming to them. They don't know what to do, and how to handle not being led from point A to point B....and Hell forbid that they should have to WALK there instead of teleporting. As someone above me said....I was here before WoW. I remember how the industry used to be, and how fucking GREAT the games were. Every game was unique....and had it's own take on the "virtual world" concept that MMORPGs used to represent. We'd be better off without the huge multi-million dollar corporate cash-grabs that are churned out every year in an attempt to get a piece of the WoW pie. MUCH better off. In fact, even PNP RPGs have tried to clone WoW...look at the newest editions of AD&D. Makes me wanna vomit.
The rage is strong with this one=) Did you ever wonder why after WOW, the populations of EQ, DAOC and just about every other MMO decreased dramatically and never recovered? By making fun of WOW's playerbase, you're blasting EVERYONE, new players and veterans alike. If people really didn't enjoy what WOW offered, why didn't people play WOW for a month then quit and return to their original MMOs? EVERYONE was stupid or clueless? That doesn't say much about the MMO community before WOW does it? Time to take off the rosey goggles...
Meh, I guess it's always gonna be "cool and edgy" to hate the popular kid in class.
I play WoW because it's a good game, has lots of variety and .. I like it.
Beyond that, it's utterly senseless to speculate on what "might have happened" 'cos there's absolutely no way to know. Perhaps the sandbox would have become mainstream, or perhaps a company other than Blizzard would have created a mainstream themepark that dominated the market. Perhaps MMOs would never have become mainstream at all, and remained buggy, low-budget niche titles.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
The rage is strong with this one=) Did you ever wonder why after WOW, the populations of EQ, DAOC and just about every other MMO decreased dramatically and never recovered? By making fun of WOW's playerbase, you're blasting EVERYONE, new players and veterans alike. If people really didn't enjoy what WOW offered, why didn't people play WOW for a month then quit and return to their original MMOs? EVERYONE was stupid or clueless? That doesn't say much about the MMO community before WOW does it? Time to take off the rosey goggles...
Well, one thing you have to realize is that most games changed to become something they weren't originally designed for, be it to copy WOW or some other game, but that's what drove most people away from games like SWG and DAOC.
And while I could never prove this, I'm willing to venture a guess that most people playing MMORPG's before WOW who then gave it shot played it for a time (longer than a month of course) but eventually realized its shortcomings and moved on like I did.
I'd even say a majority of those early gamers are either wandering around each new release looking for a game designed like the early ones, or more likely, have given up on the genre entirely.
WOW is the golden child of the new MMORPG player, the veterans players (for the most part) have long since walked away.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Well, one thing you have to realize is that most games changed to become something they weren't originally designed for, be it to copy WOW or some other game, but that's what drove most people away from games like SWG and DAOC. And while I could never prove this, I'm willing to venture a guess that most people playing MMORPG's before WOW who then gave it shot played it for a time (longer than a month of course) but eventually realized its shortcomings and moved on like I did. I'd even say a majority of those early gamers are either wandering around each new release looking for a game designed like the early ones, or more likely, have given up on the genre entirely. WOW is the golden child of the new MMORPG player, the veterans players (for the most part) have long since walked away.
This.
I played MMO's for years before WoW, and then played WoW (in addition to a few others at the same time), for about 4 years off and on. Then I just said enough is enough and walked away for good. Having fun with the new sandboxes that are out now, reminding me of the good ol days. Oh, and Conan.
Another good example of a game that changed into something it wasn't intended to be because of WoW was EQ2. Man that game at release and now are like night and day.
The rage is strong with this one=) Did you ever wonder why after WOW, the populations of EQ, DAOC and just about every other MMO decreased dramatically and never recovered? By making fun of WOW's playerbase, you're blasting EVERYONE, new players and veterans alike. If people really didn't enjoy what WOW offered, why didn't people play WOW for a month then quit and return to their original MMOs? EVERYONE was stupid or clueless? That doesn't say much about the MMO community before WOW does it? Time to take off the rosey goggles...
Well, one thing you have to realize is that most games changed to become something they weren't originally designed for, be it to copy WOW or some other game, but that's what drove most people away from games like SWG and DAOC.
And while I could never prove this, I'm willing to venture a guess that most people playing MMORPG's before WOW who then gave it shot played it for a time (longer than a month of course) but eventually realized its shortcomings and moved on like I did.
I'd even say a majority of those early gamers are either wandering around each new release looking for a game designed like the early ones, or more likely, have given up on the genre entirely.
WOW is the golden child of the new MMORPG player, the veterans players (for the most part) have long since walked away.
I don't know about you, but when I played WOW, most of the people in the guilds I was a part of were all MMO vets and most kept playing after I left between expansions. I'd come back for a few months and there they were. Some moved servers but plenty were still around. I can't be alone. I'm sure most people who started on day 1 in 2004 are gone now, but most people don't play any single MMO for years consistently.
Nobody's denying this. But have you ever heard of an "Attractive nuisance"?? Say you leave your pool uncovered in your back yard and somsone drowns in it. It's YOUR FAULT. WoW left the pool uncovered, and one by one....like lemmings....the MMORPG developers drowned in it.
That analogy does not work at all. Not even close. The DEVs are drowning IN THEIR OWN POOLS THAT THEY DESIGNED TO LOOK JUST LIKE WOW's POOL..
The result is the same. Without "WoW's pool", the other devs would never have built these atrocities.
Instead, they likely would have built something unique, and creative.
Anarchy Online, EQ, Neocron, SWG, UO, Horizons...any number of games created before WoW were all unique. No one was making clones back then.
They were making the games they wanted to play....not searching for 11 million subs, but trying to make a profit doing what they enjoyed doing.
Now all we get (for the most part) is the same game with a different coat of paint.
Yes, there are exceptions to the rule (finally) such as EVE, Darkfall, and MO (if it ever makes it), but these games are by smaller companies, and lack any real investment because the big spenders just want to make fucking WoW clones.
Thanks to WoW, therefore, investors shy away from anything different, and instead keep re-making the same damn game.
DDO
Tabula Rasa
Auto Assault
Dark and Light
Darkfall
AgeofConan
Seed
Gods and Heroes
Crimecraft
RomaVictor
Wish
Mythica
Vanguard
The Chronicles of spellborn
Metaplace
Hellgate:london
Prates of the burning sea
Fallen earth
Wizard101
Toon Town
etc etc etc
EA, SOE, Turbine, microsoft, NCSoft, etc. These are not all indi companies either.
There are an plenty of other games on the horizon that are heading different directions as well.
You are assuming that just because there are no huge stand out games that break the EQ mold that no one is trying. Lack of success is not an indicator that companies have given up trying.
Companies are trying different game formula, but they are not succeeding. You need to figure out why that is instead of trying to blame one game for the failures of so many other games.
World Of Warcraft will always be the King of all MMOs for generations, we will see articles like this for years and we will still have WoW has the King of all MMOs.
It's a pretty cool game for anyone who is new to the MMO world , it's so complete and has tons of stuff you can do,i recently sub back after a 2 1/2 years break , the game feels weird but after a few hours playing w/the interface i was back in track.
It is always interesting to see people talking about the past with their rose colored glasses on. This really remind me of all the old people sitting in the nursing home walking about the good old days or crazy Fox News pundit going on and on about the great the 50 was. Never all the diseases, racism, sexism, and god know what else. Everyone caught in the fallacy of positive instance and totally ignored everything else that contradict their view.
"When I was young, I used to walk 10 miles to school everyday in the snow barefoot! Kid these day have it way too easy so you will never know the true value of hard work." Sound familiar to anyone?
Originally posted by Daffid011 Companies are trying different game formula, but they are not succeeding. You need to figure out why that is instead of trying to blame one game for the failures of so many other games.
Q F T
I don't know why people aren't getting it. Lots of companies have tried new things in their games, lots of companies have tried to change the samo samo. But the end result is that lots of games are simply not popular, and when MMO's aren't popular, they go down. MMO's rely on monthly subscriptions to make money & keep going. So while I hate to judge a MMO's success on subscription numbers alone, it really does come down to that. It's a business, and businesses have to make money.
Ask yourselves why you aren't playing all these games released since 2004. EQ2 changed from EQ1's model, it changed so drastically that it actually turned off EQ1 players. Why did EQ1 have more subscribers than EQ2 even 3 years after its launch date? DDO was a lot different, why didn't it become popular? It was so unpopular that Turbine had to go free-to-play to keep it alive. AoC also tried to be a tad different, why did it crash & burn? WAR came out swinging and tried to cater to both the RvR crowd and the PvE crowd, it invented public quest system, why did the game fail so badly?
There are many games Daffid listed above that have failed hard, some even closed down. Why did all these games that changed from the mold, that tried somethings different, fail so hard? Question is why are all these posters that talk about wanting something new, yet they don't play games that bring something new to the table. It's like it's always easier to talk about it, always easier to say you want it hardcore, always easier to say you want something totally new & different. Yet there's simply not enough of you to walk the walk and support games that do something new, or games that are more "hardcore" or "difficult".
There are many reasons why these new games don't do well, but WoW should be the last reason on the list. Using WoW as an excuse is not good enough anymore, it's a cop out. Like Brad McQuaid & Co release an unfinished, unoptimized game Vanguard, yet there were people blaming WoW for its downfall. I mean are you kidding me? Get real people.
A world without WoW would, even though I played it a lot and am currently playng again casually, a better one. WoW has not only affected the video games market, other companies, it has affected a lot more. By providing a cheap, addictive and extremely lazy way of spending your free time and getting a somewhat social experience too, it has had a devastating influence on several hobbies inside and outside the internet.
Offline RPGs, Tabletops, Board Games, Sports Clubs, regular social evenings among friends etc., I have heard so many stories of WoW players dropping out of their communities, in some cases in such numbers that entire clubs, stores and whatnot closed, its not fun.
While not personally affected, this is a case where I believe even though its a great game, and I usually dont begrudge a company like Blizzard any of their success, the world would have been better off, or rather, a lot of people would have been better off without WoW. Not to mention its existance likely will have a profoundly negative effect on investments in the entertainment area for years to come.
In my perfect world, it would have been released as a 500k subs game with a high monthly fee or something else that pays Blizzard their dues for creating an amazing game, but wouldnt have had these earthshaking effects on half the entertainment industry in some places.
A world without WoW would, even though I played it a lot and am currently playng again casually, a better one. WoW has not only affected the video games market, other companies, it has affected a lot more. By providing a cheap, addictive and extremely lazy way of spending your free time and getting a somewhat social experience too, it has had a devastating influence on several hobbies inside and outside the internet. Offline RPGs, Tabletops, Board Games, Sports Clubs, regular social evenings among friends etc., I have heard so many stories of WoW players dropping out of their communities, in some cases in such numbers that entire clubs, stores and whatnot closed, its not fun. While not personally affected, this is a case where I believe even though its a great game, and I usually dont begrudge a company like Blizzard any of their success, the world would have been better off, or rather, a lot of people would have been better off without WoW. Not to mention its existance likely will have a profoundly negative effect on investments in the entertainment area for years to come. In my perfect world, it would have been released as a 500k subs game with a high monthly fee or something else that pays Blizzard their dues for creating an amazing game, but wouldnt have had these earthshaking effects on half the entertainment industry in some places.
That's like saying the world is better without the internet, because libraries would still be open, and people would still be sending snail mails to keep post offices in business.
It's human nature to evolve. Get with the program or be left behind
A world without WoW would, even though I played it a lot and am currently playng again casually, a better one. WoW has not only affected the video games market, other companies, it has affected a lot more. By providing a cheap, addictive and extremely lazy way of spending your free time and getting a somewhat social experience too, it has had a devastating influence on several hobbies inside and outside the internet. Offline RPGs, Tabletops, Board Games, Sports Clubs, regular social evenings among friends etc., I have heard so many stories of WoW players dropping out of their communities, in some cases in such numbers that entire clubs, stores and whatnot closed, its not fun. While not personally affected, this is a case where I believe even though its a great game, and I usually dont begrudge a company like Blizzard any of their success, the world would have been better off, or rather, a lot of people would have been better off without WoW. Not to mention its existance likely will have a profoundly negative effect on investments in the entertainment area for years to come. In my perfect world, it would have been released as a 500k subs game with a high monthly fee or something else that pays Blizzard their dues for creating an amazing game, but wouldnt have had these earthshaking effects on half the entertainment industry in some places.
That's like saying the world is better without the internet, because libraries would still be open, and people would still be sending snail mails to keep post offices in business.
It's human nature to evolve. Get with the program or be left behind
Yes and No. Not every step of evolution is necessarily positive, nor is it negative. There are many good arguments to be made, for example, about our current economical situation being a step of financial evolution that might just have been one step too far, or into a wrong direction.
There are developments that really bring out negative aspects of human nature, and WoW has managed to touch a few of that. I am generally not in favor of any evolutionary step in virtually any area that seduces people into being less active, less social and less responsible. There is a fine line between getting rid of hardship and sheer laziness.
The internet, if you want to draw that parallel, has many negative effects, and a lot of positive ones too. Its also far too broad a concept to really compare with something that is ultimately just a cheap way to waste time and enjoy yourself. I stand by my opinion though that WoW has had a much more negative effect on many people than positive. Because frankly, if a guy spent his monday nights with his hockey team, and one day decided its more comfortable to quit hockey, stay home and play WoW, I just honestly cannot find the great evolutionary step forward in that. I only see succumbing to laziness.
Originally posted by Khaunshar Yes and No. Not every step of evolution is necessarily positive, nor is it negative. There are many good arguments to be made, for example, about our current economical situation being a step of financial evolution that might just have been one step too far, or into a wrong direction. There are developments that really bring out negative aspects of human nature, and WoW has managed to touch a few of that. I am generally not in favor of any evolutionary step in virtually any area that seduces people into being less active, less social and less responsible. There is a fine line between getting rid of hardship and sheer laziness. The internet, if you want to draw that parallel, has many negative effects, and a lot of positive ones too. Its also far too broad a concept to really compare with something that is ultimately just a cheap way to waste time and enjoy yourself. I stand by my opinion though that WoW has had a much more negative effect on many people than positive. Because frankly, if a guy spent his monday nights with his hockey team, and one day decided its more comfortable to quit hockey, stay home and play WoW, I just honestly cannot find the great evolutionary step forward in that. I only see succumbing to laziness.
Is it the exercise aspect that bothers you?
I see nothing better or worse about someone choosing to spend time with friends playing hockey or playing mmos. Neither one seems to be morally better than the other, just different.
I'm sure when Hockey was invented there was a group of lumberjacks in the Yukon territory talking about how bad hockey was to their favorite hobby of making maple syrup.
If wow never released the market would still be rather small and a few games of 200k would rule the roost, because so few people are willing to put up with the condition and direction mmos were heading.
Eventually some company would take their time and improve quality and fun factor of their mmo and totally dominate the market as wow has while other companies continue to fumble around trying to emulate gameplay instead of emulate the business decisions that created the game that dominates.
The follwoing is my own personal outlook and opinions, but...
I wouldn't exactly say that it's because few people would put up with the way it was. There were no set standards prior to it really, it was still a growing genre. It was slow going and everyone playing knew that. It WAS at it's peak of design...and sure, it had bugs, but what MMO didn't. It would still be a niche market because the masses that play now would more than likely still be in the dark about MMORPG's and not know about them and/or maybe even care about them since consoles have been the dominating force for quite some time. Companies would still be profiting from them, players would still be playing them, just not in the massive droves they do now. Which personally is the way I had rather it be, but the gaming world doesn't revolve around me, and I know that.
But now WoW set a standard, so there is a pretty well set expectation of what the players expect to see at an MMO's release. Sure, some other company would of eventually made a dominate game, but would it be near what WoW has done? What I mean is, that Blizzard went above and beyond to attract every human on the planet to it's game, which meant making it easy to learn and play, making it more solo friendly, and making it more "Console-like" in design. They put design elements in that are normally reserved for console games, as well as other elements. Instance heavy areas, Battle Grounds, Stat boards, and now even Item shops. I don't even consider it a MMORPG personally, it's more of a single player RPG with the option to multi-player group. It put companies into a feeding frenzy, seeing the potential bank that could be made if they tried to do the same thing, leading to incomplete games being released, money issues, etc that have angered and disappointed the community again and again. Greed has hampered innovation in the MMO genre more than anything, and Blizzard is at the helm on that front.
I have been playing since MUD's, and while games such as EQ and UO had there problems, I feel that had the genre taken the slower path and taken it's time, it would be in a much better state today than the rat race to make gazillions in a few months that it is in now. It's sad, because MMORPG's as they began, which was as big open worlds where people interacted through talking, emoting, grouping, questing, and exploring are fading out and into a more solo friendly, instant gratification version of console games, but for the PC.
Emulating the business decisions WoW did, or any other game that would rise to dominate for that matter instead of a company emulating their own design would lead, and is what has lead, to multiple clones of failure and/or boredom to players, because it is simply the same stuff with a different wrapper. Originality, creativity, and the passion to make something truly unique and fun for the players has fallen off considerably, and it is sad to say the least.
So while Blizzard brought around a higher standard for quality game releases, and brought the MMO market to a wider audience, it also brought a lot of negatives to the market as mentioned above, more so than the positives IMO.
Comments
Again...
A skilled man jumps off a cliff and does a perfect dive into the ocean. TV cameras are there along with girls, fame and everything. This guy becomes a star.
You decide to do the same thing, you jump, and hit the side of a cliff. You barely survive and are paralyzed for life.
And you want to blame HIM?
The Dev's of SWG screwed up, don't blame anyone else...
Curious, I was under the impression that while WoW motivated many of that changes, it was because WoW had them to please the community.
In fact, wow reched 11,5M because the community loved it in every way.
So, what you are saying is, if WoW never existed, online games could still be a market niche made for a small number of people while ignoring the major chunk of market composed by people who spend TO MUCH of their lives actually working and want to have some fun when they get home?
Thank god for WoW then!!!!
Every game looks amazing with rose colored goggles....
Pretty much, without wow, MMOs would still be tiny unheard of games, that only "basement dwellers" played. I am not calling anyone who plays/played those games that name, I am referring to that's what anyone who knew what an MMO was thought of those that played them. SWG was the first real mmo that seemed to pull in many people who had never played MMOs, but that game was still nothing to what WoW did.
I've said this a number of times on this forum, it's a pity that people become so blind with rage, jealous, or hatred of a certain game (or in the case of many real life things, religion, politics, etc) that they ignore any rational discussion, thought, or logic relating to the issue.
Eventually, without wow, a game would have been created exactly like wow. It's fine if you would like to play your sandbox game, with a small population, doing your extremely "complex" things. Since, your sandbox game is STILL limited by what the devs say can happen, and what they put into the game. But that won't change the fact that what wow did helped the industry as a whole MUCH MORE than it hurt it. People really need to accept that. No reason to cry over spilt milk...
SWG was already failing before wow and it was pretty clear soe didn't care about the playerbase since day 1. There is no reason to believe the game would have some miraculous turnaround and be going strong today. It would only take another mmo to grab a few million players to set the NGE in motion again, because the company is in an endless cycle of chasing the potential customer instead of being true to their games.
Warhammer would have been designed around whatever was the most popular mmo at the time, because that is exactly what happened. Whatever game it tried to mimic, mythic would have screwed that up too. The game engine alone prevented the game from being about open world or large scale pvp.
EQ2 was bad at release and filled with poor choices and soe would run around without a clue trying half baked ideas to fix their issues just like they did in swg. The game would still suffer massive design course changes and lack consistency as soe tried whatever they felt was working in whatever other game or could net them more customers. EQ2 was challenging to play at release, but not for good reasons.
Crafitng and housing, maybe, but I don't think so. Both of those are very tough issues to implement right and can easily cause more problems then the benefits it offers. To many companies end up making crafting the just trivializes the pve content (EQ2) or so centralized to gameplay that it makes any real pve content a serious threat to the player driven economy (swg). Housing was heading towards fake instanced "housing" that just serves as a private area to remove players from the gameworld to have a virtual 3d bank storage and leave major towns empty of players. Both are great features that I enjoy, but they are by no means easy.
One thing I am pretty sure would happen is that few people would consider games like EQ2/SWG as acceptable condition for a retail product and just stayed away from the genre all together. Eventually some company would have figured out and released a complete game that would steal millions of players and this topic would be about that game instead of wow.
The Dev's of SWG screwed up, don't blame anyone else...
Nobody's denying this. But have you ever heard of an "Attractive nuisance"?? Say you leave your pool uncovered in your back yard and somsone drowns in it. It's YOUR FAULT.
WoW left the pool uncovered, and one by one....like lemmings....the MMORPG developers drowned in it.
That analogy does not work at all. Not even close. The DEVs are drowning IN THEIR OWN POOLS THAT THEY DESIGNED TO LOOK JUST LIKE WOW's POOL..
WoW is the link between losers and winners.
A gangbanger with a nerd friend is something only WoW can offer.
The laws of nature are broken!
Inherited Will, the Destiny of the Age, and the Dreams of its People. These are things that will not be stopped. As long as people continue to pursue the meaning of freedom, these things will never cease to be! - Gol D. Roger
That analogy does not work at all. Not even close. The DEVs are drowning IN THEIR OWN POOLS THAT THEY DESIGNED TO LOOK JUST LIKE WOW's POOL..
The result is the same. Without "WoW's pool", the other devs would never have built these atrocities.
Instead, they likely would have built something unique, and creative.
Anarchy Online, EQ, Neocron, SWG, UO, Horizons...any number of games created before WoW were all unique. No one was making clones back then.
They were making the games they wanted to play....not searching for 11 million subs, but trying to make a profit doing what they enjoyed doing.
Now all we get (for the most part) is the same game with a different coat of paint.
Yes, there are exceptions to the rule (finally) such as EVE, Darkfall, and MO (if it ever makes it), but these games are by smaller companies, and lack any real investment because the big spenders just want to make fucking WoW clones.
Thanks to WoW, therefore, investors shy away from anything different, and instead keep re-making the same damn game.
A world without World of Warcraft would be like a world with me. Empty and shallow....Oh, wait.
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"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
The rage is strong with this one=) Did you ever wonder why after WOW, the populations of EQ, DAOC and just about every other MMO decreased dramatically and never recovered? By making fun of WOW's playerbase, you're blasting EVERYONE, new players and veterans alike. If people really didn't enjoy what WOW offered, why didn't people play WOW for a month then quit and return to their original MMOs? EVERYONE was stupid or clueless? That doesn't say much about the MMO community before WOW does it? Time to take off the rosey goggles...
Resubbing soon maybe.
Meh, I guess it's always gonna be "cool and edgy" to hate the popular kid in class.
I play WoW because it's a good game, has lots of variety and .. I like it.
Beyond that, it's utterly senseless to speculate on what "might have happened" 'cos there's absolutely no way to know. Perhaps the sandbox would have become mainstream, or perhaps a company other than Blizzard would have created a mainstream themepark that dominated the market. Perhaps MMOs would never have become mainstream at all, and remained buggy, low-budget niche titles.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
The rage is strong with this one=) Did you ever wonder why after WOW, the populations of EQ, DAOC and just about every other MMO decreased dramatically and never recovered? By making fun of WOW's playerbase, you're blasting EVERYONE, new players and veterans alike. If people really didn't enjoy what WOW offered, why didn't people play WOW for a month then quit and return to their original MMOs? EVERYONE was stupid or clueless? That doesn't say much about the MMO community before WOW does it? Time to take off the rosey goggles...
Well, one thing you have to realize is that most games changed to become something they weren't originally designed for, be it to copy WOW or some other game, but that's what drove most people away from games like SWG and DAOC.
And while I could never prove this, I'm willing to venture a guess that most people playing MMORPG's before WOW who then gave it shot played it for a time (longer than a month of course) but eventually realized its shortcomings and moved on like I did.
I'd even say a majority of those early gamers are either wandering around each new release looking for a game designed like the early ones, or more likely, have given up on the genre entirely.
WOW is the golden child of the new MMORPG player, the veterans players (for the most part) have long since walked away.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This.
I played MMO's for years before WoW, and then played WoW (in addition to a few others at the same time), for about 4 years off and on. Then I just said enough is enough and walked away for good. Having fun with the new sandboxes that are out now, reminding me of the good ol days. Oh, and Conan.
Another good example of a game that changed into something it wasn't intended to be because of WoW was EQ2. Man that game at release and now are like night and day.
Prax
The rage is strong with this one=) Did you ever wonder why after WOW, the populations of EQ, DAOC and just about every other MMO decreased dramatically and never recovered? By making fun of WOW's playerbase, you're blasting EVERYONE, new players and veterans alike. If people really didn't enjoy what WOW offered, why didn't people play WOW for a month then quit and return to their original MMOs? EVERYONE was stupid or clueless? That doesn't say much about the MMO community before WOW does it? Time to take off the rosey goggles...
Well, one thing you have to realize is that most games changed to become something they weren't originally designed for, be it to copy WOW or some other game, but that's what drove most people away from games like SWG and DAOC.
And while I could never prove this, I'm willing to venture a guess that most people playing MMORPG's before WOW who then gave it shot played it for a time (longer than a month of course) but eventually realized its shortcomings and moved on like I did.
I'd even say a majority of those early gamers are either wandering around each new release looking for a game designed like the early ones, or more likely, have given up on the genre entirely.
WOW is the golden child of the new MMORPG player, the veterans players (for the most part) have long since walked away.
I don't know about you, but when I played WOW, most of the people in the guilds I was a part of were all MMO vets and most kept playing after I left between expansions. I'd come back for a few months and there they were. Some moved servers but plenty were still around. I can't be alone. I'm sure most people who started on day 1 in 2004 are gone now, but most people don't play any single MMO for years consistently.
That analogy does not work at all. Not even close. The DEVs are drowning IN THEIR OWN POOLS THAT THEY DESIGNED TO LOOK JUST LIKE WOW's POOL..
The result is the same. Without "WoW's pool", the other devs would never have built these atrocities.
Instead, they likely would have built something unique, and creative.
Anarchy Online, EQ, Neocron, SWG, UO, Horizons...any number of games created before WoW were all unique. No one was making clones back then.
They were making the games they wanted to play....not searching for 11 million subs, but trying to make a profit doing what they enjoyed doing.
Now all we get (for the most part) is the same game with a different coat of paint.
Yes, there are exceptions to the rule (finally) such as EVE, Darkfall, and MO (if it ever makes it), but these games are by smaller companies, and lack any real investment because the big spenders just want to make fucking WoW clones.
Thanks to WoW, therefore, investors shy away from anything different, and instead keep re-making the same damn game.
EA, SOE, Turbine, microsoft, NCSoft, etc. These are not all indi companies either.
There are an plenty of other games on the horizon that are heading different directions as well.
You are assuming that just because there are no huge stand out games that break the EQ mold that no one is trying. Lack of success is not an indicator that companies have given up trying.
Companies are trying different game formula, but they are not succeeding. You need to figure out why that is instead of trying to blame one game for the failures of so many other games.
World Of Warcraft will always be the King of all MMOs for generations, we will see articles like this for years and we will still have WoW has the King of all MMOs.
It's a pretty cool game for anyone who is new to the MMO world , it's so complete and has tons of stuff you can do,i recently sub back after a 2 1/2 years break , the game feels weird but after a few hours playing w/the interface i was back in track.
Lets all said it together
"Hail to the King".
It is always interesting to see people talking about the past with their rose colored glasses on. This really remind me of all the old people sitting in the nursing home walking about the good old days or crazy Fox News pundit going on and on about the great the 50 was. Never all the diseases, racism, sexism, and god know what else. Everyone caught in the fallacy of positive instance and totally ignored everything else that contradict their view.
"When I was young, I used to walk 10 miles to school everyday in the snow barefoot! Kid these day have it way too easy so you will never know the true value of hard work." Sound familiar to anyone?
Q F T
I don't know why people aren't getting it. Lots of companies have tried new things in their games, lots of companies have tried to change the samo samo. But the end result is that lots of games are simply not popular, and when MMO's aren't popular, they go down. MMO's rely on monthly subscriptions to make money & keep going. So while I hate to judge a MMO's success on subscription numbers alone, it really does come down to that. It's a business, and businesses have to make money.
Ask yourselves why you aren't playing all these games released since 2004. EQ2 changed from EQ1's model, it changed so drastically that it actually turned off EQ1 players. Why did EQ1 have more subscribers than EQ2 even 3 years after its launch date? DDO was a lot different, why didn't it become popular? It was so unpopular that Turbine had to go free-to-play to keep it alive. AoC also tried to be a tad different, why did it crash & burn? WAR came out swinging and tried to cater to both the RvR crowd and the PvE crowd, it invented public quest system, why did the game fail so badly?
There are many games Daffid listed above that have failed hard, some even closed down. Why did all these games that changed from the mold, that tried somethings different, fail so hard? Question is why are all these posters that talk about wanting something new, yet they don't play games that bring something new to the table. It's like it's always easier to talk about it, always easier to say you want it hardcore, always easier to say you want something totally new & different. Yet there's simply not enough of you to walk the walk and support games that do something new, or games that are more "hardcore" or "difficult".
There are many reasons why these new games don't do well, but WoW should be the last reason on the list. Using WoW as an excuse is not good enough anymore, it's a cop out. Like Brad McQuaid & Co release an unfinished, unoptimized game Vanguard, yet there were people blaming WoW for its downfall. I mean are you kidding me? Get real people.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
A world without WoW would, even though I played it a lot and am currently playng again casually, a better one. WoW has not only affected the video games market, other companies, it has affected a lot more. By providing a cheap, addictive and extremely lazy way of spending your free time and getting a somewhat social experience too, it has had a devastating influence on several hobbies inside and outside the internet.
Offline RPGs, Tabletops, Board Games, Sports Clubs, regular social evenings among friends etc., I have heard so many stories of WoW players dropping out of their communities, in some cases in such numbers that entire clubs, stores and whatnot closed, its not fun.
While not personally affected, this is a case where I believe even though its a great game, and I usually dont begrudge a company like Blizzard any of their success, the world would have been better off, or rather, a lot of people would have been better off without WoW. Not to mention its existance likely will have a profoundly negative effect on investments in the entertainment area for years to come.
In my perfect world, it would have been released as a 500k subs game with a high monthly fee or something else that pays Blizzard their dues for creating an amazing game, but wouldnt have had these earthshaking effects on half the entertainment industry in some places.
That's like saying the world is better without the internet, because libraries would still be open, and people would still be sending snail mails to keep post offices in business.
It's human nature to evolve. Get with the program or be left behind
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
That's like saying the world is better without the internet, because libraries would still be open, and people would still be sending snail mails to keep post offices in business.
It's human nature to evolve. Get with the program or be left behind
Yes and No. Not every step of evolution is necessarily positive, nor is it negative. There are many good arguments to be made, for example, about our current economical situation being a step of financial evolution that might just have been one step too far, or into a wrong direction.
There are developments that really bring out negative aspects of human nature, and WoW has managed to touch a few of that. I am generally not in favor of any evolutionary step in virtually any area that seduces people into being less active, less social and less responsible. There is a fine line between getting rid of hardship and sheer laziness.
The internet, if you want to draw that parallel, has many negative effects, and a lot of positive ones too. Its also far too broad a concept to really compare with something that is ultimately just a cheap way to waste time and enjoy yourself. I stand by my opinion though that WoW has had a much more negative effect on many people than positive. Because frankly, if a guy spent his monday nights with his hockey team, and one day decided its more comfortable to quit hockey, stay home and play WoW, I just honestly cannot find the great evolutionary step forward in that. I only see succumbing to laziness.
Is it the exercise aspect that bothers you?
I see nothing better or worse about someone choosing to spend time with friends playing hockey or playing mmos. Neither one seems to be morally better than the other, just different.
I'm sure when Hockey was invented there was a group of lumberjacks in the Yukon territory talking about how bad hockey was to their favorite hobby of making maple syrup.
The follwoing is my own personal outlook and opinions, but...
I wouldn't exactly say that it's because few people would put up with the way it was. There were no set standards prior to it really, it was still a growing genre. It was slow going and everyone playing knew that. It WAS at it's peak of design...and sure, it had bugs, but what MMO didn't. It would still be a niche market because the masses that play now would more than likely still be in the dark about MMORPG's and not know about them and/or maybe even care about them since consoles have been the dominating force for quite some time. Companies would still be profiting from them, players would still be playing them, just not in the massive droves they do now. Which personally is the way I had rather it be, but the gaming world doesn't revolve around me, and I know that.
But now WoW set a standard, so there is a pretty well set expectation of what the players expect to see at an MMO's release. Sure, some other company would of eventually made a dominate game, but would it be near what WoW has done? What I mean is, that Blizzard went above and beyond to attract every human on the planet to it's game, which meant making it easy to learn and play, making it more solo friendly, and making it more "Console-like" in design. They put design elements in that are normally reserved for console games, as well as other elements. Instance heavy areas, Battle Grounds, Stat boards, and now even Item shops. I don't even consider it a MMORPG personally, it's more of a single player RPG with the option to multi-player group. It put companies into a feeding frenzy, seeing the potential bank that could be made if they tried to do the same thing, leading to incomplete games being released, money issues, etc that have angered and disappointed the community again and again. Greed has hampered innovation in the MMO genre more than anything, and Blizzard is at the helm on that front.
I have been playing since MUD's, and while games such as EQ and UO had there problems, I feel that had the genre taken the slower path and taken it's time, it would be in a much better state today than the rat race to make gazillions in a few months that it is in now. It's sad, because MMORPG's as they began, which was as big open worlds where people interacted through talking, emoting, grouping, questing, and exploring are fading out and into a more solo friendly, instant gratification version of console games, but for the PC.
Emulating the business decisions WoW did, or any other game that would rise to dominate for that matter instead of a company emulating their own design would lead, and is what has lead, to multiple clones of failure and/or boredom to players, because it is simply the same stuff with a different wrapper. Originality, creativity, and the passion to make something truly unique and fun for the players has fallen off considerably, and it is sad to say the least.
So while Blizzard brought around a higher standard for quality game releases, and brought the MMO market to a wider audience, it also brought a lot of negatives to the market as mentioned above, more so than the positives IMO.
Without WoW?
MMO's would probably still be Niche as a whole, and the world would be a better place without all the halo fanbois who now play them.
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Currently playing:
FFXIV on Behemoth, FFXI on Eden, and Gloria Victis on NA.