The only thing that I compare new games to WoW is, is it fluid in combat like WoW?
As much as I would have liked to have gotten into LOTRO, i couldn't the combat was just to clunky. I haven't played WoW in over a year but I did enjoy the time I did spend in the game (about 140ish game days over 4 years or so) but I got tired of being the hampster on their wheel, it got old.
But my disdain for WoW now does not negate the many things it did great, mainly for me at least that was how fluid combat was.
EVERY GAME gets compared to WOW! I'm not saying thats wrong, and I don't even blame anyone for doing it....heck I do it myself! Problem is....it's been out 5 YEARS! How is ANY new game suppose to be realistically compared to a game that's been out 5 YEARS! ANY new MMO is going to have problems. When you compare it to a game that's been out 5 YEARS of course it looks sub-standard.
What about content? There is absolutely NO WAY a game can have even a fraction of the content as a game that has two expansions (going on 3) and has been out 5 YEARS!
Finally, the budget. WOW makes more money in a month than ALMOST EVERY developer spends on the ENTIRE development! (Alright SWTOR...I said "almost") It's built this user base over 5 YEARS and you expect a new company to compete with that?
Why does the player base of every new MMO decline dramatically right after it's release? Why are so many MMO companies struggling or even failing? Why are games going FTP quicker than you can turn around? You're comparing it to a game that's been out 5 YEARS! When ANY new MMO comes out it won't measure up...IT CAN'T.
Did I mention that its been out 5 YEARS!
P.S. Spare me the reply's that say something like "I don't compare the games I play to WOW" ....PLEASE
Why spare you the replies that suggest that? I for one don't compare the games I play to WOW necessarily. I've seen some of those comparisons made before but I don't think that has anything to do with the fail sauce most of these new mmo's are dripping with. They fail because they often release with a lack of content, variation, direction and often with a egomaniacal game director who are more often than not prone to making promises about features that can not possibly be working in game in relation to how long it takes post launch for the feature to work properly.
Anyone who would compare a new mmo to WOW in it's present state deserves this post but that is not often the case with what I see, if a post is made and a comparison is drawn to WOW within five replies those comparisons are rationalized out to make it easy for you though if I would draw comparisons it would be to say if you are coming out with an mmo you should not have less content than wow released with, try giving a world not much smaller than they launched with too and you can give yourself a fighting chance for success.
But in all I don't think the genre draws unfair comparisons to WOW I think it's more along the lines of these devs need to start getting there acts together because people are going to stop giving them money simply over rampant fanboism (Cryptic and STO anyone).
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
4. North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
5 YEARS, 9 Months Actually...but you could technically round to 6 years.
Would be 6 years and 9 months "technically"
P.S. Spare me the reply's that say something like "I don't compare the games I play to WOW" ....PLEASE
Didn't meet the expectations of the player base. To many want to play the promises made instead of what is actually given.
Lack of patience of a large part of the player base, limited playstyle by the playerbase, playerbase wants something different yet want the same, as many have shown they have a hard time addepting to something that is new.
Because data that developers actually get shows them it's probebly more profitable.
North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
Played plenty of MMORPG that I felt where much better MMORPG's then WoW was.
Yes you did, but it's been out 7 years as stated in 4.
Sorry but have to say it regardless, I judge a game by the game itself, there will always be similarities, doesn't matter what genre. But every game also has something unique to it, but only can be seen by those who truly play them.
2004 to 2010 is six years and since it is not November yet, it works out to 5 years 9 months.
But on a serious note. If WoW would fix or add a few key features it could probably be better then what it is.
I agree with this 100%. If WoW gave us player/guild housing with decorating options, armor/weapon appearance tabs, veteran rewards, and a few other things, I for one would never look at another MMO.
But on a serious note. If WoW would fix or add a few key features it could probably be better then what it is.
I agree with this 100%. If WoW gave us player/guild housing with decorating options, armor/weapon appearance tabs, veteran rewards, and a few other things, I for one would never look at another MMO.
It would be amazing if it had player/guild housing. Damn.
Why does the player base of every new MMO decline dramatically right after it's release?
Why are so many MMO companies struggling or even failing?
Why are games going FTP quicker than you can turn around?
You're comparing it to a game that's been out 5 YEARS!
When ANY new MMO comes out it won't measure up...IT CAN'T.
Did I mention that its been out 5 YEARS!
P.S. Spare me the reply's that say something like "I don't compare the games I play to WOW" ....PLEASE
Didn't meet the expectations of the player base. To many want to play the promises made instead of what is actually given.
Lack of patience of a large part of the player base, limited playstyle by the playerbase, playerbase wants something different yet want the same, as many have shown they have a hard time addepting to something that is new.
Because data that developers actually get shows them it's probebly more profitable.
North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
Played plenty of MMORPG that I felt where much better MMORPG's then WoW was.
Yes you did, but it's been out 7 years as stated in 4.
Sorry but have to say it regardless, I judge a game by the game itself, there will always be similarities, doesn't matter what genre. But every game also has something unique to it, but only can be seen by those who truly play them.
1. D idn't meet the expectations of the player base. To many want to play the promises made instead of what is actually given.
Because they are comparing it to WOW
2. Lack of patience of a large part of the player base, limited playstyle by the playerbase, playerbase wants something different yet want the same, as many have shown they have a hard time addepting to something that is new.
Because they are comparing the new game to WOW
3. Because data that developers actually get shows them it's probebly more profitable.
Because the players compare the new game to WOW and realize (rightfully so) that you get way more value subbing to WOW than a new game so they don't sub and the devs panic.
4. North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
5 YEARS, 9 Months Actually...but you could technically round to 6 years.
5. Played plenty of MMORPG that I felt where much better MMORPG's then WoW was.
How many of them are you still playing? How many of them are still around? Which game on life support are you currently playing? I think I made my point.
6. Yes you did, but it's been out 7 years as stated in 4.
Sorry but have to say it regardless, I judge a game by the game itself, there will always be similarities, doesn't matter what genre. But every game also has something unique to it, but only can be seen by those who truly play them.
Sorry, but regardless of how you personally judge games, WOW has made it ridiculously hard (notice I didn't say impossible) for anything new to enter the genre. Just look at any of the other forums on here and they'll confirm my original post.
P.S. Spare me the reply's that say something like "I don't compare the games I play to WOW" ....PLEASE
Didn't meet the expectations of the player base. To many want to play the promises made instead of what is actually given.
Lack of patience of a large part of the player base, limited playstyle by the playerbase, playerbase wants something different yet want the same, as many have shown they have a hard time addepting to something that is new.
Because data that developers actually get shows them it's probebly more profitable.
North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
Played plenty of MMORPG that I felt where much better MMORPG's then WoW was.
Yes you did, but it's been out 7 years as stated in 4.
Sorry but have to say it regardless, I judge a game by the game itself, there will always be similarities, doesn't matter what genre. But every game also has something unique to it, but only can be seen by those who truly play them.
This is a totally lame argument, WOW hasn't made anything difficult it is the lame as devs we are stuck with, there is nothing in WOW that is can't be duplicated nor is there anything that hasn't already been done. The problem is if you are going to do something half assed you are just stuck hoping it's the half of the ass people like and more often than not it isn't.
1)Player bases decline because people often find themselves uninterested in the stories being told or more commonly the thrill you got in the first month gradually decreased to a point of not being able to justify the sub and that's the fault of WOW how? AOC was supposed to compete with WOW and why didn't they? Many people would say that the deceptions cast played more of a role than anything because after level twenty the game experience changed dramatically and if you happened to not like what it changed into you either continue to line the devs pockets or you move on and that's wow's fault how? They don't have any kind of voice overs or the polish that the tutorial in AOC had could it be that once you left the tutorial WOW didn't get any better but more importantly no worse?
2)Because again they keep making half assed games that are costing too much to make given what they accomplish, is that because designing computer games is too hard? Not for me to say but what I know is if people like a game they will play it if they don't they won't and that has nothing to do with WOW.
3)Because the industry needs to grow as the cost to produce games are, in my opinion though it is the fault of the entire mmo scope with the exclusion of Blizzard, Why? Because they are one of the only companies who doesn't make promises and then not deliver on them or often change there minds mid stream. If the music industry released music with the unreliability of mmo's then they too would be clamouring for ways to get money. If you advertise seiges have them and have them working too and if twenty percent of the players can't access it the rest will know and it will ultimately effect you negatively.
4)Most of the posters here simply don't do what you claim, what I read behind this post though is you like some game that's doing horribly and are using this as the excuse of why people don't like the game what are the realistic complaints about your game even if you don't experience them yourself? Are they things that if you did experience you coud see yourself not wanting to sub for?
5)WOW in it's time was not much more expensive than the games to come since but again WOW doesn't have a laundry list of bugs they could never get rid of, advertised box features that never made it or work barely good enough to even try to use it, nor ridiculous specs that even when meeting them sometimes the game still screws up.
6)And EQ has been out longer it didn't hinder the progression of WOW so why assume that WOW somehow is hindering the progression of any good,stable game on the market.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
But on a serious note. If WoW would fix or add a few key features it could probably be better then what it is.
I agree with this 100%. If WoW gave us player/guild housing with decorating options, armor/weapon appearance tabs, veteran rewards, and a few other things, I for one would never look at another MMO.
It would be amazing if it had player/guild housing. Damn.
I am hoping they will implement it to draw folks attention away from SW:ToR around their release time...
1. D idn't meet the expectations of the player base. To many want to play the promises made instead of what is actually given.
Because they are comparing it to WOW
Didn't say they arn't comparing it to WoW, just extended it to more reasons then just WoW, you see there are plenty of gamers that either don't like or play WoW
2. Lack of patience of a large part of the player base, limited playstyle by the playerbase, playerbase wants something different yet want the same, as many have shown they have a hard time addepting to something that is new.
Because they are comparing the new game to WOW
Again Didn't say they arn't comparing it to WoW, just extended it to more reasons then just WoW
3. Because data that developers actually get shows them it's probebly more profitable.
Because the players compare the new game to WOW and realize (rightfully so) that you get way more value subbing to WOW than a new game so they don't sub and the devs panic.
You really act as if every player wants a WoW game, shame you ignore those who don't play or simply don't like WoW. Again just gave you some other reasons besides yours.
4. North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
5 YEARS, 9 Months Actually...but you could technically round to 6 years.
Would be 6 years and 9 months "technically"
5. Played plenty of MMORPG that I felt where much better MMORPG's then WoW was.
How many of them are you still playing? How many of them are still around? Which game on life support are you currently playing? I think I made my point.
Don't have a feeling Fallen Earth is on life support and to ME it is ALLOT better then WoW, again to ME which is a personal opinion, my reasons for leaving those other games has absolutely nothing to do with World of Warcraft. But most of them are still around. So your point since you targeted that point at me is kinda meaningless.
6. Yes you did, but it's been out 7 years as stated in 4.
Sorry but have to say it regardless, I judge a game by the game itself, there will always be similarities, doesn't matter what genre. But every game also has something unique to it, but only can be seen by those who truly play them.
Sorry, but regardless of how you personally judge games, WOW has made it ridiculously hard (notice I didn't say impossible) for anything new to enter the genre. Just look at any of the other forums on here and they'll confirm my original post.
Again I didn't say it doesn't happen in what you meant but is it really hard to imagine there can also be other reasons that have nothing to do with WoW?
P.S. Spare me the reply's that say something like "I don't compare the games I play to WOW" ....PLEASE
Didn't meet the expectations of the player base. To many want to play the promises made instead of what is actually given.
Lack of patience of a large part of the player base, limited playstyle by the playerbase, playerbase wants something different yet want the same, as many have shown they have a hard time addepting to something that is new.
Because data that developers actually get shows them it's probebly more profitable.
North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
Played plenty of MMORPG that I felt where much better MMORPG's then WoW was.
Yes you did, but it's been out 7 years as stated in 4.
Sorry but have to say it regardless, I judge a game by the game itself, there will always be similarities, doesn't matter what genre. But every game also has something unique to it, but only can be seen by those who truly play them.
My point exactly this post makes it seem as if as I noted in another posters sig "everything is working as intended" and that's simply not the case. There are not many games that release and are ambitious enough to outright issue a "challenge" to WOW but even the one or two who did have well documented reasons that don't include "it's not WOW" for the reason behind it's failure.
More importantly I challenge wicked to give us a list of games that he feels are not getting a chance simply because they are being compared to WOW and I assure you he'd find a laundry list of former players to give him reasons other than "because it's not wow".
This while nicely disguised is just another misguided attempt at "WOW rage", another poster attributing the evils of WOW to the entire rest of the genre, much like all the "walmart is the devil" talk I hear more often than I'd care to.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I compare games to Asheron's Call. World of Warcraft is just another blip on the screen.
WOW is the Screen. Asheron's Call is the dust bunny behind the screen.
For those who grew up with WoW.
I didn't grow up with WoW. I grew up with UO, EQ1, DAoC, AC, and I will just go ahead and say when it comes to polish, content and technique, wow has crushed them all with an iron fist.
WoW really is the screen, and AC is a dust bunny behind the screen, DAoC is an pretzel that is now crusty on the floor but you are to lazy to pick it up and throw it away, EQ is the stale cup of coffee next to the screen, and UO is just a poster on the wall that you look at to remind you of how things "used" to be.
4. North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
5 YEARS, 9 Months Actually...but you could technically round to 6 years.
Would be 6 years and 9 months "technically"
P.S. Spare me the reply's that say something like "I don't compare the games I play to WOW" ....PLEASE
Didn't meet the expectations of the player base. To many want to play the promises made instead of what is actually given.
Lack of patience of a large part of the player base, limited playstyle by the playerbase, playerbase wants something different yet want the same, as many have shown they have a hard time addepting to something that is new.
Because data that developers actually get shows them it's probebly more profitable.
North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
Played plenty of MMORPG that I felt where much better MMORPG's then WoW was.
Yes you did, but it's been out 7 years as stated in 4.
Sorry but have to say it regardless, I judge a game by the game itself, there will always be similarities, doesn't matter what genre. But every game also has something unique to it, but only can be seen by those who truly play them.
2004 to 2010 is six years and since it is not November yet, it works out to 5 years 9 months.
You and OP about the date are absolutely RIGHT!!!!. sorry about my mistake
Dunno why I pushed the date 1 year ahead, perhaps my mind wants to be in 2011 ....Meh....
The real question then is, do players even want something different than WoW? If the majority of players are happy playing WoW, then why bother making more MMORPGs at all? Here you have dozens of companies making games that are almost exactly like WoW from the graphics and interface to end game raiding and PvP instances. That makes for one largely insipid market. We see more and more WoW clones falling away, but WoW retains their numbers for the most part. What does that say about the player base?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I compare games to Asheron's Call. World of Warcraft is just another blip on the screen.
WOW is the Screen. Asheron's Call is the dust bunny behind the screen.
For those who grew up with WoW.
I didn't grow up with WoW. I grew up with UO, EQ1, DAoC, AC, and I will just go ahead and say when it comes to polish, content and technique, wow has crushed them all with an iron fist.
WoW really is the screen, and AC is a dust bunny behind the screen, DAoC is an pretzel that is now crusty on the floor but you are to lazy to pick it up and throw it away, EQ is the stale cup of coffee next to the screen, and UO is just a poster on the wall that you look at to remind you of how things "used" to be.
It is sad but very true.
I like where you're going with this. I would say SW:TOR is like a really expensive new screen that you find out works not much better than the old screen. GW2 is like a affordable new screen than has all these cool features but they never really work out the way you think they will, Rift is a new screen that offers random screen savers that pop up while you are watching the screen, Tera is like a screen with a really short skirt that you know you want to play but could never show you wife and Cataclysm.... well its funny after all this, its going to be the same old screen.
1. D idn't meet the expectations of the player base. To many want to play the promises made instead of what is actually given.
Because they are comparing it to WOW
Didn't say they arn't comparing it to WoW, just extended it to more reasons then just WoW, you see there are plenty of gamers that either don't like or play WoW
2. Lack of patience of a large part of the player base, limited playstyle by the playerbase, playerbase wants something different yet want the same, as many have shown they have a hard time addepting to something that is new.
Because they are comparing the new game to WOW
Again Didn't say they arn't comparing it to WoW, just extended it to more reasons then just WoW
3. Because data that developers actually get shows them it's probebly more profitable.
Because the players compare the new game to WOW and realize (rightfully so) that you get way more value subbing to WOW than a new game so they don't sub and the devs panic.
You really act as if every player wants a WoW game, shame you ignore those who don't play or simply don't like WoW. Again just gave you some other reasons besides yours.
4. North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
5 YEARS, 9 Months Actually...but you could technically round to 6 years.
Would be 6 years and 9 months "technically"
5. Played plenty of MMORPG that I felt where much better MMORPG's then WoW was.
How many of them are you still playing? How many of them are still around? Which game on life support are you currently playing? I think I made my point.
Don't have a feeling Fallen Earth is on life support and to ME it is ALLOT better then WoW, again to ME which is a personal opinion, my reasons for leaving those other games has absolutely nothing to do with World of Warcraft. But most of them are still around. So your point since you targeted that point at me is kinda meaningless.
6. Yes you did, but it's been out 7 years as stated in 4.
Sorry but have to say it regardless, I judge a game by the game itself, there will always be similarities, doesn't matter what genre. But every game also has something unique to it, but only can be seen by those who truly play them.
Sorry, but regardless of how you personally judge games, WOW has made it ridiculously hard (notice I didn't say impossible) for anything new to enter the genre. Just look at any of the other forums on here and they'll confirm my original post.
Again I didn't say it doesn't happen in what you meant but is it really hard to imagine there can also be other reasons that have nothing to do with WoW?
P.S. Spare me the reply's that say something like "I don't compare the games I play to WOW" ....PLEASE
Didn't meet the expectations of the player base. To many want to play the promises made instead of what is actually given.
Lack of patience of a large part of the player base, limited playstyle by the playerbase, playerbase wants something different yet want the same, as many have shown they have a hard time addepting to something that is new.
Because data that developers actually get shows them it's probebly more profitable.
North American stores on November 23, 2004 that's 7 years actually
Played plenty of MMORPG that I felt where much better MMORPG's then WoW was.
Yes you did, but it's been out 7 years as stated in 4.
Sorry but have to say it regardless, I judge a game by the game itself, there will always be similarities, doesn't matter what genre. But every game also has something unique to it, but only can be seen by those who truly play them.
My point exactly this post makes it seem as if as I noted in another posters sig "everything is working as intended" and that's simply not the case. There are not many games that release and are ambitious enough to outright issue a "challenge" to WOW but even the one or two who did have well documented reasons that don't include "it's not WOW" for the reason behind it's failure.
OK. Let's use 2 games that were suppose to challenge WOW. Warhammer and Age of Conan. People were hyped about these games and they each started out with almost a million subs! Guess what? The very next month their subs fell off a cliff. Because everyone compared it to the polish and content of WOW and were outta there! You can't tell me if WOW wasn't around that a lot of these people wouldn't have stuck with these two very good games! Heck...back in the pre-WOW days, a game like DAOC consistently had 250K subs and you're telling me these two games are languishing below 100K just because of all the issues they have? Nope...it's because WOW is around. I suppose someday the perfect dev will come along and all the stars will align for them to make the perfect game. But until then, any other mortal dev cannot compete with the kinda head start WOW has.
More importantly I challenge wicked to give us a list of games that he feels are not getting a chance simply because they are being compared to WOW and I assure you he'd find a laundry list of former players to give him reasons other than "because it's not wow".
Pretty much the list contains ALL MMO's lauched post WOW. I didn't say they weren't getting a chance "simply because they are being compared to WOW" I acknowledge that they have issues. But that's just the point of my original post. WOW's been out 5 YEARS! How can any game measure up when compared to that. ALL games have issues when they launch. Plus, they simply cannot have the content that a game with 2-3 expansions has.
This while nicely disguised is just another misguided attempt at "WOW rage", another poster attributing the evils of WOW to the entire rest of the genre, much like all the "walmart is the devil" talk I hear more often than I'd care to.
OK. Let's use 2 games that were suppose to challenge WOW. Warhammer and Age of Conan. People were hyped about these games and they each started out with almost a million subs! Guess what? The very next month their subs fell off a cliff. Because everyone compared it to the polish and content of WOW and were outta there! You can't tell me if WOW wasn't around that a lot of these people wouldn't have stuck with these two very good games! Heck...back in the pre-WOW days, a game like DAOC consistently had 250K subs and you're telling me these two games are languishing below 100K just because of all the issues they have? Nope...it's because WOW is around. I suppose someday the perfect dev will come along and all the stars will align for them to make the perfect game. But until then, any other mortal dev cannot compete with the kinda head start WOW has.
You are going to get a lot of differing opionions if you call AoC and WAR 'very good games'. When I left AoC after the first month it was because the combat system became extremely stale and predictable and the 'promise' of the game that was the Tortage zone seemed to have vanished into thin air and the game became simply awkward to play.
The question of whether I would have stayed in AoC if I had not previously played WoW is difficult to answer. Good products shape our expectations of what a similar product should be. When I was a college student I did not cook properly and ate a ton of bad food. These days I prefere a good home cooked meal and anything that does not compare to that will be rejected. I will not settle for bad food if a ready alternative is present.
So while before WoW I might have played games that were not as enjoyable (or only enjoyable at that time of my life) I see no reason to settle for mediocre games when a better alternative is available. So when AoC did not offer anything new or exciting I compared it to WoW, canceled my AoC acount and went back to EVE.
Do you mean to say that WoW has had a ruinous impact on the MMO market because of it's success? WoW is without doubt MMO's pop fav so its going to be a point of comparisson for many MMO players. Its unreasonable to compare a new MMO to WoW content wise, but with regard to style, game mechanics etc I don't see why people should'nt.
The ruinous impact on the MMO market is indeed its success.
Until WoW, an MMO with a stable sub number around 50-100k was considered successful. 200k was a big success. Anything beyond that was a huge hit.
Today, anything below a million subs is considered an utter failure. And that cannot happen sensibly, if that's the VCs expect it HAS to fail. Of course they all look at WoW and want a slice of that juicy cake, but this cake cannot be repeated any time soon.
You can see how various games were viewed by their makers pre and post WoW, and how quickly they were pushed into the "milk while we can, dump if it's dry" corner if released after WoW while they would have been kept alive pre-WoW because they would have been considered a success.
How did WoW survive as it was fighting against EQ that had been released 5 years earlier (16 march 1999, so some more than 5 years) and had !!!!!8!!!!! EXPANSIONS???
Answer me that.
And EQ was far from the only fish in the sea... UO and AC were there as was DAoC. Each had been out for years and had some expansions at least to their names. (oh yeah Swg too.. and EVE.. and others)
Still, WoW triumphed. Why? It definitely did not had the content of EQ by a thousand miles, nor the pvp experience of DAoC, so... if Blizzard did it, why oh why no one else can?
FACT: any new game will always be compared to what is available in its own genre. The amount of content is actually a non-issue when you start a new game... because you have never seen any of it, so a new game does NOT need to have the same content as a 5 years old game! The 5 years old game as so much content BECAUSE its players have gone through all the old content and need more to remain happy (even in sandboxes games, look at EVE and how many expansions they have).
FACT is if blizzard did it, others can do it as well.
Another issue to consider. Remove WoW from the market and what do you have? Consider if EQ remained the king of MMOs with its 500k subscribers. The new MMos with their 100k, 150k, 300k would not look so bad, they would be right there, fighting for the crown with the champion.
So many here insist that most of WoW players are not gamers or not mmo gamers (some even use the title with pride, like that would be something to put on your business card ).. Well! then! forget WoW exists! Clearly, by MMO gamers standards, all the new games are doing fairly well! there must be only MMO gamers playing those games! you will fit right in! THERE IS NO PROBLEM!
Stop being obsessed with games having more subscribers than wow! many here consider other games released before or after wow to be the better games, so good for you, have fun! Leave the masses behind and enjoy life!
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
How did WoW survive as it was fighting against EQ that had been released 5 years earlier (16 march 1999, so some more than 5 years) and had !!!!!8!!!!! EXPANSIONS???
Answer me that.
And EQ was far from the only fish in the sea... UO and AC were there as was DAoC. Each had been out for years and had some expansions at least to their names. (oh yeah Swg too.. and EVE.. and others)
Still, WoW triumphed. Why? It definitely did not had the content of EQ by a thousand miles, nor the pvp experience of DAoC, so... if Blizzard did it, why oh why no one else can?
FACT: any new game will always be compared to what is available in its own genre. The amount of content is actually a non-issue when you start a new game... because you have never seen any of it, so a new game does NOT need to have the same content as a 5 years old game! The 5 years old game as so much content BECAUSE its players have gone through all the old content and need more to remain happy (even in sandboxes games, look at EVE and how many expansions they have).
FACT is if blizzard did it, others can do it as well.
Another issue to consider. Remove WoW from the market and what do you have? Consider if EQ remained the king of MMOs with its 500k subscribers. The new MMos with their 100k, 150k, 300k would not look so bad, they would be right there, fighting for the crown with the champion.
So many here insist that most of WoW players are not gamers or not mmo gamers (some even use the title with pride, like that would be something to put on your business card ).. Well! then! forget WoW exists! Clearly, by MMO gamers standards, all the new games are doing fairly well! there must be only MMO gamers playing those games! you will fit right in! THERE IS NO PROBLEM!
Stop being obsessed with games having more subscribers than wow! many here consider other games released before or after wow to be the better games, so good for you, have fun! Leave the masses behind and enjoy life!
Allow me to start with the "why did WoW succeed where so many others afterwards failed".
First of all, WoW has a very well established IP to rely on: Warcraft. Of course, a lot of the people playing WoW today don't even know anything about Warcraft outside of WoW, but I am quite sure the followers that Warcraft had were a sizable part of the early WoW players. Now, as everyone knows, the months after release are the roughest and most deciding for an MMO. Many MMOs fail, not because they're bad but because they have a very rough and bumpy start that made people quit quickly. WoW with its well established IP gave them quite a few fanboys that did overlook the bumps and kinks in the first months, happy that they could play in a persistent version of their Warcraft world.
But what we should not overlook is that WoW was pretty polished for a newly released MMO at start! Yes, it had its bumps and IIRC it was down for about 5 days in the first month. Queues were the norm rather than the exception (hell, there were like 10 Euro servers, way, way too few!). Quests were buggy, as were some areas, and GMs were FAR too few in existence. Those that follow the progress of WoW might remember how Blizzard pretty much signed up anyone who could form a halfway legible sentence to GM for them, because they, too, underestimated the success.
But that was not as much a problem back then. There were generally two kinds of people playing WoW in the early days: Warcraft fans and MMO players who needed something new. And the release moment of WoW was exactly right for the latter group.
Blizzard had a spot of luck as well with its release moment. WoW came at exactly the right moment. EQ has gone stale and was pushed aside for the development of EQ2 which released about the same time as WoW, but with far, far worse results. It was buggy as hell, laggy as hell, localisations were a complete failure (and still are partly), quests didn't work and the difficulty level and molasses progress speed were simply not what MMO players were looking for anymore. At the same time, DAoC suffered from the first fallout from the neck breaking Atlantis expansion, AO was getting stagnant when the whole Clan/Omni tower war was tossed out the window in favor of a "let's kill the aliens" game that no AO fan wanted... 2004/2005 was the time of back breaking expansions in MMOs, it seems. And right at this time, when old MMO players turned their back to their MMOs because they went a direction they did not enjoy, WoW hit the market.
And those "old" MMO players knew that an MMO release is a bumpy ride. If you've ever suffered through the labor pains of new MMOs, you know what to expect from a new MMO. And the surprise with WoW was a quite pleasurable one. It was a pretty smooth release, believe it or not. And those old MMO players were quick to soothe the ruffled feathers of other players who were used to the far more polished look of single player games (or multiplayer in non-persistent worlds), explaining that WoW had indeed a pretty smooth release. Yes, yes, it had its issues. But when you compare that to almost every other game at release, WoW already showed back then that it will be far more stable and polished soon. Especially since you could actually see progress. It wasn't the usual "really soon now" excuse you usually get to hear (Vanguard devs, I'm looking your way!), you heard deadlines and usually they were kept. That keeps people on board.
Now, why can't that be repeated?
Because the people playing WoW today are not "old school" MMO players. At least most of them are not. I don't say that they are no "real" MMO players. But they have little if any experience with MMOs outside of WoW, and often enough even their experience with WoW is one that started a year after release or later, when WoW was actually VERY stable and solid, polished and balanced. If this is what you know of MMOs and compare any new MMO to this state, any given MMO that hits the market new HAS to fail the comparison. It is virtually impossible to test an MMO to the level of stability, balance and bug-freeness of WoW, and it certainly is impossible to do it in an economically sound way.
So yes, it is pretty much impossible to repeat the feat of WoW. The people you could and would attract with your new game are not used to the usual release of an MMO, they would expect far more than you could possibly deliver. Even though WoW is today in a state that it could be replaced by many with a new gaming experience, you cannot provide what would sway people to turn their back on WoW. You cannot create a game at the polish level of WoW 1-2 years after release, but that's what you'd have to do if you wanted to attract the majority of people playing today.
Do you mean to say that WoW has had a ruinous impact on the MMO market because of it's success? WoW is without doubt MMO's pop fav so its going to be a point of comparisson for many MMO players. Its unreasonable to compare a new MMO to WoW content wise, but with regard to style, game mechanics etc I don't see why people should'nt.
The ruinous impact on the MMO market is indeed its success.
Until WoW, an MMO with a stable sub number around 50-100k was considered successful. 200k was a big success. Anything beyond that was a huge hit.
Today, anything below a million subs is considered an utter failure. And that cannot happen sensibly, if that's the VCs expect it HAS to fail. Of course they all look at WoW and want a slice of that juicy cake, but this cake cannot be repeated any time soon.
You can see how various games were viewed by their makers pre and post WoW, and how quickly they were pushed into the "milk while we can, dump if it's dry" corner if released after WoW while they would have been kept alive pre-WoW because they would have been considered a success.
The question is : what was the qualtiy of those MMO's released prior to WOW?
Quality in terms of video gameplay ... bacause that's what MMORPG's are : video games (not pen&paper games).
And the same question can be asked for those fantasy games published after WOW.
Point 1: in a video game you start with the responsive and excellent controls of your avatars you're gonna play for the next 2000 hours in your life ...
The answer can be found with easeI think (as can be seen by the latest "new" kid on the block).
What you are not taking into consideration is the box sales of these wow-wannabe MMOs. WAR sold millions, and AOC sales were enormous.
This means that many people wanted to try or give those MMOs a chance. But they deceived these people and thats why there were no retentifon of subs.
If SWTOR devs goes outside developing schedule and tries to release the game unfnished, they will do the same error.
While people don't rejects new gameplay or lesser contents, they do not want unfinished shoddy work. And first impression really counts in MMOs. They better remember this and not think in terms of profit and schedule.
EVERY GAME gets compared to WOW! I'm not saying thats wrong, and I don't even blame anyone for doing it....heck I do it myself! Problem is....it's been out 5 YEARS! How is ANY new game suppose to be realistically compared to a game that's been out 5 YEARS! ANY new MMO is going to have problems. When you compare it to a game that's been out 5 YEARS of course it looks sub-standard.
What about content? There is absolutely NO WAY a game can have even a fraction of the content as a game that has two expansions (going on 3) and has been out 5 YEARS!
Finally, the budget. WOW makes more money in a month than ALMOST EVERY developer spends on the ENTIRE development! (Alright SWTOR...I said "almost") It's built this user base over 5 YEARS and you expect a new company to compete with that?
Why does the player base of every new MMO decline dramatically right after it's release? Why are so many MMO companies struggling or even failing? Why are games going FTP quicker than you can turn around? You're comparing it to a game that's been out 5 YEARS! When ANY new MMO comes out it won't measure up...IT CAN'T.
Did I mention that its been out 5 YEARS!
P.S. Spare me the reply's that say something like "I don't compare the games I play to WOW" ....PLEASE
When Wow came out it was compared to EQ1, which had been out for 5 years.
It's the way of the world. Like comparing the latest pop CD to the last big pop CD, or the latest Sci-fi movie to the last big sci-fi movie. Etc Etc.
When the "next big MMO" comes out, 5 years later, games will be compared to that.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
What you are not taking into consideration is the box sales of these wow-wannabe MMOs. WAR sold millions, and AOC sales were enormous.
This means that many people wanted to try or give those MMOs a chance. But they deceived these people and thats why there were no retentifon of subs.
If SWTOR devs goes outside developing schedule and tries to release the game unfnished, they will do the same error.
While people don't rejects new gameplay or lesser contents, they do not want unfinished shoddy work. And first impression really counts in MMOs. They better remember this and not think in terms of profit and schedule.
Oh, I do hope they think in terms of profit! But I can only hope that VCs will eventually realize that 3-6 months can make the difference between "cutting the loss" and "making a profit".
You identified very correctly that most MMOs are released half baked, if that. And of course they fail. Nobody pays sub fees for a game that is simply unfinished. Broken quests. Broken attacks. Broken mobs. Broken economy. Broken ... everything. Why should I shell out 15 bucks a month to endure it?
What Blizz did right with WoW (and NC with Aion, btw) was to release it when it was ready for release (not done. An MMO is never really done. But ready enough to keep people playing and paying). Sure, in both cases, WoW and Aion, people were anxious to get it and fanboys were howling that they SOOOO wanna play it NOW, but both companies saw that the howling fanboys can easily turn into mourning ex-fans when their game stinks. Don't give in to the "pressure" of the fans. They will buy it now and they will buy it in 6 months. They're already hyped up to the top over the game anyway, 6 more months and they'll be so worked up that they'll even forgive you a few bugs.
And that's what happened with WoW. WoW's release was pushed back time and again, slowly adding more and more people to the beta. And those beta people actually got to see improvements. WoW's beta was not just "let's egg them on a bit and increase the hype", it was actually used to improve gameplay. And the beta players saw that.
I have been in a number of betas (EaB, TR, WoW, Aion, SG and a few more I can't name due to NDAs), and in every single one there have been huge complaints from the betas when they decided to release it, telling them that no, it's NOT ready for prime time yet, it will stink, people will toss it... There was no such complaints at the end of the WoW beta. Quite the opposite, most people were pressing for "release it, dammit, we wanna play that for real!".
Blizzard did this one thing right with WoW and hence it was a huge success. WoW was released when it was ready, people bought it, played it, liked it, stayed. Aion was also released when it was ready (hell, the translation took ages, but it was time well spent. If you want to see how a shoddy translation can ruin an otherwise ok game, look at the non-English versions of EQ2). People bought it, played it, liked it, stayed.
Most failed MMOs failed for a single reason: Release before their time. It's not that there can be only WoW clones, and no other concept could ever be successful. TR offered an insanely cool idea and a really sweet gameplay. It was very different from contemporary MMOs, of course, but it had a pretty decent start. Player numbers plummeted though when they started to change whole skill sets every other month, something you'd expect during an early beta, maybe beta, but certainly NOT a game you're already paying for. EvE is much but certainly NOT a WoW clone game, yet it is successful because CCP takes care that patches and addons get released when they are done, and not a moment earlier.
The success of an MMO is mostly dependent on whether its maker is willing to invest the time and money it takes to get a game that can return that investment.
Comments
The only thing that I compare new games to WoW is, is it fluid in combat like WoW?
As much as I would have liked to have gotten into LOTRO, i couldn't the combat was just to clunky. I haven't played WoW in over a year but I did enjoy the time I did spend in the game (about 140ish game days over 4 years or so) but I got tired of being the hampster on their wheel, it got old.
But my disdain for WoW now does not negate the many things it did great, mainly for me at least that was how fluid combat was.
Mazin
Hard Core Member
Joined: 5/10/09
Posts: 540
It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all outta gum
Best VG Quote Evar! Also, if you like cake better than pie, you haven't had good pie!
Why spare you the replies that suggest that? I for one don't compare the games I play to WOW necessarily. I've seen some of those comparisons made before but I don't think that has anything to do with the fail sauce most of these new mmo's are dripping with. They fail because they often release with a lack of content, variation, direction and often with a egomaniacal game director who are more often than not prone to making promises about features that can not possibly be working in game in relation to how long it takes post launch for the feature to work properly.
Anyone who would compare a new mmo to WOW in it's present state deserves this post but that is not often the case with what I see, if a post is made and a comparison is drawn to WOW within five replies those comparisons are rationalized out to make it easy for you though if I would draw comparisons it would be to say if you are coming out with an mmo you should not have less content than wow released with, try giving a world not much smaller than they launched with too and you can give yourself a fighting chance for success.
But in all I don't think the genre draws unfair comparisons to WOW I think it's more along the lines of these devs need to start getting there acts together because people are going to stop giving them money simply over rampant fanboism (Cryptic and STO anyone).
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
2004 to 2010 is six years and since it is not November yet, it works out to 5 years 9 months.
I agree with this 100%. If WoW gave us player/guild housing with decorating options, armor/weapon appearance tabs, veteran rewards, and a few other things, I for one would never look at another MMO.
It would be amazing if it had player/guild housing. Damn.
This is a totally lame argument, WOW hasn't made anything difficult it is the lame as devs we are stuck with, there is nothing in WOW that is can't be duplicated nor is there anything that hasn't already been done. The problem is if you are going to do something half assed you are just stuck hoping it's the half of the ass people like and more often than not it isn't.
1)Player bases decline because people often find themselves uninterested in the stories being told or more commonly the thrill you got in the first month gradually decreased to a point of not being able to justify the sub and that's the fault of WOW how? AOC was supposed to compete with WOW and why didn't they? Many people would say that the deceptions cast played more of a role than anything because after level twenty the game experience changed dramatically and if you happened to not like what it changed into you either continue to line the devs pockets or you move on and that's wow's fault how? They don't have any kind of voice overs or the polish that the tutorial in AOC had could it be that once you left the tutorial WOW didn't get any better but more importantly no worse?
2)Because again they keep making half assed games that are costing too much to make given what they accomplish, is that because designing computer games is too hard? Not for me to say but what I know is if people like a game they will play it if they don't they won't and that has nothing to do with WOW.
3)Because the industry needs to grow as the cost to produce games are, in my opinion though it is the fault of the entire mmo scope with the exclusion of Blizzard, Why? Because they are one of the only companies who doesn't make promises and then not deliver on them or often change there minds mid stream. If the music industry released music with the unreliability of mmo's then they too would be clamouring for ways to get money. If you advertise seiges have them and have them working too and if twenty percent of the players can't access it the rest will know and it will ultimately effect you negatively.
4)Most of the posters here simply don't do what you claim, what I read behind this post though is you like some game that's doing horribly and are using this as the excuse of why people don't like the game what are the realistic complaints about your game even if you don't experience them yourself? Are they things that if you did experience you coud see yourself not wanting to sub for?
5)WOW in it's time was not much more expensive than the games to come since but again WOW doesn't have a laundry list of bugs they could never get rid of, advertised box features that never made it or work barely good enough to even try to use it, nor ridiculous specs that even when meeting them sometimes the game still screws up.
6)And EQ has been out longer it didn't hinder the progression of WOW so why assume that WOW somehow is hindering the progression of any good,stable game on the market.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I am hoping they will implement it to draw folks attention away from SW:ToR around their release time...
/crossesfingers
My point exactly this post makes it seem as if as I noted in another posters sig "everything is working as intended" and that's simply not the case. There are not many games that release and are ambitious enough to outright issue a "challenge" to WOW but even the one or two who did have well documented reasons that don't include "it's not WOW" for the reason behind it's failure.
More importantly I challenge wicked to give us a list of games that he feels are not getting a chance simply because they are being compared to WOW and I assure you he'd find a laundry list of former players to give him reasons other than "because it's not wow".
This while nicely disguised is just another misguided attempt at "WOW rage", another poster attributing the evils of WOW to the entire rest of the genre, much like all the "walmart is the devil" talk I hear more often than I'd care to.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I didn't grow up with WoW. I grew up with UO, EQ1, DAoC, AC, and I will just go ahead and say when it comes to polish, content and technique, wow has crushed them all with an iron fist.
WoW really is the screen, and AC is a dust bunny behind the screen, DAoC is an pretzel that is now crusty on the floor but you are to lazy to pick it up and throw it away, EQ is the stale cup of coffee next to the screen, and UO is just a poster on the wall that you look at to remind you of how things "used" to be.
It is sad but very true.
You and OP about the date are absolutely RIGHT!!!!. sorry about my mistake
Dunno why I pushed the date 1 year ahead, perhaps my mind wants to be in 2011 ....Meh....
The real question then is, do players even want something different than WoW? If the majority of players are happy playing WoW, then why bother making more MMORPGs at all? Here you have dozens of companies making games that are almost exactly like WoW from the graphics and interface to end game raiding and PvP instances. That makes for one largely insipid market. We see more and more WoW clones falling away, but WoW retains their numbers for the most part. What does that say about the player base?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I like where you're going with this. I would say SW:TOR is like a really expensive new screen that you find out works not much better than the old screen. GW2 is like a affordable new screen than has all these cool features but they never really work out the way you think they will, Rift is a new screen that offers random screen savers that pop up while you are watching the screen, Tera is like a screen with a really short skirt that you know you want to play but could never show you wife and Cataclysm.... well its funny after all this, its going to be the same old screen.
You are going to get a lot of differing opionions if you call AoC and WAR 'very good games'. When I left AoC after the first month it was because the combat system became extremely stale and predictable and the 'promise' of the game that was the Tortage zone seemed to have vanished into thin air and the game became simply awkward to play.
The question of whether I would have stayed in AoC if I had not previously played WoW is difficult to answer. Good products shape our expectations of what a similar product should be. When I was a college student I did not cook properly and ate a ton of bad food. These days I prefere a good home cooked meal and anything that does not compare to that will be rejected. I will not settle for bad food if a ready alternative is present.
So while before WoW I might have played games that were not as enjoyable (or only enjoyable at that time of my life) I see no reason to settle for mediocre games when a better alternative is available. So when AoC did not offer anything new or exciting I compared it to WoW, canceled my AoC acount and went back to EVE.
The ruinous impact on the MMO market is indeed its success.
Until WoW, an MMO with a stable sub number around 50-100k was considered successful. 200k was a big success. Anything beyond that was a huge hit.
Today, anything below a million subs is considered an utter failure. And that cannot happen sensibly, if that's the VCs expect it HAS to fail. Of course they all look at WoW and want a slice of that juicy cake, but this cake cannot be repeated any time soon.
You can see how various games were viewed by their makers pre and post WoW, and how quickly they were pushed into the "milk while we can, dump if it's dry" corner if released after WoW while they would have been kept alive pre-WoW because they would have been considered a success.
How did WoW survive as it was fighting against EQ that had been released 5 years earlier (16 march 1999, so some more than 5 years) and had !!!!!8!!!!! EXPANSIONS???
Answer me that.
And EQ was far from the only fish in the sea... UO and AC were there as was DAoC. Each had been out for years and had some expansions at least to their names. (oh yeah Swg too.. and EVE.. and others)
Still, WoW triumphed. Why? It definitely did not had the content of EQ by a thousand miles, nor the pvp experience of DAoC, so... if Blizzard did it, why oh why no one else can?
FACT: any new game will always be compared to what is available in its own genre. The amount of content is actually a non-issue when you start a new game... because you have never seen any of it, so a new game does NOT need to have the same content as a 5 years old game! The 5 years old game as so much content BECAUSE its players have gone through all the old content and need more to remain happy (even in sandboxes games, look at EVE and how many expansions they have).
FACT is if blizzard did it, others can do it as well.
Another issue to consider. Remove WoW from the market and what do you have? Consider if EQ remained the king of MMOs with its 500k subscribers. The new MMos with their 100k, 150k, 300k would not look so bad, they would be right there, fighting for the crown with the champion.
So many here insist that most of WoW players are not gamers or not mmo gamers (some even use the title with pride, like that would be something to put on your business card
).. Well! then! forget WoW exists! Clearly, by MMO gamers standards, all the new games are doing fairly well! there must be only MMO gamers playing those games! you will fit right in! THERE IS NO PROBLEM! 
Stop being obsessed with games having more subscribers than wow! many here consider other games released before or after wow to be the better games, so good for you, have fun! Leave the masses behind and enjoy life!
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Allow me to start with the "why did WoW succeed where so many others afterwards failed".
First of all, WoW has a very well established IP to rely on: Warcraft. Of course, a lot of the people playing WoW today don't even know anything about Warcraft outside of WoW, but I am quite sure the followers that Warcraft had were a sizable part of the early WoW players. Now, as everyone knows, the months after release are the roughest and most deciding for an MMO. Many MMOs fail, not because they're bad but because they have a very rough and bumpy start that made people quit quickly. WoW with its well established IP gave them quite a few fanboys that did overlook the bumps and kinks in the first months, happy that they could play in a persistent version of their Warcraft world.
But what we should not overlook is that WoW was pretty polished for a newly released MMO at start! Yes, it had its bumps and IIRC it was down for about 5 days in the first month. Queues were the norm rather than the exception (hell, there were like 10 Euro servers, way, way too few!). Quests were buggy, as were some areas, and GMs were FAR too few in existence. Those that follow the progress of WoW might remember how Blizzard pretty much signed up anyone who could form a halfway legible sentence to GM for them, because they, too, underestimated the success.
But that was not as much a problem back then. There were generally two kinds of people playing WoW in the early days: Warcraft fans and MMO players who needed something new. And the release moment of WoW was exactly right for the latter group.
Blizzard had a spot of luck as well with its release moment. WoW came at exactly the right moment. EQ has gone stale and was pushed aside for the development of EQ2 which released about the same time as WoW, but with far, far worse results. It was buggy as hell, laggy as hell, localisations were a complete failure (and still are partly), quests didn't work and the difficulty level and molasses progress speed were simply not what MMO players were looking for anymore. At the same time, DAoC suffered from the first fallout from the neck breaking Atlantis expansion, AO was getting stagnant when the whole Clan/Omni tower war was tossed out the window in favor of a "let's kill the aliens" game that no AO fan wanted... 2004/2005 was the time of back breaking expansions in MMOs, it seems. And right at this time, when old MMO players turned their back to their MMOs because they went a direction they did not enjoy, WoW hit the market.
And those "old" MMO players knew that an MMO release is a bumpy ride. If you've ever suffered through the labor pains of new MMOs, you know what to expect from a new MMO. And the surprise with WoW was a quite pleasurable one. It was a pretty smooth release, believe it or not. And those old MMO players were quick to soothe the ruffled feathers of other players who were used to the far more polished look of single player games (or multiplayer in non-persistent worlds), explaining that WoW had indeed a pretty smooth release. Yes, yes, it had its issues. But when you compare that to almost every other game at release, WoW already showed back then that it will be far more stable and polished soon. Especially since you could actually see progress. It wasn't the usual "really soon now" excuse you usually get to hear (Vanguard devs, I'm looking your way!), you heard deadlines and usually they were kept. That keeps people on board.
Now, why can't that be repeated?
Because the people playing WoW today are not "old school" MMO players. At least most of them are not. I don't say that they are no "real" MMO players. But they have little if any experience with MMOs outside of WoW, and often enough even their experience with WoW is one that started a year after release or later, when WoW was actually VERY stable and solid, polished and balanced. If this is what you know of MMOs and compare any new MMO to this state, any given MMO that hits the market new HAS to fail the comparison. It is virtually impossible to test an MMO to the level of stability, balance and bug-freeness of WoW, and it certainly is impossible to do it in an economically sound way.
So yes, it is pretty much impossible to repeat the feat of WoW. The people you could and would attract with your new game are not used to the usual release of an MMO, they would expect far more than you could possibly deliver. Even though WoW is today in a state that it could be replaced by many with a new gaming experience, you cannot provide what would sway people to turn their back on WoW. You cannot create a game at the polish level of WoW 1-2 years after release, but that's what you'd have to do if you wanted to attract the majority of people playing today.
The question is : what was the qualtiy of those MMO's released prior to WOW?
Quality in terms of video gameplay ... bacause that's what MMORPG's are : video games (not pen&paper games).
And the same question can be asked for those fantasy games published after WOW.
Point 1: in a video game you start with the responsive and excellent controls of your avatars you're gonna play for the next 2000 hours in your life ...
The answer can be found with ease I think (as can be seen by the latest "new" kid on the block).
What you are not taking into consideration is the box sales of these wow-wannabe MMOs. WAR sold millions, and AOC sales were enormous.
This means that many people wanted to try or give those MMOs a chance. But they deceived these people and thats why there were no retentifon of subs.
If SWTOR devs goes outside developing schedule and tries to release the game unfnished, they will do the same error.
While people don't rejects new gameplay or lesser contents, they do not want unfinished shoddy work. And first impression really counts in MMOs. They better remember this and not think in terms of profit and schedule.
When Wow came out it was compared to EQ1, which had been out for 5 years.
It's the way of the world. Like comparing the latest pop CD to the last big pop CD, or the latest Sci-fi movie to the last big sci-fi movie. Etc Etc.
When the "next big MMO" comes out, 5 years later, games will be compared to that.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
Oh, I do hope they think in terms of profit! But I can only hope that VCs will eventually realize that 3-6 months can make the difference between "cutting the loss" and "making a profit".
You identified very correctly that most MMOs are released half baked, if that. And of course they fail. Nobody pays sub fees for a game that is simply unfinished. Broken quests. Broken attacks. Broken mobs. Broken economy. Broken ... everything. Why should I shell out 15 bucks a month to endure it?
What Blizz did right with WoW (and NC with Aion, btw) was to release it when it was ready for release (not done. An MMO is never really done. But ready enough to keep people playing and paying). Sure, in both cases, WoW and Aion, people were anxious to get it and fanboys were howling that they SOOOO wanna play it NOW, but both companies saw that the howling fanboys can easily turn into mourning ex-fans when their game stinks. Don't give in to the "pressure" of the fans. They will buy it now and they will buy it in 6 months. They're already hyped up to the top over the game anyway, 6 more months and they'll be so worked up that they'll even forgive you a few bugs.
And that's what happened with WoW. WoW's release was pushed back time and again, slowly adding more and more people to the beta. And those beta people actually got to see improvements. WoW's beta was not just "let's egg them on a bit and increase the hype", it was actually used to improve gameplay. And the beta players saw that.
I have been in a number of betas (EaB, TR, WoW, Aion, SG and a few more I can't name due to NDAs), and in every single one there have been huge complaints from the betas when they decided to release it, telling them that no, it's NOT ready for prime time yet, it will stink, people will toss it... There was no such complaints at the end of the WoW beta. Quite the opposite, most people were pressing for "release it, dammit, we wanna play that for real!".
Blizzard did this one thing right with WoW and hence it was a huge success. WoW was released when it was ready, people bought it, played it, liked it, stayed. Aion was also released when it was ready (hell, the translation took ages, but it was time well spent. If you want to see how a shoddy translation can ruin an otherwise ok game, look at the non-English versions of EQ2). People bought it, played it, liked it, stayed.
Most failed MMOs failed for a single reason: Release before their time. It's not that there can be only WoW clones, and no other concept could ever be successful. TR offered an insanely cool idea and a really sweet gameplay. It was very different from contemporary MMOs, of course, but it had a pretty decent start. Player numbers plummeted though when they started to change whole skill sets every other month, something you'd expect during an early beta, maybe beta, but certainly NOT a game you're already paying for. EvE is much but certainly NOT a WoW clone game, yet it is successful because CCP takes care that patches and addons get released when they are done, and not a moment earlier.
The success of an MMO is mostly dependent on whether its maker is willing to invest the time and money it takes to get a game that can return that investment.