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General: The Way Back Machine - WoW's First Impressions
Drew
Member Posts: 434
This week in the Way Back Machine, MMORPG.com lead writer Bill Murphy takes a look back on Richard Duffek's September 26th, 2004 article on his first impressions of playing World of Warcraft.
It's often talked about how the olden days of World of Wacraft were far more appealing that what the game's become today with over 12 million worldwide players. People like to fondly look back on Azeroth's fledgling times as though there was nothing better in life than strolling about Dun Morogh when Gnomes were still hangers-on and Trolls didn't have a home.
Check out the whole read here.
Comments
We all know that WoW stood the test of time. The real question now is how much more time dose WoW have?
First
Well, considering that there are several old games that didn't have WoW's numbers and they still exist, I would say that WoW has quite a few years ahead of it.
Remember, EQ had a large amount of players. Might not have the same amount now but it's still being developed.
WoW is here for years to come. Will it be the same juggernaut it is now in 5 years? probably not but you never know.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Amen
EQ and UO are still around so I would say at least another ten years.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.
I think that if WoW starts to dwindle to a Low amount of players [1000's] then Blizzard unlike a lot of companies will bring it to an end, they do not need to hang on by their fingertips.
They have another game in the pipeline which hopefully will release within about 3 or 4 years. By then they will know how WoW is going - I believe it will probably still be popular enough to keep going at that time. But if the new game proves to be another Winner - which knowing Blizzards ingenuity, it will - then a lot of WoW players present and past will migrate to the New Game and WoW will probably be brought to a close, Like I said - Blizzard do not Need to hang on by their finger tips till they bleed.
I am an Abstract sort of Creature
Who Dislikes any sort of Restraint
If you try to pigeonhole me
I Will Break Free!
Having been an avid WoW player in the past, and still having fond memories of what it used to be, this article is very interesting to read. Hard to believe that the largest/most successfull MMORPG of all time, wasn't thought to be that at the time. At least from this writers perspective.
Of course if my memory is correct, EQ2 was launching at the same time, so i'm going to guess that the majority of MMO players back then, were awaiting that much more than WoW. I wouldn't know to be sure though, i was too young and my computer was on dial-up internet. How things change
OMG, I liked this citation :
<<I can see that Blizzard is planning on a lot of their customers coming from the Warcraft RTS series and having never played a MMORPG before. If you've played just about ANY MMORPG out there then you'll do just fine in World of Warcraft. There's nothing new here. Basically they've taken things that are known to work from previous MMORPGs and put them into the game>>
guees what? Blizzard didnt create the MMO genre...still people are calling every new game a WoW clone :P
QUESTION:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xridnasa:
-
What's a "grocery store"? Is that like McDonald's?
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ANSWER:
Quote:
Originally Posted by sidimazz:
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Kind of, just without the rapist.
Of course they are. Doom didn't invent forst-person shooters but everyone still called them all doom clones for the next 5 years or so. Remember that? Heh. I used to get so annoyed ( I was a huge Wolfenstein 3-D fan) but whenever I called someone on it I'd get "Wolfenwhat? Everyone plays Doom, who cares about your old nazi-killing game:P" Used to irritate me greatly.
"WoW is a prime example of "if it isn't broke don't fix it.""
LOLOL I only wish they still retained this mentality.
So this was the review the game got when it came out? I am at a loss for words.
This game was critically appraised everywhere. Period. The game did so much so much right. But in this review all you have is negativity against the game. This is biased beyond belief. I mean he's only complaining about the game and downplays most of the stuff in the game. I don't see him praising the game at all for anything.
He says they just copy pasted everything from other games. Blizzard never just copy & paste. What they do is compile stuff and make it a million times better than the original version. WoW improved so many features from past MMOs. Not just copy paste. Improved. The genre was shaken to its very foundations when this game came out.
So you get this review, which could pass as a review for some indie MMO, and you have reviews from huge gaming reviewers who tag the game as "this is the game you should play no matter who you are".
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Don't you start to sound a little biased yourself now, mate? Relax, it's just his opinion, no need to feel all indignant or hurt about it if he doesn't share the same high adoration you feel for a game. Tastes and opinions differ.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I have 2 active accounts on EQ1 and none on WoW. Played WoW for 6 months about a year after Lich king came out. Will never play WoW again no mater how many free trials of Cataclysm they e-mail me or how many free authenticators they send me. I found WoW easy and very boring repeating the same dungeons and PvP dailies after Lvl cap. And rolling alts was even more boring. And a class that starts at lvl 60 or whatever it was was the lamest.
This review 100% nails everything. He is completely spot on with just about every sentence of this.
He didnt personally like the style of the graphics but noted how very well done and full of little details everything was. In fact he was gushing about the graphics despite not really liking the style. I started off the exact same way but eventually grew to like the style.
He said the game would be fun for a LOT of people, and the people who have never played an MMORPG before wouldnt care that there was nothing new. Again, spot on.
He criticized the game for lackluster quests saying they were more like tasks than quests. Again, this is 100% accurate. Too easy? yup. Where was he remotely wrong anywhere here....
I'd love to see links to other reviewers that said "this is the game you should play no matter who you are." because I don't remember those reviews AT ALL.
I recall many reviews that are very similar to the one posted on MMORPG.com, some also discussed the controversial Rested EXP and "repair" gear rather than EXP loss.
Both of which were VERY unusual in the MMO market when WoW launched. A lot of people were saying it was way too carebear when Classic WoW hit the market.
At first I played WoW because I seriously loved the big areas to explore, the quests and the social aspect. Then I got seriously ill for a couple of years and couldn't do much. But WoW was still around and when I logged into WoW I didn't have to worry and think about being sick, hospitals, operations and God knows what.
We all play games for a reason. Today I'm not sick anymore and I still play WoW because it's a fantastic game. That doesn't mean I completely dismiss playing other MMOs but bany of those I've bought the last 2-3 years are either gasping for air or already dead. WoW is still around.
If it ain't dead you're not pressing 2 hard enough.
I remember being annoyed as all hell that there was no 'true pvp' servers.
I remember not liking the graphics, thinking they weresomewhat lower quality than the likes of Planetside and thinking the stylization took too much after the RTS counterpart in ways that didn't benefit a close third person style.
I remember disliking the combat system, summarizing it as 'slow'.
I remember getting annoyed at waiting on the server lag to pick up loot.
I remember having a blast playing a holy priest on the Feathermoon RP server.
I remember running down a dastardly orc hunter ten levels above me as a retribution paladin because his failed attemt at ganking me.
I remember chilling with some undead as a human during beta and chatting it up with them.
I remember raiding the Scarlet Monsatry as a party with those undead, still on a human paladin.
I remember hating not having a mount as a paladin and being 'the slowest class', then loving a free mount.
I remember being able to weild greatswords as a mage during early beta, and whining when that quickly disappeared as the skill system was changed.
In general I remember enjoying a lot about how the early game mechanics for characters and community, though never loving it's aesthetics or disconnected way of interacting with the game world.
On release I was pushed in mild disinterest because the game had gottem considerably more strict in class function, the combat became more formulaic as a result, and I still didn't like the graphics.
All my friends had started to play it and I only had one friend that played Planetside with me(who also happened to start playing WoW when it came out too) which meant if I wanted to play with them, I'd have to play WoW.
In the end I gave up on enjoying the gameplay or graphics (or the game in general) itself and instead just enjoy it for it's lore, storyline and community in RP.
When the community started to decay and the lore writers got stupid, I lost any remaining attachment or reasons to play, and as such went back to more PvP oriented games while hoping for a good PvP/RP combo and seeing a depressingly nonexistant offering.
It had it's good times. It had it's bad times. In the end I never thought much of the game, but that doesn't mean I hate it.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
There you go.
http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/572/572070p1.html < you can find the quote i mentioned here
http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraft/index.html?tag=result;title;0
http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft/571585p1.html
@teakbois.
I will not waste my time going through his review and analysing. But simply by pulling out the first sentence of every section you will see what I mean. He. for the most part, writes in a negative way. This is the way to talk about the cons of the game. But even when a feature is fine or even good he still uses negative expressions.
You can tell he didn't like the game at all and thus did not mention any of the improvements the game did. I am not saying there are no downsides and that they shouldn't be pointed out. But this is not the way to review a game, or anything for that matter. You always start with the pros and then go into the cons. He seems to have gone only into the cons and made some of pros into cons or simply downplayed most of them. e.g. Does he prefer grinding hours on end for no other purpose than to bump up one level to these "tasks" which I would call quests. Tasks were EQ2 noticeboard quests. Did he mention all the improvements the game did? Nope.
I won't waste my time ( even though I did it again...) on this any longer. I have only read posts full of hate or downplaying when it comes to WoW on this website. I will just ignore these posts altogether from now on.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I don't feel hurt. He's a reviewer he's supposed to limit bias as much as possible. But in this case he's consistently negative about the game throughout his review and doesn't acknowledge any of the ups of the games. It's like there aren't any.
We are not talking about high adoration he doesn't give any credit to the game. His view of the community was that of and elitist MMO "veteran".
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I read that as a lot more moderate than what you seem to interpret as.
Like this.
'I can see World of Warcraft being extremely fun for a LOT of people out there. It is an extremely well made game. It succeeds very well at what it's trying to do. Unfortunately, in my opinion it's not trying to do enough. It really brings nothing new to the table.'
In a nutshell he acknowledged it's value and also noted it's most glaring flaw.
The fact that he follows that up with saying this...
'Overall World of Warcraft is an extremely well made game. Technically and artistically speaking there is little to nothing to complain about here. If you've been following along you should have noticed all of the things I listed as "problems" were only really problems to me based on my own preferences in a game.'
Kind of reenforces that factor. It's in general a rather rational and fair review and really doesn't sound negative to me.
Why it does to you, who knows, and perhaps that's why the likes of Maverick(who I tend to think posts fair minded comments) would assume you're placing bias due to some form of adoration.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
This review is pretty spot on with how i remember seeing it as a WoW Beta tester myself. I too didnt care too much for the graphics, outright hated the armor looks when the game was released. My friends can easily attest to this as I voiced it many times over. But thats not the thing I find the most humerous about this review. That being if you replace the term WoW with Rift, you have a copy of half a dozen current reviews on that game, as its being released, by Beta testers. Ironic dont you think, that the game everyone is calling a WoW clone has a clone for a review even. And we can all see how it turned out for WoW 6 years down the road, I wonder if Rift can do the same.
I remember when I played in the WoW beta. It was my first MMORPG, and a friend gave me the client on CD, because her english skills weren't good enough. At first I thought "pfff, paying monthly for a game? The hell I will". But then it sucked me in quite quickly, though I was annoyed a lot about some bugs that were not fixed until quite some months after release (like that trying to harvest certain nodes would bug you up).
I guess the releases of WoW and Rift are in some ways familiar. However, with WoW, all that stuff was new to me, fascinating, a whole world to explore. But with Rift, I just look at the map and see the boundaries. I get a quest and don't read the text because I know it's just generic stuff and doesn't matter. I pick a class and any talent trees, because I know early on they are quite similiar, and later on I can still change them when I want to.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
WoW might have picked up a lot of stuff from games like EQ but it gave its own twist to most of them and some of them were vastly improved. WoW's hugest addition was the questing system. Every MMO since WoW included this system. Even EQ started to adopt some of the features/philosophies of WoW later on in its life.
Rift is an exact copy of WoW. However, they do have RIFTs and the soul system which is a unique thing to RIFT.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
"looking for a game that's going to revolutionize the genre and introduce tons of new features and innovations then you'll be better off looking elsewhere."
Ironic as it was the games success that stopped innovation in its tracks.
I still see no innovation at all from any new or older MMOs. This game survived on sheer numbers alone. They have an awesome marketing dept. Do you realize if the supposed sub numbers are true that blizzard makes 180 million dollars a month! And that not counting people who have to purchase each xpac just to play new content.
All that money and they can't even balance a druid class! they rehash all the dam armor and weapons and crafting is so tedious. I mean you can't even sell half of what you craft due to it be BoP. It's insane they make so much money for a game that so full of fail and boring that it makes a person wanna punch his scrotum. But don't get me wrong I'm not nerd raging I'm pretty excited rift which is wow 2.0 is here. I like to see large corporations sweat a bit. Wow will die due to blizzards greed and lack of vision. Rift may be old news in a few months anyways,But sure is nice to see blizz sweat.
As others in this thread have shown you, your opinion that the article writer is biased is not theirs, in fact most of them found it moderate and that he highlighted pros and cons. This should tell you something.
I agree though, that to a WoW fan that loves WoW - which you cannot say that you aren't - his article may seem not positive enough, and therefore "biased".
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."