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World of Warcraft: Three Reasons WoW Didnt Ruin MMOs
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Every week, the MMORPG.com staff takes a look at a controversial issue facing MMO communities and players today. We try to present what is ofttimes seen as "the flip side of the coin" and take an edgier stance. This week, Industry Relations Manager Garrett Fuller takes a look at the notion that World of Warcraft somehow ruined all MMOs from its inception forward. Read on and then present your comments!
As a World of Warcraft player for over six years now it really is amazing how much of the MMO landscape has changed based on this game. Many people forget that WoW launched in 2004. Bush was ending his first term as President, we were not in an economic crisis, and Blizzard only had about 500 employees. In seven years there have been vast changes to the world and the MMO industry. Many people blame WoW for keeping the mold of MMOs over the past seven years in some kind of stasis bubble. Nothing has really changed as investors and developers fear to go outside the comfy WoW box. There are many things that WoW has given us which definitely made MMOs better in the long run. Let’s take a look at three.
Read more of Garrett Fuller's The Devil's Advocate: Three Reasons WoW Didn’t Ruin MMOs.
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Comments
3 reasons why it didn't ruin MMOs.
I have 300 reasons why it did.
Actually all 3 reason named here are large contributors as to why and how WoW did infact ruin not only Mmorpg games them self , but the community's playing them and the dev's making them .
And I have one reason that invalidates yours.
They were inherently bad already.
Seriously...ground up, designed to be time and money sinks. If anything WoW pulled the reigns back on the time portion of that sink. Sounds like it helped to me. You can't really blame it for stagnating the market...the market was barely just born when it hit the field. You could probably count on your hands the number of games in the genre around that time, certainly in the AAA department. Even then, there was stagnation being fostered. All of the mold breaking games that tried to come out during the birthing period of MMO gaming were nearly ignored when compared to the ones that began to follow the EQ model.
MMO gamers ruined MMO's. By flocking in droves to the same archetype over and over again. What executive in his right mind is gonna fight a tide that strong?
+1. Exactly this.
Actually, WoW was not even close to "polished" at launch. I can't believe how many people forget how messed up it was. Blizzard saved themselves by relatively quickly fixing what was wrong, though.
The issue isn't how much newer games mechanics are WoW-like or unWoW-like, it is whether or not they can offer something to convince people to walk away from a game they have invested up to seven years of their life to playing.
That's why I think games like TSW and SW:TOR will really start digging into WoW's sub numbers. Niether one will pass up WoW, but I think combined they will have more subs than WoW by this time next year.
Love it or hate it, if it wasn't for WoW HUGE success, we probably wouldn't be seeing the likes of SWTOR, TERA, GW2, SW etc coming out.
WoW brought MMO's to the forefront and captured a whole new audience that didn't play them before. Because of that, we'll all reap the rewards of other companies trying to cash in.
The problems with grouping that the LFG tool and cross server grouping were meant to cure only happened because of the way Blizzard designed their servers and grouping to begin with. There should never have been so many servers, with so many being low population. Blizzard spread the players out way too much. A better designed game wouldn't have these problems in the first place.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
First: To me, World of Messedcraft(It made a mess of the Strategy Game that gave birth to it) is like Frankenstein's Monster, since it actually didnt Create anything New, just got them together.
Second: It grew fast, because of the fact that blizzard, a well known Computer games Company, Used a LOT of Money on Advertisement, so People who didn't Knew what a MMO was, found out.
Third: It Kinda Dumbed Down the Field, since both Players(Many Who started to believe WoW was the Ultimate MMO and the First One), and Developers(Who tried to Make WoW-like Games)
Fourth: It Brags to be the Most Successful MMO around, that aint 100% True, Account Numbers isnt exactly the Number of Active Players
Because of the 4 Above, and a few others, WoW Did More Bad then good.
Im not Saying its a Bad game, but we got to be realistic on this.
Cross-Server grouping ... this one, lol. First of all, if WoW has so many players on a server why is this needed? And 2nd, grouping with people you will most likely never see again creates ZERO accountablity. WoW has drastically decreased the social aspect of MMO's. Friends at work keep trying to get me to play (and of course they have never played another MMO). So I tried the trial (for the 3rd time), ran a few instances. There was zero chat, zero difficutly and a total zerg-fest loot grab.
I will say, for everyone being on a WoW bashing bandwagon, there is no denying that it is and has been for the better part of a decade the king of the hill. Other games have come up with really good ideas, most of which make it into WoW in some form or another. Blizz may be blind as a bat on a lot of things when it comes to players desires for the game, but they do try from time to time to come up with some sort of solution to the issues that the subscribers bitch and moan about (I being one of them on many occasion).
The main problem with the champ is that it's been champ for too long, despite all of it's advancements, it hasn't really done anything to move the genre forward. Blizz knows this, and knows that for the MMO community to move forward, something has to come along to knock WoW off the hill, to the point of even starting to dev a new MMO of their own.
I agree that the game has done many things that the "back in my day to play MMO's we had to quest in five foot of snow, while wearing 300lbs of gear, and walk up hill, barefoot, with chains tied around a tree...a really big tree, that didn't move" crowd doesn't like, and that sucks for them, but it has opened the door to the "I have 3 kids and only a couple hours a night before I have to crash to get up to go to work tomorrow" crowd, while still trying to make some encounters challenging enough hold on to it's hard core base.
Has it done this well? Kinda. Will it still be around 3 years from now? More than likely. Will it continue to influence how other devs behave in their endeavors to make great MMO's? Yup, until some team out there with the money to burn and ideas to dazzle comes up with something so far outta left field, and yet not so alien as to...alienate the broad scope of gamers out there looking for the next big thing. Has it ruined the genre? No, it's done some really dumb things to the genre, but at the same time it has obviously done really great things as well, numbers don't lie.
The WoW bashers would disagree, loudly and in some cases quite eloquently, but you can't deny, it's the 800 pound gorilla for a reason.
Number 1 isn't entirely true.
WoW made MMOs mainstream in the west, but South Korea had million+ subscribing MMOs long before WoW came along. China's MMO market was also much bigger than the west's by the time WoW launched there and is now far bigger than both EU & NA markets combined.
So, please amend your article with the correct facts for that one, WoW did not make MMOs mainstream globally, just in the west.
It is funny how everyone wants to blame Blizzard and Wow for ruining MMO's. Personally I think it was Wow's predecessor, EQ which introduced all the hated things like the class/level system, endless grinding of instances with large groups for gear, etc. All Blizzard did was make a friendlier and more refined EQ.
I will have to say that Cataclysm did not help Wow at all, for all the time it took to make it, it did not deliver the goods.
I thought the Lich King expansion really pushed WoW towards easy/completely linear quest land...which is not a good thing. So I completely disagree with OP on his third point. I do agree that without WoW's success we likely would not be seeing as many AAA titles coming up.
Overall, WoW did more good than harm. It may have harmed the MMO's coming out in the past 5 years but we will pass out of this WoW clone phase soon...as developers realize that many people are tired of the WoW model.
I'd agree with the saying that " WoW did not ruin MMOs ".
I think it's more appropriate to say " WoW ruined MMO developers " instead.
The game itself is not responsible for 95% of its genre's developers putting on blinders and mantra chanting " WoW is the way! Make the game today! ".
I'd disagree with the point that it getting 12 million subscribers was more good than bad, though. This genre was growing, slowly but surely. Such an influx of gamers over the span of a few short years distorted what could have been a more natural, measured growth in which we could have seen greater variety in the types of MMOs made at relative equal quality.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Wow, I must say that MMO players are the hardest buunch of people to make/keep happy. All I see on this site is negativity of the highest degree - Why a game sucks or will fail, most post are before the games even come out. It's sad.
WoW didn't ruin MMO's... the players did. It seems that no one is happy with anything anymore. Check it out for yourself... take a look around one day and weigh the positive post with the negative. You will be suprised how generally uphappy most MMO'ers are.
I quit WoW many many times and I'm now back in there and having a great time. For ME at least, WoW didn't ruin MMO's, it saved them. Without it, I would be playing a single player game.
First MMO I played with "instances" was Anarchy Online, was way before WoW.
I disagree 100%. I just returned a few weeks ago to WoW and have taken my Paladin from 42 to 73 - mostly using the Dungeon finder. I would say that of the 100's of Dungeons I have run, there were only a few players that needed to be kicked from the group. Most people go into this Dungeons with a common purpose and goal, and it isn't to wipe. So from a lot of experience lately, I can tell you that the Zero accountibilty you mention means very little in practice - The Dungeon finder has worked really well and very smoothly in my experience.
Now, onto the social aspect. Again, I disagree. The use of a Dungeon finder is for when you can't find a local group to run a dungeon, which does happen. Once I was about 70, I found a really great guild with a lot of active players. So bascially, when I run now, it's with my guild, unless they're not on, then at least I have an option, where as before, if you're guild was not on, you were left on the LFG channel, which was completely useless most of the time.
What I'm saying is, I don't believe WoW ruined anything with the Dungeon Finder, it just added a great option to keep things moving and keep players from getting bored while LFG - the social aspect is still there - you don't NEED to use the Dungeon Finder.
I agree. WoW didn't ruined MMOs. We can't blame WoW for the lack of innovation of its competitors.
But with some outside-the-box big budget games on their way and with the success of a few indie studios like CCP and Aventurine, we're already seeing a shy evolution of the genre. In the meanwhile, some companies still don't understand that the mentality of their target-population has left behind the standards they're trying to copy.
No, its exactly the opposite. Look over what games maintain the highest population, they all have the same basic mechanics. Those companies aren't evolving anything, they are attaching themselves to the niche market that has existed since the days of UO. You can't evolve the genre until you can find a way to evolve the players in it. Right now, those players have spoken and said, "MOAR THEMEPARKZ PLZ".
Is what it is
Typical Devil's Advocate article.
Always stating inflamatory and contrary positions.
WoW ruined the industry by making it mainstream. 'nuff said.
Never played WoW, so I can't argue specifics related to that game. What I believe it did was create a buzz about MMOs attracting investors who had no clue about what an MMO is. All they wanted was a game similar to WoW, so they could cash in like Blizzard.
And making MMOs mainstream has led to easy-mode where people buy and play a game for two months before getting bored with endgame and leaving, before a community has had time to establish itself. These days everything is about instant gratification, and less about having fun together. In EQ and DAoC, teaming up with other players meant you could take on harder monsters and earn more xp than soloing. Soloing was an option, but you accepted that without a group it would take more time. In LotRO, I felt most groups slowed me down because the others wanted to do some quests I had already done, or had no interest in doing.
My hopes lay upon The Secret World, and that it delivers somewhat close to what it promises. Other than that, there is little on the horizon that makes me think I will return to MMOs in the near future.
1 and 2 are IN FACT reasons for "yes, it did ruin it".
3, I can't comment, as I have no ideea.
Devil's advocate... pffff.
"China and Korea have huge online communities and continue to grow drastically. All of this can be attributed to World of Warcraft’s phenomenal rise to stardom."
Cute, but no not even close.
EQ ruined MMORPG's forever.
WoW actually corrected a lot of the bad designs and horrible mistakes that EQ made.
Neither can hold a candle to UO, the only true MMORPG to ever exist (though I hear AC was pretty awesome)
Just imagine if UO had been the more popular of the two (UO and EQ)
It's like what people say now about WoW -
EQ was the dumbed down, yet more popular and thusly more profitable of the two (UO/EQ) so everyone followed their model.
UO was a much better game and a much better MMO.
EQ was garbage - just a 3D graphical DIKU MUD.
Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, grind FAIL
this !!!