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Why WoW will more then likely remain Number 1
Oziius
Member UncommonPosts: 1,406
Ok... I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating. Let me start by saying two things; One, I am not a rabib WoW fanboy. I have played on and off for the last 7 years, leaving to play every game that has come out and returning. Two, I have played SWTOR, was EXTREMLEY impressed and will probably be playing when it comes out.
However, there is a large factor that people over look in why WoW has acheived the sucess it has. I will use my nephew as an example of this factor. He currently plays WoW on his partents 9 year old Dell computer. This thing is a relic. I"m serious, I don't know how it even runs.. but it does, and it runs WoW. Get my point here?
The genious of Blizzard is making their game the most accessible game in the mainstream MMO market, while keeping the visuals stylized enough that it still looks good. You think my nephew could load up SWTOR on that rig? No, he can't. And he won't. He'll continue to play WoW.
Some of us mmo gamers take for granted that we have amazing machines at our fingers, but trust me, being deployed with the US AIr Force has shown me that a lot of gamers around the world and in the US aren't so lucky. They're playing on their parents shitty computers, internet cafe's, college dorm rooms with shitty computers and the like.
As I've said.. it no coincidence that Blizzard only does incremental updates on their 7 year old engine instead of complete overhauls. They're putting their product in the hands of all comsumers who want to play, not just the geeks like me with cutting edge computers. This is the reason they're number 1... and the reason they will remain number 1 IMO.
Comments
I personally think WoW will be in big world of hurt in 2012 and I will explain why. First WoW never had any serius competition in all this years. Warhammer, AoC and Lotr were only solid titles and all arrived when Wow was at its apsolute best. Lets be realistic, why play these titles when you could play WoW in its peak. Today WoW is old, stale, boring and tired. It lost 1.7 milion subscribers in first year of new expanion and thats with hardly any serius competion. Swtor have more than 800 000 US boxes preorders only, which means it could launch with as many as 4 milion subcribers in its first mounth. I dont know how Swtor will fare long team but short term it will do terribe damage to WoW western base. Then around February Diablo 3 will arrive which again will hurt WoW a ton. Lots of current WoW players players will try D3 and we shall see how many will come back to WoW. Then mid year or later Gw2 will arrive, AAA title with finally some fresh ideas and next gen feel and best of all it is buy to play. Hell yes. Then we have lots of smaller titles like ArcheAge,Tera, The Secret World, Rift could go f2p maybe, All this will arrrive while WoW will have nothing, apsolute nothing to offer. By the time MoP arrive WoW will be in survival mode imo
First, i would like to point out that even though wow is at its best, when aoc , war is out, but we also see about 1mil players ready to make these games their new home, but its this game that undo themselves . and send players back to wow.
I also believe more players will leave wow comes 2012, but not because of tor or gw2, as there's no game being releasing now and yet still swarms of players are leaving. But players just getting tired of wow now. Some is staying and see what 4.3 will do. And once that wears off, they are gone.
They will still remain no.1 , but may not last till 2013...
RIP Orc Choppa
There's another aspect that needs to be added. We have to remember that most players are not MMO news/forum readers. A lot of the WoW players simply do not care about other games that are coming out or when they are coming out. I think most of us on these forums try most games that do come out, at least give the free trial a whirl. I think a lot of the millions of WoW players are quite content to simply stay in that game. If you play WoW casually enough, there's plenty of content so that you are rarely bored and usualy lots of friends there to keep you company. Most of these players don't know/care about SWTOR or GW2 or whatever else game that coming out or re-releasing as F2P.
-Edit-
Just to add, as an answer to the OP, I think Bioware was wise to follow in Blizzard's footsteps in terms of graphics. Their's, while it's much better than WoW, will be easier than most games to run on older computers.
I think we are more in a time of equalization. MMO populations will begin to spread out more. Yes SWTOR will capture a large audience and yes a large number of WoW players will go to SWTOR but when it all shakes out I have a feeling that all populations for some games rise and others fall.
WoW was an aberation, but I think the concept of "#1" will change from whose got the mostest players to whose got the best content.
Now is the time for some of the MMOs that have been out for a few years to really gamble on a overhaul of there product.
LOTR, WHO, AOC have all gone free to play so now they are going to have to step up and prove that they have something to offer the masses if they are going to remain solvent in the flux of players.
Now one thing that could happen that would not really be good for the industry is if all the WoW casual players decide they would rather play angry birds and Farmville on their I Pads. We could see a mass exodus from the market that leads to major shutdowns instead of a spreading of the population.
""But Coyote, you could learn! You only prefer keyboard and mouse because that's all you've ever known!" You might say right before you hug a rainforest and walk in sandals to your drum circle where you're trying to raise group consciousness of ladybugs or whatever it is you dirty goddamn hippies do when you're not busy smoking pot and smelling bad."
Coyote's Howling: Death of the Computer
As much as i dislike WoW i have to agree. Its gameplay is extremely easy to learn, all its features have been well planned together to make it the most user friendly as possible and for casual players like my self who take a year or so to get to level 85 LOADS of content. As far as end game went i couldnt be bothered as i stopped playing after level 30 cause i just didnt like the game.
But again what it does have will keep it going long. Ive tested SWTOR and all i can say is awesome game but if youve played wow and mastered the game then swtor will be easy learning. What i do love though is how well Bioware imerses you into your individual story.
Big deal! My 10-year old DELL laptop runs EQ2 smoothly as well. This aside from the horrid stories you hear about EQ2's engine... Same thing goes with Lineage II on that same old laptop. Think you're flaud on your assupmtion that WoW will remain #1 because of that.
The main reason WoW will probably remain #1 for the c oming year is that EVERYONE knows the name. Just go to any school with kids from age 5 and up and ask them to name THREE online games they know. I bet you $100 that out of 10 kids at least 6 will name WoW and then don't know any other online game.
Looking at the 'more mature' MMO player, I'd say that WoW will have had it's last year (and the declining subs are showing it already the last year). New titles like SW:tOR and GW2 will take over it's place for sure, while every expansion WoW makes becomes worse and worse.
Keep in mind that GW (1 year younger than WoW) has sold over 5M copies, and I bet most of those who bought it will hop to GW2. And with the hype going on around GW2, I even dare say that it might even hit 10M copies over the first 2 years after release.
Then we have Lineage II, soon to fo F2P. Okay, it won't have 10M subscribers, but it WILL have an active player base (world wide) of around the same number as WoW has subscribers, because most private-server players will hop to the 'official' F2P servers.
Last but not least, SW:tOR. It already has sold 800K+ pre-order copies in the US. Add the same number for the EU and Russia (ppl forget the HUGE player base Russia has), and you have 2.5M pre-order copies. I am pretty sure that half of them are WoW players looking for 'something new', and will stay there.
Nah... I bet that WoW will have had it's longest time as 'the leading authority' in the MMO market. Partly because of it's own doing, partly because of L2 now killing the private servers and partly because of the new releases coming very soon.
like the person above me pointed out nicely, there are millions of folks playing wow right now who are waiting for a good game for which they can drop WoW. that's why whenever a similar game comes along, the game sells a million boxes. people playing wow that think maybe they found their next love follow the game and buy it. then, if the game appeals to them they stick with it, the problem is that most of these games arent offering anything above and beyond the WoW that they've already invested 2, 3, 5 years into. rift has actually been more successful than the other WoW sequels because the rift folks are executing at a much better level than, for example AoC which was unplayable beyond the low levels when it began its life.
this leads me to the advent of GW2 and TOR both of which come from game companies with a high degree of built-up trust with many many gamers, including myself. if the games are successfully executed players in the 7-figure range will drop wow likea bad habit and these games will have a successful future.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
No it doesn't. I payed Eq2 up til three months ago. My Alienware care barely run that shitasaurus Rex of a game. No need to come here and lie...lol.
Being in the US Air Force gives you the ability to have the insight into peoples houses & into
their machines?
So your telling us this gives you factual statistical information on peoples PC specifications
because your in the USAF? oh & that you travel a bit? ...WTF
Woah... think im gonna sign up, with these sort of skills to offfer i may even predict this weeks
lottery numbers.
Anyway i agree with you that WoW is "well optimised" althouigh you took a long winded
approach to make this point, this really is only one factor into their sucess, the main fact
is that all other companies fail to create their own unique neich & offer something new
& fresh, its nothing to do with blizzard being the almighty saviours of gaming, in fact they
are the main contributer to the complete downfall of the MMO genre.
The Deathstar destroyed planets...Lucas Arts destroyed Galaxies
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Played:
SWG | EVE | WOW | VG | LOTRO | WAR | FML | STO | APB | AOC | MORTAL | WOT | BP | SW:TOR
I completely agree with you, as a matter of fact I am a testament to this. I am 25 years old and while I am not the most successful with my career I can afford to play mmos. I have a Dell laptop thats about 3 years old and alot of games start to get laggy past level 40 due to graphic issues, what with all the cool skills they give you in most MMORPG's. I have played almost every game there is except for the newest games like FFXIV, AOC, and RIFT. The main reason i havent tried these games are because I just dont have them money to buy a 2000$ computer.
Thank God there are companies that still make games that I can run, even if i have to put it on minimum settings. I am also not a fanboy, I hate blizzard with a passion. I have bought old school warcraft and diablo II many times over the years because when you mess up your cd you are pretty screwed. Although Blizzard has become more money hungry over time it still did not prevent me from going to buy WoW and playing it off and on. I am currently playing a new account and lvl 35 and climbing.
Just like you pointed out the only reason I am playing it is because I can run it easily. Hopefully for my sake more companies take this approach and offer minimum settings that wont blow up a relic of a PC. Even if the game you play the craziest graphic game out there. There is no reason to limit your player base to the 2k plus computer crowd!!
"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."
I agree with this. Many gamers will say that WoW brought so many people to the genre but if you look back, the genre wasn't really hurting. Yeah maybe with out WoW there wouldn't have been millions of MMO gamers by now but since they were all playing the same game it really didn't matter.
""But Coyote, you could learn! You only prefer keyboard and mouse because that's all you've ever known!" You might say right before you hug a rainforest and walk in sandals to your drum circle where you're trying to raise group consciousness of ladybugs or whatever it is you dirty goddamn hippies do when you're not busy smoking pot and smelling bad."
Coyote's Howling: Death of the Computer
Guild Wars 2 can run on a single core, eight year old system.
From what i've read SW:TOR isnt as resource heavy as WoW on Max settings either.
Developers are fully aware that they can't pull a AOC, Aion or Rift when it comes to required specs.
So no WoW won't be number one for long. Games are releasing that run perfectly fine on old machines.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I didn't say it was a pretty sight (same with WoW on a system this old), but it runs. Just look at the pic below, taken on that laptop...
And yeah, if you want to play EQ2 to the max, you really need to have a kick-ass system with all the best & fastest hardware you can find atm, and even then I doubt you can set it to the max
omg, is wow dying? I will tell my 5 million friends on Facebook to play WoW.
omfg, why cant people just let games they dont play anymore go?
Why would I talk about my old car all the time, when I have a new nice car I love?
Why are you posting here? What have you contributed to this discussion?
See not everyone just plays MMOs. There are some gamers who also take an interest, for good or for ill, in the industry as a whole.
To use your analogy. You won't talk about the 2005 Toyota you just traded in but you certainly will talk about your '65 Mustang you owned as a teenager.
""But Coyote, you could learn! You only prefer keyboard and mouse because that's all you've ever known!" You might say right before you hug a rainforest and walk in sandals to your drum circle where you're trying to raise group consciousness of ladybugs or whatever it is you dirty goddamn hippies do when you're not busy smoking pot and smelling bad."
Coyote's Howling: Death of the Computer
Well it depends what you mean by number 1, wow can be a shell of its former self, with a 10th of its original subs and still be number 1 by numbers, but I think we'd all agree that by the time it's that bad, it's over and only the completely braindead would still be playing it.
WoW had a winning formula, even back in Vanilla WoW. But the main problem for me and I have played continuously since 1.4 Vanilla, is that blizzard kept changing the formula.
By the way of analogy I will use Coke. Coke had a winning formula, you don't sell more Coke by replacing the old formula with a new one, Coke tried that and it was a disaster. You make more of the same winning formula, and add new things to it.
Burning Crusade was mostly like that, adding new things to it, it did not remove the old WoW (for the most part) it added to it.
The problems started when they started to remove parts of the winning formula. There is a distinct diference between adding something and leaving the old and adding something that REPLACES the old.
E-Sport PvP aka Arena. Now it would have been fine if they added that and left it alone there. But they didn't, they had a hair up their butt to promote e-sport PvP and tried really hard to funnel players into it. You used to be able to get the best gear from PvP in battlegrounds, now you could not anymore. That's the bit about replacing part of the game instead of adding to it.
The next big change was Raid mechanics, now I have raided since Vanilla, and with the same people, we made it through BC I think but something changed in Wrath, you started to get raid mechanics where one player could wipe the whole raid if they messed up, instead of just getting themselves killed. We had a woman with a nerve disorder who raided for years and she could not play anymore, her reaction time was poor, and it would sometimes get herself killed, now it was causing wipes.
This change became even more pronounced in Cata, no longer could you take family, friends, and those really nice peeps in guild who were not really the best players, there were mechanics in almost every fight where ONE sloppy player could wipe the whole raid.
Thats's a change in the formula, not an addition, they didn't just make it optionally harder, they raised the skill bar for everybody in the raid.
A lot of people just beared with the changes.
Now comes cataclysm, and GC changed healer mana management, adding more workload onto one of the most demanding roles in raiding. About 20% of healers quit. As a result 20% of all players could not raid anymore. Guilds that had raided together for years, and had to already thin their ranks of the so-so players, now had to bench 20% of all raiders.
This really started to eat away at the social fabric of guilds. And instead of fixing the cause, they kept adding bandaids, like perks for dungeon finder, which eats away at the the social fabic some more.
After a while they noticed raiding was messed up and now are adding raid finder, perhaps the worst destroyer of the social fabric of the game so far.
About 3000 a day were quitting after cata was released, then blizz releases cata in china, and cancellations rose to 6000 a day.
The panda xpac comes along changing the formula again, an xpac without a big baddie, no bad assery to be seen. What the hell is that? One race for BOTH sides, formula change again. Talent system gut, big formula change. MoP does a lot of formula changing without a lot of plusses.
Empires are not conquered, they commit suicide.
Easy because advertising and popularity it held for over the years. Generally when something becomes part of pop culture it continues to be popular for a very long time as newer generations find it all over again. Not to mention parents are leaving their kids play it younger and younger. And Asians love it so it will keep being number 1 for a long time.
Very good and well thought out post. As someone who has also played, off and on, since vanilla I think you are spot on about what was and what has gone wrong.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
What would cause a company to tighten the margins in the game so as to exclude portions of the player base?
Was this Blizzards answer to "WoW is to easy"?
""But Coyote, you could learn! You only prefer keyboard and mouse because that's all you've ever known!" You might say right before you hug a rainforest and walk in sandals to your drum circle where you're trying to raise group consciousness of ladybugs or whatever it is you dirty goddamn hippies do when you're not busy smoking pot and smelling bad."
Coyote's Howling: Death of the Computer
Years of marketing & a "used to be" amazing game.
BUT old is Old and actually blizzard is not making the best moves they could with such an amazing franchise & money revenues.
Just pure milking the cow.
my 2 cents
I believe so yes. They recieved many complaints that after BC the game had been dumbed down and was not as challenging and then came the changes in Cata. I have just recently returned to the game and have been doing the Cata dungeons and do not find them much harder ,if at all, than Wrath. But it seems I read where they did ease up on the Cata difficulty as well. Perhaps others who got Cata at launch can say for sure.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
cata dungeons were much harder then lk. At the start but once u get past the second tire of raiding and most people have raid gear from the last tier of raqiding all dungeons are now easy.
they dont have any difficulty scaling so that dungeons scale based ona groups gs. So of course they are easy now. i didnt think lk dungeons were easy at max level when u first hit 80 and it was just naxx raiding gear out there.
Then once u got past toc and everyone had toc gear of course u coudl zerg them. Now that everyone almost has gear thats equivilant to firelands raids of course cata dungeons are easy,.
They werent so easy before u got firelands raid gear though when u had just hit 85 and were doing them on heroic for the first time they werre bitch.
I have no doubt WoW will have the biggest population for many years to come. I'll probably end up buying Mists of Pandaria. That said, my eye is keenly on GW2 just for the WvWvW aspect. Blizz is great at taking ideas from other games and making them their own... so I hope they learn from GW2 how to do epic world PvP (assuming GW2 doesn't screw it up).
to me WoW destroyed the the genre for me, stuck atm playing easy mmorpg game that provide no real challenge and adventure that follows a linear path.