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Want to make a successful MMORPG? Just copy Blizzard.
Creslin321
Member Posts: 5,359
Now, you're probably looking at the title of this post, thinking of all the failed WoW clones, and concluding that I'm on crack. Indeed, I expect there to be some folks who only read the title respond like so. But let me explain...
So many devs look to WoW as the "standard" and model their games off of it. But the problem is they are looking at what WoW IS, not what Blizzard DID when they made WoW. They are trying to just "follow" the WoW model, instead following the Blizzard model that made WoW successful in the first place.
Recall that when WoW came out, the dominant MMORPG was Everquest. So if Blizzard did what so many devs do today, they would have just made a high budget EQ clone that probably wouldn't have been nearly as successful.
But they didn't do that.
What they did, was they examined all of the complaints people had about EQ and the current stock of MMORPGs and made a game that tried to fix all of these problems.
Killing MOBs is too grindy? You can't solo? Okay, we'll add a quest-leveling system that is very accessible, less grindy, and everyone can solo.
PvP inaccessible? Okay, we'll make an instanced battleground system so everyone can easily PvP (not in at release, but it was planned for release).
All you do in a group is camp a spawn in overcrowded dungeons? Okay, we'll add instanced dungeons so that each group can get a quality experience.
Now that some time has passed, we see that these fixes were not "perfect" and new problems have arisen because of them. And yet so many new MMORPGs just copy these features problems and all.
This is not what you should do if you want to dominate the market.
Someone needs to do what Blizzard did. Examine all the problems with that CURRENT MMORPG model (WoW) and try to make all of them better with your game. Come out with a game that blows WoW away. Not one that just tries to live up to it.
Thoughts? Do you agree with my sentiment, or do you think that the "WoW model" is what people should still follow?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Comments
very well said and i would have to agree with you on this.
but also at the same time. i have had my share of theme parks
and perhaps and change would be to make the sandbox new again.
or a hybrid.
but all in all great point in your post.
Make a MMO catering to the same target group that loves to play games on their Iphones and on facebook and you will beat WoW. Make it playable on all platforms like smart phones, E- pads etc.
Sadly, with WoW being the most subscribed MMO atm, the people making MMO's don't see any problems with it. When (or if) SWTOR gets more subs than WoW, they will see that WoW's lack of story as a problem. Until then, they think there's nothing broken about WoW (which there isn't to a lot of players) and will keep copying.
It would require a dev team to put some decent thought and effort into designing an mmo, not something I see happening anytime soon tbh
The sad thing is, one should think this is self-evident, but so very few developers actually seem to understand this...
id rather see more innovation -- instead of making existing things more appealing
WOW borrowed heavily from 3 games -- EQ, AC2, COH
I dont know of a single new thing that blizzard Classic offered that didnt already exist
battlegrounds already existed in Guild Wars 1 and Blizzard didnt patch them in til summer 2005
innovation:
Everquest introduced raids (or correct me if im wrong)
Anarchy Online introduced instances
Shadowbane introduced dynamic content
Ashersons Call 2 introduced quest hubs
City of Heroes introduced mentoring (sidekicks) and some other things I'm overlooking
Warhammer introduced Public Quests
I rather not see mmos improve existing concepts
-- would rather see new ideas to move the genre forward
EQ2 fan sites
Take a popular title like Warcraft, make it an MMO, open it up to China and see Sub numbers skyrocket?
Yea, that would work.
Well isn't that what ANet is trying to do with GW2?
I totaly agree with you btw and that's exactly why I think SW:TOR is going to fail badly. Just imagine if Blizzard said "anyone who is deviating from EQ model must be crazy" and made WoW a direct copy of EQ with all the dull and dumb things from that game such as praying and standing in line for a boss fight... Sure some people would love it but would it have 11+ mil subs? No, I don't think so.
I agree with much of what you wrote, BUT
There is something to be said for a game that can take innovations from several different sources and combine them into one very appealing package. WAR innovated PQ's yes, and I think it's a great concept, but WAR did not really implement it that well. The PQ's in WAR were mainly just boring and typically dead because of how they were implemented. I would love to see a game that really takes the PQ concept and many of the other innovations that you listed and puts them into an awesome package.
I think this is what ANet is trying to do with GW2...I just hope they actually succeed.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Yes, I agree
.
I just try not to list GW2 in any of my OPs, because if I do, a bunch of people will label me "fanboi" and not take the post seriously.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I agree with you - both are needed
EQ2 fan sites
Wanna make a successful MMORPG?
1. Have a good IP
2. Have a good solid game
Nothing other then WoW,RIFT, TOR, and GW1 have had this.
But as far as the question is concerned.
I think people should follow the "WoW" Model so long as its popular, same way they should follow the "COD" Model or the "Elder Scrolls" Model, or the 'Duke Nukem" Model.
Well GW2 is just the most prominent of this "new breed" and they are making it their selling point. TSW is also trying to go along that track as well as Archeage and even "semi-mmos" such as Firefall and Planetside 2.
Imo the days of wow-clones are finally behind us, thankfully. Even the most obtuse suit must have realized by now that copying WoW is a sure-fire recipe for commercial and critical failure. SW:TOR is just to be the last dinousaur to fall off that particular cliff imo, EA being what it is - the slowest, most ponderous publishing behemoth of them all. Once that final drama plays out I suspect we'll finally get to see more quality and variety in the mmorpg genre.
Weren't Rift and GW1 both original and brand new IP's?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
So long as people enjoy WoW like games, and they do. WoW like themepark games will never die.
You're acting like SWTOR is already losing subs and WoW doesn't still control 60%+ of the market.
Have a good IP not neccisarily (I suck W/O spell check) one that is already established.
The problem is that the reverse of the current model's problems are most often the old game's original problems again.
"No community" easily leads quite a few people back around to "bring forced grouping back" (just an example).
You can't keep riding the yoyo back and forth that way.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I don't really believe new ideas need to mean an entirely revamped game. All the best games out there, including Blizzard games, use already established concepts and expand upon them. If it were not for Everquest, WoW would have either never existed, or been based more on Ultima Online. SWTOR and GW2 share alot of the core concepts from WoW/Other games in order to facilitate their own premises. SWTOR with the whole concept of a story driven game and bringing back the idea that MMOs are RPGs at heart, Guild Wars 2 with a feel of "impact" through its own version of a public questing system. Both games are trying some different things, (no target abilities in GW2 and dodging) (companions and choice in SWTOR)but they are pretty much always borrowing from already established ideas.
WoW did this great by (insert OP here) and I highly doubt you will see any other games travel off the beaten path too much. With the amount of money it costs to make one of these games as well as the resources required you can't take too many risks. The MMO genre is picked on in particular -for whatever reason- about innovation, but single player games (which cost much less to create obviously) and standard multiplayer games don't because people look at those games differently. I guess people can't accept the fact that even as broad as the term "MMO" can be, it only really works in certain ways. (As has been proven with games like Everquest,WoW, and Rift.)
Nope, you can't yoyo. You have to resolve the new problems in such a way that you do not regress to the old problems. Not an enviable position for devs, but it's possible I think
.
And even if your resolution spawns entirely new issues, there is something to be said for novelty. I will happily deal with some fresh new issues rather than deal with old familiar ones.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I agree with the OP completely, and would like to add that GW2 is doing exactly what WoW did when it first came out. GW2 will solve a lot of WoW's problems. For example, having no dedicated healer class will solve the endless wait time in WoW for heals.
There is a lot of stretching in this post,there are FACTS that argue against all wow fanbois claiming the game ia actually good.
First of all before i dessect anything,players were joining WOW over a MUCH better EQ2 WITHOUT knowing a single thing about WOW and/or NEVER playing a single minute of WOW.
So on those simple facts alone,there is no REASON that has anything to do with the game.We are talkiing strictly hype and marketing.Back in those days there was a LOT of dumb people who thought those Blizzard scripted videos were actuall ywhat you see in game and they are NOT,but it was a good gimmick to get players into the game.
Two VERY important poionts on the "GRINDY" term.
It is ONLY grindy if it is not fun,i have NEVER heard anyone in my life tell me they were having FUN but they don't like it becuase the fun lasts too long,it is simple a ridiculous argument.
Second point is NONE or 95+% of those people NEVER played ANY MMO prior to even know what grind was from either Ultima or Eq,there was VERY few mmo players before Wow came out.Wow had more subs than both eq and ultima combined.
So what does that leave for WOW?Battlegrounds were no where to be found when Wow gathered it's 10+ million,so that is a null point.PVP in general was a non isssue in early levels of WOW ,i saw pretty much nobody doing pvp,so pvp definitely hgad nothing to do with Wow;s success.
The instance part ,i get that argument,the no waiting,however players are not doing instances for any other reason than the better loot,otherwise they wouldn't set foot in any of them.Plus the MAJORITY were doing nothing more than the questing treadmill anyhow.
Here is the underlying factor.....There is two choices EQ2 or Wow,EQ was a PROVEN brand,Wow was not,so WHY did al lthose millions head straight for WOW,that is the ongoing argument for years.It had not a single thing to do with ANY of the OP's points,becuase until you actuallyu play a game for some time,you have no clue what you are jumping into,so imo it was ONLY marketing/hype nothing more.
There is one final point.Now that WOW is easily accessible in trial form and if so many THINK it is so good,why does EVERY new game create MORE new accounts than WOW has for the last oh maybe 4+ years?Wow has not grown a single inch it is only heading downwards,while even some of the weakest games are gaining subs.This is a SIMNPLE answer,it just took a long time for al lthose noob gamers to finally realize how shallow Wow type gaming is and are now looking for something more creative.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
This is exactly what developers have been doing for the past 7 years. They just aren't as good at it as Blizzard was. Runes of Magic is WoW, but free. They fixed the issue of cost. After that? Not too much. Trion looked at having dynamic events to address a static theme park world. It worked pretty well, but I don't think it's going to be enough to give Rift a 7 year life span. Bioware is looking at creating a personal story to fix the issue of having a connection to your character and the game. I think Bioware's 'fix' is going to be the most successful and give them the most longevity to address other short falls in the mmorpg genre.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
You're right that devs do try to fix some of WoW's issues in their games, and your points are well taken.
But, I just don't think it's enough. You can't fix one thing, but leave like 20 other ancient problems in your game. You really have to do a complete overhaul and fix MOST (not all) of the problems that plague the current stock of MMORPGs.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
This is true. I see ArenaNet mentioned and they are obviously doing it to an extent but they are also taking quite a bit more risks than Blizzard ever do(that's why the core group of ArenaNet left Blizzard).
A better example though would be Carbine Studios, they are basically doing exactly what you mention here. They've said it out loud. They are pretty much keeping already established game mechanics from both themepark and sandbox games and plans to build a hybrid themepark-sandbox. The core group of that studio also happens to be 15 or so ex-Blizzard senior developers who left shortly after they were done working on WoW.
It would be funny if the only two successful "post Blizzard studios" were picked up by NCsoft. It would also be funny if Carbine went and made "WoW-in-Space" the right way unlike that other studio.
Wait, I thought we were going to talk about FACTS. Aren't those OPINIONS and SPECULATION?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.