I'm curious, do people recall that Everquest (1) had more than a million active players? I recall being online the first itme it hit 500,000 players online at one time. Do others?
Wow's numbers are not what make's it success so unique (though certainly they've set the record). What's unique is they managed to keep the lead for so long. The numbers were bound to come to some game or other eventually as more and more households got decent computers and dumped dial-up.
I think that is due to no other game coming out with a better model (as suggested by the OP), but I also think that is because they managed to not piss off their player base like Verient and SOE did. Instead Blizzard continuously lowered the bar so as to keep folks happy and make everyeone 'successful'. That works for a while. For the first company that does it at least. But eventually we all catch on and get bored.
Nodody remembers eq reaching 1 million active players because it never happened. It never crossed 550k. Someone made the same claim about SWG a couple of days ago saying that it had over 1 million active subs at one time, it never moved past everquest for the top sub spot before wow, so no way did it have a million either. I played eq during the height of its popularity from 1999 til 2004, and no way did they have a million subs. The most recent presser I could find from everquest about subs was from back in 2003 when they announced they had 450k.
WoW is still the most popular MMORPG around. I didn't say WoW as the most popular game at MMORPG.com
Famous would be a better word, the last years were damaging even with the not involved community.
And i was not talking about mmorpg.com
Flame on!
It still has more sub numbers than any other MMORPG around. Until those numbers are below the second in command it is still the most popular. Retention rate is only an indicator, that one day it will take a spot alongside EQ1
Throwing EvE in there in your previous example serves no point. EvE doesn't have any competition
My original point was that in my opinion you are overestimating the popularity of wow, especially these days, in terms of the effect it has on player preference and expectations from other games, just as the guy you were replying to was overestimating the effect of easy gameplay and cartoony design.
It is not a zero sum game.
Eve was there just for a comical effect, i would think the 20 years would give it away
Here I thought it was the asshats in trade chat and the guild leaders who expect you to have 10/12HM done to join their guild thats only just starting Hms.
Playing Nothing waiting for The secret world Played WoW, DCU online, star wars: the old republic, city of heroes, city of villains, everquest, plenty more I'm probably forgetting or aren't worth noting.
I'm curious, do people recall that Everquest (1) had more than a million active players? I recall being online the first itme it hit 500,000 players online at one time. Do others?
Wow's numbers are not what make's it success so unique (though certainly they've set the record). What's unique is they managed to keep the lead for so long. The numbers were bound to come to some game or other eventually as more and more households got decent computers and dumped dial-up.
I think that is due to no other game coming out with a better model (as suggested by the OP), but I also think that is because they managed to not piss off their player base like Verient and SOE did. Instead Blizzard continuously lowered the bar so as to keep folks happy and make everyeone 'successful'. That works for a while. For the first company that does it at least. But eventually we all catch on and get bored.
Nodody remembers eq reaching 1 million active players because it never happened. It never crossed 550k. Someone made the same claim about SWG a couple of days ago saying that it had over 1 million active subs at one time, it never moved past everquest for the top sub spot before wow, so no way did it have a million either. I played eq during the height of its popularity from 1999 til 2004, and no way did they have a million subs. The most recent presser I could find from everquest about subs was from back in 2003 when they announced they had 450k.
I played EQ and I clearly remember announcements for 750k subscribers, which was big news at the time, and then the 1 million announcement, which was unheard of at the time. Considering I also played from 99 to 2003/4 I'm surprised you don't recall these two very important announcements in the MMO world.
Edit: I believe the number of 450k you quoted was for concurrent logged in users, not active subscriptions, according to the EQ wiki page.
WoW's success isn't something that can really be repeated. It was in the right place at the right time. Blizzard had the marketing budget to later promote the hell out of it so that you couldn't go anywhere without WoW being in your face. The requirements were and still are so low that you can play it on almost anything. They started shipping PC's with WoW pre-installed. B-list Celeberties started promoting it to get it attention from young and old.
The success of WoW has very little to do with the gameplay, art style, etc.
MMO's were gaining in popularity and they capitalized on it by making an MMO that was graphically appealing, simple and then shoved it in your face every time you turned a corner.
After that it grew because people had been looking for a game they could play with there friends and family and suddenly there was this game that appaently everyone was playing so more and more people checked it out until it is what it is today. For years if you asked WoW players why they played WoW the most common answer was "Because my friends play it".
Unless your willing to sink more into advertising than developing you aren't going to see WoW's level of success. Not only do you have to push the game hard at the start but you have to continually do so year after year. You have to make it so people can't avoid seeing your game somewhere.
While I will never give WoW credit for being a great or good MMO because it's about as basic as you can get, Blizzard does get mad props for there advertising and marketing.
Advertising can only brings a number of subs in, if your games sux players will still leave. Alot of devs and players fail to see the details that blizz have to in wow, they thought just giving players a lot of quests to level will do.
But thats pretty much what WoW did... WoW was nothing special. In fact, their game was heavily flawed and still is. They've had to use instances to fix most of the design flaws. The thing is, casual gamers have very VERY low standards and are mystefied by simple things, like their first MMO.
Advertising can only brings a number of subs in, if your games sux players will still leave. Alot of devs and players fail to see the details that blizz have to in wow, they thought just giving players a lot of quests to level will do.
But thats pretty much what WoW did... WoW was nothing special. In fact, their game was heavily flawed and still is. They've had to use instances to fix most of the design flaws. The thing is, casual gamers have very VERY low standards and are mystefied by simple things, like their first MMO.
But its complete enough for the majority of the player base. Example crafting, look at other post wow aa title? How many of them gets it right? Sure its not as detail as eq2, but its much better than the rest.
I don't know about the flaw part, for wow to me was fun . Instance only happens in dungeons, loading screen talking zep, etc, but its seemless on a large scale.
and it have day and night cycle you know? ( sad that new dev is removing this out ), what other titles do is they will remove some parts from wow in their game nd hope to be successful, if you really wana be a clone, you have to clone everything..
Advertising can only brings a number of subs in, if your games sux players will still leave. Alot of devs and players fail to see the details that blizz have to in wow, they thought just giving players a lot of quests to level will do.
But thats pretty much what WoW did... WoW was nothing special. In fact, their game was heavily flawed and still is. They've had to use instances to fix most of the design flaws. The thing is, casual gamers have very VERY low standards and are mystefied by simple things, like their first MMO.
But its complete enough for the majority of the player base.
The majority of their player base are nongamers and non MMO gamers.
And are you seriously praising WoW for a day and night cycle? Every MMO has had that since the 90s. And no, WoW has no seamless world, it's got instances EVERYWHERE.
Knowing quite allot of battlenet players and as far I know warcrafts fanbase came into World of Warcraft sometime later months after release, as those who entered from release WoW where already into MMO's.
Also WoW was released at a time where internet started to become more mainstream, the marketing was something we had not seen that big for a MMORPG which in my opinion was what made WoW become popular and obviously because the game was a very streamlined experiance and very easy to get into compared to MMORPG's before WoW which often showed a overwelming experiance that drove allot of people away from this genre.
So sorry I don't buy into a already known fanbase due to warcraft.
How are they misunderstanding wows success when all they have to do is copy their mechanics, promise something new and that it will be diffrent, let the players overhype it and laugh all the way to the bank?
when people stop paying for games that are like wow, which was a EQ/DAOC copy simplified for the masses...then they will start making diffrent.
i think wows greatest success was bringing into the genere millions of players who hate RPG's, leveling questing and progression. They are here, hooked like crack addicts but hate the games. This is why they can release a new version every 8 months with a new *twist* and these people will over hype it for them, buy it, then hate it and buy the next one.... Genius.
If half these people would buy an indy sandbox game, play it for a year, then buy the next sandbox game...we would see nothing but sandboxes from the big development studios.
Under the current economics of mmorpgs...wow-park players are predictible, which makes getting investment easy, and predicting returns easy. This means more of those types of games...which is what it would seem most gamers on this site dont want.
But dont worry, the herd will move on to GW2 now that SWTOR proved to be the same, just like Rift was diffrent (were not in azeroth anymore!)..just like AoC was going to be the ultimate (it did sell 1.4 million boxes eventhough it launched in alpha state).. see a trend forming here? a predictable trend?
Think of all the consol games that would kill to sell 1.4mil copies and they dont even require a sub to be successfull.
I think the community misunderstands whats happening to them every time a new game comes out claiming to be revolutionary and diffrent, when it turns out its just the same with a *twist*......like yesterday i remember how Rifts soul system and dynamic rifts were going to revolutionize the industry and finally break free the reigns of a dominant wow...strange sounds like a new game that hasnt come out yet...doesnt it?
Its funny how hype and great ideas play out after a month isnt it?
The real trailblazers are stuggling to keep a single server open, and would kill for the funding to make their game polished.
What made WoW successful was a combination of things of which their pre-existing fanbase was just one factor. I know I'm probably going to get flamed for this analogy but here goes anyways.
Before WoW MMOs where like resturaunts. EQ was a steakhouse, UO was a BBQ joint, DAOC was a really nice seafood resturaunt, etc... These where really nice resturaunts where you sat down, ordered your meal and enjoyed it slowly savoring every bite. Every time you walked through the door it required a commitment to the meal you were about to receive. Then WoW came along and opened a McDonalds right across the street from each one of them. Quick, easy and with very little commitment required to get your meal and enjoy it while taking less time to consume to boot. While some still enjoyed their favorite eatery many flocked to the ease and convinience that this new WoWdonalds provided. Also when word got out about this new place people who never ate at a resturaunt started to go because what scared them away before was the commitment involved to get in the door. Now all we see are new chain fast food joints opening up and nobody builds actual sit down resturaunts anymore.
What Developers have seemed to have forgotten is that while fast food is nice and it has its place it's not the place you take that special girl on a first date to impress her. There is still a need for the traditional sitdown resturaunt. While a sitdown resturaunt may not see the profits McDonald, Burger King and Arby's pull in they are still very profitable ventures.
What made WoW successful was a combination of things of which their pre-existing fanbase was just one factor. I know I'm probably going to get flamed for this analogy but here goes anyways.
Before WoW MMOs where like resturaunts. EQ was a steakhouse, UO was a BBQ joint, DAOC was a really nice seafood resturaunt, etc... These where really nice resturaunts where you sat down, ordered your meal and enjoyed it slowly savoring every bite. Every time you walked through the door it required a commitment to the meal you were about to receive. Then WoW came along and opened a McDonalds right across the street from each one of them. Quick, easy and with very little commitment required to get your meal and enjoy it while taking less time to consume to boot. While some still enjoyed their favorite eatery many flocked to the ease and convinience that this new WoWdonalds provided. Also when word got out about this new place people who never ate at a resturaunt started to go because what scared them away before was the commitment involved to get in the door. Now all we see are new chain fast food joints opening up and nobody builds actual sit down resturaunts anymore.
What Developers have seemed to have forgotten is that while fast food is nice and it has its place it's not the place you take that special girl on a first date to impress her. There is still a need for the traditional sitdown resturaunt. While a sitdown resturaunt may not see the profits McDonald, Burger King and Arby's pull in they are still very profitable ventures.
OK... Flame away! LOL
Bren
It's actually a pretty good analogy. It doesn't have to be precise to get the point across
I'm curious, do people recall that Everquest (1) had more than a million active players? I recall being online the first itme it hit 500,000 players online at one time. Do others?
Wow's numbers are not what make's it success so unique (though certainly they've set the record). What's unique is they managed to keep the lead for so long. The numbers were bound to come to some game or other eventually as more and more households got decent computers and dumped dial-up.
I think that is due to no other game coming out with a better model (as suggested by the OP), but I also think that is because they managed to not piss off their player base like Verient and SOE did. Instead Blizzard continuously lowered the bar so as to keep folks happy and make everyeone 'successful'. That works for a while. For the first company that does it at least. But eventually we all catch on and get bored.
Nodody remembers eq reaching 1 million active players because it never happened. It never crossed 550k. Someone made the same claim about SWG a couple of days ago saying that it had over 1 million active subs at one time, it never moved past everquest for the top sub spot before wow, so no way did it have a million either. I played eq during the height of its popularity from 1999 til 2004, and no way did they have a million subs. The most recent presser I could find from everquest about subs was from back in 2003 when they announced they had 450k.
I played EQ and I clearly remember announcements for 750k subscribers, which was big news at the time, and then the 1 million announcement, which was unheard of at the time. Considering I also played from 99 to 2003/4 I'm surprised you don't recall these two very important announcements in the MMO world.
Edit: I believe the number of 450k you quoted was for concurrent logged in users, not active subscriptions, according to the EQ wiki page.
EQ only had about 450k subscribers at it's peak. The annoucement of 1 million was for the number of people that had tried it to date. But it never had anywhere close to 1 million subscribers.
MInd your 450k is still a hell of a lot of people.
Sure WOW was successful because of its IP and because of friends asking their friends to play.
...and because it did away with the hundred little bad game design choices that unnecessarily made playing MMORPGs a chore.
...and because to this day it has the most responsive controls in a MMORPG.
...and because of marketing.
...and because of a bunch of other reasons.
All of which culminates in one simple fact: Blizzard knows wtf they're doing. To imply success was somehow an accident or result of widespread broadband access is to conveniently ignore the many successes they had prior to WOW, releasing hit after hit.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I have to agree with the OP because that is the sole reason I decided to play and hung around for 5 years. Warcraft 2 especially was a favourite and the ability to play in first person was a massive draw.
Wow was the first MMO that had competent programmers. Every game before it was buggy.
That is not the only reason Wow became so popular but without good programmers Wow would never had become the game it became. It could still have been as large if Blizz used another IP but if it had the bugs of EQ it wouldn´t made a splash.
EQ2 were also from a rather popular IP, not as big as Warcraft 3 4,5 million copies (making W3 larger than diablo 2) but it never got many players at all. Bugs and the unoptimized engine guaranteed that it never would become a hit game.
Good programmers is not what makes a game big but without good programmers it can´t become big. Wow had the base right and then Blizzards fans tried it, and the timing was perfect since EQ fans were leaving the game in numbers as well.
The majority of their player base are nongamers and non MMO gamers.
And are you seriously praising WoW for a day and night cycle? Every MMO has had that since the 90s. And no, WoW has no seamless world, it's got instances EVERYWHERE.
And that is how WOW fixes the horrible camping problem in EQ. Blizz has the guts to realize that the old ways of building virtual world does not always make a good game and change it.
I agree with the fact that WoW became a huge success because Blizzard cleverly leveraged their existing Warcraft fanbase. However if that was the only explanation then WAR and AoC would also have been successes because both those IPs have huge fanbases that for sure are playing computer games as well.
So another reason why WoW became this massive success is because it changed MMORPGs from being dificult and time consuming to becoming easy and something that you can play for an hour and still make a progress. This progress would then not been taken away after one death. I.e. it made MMORPGs this casual experience which fits your casual RTS player who can finish a session in less than an hour.
These two factors combined (there were other ones like polish and eleminating kill stealing by using instances) is what spelled WoW's success. Now what game devs. dont realise is that once the easy/dumbed down of the genre has been done then replicating that will get you only that far. That is why none of the many WoW clones, like AoC, WAR, LotrO has come near to the numbers WoW is boasting and some of them are even considered outright failures.
And story? I honestly don't think WoW's story has any factor in its success nor will it make SW:TOR a success because I dont think people play MMORPGs for the sake of stories. They play them so that they can play with/against other people not a scripted story. That is what single player games are for.
Other games with good design OR fantastic lore OR that were easy to play came before WoW, surely, but WoW was the first MMO to be well designed AND had fantastic lore AND was easy to play for anyone.
Win + Win + Win = lightning strike.
Saying good things about WoW?
Dem's fightin' words on these forums, son.
Well, I think UO was well designed, EQ had fantastic lore, SWG was easy to play and had fantastic lore...
But UO was hard to play and the lore was iffy.
EQ was hard to play and (IMO) poorly designed for a MMO game (far too much RPG / Diku MUD D&D like)
and SWG was really quite poorly designed too.
The problem with UO's lore was that it was based on Ultima lore which was, to say the least, inconsistent and shoddily put together. Garriott may have been a good designer, but he was a lousy writer.
I mean, we didnt even have the Avatar running about the land. Lord British was a no show king. There was a HOST of facinating enemies players could have been pit against, but werent. I would have loved to have been able to fight along side others to battle enemies such as the shadow lords, exodus or the guardian.
However, I do agree that indepth lore is required to pull players into the game. Its just as important as functional game play and good graphics. While some games manage to hit one of these marks, there has yet to be one that nails the trifecta. Unfortunately, as long as developers continue to follow the WoW model for their games, we will not see one until someone has the balls to break the mold and try something new.
.... and actually have the appropriate funding to pull it off. A small indie company consisting of 12 guys in a garage wont be able to make the cut.
Comments
Nodody remembers eq reaching 1 million active players because it never happened. It never crossed 550k. Someone made the same claim about SWG a couple of days ago saying that it had over 1 million active subs at one time, it never moved past everquest for the top sub spot before wow, so no way did it have a million either. I played eq during the height of its popularity from 1999 til 2004, and no way did they have a million subs. The most recent presser I could find from everquest about subs was from back in 2003 when they announced they had 450k.
My original point was that in my opinion you are overestimating the popularity of wow, especially these days, in terms of the effect it has on player preference and expectations from other games, just as the guy you were replying to was overestimating the effect of easy gameplay and cartoony design.
It is not a zero sum game.
Eve was there just for a comical effect, i would think the 20 years would give it away
Flame on!
Here I thought it was the asshats in trade chat and the guild leaders who expect you to have 10/12HM done to join their guild thats only just starting Hms.
Playing
Nothing
waiting for
The secret world
Played
WoW, DCU online, star wars: the old republic, city of heroes, city of villains, everquest, plenty more I'm probably forgetting or aren't worth noting.
1. Very well produced and balanced. I hated the looks and lack of penalty, but it grew on me like morning glory.
2. Seamless world
3. Hillsbrat Foothils open world pvp, some of the best in industry
Yeah, the lore behind killing 10 rats was amazing.
*SPOILER ALERT*
They were eating the grain.
I played EQ and I clearly remember announcements for 750k subscribers, which was big news at the time, and then the 1 million announcement, which was unheard of at the time. Considering I also played from 99 to 2003/4 I'm surprised you don't recall these two very important announcements in the MMO world.
Edit: I believe the number of 450k you quoted was for concurrent logged in users, not active subscriptions, according to the EQ wiki page.
WoW's success isn't something that can really be repeated. It was in the right place at the right time. Blizzard had the marketing budget to later promote the hell out of it so that you couldn't go anywhere without WoW being in your face. The requirements were and still are so low that you can play it on almost anything. They started shipping PC's with WoW pre-installed. B-list Celeberties started promoting it to get it attention from young and old.
The success of WoW has very little to do with the gameplay, art style, etc.
MMO's were gaining in popularity and they capitalized on it by making an MMO that was graphically appealing, simple and then shoved it in your face every time you turned a corner.
After that it grew because people had been looking for a game they could play with there friends and family and suddenly there was this game that appaently everyone was playing so more and more people checked it out until it is what it is today. For years if you asked WoW players why they played WoW the most common answer was "Because my friends play it".
Unless your willing to sink more into advertising than developing you aren't going to see WoW's level of success. Not only do you have to push the game hard at the start but you have to continually do so year after year. You have to make it so people can't avoid seeing your game somewhere.
While I will never give WoW credit for being a great or good MMO because it's about as basic as you can get, Blizzard does get mad props for there advertising and marketing.
Alot of devs and players fail to see the details that blizz have to in wow, they thought just giving players a lot of quests to level will do.
RIP Orc Choppa
But thats pretty much what WoW did... WoW was nothing special. In fact, their game was heavily flawed and still is. They've had to use instances to fix most of the design flaws. The thing is, casual gamers have very VERY low standards and are mystefied by simple things, like their first MMO.
But thats pretty much what WoW did... WoW was nothing special. In fact, their game was heavily flawed and still is. They've had to use instances to fix most of the design flaws. The thing is, casual gamers have very VERY low standards and are mystefied by simple things, like their first MMO.
But its complete enough for the majority of the player base. Example crafting, look at other post wow aa title? How many of them gets it right? Sure its not as detail as eq2, but its much better than the rest.I don't know about the flaw part, for wow to me was fun . Instance only happens in dungeons, loading screen talking zep, etc, but its seemless on a large scale.
and it have day and night cycle you know? ( sad that new dev is removing this out ), what other titles do is they will remove some parts from wow in their game nd hope to be successful, if you really wana be a clone, you have to clone everything..
RIP Orc Choppa
The majority of their player base are nongamers and non MMO gamers.
And are you seriously praising WoW for a day and night cycle? Every MMO has had that since the 90s. And no, WoW has no seamless world, it's got instances EVERYWHERE.
Knowing quite allot of battlenet players and as far I know warcrafts fanbase came into World of Warcraft sometime later months after release, as those who entered from release WoW where already into MMO's.
Also WoW was released at a time where internet started to become more mainstream, the marketing was something we had not seen that big for a MMORPG which in my opinion was what made WoW become popular and obviously because the game was a very streamlined experiance and very easy to get into compared to MMORPG's before WoW which often showed a overwelming experiance that drove allot of people away from this genre.
So sorry I don't buy into a already known fanbase due to warcraft.
How are they misunderstanding wows success when all they have to do is copy their mechanics, promise something new and that it will be diffrent, let the players overhype it and laugh all the way to the bank?
when people stop paying for games that are like wow, which was a EQ/DAOC copy simplified for the masses...then they will start making diffrent.
i think wows greatest success was bringing into the genere millions of players who hate RPG's, leveling questing and progression. They are here, hooked like crack addicts but hate the games. This is why they can release a new version every 8 months with a new *twist* and these people will over hype it for them, buy it, then hate it and buy the next one.... Genius.
If half these people would buy an indy sandbox game, play it for a year, then buy the next sandbox game...we would see nothing but sandboxes from the big development studios.
Under the current economics of mmorpgs...wow-park players are predictible, which makes getting investment easy, and predicting returns easy. This means more of those types of games...which is what it would seem most gamers on this site dont want.
But dont worry, the herd will move on to GW2 now that SWTOR proved to be the same, just like Rift was diffrent (were not in azeroth anymore!)..just like AoC was going to be the ultimate (it did sell 1.4 million boxes eventhough it launched in alpha state).. see a trend forming here? a predictable trend?
Think of all the consol games that would kill to sell 1.4mil copies and they dont even require a sub to be successfull.
I think the community misunderstands whats happening to them every time a new game comes out claiming to be revolutionary and diffrent, when it turns out its just the same with a *twist*......like yesterday i remember how Rifts soul system and dynamic rifts were going to revolutionize the industry and finally break free the reigns of a dominant wow...strange sounds like a new game that hasnt come out yet...doesnt it?
Its funny how hype and great ideas play out after a month isnt it?
The real trailblazers are stuggling to keep a single server open, and would kill for the funding to make their game polished.
What made WoW successful was a combination of things of which their pre-existing fanbase was just one factor. I know I'm probably going to get flamed for this analogy but here goes anyways.
Before WoW MMOs where like resturaunts. EQ was a steakhouse, UO was a BBQ joint, DAOC was a really nice seafood resturaunt, etc... These where really nice resturaunts where you sat down, ordered your meal and enjoyed it slowly savoring every bite. Every time you walked through the door it required a commitment to the meal you were about to receive. Then WoW came along and opened a McDonalds right across the street from each one of them. Quick, easy and with very little commitment required to get your meal and enjoy it while taking less time to consume to boot. While some still enjoyed their favorite eatery many flocked to the ease and convinience that this new WoWdonalds provided. Also when word got out about this new place people who never ate at a resturaunt started to go because what scared them away before was the commitment involved to get in the door. Now all we see are new chain fast food joints opening up and nobody builds actual sit down resturaunts anymore.
What Developers have seemed to have forgotten is that while fast food is nice and it has its place it's not the place you take that special girl on a first date to impress her. There is still a need for the traditional sitdown resturaunt. While a sitdown resturaunt may not see the profits McDonald, Burger King and Arby's pull in they are still very profitable ventures.
OK... Flame away! LOL
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
It's actually a pretty good analogy. It doesn't have to be precise to get the point across
Yes, a very good analogy. I chuckled a bit because it's so true.
EQ only had about 450k subscribers at it's peak. The annoucement of 1 million was for the number of people that had tried it to date. But it never had anywhere close to 1 million subscribers.
MInd your 450k is still a hell of a lot of people.
And the EQ wiki page says, "These records show "more than 225,000" subscriptions on 1 November 1999[citation needed], with an increase to "more than 450,000" subscriptions by 25 September 2003[citation needed]." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest
And SWG never matched EQ for subsribers.
Sure WOW was successful because of its IP and because of friends asking their friends to play.
...and because it did away with the hundred little bad game design choices that unnecessarily made playing MMORPGs a chore.
...and because to this day it has the most responsive controls in a MMORPG.
...and because of marketing.
...and because of a bunch of other reasons.
All of which culminates in one simple fact: Blizzard knows wtf they're doing. To imply success was somehow an accident or result of widespread broadband access is to conveniently ignore the many successes they had prior to WOW, releasing hit after hit.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I have to agree with the OP because that is the sole reason I decided to play and hung around for 5 years. Warcraft 2 especially was a favourite and the ability to play in first person was a massive draw.
Other MMOs were just for D&D nerds.
I think it is simpler than that OP.
Wow was the first MMO that had competent programmers. Every game before it was buggy.
That is not the only reason Wow became so popular but without good programmers Wow would never had become the game it became. It could still have been as large if Blizz used another IP but if it had the bugs of EQ it wouldn´t made a splash.
EQ2 were also from a rather popular IP, not as big as Warcraft 3 4,5 million copies (making W3 larger than diablo 2) but it never got many players at all. Bugs and the unoptimized engine guaranteed that it never would become a hit game.
Good programmers is not what makes a game big but without good programmers it can´t become big. Wow had the base right and then Blizzards fans tried it, and the timing was perfect since EQ fans were leaving the game in numbers as well.
/facepalm
Did you actually play WoW when it released? Did you actually play any MMO before WoW other than EQ2?
And that is how WOW fixes the horrible camping problem in EQ. Blizz has the guts to realize that the old ways of building virtual world does not always make a good game and change it.
I agree with the fact that WoW became a huge success because Blizzard cleverly leveraged their existing Warcraft fanbase. However if that was the only explanation then WAR and AoC would also have been successes because both those IPs have huge fanbases that for sure are playing computer games as well.
So another reason why WoW became this massive success is because it changed MMORPGs from being dificult and time consuming to becoming easy and something that you can play for an hour and still make a progress. This progress would then not been taken away after one death. I.e. it made MMORPGs this casual experience which fits your casual RTS player who can finish a session in less than an hour.
These two factors combined (there were other ones like polish and eleminating kill stealing by using instances) is what spelled WoW's success. Now what game devs. dont realise is that once the easy/dumbed down of the genre has been done then replicating that will get you only that far. That is why none of the many WoW clones, like AoC, WAR, LotrO has come near to the numbers WoW is boasting and some of them are even considered outright failures.
And story? I honestly don't think WoW's story has any factor in its success nor will it make SW:TOR a success because I dont think people play MMORPGs for the sake of stories. They play them so that they can play with/against other people not a scripted story. That is what single player games are for.
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The problem with UO's lore was that it was based on Ultima lore which was, to say the least, inconsistent and shoddily put together. Garriott may have been a good designer, but he was a lousy writer.
I mean, we didnt even have the Avatar running about the land. Lord British was a no show king. There was a HOST of facinating enemies players could have been pit against, but werent. I would have loved to have been able to fight along side others to battle enemies such as the shadow lords, exodus or the guardian.
However, I do agree that indepth lore is required to pull players into the game. Its just as important as functional game play and good graphics. While some games manage to hit one of these marks, there has yet to be one that nails the trifecta. Unfortunately, as long as developers continue to follow the WoW model for their games, we will not see one until someone has the balls to break the mold and try something new.
.... and actually have the appropriate funding to pull it off. A small indie company consisting of 12 guys in a garage wont be able to make the cut.