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Is WoW too popular?
9216544
Member Posts: 1,904
How do you think it will affect the industry? It has become insanely popular in just one year. I have noticed at least 30 times the amount of kids playing online games then four years ago (WoW I should say).
So how will it affect the future of the mmorpgs after WoW dies in popularity? Probably at least half of the four million WoW players will buy another mmorpg in the future, so the generation of online gamers will advance to the next gen games, and of course will have a large imapct. Maybe it will be good, maybe it will be negative.
Comments
This was meant to go on the pub, and I could have swore I was in that forum lol.
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"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis
"If a mother can kill her own child, what is left before I kill you and you kill me?" -Mother Teresa when talking about abortion after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
I think WoW effect is a great breakthrough on MMO front becuase this is the first casual-player oriented game. It has good graphics, good content, great gameplay and you can solo all the way to 60. From the very start of MMOs ( i started playing with UO) I always strongly believed that the only TRUE success can come from a game that is casual player friendly. After all, about 70-80% of players are casual, who play on and off on average 3-4 hours a day.
As a prognosis, Im estimating more and more companies will start making casual friendly games with hardcore content. in my vision, a PERFECT game has WoW gameplay, Horizons crafting, EQ2 world and texture graphics (not character models!!! yuk), DAOC RvR combat, WoW amount of skills for each class, Eve player run economy, COH/Horizons character customization, Planetside strategic and tactical PvP combat... If that can be done, then we would all play a single game and there would be no competition.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
Its great in its getting more people to maybe look at other mmorpgs and are now not so put off by subscriptions fees. But in another way, it is too popular for how actually good it is which could mean clones of it which are just not required. Some of the other mmorpgs would be better models to look at.
I'm not sure WoW is impacting the industry as much as WoW is a reflection of where the industry is...
Basically, MMORPGs have gained alot of popularity over the past 5 years, and WoW is one designer's extremely successful attempt at capturing as broad a segment of the market as possible... by effectively designing a game for the masses.
I think that WoW has also effectively cloned individual features and themes from several other games and packaged them up in a solid commercial offering... like MTV was in it's prime... but all empires eventually decline and fragment and the next generation will undoubtably bring its share of industry disruptors and industry copy-cats
WoW IS too popular. One only has to take a gander at the new SWG to see that. SOE is re-making SWG into WoW. They started slow with the CU and went ahead with the next big step when they felt enough time had passed, as well as were more confident with WoW's staying power.
I kind of see WoW as a cancer on MMORPG Development. Games in development before WoW are now doing 180s and games already out there are in some cases doing 360s. A lot of people were afraid that Guild Wars would taint MMORPG development but I truly believe Guild Wars is a gnat of a problem due to its bare recognition as an MMORPG.
It is not entirely WoW's fault however. This all started with the competition between UO and EQ. Really these were 2 very different games in graphics and gameplay. EQ was more of a commercial success and so the next generation of games branched off from EQ. The ones that branched off from UO ultimately failed because they couldn't help trying to cash in on EQ's success. These UO branched games were odd mixes of EQ-type gameplay(ex: No looting, Item-based, 3d graphics over functionality like being able to sit in chairs or own homes, chat boxes) and UO-type gameplay(ex: Skill System, Heavy Crafting). These mixes usually were so unbalanced( 80/20-EQ/UO) that the games all failed. So as time went on more and more games were branched from the original EQ branch while less and less were branched from UO.
Basically what we have now is inbreeding. WoW is inbred. Like a family tree that grows up but never out. The resulting games are shallow, but have the better production companies behind them so they are bigger successes financially and commercially which just causes the EQ family tree to rise higher and higher.
My prediction is that the EQ "family line" will eventually inbreed its way into a 3 headed, 2 fingered, blind and toothless monstrosity preventing any possible future offspring even with a set of developing ideas from another tree. Just like in the mating practices of humans, it's possible to be so damn ugly a paper bag over the head just won't work anymore.
At this point, I am thinking 2009 or 2010, a new type of MMORPGs will take over boosted by advances in Computer Technology and, god-willing, advances in Virtual Reality.
I look at WoW kind of like Microsoft. They didn't do anything new, just used other games innovations and compiled them into one game.
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It all seems so stupid
It makes me want to give up
But why should I give up
When it all seems so stupid
The problem with MMORPGs is that content is too static. Unlike a Bioware game where you can choose what to do and how to do it, questing in a typical MMORPG just boils down to talking to virtual billboards and killing monsters that for the most part behave exactly the same as every other monster in the game, and then receiving money and items that exactly resemble similar items except for a few changes in stat numbers. I believe the next-gen MMORPGs will involve dynamic content, such as NPC players talking to you based on your alignment and allowing you to choose what you wish to do. Does a farmer want you to kill his neighbor's chickens for eating his corn? Give us the choice to talk to the neighbor and have him offer the choice to kill the farmer's dog for a greater sum of money. Also, monsters should behave differently depending on what they are. Goblins will just rush you without a second thought but orcs should strategize, and raid mobs don't just stand there and get hit, maybe they'll back off and send in its minions so it can recover for a bit. It's content like this that I feel will be deemed next-gen.
Unfortunately, there's a problem associated with that. A sizable number of players want a defined goal that they cannot deviate from, such as killing 10 mobs of the same type and ONLY those 10 mobs. They want to be lead through the quest while it holds it their hands and doesn't give them any choices to make. As EVE Online can attest, players who get thrown into a world where they have the freedom to do anything they want to often end up leaving because they don't know WHAT they want to do.
Regarding World of Warcraft, I believe that the game is popular because it is well-made design-wise, but not necessarily content-wise. Currently, the MMORPG market is only mediocre. Whereas other game genres have made significant advances in their games, MMORPGs still play the same as they do when they first came out, just with graphical improvements and minor enhancements. World of Warcraft capitalizes on this fact by making an easy-to-use interface, easy-to-find quest givers, and many other easy, intuitive controls for players. Other games do not have the same design aspects. Look at the majority of MMORPGs out there, they have crappy user interfaces that are not intuitive and require reading a manual to learn. A great example is DAoC, why can't I just drag spells off the hotbar and switch their positions? Instead, I have to shift+right click the spell to get rid of it, and then drag the same spell from the spellbook to the hotbar to change its position around. Another game design problem is that typical MMORPGs use systems designed to keep you playing for as long as possible, but also causes a lot of frustration. I currently play EQ2 and at level 10 I've already run into quests that requires me to kill 10 mobs...except that the most the mobs ever spawn is 2 at a time with a 1-hour spawn timer. It's no fun playing a game where you can't even complete the quest because the mob is just not there. So although World of Warcraft makes a lot of improvements in gameplay design, there is still a lot of room to improve. And what is it with making fantasy games? The market is already oversaturated with them, shift over to some other genre please!
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is the developer of SWG, not EA.
WoW is the pinnicle of the second age of the mmorpg.
No longer can games just be everquest clones, because they'll never beat WoW at it's own game.
Lol WoW have u actually played it... there are as many people playing that as there are Anarchy Online and look how long that has been out...
Not to mention guild wars and there would be others...
WoW wont have much of an impact on the mmo industry when it dies infact it most likely got people into looking for better mmos
A whole new breed of MMO gamers. WoW is great for the industry.
WHAT???? Okay then name one thing that WoW has that other MMORPG's don't. All they did was take all the original ideas from other games and consolidate them. And didn't do all that good of a job of it anyways. So being the pinnicle of something is stealing other peoples innovation. Please.
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</OBAMA>
WHAT???? Okay then name one thing that WoW has that other MMORPG's don't. All they did was take all the original ideas from other games and consolidate them. And didn't do all that good of a job of it anyways. So being the pinnicle of something is stealing other peoples innovation. Please.
the largest player base in history?
what he means is that WoW is the best game WoW clone out there. game companies will need to make games that aren't EQ/WOW clones to beat WoW.
WHAT???? Okay then name one thing that WoW has that other MMORPG's don't. All they did was take all the original ideas from other games and consolidate them. And didn't do all that good of a job of it anyways. So being the pinnicle of something is stealing other peoples innovation. Please.
the largest player base in history?
what he means is that WoW is the best game WoW clone out there. game companies will need to make games that aren't EQ/WOW clones to beat WoW.
I don't care if they have the largest player base in history. I'm not a lemming. That's like saying Microsoft is the best OS out there because everyone uses it.
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</OBAMA>
Yes.
WoW is too popular for it's own good. The current dev team see it's current, continuing success and see no reason to change anything, so every patch just adds more of the same. They cannot see the major flaws in the way they implemented PvP, BGs, and the End Game, because for all the players that quit at 60, at least a new players starts.
WoW is an EQ clone, improved, polished, incorporating elements from many other EQ clones, but not really bringing much innovation to the industry; and they won't, as long as their success continues. Being innovative is not easy, look at Horizons, or the failure of WISH, or the struggle of IRTH, or DnL to release.
Most mmorpgs so far have been EQ clones, and WoW is probably the best of them. Without any real competition, WoW will not improve. Next year tho' the third generation starts to arrive, and we'll have some REAL choice, then we'll see.
WHAT???? Okay then name one thing that WoW has that other MMORPG's don't. All they did was take all the original ideas from other games and consolidate them. And didn't do all that good of a job of it anyways. So being the pinnicle of something is stealing other peoples innovation. Please.
the largest player base in history?
what he means is that WoW is the best game WoW clone out there. game companies will need to make games that aren't EQ/WOW clones to beat WoW.
I don't care if they have the largest player base in history. I'm not a lemming. That's like saying Microsoft is the best OS out there because everyone uses it.
i didn't say it was the best mmorpg out there. you asked what wow had that no other game had, i gave you an example.
i was just explaining what he meant since you didn't understand it. believe it or not, you ARE a lemming. you're just with all the lemmings who are against WoW. you probably never even played WoW...
Think he means in general terms, it's moved from a "UO" game to an "everquest" one.
WoW has brought a lot of first time MMOG players into the genre. Many games have died or are dying because of a low subscriber base. Some were justified, others have potential but won't last without more patronage, so anything that helps increase the MMOG playerbase is a good thing.
The only negative aspect would be if players don't move beyond easy MMOG's like WoW, and drag development down to the lowest dummied down denominator. If that's what the majority of players want though, then that's how capitalism works. Hopefully there are enough developers who will seek out niche markets and be satisfied with less subscribers.
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Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
www.vanguardsoh
BUZZ WRONG AWNSER !!
Wow has at the moment less subs then LINEAGE ONE worldwide .. and it also has less then Lineage 2
world wide.. so your point is invaild , stupid , false but your free to try again little fanboi
and wow is very much a everquest clone. wow has 0 new ideas
BUZZ WRONG AWNSER !!
Wow has at the moment less subs then LINEAGE ONE worldwide .. and it also has less then Lineage 2
world wide.. so your point is invaild , stupid , false but your free to try again little fanboi
and wow is very much a everquest clone. wow has 0 new ideas
really? according too that mmogchart as of january 2005, lineage had 2 million subscribers. WoW has what, 4 or 4.5 million subscribers? last time i checked, 4 > 2.
if you are calling me a fanboi, you couldn't be further from the truth. if i was a fanboi of wow, wouldn't i still be playing the game? if i was a fanboi, wouldn't i only say good things about it, not bad things, like you would find if you read some of my posts?
i never said wow wasn't an everquest clone.
you gotta love internet forums, people always putting words in your mouth and making assinine assumptions...