No it didn't,Wow wasn't that big at release. Eq was the biggest mmo at the time with a peak of 500k.
I'd need to see real evidence EQ1 ever topped 200k.
According to the everquest Wikipedia page, the last reported sub numbers by Sony were on Jan 14, 2004 at over 430,000. Its Wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt and I cant find the original link and the one on Wikipedia is broken.
Yeh, I'm not going to accuse "number fudging", because this isn't the place and I don't have the means at hand to justify it, but "430,000 accounts" is not "430,000 concurrent subscribers", and I see some of that language being twisted, although it doesn't need to have been intentional.
Alot of games brag "Over 1 million accounts", especially free games. Wow never really had 17 million concurrent subscribers the way "you and I" log on either, as it had massive numbers of package deals for game cafes worldwide, especially China.
Just saying, having "been there" and participated in it, I truly do not believe it was that kind of number.
I was being very generous with my numbers, but I believe the 12 million subscribers for WoW at the peak is fairly agreed upon - from memory, UO was about 150k and EQ about 400k subscribers, the total accounts must have been much higher as there was a very high turnover, but these numbers do not approach WoW, nor have any MMO to date.
It's a very dominant force in the MMO market, even now. Especially if you adjust for the fact that the sub is still $15 and the competitive (subscriber-count) games have various levels of subs available, it's drawing a fair amount of cash, comparatively, too.
Originally posted by Waterlily EQ easily had 400k at it's peak, which was around GoD / OOW. EQ used to show the population numbers per server.
Maybe 40,000 people had 5 accounts each. hehe.
Look at it this way. You're hard pressed to be able to find more than a handful avid gamers any given forum who can logistically and validly depict Velious raiding in 01. If there had been these "hundreds of thousands", you'd have at least a hundred people in this forum alone who would chime in "hell yeh, tunare was a mother f$#$% , aggroing the whole zone if you pulled her early", or "haha wuoshi was super easy with 600 poison resist. But you don't. You have like, 10. You might get a few hundred to discuss OOW, but where are the other 399,700 people? Did they die?
Same deal, WoW aq, huge event. If 12 MILLION people were playing, it would be part of relevant gaming nostalgia, like 50 year old baseball cards to that crowd, but there are only a few thousand who actually have the capacity to rationally discuss it.
20k "characters on a server" are not 20k accounts, are not 20k players. Times 25 servers this becomes even more skewed.
Until some major change in format occurs that will break the mold, its extremely unlikely to happen ever again. The big name MMos (Ultima Online, DAoC, Everquest 1 , WoW, Aion) pretty much got that power not due to being good (now a days those games in their initial state would be considered bad) but due to the limited market and for the most part that push in marketting to grab people to that 'one mmo'. MMos aren't a new thing anymore and there isn't a lack of them like there use to be.
If there is a sudden shift having an MMO grow huge ago, I'd say it would be with new technology (such as VR) where the market would be rather open and players can establish themselves and market out to be competitive. That said, its probably unlikely any game in that format will gain massive numbers like the old school mmos did in the past, since there are a lot more companies around that can attempt to throw games up compared to in the past. It would possibly generate a huge crowd onto those games on a new system, its just likely far more short lived thing then it was in the past.
WoW was the example that ruined the market. Everything prior to it was diverse, had a population relatively evenly spread between many different games. Every game you played felt different and had its own unique qualities.
No one was chasing the "I gotta copy this because $$$" mentality.
I would much rather see the market spread out into multiple, UNIQUE games that have strong, diverse backgrounds. Strong PvE grouping from start to finish, strong PvP and conflict/territory management, strong economy with unending sandbox options....
Not copy the same boring model over and over.
There would barely be a market if it weren't for WoW. Show some respect.
WoW was the example that ruined the market. Everything prior to it was diverse, had a population relatively evenly spread between many different games. Every game you played felt different and had its own unique qualities.
No one was chasing the "I gotta copy this because $$$" mentality.
I would much rather see the market spread out into multiple, UNIQUE games that have strong, diverse backgrounds. Strong PvE grouping from start to finish, strong PvP and conflict/territory management, strong economy with unending sandbox options....
Not copy the same boring model over and over.
There would barely be a market if it weren't for WoW. Show some respect.
You could argue that if wow never mainstreamed the MMO industry we might not be in the current stagnant pond we are today.
To be honest though if wow didn't do it another game would have. It just happened to be perfectly placed.
Indeed, normall the market leader is the one to push th genre and lead the way, instead profits + stagnation is what we see. It's no coincidence that the mmos that at succeeding are those that do not follow the wow model. wow vanilla introduced quality to mmorpg, everything since then has been about whoring to any demographic and genre until it nO longer targets mmorpg players.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
WoW was the example that ruined the market. Everything prior to it was diverse, had a population relatively evenly spread between many different games. Every game you played felt different and had its own unique qualities.
No one was chasing the "I gotta copy this because $$$" mentality.
I would much rather see the market spread out into multiple, UNIQUE games that have strong, diverse backgrounds. Strong PvE grouping from start to finish, strong PvP and conflict/territory management, strong economy with unending sandbox options....
Not copy the same boring model over and over.
There would barely be a market if it weren't for WoW. Show some respect.
You could argue that if wow never mainstreamed the MMO industry we might not be in the current stagnant pond we are today.
To be honest though if wow didn't do it another game would have. It just happened to be perfectly placed.
At the time WoW released we were in a pretty stagnant phase in mmos. Sure there were a number of games that were being released and/or in development, but the overall population in the genre didn't seem to be that large outside of EQ. Many started to bounce around to all the new games coming out, basically making the previous mmo a ghost town more or less. A good number of folks seemed to be pretty sick of the grinding model that many mmos used at the time and were looking for something different. WoW brought in a 100% questing leveling system and each class could pretty effectively solo their way from 1-60. Many mmos before WoW had questing, but it was very rare or had a few quests you did each day.
The biggest problem we face right now in the genre is that there isn't really a new and exciting way to deliver content anymore. Public Questing/Dynamic Events was really the last newish content delivery method brought into the genre. Emergent gameplay seems to be the next logical step, but we seem to be years away from that if EQNext doesn't deliver.
The next big thing in mmos is most likely going to require new tech that isn't readily available if available at all yet.
Not sure when it will happen but some day there will be another game that attracts a lot of players.. IMO it will be a game centered around PvE with PvP servers. This non sense about MMOs needing PvP as a core component now is absurd I think.
There will never be another game as huge as World Of Warcraft. People keep talking about Everquest that peaked around 450K and keep forgetting about a game called Lineage that released around the same time and peaked at around 3 Million. Don't sleep on Lineage Eternal that's going to release world wide at the same time.
Even now it looms in the distance, baiting the enemy with howls of PvE emphasis and hacking teeth of enameled group dynamics.
listen....
Once you stated, "masses," I felt like pointing you to the plethora of Asian cash shop games. If you meant masses by Western terms, it would of course be World of Warcraft I'd point at - and various Asian cultures.
Building a game to meet the masses is the same as making a menu for a restaurant that appeals to the masses:
McDonald's
Burger King
Taco Bell...etc., all places that unify the "masses."
We have plenty of fast food mmo video games. Some of us are waiting for an mmorpg where (a) my enemies are actually different that I am (b) there are lots of actual classes and races to choose from that battle under a specific banner, etc. you know, something that hasn't been made since Dark Age of Camelot went live in 2001.
Listen...most folks don't even know what the last paragraph even meant or why it mattered. So...yeah.
In the current state there is no better game than WoW and blizzard knows it. I think there will be successful mmos in the future but there won't be a new 12mio game out there anytime soon.
Originally posted by SlyLoK Not sure when it will happen but some day there will be another game that attracts a lot of players.. IMO it will be a game centered around PvE with PvP servers. This non sense about MMOs needing PvP as a core component now is absurd I think.
I also forgot to mention that the game will also use traditional tab targeting combat.
Originally posted by SlyLoK Not sure when it will happen but some day there will be another game that attracts a lot of players.. IMO it will be a game centered around PvE with PvP servers. This non sense about MMOs needing PvP as a core component now is absurd I think.
I also forgot to mention that the game will also use traditional tab targeting combat.
It will have full frontal nudity and sensory attachments...
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Originally posted by sludgebeard Even now it looms in the distance, baiting the enemy with howls of PvE emphasis and hacking teeth of enameled group dynamics.listen....
I don't know... How can one "unify the masses" when the masses cannot agree on anything?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Originally posted by SavageHorizon No it didn't,Wow wasn't that big at release. Eq was the biggest mmo at the time with a peak of 500k.
I'd need to see real evidence EQ1 ever topped 200k.
Easily accomplished: MMO DATA 4.1. Look at EQ (dark green circle) at just past the mid 2004 mark: 550,000 subscribers.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Comments
Yeh, I'm not going to accuse "number fudging", because this isn't the place and I don't have the means at hand to justify it, but "430,000 accounts" is not "430,000 concurrent subscribers", and I see some of that language being twisted, although it doesn't need to have been intentional.
Alot of games brag "Over 1 million accounts", especially free games. Wow never really had 17 million concurrent subscribers the way "you and I" log on either, as it had massive numbers of package deals for game cafes worldwide, especially China.
Just saying, having "been there" and participated in it, I truly do not believe it was that kind of number.
I was being very generous with my numbers, but I believe the 12 million subscribers for WoW at the peak is fairly agreed upon - from memory, UO was about 150k and EQ about 400k subscribers, the total accounts must have been much higher as there was a very high turnover, but these numbers do not approach WoW, nor have any MMO to date.
It's a very dominant force in the MMO market, even now. Especially if you adjust for the fact that the sub is still $15 and the competitive (subscriber-count) games have various levels of subs available, it's drawing a fair amount of cash, comparatively, too.
EQ had 60k beta applicants, when very few people knew about the game.
From Sony's aniversary site:
12 million total created characters
At it's peak EQ had half a million players.
Maybe 40,000 people had 5 accounts each. hehe.
Look at it this way. You're hard pressed to be able to find more than a handful avid gamers any given forum who can logistically and validly depict Velious raiding in 01. If there had been these "hundreds of thousands", you'd have at least a hundred people in this forum alone who would chime in "hell yeh, tunare was a mother f$#$% , aggroing the whole zone if you pulled her early", or "haha wuoshi was super easy with 600 poison resist. But you don't. You have like, 10. You might get a few hundred to discuss OOW, but where are the other 399,700 people? Did they die?
Same deal, WoW aq, huge event. If 12 MILLION people were playing, it would be part of relevant gaming nostalgia, like 50 year old baseball cards to that crowd, but there are only a few thousand who actually have the capacity to rationally discuss it.
20k "characters on a server" are not 20k accounts, are not 20k players. Times 25 servers this becomes even more skewed.
Until some major change in format occurs that will break the mold, its extremely unlikely to happen ever again. The big name MMos (Ultima Online, DAoC, Everquest 1 , WoW, Aion) pretty much got that power not due to being good (now a days those games in their initial state would be considered bad) but due to the limited market and for the most part that push in marketting to grab people to that 'one mmo'. MMos aren't a new thing anymore and there isn't a lack of them like there use to be.
If there is a sudden shift having an MMO grow huge ago, I'd say it would be with new technology (such as VR) where the market would be rather open and players can establish themselves and market out to be competitive. That said, its probably unlikely any game in that format will gain massive numbers like the old school mmos did in the past, since there are a lot more companies around that can attempt to throw games up compared to in the past. It would possibly generate a huge crowd onto those games on a new system, its just likely far more short lived thing then it was in the past.
There would barely be a market if it weren't for WoW. Show some respect.
You could argue that if wow never mainstreamed the MMO industry we might not be in the current stagnant pond we are today.
To be honest though if wow didn't do it another game would have. It just happened to be perfectly placed.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
At the time WoW released we were in a pretty stagnant phase in mmos. Sure there were a number of games that were being released and/or in development, but the overall population in the genre didn't seem to be that large outside of EQ. Many started to bounce around to all the new games coming out, basically making the previous mmo a ghost town more or less. A good number of folks seemed to be pretty sick of the grinding model that many mmos used at the time and were looking for something different. WoW brought in a 100% questing leveling system and each class could pretty effectively solo their way from 1-60. Many mmos before WoW had questing, but it was very rare or had a few quests you did each day.
The biggest problem we face right now in the genre is that there isn't really a new and exciting way to deliver content anymore. Public Questing/Dynamic Events was really the last newish content delivery method brought into the genre. Emergent gameplay seems to be the next logical step, but we seem to be years away from that if EQNext doesn't deliver.
The next big thing in mmos is most likely going to require new tech that isn't readily available if available at all yet.
@Thread title..
Heard this Seven Hundred Trillion Billion Million times.
I will easily without a doubt bet $500,000 grand that whatever this so called MMO to change the world is, is going to be a flop.
Someone reallyyyyy needs to come up with a new idea to this whole slot machine grind for items. EQ and WoW were
awesome because there was nothing like them. Now it's just sad what games have become IMO
But there is a little, tiny, spark in my heart hoping im wrong ;p
It was called Titan before Blizz decides there is little future in new MMORPGs and cancelled it.
Exactly, if these new systems work ESO will be the game.
Once you stated, "masses," I felt like pointing you to the plethora of Asian cash shop games. If you meant masses by Western terms, it would of course be World of Warcraft I'd point at - and various Asian cultures.
Building a game to meet the masses is the same as making a menu for a restaurant that appeals to the masses:
McDonald's
Burger King
Taco Bell...etc., all places that unify the "masses."
We have plenty of fast food mmo video games. Some of us are waiting for an mmorpg where (a) my enemies are actually different that I am (b) there are lots of actual classes and races to choose from that battle under a specific banner, etc. you know, something that hasn't been made since Dark Age of Camelot went live in 2001.
Listen...most folks don't even know what the last paragraph even meant or why it mattered. So...yeah.
In the current state there is no better game than WoW and blizzard knows it. I think there will be successful mmos in the future but there won't be a new 12mio game out there anytime soon.
I also forgot to mention that the game will also use traditional tab targeting combat.
It will have full frontal nudity and sensory attachments...
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
There is no unifying the masses in entertainment.