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Pre and post WOW era (comparison)
Kopogero
Member UncommonPosts: 1,685
WOW release: 2004
Prior to WOW (in only 4-5 years) we've had Ultima Online, Everquest, Anarchy Online, Asheron Call, Final Fantasy XI, Star Wars Galaxies, Eve Online, Runescape, Dark age of Camelot, Ragnarok, Sims Online, Second Life, City of Heroes, Lineage 2 and many other classic MMORPG's...
Post WOW (from 2005-2015) we've had Aion, SWTOR, ESO, LOTRO, TERA, Rift, DCUO then the sequels like GW2, EQ2, FFXIV and some other MMO's not even worth being mentioned.
So, explain to me how we could had all those amazing, classic MMORPG's being released to us in less than 5 years when the global market still had far less access to computers and internet connection and not to mention the knowledge of what MMORPG's where?
The biggest irony is all the MMORPG's after WOW mentioned above...they all offer pretty much the same ENDGAME WOW did which is "10-25 man RAIDING". I mean how did this happen?
Comments
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
I shake my head every time I see a thread like this
What purpose does it serve?
How in the nine hells do you really think people will all agree on the same points?
/sigh
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
Taking out whether one thinks it's good or bad, because that is opinion, it happened because too many companies followed Blizzard down the rabbit hole and sort of pulled it off because players played for the trip (myself included and all of those purchases paid for themselves in my enjoyment). Now, the market is saturated and Blizzard isn't sharing the golden goose so we start seeing, or hearing about, different types of MMOs because in a saturated market you need to separate yourself from the pack.
It already looks to be getting better (see what I did there) as far as worlds and not games. In the end we'll have even more variety and options so everyone wins.
Sorry EQ 2 released 3 weeks before WoW (both in November 2004) and therefore can in no way be counted as 'post WoW'
I also do not see how you manage to categorise Sims Online and Second Life as MMORPGs.
Finally exactly what point are you trying to make? There seems to be no conclusion in your post.
While there are people who are more susceptible to suggestion that others I wouldn't blame the marketing unless you think there was something going on that wasn't right. For quite a long time YouTube and closed/open betas have ensured people know what they are getting.
People like new things and new experiences even if they are not long term. This is unfortunate when talking about MMOs, games that can take 5~ years to make and, in recent memory, <1~2 months to consume. My hope is that some developers are seeing the benefit in keeping costumers over the long haul.
Take a few moments and imagine if you were investing $200 million of your own money in a new MMO and didn't know anything about MMOs and just wanted to make money. Would you want the people working for you to copy the MMO model that was making over a billion dollars a year or the old ones that couldn't generate $100 million a year in the best of times which hasn't been for many years.
Someone knows nothing about mmo history.
1st EQ2 came before WOW and bought in the themepark ERA we see today in nearly every mmo since EQ2.
2nd EQ2 had the same raiding you mention and EQ actually had it before both WOW and EQ2
At least know what you are talking about before you make such silly threads.
How is buying something you think you'll enjoy, for what ever amount of time, being stupid? Is it because you think it keeps you from what you want to play? You are but one player among us.
You can blame the players for the current stock of MMOs while also blaming the greed of the developers but this is an entertainment industry. Your argument is based on the idea that your ideal MMO is better for everyone than what is currently being bought. I hope for both our sakes we find out if that is true, as some MMOs are branching off of the standard vein. What if it's not? What if models other than themepark do not sell well?
My point is that just because we may want something different doesn't mean everyone does and there isn't anything wrong with that.
Edit: It's also worth noting that if the money is in themeparks, which I hope changes, this means there are many fans of it. This can mean developers are making game they truly think people will enjoy, even if others take umbrage and see the end result as uninspired and fake. It could be falsely demonizing them since no developer would come out and openly say they don't really care about creating a good MMO and are only in it for the money.
Let me just point out that CoH at the time was under fire for not "being a real MMO" due to it´s heavy reliance on INSTANCING long before WoW made it a thing.
SWG was a good idea... But the actual game was... Well... A horrid mess.
Ultima Online while very much a creative sandbox had some rather horrid issues with player behaviour that most likely inspired every game since to move their PvP players away from the normal population.
And so on and so forth.
Pretty much all the games listed in the OP as pre-wow failed in one way or another, not saying they are bad but most of them products of a new market taking shape. No one knew what the formula was and it lead to some really wild ideas and spectacular faceplants.
All Blizzard did was come in at the right time... Late enough to learn from others but still in a fresh market. Add that special Blizzard touch and presto.. The formula was created. (well you could argue that EQ2 was a instrumental in getting the formula nailed down too)
That is why things start to streamline after WoW...
Also... Sims Online is perhaps not a good idea to bring up as a good exmaple of... well... anything.
But the truth is that we are starting to see games break out of the formula... Games like Minecraft, DayZ/H1Z1, The division (based in the current info) Heck games like The Secret World is a good example on how you can take something like the themepark system and do something new with it.
In short... Things are not as black and white as they seem.
This have been a good conversation
Where exactly did you read in my thread that I'm saying WOW was first to bring the endgame raiding formula? If a game also gets released 2 weeks before the other it doesn't necessary means that's because it started developing before the other. What's "silly" is to come here and attempt to discredit my thread with further insults like I don't know what I'm talking about and claim that my threads are silly simply because I put EQ2 that launched 2 weeks before WOW in front of it.
What also makes you think that EQ2 wasn't the one rushed to hit the shelves 2 weeks before WOW to purposely get the sales, knowing the competition WOW will bring to it? Everquest 1 launched less than a year before WOW started developing. If you honestly think SOE started building EQ2 less than a year since it launched Everquest 1 to compete with itself then you must be on something...
If you also think EQ2 is responsible for bringing the themepark era we've witnessed for a decade after its launch and not WOW then I have no further comment on that.
I am not a charity.
The reason it happened is because before WOW and it's instant money devs would invest a lot of time and money into their game while not expecting instant success.
Then because so many people saw the money Wow rolled in and the new MASSIVE market thousands of new upstart devs arrived on the scene with little money to pull it off.So the high majority of developers now are releasing games to make instant profits,they will not rely on long term goals and their investment into their games will be VERY low,low enough to make instant profits and of course relates to VERY shallow games.
FFXi is the perfect example,it cost more to make that game than 99% of the games out right now and they never figured on breaking even for at least 5 years,NOBODY is doing that type of development now.Geesh it cost more to make FFVII than almost every game now.I have a term i use for the modern era game design >>>Budgetware.
Games now a days are designed to be disposable,launch them out unfinished to get a quick cash grab then go into maintenance mode.A LOT of these games are running c ash shops after releasing less than a million dollar game design,they call them early access,with a CASH SHOP,they are NOT early access.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
If one cannot see the massive lack of variety post WoW, they have a problem.
Actually.. It only seems like a massive lack because the market is so much bigger. In fact the last couple of years have seen several games breaking away from the formula (to lesser or greater success)
Any way... this is pointless as to the fact that someone always find the formula... Had it not been Blizzard it is my opinion that Everquest 2 would have been the game to set the trend and the market would have looked about the same any way.. NO other game really was close enough to skirt that line bewteen feature and playability...CoH was kind of close but it was too shallow and way to niched. Most other had one or more thing that hedl them back, like SWG and Eve´s insane curve or the age of DAoC and Everquest. Or games like Ultima Online that was simply too harsh on new players with monsters and PK´players being very strong deterents to set foot outside a town.. ever...
Problem is that people like you Dull focus in the similarities, no matter how shallow rather than looking at what makes them different. Sure there are many things that are similar... But that holds true for almost any genre of gaming (or if you are Ubisoft... developer) the development of a formula is not something you can stop. It will happen no matter what you think of it.
This have been a good conversation
If one cannot see the massive lack of variety post WoW, they have a problem.
You mean like the vast selection of the same game with different titles being the only real difference we have today?Great title, disappointing thread. I was hoping for more comparison.
OP asks how did this happen, which implies why did this happen...
But personally I'm far more interested in a clear explanation of WHAT happened. Once WHAT is clear, then why becomes obvious.
"Post WOW (from 2005-2015) we've had Aion, SWTOR, ESO, LOTRO, TERA, Rift, DCUO then the sequels like GW2, EQ2, FFXIV and some other MMO's not even worth being mentioned"
Except EQ2 wasn't post WOW , fact is no matter how you try and twist it EQ2 came out before WOW.
Again it doesn't matter who rushed to get there game out first, fact is EQ2 was released before WOW.
So the first true released themepark was EQ2, this you can't twist because it came out before WOW.
Thing is you mess up when you said EQ2 was post WOW, silly boy lol.
Because back then there was no definite measure of success and no "hey let's do what those guys are doing".
The genre was new, and each team felt they could be successful.
"now" we know that mmo's are more risky endeavors, with the ever louder clamor of better graphics, more this more that, why would any company put everything on the line to "try something new".
Also players today are far more jaded. If something like Elder Scrolls Online or Guild Wars 2 came out then I doubt we would be having all these "they suck" threads.
Also, I wouldn't say that mmo's are "so" popular among the gaming crowd. Every time I go to a PAX event and talk about mmo's with the people I meet in the lines, crowds, etc, it seems that they really don't know much about them exept for WoW, Everquest and SWToR. Some city of heroes.
It was a large shock to "not" be able to talk about mmo's at a gaming conference because all the players I was meeting didn't really play mmo's.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Simple, you got players being sickly addicted to purple gear grind and spending sub money to fund it, and they tell others how great it is so they get friends to join them ingame and they get addicted too..
Blizzard is earning huge amounts of money with it.
Others see that. They copy it.
That's the reason.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Asheron's Call 2, released on Nov 22, 2002, and in most circles it is felt both titles drew heavily from it's quest based progression design, which is really the core of the modern themepark, not the raiding, (DAOC had incorporated raiding before either launched, along with many others) so actually, AC2 is the real creator of the design, WOW made it amazingly popular.
So much so EQ2 has constantly changed its original release design to mimic WOW, not the other way around.
EQ2 is an also ran in almost every way.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This enough said,
^Exactly.
Not that it matters to the OP or the ones agreeing with him. The only variety that counts for them is getting exactly what they want, nothing else can be considered innovation. Which practically guarantees that they'll be crying on this site for years to come, unless one of the Indies strikes it big. (But they'll probably kill them when they get released by screaming P2W and telling people to stay clear of them)
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
I doubt most of us are expecting a MMO studio to be a charity but if you design the game around making money you will fail. You might make back your expenses and maybe make a profit but then your game dies out, you release the next piece of crap that is over hyped and eventually end up shooting yourself in the foot because you have a rep of releasing steaming piles of crap.
If you decide to design a game with fun being the driving factor and you understand that you will not be making the money WoW does every month then a few things will likely happen. First you will make your money back eventually. It will take longer but it will happen if the game is fun. And second you will build a loyal fanbase who will happily buy your next game because they loved the original / previous games so much.
Before you all start saying well no one can define what fun is so you will never make the masses happy. I say you don't need to make the masses happy, you only need to make the people interested in your game happy.
Making games is expensive these days, people used to RPG storytelling offline and then online. That same playerbase played the first mmo's. RP was still good and people were interested in it. after wow mmorpgs became mainstream and wow is a game that does everything for you. You get everything handed into your lap these days. and if they would make for example an mmorpg that forces you to RP it would be taken down because the main stream isn't interested.
worldchat / faction chat / PM's. are all not needed and in most MMORPGs its out of place actually. In SWTOR I can understand that it's there you can use your phone or any other com device. But in lets say mid evil era games it's just strange yet WoW had it so all games must have it right? Because otherwise I would have to walk to a person and talk to him in public were everyone can see it + it takes more time... naa to boring I play something else pff why bother right? . RPG is Role playing, the name defines just that. But there is no roleplay these days in 3D MMORPGs sadly.
Making a MMORPG costs allot of money and the big croud wont be interested. So companies do not invest in such things because it's all about the money.
A great example of this is Wizardry online. I was looking for a 3D mmorpg with permadeath and I stumbled on Wizardy online. That was the only one I could find that came close to it. I read it and thought thats my game! If people actually care about their characters they would be more involved in the world and think more before they act. But I read it was shut down by Sony in EU/NA 2014 because it did not made enough profit apparently.
Companies aim for the Next WoW-Title. Thing is that it cannot be achieved by doing what the mainstream has already experienced. It would take something completely new to get everyone in. I personally think this is going to be virtual reality for gaming. There are anime series like: Log Horizon or Sword art Online about the concept.
WoW was something that gradually became a main stream thing, everyone played it and allot still do because it was new and everyone liked it. MMORPGs arent new anymore the concept is old we simply need something else. All mmorpgs that will come out in the future will be the same and yes some will have an addition to the genre and I am sure there will be some games that will be awesome when you compare it to what we have had in the past a couple of times but they will always remain 3D MMORPGs.
Nutchell: different playebase / different time / different games. early stages: actual RP / later no RP.