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I think Vanilla World of Warcraft was the largest MMO ever made
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
Reflecting on all the years I've played mmos, It seems that Vanilla World of Warcraft beats the competition with content hands down when it comes to content. Add to the fact Blizzard gave the public tons of upgrades and patches for free, this went on for years !
From Teldrassil to Ashenvale Forest, Stranglehorn Vale, Searing Gorge to Eastern Pleglands.
From Tirisfal Glades to The Barrens, Alterac Mountains, Tanaris, Western Pleglands, to Winterspring.
Dungeons from the Deadmines to Shadowfang Keep, Uldaman, Zul'Farrak, Dire Maul, Sunken Temple, and everything Blackrock, just to name a very few, very few.
Lots not forget a working open world PvP along with three instanced battle grounds added shortly after.
Detailed crafting from Leatherworking to Weapon Smiting and Enchanting. Harvesting from Skinning to Mining and how can you forget First Aid, now that's an accomplishment in it's self.
Putting aside content. Lets talk about aesthetics.
Sure we had earlier mmos but Vanilla World of Warcraft on its own from 2003 to 2005 still holds the Crown TO THIS DAY for it's ability to take EVERYTHING INTO ACCOUNT.
They had a seamless world, moving from zone to zone without a hitch, with atmosphere blinding perfectly from ground to sky and music. Nothing jam packed like Final Fantasy 14 and all other mmo, nothing obnoxious. The content was spread out so the player can breath. Every zone had a story to tell, its own Monsters, Keeps and Caves. Unique to each other.
The Social set up, the virtual world, the living breathing was absolutely amazing. Blizzard did something that is unmatched to this day. It's like Blizzard had deep thinkers on their pay roll, figuring out how players would interact with each other.
With cities like Ironforge and Orgrimmar, players can call cities like this home base. Best of all NATURALLY, without game mechanics forcing them !.........Nothing ever forced in the game, never never.
Lets not forget open world questing. You had Keeps and Caves, dangerous ones like Thunder Axe Fortress, and Angor Fortress, Darnhold Keep and how can ANYONE FORGET Stromgrade Keep !!!!.......Many a PvP battles were fought there. Feeling soloish ?....Simply stay away from places like this for that day, you always had solo quest you can do, lots and lots of them 
The amount of content was endless, it would take years to hit everything.....In Vanilla World of Warcraft !!!!!......Slow leveling. Do you know why they can have slow leveling ?......They had the content to back it up. At level 35 you had probably 40 quest you can do. Modern games have 2. I'll have to stress that 2 !!!!
So to wrap things up. This is why everyone is forever searching for an mmo. Their is nothing good !
Comments
I personally wasn't all that impressed with WoW. I played to level 27 and got bored. I played Ultima Online longer. I played Trove longer. I played DC Universe longer. Heck, I played Matrix Online longer! Everyone has their preferences, I suppose.
You are pretty brave to post anything on these forums that puts WoW in a favorable light. That said, WoW was, and still is a great MMO despite what the haters say!
Maybe if you just compare similar themepark MMO's to WoW. I agree if you would claim that Blizzard was most succesful with creating this type of MMO.
I do agree that Blizzard did a very good job of putting it together, in fact i am willing to say that WoW is one of the most well-crafted games asa whole to come out in the online market.
But a lot of games beat it on individual systems like crafting, story and back in the day.. class viability.
This have been a good conversation
*sp*
There are tons of fun games out there, so I don't stick to one. Now i play a bit of D3 .. but i don't expect it to last forever. Everything gets boring sooner or later, even for Blizz games.
Probably not in terms of how much time/effort went into the game (later expansions had content that was dramatically higher quality than the grindy quests of early WOW; the result of considerably more people working to churn out quests.)
Definitely not in terms of world size (measured either by meaningless raw distance (EVE) or measured by time (probably also EVE.))
In terms of player count? Well, no...but only due to later WOW releases.
Odd to hear open world PVP called "working", given that it was meaningless in early WOW and very low quality PVP (as all world PVP is.)
Also did you really call vanilla WOW's first aid profession "an accomplishment in itself"? It was useful and solid in its design, but it was nothing special.
WOW was (and still is) a fantastic MMORPG, but we should keep a reasonable accounting of how it actually was.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The intent of the post was that Vanilla World of Warcraft was the largest MMO ever made.
And more of a point was this was done back in 2003/2004 !!.......Also the game took everything into account. Every structure about the game was well thought out. A perfect interweave, blending everything together nicely.
Large and flowing.
Sure, many didn't like Vanilla WoW. Totally understandable. Everquest 2, Final Fantasy 11, and DAOC were close to the same. It's more about this is back in 2003. What happened ?......... The market regressed in every way possible.
Nowadays, most MMORPG's eschew the 'multiplayer' part, let alone the 'massive' one. I hate how everything has become so focused on solo activities that any MMO just gets boring within 10 levels.... There's no reason to interact with others, so why am i playing a generic, shallow fantasy MMO when i could just go to Skyrim, Witcher, Dragon Age or any other singleplayer RPG to get a much, much better experience?
Devs are so afraid to lose out on 'millions of subs' that they make sure even their grandparents can play their game in their own time. I'd dare say that all these tools to make life easier for solo MMO players helped shape the communities as they are right now (in a bad way)
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
WoW is the reason I rarely find games that can hold my interest.
Everything else you listed... I'm not sure you played anything pre-WOW.
Has it been four weeks already, or did you just want to get the October issue of "Pining for the Past Monthly" out of the way early?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Dungeons and PVP are things to do. The mandatory busywork that used to be required was never considered a full, desirable activity itself. Once you reached the actual things to do (dungeons or PVP) then there was plenty of 'finger-lifting' to do to do well.
Nobody looked forward to having to spam chat channels forever for group members (while existing members slowly logged off in boredom.) It wasn't the activity people wanted to participate in.
And while a handful looked forward to crappy world PVP (because they were casual PVPers and interested in PVP where skill mattered less so they had a higher chance of winning), the majority of PVPers want rounds where a really exciting match has a chance of happening and their decisions matter. (Which is why nearly all PVP outside of MMORPGs is instanced, and why the introduction of instanced PVP in WOW almost completely eliminated non-instanced PVP.)
But basically these conveniences eliminated the non-fun busywork and let players skip immediately to the fun parts (just like any good book or movie skips to the interesting bits.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Tho with PVP in general, then UT99 and BF1942 (with Forgotten Hope mod) was the best ever. Those were the times. /sigh
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Are you being facetious or do you really not understand what he wrote?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Ultima Online and EQ both felt fairly big as there was no fast travel aside from having the ability to cast certain spells and those were only available to certain classes. Speed was also a lot slower.
It would probably be easier to compare EQ and WoW than UO and WoW as it was built in a similar way (zones). A good way to judge would be to find the number of zones in vanilla EQ compared to WoW.
Personally I think having a slower travel speed is the key in making the world feel large. Once you can instant teleport and everyone has a mount then the world feels small no matter how many zones or how large it is.
WoW wasn't really a quick game to travel around when it first came out. There were no mounts. You basically ran everywhere on foot at least once and most classes didn't have a way to increase run speed. There was also less direction in terms of where to go.
EQ had no tutorials on where to go in Vanilla. It just plopped you in and you had to figure out where to go. That again increases the feeling of size in the world.
UO was similar to EQ in that respect. I believe it was easier to get lost in UO because a lot of the landscape looked similar and eventually you would circle around the world back to the same point.
I can't speak for other games like AC or DAOC as I never played them.
FFXI was another game like EQ where the world felt large due to varying similar factors.
Going on long trek through dangerous territory can give you the feeling of a long, tiring, arduous, dangerous journey if it's done well.