It would be one thing if you said MMORPG. Which I'd still disagree with in terms of systems. Profits on the other hand... sure, as far as western devs go.
Yet you said video game... That's a WTF statement if I've ever seen one.
lol please point to a game anywhere that at its peak had 14M unique accounts. I really hope you say Lineage 1 which at its peak, it had about 3M players. I just looked that up the other day for a different thread. Also, Korean Game Developers report their earnings in WON, not Dollars, so before you go quoting me income VS stats, ensure you do the conversion.
While there are emerging game markets all over the world and I suspect, based solely on amount of people alone the Western developers will be toppled some day. Korea and the U.S. are at this point the big players, and the U.S. mainly due to Blizzard. Which if you are interested Overwatch is posting some very impressive numbers for Blizzard as well. Worldwide, but the revenue is still coming to a Western company.
Eh, hence why I said WOW was a brilliant MMO in terms of profits, it successfully bridged gaps to earn such a player base. Numbers are all about profit, that doesn't mean it's the best game design ever though. At least in a factual sense.
It's not like other games haven't reached more than that number of sales in a shorter amount of time in the single player realm. GTA5 topped 80 million units sold in 4 years. Super mario sold 40 million. So when comparing WOW to the video game industry as a whole, it hasn't made a dent against a lot of games in terms of players reached.
I'd also say that in terms of most brilliant, those are the designers that have done the most with the least. Things like Minecraft, Journey, etc... Games like WOW had a small army working on them comparatively.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I watched friends play EQ and UO and frankly, those games weren't well designed. They were decent starting points with massive flaws. I remember laughing at one friend for paying a sub to UO during its horrendous launch. And EQ was just camping for spawns and picking a class because it went well with the ones your friends chose.
WOW took the good and discarded the junk and lazy designs. It was the perfect game design for that period of time.
I watched friends play EQ and UO and frankly, those games weren't well designed. They were decent starting points with massive flaws. I remember laughing at one friend for paying a sub to UO during its horrendous launch. And EQ was just camping for spawns and picking a class because it went well with the ones your friends chose.
WOW took the good and discarded the junk and lazy designs. It was the perfect game design for that period of time.
This is my impression.
I'm not knocking the early development but someone had to take the basic idea and run with it on a much larger scale.
What makes it a brilliant game is WoW took it to a huge scale on the first attempt. For the hard core EQ1 players the only thing missing for THEM is the lower difficulty setting. If they made it much harder, they would even agree.
WoW has gotten better over the years but the difficulty hasn't. Infact if they upped the difficulty in everything it would a fine game.
Vanilla was more fun because you could actually die. Most people who tried WoW quitted before level 10 hence the easy dificulty now. Those people who quitted was more fond of Warcraft 3 anyways.
WoW was/is crap compare to EQ1. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
EQ1 was/is crap compared to WoW. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
See, I can be an asshole too
Not an asshole, just someone who has no idea what they are talking about. WoW was for clueless themepark noobs.
WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to MMORPG's. It brought MMORPG's down to the lowest common denominator.
I concur with the bold part.
You can have whatever opinion you want. But you don't have to insult people that like other things than you. But I know you're super edgy and a cool guy so I'm probably wasting my time with you.
WoW was/is crap compare to EQ1. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
EQ1 was/is crap compared to WoW. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
See, I can be an asshole too
Not an asshole, just someone who has no idea what they are talking about. WoW was for clueless themepark noobs.
WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to MMORPG's. It brought MMORPG's down to the lowest common denominator.
No it didn't. The other development companies did that.
The World of Warcraft management didn't hire toughs to go into other studios and force them to adopt certain design decisions and didn't threaten anyone if they didn't comply.
They just made a game. And one that did a good job at what it originally was trying to do. A group of people saw design decisions that "they" did not like so they changed things to suit their tastes.
This brought in more people who probably would not have tried an MMO before World of Warcraft. I would bet that the game play of early Ultima or Everquest was NOT what the average person was looking to do.
But they were successful and other studios wanted the same success and they only have themselves to blame.
While I"m not a fan of World of Warcraft I did, at the time, like the quests as coming from Lineage 2 it was just grind, grind, grind. It was definitely a nice change. Who knew that "questing" (a word that I now associate with "bad" in these games) would turn into what it has today, a relay race of gathering up tasks, running to the glowy bit and running back.
So "yes" World of Warcraft was, to address the original post, brilliant in taking things that other people disliked and streamlining them. It gathered a huge following of people who weren't necessarily gamers let along mmorpg players.
But its only brilliance is that it did what it set out to do and did it well. However, it did not ruin the genre (provided one doesn't like that type of game play). You can blame the other people in the industry for that because they followed when they could have led.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
WoW was/is crap compare to EQ1. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
EQ1 was/is crap compared to WoW. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
See, I can be an asshole too
Not an asshole, just someone who has no idea what they are talking about. WoW was for clueless themepark noobs.
WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to MMORPG's. It brought MMORPG's down to the lowest common denominator.
No it didn't. The other development companies did that.
The World of Warcraft management didn't hire toughs to go into other studios and force them to adopt certain design decisions and didn't threaten anyone if they didn't comply.
They just made a game. And one that did a good job at what it originally was trying to do. A group of people saw design decisions that "they" did not like so they changed things to suit their tastes.
This brought in more people who probably would not have tried an MMO before World of Warcraft. I would bet that the game play of early Ultima or Everquest was NOT what the average person was looking to do.
But they were successful and other studios wanted the same success and they only have themselves to blame.
While I"m not a fan of World of Warcraft I did, at the time, like the quests as coming from Lineage 2 it was just grind, grind, grind. It was definitely a nice change. Who knew that "questing" (a word that I now associate with "bad" in these games) would turn into what it has today, a relay race of gathering up tasks, running to the glowy bit and running back.
So "yes" World of Warcraft was, to address the original post, brilliant in taking things that other people disliked and streamlining them. It gathered a huge following of people who weren't necessarily gamers let along mmorpg players.
But its only brilliance is that it did what it set out to do and did it well. However, it did not ruin the genre (provided one doesn't like that type of game play). You can blame the other people in the industry for that because they followed when they could have led.
Well said. Also very honest opinion that you didn't cloud with your dislike of the game. Probably one of the reasons I've always enjoyed your comments in this forum
WoW was/is crap compare to EQ1. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
EQ1 was/is crap compared to WoW. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
See, I can be an asshole too
Not an asshole, just someone who has no idea what they are talking about. WoW was for clueless themepark noobs.
WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to MMORPG's. It brought MMORPG's down to the lowest common denominator.
No it didn't. The other development companies did that.
The World of Warcraft management didn't hire toughs to go into other studios and force them to adopt certain design decisions and didn't threaten anyone if they didn't comply.
They just made a game. And one that did a good job at what it originally was trying to do. A group of people saw design decisions that "they" did not like so they changed things to suit their tastes.
This brought in more people who probably would not have tried an MMO before World of Warcraft. I would bet that the game play of early Ultima or Everquest was NOT what the average person was looking to do.
But they were successful and other studios wanted the same success and they only have themselves to blame.
While I"m not a fan of World of Warcraft I did, at the time, like the quests as coming from Lineage 2 it was just grind, grind, grind. It was definitely a nice change. Who knew that "questing" (a word that I now associate with "bad" in these games) would turn into what it has today, a relay race of gathering up tasks, running to the glowy bit and running back.
So "yes" World of Warcraft was, to address the original post, brilliant in taking things that other people disliked and streamlining them. It gathered a huge following of people who weren't necessarily gamers let along mmorpg players.
But its only brilliance is that it did what it set out to do and did it well. However, it did not ruin the genre (provided one doesn't like that type of game play). You can blame the other people in the industry for that because they followed when they could have led.
Well said. Also very honest opinion that you didn't cloud with your dislike of the game. Probably one of the reasons I've always enjoyed your comments in this forum
Thank you sir!
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I really didnt think Vanilla WoW was the greatest ever....I thought it was too easy and was too solo and quest driven....Basically all WoW did was take EQ, give it a new paint job and dumb it down for the masses.
Am I the only one not seeing big similarity between EQ1 and WoW? @DMKano said "They replaced "mob grinding" by questing." I mean .. I see those two very different way's of "grinding" . It has nothing in common. One is a story driven quest game, other is .. mob grinding.
I don't really agree with the OP , but he kinda has a point when saying "When this game was being developed it didn't have many ideas to steel from". WoW was first announced in 2001 , meaning they had around 2 years working on it . So it means they started the development in 1999 or so. Sure, it was not like the 2004 version when they first started working on it , but it also doesn't mean that they copy the shit out of other games. I mean, what other games? EQ1 is a very different game from my point of view in terms of content , the way it plays , combat, gameplay , level design , etc. Did they took some ideas from? Sure , but the point remains : They did not created WoW around EQ1.
Props must be given to Blizzard for WoW , no matter that they copied some ideas from other games or not!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
WoW was/is crap compare to EQ1. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
EQ1 was/is crap compared to WoW. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
See, I can be an asshole too
Not an asshole, just someone who has no idea what they are talking about. WoW was for clueless themepark noobs.
WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to MMORPG's. It brought MMORPG's down to the lowest common denominator.
No it didn't. The other development companies did that.
The World of Warcraft management didn't hire toughs to go into other studios and force them to adopt certain design decisions and didn't threaten anyone if they didn't comply.
They just made a game. And one that did a good job at what it originally was trying to do. A group of people saw design decisions that "they" did not like so they changed things to suit their tastes.
This brought in more people who probably would not have tried an MMO before World of Warcraft. I would bet that the game play of early Ultima or Everquest was NOT what the average person was looking to do.
But they were successful and other studios wanted the same success and they only have themselves to blame.
While I"m not a fan of World of Warcraft I did, at the time, like the quests as coming from Lineage 2 it was just grind, grind, grind. It was definitely a nice change. Who knew that "questing" (a word that I now associate with "bad" in these games) would turn into what it has today, a relay race of gathering up tasks, running to the glowy bit and running back.
So "yes" World of Warcraft was, to address the original post, brilliant in taking things that other people disliked and streamlining them. It gathered a huge following of people who weren't necessarily gamers let along mmorpg players.
But its only brilliance is that it did what it set out to do and did it well. However, it did not ruin the genre (provided one doesn't like that type of game play). You can blame the other people in the industry for that because they followed when they could have led.
Equating something as going "mainstream/popular" does not make a good game. Seeing how many sheep can be fleeced out of money isn't my metric for what a great game is. WoW is the McDonalds of video games. Just because McDonalds feeds tens of millions of people per year doesn't mean I'm going to bypass a real hamburger restaurant for something that is more popular.
The hilarious title is the only thing that brought me to this thread. I can literally name hundreds of games better than WoW. But that list of games would be too challenging for anyone who loves WoW.
Vanilla WoW was pretty awesome, ranks in my top 5 fav MMO's of all time behind EQ, AC1, and DAOC. You hear a lot of salty EQ player comments because to this day, they are still angry that WoW knocked EQ off its throne a la Game of Thrones style. So while many would call WoW an EQ clone, I'd like to call vanilla WoW an EQ on steroids.
Vanilla WoW was more like EQ than people are willing to admit.
-Blizzard poached EQ players and turned them into head developers, they were charged to make a game that was like EQ, but with a modern twist.
-WoW launched in a seamless world, something EQ players only dreamed of.
-WoW was very much holy trinity, just like EQ, with your tank, healer, and dps with a side of cc.
-While character progression utilized a lot of quests for leveling, people would still grind mobs for loot drops (world epics included), and in later parts of lvl 40's you ran out of quests and had to grind on mobs. And to be clear there were open dungeons, not everything was instanced.
-They had hard dungeons such as upper BRS that required not one but three solid groups to complete. It utilized everything EQ was known for, from good crowd controls, to good split tanking, to yes sometimes creative kiting. If you messed up, you could wipe all your groups. Again, EQ on steroids.
-They even found a happy balance to death penalty. Rather than the old corpse drag, you had to wisp back to your corpse or pay a hefty fine with reduced stats & armor durability hit. So deaths did sting, and you couldn't rez zerg players or mobs because the more you died, the longer the rez timer, the quicker your armors broke.
-They embraced world PvP, Alliance vs Horde, remember it wasn't until Burning Crusades when Blizzard made people hold hands and shared the same hub. In vanilla WoW it was full on war, anywhere and everywhere, even inside cities if you were brave enough. PvP was never SOE's strong suit sadly.
-Even when instanced Battlegrounds were introduced, initially they were not something you did brainlessly or afk botted for points/badges. I remember there were a lot of Guild vs Guild in Warsong, one of the most heart pounding experiences ingame. And the old Alterac Valley was pretty epic, full on war that lasted hours and days.
-40 player raids, while it was nothing like EQ's 70+ it was still pretty massive and fun. Clearing Molten Core was quite an achievement because back then you *needed* resist gear. And when Blackwing Lair launched it slapped guilds silly and many guilds crumpled during early BWL days. So for people that called WoW easy, they never really tried these raids during the early vanilla WoW days.
-When vanilla WoW was introduced, they gave the genre the best, smooth, and most responsive combat controls & animations. Don't overlook this aspect, this was the "modern twist" they put on and improved from the early genre days. This was a big deal because all other MMO's had clunky EQ'esque combat animations and controls at the time. Us EQ players asked SOE to upgrade EQ's engine, graphics, and combat. But they went and created EQ2 instead, and EQ2 still wasn't technically superior. ==
Vanilla WoW was a great game, and this is coming from someone who started in EQ and loved EQ, AC, and DAOC. Vanilla WoW delivered an EQ on steroids with a modern twist, it was EQ players' wet dream for those that actually gave it a fair shake and didn't get hung up on the stylistic graphic style of the game.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
No, Vanilla was pretty bad if you look at it objectively. These days, nobody would dare to release a AAA MMO with so many flawed and user unfriendly features. It only started getting decent close to BC launch.
Well, it certainly wasn't bug free. I felt the UI wasn't clunky like many games that came before it. So that is a big plus in my mind.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
WoW was/is crap compare to EQ1. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
EQ1 was/is crap compared to WoW. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
See, I can be an asshole too
Not an asshole, just someone who has no idea what they are talking about. WoW was for clueless themepark noobs.
WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to MMORPG's. It brought MMORPG's down to the lowest common denominator.
No it didn't. The other development companies did that.
The World of Warcraft management didn't hire toughs to go into other studios and force them to adopt certain design decisions and didn't threaten anyone if they didn't comply.
They just made a game. And one that did a good job at what it originally was trying to do. A group of people saw design decisions that "they" did not like so they changed things to suit their tastes.
This brought in more people who probably would not have tried an MMO before World of Warcraft. I would bet that the game play of early Ultima or Everquest was NOT what the average person was looking to do.
But they were successful and other studios wanted the same success and they only have themselves to blame.
While I"m not a fan of World of Warcraft I did, at the time, like the quests as coming from Lineage 2 it was just grind, grind, grind. It was definitely a nice change. Who knew that "questing" (a word that I now associate with "bad" in these games) would turn into what it has today, a relay race of gathering up tasks, running to the glowy bit and running back.
So "yes" World of Warcraft was, to address the original post, brilliant in taking things that other people disliked and streamlining them. It gathered a huge following of people who weren't necessarily gamers let along mmorpg players.
But its only brilliance is that it did what it set out to do and did it well. However, it did not ruin the genre (provided one doesn't like that type of game play). You can blame the other people in the industry for that because they followed when they could have led.
Equating something as going "mainstream/popular" does not make a good game. Seeing how many sheep can be fleeced out of money isn't my metric for what a great game is. WoW is the McDonalds of video games. Just because McDonalds feeds tens of millions of people per year doesn't mean I'm going to bypass a real hamburger restaurant for something that is more popular.
The hilarious title is the only thing that brought me to this thread. I can literally name hundreds of games better than WoW. But that list of games would be too challenging for anyone who loves WoW.
I'm a white guy who eats in a different ethnic resteraunt every weekday of every week. One of my favourite sayings is, "if you want to eat good Chinese food, go to where the Chinese eat"
You know... Every once in a while... I go to Mcpukes and get me a Big Mac and do you know what? It tastes pretty good now and then.
I'm a firm believer in getting one's stick outta one's ass
WoW was/is crap compare to EQ1. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
EQ1 was/is crap compared to WoW. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
See, I can be an asshole too
Not an asshole, just someone who has no idea what they are talking about. WoW was for clueless themepark noobs.
WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to MMORPG's. It brought MMORPG's down to the lowest common denominator.
No it didn't. The other development companies did that.
The World of Warcraft management didn't hire toughs to go into other studios and force them to adopt certain design decisions and didn't threaten anyone if they didn't comply.
They just made a game. And one that did a good job at what it originally was trying to do. A group of people saw design decisions that "they" did not like so they changed things to suit their tastes.
This brought in more people who probably would not have tried an MMO before World of Warcraft. I would bet that the game play of early Ultima or Everquest was NOT what the average person was looking to do.
But they were successful and other studios wanted the same success and they only have themselves to blame.
While I"m not a fan of World of Warcraft I did, at the time, like the quests as coming from Lineage 2 it was just grind, grind, grind. It was definitely a nice change. Who knew that "questing" (a word that I now associate with "bad" in these games) would turn into what it has today, a relay race of gathering up tasks, running to the glowy bit and running back.
So "yes" World of Warcraft was, to address the original post, brilliant in taking things that other people disliked and streamlining them. It gathered a huge following of people who weren't necessarily gamers let along mmorpg players.
But its only brilliance is that it did what it set out to do and did it well. However, it did not ruin the genre (provided one doesn't like that type of game play). You can blame the other people in the industry for that because they followed when they could have led.
Equating something as going "mainstream/popular" does not make a good game. Seeing how many sheep can be fleeced out of money isn't my metric for what a great game is. WoW is the McDonalds of video games. Just because McDonalds feeds tens of millions of people per year doesn't mean I'm going to bypass a real hamburger restaurant for something that is more popular.
The hilarious title is the only thing that brought me to this thread. I can literally name hundreds of games better than WoW. But that list of games would be too challenging for anyone who loves WoW.
I'm a white guy who eats in a different ethnic resteraunt every weekday of every week. One of my favourite sayings is, "if you want to eat good Chinese food, go to where the Chinese eat"
You know... Every once in a while... I go to Mcpukes and get me a Big Mac and do you know what? It tastes pretty good now and then.
I'm a firm believer in getting one's stick outta one's ass
I feel that way about KFC. Every couple of years I get a hankering for some. Although, if I am going to a chain chicken joint, Popeyes is tastier. Making it at home is best!
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
WoW was/is crap compare to EQ1. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
EQ1 was/is crap compared to WoW. Having a huge number of mouth breathing followers does not a great game make.
See, I can be an asshole too
Not an asshole, just someone who has no idea what they are talking about. WoW was for clueless themepark noobs.
WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to MMORPG's. It brought MMORPG's down to the lowest common denominator.
No it didn't. The other development companies did that.
The World of Warcraft management didn't hire toughs to go into other studios and force them to adopt certain design decisions and didn't threaten anyone if they didn't comply.
They just made a game. And one that did a good job at what it originally was trying to do. A group of people saw design decisions that "they" did not like so they changed things to suit their tastes.
This brought in more people who probably would not have tried an MMO before World of Warcraft. I would bet that the game play of early Ultima or Everquest was NOT what the average person was looking to do.
But they were successful and other studios wanted the same success and they only have themselves to blame.
While I"m not a fan of World of Warcraft I did, at the time, like the quests as coming from Lineage 2 it was just grind, grind, grind. It was definitely a nice change. Who knew that "questing" (a word that I now associate with "bad" in these games) would turn into what it has today, a relay race of gathering up tasks, running to the glowy bit and running back.
So "yes" World of Warcraft was, to address the original post, brilliant in taking things that other people disliked and streamlining them. It gathered a huge following of people who weren't necessarily gamers let along mmorpg players.
But its only brilliance is that it did what it set out to do and did it well. However, it did not ruin the genre (provided one doesn't like that type of game play). You can blame the other people in the industry for that because they followed when they could have led.
Equating something as going "mainstream/popular" does not make a good game. Seeing how many sheep can be fleeced out of money isn't my metric for what a great game is. WoW is the McDonalds of video games. Just because McDonalds feeds tens of millions of people per year doesn't mean I'm going to bypass a real hamburger restaurant for something that is more popular.
The hilarious title is the only thing that brought me to this thread. I can literally name hundreds of games better than WoW. But that list of games would be too challenging for anyone who loves WoW.
I'm a white guy who eats in a different ethnic resteraunt every weekday of every week. One of my favourite sayings is, "if you want to eat good Chinese food, go to where the Chinese eat"
You know... Every once in a while... I go to Mcpukes and get me a Big Mac and do you know what? It tastes pretty good now and then.
I'm a firm believer in getting one's stick outta one's ass
I feel that way about KFC. Every couple of years I get a hankering for some. Although, if I am going to a chain chicken joint, Popeyes is tastier. Making it at home is best!
Comments
It's not like other games haven't reached more than that number of sales in a shorter amount of time in the single player realm. GTA5 topped 80 million units sold in 4 years. Super mario sold 40 million. So when comparing WOW to the video game industry as a whole, it hasn't made a dent against a lot of games in terms of players reached.
I'd also say that in terms of most brilliant, those are the designers that have done the most with the least. Things like Minecraft, Journey, etc... Games like WOW had a small army working on them comparatively.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
WOW took the good and discarded the junk and lazy designs. It was the perfect game design for that period of time.
WoW is the worst thing to ever happen to MMORPG's. It brought MMORPG's down to the lowest common denominator.
This is my impression.
I'm not knocking the early development but someone had to take the basic idea and run with it on a much larger scale.
What makes it a brilliant game is WoW took it to a huge scale on the first attempt. For the hard core EQ1 players the only thing missing for THEM is the lower difficulty setting. If they made it much harder, they would even agree.
Little did I know...
Vanilla was more fun because you could actually die. Most people who tried WoW quitted before level 10 hence the easy dificulty now. Those people who quitted was more fond of Warcraft 3 anyways.
Lowest. Common. Denominator.
You can have whatever opinion you want. But you don't have to insult people that like other things than you. But I know you're super edgy and a cool guy so I'm probably wasting my time with you.
The World of Warcraft management didn't hire toughs to go into other studios and force them to adopt certain design decisions and didn't threaten anyone if they didn't comply.
They just made a game. And one that did a good job at what it originally was trying to do. A group of people saw design decisions that "they" did not like so they changed things to suit their tastes.
This brought in more people who probably would not have tried an MMO before World of Warcraft. I would bet that the game play of early Ultima or Everquest was NOT what the average person was looking to do.
But they were successful and other studios wanted the same success and they only have themselves to blame.
While I"m not a fan of World of Warcraft I did, at the time, like the quests as coming from Lineage 2 it was just grind, grind, grind. It was definitely a nice change. Who knew that "questing" (a word that I now associate with "bad" in these games) would turn into what it has today, a relay race of gathering up tasks, running to the glowy bit and running back.
So "yes" World of Warcraft was, to address the original post, brilliant in taking things that other people disliked and streamlining them. It gathered a huge following of people who weren't necessarily gamers let along mmorpg players.
But its only brilliance is that it did what it set out to do and did it well. However, it did not ruin the genre (provided one doesn't like that type of game play). You can blame the other people in the industry for that because they followed when they could have led.
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
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
Anyway great post OP, Although i no longer play WOW you are right on the money
Aloha Mr Hand !
Its amazing how MMO from 2004 shoots every other MMO post or prior out of the water.
Seeing it from perspective of 2017 and death of MMOs age
I now see Its so good, I dont even understand how other games had guts to call themselves MMOs compared to wow ?
Wow is literally like Skyrim compared to pacman - when compared to other "so called" mmos
I don't really agree with the OP , but he kinda has a point when saying "When this game was being developed it didn't have many ideas to steel from". WoW was first announced in 2001 , meaning they had around 2 years working on it . So it means they started the development in 1999 or so. Sure, it was not like the 2004 version when they first started working on it , but it also doesn't mean that they copy the shit out of other games. I mean, what other games? EQ1 is a very different game from my point of view in terms of content , the way it plays , combat, gameplay , level design , etc. Did they took some ideas from? Sure , but the point remains : They did not created WoW around EQ1.
Props must be given to Blizzard for WoW , no matter that they copied some ideas from other games or not!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
The hilarious title is the only thing that brought me to this thread. I can literally name hundreds of games better than WoW. But that list of games would be too challenging for anyone who loves WoW.
Vanilla WoW was more like EQ than people are willing to admit.
-Blizzard poached EQ players and turned them into head developers, they were charged to make a game that was like EQ, but with a modern twist.
-WoW launched in a seamless world, something EQ players only dreamed of.
-WoW was very much holy trinity, just like EQ, with your tank, healer, and dps with a side of cc.
-While character progression utilized a lot of quests for leveling, people would still grind mobs for loot drops (world epics included), and in later parts of lvl 40's you ran out of quests and had to grind on mobs. And to be clear there were open dungeons, not everything was instanced.
-They had hard dungeons such as upper BRS that required not one but three solid groups to complete. It utilized everything EQ was known for, from good crowd controls, to good split tanking, to yes sometimes creative kiting. If you messed up, you could wipe all your groups. Again, EQ on steroids.
-They even found a happy balance to death penalty. Rather than the old corpse drag, you had to wisp back to your corpse or pay a hefty fine with reduced stats & armor durability hit. So deaths did sting, and you couldn't rez zerg players or mobs because the more you died, the longer the rez timer, the quicker your armors broke.
-They embraced world PvP, Alliance vs Horde, remember it wasn't until Burning Crusades when Blizzard made people hold hands and shared the same hub. In vanilla WoW it was full on war, anywhere and everywhere, even inside cities if you were brave enough. PvP was never SOE's strong suit sadly.
-Even when instanced Battlegrounds were introduced, initially they were not something you did brainlessly or afk botted for points/badges. I remember there were a lot of Guild vs Guild in Warsong, one of the most heart pounding experiences ingame. And the old Alterac Valley was pretty epic, full on war that lasted hours and days.
-40 player raids, while it was nothing like EQ's 70+ it was still pretty massive and fun. Clearing Molten Core was quite an achievement because back then you *needed* resist gear. And when Blackwing Lair launched it slapped guilds silly and many guilds crumpled during early BWL days. So for people that called WoW easy, they never really tried these raids during the early vanilla WoW days.
-When vanilla WoW was introduced, they gave the genre the best, smooth, and most responsive combat controls & animations. Don't overlook this aspect, this was the "modern twist" they put on and improved from the early genre days. This was a big deal because all other MMO's had clunky EQ'esque combat animations and controls at the time. Us EQ players asked SOE to upgrade EQ's engine, graphics, and combat. But they went and created EQ2 instead, and EQ2 still wasn't technically superior.
==
Vanilla WoW was a great game, and this is coming from someone who started in EQ and loved EQ, AC, and DAOC. Vanilla WoW delivered an EQ on steroids with a modern twist, it was EQ players' wet dream for those that actually gave it a fair shake and didn't get hung up on the stylistic graphic style of the game.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO
Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Well, it certainly wasn't bug free. I felt the UI wasn't clunky like many games that came before it. So that is a big plus in my mind.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
You know... Every once in a while... I go to Mcpukes and get me a Big Mac and do you know what? It tastes pretty good now and then.
I'm a firm believer in getting one's stick outta one's ass
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
But try to come out with a new game like WoW Vanilla and it would be "worse MMO 2k17".
The expectations are FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR higher.
I feel that way about KFC. Every couple of years I get a hankering for some. Although, if I am going to a chain chicken joint, Popeyes is tastier. Making it at home is best!
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"