Is it me or do Korean MMOs always get the same wrap and look? They are all very unpolished (outside of Lineage), usually based around tons of PvP and all require ultimate grinding. It seems this makes it hard for success in America with long and dreadful voyages to max level. I remember Lineage II, rarely ever seeing level 75 people, and right now on Solus on RF Online, no one has hit 55, yet. It just reminds me so much of how Korean MMOs tend to be.
I'm not surprised and I don't wish them to change. Americans are so impatient, and Korean MMOs just glorify this. I love meeting people on these MMOs, they are usually very skillful, and people are extremely helpful in these games, if not because they are genuinely nice, they just want the game to keep going and not have the servers canceled. Ganking happens a lot in these games, but that's all in good fun. MMOs aren't the same without ganking.. however, that's a different rant.
World of Warcraft assumed its popularity because of America. To level from 1 to 60 at release in WoW was so trivial, that it took no time pretty much for hardcore and casual gamers alike. You felt like you could accomplish things quite easily and the feats weren't hard. From 5-man instances to 40-man raids, you always felt like something was getting done. PvP was easily done and was extremely fun. There was no major grinding day in and day out. No need for it, unless you badly needed the cash, which brought in a fundamental American trait. If you put in a lot of work, you want a lot of return. Other cultures don't always see it this way, and the impatient way of Americans may be what made WoW skyrocket to the top of MMO records.
Blizzard has a done a great job keeping it up and keeping casual players involved and hardcore players happy. It's really amazing seeing them do such a great job. I truly am impressed with the job they have done. I can remember the kids saying, "Warcraft is way too hyped, it will fail, it is not an MMO title" like it was yesterday. Ha, brings back good memories.
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Very good article. I remember days when they done the same thing with Starcraft, I guess Blizzard just know how to do it.
Actually I think that people do not give Blizzard credit where credit is due. People may have a right to complain about customer service and the like but don't ever complain about Blizzard putting out a crappy game. Thier record is true and true with games like the regular Warcraft series, WoW, and SC. If I remember right, when Bliz put out WoW there were very little problems compared to other MMORPG's of the genre. Thier R&D is excellent giving people what they want...or at least trying to without unbalancing the game. The peeps working at Bliz are the best we have peeps. I hope they keep up the good work and the Blizzard employee recruiters don't stop giving us quality people working there.
I'm not exactly sure what patience has to do about playing a game. Its a game. Its suppose to be about fun, not sitting around on your bum. I need patience with my son, or that idiot behind the McDonald's counter, or at sitting at the DR's office. I don't need patience while playing a game. I play to relax, not grind my teeth in frustration, and wonder when the devs will pull their heads out of their asses.
I also don't see how expecting a business to do things right is wrong. If you order pizza, and its gets there cold, with the wrong toppings on it, or it never even shows up don't you complain?
I wonder about some of these gamers.
Typical US arrogance to claim Americans are sole reason for World of Warcraft's success. No wander it's the most hated nation in the World. (of Warcraft)
Wow, way to stereotype every single person in America. Saying "Americans are impatient" is just ignorant. Also, how do KOREAN games "glorify" your supposed American Impatience? Another ignorant comment in an ignorant article.
Also, Xen - waht country are you from? Maybe American should pull the BILLIONS of aid they send around the world each year. Maybe then people will realize the good American does. Don't base your world view on what biased media outlets tell you.
TesterNGS
Haven't they done that already to compensate for the TRILLIONS they've spent on that pathetic and useless war? Oh wait, no, they just print more money and cause inflation. No problem there.
Pathetic and useless war? You have no fucking idea how many people we helped there. Now females there are actualy getting education and not have to worry about getting killed or raped yu dumb mother fucker. I am in the fucking army so dont tell me im wrong you piece of shit.
If patience is ability to mindlessly press the exact same button for 10....0 hours then, I agree, WoW and Guild Wars(especially) are for the impatient crowd compared to Korean mmos. To be honest this actually raised my opinion about Americans, of course there is always Bush getting reelected.. Anyway Korean mmos are based around timesinks, unlike a game like GW which is based around story. I won't comment on wow since I never really played it mostly because I though it had too many timesinks(I changed my opinion after RF).
I agree with SiDima. A game is not supposed to be a chore.
If this was true why isnt LOTRO destroying WoW in subs/popularity. Getting from 1-50 in LOTRO is 10x faster than WoW. The game is 5x easier (believe it or not) and even people who can only play 3-5 hours a WEEK are starting to hit max level. What WoW did (and its not a good thing imo) is bring in a ton of new players to the market. Since then every game has become a cakewalk. I want more games like EQ/AC where years after release no one has hit max level....the diffrence is the EQ's and AC's of the world took time to develope content that never made you feel left out. Regardless of your level there was always something to do and other people to do it with. That has nothing to do with the grind but rather game desighn and gameplay. WoW simplified things so any retarted monkey could play regardless of being an American or otherwise.
KOREAN = F2P mmos = Grindfest = a bit risky to earn money, (but usualy works)
US = P2P mmos = no grindfest = U$39 for the box and go away if you didn't like
The MMO Companies are not ORGs, they want to make money, they don't care about the impatient of americans.
And... Korean MMOs don't have the same wrap and look. 80% of good Korean MMO don't leave Asia, and you have to wait 3-4 years to play them
hehe... I liked this article. Yes, Warcrack caters to Americans impatience with their nearly grind-free leveling.
Unless... youre waiting on them to release an xpack, then your patience will be tested. xD
I agree with skuba though, the only MMOs that leave Korea are the ones that aren't quite as popular anymore. All the good ones you have to learn Korean and get yourself a fake Korean Social number or whatever they call it over there... had to do that on some Nexon game that I cant remember the name of now. >.>
I didn't say it to mean every American.. I am American myself, and hardly see myself as impatient. Most Americans however are impatient and stereotypes exist for a reason. If every person was the same, other MMOs wouldn't exist in America. Thanks for the input, though.
Also, I'm not claiming it is because of Americans that WoW is so successful, but it was released here first, and had it not been so popular in America would it have been released or even supported?
Also, I'm not claiming it is because of Americans that WoW is so successful, but it was released here first, and had it not been so popular in America would it have been released or even supported?
Its really not about patience at all. I think its really about time consumption. I work 12 hour days so when i get home i get to play for 2-5 hours a nite. I played lineage and RF online I had to stop with in a month because I didnt wanna sit there for 1 month doing the same thing over and over there was no other option. When i was playing wow i can spend 2 hours in pvp at any lvl and still have fun and have time to maybe get a couple of quest. Even at Maxed lvl it was still fun as the first day i played it because it doesnt consume my whole night fighting sitting fighting sitting type of atmosphere.
So you call it not having patience, I call it chosing to have fun.
In my opinion, WoW's success is because of easy to start and easy to play game design, and yet difficulty and fun are well-balanced.
The story and gameplay is not very impressive nor innovative to me.
I am not a fan for character level system games, and Korean's endless level grinding RPG is just BORING when it takes countless hours to grind to top level.
Beside easy to play element, low system requirement and yet deliver decent 3D world environment is another Blizzard's success. Although the shooting through wall physic glitch sucks, most people still enjoy a full 3D MMO world without having to pay a bloody fortune to get a new system like Vanguard: Sage of Heroes.
The auction house is another success. Players can post whatever they want to sell on this virtual market, and they don't have to be in the game to sell it, also the caterogized section, search, and sorting function in auction house doesn't seem a biggy, but it makes finding items so much easier for players and many games overlooked these functions. Remember how difficult to find another players to trade what you want in the old days in diablo 2, and other games... ?
The most success, I will say is the battleground. It makes PvP so easy to find, and you don't lose anything, you just gain less reward if you lose the battle. Also you can join in as a group and use other voice chat application to communicate which will beat the other side easier.
Having a centralized faction VS faction arena help players to enjoy PvP instantly. There are some SoB PK low level players in PvP server, tons of lv 19 / 29 twink rogue makes the battleground not fun in low level, some unbalance between classes, but these still doesn't stop the fun that brings to the players from easy to join PvP arena and won't lose anything during PvP. This positive gain PvP system is what most people want. Everyone can fight, but won't lose, how cool is that...
If you just enjoy storyline, you can still have lots of fun from the long and rich Warcraft PvE story.
WoW is NOT the best game out there, but easy to play, and balanced fun and difficulty attract lots of easy mode players, kids, entry level gamers, and people who just want to enjoy some fun without investing much time. And that makes World of Warcraft not only a the biggest MMO game in the game industry,... It Is A Phenomenon.
Very interesting, though no comments on that. :p
Anyway, if you check out MMOs locally hosted here in South-East Asia, you'll find that players can easily race to the max level. I'm surprised no one reached max level in RF Online there yet.
I use to be a WOW player and I'm an American. I'm not sure where this article gets there information concerning the number of Americans and WOW but I noticed most of the players I played with were from around the world. Politics was never mentioned and we all had fun. The game has a good story line and its easy to follow. There is so much to do and see that I believe this is what draws the masses. I've tried several Korean games and found them lacking in storyline or character selection. I really don't care where the game come from but what I can get from it. Also most gamers are 14-24 and male and I think all of us agree in any country most are impatient. I hope most players will do what I do and leave your politics and your religion where it belongs and that is off the playing field and out of my games. If I need your opion about my culture or my religion I'll watch the news...Thanks....and have fun gaming all!!!
hope blizzard comes with a new fantasy mmo some day, i really liked wow but im not a huge fan of those science-fiction things like starcraft, starwars, eve and all that other stuff.
definately off on the impatient part :P and i second the what Daknin said :)
most korean games are grind fest because that's what most of them like as far as gaming goes. I consider it being more "simple minded". But us americans like freedom and variety. because we are use to that sort of thing. Plus we are also used to quality vise quantity. Thus we expect that. Blizzard is one of those few companies that understands what good quality is. The reason you see so many grind fest games from korea and other asian countries is due to how easy they are to make. its not that hard to get your hands on a game engine that they use to make their games. most of them are probably in developement a year or two at most. some may add some new elements the last few haven't but for the most part they are very simple by nature. on occasion you do get a better than your usual one like Lineage 2 or Silkroad.
What's going to be funny is when Bioware brings out their first title... because they are a company that has always put out quality games. And most likely they will be just as good or even better than Blizzard, because of how gripping the storylines are from Bioware games. I'm one of those that doesn't matter if a game has PVP or not. I only truly enjoy PVP when there is a purpose to it. Because i just don't get off on harrassing people for the hell of it, unless its something like Unreal Tournament 3 etc. Probably why i enjoy Guild Wars so much... Which of course that game was developed by ex-blizzard employees. and considering all the cenamatics and story lines, its seems like a good number of their "A team" list people worked on Guild Wars. In many ways Guild Wars seems more like what I expected from Warcraft than what WoW is. I just wished the battlegrounds for GW was a bit more to it than it is. But of course to each is their own.
just my 2c
I in no way shape or form said every American is impatient. Nor did I say every korean or european is the same. This game was first released in America, and instead of making the game like EQ and every other MMORPG, they changed it up.
Blizzard brought about some stunning changes, had it been released in Europe, without the great interface and easy leveling/questing or especially Korea, it would have seen good success. The fact is though, World of Warcraft would not be where it is today without North America.
If you think otherwise, then go look at some numbers.
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