General Discussion

I played WOW for a couple of months only, it wasnt my pair of shoes for some reasons. The longest time I spent in Eq2, SWG and CoH, so I am really no WOW fanboy.

The said, I am quite sure WOW is a hallmark of change in MMOs. I know there are those who say WOW is just casual and a children game, but I dont think that realistic analysis would really support this concept. WOW has however changed some concepts people thought that would be unchangable, concepts to which some hold like religious tenets, and they all come down to one idea: the idea that MMO playing necessarily is based upon creating time-sinks, and the longer a time-sink is the more "difficult" or "hardcore" a MMO is regarded.

Blizzard has revealed this is a misconception, and they streamlined their MMO by eradicating as many un-fun timesinks as possible wihtout making it a mere run-through. People often claim WOW is too casual because you can max level in this and that time-span. The problem of such a calculation is, if you are expert you *can* reach max level in a similar short time in ANY MMO. Its just no valid measure. A much more interesting measure which seperates pre-WOW to WOW-era MMOs is: how much time do you WAIT and do nothing or nothing which is fun.

One of the WOW devs once said, when asked how did they design WOW, he answered, they basically looked at EVERY single part and asked themselves if that was fun to do, and if the answer as No, it was out. The pre-WOW era MMOs are still full of such things most (potential) players regards as non-fun, because those pre-WOW devs often just are not able to think out of the box of the well trodden and known path. One example that stands for many: WOW popularized the quest symbol over an NPCs head. SInce WOW all other MMO started to adapt this. I recall when EQ2 started, it was without such symbols, and when WOW was so successfull, they adapted this, as did SWG and many other MMOs. Blizzard just took existing ideas, brought the best together and started to think out of the box.

If we understand how WOW defined "Second Gen" MMO, we may get an idea what would make a "Third Gen" MMO: they would have to improve existing concepts by thinking out of the box of the known. In that way attempts like Vanguard where destined to fail, because essentially VG tried to turn back the clock of progress WOW brought to pre-WOW. One idea which I see as GREAT potential of advancement is seen in LOTRO: here you dont just listen to a NPC telling you a story, you ARE INSIDE a story. Often those quests, especially the instanced ends of story-arcs make you part of a story going on around you. It really expands the static-world feeling which so add to the sterile feeling of MMO worlds (compared to single player RPGs). The option to make you part of a story and give you more the feeling to impact the game world is a potential still not fully used. The entire part of storytelling and events.

Another part I dont see funlly realized is the living world aspect. MMO worlds are still very stagnant and dont ever change. NPCs have their place and stand there every day and year of the game. They dont even have daily schedules or changes by the proceeding of some game-world history. I am sure that is difficult to implement, but the first to achieve this will have a good chance to dethrone WOW, I think. A part of making a living world is adding more than just combat professions, as the SWG entertainers did. Back in the old days, when there were many entertainers and all cantinas where full of bands and dances and gigs, and some player cities where really buzzing centres, it added a LOT of live to the game world, which entirely NPC driven worlds can never have. Insofar I am quite surprised why this sector of gaming never was used again. There are many ways how a post-WOW MMO gaming can be, however I dont see any of the current MMOs in the making really promise to be worthy of the title "Third Gen MMO" in the sense of making another big step ahead.

Ofcourse nothing against the people who like the game. I blame the people who complain and still paid for that world of shit.

Originally posted by Vincenz

Even worse, many "good games" that were being fully enjoyed by subscribers have been altered to systems and ideas to "WoW-ify" them in attempt to chase those kind of numbers.

That's the problem with huge success, people try and alter their original formula to cash in. Anyone recall the rash of surviver & American Idol knockoffs? I,m not a big fan of replication, perhaps that's why CoX is the only title I currently pay for.

Originally posted by Zarraa

 

Originally posted by Vincenz

Even worse, many "good games" that were being fully enjoyed by subscribers have been altered to systems and ideas to "WoW-ify" them in attempt to chase those kind of numbers.

Hence the only true problem I ever had with WOW. I enjoyed my time with that game and it was a welcome break from the more serious titles. However I went back to EQII and found they'd simplified it to compete.

 

That's the problem with huge success, people try and alter their original formula to cash in. Anyone recall the rash of surviver & American Idol knockoffs? I,m not a big fan of replication, perhaps that's why CoX is the only title I currently pay for.

CoX is wonderful, I absolutely love that game and miss it right now,

Originally posted by Timberwolf0

Greetings and salutations friends.

I write today to address a serious issue which I have found cropping up repeatedly on the mmorpg boards. Firstly, and in the interest of full disclosure, let me say that the first MMO I ever played was DAoC, and I have never played World of Warcraft. That said, I cannot understand the hatred and venom so many people here direct towards WoW players. It seems like most anyone who posts about wow or their past experiences in wow and how they relate to a current issue are immediately set upon and/or flamed.

This post is a call for understanding. We can't blame them if they started MMO's with WoW, indeed WoW popularized the whole MMO genre to a much greater degree and brought in more people to the market which means more money coming in and hopefully better games as a result. Don't blame people just because they started with WoW; it's mindlessly prejudiced to do so.

Everyone had that first MMO they played, whether it was Everquest, Anarchy Online, DAoC or something else, we all have that first mmo sitting in our pasts like an ex girlfriend or boyfriend, and inevitably we have all been heavily shaped by that first interaction. So please, the next time a person references wow or uses it, remember to be understanding.

But funny thing is there are more mmorpgs made in last few years copying LINEAGE2:p.

A lso alot of players who come here are oldtimers playing mmo's sinds 90's early 2000+ then suddenly there beloved mmorpg.com forum is invaded by all those new comers who mostly play wow and its there first mmorpg so topics make here are manytimes useless and very one sided the knowlage they have from only wow.

And as you of this moment today see 29 january 2008 alot of negative topics on general:(

Thats not looking positive for future.

If you start a topic with positive about mmorpgs like i did you mostly get flames lol.

Have fun:)

Some of the hatred towards WoW is simply because its a hugely successful game, which managed to get lots of different types of people together. Kinda like the Kumbaya of Games  lol.

A lot of other MMOs were niche: they generally only tailored to one side or another of a given market. So if you werent up on D and D lore, medieval lore, this lore, that lore; you didnt get it so you quit it. Most of these games had decent numbers for a little while, but most all tapered off as most people dont share those niches. The people on those games were constantly trying to convince people to sub their games because it was so "cool" and fun; but they didnt realize most people didnt think it was. Most people hated playing them after a bit and when they said so, they were somewhat dismissed as "good riddance". Somehow, a lot of these people ended up in WoW and never left.

Wow was also able to get and KEEP people brand new to MMOs, which a lot of mmos can't claim. Sure you have isolated posters saying, "Not me, i love Vanguard. I dont care how bad it is, go back and play WoW. I dont care who thinks this stinks" (Asian grinder fans a big example too). But they really would love more new players on their servers fawning over them. While these other games are merging servers, WoW was expanding and adding more. Thats gotta hurt when you think your niche love is so cool, yet very few people acknowledge it, or even HEARD of it.

WoW didnt need a niche. So their numbers grow. You dont have to like or even understand elves and dwarves to play WoW. Just log on and get to it. Theres no real "Lore nerds" of a certain type to feel inferior to. In WoW, every can be fairly equal which some people secretly hate.

Originally posted by Zarraa

 

Originally posted by Vincenz

Even worse, many "good games" that were being fully enjoyed by subscribers have been altered to systems and ideas to "WoW-ify" them in attempt to chase those kind of numbers.

Hence the only true problem I ever had with WOW. I enjoyed my time with that game and it was a welcome break from the more serious titles. However I went back to EQII and found they'd simplified it to compete.

 

That's the problem with huge success, people try and alter their original formula to cash in. Anyone recall the rash of surviver & American Idol knockoffs? I,m not a big fan of replication, perhaps that's why CoX is the only title I currently pay for.

I understand this sentiment, however it should be noted that your anger should be directed toward SoE and EQII for changing their software to compete rather than at Blizzard, WoW or it's players for it's success.

I totally agree with what almost everyone is saying so far.

In my opinion, WoW has done nothing in their game that has not been done already except get huge numbers of people playing it.  We can debate why they have had that kind of sucess, but It is not really that important. What is important is how other games are being effected by WoW. I totally agree with the poster that said that WoW has turned the entire genre backwards.  To me the game was nothing but a new Everquest with instanced PvP. Everquest was the ultimate rading and item centric game.  We are never going to get away from the status quo in MMORPGS if companies only try to copy WoW to get the huge numbers.

Also, It does not help having a ton of hate posts from WoW players all across the message boards either. I have never seen such garabe comming from these players in my life.  Take into effect that I started playing MUDS in the late 90's and have played every big release game since then. I know these are only a small portion of players, but it really turns a lot of people off to the game and the players. Whether that is right or wrong or not, It is a fact of life.

I honestly hope that we can move away from all of this in the next couple of years. We need some really good games to come out that are sucessful for this to happen. If that does not happen, we are going to get a ton of games that are crap and be the same thing that I played from 1999 to 2002.