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Nicoli
 Advanced Member
Joined: 8/14/06
Nicoli Voldkif |
Originally posted by grimfall So now you can not even play with your friends if you different level but now you have problems if your even in different sections of the same story arc... how is this good? I see this as more of a step backwards into further making the MMORPG everything but MMO. |
Originally posted by brostyn
They've been the leader, since 2004. Where have you been? Love it or hate WoW has influenced every major MMO since its release. Its made two games that game out prior to WoW do complete makeovers(SWG and EQ2). If that's not being a leader I don't know what is.
Blizzard isn't making other devs create carbon copies. Blizz has done tons for the genre. Its brought a huge amount of interest to MMOs. That is a good thing. EA, SOE, Turbine are the ones to blame for trying to create a WoW clone not Blizzard.
WoW has influenced every game, true; but you can say the same thing about every other major MMO out there. You don't think the choices Funcom made with AoC or Mythic with Warhammer or even NCSoft with TR made doesn't influence future developers?
Blizz has brought the MMO to the mainstream, true. But that sword is double-edged...it has also sacrificed a lot in the genre. Because of it's mammoth stature, few and fewer games are trying to work out of their model..a model which many, including myself, believe to be a watered down version of MMOs before it. Yes, their product is polished, and yes they have players, but if you honestly believe WoW is the BEST mmo out there ever produced than I would argue that you haven't been around the genre long enough to remember those preceding it...for the money, I would argure that EQ, in it's initial inception, was a better game than WoW. I don't mean to bash the OP, but his profile says he's 18..now if that's true, then most likely than not, this is his first MMO and, despite how wonderful that may be for him, he came into the genre at a late time. There have been more than six years of MMOs before that...A LOT has changed, some for the better, some for the worse...
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Originally posted by grimal Wow. It's like your arguing McDonalds is leading the way because they have a dollar menu....
Commercial success /= great game. Yup you are correct. It is a great game. It's probably one of the better games out now. ================================================== |
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Originally posted by Nicoli So now you can not even play with your friends if you different level but now you have problems if your even in different sections of the same story arc... how is this good? I see this as more of a step backwards into further making the MMORPG everything but MMO.
It all depends how it is implemented and when. It sure fixes the dreaded "same old world" feeling. And in good hands it could be a revolution. That's the discussion we"re having. Also don't expect the dreadfull AoC instancing. That has nothing to do with it. Players still talk and see each other (mostly :) ), they just are on different tracks. I think this technique could be applied for in complete worlds to explore. Therefore I think Blizzard next MMO is space oriented. Just guessing here. But phasing in these kind of MMO's would be a blast. "Recce missions" for example or planets that change after being hit by a rocket attack. In 5 years time all MMORPG's will have big elements of phasing techniques, I am sure of that. |
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10 years actually. We are in 2008, almost 2009. By all standard WoW is now an old game. They might have been leading the industry because of the simplicity of the game, the fact remain that the game is nothing new and simply taking ideas from place to place then fitting it in their game. Experienced and Veterans in the MMO genre doesn't want it anymore, new gamers like it. Thats how it work but WoW was never the first and will not be the last either. And saying Blizzard is not responsible for the Cloning we see all around well then again, look at it the other way. This world is lead by money, before WoW, people based themselves on EQ, AC and AO mainly. They tried to reproduce those success then went from there. Then WoW came, it took ideas from all around, made a game, tried to improve a small bit on a few idea that weren't dangerous to play with, added a popular brand name to it and then launched it. That was in all aspect a perfect scenario for a game. They already had the fan base to support it. They had the franchise to get people in and they were there at the moment when Fantasy style wasn't giving nausea to most of the MMO players. It had it's current success then built from there. Quite normal too as it is something easy to learn and come into BUT thats that. They got the new players but the major part of the MMO population from before didn't like it after a few months to a year and left it. Thus was created the monster earning money for blizzard and keeping them alive. And thus was why other companies tried to clone it. Why not after all, everyone wants more money in their pocket and money runs our current society. It is blizzard fault that what they did is destroying the MMO genre. It is the overall MMO population (I'm including every single of you in there. If you are on a MMO, you are part of this:P ) that made it as such as fewer and fewer companies want to experiement and try to make the genre evolve. So after all, who's to blame, both us and blizzard. |
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Originally posted by Artaryl What this has to do with the topic I really don't know... There was rock 'n roll before Elvis, but Elvis was the first one to sell millions of records. So Elvis - for most - is the King of Rock 'n Roll. So who is King of MMO's? - for most ? Having an opinion is no problem, but ignoring the further developments and not even knowing what is being offered ... and STILL want to be recognised as an opinion leader, because you knew once Bill Haley, well that's tough. Without Blizzard your industry leader would still be EQ2 or worse. I do certainly think even this very website owns everything to the only PC game maker that also makes an MMORPG. All the rest in the MMORPG field couldn't even put out a decent PC game. So who is to blame?
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Originally posted by IceAge
Wrong. Tell me a game from Blizzard that has not been a hit. Blizzard isn't just "another company". From my point of view there is : Blizzard and others ...
Exactly. Blizzard gave us some of the first Player On Player action with Warcraft 1, Be it only Dailing up to your friends computer. Blizzard has made and broken nearly every benchmark of Online Gaming. There is no other 4 companies that could combine to accomplish what blizzard has, and its by far and away the most wealth game developer. I SAID DEVELOPER. EA might have more money, but they arn't the same kind of company. EA makes a killing from its console sales. [img=http://www.fatesend.com/images/psysig.jpg][/img] |
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I don't see whats so amazing about it tbh, if I am understanding correctly all it's doing is displaying slightly different graphics or npcs's on your screen depending on the circumstances. So what? That's not exactly very hard or revolutionary. It's a bit of a cheap thrill really. |
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Originally posted by Nicoli
Yep, it's the single-playerization of MMOs, in the name of "story". A really bad direction, really. MMOs, imo, need to move more in the direction of player impact on the world as a whole, not some instanced personal ghetto version of the world. That's nothing more than a cheap trick, really, and a way to sidestep the fact that in themepark MMOs, the players' actions have no real impact on the gameworld in any enduring sense. The "story" of MMOs should be the story the players write. In this sense, CCP has it right: give the players tools to write their own legends, and then you don't need to single-playerize your game, instead you can let people write their own reputation and legend in the game. Most players aren't up to that, and certainly not WoWheads, the lowest form of MMO player. But *that's* the power of the genre. Why the hell should the genre be moving in the direction of single player games? Even with baby steps like Blizzard's phasing, storytelling in MMORPGs sucks compared to SP RPGs and always will. Moving the genre in that direction is playing to a weakness. Instead, designers should play to the natural strengths of the genre -- not separating people on the basis of where they are in the "story", but empowering players to write their own legend in the gameworld, because you can't really do that in an SP game (well, at least there is noone around to notice). Yet again another example of Blizzard taking the genre in the wrong direction. So many ways they have done this it makes the blood boil to be honest. But there will be at least some of us who will resist, because we know better. ---------------------------------------- |
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Originally posted by Novaseeker
I agree. |
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Well not exactly replying to you but oh well. Without Blizzard you would have had a lot of happy players with a certain game. I don't even NEED to name that one. Don't go that way please. As for industry leader, it was never EQ2 at that point. If you had want to go that way, NCSoft was owning most of the market with Lieange 2 at that time. And today, well thats too many IF to be worth commenting really. There could have been an awesome game with lots of real new feature that could have seen the day but we will never know that because we cannot rewrite time. I'll also comment on your lack of information and experience in the MMOG field. There was and will always be decent games beside what Blizzard make. And there will be the good, great and awesome game as well but thats all up to the person that play it and none other. Taste is really up to each individual. |
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The way I see it WoW is more of a standard than anything else. When someone completely unrelated to MMOs thinks "MMORPG" they think of WoW. The genre has almost reached the point where MMOs are unconsciously rated as "better than WoW" or "Worse than WoW" before any other comment is made. Whether being "better than WoW" is a great or insignificant accomplishment is, of course, debatable. If WoW is your very first MMO than you probably think that there exist no games in the "Better" category, and if WoW is, say, your sixth, there are probably little or no games in the "Worse" section. Whether WoW is good or not, it is so prominent that its status as "Standard" cannot be denied. It is irrelevant whether the "standard" MMO that preceded it was better; what matters is amount of people playing it. ...
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You know, I thought up the idea for this post around 15 minutes ago. Five minutes later I sat down and started writing. Two minutes later I started watching TV; now here I am and I have totally forgotten where on Earth I was going with this. Oh well. I guess my point was that WoW has basically reached the point where it is now a unit of messurement for the quality of an MMORPG. It is not the best, and it's not the worst. All other MMORPGs are now ether "Better" or "Worse" than it. As for WoW itself, it is somewhere in the middle of that scale called Goodness versus Badness, with people debating just how close to one end of the spectrum or the other it is; the only people who really say it is the "best" are those who have ether only ever played WoW or have only played considerably bad MMORPGs beside it. |
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Originally posted by Artaryl
Definitely this. The main issue now is that the mass market tends to think to itself "Well, if they don't have 1m subs at least, they suck and they are a failure of a game, and I would be embarrassed to admit playing such a loser game". WoW skewed the meaning of success, which is not irrelevant because MMOs do depend on a certain pop level. Even though that pop level is not even close to a million (imo it's more like 100k-200k), once you've set 1m as the benchmark in people's heads, you'll have that much more difficulty sustaining 100k. It's another lovely gift to the MMORPG community from Blizzard. ---------------------------------------- |
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ahhh nothing like reading some true haters hate. To the OP, it's good stuff and makes for some nice game play. i.e the DK starting zone, and I dare say blizz will work well with it. Blizzard have IMO blown Mythic and a few others out of the water with WotLK. I quit WAR after it become devoid of players and devoid of any reason to exist. To the few hate filled bile spewers, ~~in no order~~Anarchy Online, Neocron, EQ2, Lineage2, CoH, CoV, Guild Wars+, DAoC, SWG(+NGE), Starpeace, Second life, Saga Ryzom, Planetside, Auto Assault, Eve-Online, WW2O, DDO, MxO, WoW, VSoH, LOTRO, RF-online, Cabal, Fury BETA,SotNW,TR,PotBS,LOTRO,AoC,WAR,GalaxyOnline, Darkfall |
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Originally posted by Novaseeker
Definitely this. The main issue now is that the mass market tends to think to itself "Well, if they don't have 1m subs at least, they suck and they are a failure of a game, and I would be embarrassed to admit playing such a loser game". WoW skewed the meaning of success, which is not irrelevant because MMOs do depend on a certain pop level. Even though that pop level is not even close to a million (imo it's more like 100k-200k), once you've set 1m as the benchmark in people's heads, you'll have that much more difficulty sustaining 100k. It's another lovely gift to the MMORPG community from Blizzard.
So what are you saying? That Blizzard shouldn't shoot for financial success because other games will suffer? Blizzard should be shooting to be as financially successful as possible, and especially that they are now publicly traded. Blizzard is successful because they did what they did well and they marketed the heck out of it. And regardless of what the kids out there think about what is success or not, people are going to play games that are interesting. Look how many boxes AoC and Warhammer sold. Now, whether or not those games have what it takes to keep subscriptions, well, that is another thing. if companies want to compete they are going to have to make great games that are relatively bug free and market them well. Look at a game like LOTRO. It's done very well (whether people like it or not is up to their taste) and doesn't have near as many subs as 1 million from what I can see. they are successful because they can maintain a quality product (within reason) and can maintain enough subs to keep servers open. Quite franly, Blizzard did quite a good job as they made online gaming "somewhat" mainstream. Because let's face it, mention you played those early games to non-gaming people didn't really win you any respect points. Heck, even now I get people rolling their eyes when I say I play an online game. It's going to be a long hard road for game companies because they need to really come to grips with the product they are creating and what it really is going to take in order to be successful. |
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 Seriously. An MMO needs to be made with very, very small servers and a development team devoted to each server. Each team will take statistics on quests, PvP killings, and quest completions, as well as other input from the players, and adapt the game world of that particular server to what the players have been doing. Of course it's a complete impossibility right now, but as soon as we reach that point, the industry will have finally created a game where the players truly impact their player world. The closest thing we could come to right now would probably be 2D. The closest thing I've ever seen was Wurm Online (though it did not feature my development-team-per-server idea), and they got rid of levels, quests, and all romanticism involved; the game is essentially the closest you can come to playing an NPC. |
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Originally posted by Sovrath
No, what I am saying is the following. Everyone wants to play a game that is, to a certain degree, "successful", because everyone dreads playing a game that is "dead" and devoid of other players. Blizzard moved the line of "successful" (in the perception of the market, the press, the players) to a level not really attainable by most other games. Of course Blizzard is just doing the best it can, and it's not a criticism of them, but the impact of it has been crap on the rest of the MMORPG market. It's not a case of other companies doing what they need to do to be successful, in terms of being as successful as WoW, because WoW is an anomaly. The market should never be judged by the performance of an anomaly, but alas this is what is happening in the MMO market and it stifles the development of other games. WoW has killed the market. There IS no market, there is only WoW and handful of other games with "small populations" -- in the eyes of the mass market and the press. It sucks. ---------------------------------------- |
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Originally posted by nikoliath I'll agree here - trying to out-WoW WoW is a recipe for failure - the standards are simply unreasonable (both from a gameplay and a market perspective) to go head to head with the company that makes the best MMO of it's type. But, for the post earlier that said WoW is old. MMOs have a lifespan more akin to the old pen-and-paper RPGs than modern video games - they don't get old, unless the dev stops supporting them. That said, any new MMO needs to target a specific niche and give it something it can't get from WoW or some other MMO. <unsubstantiated opinion> There's a reason games like EQ2, DDO, EvE, LOTRO are all considered 'successes' even though none of them have more than a million subs - they've managed to do what WoW hasn't and built a *loyal* customer base - they don't get nearly as many new people in their games but of the people that come and stay, they tend to stay for a long time. I think that's the direction new games need to take if they want to be successful. And since they're not aiming at the mainstream, they don't have a community-given madate to have bazillions of subs or be considered a failure. Back on topic - like I said earlier I'm sure phasing is great but it's not something I've noticed being taken in the larger community as an incentive to either go back or try WoW - it even goes *counter* to what many people want in an MMO. But MMOs are not Lord of the RIngs - there is not One MMO to Rule Them All. We need more unique games that cater to people's interests, not more mass market crap that tries to appeal to everyone and fails. A game that knows it's audiance and caters to it will succeed. A game that tries to be all things to all people will fail.  |
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Originally posted by Novaseeker
No, what I am saying is the following. Everyone wants to play a game that is, to a certain degree, "successful", because everyone dreads playing a game that is "dead" and devoid of other players. Blizzard moved the line of "successful" (in the perception of the market, the press, the players) to a level not really attainable by most other games. Of course Blizzard is just doing the best it can, and it's not a criticism of them, but the impact of it has been crap on the rest of the MMORPG market. It's not a case of other companies doing what they need to do to be successful, in terms of being as successful as WoW, because WoW is an anomaly. The market should never be judged by the performance of an anomaly, but alas this is what is happening in the MMO market and it stifles the development of other games. WoW has killed the market. There IS no market, there is only WoW and handful of other games with "small populations" -- in the eyes of the mass market and the press. It sucks.
Hmmm... well, it's hard to really disagree with you because quite frankly you are spot on in much of that. you are correct that Blizzard moved the line. Is it unattainable by other games? Well... "maybe". When AoC came out many bought it. Same with Warhammer. Not just because it was AoC or Warhammer but because people wanted to play something a bit different. Even some Blizzard rep admitted that they had a bit of a dip when Warhammer debuted. So it is possible to draw away player base from WoW. Now, I'm not saying that this should be the aim of a game company but it can be heartening to know that with the right game idea or IP you can get people to play your game. However, because of flaws they just couldn't really bring it on home. Now, you are again correct in saying that one should never judge a something by judging an anomaly within the genre you are ... er... "judging". And bravo for you that you know this as many people don't quite understand. WoW is not for gamers. Oh sure gamers play it and gamers judge it, compare it, etc but WoW was able to reach out to all the "other" people out there and thus make gaming a bit more digestable. Many gamers don't really understand that. They keep talking about WoW killers and when will Wow fall but the reality is that WoW is beyond such things simply because it IS an anomaly. However, even though you do point out that people don't want to play a seemingly "failed" game because it hasn't attained WoW numbers, many still will play them as is evidenced by the AoC and Warhammer inital sales. Game companies can still be successful with online games but they need to learn the hard lesson why such games as AoC and Warhammer "failed" (and no they are not failures as games but more failures with first month issues). Both of them are fun, both of them have great things to offer. However, the issue with RvR pretty much invited unwanted lemons to the caserole for Warhammer. And all the buggy issues with Conan as well as what might be conceived as unfulfilled promises for the pvp did Conan in. Had they been able to hone in on what it was the players expected and needed they might have been able to withstand all the negative criticism. I love the Warhammer scenarios and had more fun playing them than I've had in a long time in a pvp game. But unfortunatly the RvR wasn't as successful as was hoped and suddenly there is a bit of a mess. I loved the Conan world but when you click on NPC's and find a messy interface, layout issues, bugs and a host of other oddities it's hard to to really keep with a game. And then you bring gamers into it and forget it. If it's not to the "T" what they expected you get 50 thousand posts of "why I quite 'x'hammer the Barbarian" I still believe games can be successful (ie LOTRO) and with word of mouth they can maintain their success. I mean, regular people don't really follow forums because, well... they have better things to do. There, I've said it. But they now are turned on to online gaming and might be more apt to try a new game provided it's not a buggy mess and delivers on the main thrust of what it has to offer. Because, I hate to say it, only kids or people with self esteem issues (oh boy this is so going to get me in trouble!) really care about whether or not everyone is playing the game they want to play. Most people that I know operate on the "hey, it's interesting to me so I might as well see/try it" philosophy. So sure, WoW has skewed the curve in the history class but you are still going to find games that will be able to thrive and draw loyal playerbases. |
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phasing? phasing you say? the only phasing that has stuck in my mind is the larger scale "phasing" that i experienced...
man i can't wait to get to 60
at this, this is kinda fun...oh an xpac
wth, all my stuff is trash..o well, let me get to 70, then i'll rock
yay, i am 70..cool, no this sux...i need rep and gear
sweet i got a zillion rep for that one item...oh, but now i need honor
7,000,000 battlegrounds later,,,nice now i stand a chance in arena..o wait
I'm not the right class....at least i can get some arnea gear
nice! what? next season...hmmm, more honor grinding
darn this sux, maybe some PvE....1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1
lame |
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andeemann10
 Novice Member
Joined: 8/13/06
To learn how to use a sword, one must first master when to use a sword. |
So Blizzard is making their MMO even more like a single player game? Awesome. I don't know much about "phasing", so maybe Blizzard is innovating "phasing". In this situation, it would be the first time in the entire history of Blizzard that they were innovative with anything. ------------------------------ |
Originally posted by strategy
Well Blizzard did make over a billion dollars last year in subscriptions alone, they should able to do at least something right with that fucking amount of money. Tell you what give a billion dollars to just about any developer and i bet they can do just as good if not better then Blizzard did with this expansion. Thin air, well that would be a expansion with no new races and only 25 levels of 1 new class after 4 years. guess they must be sending all thier time balancing PvP. |
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Can someone explain to me...I feel like I'm missing something. Is WoW still an MMO? I got lost somewhere between using instancing to diminish player interaction and using phasing to diminish player interaction. |
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Originally posted by makervsm
Why should anyone explain to you if WoW is still an MMO? From what you`ve type, you are not interested in WoW .. On Topic : I`ve read some comments stating that Blizzard had an negative impact in MMO games because of WoW. Why ? It's like saying that you want an Daewoo car or something like that, all your life. Why do you want a car like that when someone could come and bring you on the table an BMW or even a Porsche at the same price? ( if this was the case like in MMO's monthly plan). Don't know about you, but I am glad that Blizzard has taken the MMO games to a higer lvl, because now .. when other companys want to create a game , they need to think twice before releasing it, if it's polished , if it has good contents and so on. Hence , the big next test for Blizzard is with their new mmo curently in development. Hope for a SC MMo with options to walk/fight on planets and in space ;) |
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Originally posted by timmyjames
So play something else. Many people enjoy the constant striving to make the character better. Many games work this way. hmmm here is something that might explain it "sort of". You'll have to watch it for a bit but it's kind of funny and I'm sure many of you know this guy... http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/9-Tabula-Rasa |
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