Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

People will never leave Wow. Just like some will never leave EQ.

10 million people will not give up 4 years of sole crushing grind and "Uber loot" that took months of their life to get using said grind. Most do not like the idea that games can be fun, and rewarding, with out devoting large stets of time, they do not like this reality as it invalidates their "Achievements" and "Skill".

They have been conditioned by blizzard, and will not submit to the reality that they have done nothing but devote gobs of time, for very little entertainment,

 

The hook, was they were simply the best alternative at the time, and have a high production value, and love some pavlovs dog.

 

 

 

Every expansion pretty much wipes the slate of "uber loot investment" clean.  So I think you are incorrect in your assessment that people are to invested to leave.

 

Not to mention your ridiculous assumption that millions of people are somehow brainwashed or conditioned by a video game.  Lets not pretend all other mmos are some closely guarded secret and no one tries them, ok?

Could not have said it better enough, imho WoW pretty much died after after BC. WoW to me was one of those games that popped your mmo cherry (weird way of saying it really) due to its simplicity and soloability (in a multiplayer game lolz). My first MMO was FFXI and let me say that game has one steep learning curve, its not hard to learn really its just surviving the biased community. From my knowledge of a actual mmo that isnt uber easy mode made me realize how loleasy WoW was. On thing it also made me realize is how pointless anything you do in the game is. My advice to thos 10M subrscribers is to try a few other mmos, find out how nice it is to get all that uber gear and NOT get wiped from the top to the bottom like everyone else when a new expansion comes out.  But wait!!! you dont need to wait that long, after a couple of seasons of arena and 30billion tiers you slowly realize what blizzard is really doing. 

Originally posted by Darkfalz89

 

What im saying is WoW is that great mmo to the untrained eye, its about how many times does blizzard have to kick you in the ass before you realize how pointless it is (which doesnt happen fast since the subsriber ratio is like 80% 12 year olds 20% gamers that fail at a real challenge mmo.)After arena season 4 and another 10 levels in WOTLK I was done. All i say is wow was great fun while it lasted, but i was tired of rising to the top and enjoying my uber equips only to be knocked to the bottom when the next set and next 10 levels came out. Why do players not realize this? I think a lack of intelligence with a little bit of 12 year olds is the cause.

 

That is the whole point. WOW deliver great fun content and don't pretend to be anything else but a game. What is there to realize? You said it there, it is a game with great fun while it last. Everyone should flock to it and play while the fun last and they do.

Originally posted by Porfat

While WoW only had Blizzard's name behind it (granted that is huge).   It only had around 300k subscribers when released but great word of mouth (the best kind of advertising) made it shoot up quickly. 

word of mouth?

World of Warcraft was SOLD OUT at many places the 1st week of release

- and had sold 350,000 copies by the first weekend

pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft/569888p1.html

World of Warcraft sold over 240,000 copies at retailers in North America on Tuesday, November 23, selling more in its first 24 hours than any other PC game in history.

for Blizzard, Heritage is huge factor -- millions of gamers played Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

* Solo-friendly: An online game that can be played solo from start to finish.

Originally  posted by FolbyOrb

*Who has soloed Sunwell Plateau?

I have soloed Sunwell Plateau.......for about 32 seconds.(I was stealthed)

Originally posted by Darkfalz89

 

On thing it also made me realize is how pointless anything you do in the game is. My advice to thos 10M subrscribers is to try a few other mmos, find out how nice it is to get all that uber gear and NOT get wiped from the top to the bottom like everyone else when a new expansion comes out.  But wait!!! you dont need to wait that long, after a couple of seasons of arena and 30billion tiers you slowly realize what blizzard is really doing. 

Whats Blizzard doing?  Making a game most people are having fun in perhaps?  More than I could say about FFXI, considering you can't have a life and play that game.  God help you if you need to go to the bathroom in a group and interupt the EXP flow.  Might as well attach a catheter=) 

Hate to break it to you, but everything you've done in every MMO is pointless when you hit  /quit.  YES, even FFXI.  Every little accomplishment, GONE the second you decide never to play again.

If you're more concerned about your gear being useless 1 or 2 years later, then you probably would have a problem.  Me and probably most people would be more concerned if we're STILL using the same stupid axe 1 or 2 years later.  Whats there to look forward to?   But thats if gear is the only point to it all.  If thats the only reason you're playing, I can understand your frustration.  Me, I had fun while I played and didn't care about the gear getting out dated.  I had fun getting the new gear. 

Originally posted by Darkfalz89 

Could not have said it better enough, imho WoW pretty much died after after BC. WoW to me was one of those games that popped your mmo cherry (weird way of saying it really) due to its simplicity and soloability (in a multiplayer game lolz). My first MMO was FFXI and let me say that game has one steep learning curve, its not hard to learn really its just surviving the biased community. From my knowledge of a actual mmo that isnt uber easy mode made me realize how loleasy WoW was. On thing it also made me realize is how pointless anything you do in the game is. My advice to thos 10M subrscribers is to try a few other mmos, find out how nice it is to get all that uber gear and NOT get wiped from the top to the bottom like everyone else when a new expansion comes out.  But wait!!! you dont need to wait that long, after a couple of seasons of arena and 30billion tiers you slowly realize what blizzard is really doing. 

 

Every other mmo that I have played rewards the player for that "insert armor set here" that they word hard for, but when making expansions other sets were added, but the sets were designed as a different optional piece or set, meaning you werent gimped if you had the last set. FFXI for example was not very "i have a hour to play" friendly and more "I need 6 hours to play to get something done" After several expansions SE realized that all 500k of its subscribers arent 14 year old losers that can play 12-16 hours a day, and so they made smaller events with different armor sets that were awesome and still stayed in par but only needed you to sit down for a fraction of the time. 

 

What im saying is WoW is that great mmo to the untrained eye, its about how many times does blizzard have to kick you in the ass before you realize how pointless it is (which doesnt happen fast since the subsriber ratio is like 80% 12 year olds 20% gamers that fail at a real challenge mmo.)After arena season 4 and another 10 levels in WOTLK I was done. All i say is wow was great fun while it lasted, but i was tired of rising to the top and enjoying my uber equips only to be knocked to the bottom when the next set and next 10 levels came out. Why do players not realize this? I think a lack of intelligence with a little bit of 12 year olds is the cause.

 

 

Requiring someone to play for 6 hours instead of 5 or 3 or 2 doesn't make a game "hard", it just requires more time repeating the same exercises.  Requiring more time does one thing and one thing only.  It pushes the threshold of peoples tolerance for repetitive activities.  Forcing people to group doesn't make a game harder either, but just applies the same results as above.   It doesn't make the optional grouped content of game b easier than the forced group content of game a.  It just eliminates playstyle options by removing solo content.  

Your baseless assumption that wow is 80% 12 year olds just shows how empty your argument is and lacks any real substance.

The untrained eye?  What are you some sort of professor of mmos?

As always when people talk about why WoW is so successful, I think people ought to read BioWare's Walton On Making MMOs Post-World of Warcraft. It's a very good read, and I think he's possibly one of the people outside of Blizzard with the best foundation for making such an analysis.

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

People will never leave Wow. Just like some will never leave EQ.

10 million people will not give up 4 years of sole crushing grind and "Uber loot" that took months of their life to get using said grind. Most do not like the idea that games can be fun, and rewarding, with out devoting large stets of time, they do not like this reality as it invalidates their "Achievements" and "Skill".

They have been conditioned by blizzard, and will not submit to the reality that they have done nothing but devote gobs of time, for very little entertainment,

 

The hook, was they were simply the best alternative at the time, and have a high production value, and love some pavlovs dog.

Yup.  People have invested to much time to every leave.  No MMO with ever be able to compete.

Originally posted by BarCrow

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

* Solo-friendly: An online game that can be played solo from start to finish.

 

Originally  posted by FolbyOrb

*Who has soloed Sunwell Plateau?

 

 

 

 

I have soloed Sunwell Plateau.......for about 32 seconds.(I was stealthed)

This is the feature that most people have commented on, saying the article in the OP got  it wrong, that you can't solo all the content of WoW.

The raiding is "end game" content, meaning stuff you do after the game is basically over, but you want to keep on playing.

You can level up your toon to max without raiding is what the article is talking about. Some people dont' play raid content. Once they level a toon to max in an MMORPG, they are finished.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by BarCrow

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

* Solo-friendly: An online game that can be played solo from start to finish.

 

Originally  posted by FolbyOrb

*Who has soloed Sunwell Plateau?

 

 

 

 

I have soloed Sunwell Plateau.......for about 32 seconds.(I was stealthed)

 

This is the feature that most people have commented on, saying the article in the OP got  it wrong, that you can't solo all the content of WoW.

The raiding is "end game" content, meaning stuff you do after the game is basically over, but you want to keep on playing.

You can level up your toon to max without raiding is what the article is talking about. Some people dont' play raid content. Once they level a toon to max in an MMORPG, they are finished.

I'm sure you can level a character to max level in any mmo without ever grouping.  That doesn't mean you experienced all that the game has to offer.  More than likely you would avoid a great deal that a game has to offer.

There is more to a game than simply gaining levels and raiding.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

It's been said a billion times on these forums, but I thought this gamespy article said it very succinctly:

 

A Simple Recipe for Success

* Polish: It's a polished experience, with plenty of attention to the little details.
* Heritage: Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft fans all had good reasons to give it a shot.
* Timing: It launched at the perfect time, with great buzz behind it.
* Accessibility: Low system requirements, thanks to the focus on art over horsepower.
* Solo-friendly: An online game that can be played solo from start to finish.
* Easy: It's friendly to new players, who can jump right in on the fun.

While good advice it's won't cut it for WoW clones unless they are at least 20 times better than wow due to one simple reason, player inertia. Majority will not be tempted to "start again" in what is in majority of cases  basiclly a copy of WoW with maybe a gimmik or two

There will not be another success like WoW for about another decade unless someone comes up with something totally new that meets those criteria

Originally posted by Lustmord

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

succinctly.

 

I don't know what that word means...

 

So I'm gonna take it as an insult.

LMAO! Thanks for the chuckle!!

Lori:)

Originally posted by Dreamagram

As always when people talk about why WoW is so successful, I think people ought to read BioWare's Walton On Making MMOs Post-World of Warcraft. It's a very good read, and I think he's possibly one of the people outside of Blizzard with the best foundation for making such an analysis.

He missed one very important point:

"Don't try to do too much."

I remember Brad McQuaid talking about Vanguard while it was in development and he was talking so much crap about the "perception" system in combat and gameplay.  They put all this effort into something so stupid and in the end wound up scrapping it and most of the combat system.  The same thing happened to diplomacy.

The combat in WoW is still unmatched in the genre.  No other game feels as "right" in combat as WoW does.  All the questing and running around and the time you invest into a character...it only happens if you enjoy playing your character.  Whether its melee fighting, casting spells or shooting a bow it needs to be satisfying for the player. 

Its both the simplest and most difficult aspect for a developer to nail down and it's the most critical.

The mechanics, UI and control are the special features WOW has that no other MMO shares.  Sure, you're still pressing buttons, casting spells, running around doing quests, crafting, ect like in every other MMO.  But they never felt right to me until WOW.   They felt clumsy and awkward and very tedious before WOW.   They haven't felt right after either.  I really don't understand the people who claim such expertise and knowledge about the genre then go on and say "WOW is just a clone of EQ" or "has nothing unique" or "copied everything".  It proves to me these people, regardless of when they started playing MMOs, know so little about how games really work.  If they did those kind of dumb statements wouldn't be typed.   They know so much less than they think they do.  They're in this thread=)

Originally posted by Josher

The mechanics, UI and control are the special features WOW has that no other MMO shares.

Copied directly from AC1 and AC2.

Come on people, are ALL of you new to MMO's?

I agree that combat is also important.  Even with the rest of the items on the list, it's not going to work without great combat.

Originally posted by Dreamagram

As always when people talk about why WoW is so successful, I think people ought to read BioWare's Walton On Making MMOs Post-World of Warcraft. It's a very good read, and I think he's possibly one of the people outside of Blizzard with the best foundation for making such an analysis.

How to Create a successful MMO by Jeff Strain  (Guild Wars)

www.guildwars.com/events/tradeshows/gc2007/gcspeech.php

is also an excellent read for post WOW mmos

here i am now watching your forum..!!! but lol your nice how did you recognize that? im gonna kick ass on this thread 

I've been sitting here reading this thread and getting all worked up. I get MAD at WoW.

Not because I'm jealous at their success over [insert my favorite MMO here]

But because they have effectively broken the MMORPG genre for me.

The thing that brought people together in The Good Old Days^tm was the exact same thing that makes life-long friends of people who go through Boot Camp together. Shared Adversity.

I can remember spending an entire month with a  friend in Permafrost (EQ1) trying to get a weapon that we wanted that wasn't really Uber. We hung out in there every bit of play time we had. We literally didn't leave that zone for the entire month. Our friend, who was a wizard and therefore the only person who had any sort of teleportation abilities at all, would make a trip every couple of days to bring in a supply of food and drink (because characters actually required food and drink back then or they would eventually starve) and to sell off the loot we had aquired. I was a barbarian warrior and had a grand total of 6 abilities at level 36. None of them let me become invincable for any period of time. The most supernatural ability I had was called "bind wounds" and it would let me use bandages to eventually get my health up after combat to a max of 50%. We didn't have health potions, because those were insanely expensive and not that effective. All in all, we had a rough time of it. And I Had A Blast! 

You what I remember from WoW? Not much. I had dozens of very memorable experiences in EQ1, and NONE in WoW.

NOTICE: I did not once say that YOUR game was bad. I didn't say that WoW players are lemmings that can't be bothered to face challenges and adversity for their accomplishments. I did not state that the reason WoW seems so polished is because it's not hard to polish the easy button. All I did was spew a bit of an anecdote that effectivly illustrates why *I*  don't think WoW is fun at all. 

Originally posted by Calind0r

Yes but now that it's done that, that recipe will not work for up and coming games.

That's because they can't do anything about the fact that they'll never have #2 (heritage) on that list, and so many fall flat on #1 (polish), too.  EQ2 never stood a chance, because the original EQ was just a tiny niche game compared to any of Blizzard's previous games.  That's really their #1.