Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by xeniar

 

youve said exactly what i wanted to say.

the achievments are meaningless its show to show your epeen to other players. and with a good grind most of em are not a chalange

the brutal gladiator. m8 let me tell you that me as a PVE prot warrior almost had the gladiator title season 1 (i was off by a few), yes things have changed now i know that but its not a chalange.

people with brutal gladiotor stuff have: no job, too much time on their hands, good gear, and are concentrated enough not to fuck up shit. and alot of luck is also a part of PvP (you cannot control absolutely evry aspect of the whole fight)

 

Vanila WoW was hardcore PVE we had to do bosses night after night after night.

in tbc it went down hill with a few walls here and there. raids now are nothing. the difrent achievment settings are a aim then but as far as i know most of the guilds on my server now have completed alot of it. so your server m8 must be bullshit.

 

No you are wrong . DEAD wrong.

The Raid achievements have NOTHING to do with grind.

They only have to do with group skill. Like nobody may die or downing Sart with 0. 1, 2 or 3 dragons up.

So wrong.

So tell me: what do you think is more difficult to program. 8 different ways in dificulty to down a boss (and reward it accordingly AND see to it that the vast majority doesn't succeed or just designing a boss that can be downed ?)

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I laugh at your PvP remark. I am not speaking of the Gladiator title: given to the upper 0.5% of the rated PvP players (which is kinda hard).

I am talking of the Brutal Galdiator title, only given to the TOP player of the 20 server ladder rated system.

That's still a LOT harder isn't it?

And where do YOU stand in the PVE/PVP titles? Not very far I would think... Easy yes, if you want to think the old gameplay that having epics is the goals of the game.

Well mate you ain't playin' the hardcore if you ain't got the titles or dragons to prove it.

raid achievments take group skill. yes  but it used to take even group skills to down a boss  wich now is just a laugh.

u know me as a raider was able to say OMG we killed nefarian as third guild back in the day wich was omfg hardcore because only a few guilds got the chanse to do it that fast. now i have to do the same thing over and over with 1 added dificulty wich makes it alot harder.. jeej.. id rather want a boss wich is already on that highest level and then down it.  id give much more credit for that.

The brutal gladiator tittle. wow look your team has won 1 more game then our team  now you get the title and we dont. boohoo..

Where do i stand in PVE titles. well i dont have a tittle but u know what i can say, i had a full set of Might Wrath and almost a full set of Dreadnaught. i have MainTanked every boss pre-tbc and yes i killed them all pre any nerf patch.

My PvP title ive done my share of BG gridnign with the honour system could ahve went for rank 14 but diddnt because i got bored for 2 weeks after grinding 3 weeks non stop. as a PROTECTION warrior. and as ive stated before as a PRotection favoured tank ive almsot had the Gladiator title season 1

so m8 i do have the Title's, i bear the scars, but hey blizzard diddnt had this nifty system yet wich gave you dragons and whatnot back in the day.

Originally posted by Torath

Reason 3. Media outlets not updating their reviews.

The one thing that I find odd is the lack of additional reviews for MMORPG's out there. Most companies just do their initial review and then ignore the game afterwords. It would be nice if the reviewers would go back to the these games once a year and update their reviews. Some games need time on the market to develop (I hear Vanguard has turned things around and a recent re-review did suggest improvements). This may give some games a needed 2nd chance.

I definitely have to agree with Reason #3, while I'm not sure of the other ones.

I think it'd be great if more popular game critics (Gamespot, IGN, etc) would review MMOs again, similar to how MMORPG.com does, since MMOs change SO much over time. The first review can in no way say how the game is a year later. MMOs are dynamic and change almost on a daily basis. I think it'd be great if game review companies would do an inital review, and then do another review later on (maybe during the summer drought time when nothing of value gets reviewed anyways!?). This would definitely help MMOs, such as Vanguard for example, that may have had a subpar launch but have improved significantly since then.

However, I don't believe this is why WoW has had no real competitors. I think they just made the first casual-friendly MMO that took the world by storm. They have great class balance (Took them a while, but they are getting there), great balance of PvE and PvP, and a very good community. The ones who say "Go back to WoW!" were probably the most immature of WoW players who decided to leave, and personally I'm glad they don't play anymore :).

IMO

No game has managed to compete with WoW because they do not match the key values that sells the game, of course WoW has changed its brand from launch to today several times.

At first:

• The game was extremely playable in most machines with very little lag and bugs and the questing was interesting enough to keep you around when it launched. I do not have patience for lag or bugs, If i can't play it right away and stupid bugs block me, i stop. They UI was not the greatest but easy at first to deal with when you started. The combat style was also smooth and had its benefits when you first start as far as stats and how that balanced with monsters.
  -Key value: Playable
• I came to play WoW from SWG invited by friends thru word of mouth who left SWG to play WoW. At first my reason was friends then I started to really learn about wow learning about it from previous games (RTS) and articles and stories. I am your typical Joe with no idea at first what WoW was.
  -Key value: Social
• The game did NOT require a super computer. I was able to play this game so much better than SWG. Graphics did not concern me too much as the game is stylized in a form that I accepted it. Coming from SWG I use to say, its looks cartoony!!!! but later I begun to really look at how well animated everything was. you could see expressions when you were drinking water, your mount had expressions when you pressed space, npc and monsters were very well animated with out me having to mess with the video settings.
  key value: accesible
• The beautiful music of wow swept me off my feet. I had chills down my spine when I first entered Ironforge and the awesome soundtrack started that combined with the amazing art work of the entrance was captivating or how about when you entered Stormwind and the music of the humans made you proud.  The best part, certain sections of the main cities had their own little soundtrack like the church in Stormwind and the gnome section in IF.
  key value: immersion
  
  As time has progressed since launch:

It not hard to accept that people have left other MMOs and joined WoW's initial base of members. Its not hard to imagine that the majority of players in wow are most likely people that gave up on other failed mmos  because they lacked the values above. As time has progressed of course WoW has made the game easier and easier, why? because the hardcore., the experienced mmo players will leave to try new things (It would be sad to see experienced MMO players stay in wow, because you are not learning anything new, its the same thing every patch anyways ) and wow will be left with newbies to the mmo world and even newbies to PC games as the word of mouth keeps spreading around, and again to make the game inviting to newcomers, it must be playable, accessible, etc but in a new level for the new audience.

Most popular does not equal best. There are a lot of popular things in the world that I dislike. If something has real popularity it usually means that it has to be fairly "middle of the road" to appeal to the most people. It's just a shame that a lot of the developers are trying to copy the model instead of mopping up and catering for the pockets of game players who'd like something a little different.

The OP's Question: Why has no game managed to compete with WoW?

The answer - no game company has tried to spend even close to the same amount of money that WoW spent on its development. I have never played WoW and never intend to as it did not sound like the kind of game I wanted to play, however, Blizzard spent somewhere between $70M and $100M dollars on the game prerelease. Who knows how much they have spent post release.

The biggest titles that have come close to those figures probably spend between $30 and $40M pre-release while trying to achieve what WoW had with thier $80M.

WoW also had a large built-in audience through Blizzard and thier preivous single player/Multi-player games.

Ultimately Blizzard risked a lot of money with the hope of seeing the rewards they have been getting and no other company has had the resources to make that same risk. Untill one comes along that has the resources as well as a New idea WoW will stand.

Spending a lot of money doesn't garuantee a fun game.  Just look at Tabula Rasa.  Pretty massive budget.   Yes, its been said many times, but hey, people keep using the same excuses;)

WOW isn't good BECAUSE its popular.  Its popular because its good.  Understand yet?  Nope.

you need to describe your good point of view like i did above, because your good standard could be  way below somebody else's. So lets hear your opinion.

my reasons are: playability, accesible, immersion and is social.

Honestly looking back at it, before Wow came around the MMO market was kind of small (Well maybey small isnt the word but I can garentee P2P MMO's did not have the beastly amount of players that they have now.)

Blizzard has always sat down and done shit right, I'm not the biggest fan of WoW however Sc, Wc1-3 and D1, D2, they have all been done right never rushed time and money was investied in them and built from scratch they had a large amount of money to do this with from the start, most MMO companies today are small and not able to spend the extra year fine tuining there game or else they will be to far in the red this is why I think alot of games are getting shitty launches as of late is because the company is to scared of going into the red.

Also I think something important is to make you feel like a hero / some on of importance when you sit down and play an RPG you really get to know the villians and be like "This guys totally bad news he needs to go down" for instance I think alot of you played FF7 and little by little through the game you come to understand sephiroth, who he is, why he does what he does ect and when you get to this point you kind of mentally go "Hes evil I need to take him down" this makes you feel like a hero and is the point of an RPG however there is no really good way to introduce characters and flush them out in an MMO most people just do quests for exp and rewards most dont even bother with the storys / most the quests outside of major boss fights hold no true importance. However WoW took there previous game warcraft which already had deffined heros and villians had flushed out the characters and such like a few years back even before Burning crusade people were already hyped to kill Arthas and Illidan the end game pvp had managed to flush out no name grinded bosses into evil characters who made you feel even more important for taking down.

Alot of games before WoW were kidn of intimidating for new players I remember when I first played DAoC I was like 11 years old and I played it at my friends house whos dad was an avid player and honestly the games UI is intimidating to new players no matter what age theres a learning curve, if you have a friend who can step you through it in 30 mins and can awnser questions later it wasnt so bad but alot of people were turned off because they didnt understand the system right off the bat, WoW took that basic layout and simplified it just by reading your skills a player can become familure with the class and most the aspects of the game in the first 10-20 levels without any help at all and it is quite easy to hit max level with solo only play.

Many other games are trying to follow this formula to make a game like this but in the end they are only "WoW clones" with an inovative feature or 2 but nothing really substancial and quite a few of the games released in todays market are so bug ridden that it makes the game almost no fun to play and most people wont suddenly decide to try out that bug ridden game down the road unless they are bored.

Originally posted by Maelkor

The OP's Question: Why has no game managed to compete with WoW?

 

The answer - no game company has tried to spend even close to the same amount of money that WoW spent on its development. I have never played WoW and never intend to as it did not sound like the kind of game I wanted to play, however, Blizzard spent somewhere between $70M and $100M dollars on the game prerelease. Who knows how much they have spent post release.

 

The biggest titles that have come close to those figures probably spend between $30 and $40M pre-release while trying to achieve what WoW had with thier $80M.

 

Do you happen to have a link to anything stating wows pre-release budget?  I only ask, because I have seen many people make claims about huge pre-release budgets, but no one seems to have any reference to where these numbers come from.   Really I am curious where this info comes from.

On the flip side there are several links that put a few mmos in or close to the $100 million dollar club.  Tabula rasa, The sims online, Warhammer, etc.   Soe claimed to be the highest production value mmo on the market during the EQ2/WoW release period.  

There are a lot of mmos that truckloads of money couldn't save though.  LOL

There are a lot of mmos that truckloads of money couldn't save though.  LOL

Not true, if you're going to spend that kind of money, why would you half ass anything? Blizzard has enough money to do whatever they want. You get what you pay for. Alot of companies can't afford to pay the man hours to fix bugs, update and add content as quickly as Blizzard can. There are alot of great titles out there, alot of people just don't know about it. The bigger your customer base is, the more money you rake in, correct? So you really have to start with money before you make it. WoW is advertised everywhere, that's also because of the extra money they have compared to the smaller companies that can make a game just as good. WoW was not a new name when it was released, don't forget Warcraft and it wasn't even a MMO! When Warcraft was around, there were TONS of MMO's around as well, how do you think "World" of Warcraft was created, from copying other games, so think before you say "WoW Clone".

Sorry, the last part was just me taking out my frustration on people that actually use the word "WoW clone" religiously. Just venting. :)

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Maelkor

The OP's Question: Why has no game managed to compete with WoW?

 

The answer - no game company has tried to spend even close to the same amount of money that WoW spent on its development. I have never played WoW and never intend to as it did not sound like the kind of game I wanted to play, however, Blizzard spent somewhere between $70M and $100M dollars on the game prerelease. Who knows how much they have spent post release.

 

The biggest titles that have come close to those figures probably spend between $30 and $40M pre-release while trying to achieve what WoW had with thier $80M.

 

Do you happen to have a link to anything stating wows pre-release budget?  I only ask, because I have seen many people make claims about huge pre-release budgets, but no one seems to have any reference to where these numbers come from.   Really I am curious where this info comes from.

 

On the flip side there are several links that put a few mmos in or close to the $100 million dollar club.  Tabula rasa, The sims online, Warhammer, etc.   Soe claimed to be the highest production value mmo on the market during the EQ2/WoW release period.  

 

There are a lot of mmos that truckloads of money couldn't save though.  LOL

If you search around on the internet you will find things that say about 60 million dollars.

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Originally posted by Corrupted

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There are a lot of mmos that truckloads of money couldn't save though. LOL

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Not true, if you're going to spend that kind of money, why would you half ass anything? Blizzard has enough money to do whatever they want. You get what you pay for. Alot of companies can't afford to pay the man hours to fix bugs, update and add content as quickly as Blizzard can. There are alot of great titles out there, alot of people just don't know about it. The bigger your customer base is, the more money you rake in, correct? So you really have to start with money before you make it. WoW is advertised everywhere, that's also because of the extra money they have compared to the smaller companies that can make a game just as good. WoW was not a new name when it was released, don't forget Warcraft and it wasn't even a MMO! When Warcraft was around, there were TONS of MMO's around as well, how do you think "World" of Warcraft was created, from copying other games, so think before you say "WoW Clone".
Sorry, the last part was just me taking out my frustration on people that actually use the word "WoW clone" religiously. Just venting. :)

---

 
I believe I read somewhere that WoW had the biggest market campaign in computer game history, might be wrong but the commersials were everywhere, its a campaign no other mmo provider could compare with, atleast not at the time being before the makings of the newer collitions ala Ubisoft ex.
WoW succeeded because A: it was based on a famaous and respected IP, B: the hype and commersial interest dwarfed every other MMO company at the market and C: the game was quite well worked out, it was functional and easy to learn, not hard to get into.
In time some other game will take over, be it blizzards next mmo or just another big corperation launching a giant sized budget game. I on the other hand would like the game to get big because of the fact of its quality.. that will probably never happen though, the big ones will always win versus the smaller ones

Originally posted by PapaB34R

 

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Originally posted by Corrupted

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There are a lot of mmos that truckloads of money couldn't save though. LOL

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Not true, if you're going to spend that kind of money, why would you half ass anything? Blizzard has enough money to do whatever they want. You get what you pay for. Alot of companies can't afford to pay the man hours to fix bugs, update and add content as quickly as Blizzard can. There are alot of great titles out there, alot of people just don't know about it. The bigger your customer base is, the more money you rake in, correct? So you really have to start with money before you make it. WoW is advertised everywhere, that's also because of the extra money they have compared to the smaller companies that can make a game just as good. WoW was not a new name when it was released, don't forget Warcraft and it wasn't even a MMO! When Warcraft was around, there were TONS of MMO's around as well, how do you think "World" of Warcraft was created, from copying other games, so think before you say "WoW Clone".
Sorry, the last part was just me taking out my frustration on people that actually use the word "WoW clone" religiously. Just venting. :)

---

 
I believe I read somewhere that WoW had the biggest market campaign in computer game history, might be wrong but the commersials were everywhere, its a campaign no other mmo provider could compare with, atleast not at the time being before the makings of the newer collitions ala Ubisoft ex.
WoW succeeded because A: it was based on a famaous and respected IP, B: the hype and commersial interest dwarfed every other MMO company at the market and C: the game was quite well worked out, it was functional and easy to learn, not hard to get into...
 

You might want to take note WHEN that advertising started.  You do know they hit at least 1 million, basically doubling any MMO previous(OUTSIDE ASIA) before any commercials even hit air.   Shatner and Mr T  weren't  pimping WOW in the first year you know.  EQ2 had as much or more advertising than WOW did at least in the begining when SOE thought they had a chance;)  People forget WOW was pulled off the shelves for some time because TOO many people were trying to log in.  That was also before the TV commercials started by the way. 

NAME and an IP doesn't sell a MMO.  Ask LOTR, SWG, Matrix, EQ2 and The Sims.  Id say StarWars and The Matrix and even the Sims are FAR, FAR larger IPs in the casual gamer base.  Before WOW, Warcraft was just an RTS not EVERYONE played.  RTS isn't a huge genre anyway compared to others.  Its certainly not as big as traditional RPGs and no where near FPSs or action games.  People don't buy games because they're made by a company.  Square has made plenty of games no one bought and they're pretty top notch as a known developer.  People only play games they enjoy.  The name on the box means didly in the big picture.

HYPE doesn't sell a MMO either.  Ask WAR and Conan or even Darkfall, hehe.

Originally posted by Corrupted

There are a lot of mmos that truckloads of money couldn't save though.  LOL

 

Not true, if you're going to spend that kind of money, why would you half ass anything? Blizzard has enough money to do whatever they want. You get what you pay for. Alot of companies can't afford to pay the man hours to fix bugs, update and add content as quickly as Blizzard can. There are alot of great titles out there, alot of people just don't know about it. The bigger your customer base is, the more money you rake in, correct? So you really have to start with money before you make it. WoW is advertised everywhere, that's also because of the extra money they have compared to the smaller companies that can make a game just as good. WoW was not a new name when it was released, don't forget Warcraft and it wasn't even a MMO! When Warcraft was around, there were TONS of MMO's around as well, how do you think "World" of Warcraft was created, from copying other games, so think before you say "WoW Clone".

Sorry, the last part was just me taking out my frustration on people that actually use the word "WoW clone" religiously. Just venting. :)

So yeah, relax.  I was making a tongue in cheek joke.  Sorry if that was misleading in anyway, but I wasn't saying everything is a wow clone.  

Warcraft3 is reason why WoW was such a success, majority of Wc3 players had never touched a MMO and would buy a bucket full of poop if it was titled "Warcraft poop"

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Originally posted by Josher

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Originally posted by PapaB34R

 

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Originally posted by Corrupted

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There are a lot of mmos that truckloads of money couldn't save though. LOL

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Not true, if you're going to spend that kind of money, why would you half ass anything? Blizzard has enough money to do whatever they want. You get what you pay for. Alot of companies can't afford to pay the man hours to fix bugs, update and add content as quickly as Blizzard can. There are alot of great titles out there, alot of people just don't know about it. The bigger your customer base is, the more money you rake in, correct? So you really have to start with money before you make it. WoW is advertised everywhere, that's also because of the extra money they have compared to the smaller companies that can make a game just as good. WoW was not a new name when it was released, don't forget Warcraft and it wasn't even a MMO! When Warcraft was around, there were TONS of MMO's around as well, how do you think "World" of Warcraft was created, from copying other games, so think before you say "WoW Clone".
Sorry, the last part was just me taking out my frustration on people that actually use the word "WoW clone" religiously. Just venting. :)

---

 
I believe I read somewhere that WoW had the biggest market campaign in computer game history, might be wrong but the commersials were everywhere, its a campaign no other mmo provider could compare with, atleast not at the time being before the makings of the newer collitions ala Ubisoft ex.
WoW succeeded because A: it was based on a famaous and respected IP, B: the hype and commersial interest dwarfed every other MMO company at the market and C: the game was quite well worked out, it was functional and easy to learn, not hard to get into...
 

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You might want to take note WHEN that advertising started.  You do know they hit at least 1 million, basically doubling any MMO previous(OUTSIDE ASIA) before any commercials even hit air.   Shatner and Mr T  weren't  pimping WOW in the first year you know.  EQ2 had as much or more advertising than WOW did at least in the begining when SOE thought they had a chance;)  People forget WOW was pulled off the shelves for some time because TOO many people were trying to log in.  That was also before the TV commercials started by the way. 
 
NAME and an IP doesn't sell a MMO.  Ask LOTR, SWG, Matrix, EQ2 and The Sims.  Id say StarWars and The Matrix and even the Sims are FAR, FAR larger IPs in the casual gamer base.  Before WOW, Warcraft was just an RTS not EVERYONE played.  RTS isn't a huge genre anyway compared to others.  Its certainly not as big as traditional RPGs and no where near FPSs or action games.  People don't buy games because they're made by a company.  Square has made plenty of games no one bought and they're pretty top notch as a known developer.  People only play games they enjoy.  The name on the box means didly in the big picture.
HYPE doesn't sell a MMO either.  Ask WAR and Conan or even Darkfall, hehe.

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Originally posted by kishe

Warcraft3 is reason why WoW was such a success, majority of Wc3 players had never touched a MMO and would buy a bucket full of poop if it was titled "Warcraft poop"

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But I agree, WoW gained a lot from the success of wc3

"Why has no game managed to compete with WOW as of yet"

no game since has WOW has offered such a complete experience straight out of the box, when i first fired wow up, i got straight in and me and ex played non stop all weekend without a glitch and went on playing it for over a year bug/hassel free, it was above all fun from the moment you started controlling your character, all these new games that have come out since seem to miss this one little thing, make the bloody thing fun at the start!

the only game that will be as good as WOW will be Blizz's next one

Originally posted by PapaB34R

 

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Originally posted by Josher

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Originally posted by PapaB34R

 

 
 

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Originally posted by Corrupted

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There are a lot of mmos that truckloads of money couldn't save though. LOL

---

 

Not true, if you're going to spend that kind of money, why would you half ass anything? Blizzard has enough money to do whatever they want. You get what you pay for. Alot of companies can't afford to pay the man hours to fix bugs, update and add content as quickly as Blizzard can. There are alot of great titles out there, alot of people just don't know about it. The bigger your customer base is, the more money you rake in, correct? So you really have to start with money before you make it. WoW is advertised everywhere, that's also because of the extra money they have compared to the smaller companies that can make a game just as good. WoW was not a new name when it was released, don't forget Warcraft and it wasn't even a MMO! When Warcraft was around, there were TONS of MMO's around as well, how do you think "World" of Warcraft was created, from copying other games, so think before you say "WoW Clone".
Sorry, the last part was just me taking out my frustration on people that actually use the word "WoW clone" religiously. Just venting. :)

---

 

 
I believe I read somewhere that WoW had the biggest market campaign in computer game history, might be wrong but the commersials were everywhere, its a campaign no other mmo provider could compare with, atleast not at the time being before the makings of the newer collitions ala Ubisoft ex.
WoW succeeded because A: it was based on a famaous and respected IP, B: the hype and commersial interest dwarfed every other MMO company at the market and C: the game was quite well worked out, it was functional and easy to learn, not hard to get into...
 

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You might want to take note WHEN that advertising started.  You do know they hit at least 1 million, basically doubling any MMO previous(OUTSIDE ASIA) before any commercials even hit air.   Shatner and Mr T  weren't  pimping WOW in the first year you know.  EQ2 had as much or more advertising than WOW did at least in the begining when SOE thought they had a chance;)  People forget WOW was pulled off the shelves for some time because TOO many people were trying to log in.  That was also before the TV commercials started by the way. 
 
NAME and an IP doesn't sell a MMO.  Ask LOTR, SWG, Matrix, EQ2 and The Sims.  Id say StarWars and The Matrix and even the Sims are FAR, FAR larger IPs in the casual gamer base.  Before WOW, Warcraft was just an RTS not EVERYONE played.  RTS isn't a huge genre anyway compared to others.  Its certainly not as big as traditional RPGs and no where near FPSs or action games.  People don't buy games because they're made by a company.  Square has made plenty of games no one bought and they're pretty top notch as a known developer.  People only play games they enjoy.  The name on the box means didly in the big picture.
HYPE doesn't sell a MMO either.  Ask WAR and Conan or even Darkfall, hehe.

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So commersials dont sell games eh? Right thats why Coca Cola spends countless millions on advertising...
IPs sell game, otherwise none of the games mentioned wouldve reached any high numbers of copies, then wether or not people wouldve kept playing thats another issue
and the hype, well it might be just important as the IP or the marketing, without it games like War/AoC and pity Darfall wouldve been nowhere (escpily darkfall). Yes it sells copies, alot of copies.. but then theres the fact if people chose to stay or not. If you dont believe this you could check it out for yourself since there are records and statistics of such.
As for the company producing them.. well it wouldnt matter what crap  blizzard would puke out it would get a lot more attention then some small unestablished company, I mean come on you livin in the same world as me?

 

 

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Originally posted by kishe

 

Warcraft3 is reason why WoW was such a success, majority of Wc3 players had never touched a MMO and would buy a bucket full of poop if it was titled "Warcraft poop"

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Well if you look at the early peaks of warcraft 3 youl see it was meant to be a strategy RPG, many of the really old dev vids looks very similar to what world of warcraft use today, also its a fact that WoW uses the same if not modified some but still in the bottom same graphics engine as warcraft 3 does.

 

But I agree, WoW gained a lot from the success of wc3

People playing after the first month is the ONLY issue.  MMOs aren't about boxes sold bud.  Commercials CAN'T sell subscriptions and thats all that matters.  If people don't like the game/service, they quit.  Its not about boxes sold.  Theres little profit in the box sales anyway.  MMOs aren't movies or CDs or soda, but I gather you know that.  I guess I should've been more clear that selling the game means actually playing the game for more than the trial month.   Even then...StarWars, the biggest IP in history can't keep a MMO going strong or even a game.  How's The Force Unleashed doing lately?  people don't play whats popular.  They play whats FUN and FUN games become popular.   Popular games don't become fun.  It doesn't work like that.

So people will buy a box of poop with Blizzard's name on it huh?  Then why did Blizzard cancel Ghost?  It was POOP.  It was behind the times and Blizzard canned it.  WHY?  Because it would've been thrashed buy critics and players.   They knew it wouldn't sell. 

First you have to understand why WoW succeeded, it is designed to play toi the lowest common demoninator. It is a game that is very easy and forgiving on it's players and allows for near instant gratification. In the old days of Pen and Paper we called this a Mony Haul game. Since it would not win players with it's great story and content it wins them by making them the deal of letting them have whatever they want with minimual effort.

Before the flamers start try taking a real look and you will see the above is true. Most other MMOs are more diffuclt at the start, are slower.

Now other games try to steal the thunder and go all Monty Haul, even some games that started harder have dumbed down their design to gain on WoW. However that will nto work, the reaon is that the relationships built in the game are now keeping the players there. The game is really not all that special anymore, nothing new by any stretch of the imagination yet no one is moving. The reason is  the relationships.

WoW reminds me alot more of Diablo 2 than any Warcraft game. And there were alot of people who loved Diablo 2 for a long time, and still do.

WoW plays on nearly any PC... and it also plays on MAC.  Most of the newer games have high-end system requirements... and even when people have high-end rigs, the games still crap out or have performance issues. 

See: AoC @ launch. 

See also: WAR in RvR/Keep Seiges. 

WoW didn't necessarily innovate, but they simply did a lot of things in their game right... that other games had done wrong.  They learned from their predecessors.  Since then, everyone else is chasing Blizzard's tail. 

No, Blizzard didn't do everything right, but they did enough to gain the largest slice of the MMORPG market with WoW. 

WoW is a success because

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah.  My opinion of WoW is blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blah.

Your wrong because blah, blah, and blah.

I think I just summed up this whole thread.

Originally posted by Mopar63

First you have to understand why WoW succeeded, it is designed to play toi the lowest common demoninator. It is a game that is very easy and forgiving on it's players and allows for near instant gratification. In the old days of Pen and Paper we called this a Mony Haul game. Since it would not win players with it's great story and content it wins them by making them the deal of letting them have whatever they want with minimual effort.

Before the flamers start try taking a real look and you will see the above is true. Most other MMOs are more diffuclt at the start, are slower.

Now other games try to steal the thunder and go all Monty Haul, even some games that started harder have dumbed down their design to gain on WoW. However that will nto work, the reaon is that the relationships built in the game are now keeping the players there. The game is really not all that special anymore, nothing new by any stretch of the imagination yet no one is moving. The reason is  the relationships.

Its also the same reason people stuck around with older MMOs as well.  They certainly werent' better designed in any way.

Yes older MMOs were difficult but ask yourself WHY.   They were difficult due to lack of explanation and the struggle with the game systems that werent' balanced or tested properly.  Or they simply required excessive amounts of time to accomplish everything, which I wouldn't exactly call difficult.  Trying your patience and time consuming, Yes.  Difficult?  Not exactly.   Unless you consider waiting around all the time, difficult.  The actual act of killing a mob or a dungeon was no more complicated in EQ than it is now in WOW.  You're just not waiting around for 5 hrs to do it or competing with 100 other people, waiting in line or worrying about someone popping up and stealing the reward from under your nose, or replaying the game for an hour because you died and lost exp.  It was all just more time.  Not really a challenge.

Yet, WOW is also quite demanding on those who wish to excell and become the best.  It is easy to pick up and play thank god,  but its certainly not easy to accomplish whats designed to be difficult.  Making everything about a game overly complicated or time consuming doesnt' make it fun.  It just tries people's patience, which won't sell today.  The standards are much higher.

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by PapaB34R

 

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Originally posted by Josher

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Originally posted by PapaB34R

 

 
 

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Originally posted by Corrupted

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There are a lot of mmos that truckloads of money couldn't save though. LOL

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Not true, if you're going to spend that kind of money, why would you half ass anything? Blizzard has enough money to do whatever they want. You get what you pay for. Alot of companies can't afford to pay the man hours to fix bugs, update and add content as quickly as Blizzard can. There are alot of great titles out there, alot of people just don't know about it. The bigger your customer base is, the more money you rake in, correct? So you really have to start with money before you make it. WoW is advertised everywhere, that's also because of the extra money they have compared to the smaller companies that can make a game just as good. WoW was not a new name when it was released, don't forget Warcraft and it wasn't even a MMO! When Warcraft was around, there were TONS of MMO's around as well, how do you think "World" of Warcraft was created, from copying other games, so think before you say "WoW Clone".
Sorry, the last part was just me taking out my frustration on people that actually use the word "WoW clone" religiously. Just venting. :)

 

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I believe I read somewhere that WoW had the biggest market campaign in computer game history, might be wrong but the commersials were everywhere, its a campaign no other mmo provider could compare with, atleast not at the time being before the makings of the newer collitions ala Ubisoft ex.
WoW succeeded because A: it was based on a famaous and respected IP, B: the hype and commersial interest dwarfed every other MMO company at the market and C: the game was quite well worked out, it was functional and easy to learn, not hard to get into...
 

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You might want to take note WHEN that advertising started.  You do know they hit at least 1 million, basically doubling any MMO previous(OUTSIDE ASIA) before any commercials even hit air.   Shatner and Mr T  weren't  pimping WOW in the first year you know.  EQ2 had as much or more advertising than WOW did at least in the begining when SOE thought they had a chance;)  People forget WOW was pulled off the shelves for some time because TOO many people were trying to log in.  That was also before the TV commercials started by the way. 
 
NAME and an IP doesn't sell a MMO.  Ask LOTR, SWG, Matrix, EQ2 and The Sims.  Id say StarWars and The Matrix and even the Sims are FAR, FAR larger IPs in the casual gamer base.  Before WOW, Warcraft was just an RTS not EVERYONE played.  RTS isn't a huge genre anyway compared to others.  Its certainly not as big as traditional RPGs and no where near FPSs or action games.  People don't buy games because they're made by a company.  Square has made plenty of games no one bought and they're pretty top notch as a known developer.  People only play games they enjoy.  The name on the box means didly in the big picture.
HYPE doesn't sell a MMO either.  Ask WAR and Conan or even Darkfall, hehe.

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So commersials dont sell games eh? Right thats why Coca Cola spends countless millions on advertising...
IPs sell game, otherwise none of the games mentioned wouldve reached any high numbers of copies, then wether or not people wouldve kept playing thats another issue
and the hype, well it might be just important as the IP or the marketing, without it games like War/AoC and pity Darfall wouldve been nowhere (escpily darkfall). Yes it sells copies, alot of copies.. but then theres the fact if people chose to stay or not. If you dont believe this you could check it out for yourself since there are records and statistics of such.
As for the company producing them.. well it wouldnt matter what crap  blizzard would puke out it would get a lot more attention then some small unestablished company, I mean come on you livin in the same world as me?

 

 

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Originally posted by kishe

 

Warcraft3 is reason why WoW was such a success, majority of Wc3 players had never touched a MMO and would buy a bucket full of poop if it was titled "Warcraft poop"

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Well if you look at the early peaks of warcraft 3 youl see it was meant to be a strategy RPG, many of the really old dev vids looks very similar to what world of warcraft use today, also its a fact that WoW uses the same if not modified some but still in the bottom same graphics engine as warcraft 3 does.

 

But I agree, WoW gained a lot from the success of wc3

 

People playing after the first month is the ONLY issue.  MMOs aren't about boxes sold bud.  Commercials CAN'T sell subscriptions and thats all that matters.  If people don't like the game/service, they quit.  Its not about boxes sold.  Theres little profit in the box sales anyway.  MMOs aren't movies or CDs or soda, but I gather you know that.  I guess I should've been more clear that selling the game means actually playing the game for more than the trial month.   Even then...StarWars, the biggest IP in history can't keep a MMO going strong or even a game.  How's The Force Unleashed doing lately?  people don't play whats popular.  They play whats FUN and FUN games become popular.   Popular games don't become fun.  It doesn't work like that.

So people will buy a box of poop with Blizzard's name on it huh?  Then why did Blizzard cancel Ghost?  It was POOP.  It was behind the times and Blizzard canned it.  WHY?  Because it would've been thrashed buy critics and players.   They knew it wouldn't sell. 

but if they didnt manage to sell the game in the first place it would still fail miserbly.. and I somewhat disagree, the more people there is the more things there are to do ingame, more people to play with, trade with etc. So of course it matters how many they sell. Also they get a $40 from a box sell and a $15 for month subrsciption. In the long term they make a lot more money on the subscription sure, but the more money they get from the box the more can be invested into the game

Also ghost wasnt cancelled due to the fact it was bad it was cancelled out of a financial situation, one among others were blizzard draw folks to work on their newest project ala WoW. The whole idea that Blizzard would be geniueses who only make perfect game is just crazy. Sure they have a good track record but cmon theyve only made what, like 6 or so games with expansions, it just wont cut it.

(and guess what commercials work. They dont just make you buy the project but make you drawn to it, of course if its totally crap youl only remembered the bad stuff and wont go back to playing but if you had some fun stuff too then theres a big chance youl wanna start playing again. The same can be said about movies when comparing movie and dvd sales)

Originally posted by Palebane

WoW reminds me alot more of Diablo 2 than any Warcraft game. And there were alot of people who loved Diablo 2 for a long time, and still do.

wtf WoWs nothing like Diablo 2?