Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by PapaB34R 

 

makes me wonder if you live in the desert. The marketing they begun weeks before launch, maybe not in TV but magazines, websites, billboards etc.

Also the hype ofc thats forums/rewievs and peaks contributed.. as well as old blizzard fans but Il still have to believe that the marketing campaign they produced (which was a lot bigger then what EQ2 ever did btw) showed early results

Im not saying that the game itself had nothing to do with the success, yes of course it had like any other game.. however had it been released by a small company with not that much money to advertise and be seen WoW wouldve never grown big. It probably wouldnt even exist today, but thats another "what if" story

Also dont be quick to discard the power of commercials, the effect it will have on the potential buyer is huge. I myself have studdied marketing as well as conducting small experiments with folks about this and guess what, most of the commercials strenght doesnt rely in the direct message itself but how you see the things subconsciously. Sure your brain will still stop you from doing utterly foolish stuff, or if your less impulsive youl think before youl make the buy but in either case it will affect you one way or another, so yes you can perfectly fine compare a soda and a mmo subscription. You might keep buying the soda even though youl like another kind better in the same manner you might continue to play because of the comercials and the "everyones playing it right now". If you think Im wrong, go see for yourself as this be the last post I make in this thread.

Even if everything you said was true (which it isn't), some of the population would eventually even out.  People would try new sodas (or mmos) and find out that they do enjoy the other brands more than they do the heavily advertised ones.  The other games would swell just off the subscribers that burn out from wow.

That isn't the case though.  Almost every single other mmo is shrinking and has been since wow released. 

You can't advertise your way to over 11 million people at one time and not have at least a portion of them switch over to other products if they are indeed better as you say. 

 

 

I know I said I wouldnt post again here.. but this be the last, let me ask you something, why do you drink coca cola so often, or why does ppl do it. Why dont they drink other sodas, why do you think. Let me say it like this, its not because of the taste, theres pepsi, its not because of the coffeine, there coffee... well you make your own oppinion

and as a last say about the subject, WoW flooded the mmo market with new people who havent ever played mmo's before, why and how do you think that happened. The success relies much more in the less obvious then what you may think.

Originally posted by PapaB34R

I know I said I wouldnt post again here.. but this be the last, let me ask you something, why do you drink coca cola so often, or why does ppl do it. Why dont they drink other sodas, why do you think. Let me say it like this, its not because of the taste, theres pepsi, its not because of the coffeine, there coffee... well you make your own oppinion

and as a last say about the subject, WoW flooded the mmo market with new people who havent ever played mmo's before, why and how do you think that happened. The success relies much more in the less obvious then what you may think.

People drink Coke because they like the taste of it and you can buy it anywhere.  Plus plenty of people drink Pepsi, Dr. Pepper and an assortment of other sodas.  Also way more coffee is drunk then Coke anyway.  Sodas are so over-advertised that it boils down to personal preference in the end.   No matter how many commercials for Dr. Pepper I see, I will not start liking it all of a sudden when up till now I hated the taste.

Let's not forget the New Coke debacle. 

Our kids wanna play what their friends play, and that is WoW. All three kids like lotro more but still play WoW because thats what all their friends from school are playing.

And thats what game devs go wrong. They try to make a "WoW killer" when in reality they cant kill WoW. WoW is a kids social network as well as, or as much as, a game.

So here we are, a whole world of adult (30+) veteran gamers (C64, Amiga, etc) that have been playing games our whole lives, we have jobs, kids, houses and a shitload of buying power, but no adult MMO to play, because they all try to beat WoW or turn up to be gankfests... Good luck dickheads!

So Torrick, you drink whatever commercials tell you to drink even if you hate the taste?  You eat at restaurants even if you don't like them just because you keep seeing commercials?  Do you buy games that all the websites tell you to buy, even after you play a demo and decided it wasn't for you?  You play MMOs you don't like just because your friends play?  You're that weak minded?

If you do all these things, you're an extremely impressionable individual who can't think for himself or probably still a teenager.  If you don't do these things, you just disproved your own point;)

I don't know a single person who eats at McDonalds every day, but hates it.  I've NEVER met anyone who purposely drinks soda they don't like.  I've never met a person who keeps going to the same movie even though they hate it.  I've never met anyone who eats at a resturant every weekend even though they hate it.  But please enlighten everyone as to where these people exist.

I've never met anyone who plays WOW who actually hates it.  I've read about these people in forums who bitch and moan for years, yet continue to play, but forums aren't REAL people.  Those who complain actually enjoy the game very much.  It doesn't matter what they say.  Many just like attention.  Why else would you play a game for so long?  Their actions speak louder than words.

I don't concern myself with whether there will ever be a game with the same or greater subscription base than World of Warcraft.

I play a game to have fun, not to be able to say that I play a game that has more subscribers than other games. The success of a game is whether I enjoy my time in it, not in how many others play it with me.

Many times it's the friends you make that keep you in a game you'd have otherwise quit long ago.

WoW,  I feel the game was alright.  But i played the game for 2 years because of the friends I made and developed a bond with.

This is what's drawn many into a game like this.   It's a giant,  the timing of release was perfect,  it was well advertised, and the game was pretty good.   Was it an excellent game?  No, to be honest i doesn't even rank close to my top 10 list, but regardless,  i still payed a monthly fee for 2 years.   Some have been going much longer.

Also,  as a whole,  other games being released are just spinoff's on what WoW created.  Why would i bother if i could just play the giant in the industry?    I've played LOTRO, vanguard, etc...   all knockoffs.   Did i enjoy them?  certainly!   but knockoffs nonetheless.

The MMO industry is starting a shift, which is nice to see.   Darkfall for example is going back to UO roots and delivering (or rehashing, depending on your view) something fresh.   Don't get me wrong,  the delivery of the game leaves something to be desired,  but hype and excitment for this game remains regardless.

Other games are being released with some new concepts as well,  yet i think it's a foregone conclusion that WoW will remain the heavy hitter for years to come.

Originally posted by PapaB34R 

I know I said I wouldnt post again here.. but this be the last, let me ask you something, why do you drink coca cola so often, or why does ppl do it. Why dont they drink other sodas, why do you think. Let me say it like this, its not because of the taste, theres pepsi, its not because of the coffeine, there coffee... well you make your own oppinion

and as a last say about the subject, WoW flooded the mmo market with new people who havent ever played mmo's before, why and how do you think that happened. The success relies much more in the less obvious then what you may think.

First off, I don't drink coca cola so you are already off to a poor start with you assumptions and line of logic. 

When I do drink soda it is normally something witout carmel color and caffine.  Preferably without HF corn syrup to boot. 

Let me return a question to you.  When you walk into a store to buy a soda, how many choices are you presented with?  Have you noticed the shift to "sports" drinks, bottled water, juice drinks and tea based beverages? 

All that coca-cola advertising hasn't stopped those beverages from carving out huge chucks of the market as you seem to think happens.  People sure don't seem to have a problem breaking free from the bonds of coca cola advertising that you seem to think keeps people zombified consumers.

Fact is millions of people were playing mmos prior to wows advertising.  Yes millions and they all had no experience with mmos before they started and there was plenty of people moving around games then.   Then blizzard releases wow (at the same time as eq2 which was just as heavily advertised). and they completely blow every single game out of the water.

There is a reason you hear so many stories of people returning to wow for the 3rd, 4th, 5th time after playing other games.  That isn't advertising not matter how hard you want it to be true.

Originally posted by Netspook

Originally posted by schloob

Because every recently failed game (DF, AoC, WAR,etc.) thinks it can change the rules of what makes a sucessful MMORPG.  By looking at the phenomenal successes of EQ and WoW we can establish a few rules:

-Most people like PvE

-The few people that don't like PvE like PvP

-Your game should be about 90% PvE and 20% voluntary PvP

-Full loot fails

-Open PvP fails

-One end game encounter fails

-No progression fails

-Titties >>> gameplay/working game fails

-Scenario PvP doesn't fail but should only be a small part of PvP

I could go on and on.  Hopefully a good company will come along and make a game that I can stand for more than 3 days but seeing that Darkfall and AoC recently tried to set the bar low, wanted to go lower, got a shovel, dug awhile and set the bar, I think the next successful MMORPG will be either Blizzard or SoE old-school crew produced.

 

Wrong on sooo many lvls. If you were correct, PvP servers wouldn't be very popular among WoW players, which is lightyears away from the truth. Check for yourself:

http://www.wow-europe.com/realmstatus/index.html?locale=en_gb

Now, how many PvP server are there, compared to PvE? 'Nuff said.

You do realize that people don't actually roll on those servers to PvP? They roll on these servers because they are more populated and you have a higher chance to actually join some serious guild.
 

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Raekon

EQ2 was there for years and they had not even ONE spot running to tv and barely any were in the magazines to say the least.
 

Additionaly EQ2 was mostly for people that had a clue about the lore AND was partially and it wasn't mindless bring me 100 heads from the same person questing like WoW to say the least.

You seem to under the impression that Blizzard was running television ads for warcraft prior to its release.  Perhaps I missed it, but warcraft television ads started showing in late 2007 with the shatner/troyner spots.  

As for eq2 not advertising much, are you kidding?  You didn't see the full size cutouts in stores of Antonia Bayle of Lucan D'lere?  For petes sakes they hired Heather Graham and Christopher Lee to head up the voice acting in the game.  Soe had an entire division devoted to advertising and marketing mmos, not only for themselves, but other companies that needed a publisher.  There was plenty of EQ2 vs Warcraft advertising going on. 

I also think you are mistaken with your view of what eq2 was supposed to be.  EQ2 was supposed to be the next generation mmo that would dominate the market.  That is why soe worked so hard to compete and rush to beat wow to market.  It wasn't aimed to be some niche game as you are trying to make it out to be.  EQ2 was aimed at capturing a wider and more casual market.  Just because it failed to do that doesn't change what it was intended to be.

 

The question I keep coming back to is, if the key to success of an mmo was simply advertising it, what is holding back so many games from doing just that?  It can't be that big of a secret if the posters on mmorpg.com know about it. 

 

Dear daffid.... you obviously missed that I'm talking about a worldwide scale and not only about your place right?
 

In Germany heck even in Greece when I went there you could see tv spots about wow as the only one mmo.

Advertisement HELPS and that's no lie! Additionaly as others said fans from diablo and warcraft/starcraft were millions already? I'm one of them and I'm not denying that this was one of the main reasons I joined wow and to my dissappointment I saw a screwed up story that had barely to do with the warcraft series (illogical stuff they as I heard partially corrected later) a very simple character editor that make no difference with some mediocre or simple korean mmos and couldn't match editors like the unmatchable one from city of heroes/villains (OK no mmo ever managed to do that yet. :P ), a gameplay that was nothing else than mediocre, a frustrating and boring repeatable quest system (hey! Let's let this guy get into the fight with the mobs so we can steal the quest item so when he comes out after he made the whole effort gets nothing and has to wait for a respawn while he needs to fight again!), a bad distribution (random luck in "epic items" and rare items with dice roll) of items, holes in the generated blending of the BITMAPS of the environment (yes they were bitmaps....), a traveling system that had you to walk 30 minutes to reach the next place so you can open a travel option and travel with a griffin or flying bot, the possibility to fall out of a map and land on the water with the only option to either swim for 30 minutes or longer to reach a place you can come back on a land spot or instantly die and much more that actually any good mmo would had done  and already has done much better!

Don't even start me with the pvp....

So don't start me please with "it's the unmatched gameplay fanboy talk" cause such talks are epic fails in my opinion.

Their whole gameplay are pieces they took out of other mmos, polished a bit and sold as their own system and nothing more.

Nothing new, nothing special. I don't mind that though cause if someone likes it they should play it!

However, the game itself is definately not the reason for the success they had with it cause there are many other mmos that did many of these features much better then they ever did!

Have Fun!

I never liked WoW at all, but Blizzard did everything quite well. Very little was outstanding but almost nothing was bad. They had sound financial backing, a loyal ready-made market from the Warcraft franchise and they didn't scare away people trying their first mmo.

Contrast that with EQ and you can see the differences immediately. I'm English and I was in EQ from the start but not only didn't I know any other English players back then, I didn't even know anyone who'd heard of Everquest. The game just didn't exist over here in 1999 beyond a handful of people like me who stumbled across it by accident. I remember finding out about the /played command when I was level 14 and I had 14 played days.  That's 336 hours of gameplay to get to level 14. People won't tolerate that now.

Not competing with WoW is nowhere near the realms of failure though. WoW is the exception, not the rule. EQ was a massive success with half a million subscribers.

Originally posted by Raekon 

Dear daffid.... you obviously missed that I'm talking about a worldwide scale and not only about your place right?
 

In Germany heck even in Greece when I went there you could see tv spots about wow as the only one mmo.

<<snip>>

However, the game itself is definately not the reason for the success they had with it cause there are many other mmos that did many of these features much better then they ever did!

Have Fun!

You do realize Warcraft was already a success years.. yes years.. before they ran television ads.

For all the ranting you are doing about advertising winning the masses, soe was king of the mmo hill at the time.  They had an entire division devoted to marketing and distribution.  They beat wow to market in north america by a few weeks and europe by months.  By your logic eq2 should be a monster of an mmo, yet it struggles to retain 1/3 of what the original game held population wise.

At the end of the day people were leaving other mmos (which you claim do things so much better) that they could log into and immediately play to join wow, where they had to wait in a login que sometimes for hours just to play. 

I can't think of one single commercial or advertisement that is powerful enough to draw people away from a better product with immediate gameplay to an inferior product (as you put it) only to have to sit and wait at the server select screen waiting and waiting just to play the game.

I never said wow had a flawless release.  The logic that people get sucked into a bad game for years on end as the result of advertising is just plain dumb.  There are a great number of mmos that had significant advertising and well history proves you wrong.

Originally posted by Roin

The idea that advertising was respondible for WoW's success is laughable.  

Really?  I guess that's why any mainstream corporation spends millions upon millions on advertising campaigns, endorsements, prime television spots, billboard placements, marketing freebies, etc.  These corporations will cut expenses killing product quality & hamper their operations before cutting advertising budgets. 

I hate to break it to the WoW fanbois, but the reason Blizzard went so mainstream is because they purposely set it out mainstream with massive advertising.  If you were a MMO player at the time, you definitely took notice.  The reality is most of the WoW players in here are the new batch who were not playing MMOs then and noticed the transition.  The game was significantly easier than other MMOs.

Blizzard took notice of the success and has been progressively dumbing down the game while pumping advertisements.  Contrary to what some fanboys think, WoW has high turnover.   Each new influx of players is dumber than the previous one.  WotLK made the game accessible to retards.  The guilds I was in just a few months ago are pretty much done, most players have quit.  But the number of utter retards went up significantly, while the overall IQ of community has taken a dive.  Lot of new players with bought accounts just to roll Deathtard and be completely clueless.

Blizzard tapped into a demographic that previously unavailable to MMOs.  The "bads", "casuals" & easily amused morons.  Most people, by a wide margin, are stupid.  Hence WoW's position.

Originally posted by Daffid011

 There are a great number of mmos that had significant advertising and well history proves you wrong.

There is not one other MMO that has even comes close to Blizzard's marketing.  There is no comparison, especially back around launch.

Warhammer did some TV spots, but WoW had multiple times more ads.  Warhammer also geared toward cable channels & shows with more serious gamer demographic while WoW was penetrating prime channels.  I barely watch TV and I think I saw two WAR ad spots while over 20 WoW spots.

Just think about how much they had to pay Ozzy & Shatner.  Their current ad budget is probably higher than other games' development budget.

Nice theory blunt, but if that were that only case then some sizable portion of turnover that you claim would migrate to other mmos.  Care to explain why almost every other mmos is on a continual decline when they should be seeing an increase since the entire mmo market has risen so much in the last several years?

I understand that marketing is important.  I understand that blizzard had a fanbase.  I understand that there is a turnover in the game (maybe you don't understand that there is also a high rate of returns?).  None of that I dispute or ignore.  

I understand that companies in other markets spend millions on advertising and brand name recognition, because they have competition.  Most of those products it is hard to find one that clearly outperforms the other.  It isn't like there is a world of difference between detergent a and detergent b. 

I also understand that you can advertise a horrible product all you want and it will not get repeat business, fantastic word of mouth, critical acclaim from industry peers and reviewers and so on.  People will not flock to it in droves while leaving their superior products behind.  Especially if they cannot even log in to play the game and have to wait in line.  That just won't happen unless there is something more than marketing smoke and mirrors. 

At the end of the day, everything in the mmo market points to the exact opposite of what you guys are claiming.  There are plenty of example where high profile heavily marketed games tanked, but that shows a flaw in peoples logic so they ignore that.  The same for games with massive followings, but that doesn't fit the opinion so it is ignored.  Big budget experienced game development companies.. same story.  Rock star software developers putting out independant games... ditto.   How many half baked game releases do mmo players have to put up with before people see the truth behind so many failures?

If success is as simple as advertising to stupid people, where are the other mmos that follow this simple road to riches?  It should be easy right?  Just advertise advertise advertise and nothing can stop the legions of people that will flock to your game and bring all of their friends.  Do you see how flawed that logic is?  

EQ2 did exactly the same thing as wow with marketing and target market, yet it has a tiny fraction of the success wow had.  Do you really think everyone was marketed away from it?   

You can label people fanboys all you like, call player retards or whatever other insults make you feel superior in your opinion.  The fact is the majority of new players, experienced players and everything in between migrated to warcraft.  If you think the only reason for that was advertising then I don't know what else can be said. 

Originally posted by HydrobluntX

Originally posted by Daffid011

 There are a great number of mmos that had significant advertising and well history proves you wrong.

 

There is not one other MMO that has even comes close to Blizzard's marketing.  There is no comparison, especially back around launch.

Warhammer did some TV spots, but WoW had multiple times more ads.  Warhammer also geared toward cable channels & shows with more serious gamer demographic while WoW was penetrating prime channels.  I barely watch TV and I think I saw two WAR ad spots while over 20 WoW spots.

Just think about how much they had to pay Ozzy & Shatner.  Their current ad budget is probably higher than other games' development budget.

I hope you realize that wow did not start that type of advertising until several years after it released and already had millions of subscribers. Their budget NOW might be bigger than other games develope with, but that doesn't mean it was the reason it got to where it is now.  The television ads are a result of the success, not the cause.

Wow didn't have tv ads at release, but here you say warhammer did (I don't know).  Warhammer sold over a million copies, but lost the overwhelming majority of those players.  How can that be if they put out marketing at release (more than wow)?

Maybe the gameplay is a bigger factor than you care to admit?

As I said, advertising won't get people to stay.

Originally posted by HydrobluntX

Originally posted by Daffid011

 There are a great number of mmos that had significant advertising and well history proves you wrong.

 

There is not one other MMO that has even comes close to Blizzard's marketing.  There is no comparison, especially back around launch.

Warhammer did some TV spots, but WoW had multiple times more ads.  Warhammer also geared toward cable channels & shows with more serious gamer demographic while WoW was penetrating prime channels.  I barely watch TV and I think I saw two WAR ad spots while over 20 WoW spots.

Just think about how much they had to pay Ozzy & Shatner.  Their current ad budget is probably higher than other games' development budget.

So? Sure advertising gets people to TRY out a game.

Advertising does not make people stay. That is marketing 101.

Its simple:

- Polished Gameplay

- Stable Servers

- Good GUI

I've only played WoW for 15 mins and I can tell you it is one of the few MMOs that actually has all 3.  My guess is the rest of its popularity comes from its "casual" mentality.  75% of the gamer's don't have time nor probably want to spend time "leveling" for 6 - 12 months to get a chance to enjoy the whole game.

WoW was the first MMO that took nothing for granted.  Blizzard was determined to make a game that didn't punish people for playing it.  I've seen some idiots here bash WoW for having a user-friendly interface.  How much of an idiot do you have to be to criticize a game for having a good interface?

Originally posted by Chieftan

WoW was the first MMO that took nothing for granted.  Blizzard was determined to make a game that didn't punish people for playing it.  I've seen some idiots here bash WoW for having a user-friendly interface.  How much of an idiot do you have to be to criticize a game for having a good interface?

Not an idiot. A hardcore veteran MMO specialist.

Yea, the reason why WoW is popular is pretty simple. Unlimited funding,  concentrated on funny youth things (april fools day), popular, user-friendly, shatner and mr t.

Originally posted by Chieftan

WoW was the first MMO that took nothing for granted.  Blizzard was determined to make a game that didn't punish people for playing it.  I've seen some idiots here bash WoW for having a user-friendly interface.  How much of an idiot do you have to be to criticize a game for having a good interface?

Some peole just like different hings, that doesn't make them morons, just different from you.

Personally, the only UI I like is Guildwars (Which BTW is made by the guy that made most of Wows UI, but I GWs just fit me better).

But  that a UI is easy to use is good in my opinion, my problem with Wow is that I think that the gameplay is to easy. I like a challenge, other people want it easier, it have nothing to do if Wow is a good or bad game, just my personal preferance.

Originally posted by Murdus

Not an idiot. A hardcore veteran MMO specialist.

Congratulations on one of the (very few) posts on this board ever to make me /lol in real life.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Murdus

Not an idiot. A hardcore veteran MMO specialist.

Congratulations on one of the (very few) posts on this board ever to make me /lol in real life.

lol...that is a pretty good line. Think I'll use it the next time I go to the club.

Because noone has yet to sell game accounts in bulk to internet cafes in Asia excpet Blizzard ?

Originally posted by Raekon

Well you can be sure that any good PR department and by that I don't mean only Blizzards but any company will tell you things about "unicorns and rainbows" so take such announcements always with a good grain of  salt portion. :/

Anyway.... for me was, still is and if they don't mess up in the future always be the best developer on MMOs and one of the first ones ever NCsoft.

I can't wait for AION and Soul&Blade to go into the beta status or be released! :)

Even Gems like City of Heroes/Villains, Guild Wars and many other games they brought were much better than WoW will ever be. Not to mention what Blizzard ripped from games like that and sold them as "new ideas" which wasn't the case.

Heck even free mmos are out there that are more fun than wow.

I remember the days where the first C&C came out from a VERY small company that couldn't afford large advertisement and stuff and then all of sudden Warcraft that "surprisingly" were using the exact same system popped out of nothing with the Blizzard name on it, lots of advertisement and money to push things to success which we all know took place.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the Warcraft series (except wow of course) till the frozen throne and I still have them.

Fact is though that money rules the world in many occassions (sad but unfortunately true) and blizzard is the best example on this.

If my memory serves me well, both C&C and Warcraft were ''surprisingly'' using the same system as Dune II :)

 

  To answer the OP directly, by its title

  "Because they are still TRYING to"

  You cannot compete with WoW, that forces you to meet them head on...and on THEIR turf.  To "compete" with WoW, you must meet them on YOUR turf. 

 In other words.....

MAKE SOME NEW CRAP PEOPLE!