I believe that one of the biggest factors that influenced the flopping of AoC and similar new releases is feature creeping. The publisher demands too many features for the developer to complete in time. The game is subsequently released too early and the game is a shell in comparison to its design which is furtherly made worse with large amounts of hype and disappointment.

MMORPGs as successfull as WoW were released as polished products relative to their design features and aims (bar the natural amount of minor bugs). Blizzard will not hesitate to release a product late, it's always "ready when it's ready." This extra time is crucial. First impressions from players and the media are the most important ones when it comes to a game taking off, these reviews and opinions will resonate the most when potential players look for and research into an MMORPG to play.

WoW has had time to develop upon its release success, adding so many new features and polishing old ones. It is a complete powerhouse. New MMORPGs are expected to be of similar, if not better quality when it comes to content and features to WoW. Consumers will no longer compare new MMORPGs to the release version of WoW, but instead the current feature-riddled gold-plated version of it. Developers must now face this very high standard in order to satisfy your average player.

Originally posted by warty

uh you uh, know those like, 3 people who left blizzard. yeah they sure went on to big things didnt they. im mean clearly they were the critical parts of the team. yeah. yeah i bet they fucking wish they still had their piece of that pie now! jesus lol barely anyone has left blizzard at all,  ever.

you know why? because blizzard is a fucking class company to work for, one of the top rated in the whole games industry. why the fuck would anyone want to leave a job where they have one of the cushtiest dev houses, a huge gym, pool, gardens, pool tables etc. Oh and health insurance, pretty sure blizz are one of the only ones who do that as standard.

mm yeah but lets go leave and make this shitty game and then oh its dead wish I hadnt sold my stocks

Sir. I think you're referring to the founders of Arenanet and I detest your fanboyish rant.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_O%27Brien_(game_developer) "

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Strain

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Wyatt

These men are highly skilled professionals and you, sir, are a schmuck! The game was a success - hence the sequal.

Highest number of subs does not equal "best" MMORPG. It does make it the most popular, as well as one of themost profitable most likely.

WoW introduced an accessible game at just the right time; while EQ2 created a new engine (that half of the computers at the time couldn't run on decent settings) and group-required content all over the place, WoW came in with a game that almost any machine could run, with tons of solo-friendly content. Add in the PvP opportunities they created over time, and they suddenly had a game with polished PvE and some PvP elements.

WoW isn't #1 due to the graphics, or the engine, or the content, or the features. IT is #1 because it does everything just well enough to keep people coming back, and maintains a large enough playerbase that both new and returning players can jump in and have people to play with.

WoW will, in time, die (by that I mean fade into relative obscurity with drastically diminished subs).  People will continue to play the original WoW and lament on how much better things were "back then", just as today's purists talk about UO, DAOC, and EQ1 during their primes. However, I expect Blizzard will have a new MMORPG out long before then.

lets not forgot Guild Wars is the online game to even come close to having the player base of WoW. They put together a great game.

Originally posted by Bellise

Originally posted by xeniar

Originally posted by arimer

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by xeniar

no game competes with WoW because the WoW audience are easymode basterds.

EQ2 is too hard for them to be playign they would get confused trying to find the mobs they need to kill, and they would whine because the have a experience penalty in death.

not gonna make other comparisons you guys catch my drift anyway.

Yes im a ex-WoW player and ive quit because blizzard has made content too easy nowadays and evrything is unbalanced (no plans of returning...)

Dura Dwarf warrior Outland EU

 

The fact that nobody could even do the achievement lists 5 months after launch (out of those 5 million players), shows that the challenge in the end game of Wow is fucking hard.

Show me another game where only 1 team of 2, 3 or 5 persons get the Brutal Gladiaor title in a rated ladder based PvP out of 200.000 players (20 servers clustered). Being Brutal Gladiator is a unique title on a server (and a lot of servers don't even have the title).

The same with PVE Raids these days.

Blizzard is the first mmorpg maker where some bosses are SCALED in difficulty, making for a very very small percentage to have the fantastic black or red dragons in its end game. Downing a boss on easy mode is to let everyone enjoy the scenery, but that's NOT the aim of the game anymore.

The aim now is prestige of downing them in a hard setting with all achievements up (like downing Sart has 8 different hard modes).

On my server only ... 0.3% of the Raiders could do all these Raid achievements. That's perhaps 0.01% of total players on a server.

Easy? Only for those not daring the difficult challenges in the Raid or PvP competitions....The others show off with their red and black dragons. Show me your armory and I'll laugh with the "easy" boosts.

No longer the gear is elite, it's the titles and mounts that do the shows these days. And everyone can look at the armory how poorly 99% of the people play. :)))

 

Wait?  So the point of raiding now and what decides its difficulty are optional achievements which give you nothing?   So your saying if a game made an achievement for a raid that was beat 90 bosses in 3 seconds which would be impossible, then it would therefore be the most challenging end game out there?    I'm sorry but that doesn't make any sense.
 

BAsed on numbers Since TBC the raids have gotten easier.  Look at vanilla wow, how many progressed, look at TBC slightly more did,  Now in northrend you have guilds full of retarded monkeys clearing every raid.

 

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.

The only hardcore PvE in Vanilla WoW was couple of bugged BwL fights, C'thun before it got nerfed and couple of Naxxramas fights. The rest was easy and cleared very fast. I was raiding from early 2005 and really don't know about this night after night raiding. Maybe if you were in some mediocre casual guild. But the real hardcore guilds cleared the content fast. As I said only exception to this is C'thun and The Four Horsemen. And those are just 2 fights. Both M'uru and Kil' Jaeden are better and harder if you are really looking for something hardcore.
 

Xeniar is correct, MANY raiding guilds that were hardcore raided night after night after night, maybe stopping once or twice during the week, if that.  Take for example the original Naxxramas race, between Nihilum and Death and Taxes.  They were, at the time, the two top guilds in the world.  They were the most driven, arguable the best. (on a side note, a player on my old server transferred over to D&T to become a third string pally healer-he got extremely geared extremely quick then sold the toon for almost $2k)

I know that during that race, D&T raided every single day, up until they cleared the instance. There motto was: If you get burned out or want to quit, well we have thousands of applicants ready at the drop of a hat to fill your spot.  Naxxramas, not only required 40 people as opposed to today's 25 man raids in WoW, also required stacking frost resist, and having some mandatory classes in the raid, unlike today. 

The four horseman, to this day, hold the title for the longest time an encounter lay undefeated from the first time it was encountered, at 7 weeks.  So, really you could say that the hardcore guilds were raiding 5-6 times and week for several months.  Yea pve is simple once you understand the strategy, but people didn't understand the strategy for months during naxx. 

Originally posted by TheHavok

Originally posted by Bellise

Originally posted by xeniar

Originally posted by arimer

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by xeniar

no game competes with WoW because the WoW audience are easymode basterds.

EQ2 is too hard for them to be playign they would get confused trying to find the mobs they need to kill, and they would whine because the have a experience penalty in death.

not gonna make other comparisons you guys catch my drift anyway.

Yes im a ex-WoW player and ive quit because blizzard has made content too easy nowadays and evrything is unbalanced (no plans of returning...)

Dura Dwarf warrior Outland EU

 

The fact that nobody could even do the achievement lists 5 months after launch (out of those 5 million players), shows that the challenge in the end game of Wow is fucking hard.

Show me another game where only 1 team of 2, 3 or 5 persons get the Brutal Gladiaor title in a rated ladder based PvP out of 200.000 players (20 servers clustered). Being Brutal Gladiator is a unique title on a server (and a lot of servers don't even have the title).

The same with PVE Raids these days.

Blizzard is the first mmorpg maker where some bosses are SCALED in difficulty, making for a very very small percentage to have the fantastic black or red dragons in its end game. Downing a boss on easy mode is to let everyone enjoy the scenery, but that's NOT the aim of the game anymore.

The aim now is prestige of downing them in a hard setting with all achievements up (like downing Sart has 8 different hard modes).

On my server only ... 0.3% of the Raiders could do all these Raid achievements. That's perhaps 0.01% of total players on a server.

Easy? Only for those not daring the difficult challenges in the Raid or PvP competitions....The others show off with their red and black dragons. Show me your armory and I'll laugh with the "easy" boosts.

No longer the gear is elite, it's the titles and mounts that do the shows these days. And everyone can look at the armory how poorly 99% of the people play. :)))

 

Wait?  So the point of raiding now and what decides its difficulty are optional achievements which give you nothing?   So your saying if a game made an achievement for a raid that was beat 90 bosses in 3 seconds which would be impossible, then it would therefore be the most challenging end game out there?    I'm sorry but that doesn't make any sense.
 

BAsed on numbers Since TBC the raids have gotten easier.  Look at vanilla wow, how many progressed, look at TBC slightly more did,  Now in northrend you have guilds full of retarded monkeys clearing every raid.

 

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.

The only hardcore PvE in Vanilla WoW was couple of bugged BwL fights, C'thun before it got nerfed and couple of Naxxramas fights. The rest was easy and cleared very fast. I was raiding from early 2005 and really don't know about this night after night raiding. Maybe if you were in some mediocre casual guild. But the real hardcore guilds cleared the content fast. As I said only exception to this is C'thun and The Four Horsemen. And those are just 2 fights. Both M'uru and Kil' Jaeden are better and harder if you are really looking for something hardcore.
 

Xeniar is correct, MANY raiding guilds that were hardcore raided night after night after night, maybe stopping once or twice during the week, if that.  Take for example the original Naxxramas race, between Nihilum and Death and Taxes.  They were, at the time, the two top guilds in the world.  They were the most driven, arguable the best. (on a side note, a player on my old server transferred over to D&T to become a third string pally healer-he got extremely geared extremely quick then sold the toon for almost $2k)

I know that during that race, D&T raided every single day, up until they cleared the instance. There motto was: If you get burned out or want to quit, well we have thousands of applicants ready at the drop of a hat to fill your spot.  Naxxramas, not only required 40 people as opposed to today's 25 man raids in WoW, also required stacking frost resist, and having some mandatory classes in the raid, unlike today. 

The four horseman, to this day, hold the title for the longest time an encounter lay undefeated from the first time it was encountered, at 7 weeks.  So, really you could say that the hardcore guilds were raiding 5-6 times and week for several months.  Yea pve is simple once you understand the strategy, but people didn't understand the strategy for months during naxx. 

 

No, he is not correct and if you were there yourself as I was , you would know. He said that Vanilla WoW was hardcore. No, it was not. There were 2 bosses that were hardcore and those were C'thun and The Four Horsemen. Both Nihilum and Death and Taxes were raiding night after night on those 2 bosses and that's it. Every other boss in Vanilla WoW was killed very fast and in terms of fight complexity Vanilla bosses were inferior to TBC bosses by far - 2 exceptions are posted above. People should really take away those nostalgia goggles they are wearing when trying to prove a point. And all this is coming from a raider in 1 of WoWs top world guilds.  
 

Originally posted by Bellise 

No, he is not correct and if you were there yourself as I was , you would know. He said that Vanilla WoW was hardcore. No, it was not. There were 2 bosses that were hardcore and those were C'thun and The Four Horsemen. Both Nihilum and Death and Taxes were raiding night after night on those 2 bosses and that's it. Every other boss in Vanilla WoW was killed very fast and in terms of fight complexity Vanilla bosses were inferior to TBC bosses by far - 2 exceptions are posted above. People should really take away those nostalgia goggles they are wearing when trying to prove a point. And all this is coming from a raider in 1 of WoWs top world guilds.  
 

When you have the volume of guilds attacking raid content that there are in a game the size of warcraft it isn't surprising that encounters do not go very long being undefeated. 

Vanilla wow was pretty tough for its time.  Sure encounters got better, but there were a lot of challenging encounters.  Vaelastrza for example was a major pain in the ass for a great number of guilds.

Maybe it isn't hardcore if your view of hardcore is the extreme of stumping everyone for months in a game with millions of people, sure.  Few things in when viewed in that manner are going to be. 

Not that I see how this is where other games failed to compete

Haven't read all before this so maybe someone else mentioned it but I assumed that the continuing success to WoW is the social aspect. The peer pressure aspect.

I assume many start to play and continue to play WoW because all their friends do. It doesn't even matter if a player and all their friends are bored of WoW and would have more fun playing another game, the fact is they're established and having fun as a group together, its a social thing, why leave.

Its not about the game. Its not about whats more fun. WoW at this point functions more as a social network than as a game, imo.

Originally posted by dhayes68

Haven't read all before this so maybe someone else mentioned it but I assumed that the continuing success to WoW is the social aspect. The peer pressure aspect.

I assume many start to play and continue to play WoW because all their friends do. It doesn't even matter if a player and all their friends are bored of WoW and would have more fun playing another game, the fact is they're established and having fun as a group together, its a social thing, why leave.

Its not about the game. Its not about whats more fun. WoW at this point functions more as a social network than as a game, imo.

Amazing, isn't it? Paying $15 a month to do something you can do for free on Facebook.

Originally posted by dhayes68

Haven't read all before this so maybe someone else mentioned it but I assumed that the continuing success to WoW is the social aspect. The peer pressure aspect.

I assume many start to play and continue to play WoW because all their friends do. It doesn't even matter if a player and all their friends are bored of WoW and would have more fun playing another game, the fact is they're established and having fun as a group together, its a social thing, why leave.

Its not about the game. Its not about whats more fun. WoW at this point functions more as a social network than as a game, imo.

People left Ultima online when all their friends where playing. 

They left everquest when the same applied then.

You can see the decline in many mmos and combine that with record breaking sales of mmo releases and what do you have?

Maybe people have not left for other games, because other games just don't measure up.  We can speculate that millions of people won't give up a game (despite it happening in many other mmos previously) or we can just look at the condition most games are released at to see how they compare. 

Two mmos last year got somewhere around a million people each to try them in the first couple of months when they released.  I think that shows that people are willing to leave for a new game, but what is being offered just does not compete with the current marketplace.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by dhayes68

Haven't read all before this so maybe someone else mentioned it but I assumed that the continuing success to WoW is the social aspect. The peer pressure aspect.

I assume many start to play and continue to play WoW because all their friends do. It doesn't even matter if a player and all their friends are bored of WoW and would have more fun playing another game, the fact is they're established and having fun as a group together, its a social thing, why leave.

Its not about the game. Its not about whats more fun. WoW at this point functions more as a social network than as a game, imo.

 

People left Ultima online when all their friends where playing. 

They left everquest when the same applied then.

You can see the decline in many mmos and combine that with record breaking sales of mmo releases and what do you have?

 

Maybe people have not left for other games, because other games just don't measure up.  We can speculate that millions of people won't give up a game (despite it happening in many other mmos previously) or we can just look at the condition most games are released at to see how they compare. 

Two mmos last year got somewhere around a million people each to try them in the first couple of months when they released.  I think that shows that people are willing to leave for a new game, but what is being offered just does not compete with the current marketplace.

 

 

Yep, how can you compete when the majority of WoW's customers are (presumably) satisfied?

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Bellise 

No, he is not correct and if you were there yourself as I was , you would know. He said that Vanilla WoW was hardcore. No, it was not. There were 2 bosses that were hardcore and those were C'thun and The Four Horsemen. Both Nihilum and Death and Taxes were raiding night after night on those 2 bosses and that's it. Every other boss in Vanilla WoW was killed very fast and in terms of fight complexity Vanilla bosses were inferior to TBC bosses by far - 2 exceptions are posted above. People should really take away those nostalgia goggles they are wearing when trying to prove a point. And all this is coming from a raider in 1 of WoWs top world guilds.  
 

 

When you have the volume of guilds attacking raid content that there are in a game the size of warcraft it isn't surprising that encounters do not go very long being undefeated. 

Vanilla wow was pretty tough for its time.  Sure encounters got better, but there were a lot of challenging encounters.  Vaelastrza for example was a major pain in the ass for a great number of guilds.

Maybe it isn't hardcore if your view of hardcore is the extreme of stumping everyone for months in a game with millions of people, sure.  Few things in when viewed in that manner are going to be. 

 

Not that I see how this is where other games failed to compete

I am not arguing that it was not tough. But I really wouldn't give Vanilla WoW as the example of how hardcore raiding should look like. Sure, there were some interesting encounters - the ones I mentioned or Vaelastrasz - but overall the first raids and encounters were tank and spank fights with very little creativity or complexity. Note - I am not saying it was bad or anything, hell I have fond memories of doing Molten Core or BwL or any other Vanilla WoW raid, but I don't let the nostalgia to prevent me from seeing that those raids lacked a lot. Burning Crusade introduced us to more complex fights overall than Vanilla WoW and raiding also got harder. And I still think Sunwell Plateau was better dungeon than Naxxramas. Killing Kil'Jaeden , hell that was the most epic moment in WoW to this day for me.
 

And to talk about point of easy raiding in WotLK. I'll judge that after we finish Icecrown.

WoW has titties. No other game can offer tits.

  Because they suck. Too many incompetent game designers who think they are up to the task and fail miserably. In the process wasting half a decade of their life on trash, I can only imagine its a great blow to their ego which is why they cling so hard to their failed ideas.

let me tell you why. Blizzard created its own market.. im not talking about the mmo market.. because when blizzard came into the so called "MMO" market all the games out at the time have been pretty much the same as they are coming out now. They are what I call Traditional MMOs. WoW being far from a traditional MMO because its not a niche. where MMO's before wow were considered niche games where they are not for everyone..

Now what blizzard did was create an MMO for everyone stepping out of that niche. They got about 90% of their players that have never before played an MMO before to play wow and love it ( i know i cant prove that but its an an estimate off the top of my head)

They loved it because it was catored to them. It was very easy to pick up and play from the very first time you log in.. They did everything right to cator to the casual gamer aswell as i guess a more hardcore gamer who raided 5-7 nights a week.. They didnt care about the bugs because they were not THAT noticable.. I personally dont remeber ANY bugs at launch that took away from the gameplay.. The only bug I remember is the pally seal bug since I played a pally as my first toon. I didnt know it was a bug because it didnt seem like one. The seal just did alittle to much damange..

The reason no game can compete with wow is because the people that are playing wow are not looking for a new mmo. They love what they have and they wont leave for a wow clone because they got the best one already.. There is a game that will take a big chunk of the players from wow and thats blizzards own next MMO.

thats just my 2 cents.

Originally posted by Bellise 

I am not arguing that it was not tough. But I really wouldn't give Vanilla WoW as the example of how hardcore raiding should look like. Sure, there were some interesting encounters - the ones I mentioned or Vaelastrasz - but overall the first raids and encounters were tank and spank fights with very little creativity or complexity. Note - I am not saying it was bad or anything, hell I have fond memories of doing Molten Core or BwL or any other Vanilla WoW raid, but I don't let the nostalgia to prevent me from seeing that those raids lacked a lot. Burning Crusade introduced us to more complex fights overall than Vanilla WoW and raiding also got harder. And I still think Sunwell Plateau was better dungeon than Naxxramas. Killing Kil'Jaeden , hell that was the most epic moment in WoW to this day for me.
 

And to talk about point of easy raiding in WotLK. I'll judge that after we finish Icecrown.

 

Plenty of truth in your words, but I still think that for its time wow was well above par.  Today vanilla wow may not be what hardcore raiding should look like, but for the time it was pretty hard.

Even though the core concept of most fights were tank and spank, almost every single fight was different.  There was usually some trick, movement, placement or specific tactic that was different from almost any other boss fight.  Even with prewritten strategies there were far to many guilds that could not complete encounters. 

Burning crusade did a nice job of expanding on raids with new mechanics and such.  Blizzard really did a good job with that one.

Lich king is to easy, because blizzard was stupid and tried changing to much to fast.  Just like a few other games did, they revamped classes, talents, raids, buffs all the while adding new levels and trying to balance it and make an expansion at the same time.  The only think that is making lich king "easy" is that player character balance is off.  Way to much dps, healing, mana and threat generation.   

Originally posted by Dudek28

let me tell you why. Blizzard created its own market.. im not talking about the mmo market.. because when blizzard came into the so called "MMO" market all the games out at the time have been pretty much the same as they are coming out now. They are what I call Traditional MMOs. WoW being far from a traditional MMO because its not a niche. where MMO's before wow were considered niche games where they are not for everyone..

Now what blizzard did was create an MMO for everyone stepping out of that niche. They got about 90% of their players that have never before played an MMO before to play wow and love it ( i know i cant prove that but its an an estimate off the top of my head)

They loved it because it was catored to them. It was very easy to pick up and play from the very first time you log in.. They did everything right to cator to the casual gamer aswell as i guess a more hardcore gamer who raided 5-7 nights a week.. They didnt care about the bugs because they were not THAT noticable.. I personally dont remeber ANY bugs at launch that took away from the gameplay.. The only bug I remember is the pally seal bug since I played a pally as my first toon. I didnt know it was a bug because it didnt seem like one. The seal just did alittle to much damange..

The reason no game can compete with wow is because the people that are playing wow are not looking for a new mmo. They love what they have and they wont leave for a wow clone because they got the best one already.. There is a game that will take a big chunk of the players from wow and thats blizzards own next MMO.

 

thats just my 2 cents.

I can only second this. Thankyou for writing out my thoughts ;p this would have taken forever to do.

I was one of these people who started wow as first real mmo aswell, jst as 90 percent of my friends did aswell. Ever since I got tired of WoW ive been looking around for a new one, but so far no mmo has really been able to keep me hooked as WoW did.

+ i want blizzard's new mmo too =^) ( god im gonna get a lot of hate with this post )

Originally posted by Zorndorf
 

I give you the ONE and most important reason for me and why I just LOVE to play this game.

The control of your avatar when you fight .

In Wow you are your avatar. In other mmorpg's I play with a puppet that hangs there as a kind of hopping/popping/jumping thing with absolutely no connection to it.

----

Easy to say but I think it is a "coat" that hides MANY qualities other mmorpg makers just can't grasp.

Just a few examples: the blend in of your avatar in the scenery. In Wow my human takes about one to 2 steps per stair.

In War you have a dwarf who "floats " above the stairs and taking sometimes 5 steps at once.

Do YOU know many midgets in RL that take 2 meter steps on a stair at once ?

The same with the combat system. In Wow it is a natural thing you control things. NO need even to look at those famous timers. You feel the combat of a rogue putting his kidney shot or the mages" fireballs going off. You never have to watch the off timers. You just know the spells fire off with ALL surround  feedback needed.

No other mmorpg gives me this feeling. Not even remotely.

Wow is the closest to FPS of all mmorpg's and it is even better because of the building up of your character.

I love the tactical/strategical maps and fights of the BG's yes. Far more than the maps of TF2 or CS.

It is this micro scale that does it (and then you build upon these stones .....).

-----

The real polish of Wow lies in the details. How in the world could you compete with a perfect control of your avatar ?

 

 

I have to agree with this man, wow responsiveness and combat animation is second to none.  When you tell your avatar to swing or punch, you can actually see your character pivot shifted weight and swing at your opponent.  Further more, unlike many of the other MMO out there, there animation is fast paced and the damage and animation sync perfect.  This level of polish alone give you a great sense of immersion compare to the so called top moo.  As much as I love vanguard and EQ2 which I consider to have a much better PVE and crafting experience.  I could never get the same level of immersion as I did with wow because the animation is just so horrible.  The character movement in those two later game don't seems as natural and nothing more than puppet on the string.  The attack animation is just as bad, when I fire my arrow as a ranger/hunter in all three of the game, only in wow where the enemy actually takes damage when the bullet travel to the enemy.  Both of the other game, the ammo didn't even left my bow and the enemy already taken damage and chasing after me.  I know is is minor detail to most, but those are the kind of detail and really make you feel as though you are your avatar and not just you controlling a puppet in a game.

It mainstreamed MMOs by some odd chance lucky formula they created (probably not so much luck as smart design because blizzard has top talent) and a) people are playing WoW and won't leave that for these new MMOs, that arguabley are very similar to WoW, and surely not by coincidence b) WoW's success was really just a fluke, a stroke of luck. Why does anything become popular? I mean it's the same way with anything, especially in the entertainment industry. I mean there are actors, bands, etc. out there that probably aren't the "best" but for some reason they became popular, either by a certain random quality that people liked or just because they were lucky. c) Too many companies try to follow in the footsteps of WoW and are overshadowed.

Time is the only thing that will change WoW being the frontrunner. Most likely it'll be another random occurrence of an arguably well designed, mainstream game or perhaps a new MMO by blizzard! maybe WoW 2! (doubt they would do that actually, that would be stealing from themselves essentially as far as sub #s go).

These are all speculations of course but who knows, I don't think there's any one reason like I said. Things just lined up for them and they ran with it.

Originally posted by Talin

Highest number of subs does not equal "best" MMORPG. It does make it the most popular, as well as one of themost profitable most likely.

WoW introduced an accessible game at just the right time; while EQ2 created a new engine (that half of the computers at the time couldn't run on decent settings) and group-required content all over the place, WoW came in with a game that almost any machine could run, with tons of solo-friendly content. Add in the PvP opportunities they created over time, and they suddenly had a game with polished PvE and some PvP elements.

WoW isn't #1 due to the graphics, or the engine, or the content, or the features. IT is #1 because it does everything just well enough to keep people coming back, and maintains a large enough playerbase that both new and returning players can jump in and have people to play with.

WoW will, in time, die (by that I mean fade into relative obscurity with drastically diminished subs).  People will continue to play the original WoW and lament on how much better things were "back then", just as today's purists talk about UO, DAOC, and EQ1 during their primes. However, I expect Blizzard will have a new MMORPG out long before then.

Hats off to you, what a brilliant discussion.

There is no need for a game to be technologically advanced, for me at least.  I just want some good time in the game.  Heck, I have good time in tetris or pac-man, even now, if played occasionally.  WoW provided enough variety to allow something to be done whatever my mood or game time duration.  WoW provided a game where a large variety of gamers will be interested in.  That is a good game for a lot of people, not the "best" in whatever weird dimension, but a wide appeal.

Come to think of it, when I go out playing basketball, do I need to check the leather quality of the ball, the sewing work, the quality of wood used in the door of the stadium, or the design of the staircase leading to the carpark?  Come on, if I have a nice time in the game, if its easy to find people to play with, if the environment is light, with everyone wearing a big smile, if everything falls into place leading to a good moment of gaming, what else is there that I need to care about.  When the game is over, its gone.  When I log out of WoW, I forget it.