Am I the only WoW player that left WoW only to find every freaking game lacking? Games with stiff animation, shitty graphics, terrible UI, Bland quests, Dungeons that were basically just mobs standing around. One dimensional classes, small empty servers, next to no endgame, I could go on.

After seeing these games I'm simply shocked that players are wondering why WoW is still the top mmo on the market. Out of every damn game on the market only EvE was worth playing for an extended period of time.

Now before you say my First mmo was WoW, I started playing MMO right before trammel hit in UO. So i'm pretty sure i'm qualified to say a game is dog shit. Wtf is wrong with the mmo genre where I can't even try another game that doesn't copy the EQ/WoW formula? 

WoW is a great game for most but it's quality and success is no reason for every god damn game to suck. I'm a frustrated mmo player and I'm tired of every game being a copy of Wow. Sure Wow copied EQ but atleast when Blizzard copied it they improved on it's mechanics and opened up the genre to many people that never played mmos before.

Lotro, WAR, AoC and others copy the formula but never actually improve on it like blizzard did.

When the hell am I going to get an alternative game to play? Do the rest of you guys feel like this? is it not frustrating to have no game to play when WoW gets a little slow? or when guildies arent online and queues arent popping?

Where are the good games? this is the only gaming genre that is this bad, where one fantasy MMO rules them all while only one other dev house (CCP) can make a game that doesn't totally copy the one big game.

Am I the only one that feels like this?

While I think you're a bit extreme in your opinion, I will admit there's a fairly bad MMO dry spell atm. Other games do a good job w/ certain aspects of the genre, but WoW is one of the few games that really polished most of the good aspects of MMOs. Even so, the game has gotten stale just like all the other MMOs out atm. It just took longer to do so.

I agree with the op and yes you aren't the only one. It's the same deal for me. WoW is just way more polished then any game that has come out since 1998.

Agreed, and that's also why Blizzard is trying to come out with as much new content as they are is because they even realize people are getting kind of worn out. They are trying to throw some curveballs, and if just re-facing whats already been done and making it updated is what they are going to do... so be it......Honestly, I have heard some good things about Aion and even though can't really stand the look of it because it reminds me of a Asian F2P Grinder, I have heard it has a lot of similarity to WoW and builds even upon it. I believe it is the next MMO I will be giving a whirl.

Originally posted by aesperus

While I think you're a bit extreme in your opinion, I will admit there's a fairly bad MMO dry spell atm. Other games do a good job w/ certain aspects of the genre, but WoW is one of the few games that really polished most of the good aspects of MMOs. Even so, the game has gotten stale just like all the other MMOs out atm. It just took longer to do so.

Im feelen ya, WoW in itself is a great game, set the standards for most you could say. But after some time of playing it (4 years now), it just becomes overwhelmingly stale. End game being as easy as it is now days, theres nothing in the game that keeps me on the edge of my seet, screaming into my mic. I think we all just need a new MMO that can deliver us something new and old at the same time.

i don't agree on the no endgame and small servers comment  but your not alone in the others.

Everyone always complains about MMO "dry spells" and there being no good games out. Only if you believe any of them, this dry spell has been going for what, 10 years now? There really are no dry spells. In fact that's one of the things that an MMO is supposed to alleviate, simply because they're supposed to provide content for years.

I'm sorry if anyone is upset by my comments. I'm just a frustrated gamer that wants a different experience for a second MMO.

Originally posted by Blurr

Everyone always complains about MMO "dry spells" and there being no good games out. Only if you believe any of them, this dry spell has been going for what, 10 years now? There really are no dry spells. In fact that's one of the things that an MMO is supposed to alleviate, simply because they're supposed to provide content for years.

It has, EQ gave us awesome content for years, WoW has given us content for 5 years now and CCP has given me atleast 6 years of content to mess with.

Other than that what do we have to play? games that are bad versions of EQ/wow? Hell even Mythic dropped the ball. They could have Given us a DAoC 2 and I wouldn't even need to type out yhis post. This is a dry spell in MMOs when the only good ones came out near 5-6 years ago.

Ok, I'm in partial agreeance with you.

But I think like many people that have played WoW and relize that its captured the MMO community for awhile. It is going to be hard to top for awhile.

Its like playing Battlefield for 2 years then playing Battlefield 2 and saying, "wtf is this shitez?"

Since MMO's are a fairly new sensation (fairly new being its not older than 30 years < lol) Its hard to say what could "capture" the audience that is MMO'ers.

We just all have to hope that eventually some new brianiacs will be born from the darkness and give us a new experience. Until then we are all in the same boat friend.

We can all say what we want about WoW -- its greats...or amazing compared to the mmo market to date.

But I'm pretty sure anyone that played D2 knows Blizzard can make or break a game by adding an expansion, they get cocky, absorbed. Really I think cataclysm will be great..just like LoD was...at first. But come on people Tauren Paladins? does anyone follow the WC lore that plays WoW?... thats going to be lame if you compare that, ultimately would break the game...now i know people always talked in general or party even guilds... I was I could be a tauren rogue... I was I could be a gnome hunter w/e floats your boat, Blizz may be getting to happy...where they will mess up by feeding the community to much.

besides I think blizz has these mmo companys on their pay roll for their games to suck :)

my 2 cents, may not be that great to read.. I'm stoned and on a tangent so....go on with the cholorphyll!

There's just been a few bad MMO releases over the past few years, the next few years look a lot more promising.

Originally posted by Mobfigure

We can all say what we want about WoW -- its greats...or amazing compared to the mmo market to date.

But I'm pretty sure anyone that played D2 knows Blizzard can make or break a game by adding an expansion, they get cocky, absorbed. Really I think cataclysm will be great..just like LoD was...at first. But come on people Tauren Paladins? does anyone follow the WC lore that plays WoW?... thats going to be lame if you compare that, ultimately would break the game...now i know people always talked in general or party even guilds... I was I could be a tauren rogue... I was I could be a gnome hunter w/e floats your boat, Blizz may be getting to happy...where they will mess up by feeding the community to much.

besides I think blizz has these mmo companys on their pay roll for their games to suck :)

 

my 2 cents, may not be that great to read.. I'm stoned and on a tangent so....go on with the cholorphyll!

Blizzard last release in the Warcraft RTS series was the Frozen Thone expansion for Warcraft 3 in 2003. Its been 6 years since the Warcraft RTS was around. Simply put the kids coming to WoW these days dont know anything about the warcraft series that people started playing 14-15 years ago.

LOL lore indeed

For the most part, the OP is correct. WoW is very polished (in a relative sense) and has a ton of content and things to do. Which is not to say that other games don't show better ways to do some things. WoW copied Warhammer's 'queue from anywhere' system for BGs (and did a better job of it).

I was leveling a Druid alt yesterday and ran into the stupid quest item drop rate issue in the Barrens (Raptor horns to be specific). WoW would do well to copy Warhammer again and make quest items a 100% drop rate. It wouldn't work for EVERY quest (Pristine Tiger Fang and Gorilla Sinew, for example), but overall would take a LOT of the grind out of questing. Also, give us the same separate bag space for quest items.

Mythic did an overall crappy job with their game, but they did come up with some good ideas. I applaud Blizzard for copying what works from other games.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

For the most part, the OP is correct. WoW is very polished (in a relative sense) and has a ton of content and things to do. Which is not to say that other games don't show better ways to do some things. WoW copied Warhammer's 'queue from anywhere' system for BGs (and did a better job of it).

I was leveling a Druid alt yesterday and ran into the stupid quest item drop rate issue in the Barrens (Raptor horns to be specific). WoW would do well to copy Warhammer again and make quest items a 100% drop rate. It wouldn't work for EVERY quest (Pristine Tiger Fang and Gorilla Sinew, for example), but overall would take a LOT of the grind out of questing. Also, give us the same separate bag space for quest items.

Mythic did an overall crappy job with their game, but they did come up with some good ideas. I applaud Blizzard for copying what works from other games.

 

Public quests were a great too.... and I agree with the OP, I enjoyed my time with WoW over the last 4+ years but I find it stale now. Unfortunately there's little else out there that holds my interest for over a month. Few have the depth or polish you can find in WoW.

God knows I have played my share of MMORPG's, and I never thought I would be saying this but WoW just kicks every other games arse in the way of polish.   From the quest to the graphics to the sound.   It's all there.   The animations are fluid and smooth, the game runs awesomely, the hugeness of the world - even with fast flying mounts it can take a long time to go from A to B if it is lean across the map.    I have my own issues with the game - but for the msot part WoW just plan runs circles around any and all over MMORPG's out there at the moment.

Originally posted by Teala

God knows I have played my share of MMORPG's, and I never thought I would be saying this but WoW just kicks every other games arse in the way of polish.   From the quest to the graphics to the sound.   It's all there.   The animations are fluid and smooth, the game runs awesomely, the hugeness of the world - even with fast flying mounts it can take a long time to go from A to B if it is lean across the map.    I have my own issues with the game - but for the msot part WoW just plan runs circles around any and all over MMORPG's out there at the moment.

QFT.

I can only see games that are reasonably well-done (polished) and offering a seriously different experience than WoW making a BIG splash. LOTR is a much bigger IP than Warcraft, but their game is no match for WoW.

I think a game has to be Supers, Sci-Fi, or (possibly) horror to hit big in the west.

I also think that a game has to start small to have sufficient polish to impress jaded gamers and not bust the budget. Warhammer should have started with just one racial pairing and built on that as they went along.

I SO wish I knew what Blizzard's next MMO was going to be.

There once was a time when games were made by talented people who loved games -games from gamers for gamers so to say. A great and innovative era.

Then games were being made by say "developers" and things started to stagnate.

As of now, games are made by businessmen and investors. There you've got the problem of todays' games.

Originally posted by VoIgore

There once was a time when games were made by talented people who loved games -games from gamers for gamers so to say. A great and innovative era.

Then games were being made by say "developers" and things started to stagnate.

As of now, games are made by businessmen and investors. There you've got the problem of todays' games.

Truthiness abounds.

I see way more fun and creativity from free web games than MMOs.

I do agree with the OP point of view, and i even wrote a thread about it some time ago. WoW keeps on top because of it's polish, not that it's impossible to reach wow, but it seems every other game fails at it or dont try enough.

The only game that i can truthfully state that compares to wow (even surpassing in certain areas) is Aion, the level of polish of both combat and gameplay on this game is astonishing, not to mention graphics. Thats why it's getting so mu hype of players.

Let's wait and see how the market goes, but it's about time that other companys realise thats its no use to release unfinished or unpolished games, because only games with an exponential quality will be able to survive in the market and hold a good share of players.

Originally posted by Remii718

Am I the only WoW player that left WoW only to find every freaking game lacking? Games with stiff animation, shitty graphics, terrible UI, Bland quests, Dungeons that were basically just mobs standing around. One dimensional classes, small empty servers, next to no endgame, I could go on.

After seeing these games I'm simply shocked that players are wondering why WoW is still the top mmo on the market. Out of every damn game on the market only EvE was worth playing for an extended period of time.

Now before you say my First mmo was WoW, I started playing MMO right before trammel hit in UO. So i'm pretty sure i'm qualified to say a game is dog shit. Wtf is wrong with the mmo genre where I can't even try another game that doesn't copy the EQ/WoW formula? 

WoW is a great game for most but it's quality and success is no reason for every god damn game to suck. I'm a frustrated mmo player and I'm tired of every game being a copy of Wow. Sure Wow copied EQ but atleast when Blizzard copied it they improved on it's mechanics and opened up the genre to many people that never played mmos before.

Lotro, WAR, AoC and others copy the formula but never actually improve on it like blizzard did.

When the hell am I going to get an alternative game to play? Do the rest of you guys feel like this? is it not frustrating to have no game to play when WoW gets a little slow? or when guildies arent online and queues arent popping?

Where are the good games? this is the only gaming genre that is this bad, where one fantasy MMO rules them all while only one other dev house (CCP) can make a game that doesn't totally copy the one big game.

Am I the only one that feels like this?

A lot of people moan about Blizzard CS, an aspect you didn't mention. Forget the games themselves none of them have the quality support Blizzard does, they have a whole army of people who respond quickly. From restoring deleted characters/items, hacked accounts, broken quests, they do help a lot. A lot of other companies are like a tortoise in comparison.

Doesn't answer your question where are the good games, but personally I feel that I've played the best MMO out there (WoW) and maybe when the next xpac is out i may try a trial. Or wait till D3 (like WoW, but free!). Or heck even blizzards next mmo.

My advice is have a break or do other stuff whilst no guildies on until the next xpac, you'll come back rejuvenated.

I'll agree with the OP, in the past 4 or 5 years, nothings really come out that matched WOW in terms of features, polish and accessability.

Thanks heavens I found EVE :)

But, there's always hope for the future and someday, someone else besides Blizzard is going to make a good, fun game.

I agree completely. It seems that developers anymore have their sights set only on how much money they think they're going to make rather than making a quality product. In the end, every one of them has fallen far short. Let's not forget that Blizzard was taken completely by surprise by the success of World of Warcraft. Their early, very minor problems were the result of underestimating the way the game would be embraced.

Right now, there are two shining stars on the horizon, but six months from now, they will be left with little more than a core subscriber base because they lack the depth and polish to retain any sizeable customer base. I've tried nearly every last one of WoW's would-be competitiors and, in the end, I always wind up playing Blizzard's game again because not one of them has been able to even approach the level of quality of gameplay that compels me back to Azeroth. I even have a Lord of the Rings Lifetime Account and I no longer have the desire to log back in.  I used to fight it, but I'm tired of getting excited about some new game that seems viewed only as a source of revenue from the developers and in the end, the experience falls flat.

You want my money? Then stop taking shortcuts, thinking that people will lap it up anyway. In the meantime, I'll be anxiously awaiting the day I can order my Cataclysm Collectors' Edition.

No, your'e not the only one. Although WoW satisfies my craving for games quite nicely, I find it lacking in some aspects which are kinda hard to describe, so through these last 5 years I have tried betas and finished products of almost every P2P MMORPG that I could, and several F2P games aswell.

They pale in comparison to WoW, each in a different aspect, some in all. Many of them lack the polish Blizzard games have, and some are so far from what you can call a QUALITY product, its hard to imagine why anyone even plays them.

I was thinking to write a thread about lack of SOLID, LIFE-LIKE ANIMATIONS in current MMORPGs (except WoW) and how it severely affects sales (but goes mostly as a non-important thing to developers).
JERKY, unnatural or just plain BAD animation of player and NPC characters is in my eyes one of the most important and most overlooked reasons why people react badly to a new MMORPG, and don't even know it. Just think of games you didn't like, and try to remember if it had nicely done, smoothly animated player characters and creatures. I'm quite sure over 90% of them did not.

Still, it's a "knee-jerk" reaction to a game and although affects sales, there are people who are willing to look past that (I'm not one of them) and try the game more thoroughly.

The only one MMORPG that I could play and enjoy even if it had bad graphics and animation (but it doesn't, it has masterfully done animations) is STAR WARS GALAXIES, but the way it was before horrible "combat upgrade" and "new game experience" in 2005. It was unique and we can only hope something similar will be available again.

I'd have to agree on most of this. I've been through the list of mmos and they are indeed lacking, a major turn off on most of these games was the terrible UI or that pure lack of players. I play mmo's so I don't feel alone in game and when a main city has a few low level players running around somethings not right. Nothings providing that feeling from wow before 3.1 hit or the feeling of such a strong community. It's a shame that 3.1 went about things the wrong way and destroyed the balance of pvp for me at least. I hope the new expansion will turn out alright so I don't have to settle for this horrible clones.