Originally posted by tro44_1

I read alot of hate on this forum and just about any MMORPG forum towards WoW (yes even WoW's own forum)

Many people say its a bad game, that only became successful because of its past RTS fanbase. But if thats the case, why hasnt Warhammer matched WoW, when it was lead by years of RPG fans?

And they are nuts. WOW 's success has little to do with lore. No one reads the quest text anyway.

WOW is successful because:

1) it is fun

2) full of content

3) VERY polished

4) varying gameplay mechanics (for example: mage played completely different from a rogue, but both are dps)

5) varying difficulties ... from easy to very hard (hardmode raids)

6) great many things to do from pve raid, to solo stuff, to pvp.

7) best art direction (note, NOT graphics engine) in the business

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Sober_Sean

It's bloody simple, even Blizzard will agree with this, how simple it is.  They've even mentioned this concept in speeches in the past.  Here, this is why at it's most fundamental level.

 Control.

 Blizzard doesn't release anything until it controls perfectly, until it feels naturally.  The feeling of control, is production number 1 on their devs minds and it is fine tuned, tweaked and perfected before anything else in the game is focused on.

 

Just wanted to put in another vote for what this guy said - without question it is the number one thing wrong with almost every MMO in existence and is first and foremost on the fail list.

 

All the rest of these people spouting off random things have their list all wrong. You guys might someday make the next big failure because you don't know whats wrong with all these other mmo's obvioulsy.

For that matter why hasn't LotRO?

Answer: Regardless of the IP that's tagged along with those games, those games are still crap.

One thing i found in wow the best out of all the other mmo's i have played is the control and when you hit or cast a spell at mobs it actually feels like you hit them unlike most of the other mmo's particulay warhammer when you hit a mob it doesnt feel like you really hit them,fallen earth gives you a pretty got hit feeling when you attack mobs.

 1.  Wow was highly anticipated and came at the right time when people were fed up of DAOC and there wasn't much else available.  Only downside was the Horde were an afterthought realm.  Alliance was their first creation and were more polished then Horde.

2.  The game runs well on just about everything.  The graphics are cartoony and simplified yet still look very good.  I hate when MMO's try to be realistic or all the characters look like 90 pound metro sexual asians with oversized swords.  I install EQ2 and it crashes after logging in.  I end up having to update everything, change settings before it works.  I get LOTRO, same thing crashes constantly I mess around with all my settings finally figure out the issue.  Install WOW... I'm playing, and don't recall my WOW client ever suddenly crashing to desktop.

Originally posted by tro44_1

I read alot of hate on this forum and just about any MMORPG forum towards WoW (yes even WoW's own forum)

Many people say its a bad game, that only became successful because of its past RTS fanbase. But if thats the case, why hasnt Warhammer matched WoW, when it was lead by years of RPG fans?

Trust me there's a lot of ppl that really have no sense how anything works.....

Square-Enix defeats Blizzard on the smoothness part in so many ways its not even funny. FFXI had an outstanding release and is non-comparable to other games' release. Even now, if you look at the FFXIV ALPHA footage, it already looks better/smoother than WoW even after almost 5 years after its release.

I dont think that WoWs success has anything to do with Warcraft 1 2 and 3. if only because most of the people i come across that play wow have not played  WC1 2 or 3.....The reason is that it is a game that will run on just about any system a very well thought out guild system, and constant content update. much more constant than any other game i have ever played. also if u want to know why WH is not as successful as wow, its because they underestimated their players, they didnt expect end game content to be accessed until 3 months after it was reached and so the devs were caught off guard unprepared for the number of gamers asking for new content

Warhammer has beaten WOW, because WOW is Warhammer.

Think about it.

I don't think the folks I played with had played the rts games either.  I never did.  WOW is just an amazing game.  It runs well, has timeless graphics with a wide color pallet, good animations and straightforward gameplay.  It's the best game of its kind I think, which is why it is so popular.

The end game kind of sucks though.  Grind rep, run through the same dungeons over and over.  Boring.  The only endgame I really liked was precu SWG.  For some reason I really liked that game and just hanging out with my buddies doing whatever.

Originally posted by tro44_1

I read alot of hate on this forum and just about any MMORPG forum towards WoW (yes even WoW's own forum)

Many people say its a bad game, that only became successful because of its past RTS fanbase. But if thats the case, why hasnt Warhammer matched WoW, when it was lead by years of RPG fans?

I think Warcraft has proved the more powerful IP because it brought a lot of cross-genre appeal. I met plenty of people in WoW who only started playing because they enjoyed the Warcraft and other Blizzard games. They had little previous interest in the MMORPG genre and for the most part still don't.
 

However, the more important factor is that WoW is very far from being a bad game. It was never to everyone's taste, some hate how it has evolved (i'm in this category), others hate the effect it has had on the genre but anyone who tells you it has no quality is really just selling their own agenda.

Anyone pointing to a single reason for WoW's success is wrong

 The difference in success has nothing to do with background lore. Its caused by the difference in quality both of the technical product and in game design.

Mythic got a big success with DaoC, many don't remember but in its day it was the 2nd most popular MMO out there and it went to the heads of the leadership of mythic. The initial game was amazing but it was luck more than skill that got it there and the development team went on and broke more and more of the stuff that made the game good until its quality and popularity waned.

It was only when the lead developers left daoc for WaR that the "reserve" team took over and turned DaoC around so its still a profitable game today.

Seeing how bad the mythic leadership understood what made their own game so good it was no wonder that they had no idea that the entire fundament on how WaR was designed was fundamentaly flawed and created a basically boring game that had no connection between goals and efforts, where you main enemy were the guy next to you, not the guy across the enemy lines (because of the borked reward system) and where the concept "war is everywhere" resulted in a game that felt like cutting down a tree with a herring.

If you were a fan of WW1 trench warfare, or accounting then WaR would have been a good game. Most gamers want action and the feeling that what they do mean something and WaR failed to provide that. Add in that the game itself was poorly made with many of the bugs from early daoc re-emerging and you had a stinker on your hand.

WoW otoh was fairly polished from the start, there were problems with queues and the item servers in the first 6 months but apart from that the game was solid and more importantly it ran like a dream and it was FUN!

Blizard spend years and years to perfec their product and the end result shows, the world was large, VERY content filled and worked.

I think that the most important element of game design these days are skilled leadership and management and a strong vision about what game you want to make and then time enough to finish it. Take Fallen Earth, it also took like forever to develop but the end result is quality and content and a game with its own extremely strong vision about what it should be. It could have been a stinker too but  it seemed to have had good management.

Originally posted by tro44_1

I read alot of hate on this forum and just about any MMORPG forum towards WoW (yes even WoW's own forum)

Many people say its a bad game, that only became successful because of its past RTS fanbase. But if thats the case, why hasnt Warhammer matched WoW, when it was lead by years of RPG fans?

Because kids play what their friends are playing?

Originally posted by rodingo

If Mythic would have stuck with more of their original concepts of DOAC, this conversation could have easily been started off with asking why WoW hasn't beat out WAR.

very true indeed. if people can get past looking at daoc's graphics the gameplay and RVR(realm vs realm) was awesome 3 realms made such a huge differance  and the damn hibs and mids kept ganging up on poor albion :/

god damn it now you made me sad thinking of relic raids :/

Originally posted by Amblin

Originally posted by tro44_1

I read alot of hate on this forum and just about any MMORPG forum towards WoW (yes even WoW's own forum)

Many people say its a bad game, that only became successful because of its past RTS fanbase. But if thats the case, why hasnt Warhammer matched WoW, when it was lead by years of RPG fans?

 

mmm well the main failing in your reasoning is blatant.

Warcraft = successful rts game, warcraft 2 = more success, warcraft 3 = huge success.

Let;'s also mention Diablo, Diablo 2, Starcraft.....need I go on?

Then let us look at Gamesworkshop computer games.

or let's not as thet are are all shite barring dawn of war1/2 and that is warhammer 40k.

The reason WAR isn't a wow killer is because in itself it is massively flawed and secondly has no community or history behind it or similar massivley successful products prior to launch.

Any dev looking to make an mmo should make AAA single/mp games first. build up a following, nuture it and build on it then go for an mmo.

Then you kill WoW.

Simples!

 

 

You forgot DAoC
 

Because many moons ago Games Workshop had an opportunity to rule the world with Blizzard but instead sold their soul to other developers instead.

Warhammer took too many shortcuts. 

Originally posted by Ruyn

Warhammer took too many shortcuts. 

what you mean?

Originally posted by tro44_1

Many people say its a bad game, that only became successful because of its past RTS fanbase. But if thats the case, why hasnt Warhammer matched WoW, when it was lead by years of RPG fans?

I'd like to meet these "many people". I have a used car to sell... ;-)

12 reasons for WoW's success, by Gordon Walton - who should know better than most people

As for the WarCraft RTS fan base, the chart on top of this page might be some help.

Originally posted by Dreamagram

Originally posted by tro44_1

Many people say its a bad game, that only became successful because of its past RTS fanbase. But if thats the case, why hasnt Warhammer matched WoW, when it was lead by years of RPG fans?

I'd like to meet these "many people". I have a used car to sell... ;-)

12 reasons for WoW's success, by Gordon Walton - who should know better than most people

As for the WarCraft RTS fan base, the chart on top of this page might be some help.

Im one of those 'many people' EA/Mythic lost alot of players due to things such as....

closing MCO the way they did.

releasing TOA after being warned if it was a grind most of daoc would  be leaving.

closing the andred server down.

Refusing to adress the concerns of players in their mmos.

Why did wow succeed over EA's games? the same reason it succeeded over sonys.They continually hire morons to oversee those games.WoW didnt succeed because its a great game, it succeeded because they took all of the 'good' points of other mmo's and slapped it in a generic cartoony mmo, while companys like ea and sony had ppl like raph koster running around saying crap such as: Even if ppl hate it, they will pay for it anyway because there is nothing better out.

Warcraft isn't the reason for wow's success people who say that live in their own world, WAR failed because it's a shitt game.

Originally posted by Sober_Sean

It's bloody simple, even Blizzard will agree with this, how simple it is.  They've even mentioned this concept in speeches in the past.  Here, this is why at it's most fundamental level.

 

Control.

 

Blizzard doesn't release anything until it controls perfectly, until it feels naturally.  The feeling of control, is production number 1 on their devs minds and it is fine tuned, tweaked and perfected before anything else in the game is focused on.

 

That one thing alone, the feeling and sense of smoothness when you control your character or units in any blizzard game is the reason.  Say what you will about them I'm not here to defend them or whatever I'm just saying.  Warhammer ignored that concept.  Characters controlled and felt like shit.  That right there was...well you didn't really need anything else.  If you don't get that right, then the rest is meaningless.

 

Note to future game devs that don't want to be scrounging out of dumpsters looking for a dirty chicken wing when their game tanks and they end up tossed to the curb...focus on the controls first.  The "feel" behind the character, get that part absolutely perfect first, then worry about the rest.  Ignore that?  Don't say I didn't tell you so.

/truth
 

Originally posted by kakarotrage

Warcraft isn't the reason for wow's success people who say that live in their own world, WAR failed because it's a shitt game.

 

I would say WAR and even AoC failed because everyone expected it to be as polished as WoW is today. All three games have a very good story to draw from. Not to mention everyone, but die-hard fans, were deep down hoping each MMO would de-throne WoW.

Also, what defines a successful MMO? If you go by subs then you can never count WoW. Why? Because it's on the extreme. Name one other MMO with 10+ million subs? It's not till you get down into <= 2million (last I checked) that MMOs start showing up. It would be like taking one extremely crime-ridden city in the USA and saying that all cities MUST be like that; it's on the extreme end and shouldn't not be used to measure other cities.

Originally posted by Dyner

Originally posted by kakarotrage

Warcraft isn't the reason for wow's success people who say that live in their own world, WAR failed because it's a shitt game.

 

I would say WAR and even AoC failed because everyone expected it to be as polished as WoW is today. All three games have a very good story to draw from. Not to mention everyone, but die-hard fans, were deep down hoping each MMO would de-throne WoW.

 

Also, what defines a successful MMO? If you go by subs then you can never count WoW. Why? Because it's on the extreme. Name one other MMO with 10+ million subs? It's not till you get down into <= 2million (last I checked) that MMOs start showing up. It would be like taking one extremely crime-ridden city in the USA and saying that all cities MUST be like that; it's on the extreme end and shouldn't not be used to measure other cities.

And why shouldn't be as polished as wow? people are looking to go forward not backwards, and forget about polish the concepts of these games were just all wrong : the graphics in WAR is just plain awful and depressing the world isn't inviting to explore and the game is just linear and small compared to wow (and I haven't mentioned that the animation is bad, movement is annoying and combat is clunky) this list just goes on and on.. the game isnt even close to wow, and don't get me started with AOC that instance fest, seriously who would rather small instanced zones on a big explorable world, I'm shocked they thought this game could even compare to wow.