To all the people who argue which game is greatest, it seems like people's first response is to say my game is the greatest because we have x number of subs. For now and forever, please realize that to make the claim that numbers of people who like your game make it great is the same argument that these bands are the greatest bands of all time. 

The best-selling album of 1997 was Spice, by Spice Girls

The best-selling album of 1998 was Titanic Soundtrack

The best selling album of 1999 was Millennium, by Backstreet Boys 

The best-selling album of 2000 was No Strings Attached, by *NSYNC

The best-selling album of 2005 was The Emancipation of Mimi, by Mariah Carey

The best-selling album of 2006 was High School Musical Soundtrack

The Backstreet Boys album above is also the 9th highest grossing album of all times in world sales.  To all the people who think that simply being the lowest common denominator somehow makes your game/music/whatever the best, it simply means that in reality, its simply average. And in being AVERAGE it appeals to the most people. It also means that the only thing that will ever top it is a game that's even more watered down and average. 

Nothing breeds success like success

This applies to movies as well.

Huh......
(to OP)
troll more?

Originally posted by hogscraper

To all the people who argue which game is greatest, it seems like people's first response is to say my game is the greatest because we have x number of subs. For now and forever, please realize that to make the claim that numbers of people who like your game make it great is the same argument that these bands are the greatest bands of all time. 

The best-selling album of 1997 was Spice, by Spice Girls

The best-selling album of 1998 was Titanic Soundtrack

The best selling album of 1999 was Millennium, by Backstreet Boys 

The best-selling album of 2000 was No Strings Attached, by *NSYNC

The best-selling album of 2005 was The Emancipation of Mimi, by Mariah Carey

The best-selling album of 2006 was High School Musical Soundtrack

The Backstreet Boys album above is also the 9th highest grossing album of all times in world sales.  To all the people who think that simply being the lowest common denominator somehow makes your game/music/whatever the best, it simply means that in reality, its simply average. And in being AVERAGE it appeals to the most people. It also means that the only thing that will ever top it is a game that's even more watered down and average. 

Miarah Carey has had more #1 hits than The Beatles.

But I couldn't tell you the name of a single Mariah Carey song.

Point well-taken.

I'm not into shiny popular crap either.

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

Huh......
(to OP)
troll more?

Sometimes the truth hurts.

Gotta measure quality somehow.

Breadth of appeal seems like a better method than relying on the biased opinions of the vocal minority. I can say that WoW is a quality game based on the 6 million people in the west who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month.

With what justification could one claim (for example) Darkfall as a quality game?

Originally posted by seabeast

Nothing breeds success like success

Ya, look at all the MMOs.

They all have millions of subs and never fail amirite?

Originally posted by hogscraper

To all the people who argue which game is greatest, it seems like people's first response is to say my game is the greatest because we have x number of subs. For now and forever, please realize that to make the claim that numbers of people who like your game make it great is the same argument that these bands are the greatest bands of all time. 

The best-selling album of 1997 was Spice, by Spice Girls

The best-selling album of 1998 was Titanic Soundtrack

The best selling album of 1999 was Millennium, by Backstreet Boys 

The best-selling album of 2000 was No Strings Attached, by *NSYNC

The best-selling album of 2005 was The Emancipation of Mimi, by Mariah Carey

The best-selling album of 2006 was High School Musical Soundtrack

The Backstreet Boys album above is also the 9th highest grossing album of all times in world sales.  To all the people who think that simply being the lowest common denominator somehow makes your game/music/whatever the best, it simply means that in reality, its simply average. And in being AVERAGE it appeals to the most people. It also means that the only thing that will ever top it is a game that's even more watered down and average. 

Get a grip please.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Gotta measure quality somehow.

Breadth of appeal seems like a better method than relying on the biased opinions of the vocal minority. I can say that WoW is a quality game based on the 6 million people in the west who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month.

With what justification could one claim (for example) Darkfall as a quality game?

Oh got to be carefull there. If you look at it this way, you might as well say that EVE is not a quality game (for only having 300k+ subs). EVE and DarkFall appeal to a different niche and so to know wether or not that game is successful, you'd need to have infos about how many people are in that "niche" and how many plays EVE or DarkFall. Games like World Of Warcraft are mass-market games, meaning that they appeal to the general population by mixing various elements/features while EVE adds very specific features targetting a specific crowd.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Gotta measure quality somehow.

Breadth of appeal seems like a better method than relying on the biased opinions of the vocal minority. I can say that WoW is a quality game based on the 6 million people in the west who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month.

With what justification could one claim (for example) Darkfall as a quality game?

There are objective ways to settle quality as an issue. Factors such as client stability, response to input, etc. There are also subjective ways to approach this like rating art style or story content. While the OP is obviously baiting people his point is sound.

Six million subscribers only means the game is popular, it has nothing to do with quality.

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Gotta measure quality somehow.

Breadth of appeal seems like a better method than relying on the biased opinions of the vocal minority. I can say that WoW is a quality game based on the 6 million people in the west who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month.

With what justification could one claim (for example) Darkfall as a quality game?

Oh got to be carefull there. If you look at it this way, you might as well say that EVE is not a quality game (for only having 300k+ subs). EVE and DarkFall appeal to a different niche and so to know wether or not that game is successful, you'd need to have infos about how many people are in that "niche" and how many plays EVE or DarkFall. Games like World Of Warcraft are mass-market games, meaning that they appeal to the general population by mixing various elements/features while EVE adds very specific features targetting a specific crowd.

I can just as easily say that EVE is a quality game, based on the 300k people who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month. That's a very considerable chunk of the sandbox demographic; there aren't that many sandbox games around.

Originally posted by Caleveira

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Gotta measure quality somehow.

Breadth of appeal seems like a better method than relying on the biased opinions of the vocal minority. I can say that WoW is a quality game based on the 6 million people in the west who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month.

With what justification could one claim (for example) Darkfall as a quality game?

 

There are objective ways to settle quality as an issue. Factors such as client stability, response to input, etc. There are also subjective ways to approach this like rating art style or story content. While the OP is obviously baiting people his point is sound.

Six million subscribers only means the game is popular, it has nothing to do with quality.

so then that works vice versa, what about the product with less subscribers? does that  it has low subscribers because its got low quality then as well?  I swear people on this site just twist things to suti them, now its then saying oh yes the prodcut that didnt get as many subscribers is of far superior quality, when infact it is so far from the truth its unreal.  Its like syaing yes skoda dosnt sell as many cars as audi, but its a  far superior prodcut.  I think not.

Originally posted by Caleveira

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Gotta measure quality somehow.

Breadth of appeal seems like a better method than relying on the biased opinions of the vocal minority. I can say that WoW is a quality game based on the 6 million people in the west who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month.

With what justification could one claim (for example) Darkfall as a quality game?

There are objective ways to settle quality as an issue. Factors such as client stability, response to input, etc. There are also subjective ways to approach this like rating art style or story content. While the OP is obviously baiting people his point is sound.

Six million subscribers only means the game is popular, it has nothing to do with quality.

I would disagree.

Quality and popularity go hand-in-hand. In a market as saturated as the MMO genre, people have choices. They aren't going to continue to pay month after month for a game that is lacking in quality.

well the number of subs proves what people that play mmos consider quality.  they sub to the games they like that best and they think are the best quality.  just because many people on here dont think games like WOW  are quality, majority of mmo players disagree or they wouldnt be subbing to them.  and no i dont play WOW so dont call me a fanboy. 

Originally posted by hogscraper

To all the people who argue which game is greatest, it seems like people's first response is to say my game is the greatest because we have x number of subs. For now and forever, please realize that to make the claim that numbers of people who like your game make it great is the same argument that these bands are the greatest bands of all time. 

The best-selling album of 1997 was Spice, by Spice Girls

The best-selling album of 1998 was Titanic Soundtrack

The best selling album of 1999 was Millennium, by Backstreet Boys 

The best-selling album of 2000 was No Strings Attached, by *NSYNC

The best-selling album of 2005 was The Emancipation of Mimi, by Mariah Carey

The best-selling album of 2006 was High School Musical Soundtrack

The Backstreet Boys album above is also the 9th highest grossing album of all times in world sales.  To all the people who think that simply being the lowest common denominator somehow makes your game/music/whatever the best, it simply means that in reality, its simply average. And in being AVERAGE it appeals to the most people. It also means that the only thing that will ever top it is a game that's even more watered down and average. 

Yes... and noone who bought any of those would admit today that they did,  and noone would buy them today... unlike say WoW, which relies on the fact that A: People are still buying iy, and B: Those people like it enough that they keep paying subscription fees.

Anology Fail. Care to give MCDonalds a try?

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Caleveira

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Gotta measure quality somehow.

Breadth of appeal seems like a better method than relying on the biased opinions of the vocal minority. I can say that WoW is a quality game based on the 6 million people in the west who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month.

With what justification could one claim (for example) Darkfall as a quality game?

There are objective ways to settle quality as an issue. Factors such as client stability, response to input, etc. There are also subjective ways to approach this like rating art style or story content. While the OP is obviously baiting people his point is sound.

Six million subscribers only means the game is popular, it has nothing to do with quality.

I would disagree.

Quality and popularity go hand-in-hand. In a market as saturated as the MMO genre, people have choices. They aren't going to continue to pay month after month for a game that is lacking in quality.

Name one MMO that appeals to damn near every mmo gamer and Console gamer and Fps gamer and Old Rpg and Rts blizzard players? 

Only one, WoW

Even with average features no game covers everyones niche with the exception of the 2-3 million Sci-fi, sandbox Full loot pvpers which makes up like 2-3% of the community.

To these people a game that gives you near everything is pure gold, shit WoW even caters to a good percentage of the hardcore pvpers and pvers.

Does that make WoW the best mmo ever? sub wise yes.  not if you break it down feature for feature though and that is what we on this site tend to do because every feature thats "good" in WoW is done better in another mmo.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Caleveira

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Gotta measure quality somehow.

Breadth of appeal seems like a better method than relying on the biased opinions of the vocal minority. I can say that WoW is a quality game based on the 6 million people in the west who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month.

With what justification could one claim (for example) Darkfall as a quality game?

There are objective ways to settle quality as an issue. Factors such as client stability, response to input, etc. There are also subjective ways to approach this like rating art style or story content. While the OP is obviously baiting people his point is sound.

Six million subscribers only means the game is popular, it has nothing to do with quality.

I would disagree.

Quality and popularity go hand-in-hand. In a market as saturated as the MMO genre, people have choices. They aren't going to continue to pay month after month for a game that is lacking in quality.

And junk food outsells healthier choices, come on! WOW advertises in the mainstream media. You mean to tell me MMOs offer the public more variety than the music industry? Or maybe you think Tom Clancy is a better writer than Wislawa Szymborska? How bout Michael Bay vs Gus Van Sant? Yours is nothing but a fanboys argument.

Originally posted by Demz2

so then that works vice versa, what about the product with less subscribers? does that  it has low subscribers because its got low quality then as well?  I swear people on this site just twist things to suti them, now its then saying oh yes the prodcut that didnt get as many subscribers is of far superior quality, when infact it is so far from the truth its unreal.  Its like syaing yes skoda dosnt sell as many cars as audi, but its a  far superior prodcut.  I think not.

You should do a bit of research on sub numbers.  300k is a large enough chunk to put EvE at #8.  I would consider being in the top 10 a considerable success.

Originally posted by metalhead980

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Caleveira

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Gotta measure quality somehow.

Breadth of appeal seems like a better method than relying on the biased opinions of the vocal minority. I can say that WoW is a quality game based on the 6 million people in the west who are willing to pay a subscription charge for it month after month.

With what justification could one claim (for example) Darkfall as a quality game?

There are objective ways to settle quality as an issue. Factors such as client stability, response to input, etc. There are also subjective ways to approach this like rating art style or story content. While the OP is obviously baiting people his point is sound.

Six million subscribers only means the game is popular, it has nothing to do with quality.

I would disagree.

Quality and popularity go hand-in-hand. In a market as saturated as the MMO genre, people have choices. They aren't going to continue to pay month after month for a game that is lacking in quality.

Name one MMO that appeals to damn near every mmo gamer and Console gamer and Fps gamer and Old Rpg and Rts blizzard players? 

Only one, WoW

Even with average features no game covers everyones niche with the exception of the 2-3 million Sci-fi, sandbox Full loot pvpers which makes up like 2-3% of the community.

To these people a game that gives you near everything is pure gold, shit WoW even caters to a good percentage of the hardcore pvpers and pvers.

Does that make WoW the best mmo ever? sub wise yes.  not if you break it down feature for feature though and that is what we on this site tend to do because every feature thats "good" in WoW is done better in another mmo.

"We on this site" are the vocal minority I spoke of earlier.

Everyone has a subjective opinion. Most prefer themepark. Most themepark players prefer WoW.

I don't disagree that WoW's elements are (individually) outclassed in other MMOs; we all know that WoW's strengths is delivering a well-rounded game experience with a lot of choices and variety. Other games may have (for example) better PvP than WoW, but most players don't only want to PvP .. they want the variety.

As I've said before, WoW is a game for tourists, not purists.

Originally posted by Caleveira

And junk food outsells healthier choices, come on! WOW advertises in the mainstream media. You mean to tell me MMOs offer the public more variety than the music industry? Or maybe you think Tom Clancy is a better writer than Wislawa Szymborska? How bout Michael Bay vs Gus Van Sant? Yours is nothing but a fanboys argument.

1. The junk food analogy is utterly flawed. Most analogies are.

2. WoW was a runaway success before ever advertising in the mainstream media.

3. Labelling me a fanboy because I disagree with your opinion makes you a troll.

Actually you cannot technically use quantifiable data like subscription numbers to qualify any sort of descriptor except for popular. BEST is subjective and determined by the person making the judgment.

We can say that WOW is the most popular MMO because it has the most subs.

I can say WOW is  the best MMO because I like the game.

I cannot use use the number of subs to say WOW is best, except to say its best for me. In other words, its just a further affirmation of me thinking it is best.

However, I can also WOW is best because it has elves that due flips when they jump or because my Shaman turns into a ghost wolf.

The "best" game is determined by the person making the claim and its an opinion.

The most "popular" game can be determined by using data.

But best and popular are not intrinsically linked.

It just happens that for me, the most popular game is also the best game for ME.

 The OP right. Popularity doesn't always equal quality or in fact even if it's good. Why? Because that's an opinion. If something is good, or fun, is all personal opinion. All numbers show are popularity, and I could care far, far less about that.

The argument of "which MMO is the best" is a fruitless one. I think EVE is the best, the numbers surely don't show that and I won't have a small nation backing me up on it. It's my opinion and I don't give a flying rat's rear end what 11 million other people think. Which is why, in the end, I think advertising with sub numbers is not exactly a great practice.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

3. Labelling me a fanboy because I disagree with your opinion makes you a troll.

Careful now. You'll invoke a lot of rage thinking anything but WoW hate is acceptable on these forums. ;-)

(I kid! I kid!)

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Caleveira

And junk food outsells healthier choices, come on! WOW advertises in the mainstream media. You mean to tell me MMOs offer the public more variety than the music industry? Or maybe you think Tom Clancy is a better writer than Wislawa Szymborska? How bout Michael Bay vs Gus Van Sant? Yours is nothing but a fanboys argument.

1. The junk food analogy is utterly flawed. Most analogies are.

2. WoW was a runaway success before ever advertising in the mainstream media.

3. Labelling me a fanboy because I disagree with your opinion makes you a troll.

1. No its not. Analogy is considered legitimate discourse, and i havent seen the issue settled in any of the threads discussing it. Ive previously explained why i consider this a good analogy and have yet to see my arguments challenged.

2. You brought up the current figure not the one at launch. By your rationale WOWs ad campaign would be a waste of resources for Blizzard if it didnt impact sub numbers. Yea, im sure multimillion dollar ad campaigns are run by incompetents.

3. I labeled your argument not you. Its your post that made things personal, fanboy.

And for someone who seems to find most analogies flawed you neither addressed the music industry (which kind of was the OPs point) nor the literature and cinema examples i added.