Originally posted by SaintViktor

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

WoW brought something to MMO's that has not been seen since... polish. It didn't innovate, or invent. It took what was working in other games and made it better. What's funny is that after that, many company's tried to literally clone WoW's systems (the same ones they had borrowed elsewhere) but forgot to clone the one thing that made WoW the fiscal king of the castle... polish.

I'm not at all downplaying WoW's lack of new gameplay by any stretch.

 Polish you say ? I think not! Try reading this.... http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/28037

 So you believe a thread on mmorpg.com forums ?

The only innovation WoW brought was that it was mindlessly easy. Especially for a class like a Hunter, there's no challenge at all to leveling up. Every MMO I played prior to wow, leveling was HARD. You had to SERIOUSLY devote yourself to the game to even think about hitting the level cap. They even put in the rest bonus xp to make it even easier.

Tradesklls: mindlessly easy to level in wow. Other games required months and months to max out your tradeskills. Wow you could do it in a week without any trouble. Wow tradeskills are for the most part useless but no one knows that when you start playing a game. The last 2 games I played before wow..DAOC and EQ2, tradeskills were insanely difficult to level up but, at least in DAOC, it was well worth the time you spent doing it. Wow tradeskills are nothing more than something to look at on your character sheet to make it appear that your toon has value, everyone knows all gear in wow comes from instances.

The bottom line is WoW was very, very easy and it's competition was very, very hard for casual gamers.

None. WoW is an EQ clone.

The true meaning of Massively in MMO. Eq is just a irc chat chamber compared to Wow.

Originally posted by sulthar

The true meaning of Massively in MMO. Eq is just a irc chat chamber compared to Wow.

LMAO, good one! But seriously- were there other games that had harvesting as easy as in WoW, with physical nodes? All I ever did as far as crafting in EQ1 is brewing so I don't actually recall.

Advertising.

Accessibility.

wow did one single thing in the big picture.. it made mmorpg mainstream!

some of us still prefer underground and indie, the same way we like music.. thats just the way it is!

It was the first game to popularize quest grinding, so I guess you could call that an innovation.

The main thing about WoW is that it didn't so much innovate as it simply refined concepts from EQ and other games, leaving most players little reason to stick to their old games after WoW was released.

i didnt read all the BS that people put down, but for me it was the first time i saw a Mail Box and Auction House.

It brought probably the smoothest mmo ever to launch, anyone that plays this game will be screwed in mmos from then on. Nothing can compare to how fucking smooth and polished this game is/was. 

Only other mmo that has such fluid movement/combat etc was Aion. 

Originally posted by helthros

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by gotha

In short they made an MMO version of Mcdonalds.  

Right, because other mmos are comparable to a steak and glass of wine.  Excellent analogy you have there.

 

lol well said

People in general just go for the easy stuff.

This is why Vin Diesel sells more movies than Kim Ki Duk, Britney Spears more albums than Dream Theater and Ken Follet more books than Sartre.

This applies to MMOs too. 

Originally posted by gordiflu

Originally posted by helthros

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by gotha

In short they made an MMO version of Mcdonalds.  

Right, because other mmos are comparable to a steak and glass of wine.  Excellent analogy you have there.

 

lol well said

People in general just go for the easy stuff.

This is why Vin Diesel sells more movies than Kim Ki Duk, Britney Spears more albums than Dream Theater and Ken Follet more books than Sartre.

This applies to MMOs too. 

True. McDonald's is quick, easy, and cheap. WoW has quick fun, easy play, and is cheap on time invested. It ain't the best, but it still atracts many people for these reasons.

Now to answer the OP's question. I think WoW's innovation was to show the world that an IP can be made into a successful MMO.  Have we had any other MMO's that live up to their IP since WOW? I persoanlly don't think any other MMO has capured the essence of their IP. While good in their own respects (DDO, LotR) they just don't give off the feel of the IPs. The others IP based MMOs just feel butchered.

Originally posted by Tictox

But when you have eaten up the food, you are still hungry...

I'm not. All though I got a case of heart burn, and it made me fat. lol

I'm trying some Korean BBQ atm (vindictus) till I find a MMO I can really savor.hoping Blade&Soul or World of Darkness can do it, whenever those come out at any rate. Not really interested in other burger joints atm(Rift, warhammer 40k, etc)

Quest based levelling was new for me. Fast paced action combat. Killing a ordinary mob in 10s instead of 2-5 min and needing to med several minutes after the kill was very new for me. But i played EQ and I dont know if other games had this before WoW.

If this was better or worse compared to how levelling and combat worked in EQ is of course 100% subjective. But more players could enjoy WoW. I mean a lot of players that played action games tryed to play EQ and thought it was to slow and not enough action, not enough rewards and so on... But of course some true EQ fans continued to prefer how it worked in EQ. But wanted to try a new game anyway..

WoW was the first game I played where you could use both mouse buttons to run. Seems every game after that now includes that control method. 

WoW was playable on Mac and PC.

WoW was playable on systems with pretty low spec's (when everyone was checking game boxes for min. required system spec's... WoW seemed to say 'bring me your poor, your tired....')

WoW didn't try to make their game 'ultra-realistic' at all.  They went with stylized art (which, tbh, I still dislike to this day).

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

WoW brought something to MMO's that has not been seen since... polish. It didn't innovate, or invent. It took what was working in other games and made it better. What's funny is that after that, many company's tried to literally clone WoW's systems (the same ones they had borrowed elsewhere) but forgot to clone the one thing that made WoW the fiscal king of the castle... polish.

I'm not at all downplaying WoW's lack of new gameplay by any stretch.

This +10.

WoW simply refined all the existing MMO features of the time to a perfect state, and phased out most of what were considered flaws (like corpse recovery and exp loss or more broadly, pointless loss of time). When the game was released, there wasn't an andless list of gamebreaking bugs needing a hotpatch every hours (like Vanguard).

The highlights of the game in 2005 were:

- talent trees to personalize your character (making the game have 27 classes instead of just 9) (diablo 2 feature);

- the quest system replacing mob-grinding (Warcraft 3 feature adapted in a MMO);

- immersive and extensive lore, unique graphic touch when all the other MMo were about looking "realistic", that really drew you into the game;

- and open-ended feeling because of the variety of places you could go to level;

A big plus at release also was that the population was mostly MMO veterans and not an angry mob of clueless teenagers spamming public chat and being obnoxious and rude to people not from their little circle of a guild.

Today the community completely wastes the game. Has been like this since TBC sadly.

Made the game bright enough that every kid with ADD was mesmorized.