Originally posted by Boreil

Actually all 3 reason named here are large contributors as to why and how WoW did infact ruin  not only Mmorpg games them self , but the community's playing them and the dev's making them .

 

This, a thousand times this. 

I'm confused as to why this is devils advocate?  Pretty much only the small community on this site thinks WoW is so horrible and ruined mmorpgs.

People comlain about wow being easy now?  That might be so... But that argument is not valid the way 99% of people here tend to make it.  Automated LFG features did not ruin anything.  "Difficult" in an MMO should not be judged by how difficult or how much time it takes to find a damn group.  You should be able to find a group almost instantly for anything you want to do.  It's a game.  The difficulty should come in trying to complete said task.

It's not fun to spend hours with nothing to do because you can't get a group together for one reason or another.  It's fun to be challenged with difficult content that requires a team of players to work well together.

I don't blame Blizzard or WoW for the state that games are now days.  I blame the developers of those games.  They release games too early, full of bugs, lack of content, looking to sell alot of boxes using an IP, then selling the game or making it f2p later.  One of the main reasons for WoW's popularity is the fact that Blizzard went out on a limb and bought primetime advertising spots.  I've only ever seen 2 other MMO commercials other than WoW.  Rift and Global Agenda.  Neither really were in primetime like WoW was, but theys till advertised.

Originally posted by Elidien

Funny how people blame WOW for stagnating the market when, in actuality, WOW was designed with input from huge EQ raiding guilds and EQ in mind. Oh, how do we forget.

No the market stagnated before WOW and as WOW changed the landscape of MMO's (from time sinks to casual players), it proved what successes MMO's could become.

Look at how many MMO's launched in the first 6 years of EQ's existence and in the last 6. The market may not be where a minority of players want it, but its far from stagnant.

Had WOW not come along, then we would have had a stagnant market.

 

As a relatively new player, I have tried several mmo's (including EQ, Rift, LOTR, and several others) -- not including any of the FPS games --since they are boring to me.  After all the trials, I still come back to Wow, because it has every facet of the others and a much more polished interface and help system (including the ability for add-ons) as many do not. 

This makes it enjoyable for myself and , obviously, millions of others--- if you don't agree--go play the others and enjoy :) -- as we do.

Originally posted by precious328

3 reasons why it didn't ruin MMOs.

I have 300 reasons why it did.

 

lol

In my opinion, the most important thing WoW brought to the genre was accessibility.

It could be played on just about anything, where it's competition at the time, EQ2, required a pretty hefty rig to play, and even then it didn't run all that well.

Beyond that, the high level content was accessible to people that weren't in LoS, FoH, et all. Since it went live, it's become more accessible, moving from 40 man raids to 10, and 25, man raids.

Simply put, the majority of the people playing MMOs simply want to have some fun, kill some monsters, get some loot. It is not a lifestyle to them, it's just a game. To paraphrase Fight Club, they are not their f**king epics.

They don't want to spend hours waiting to organize a group, or going over the numbers under the hood to eke out another 1.4 dps.

I did the raiding thing back in Velious, and Luclin in EQ. I'll take WoW's endgame over that mess any day of the week. I'm also not in my 20's anymore with all manner of free time to spend playing a game 12 hours a day.

As far as WoW ruining MMOs? Negative, Ghostrider. Greed is what has "ruined" the MMO genre from an investment standpoint. From a development standpoint, it's from trying to copy WoW's success, and failing to understand what made it successful, coupled with god awful development practices. Yes, Sigil, and Mythic, I'm looking at you.

There's also the fact that the genre itself is fairly young. People can't even agree on whether game x is even an MMO, or not. Maybe we should give the genre time to mature before declaring it ruined.

true, they  japaneesed marketed wow. they had the fundsto do so. 

Originally posted by BadSpock

EQ ruined MMORPG's forever.

Come on!  You know we all miss going into that one instance and pulling a "TRAIN!" of goblins to the top and then zoning out real quick. Leaving the poor sucker resting just inside the instance to get killed!  LOL!!

 

WoW is to MMORPG what MTV is to music and the writer seems to not know the MMO history..Lineage 1 and 2 had millions of players before WoW,2.Funcom invented the"Instance" concept not Blizzard.

And to the guy saying that GW2 would not have existed without WoW you are so wrong.The founders of ArenaNet(Stain,O'brien and Wyatt) left Blizzard for the same very reason because they were not happy with the direction Blizzard was going with their future MMO.

WoW did ruin MMO for the real MMOrpg players like myself and many others by bringing in millions of sheeps who were transformed into  cash cows.

Originally posted by Pisces333

Originally posted by Elidien

Funny how people blame WOW for stagnating the market when, in actuality, WOW was designed with input from huge EQ raiding guilds and EQ in mind. Oh, how do we forget.

No the market stagnated before WOW and as WOW changed the landscape of MMO's (from time sinks to casual players), it proved what successes MMO's could become.

Look at how many MMO's launched in the first 6 years of EQ's existence and in the last 6. The market may not be where a minority of players want it, but its far from stagnant.

Had WOW not come along, then we would have had a stagnant market.

 

As a relatively new player, I have tried several mmo's (including EQ, Rift, LOTR, and several others) -- not including any of the FPS games --since they are boring to me.  After all the trials, I still come back to Wow, because it has every facet of the others and a much more polished interface and help system (including the ability for add-ons) as many do not. 

This makes it enjoyable for myself and , obviously, millions of others--- if you don't agree--go play the others and enjoy :) -- as we do.

I'm going to do 2 x 180's on this and agree on something and really outright just not believe the other stuff. WoW popularized mmo's and helped widen the market interest in the US markets. Having said that I think there are few things people are also forgetting. WoW wasn't a game that came out of no where either; it had a strong fanbase from the original World of Warcraft series. Like the upcoming Diablo, WoW didn't just come along and become a success, its a title that relied more heavily than any other mmo before it on its fanbase. Some people might bring up other mmo's like FF11 but fans of that series knew before hand there really isn't a consistency in the final fantasy series; each title edition is different from the next more or less (and plz let's not get into the "oh what about FF-X and FF-X2'" argument right now as they were both FF 10's..sheesh). Given that the US market and tons of Europe and Canada remained untapped, WoW is the the title that basically tapped into that market built upon the real initial interest of the original PC games for it. 

So in hindsight, I think a lot of WoW players forget that, like the upcoming SWTOR and even Star Trek, there was a fanbase already present who would've bought the game. The other thing it hand going for it was timing; it was a market not as saturated with mmo's like it is now. 

The third thing I'm probably goign to say is controversial within a finite set: WoW caused a stagnation in creativity and implementation of new ideas but it had the opposite effect on the market. To better qualify this, it just means developers, for one reason or another, did not develop games that dramatically differred from WoW and, much like how WoW utilized other game concepts and ideas, other developers utilized mechanics found in WoW. I know there was an article here last year saying how a developer would have a tougher time putting out an uhntested idea that's too far from the norm and it'd get tossed out because executives and planners don't want to go that far out on ideas. So, in short, a lot more development relied on creating variations of WoW. But given the success of WoW, companies thought putting out an idea/game would be enough. I think off the top of my head the really only dynamically different game to have come out during the years WoW reigned was EvE. Its also one of the games that have defied general rules for mmo predictability growth and the developer/user relation.

So really take it as you want. There wasn't a shortage of games but it seems everyone was trying to get some variant of WoW around and no one wanted to do something different or dramtically novel. I'd probably besides EvE, DAoC would be another (I'm sure there are more) but really its a short list in contrast to what's been released. 

Well the first point of bringing many more players into the MMO genre is a double edged sword;  Yes it made MMO's mainstream but as the community numbers rose the quality dropped.  Now it's impossible to find a good community like existed in the games of old and that is WoW's fault.

I also noticed that you credited Blizzard with instances.  Nope, that was Funcom with Ao before WoW was even a twinkle in Blizzards eye.

MMO's used to be aimed more at mature and intelligent players, Blizzard aimed WoW squarely at the 10 - 14 market and because of the success of this strategy every developer and publisher out there rushed for a piece of the pie.  So for the past few years we have been subjected to one pathetic failure after another because none of the major developers have been willing to aim a game at 100k - 150k subs.  Blizzard didn't create greed but they sure threw fuel on it.

Originally posted by Boreil

Actually all 3 reason named here are large contributors as to why and how WoW did infact ruin  not only Mmorpg games them self , but the community's playing them and the dev's making them .

 

Yeah, was about to say the ideas outlined actually caused a huge griefing epidemic and all around made the game unenjoyable.

Originally posted by Gravarg

I don't blame Blizzard or WoW for the state that games are now days.  I blame the developers of those games.  They release games too early, full of bugs, lack of content, looking to sell alot of boxes using an IP, then selling the game or making it f2p later.  One of the main reasons for WoW's popularity is the fact that Blizzard went out on a limb and bought primetime advertising spots.  I've only ever seen 2 other MMO commercials other than WoW.  Rift and Global Agenda.  Neither really were in primetime like WoW was, but theys till advertised.

I have to agree with Grav and most of these devs are less talented.

Games Dev need to assemble a dream team to head their productions if they want  to have a really good MMO.

Originally posted by eric1000

MMO's used to be aimed more at mature and intelligent players, Blizzard aimed WoW squarely at the 10 - 14 market and because of the success of this strategy every developer and publisher out there rushed for a piece of the pie.  So for the past few years we have been subjected to one pathetic failure after another because none of the major developers have been willing to aim a game at 100k - 150k subs.  Blizzard didn't create greed but they sure threw fuel on it.

Lets call them "dedicated" instead of mature. The mature word fits badly with people that spends that much time in a game. ;)

MMOs have become a lot easier and I would blame Wow as well, except the fact that MMOs are not the only genre that have become easier the last 10 years. All friggin genres have become easier now, and that just can't be the fault of a single game no matter how popular.

Originally posted by nate1980

Am I really the only one who thinks that bringing MMO's to the mainstream public was a bad thing? I liked the way MMO's were before WoW. They were all different and I liked the variety. Up and coming MMO projects were exciting to read about and were different, not just another WoW clone with 1 or 2 new features or twists on existing features. I think there is room in the MMO market for a game like WoW (ie. very linear casual quest hub games), but the success of WoW turned 1 WoW into virtually all releases after WoW into WoW-like games.

Has anything that's gone "mainstream" really been improved? I hate to sound like a hipster but it seems to me that whenever a product goes mainstream, be it games, movies, music- whatever- that the product is then changed in order to bring in as much money as possible and the product then just becomes completely bland. The only good thing is that these trends fade, and I certainly cannot wait until MMOs are no longer a cool thing to do.

Originally posted by pierth

Has anything that's gone "mainstream" really been improved? I hate to sound like a hipster but it seems to me that whenever a product goes mainstream, be it games, movies, music- whatever- that the product is then changed in order to bring in as much money as possible and the product then just becomes completely bland. The only good thing is that these trends fade, and I certainly cannot wait until MMOs are no longer a cool thing to do.

There are some exceptions, like HBOs nice serie "Game of thrones".

But sure, trying to fit something for most people do tend to water the thing down. Music and art can actually differ since many atists gets famous after their death and some stuff that were considered extreme at the time are mainstream now.

I am so old that I remember when Iron maiden and AC/DC still were considered niche bands (ok, I wasn't that big at the time), now they are mainstream band that sells millions of CDs/digital downloads.

I disagree on all three reasons.

1) Mass appeal doesn't equal quality, it just means it caters to more people.  It does everything ok to decent, nothing "well".

2) This is the worst of all three; I absolutely HATE this one.  Cross server battlegrounds were bad enough, but cross server instances and LFG just made an already unsocialable game even less formal.  Phasing is even worse, instancing in the world is just the worst idea imaginable to me.

3) This was the last expansion I played and it was by far the worst implementation of the game's life that I experienced.  It was fast, it was cheap and it didn't leave a satisfying taste (in fact quite sour).  The original game was pretty good.  It was a world, it didn't cater to the "give me now" types without being overly time intensive.  That being said, I barely played it for 1 month, maybe two, before I was absolutely bored.

I come from a completely different generation of MMO gamer, I actually want depth and complexity with a large world to explore and flesh out.  Also, static loot table games were bad in the EQ days, not sure why no game has been able to do Asheron's Call loot system which made -every- kill a potential treasure trove.  In fact, I don't understand why more ideas aren't taken from that game, it was so ahead of it's time and we've regressed enough in design I think it's time to revert.

Originally posted by Squiggie

Actually, WoW was not even close to "polished" at launch.  I can't believe how many people forget how messed up it was.  Blizzard saved themselves by relatively quickly fixing what was wrong, though.

I played 2 years SWG before I started with WoW. And WoW was bugfree and polished compared to SWG, there was not even 1 server rollback where you lost a few hours of gameplay ;)  

Originally posted by Gishgeron

  And I have one reason that invalidates yours.

 

  They were inherently bad already. 

 

  Seriously...ground up, designed to be time and money sinks.  If anything WoW pulled the reigns back on the time portion of that sink.  Sounds like it helped to me.  You can't really blame it for stagnating the market...the market was barely just born when it hit the field.  You could probably count on your hands the number of games in the genre around that time, certainly in the AAA department.  Even then, there was stagnation being fostered.  All of the mold breaking games that tried to come out during the birthing period of MMO gaming were nearly ignored when compared to the ones that began to follow the EQ model.

Pure drivel, just like Garrett's article. Just because you became aware of MMOs post-WoW doesn't mean that WoW was the only thing that existed. The world wasn't born when you left the birth canal.

Garrett attributes instanced dungeons to WoW, conveniently forgetting that the one game with the most disastrous launch in history, dealt with those problems primarily because of their implementation of....instanced "dungeons". But I guess Anarchy Online didn't exist prior to WoW. Neither did City of Heroes, which also built itself around instanced "dungeons".

Garrett says WoW is responsible for the large MMO populations in China and Korea....conveniently ignoring the fact that Lineage 1 had MILLIONS of players in Korea before WoW was a gleam in Rob Pardo's eye. If I remember correctly, when WoW expanded to China, they did so with an already established MMO company (per China's rules/laws). Gee, how does an MMO company become established if they didn't have an audience prior to WoW?

Gishgeron, you say that there were only a handful of MMOs in existence in 2004? Let's prove that wrong, shall we? Now, MMO gaming has always been more popular in Asia than it was in the West prior to EQ (and later WoW) due largely to the internet cafe phenomenon, so those games count as well (whether you knew about them or not. Remember, birth canal, world existed prior to you). The Realm, Meridian59, UO, EQ, DAoC, AO, Asheron's Call, Nexus: Kingdom of the Winds, Lineage, Legends of Future Past, MapleStory, Ragnarok Online, RuneScape, City of Heroes, Earth & Beyond, Star Wars Galaxies, EVE Online, Motor City Online, The Sims Online, EverQuest Online Adventures, are we at more than a handful yet? And that's largely the Western titles. Korea had over a dozen MMOs running in 2004 (again, owing in large part to the internet cafe).

MMO "gamers" didn't ruin MMOs, the overwhelming desire to make them "accessible" (read: easy, faceroll difficulty, gimme gimme gimme NAO) ruined MMOs. Now, many of them play very much like console games where you don't need to spend any time at all to get to the "top" of the game. I don't begrudge them that since I realize that Joe Casual Gamer with 30 minutes to play a week has money that spends just as well as mine does. However, choking the genre so that's pretty much the ONLY type of game available, isn't good either. And many so-called MMO gamers are just console gamers in disguise since they'd die (literally) if they had to play a game with a slower pace. I've been playing these games since QuantumLink when they charged by the hour so watching the genre progress has been sad in some cases. But people attributing innovations to the game they first became familiar with the features, is wrong. Very much like saying Columbus discovered America (ignoring the fact that there were people already here, that he and his crew spread disease amongst while "trading" with them).

What WoW did best that no one else had done before is take existing features, simplify them to a large degree, and polish it to a fine sheen. They didn't try to overreach (like many games do. Hi WAR), they kept it as simple as possible. WoW brought the term 'polish' into current parlance. They took EQ's raid centric endgame, simplified the hell out of it, tacked on things that non-raiders could do, and made the whole thing quest based. Of course, MMO developers haven't taken those lessons to heart, releasing with as little polish as they can get away with (Rift being an exception), instead choosing to ape features in half-ass fashion. But hey, you can't have everything.