Originally posted by brnmcc01

Edit: There's no way that 50 million figure for an old game like Maplestory is even close to correct, I'm thinking you have Maplestory confused with something like Farmville (what are they up to now, 60 million?  Lawl)

 Just pulled the numbers from the intro on the mmorpg.com site.  No idea how correct it is, but even at 50% u still end up higher.  So pretty good probability its higher than WoW.  Dont know anything about Farmville, but there u go that drops WoW down to 3rd?

Originally posted by Komar

Originally posted by brnmcc01

Edit: There's no way that 50 million figure for an old game like Maplestory is even close to correct, I'm thinking you have Maplestory confused with something like Farmville (what are they up to now, 60 million?  Lawl)

 Just pulled the numbers from the intro on the mmorpg.com site.  No idea how correct it is, but even at 50% u still end up higher.  So pretty good probability its higher than WoW.  Dont know anything about Farmville, but there u go that drops WoW down to 3rd?

 Yah, Farmville is one of those terribad Facecrook games, and there is at least 5x as many people playing that craptastic Farmville as WoW.

In reality, the reason WoW is such a massive success is because it's a massive success.

In vanilla, WoW appealed to Blizzard fans (such as my father, who played Diablo and Diablo II religiously for years) and EverQuest fans. This got the game it's first massive population influx.

Due to it's population and cultural presence, lots of people started to know about WoW. People played it's free trial and gained at least a passing knowledge of the game. This includes a lot of my friends, my girlfriend, HER friends etc.

WoW's far more casual and solo-orientated nature kept these players around for longer than EverQuest and other earlier games did. A decent tutorial helped, too.

That's pretty much it, really.

Here are a few reasons that WoW is so successful.

1) It is accessible both in terms of the hardware that is required to play it and in terms of the video game experience/skill and the related learning curve needed to succeed at it.  Thus many people play WoW do not play a lot of other video games.

2) WoW has had a rather large marketing capaign backing it up for years.

3) Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft are some fo the most commercially successfull games ever made for relatively little (compared to others in their respective genres).  Blizzard has a rather large fan base and significant experience in making smash hits.

4) It has a high price point, you have to pay a monthly subscription plus buy each expansion.  This is significant to its success because these campaigns cost relatively little to make so that Blizzard can spend more money on advertising/buying yachts.

-EDIT-  I want to reiterate that number one is the most important aspect of the game's success.  It is easy to play, easy to learn and readily available on nearly any computer.

Its a Prius, thats all that needs to be said on this topic. If you fall for those kinds of things, well then its a great game isnt' it....what color is your Prius?

Blizzard has the most popular mmorpg because Blizzard is the only one who tried to have most popular mmorpg. That's all.

WOW is still the most popular because no one  has tried to be more popular.

Originally posted by Garvon3

Timing

Advertising(Blizzards name and the biggest marketing budget of an MMO ever)

Simplicity, ease, and design aimed at people with ADD

low system reqs

momentum

Done.

some games are still worth the try....  WOW isn't the best MMO of all time....

I'll tell you exactily..........Timing

First there was UO, this game was in 2D looking down, great in it's day.

Then EQ1 and Dark Age of Camelot around the same time, again great games but still needed improvements.

Then WoW and EQ2 around the same time. Both were a step up.  However EQ2 had major coding problems and did not run very well on most computers.

So now we know the founders of MMO's.  Now we can look at other compatition.....Well there really was not much, maybe Starwars, and Eve.  But WoW was fun and captured people of all ages.

Important :

With a head start, players would put up with bugs, and low amounts of content for lack of competition.  Blizzard made a bold move and re invested profits quickly, where Sony the makers of EQ 2 took the money and ran with it only later to create paid expansions.

World of Warcraft " NOW " has wayyy to much content that it is almost impossible for anyone to catch up, along with an mmo player base that demand perfection from the start. only later did they make paid expantions, they timed them well. Kind of like ATM machines, hook people for a long time before charging a fee.

Believe it or not Vanguard and Lord of The Rings Online both understood this and developed mmo's that were full and complete games. However Vanguard was pressured into releasing to early along with using the same crappy coding as EQ2, and Lord of the Rings seemed to be boring, and something was just off with the game.

Your survey needs to be adjusted. It does not properly account for people who do not play and enjoy WOW like myself. A better angle to approach this from would be to answer A.) what aspects of games people like B.) how do those aspects fit into WOW

For example, I prefer games that require a great deal of forethought and strategy, even for solo and small group endeavors. I prefer games like Anarchy Online and EVE Online as a result. Since not everyone prefers the same, this does support the concept of accessibility being a reason to choose WOW.

it is the most popular MMO because of its fun core gameplay and refining system.

It is a bit tough to answer from your standpoint when we don't know what it is. A little bit of input on your own likes and dislikes would help, particularly in terms of experiences with other MMO's.

Because the creator is blizzard, and there are a lot of blizzard fan boys out there (like me). but in reality because the game is that good .

Why? Because it has Different classes wherein players can choose their desire character, intense game play, graphics, audio sound, and WOW it self its realyy oh wow! like amazing :)))

Nice WOW is becoming that popular, still its a very nice game though

Originally posted by mmosavor

FOR   INTERESTING  !