Originally posted by Tincanalley

Though I'm surprised Pappy would consider that data relevant considering he said earlier in this thread:  "...simply clicking an a 1 or 10 in a free rating system is a rather poor way to do it  wouldn't you agree? People can put in a value of 1 to 10 in a rating system and it has absolutely zero effect on them. It costs them nothing to vote and therefore they may not be voting with their conscience but rather with their pride, arrogance, anger, prejudice or something else."

I don't consider the user ratings on Gamerankings.com relevant for the exact reasons I mentioned above.  I was merely pointing out that Gamerankings.com does give the users the ability to rate the games and you can view the ratings from that point of view as well.  I also stated somewhere that's it's about equally as jacked up as MMORPG's ratings are.  I don't put a lot of weight into user ratings because they tend to be very biased.

Originally posted by saint4God

Originally posted by Tincanalley

 I've already put that site to rest.

If you'd like to provide justification to your claim that "MMORPG.com gamers opinions are out of step with other mmorpg communities" I'd be glad to oblige. But at this point you've failed to list any sites. You're making Pappy do all the work.

Sorry Pappy. Don't fee like you are required to help bail him out of his sinking ship.

 

You've not put any site to rest.

I did list a site therefore did not "fail".   If Pappy wants to do the work for you, God bless him/her.  See previous post about lack of incentive and being repetitious.

You've already given up on supporting your unsupported claim that "MMORPG.com gamers opinions are out of step with other mmorpg communities". I don't know why you're posting.

And to be accurate, he's not doing the work for ME. He would be doing it for YOU. I never asked him to support your argument. He just stepped in when you failed to do so.

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Tincanalley

Though I'm surprised Pappy would consider that data relevant considering he said earlier in this thread:  "...simply clicking an a 1 or 10 in a free rating system is a rather poor way to do it  wouldn't you agree? People can put in a value of 1 to 10 in a rating system and it has absolutely zero effect on them. It costs them nothing to vote and therefore they may not be voting with their conscience but rather with their pride, arrogance, anger, prejudice or something else."

 

I don't consider the user ratings on Gamerankings.com relevant for the exact reasons I mentioned above.  I was merely pointing out that Gamerankings.com does give the users the ability to rate the games and you can view the ratings from that point of view as well.  I also stated somewhere that's it's about equally as jacked up as MMORPG's ratings are.  I don't put a lot of weight into user ratings because they tend to be very biased.

Fair enough.

Nonetheless, it's more than a stretch to call gamerankings.com a "MMO community" and therefore, their rankings (whether you subscribe to them or not) are hardly support for saint4god's still unsupported claim that "MMORPG.com gamers opinions are out of step with other mmorpg communities."

Originally posted by Tincanalley

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Tincanalley

Though I'm surprised Pappy would consider that data relevant considering he said earlier in this thread:  "...simply clicking an a 1 or 10 in a free rating system is a rather poor way to do it  wouldn't you agree? People can put in a value of 1 to 10 in a rating system and it has absolutely zero effect on them. It costs them nothing to vote and therefore they may not be voting with their conscience but rather with their pride, arrogance, anger, prejudice or something else."

 

I don't consider the user ratings on Gamerankings.com relevant for the exact reasons I mentioned above.  I was merely pointing out that Gamerankings.com does give the users the ability to rate the games and you can view the ratings from that point of view as well.  I also stated somewhere that's it's about equally as jacked up as MMORPG's ratings are.  I don't put a lot of weight into user ratings because they tend to be very biased.

Fair enough.

Nonetheless, it's more than a stretch to call gamerankings.com a "MMO community" and therefore, their rankings (whether you subscribe to them or not) are hardly support for saint4god's still unsupported claim that "MMORPG.com gamers opinions are out of step with other mmorpg communities."

Well they get a fair number of people that visit their site and rate games, but it's more like a "gaming community" rather than an MMO community and that could account for the difference and perhaps that where you two are seeing things slightly differently.

I do think WoW is somewhat differently viewed by your average game player than your hard core MMO player.  That doesn't make either group any more qualified in rating the game in my opinion, but they may very well rate games differently.  WoW brought MMO's to the main stream game player and that does make it a little bit unique and perhaps why there's a vast difference in how different players view the game. I've actually touched on that point before to try to explain how WoW has become what it has.

I myself do not consider myself an MMO player, I'm a game player.  I love all types of games, not just MMO's and so it's quite possible that the reason I see things differently from a lot of other folks on these forums is because of that fact.
 

Originally posted by Cabe2323

20 Better? 

 

Hmm... Maybe in their prime but currently at today's standards nah. 

 

I can think of quite a few though.  Personally if I had to rank MMOs past and present at their peak.

1.  Asheron's Call 1

2.  Dark Age of Camelot

3.  Lord of the Rings Online

4.  City of Heroes / City of Villians

5.  Guild Wars

6.  Everquest 2

7.  Everquest 1

8.  EvE (Even though it was never really the game for me)

9.  World of Warcraft

 

So I would place 8 games ahead of World of Warcraft. 

World of Warcraft is extremely popular and even though Recant tries to dispute it, it is comparable to McDonalds or Britney Spears. 

All three are super popular.  All three have one awards.  All three are Icons of Pop Culture. 

And all three are fairly average.

Anyone trying to deny the Above will use the fact that World of Warcraft has won numerous critical acclaim from reviewers. 

But then again so has Britney Spears.  Being the best of a particular genre doesn't make you the best overall. 

No one is going to compare Britney Spears and Elvis and say they are equally talented. 

Just like World of Warcraft is not an equal achievement to many many other games (The Sims, Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Half Life, Doom, Quake, etc)  It is only when you compare World of Warcraft in the sub genre of MMO games does it shine.  Just like Britney shines in the "Pop" bubblegum princess category of Music or McDonald's does in the Fast food burger genre. 

World of Warcraft isn't even Blizzard's best game by any means.  (Diablo 1 & 2, Warcraft 1,2, & 3, are all good but Starcraft is by far Blizzard's greatest game to date).

Gamespot (while only one site) even shines light on what I am saying.  World of Warcraft was not the Game of the year for 2004 for the PC (that was Half Life 2) and over all the game of the year for 2004 was Halo 2.  

In 2005 it was Resident Evil 4.

Another good example is 2007 when The Burning Crusade released.  Lord of the Rings Online beat it for the Golden Joystick award for 2007 PC Game of the Year.

 

Another great example:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_1686305_1692236,00.html

Halo 3 was the Time Magazine Game of the year in 2007.  (Even Blizzard's at that point millions of subscribers didn't sway the critics for Time Magazine.  World of Warcraft's The Burning Crusade didn't even make the list of top 10 games of 2007)  Bioschock and the Orange Box both made the list for 2007. 

 

EH, the only game that I could even say is comproble is Lotro that is on your list.  I don't think that you have played EQ 1 or EQ 2 anytime recently.  I was even a GM at sony at I can't say that Sony games hold much towards WoW since everyone there played WoW anyways and no one really played the companies games even though I tried to push them. AC was rad at the time, but it nothing compared to WoW.  The interactive questing, and the ability to solo in WoW is incredible, and the fact that there aren't bugs all over the place is nice as well.  Guild Wars is not really much of an mmo considering you can beat it within a month or so.  Although I did really enjoy the game.  SInce it is not a paid game you get a lot of people that don't put in time enough to have decent guilds or communities.  Everything being instanced kinda takes away from it being an mmo.  CoH is a cool game, but I have had a hard time having anyone call it their first game.  It is usually peoples second or backup game.  Through all these DaoC which is dead, is the one that has had the best feedback and back in the day set the stage for PvP games.  So there is no way that I can disrepcect DaoC at all.  Eve is a solid game as well, although it is in a completely different genre so not really that comparible.  When I play it, it reminds me fondly of "Escape Velocit" which I used to play when I was younger and I loved it.  So through all of these the only two games that I can say are able to (at this point in time) be considered in the same category are WoW and Lotro.  However, I have found that Lotro takes a little bit more time on average per session, so it is a little less casual.  So, in the end WoW I believe deserves to be in the top 2 if not the first.  And I would say it should be #1 because it is the most computer friendly for people as well and they don't have to care about any specific lore like Lord of the Rings to truly enjoy it.  Blizzard makes their own lore.  Because in the long run, there has never been a successful mmo based off a movie series, and I believe that is something that should be taken into consideration when looking at the longevity of the games.

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Cabe2323

2.  WoW failed to deliver the competitive product when it launched as well.  It had way more bugs and issues then Warhammer Online did at launch.  Infininate more problems then Lord of the Rings Online.  The only recent MMO that compares to the level of problems that WoW had at launch is Age of Conan.  Yes WoW was about equal to Age of Conan.  So that isn't why WoW became so successful. 

 

You are misinformed.  Here's a link back to these very forums when WoW was released.  If you could look thru the posts and please point out the ones that talk about the tons of bugs the game had at release I would appreciate it.  Let's make a list shall we?

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/forum/432/page/430

 

 

I don't have to I can list them myself since I was there:

1.  Loot bug that required relogging to fix.

2.  Rogue Vanish not working.

3.  Mining Node bug.

4.  Bugged guards that wouldn't attack people in Booty Bay.

5.  Crashed log in servers.

6.  Lack of PVP features that were listed in the manual.

There are 6 right off the top of my head. 

Edit

Forgot a few more that I encountered.

7.  Warping unhittable mobs.

8.  Invisible mobs.

9.  Falling through the world. 

Like I said before World of Warcraft is not a bad game but it isn't the "Mecca" of video games that people seem to think.  Advertising and accessability (sp?) are the two main things other MMO companies should copy from WoW and not game mechanics. 

Gamespot (while only one site) even shines light on what I am saying.  World of Warcraft was not the Game of the year for 2004 for the PC (that was Half Life 2) and over all the game of the year for 2004 was Halo 2.  

In 2005 it was Resident Evil 4.

 

 

Well here's what Gamespy had to say about that:

You might be wondering what World of Warcraft is doing in our 2005 Top Ten, since, having been released in 2004, it was also in last year's list. Simple. Although there were plenty of great PC games released in 2005, no game dominated PC gaming this year like the MMORPG behemoth known as World of Warcraft. In one way or another, it was THE game that everyone was competing with for playing time this year; had it been released in January instead of November 2004, it would easily have taken top honors in this list.

The problem was that WoW was released very late 2004 before people had a chance to really see beyond the early levels of the game, meaning it's excluded from GOTY lists for that very reason.

It is however near the top of most 'Top games ever' lists that publications do from time to time.

Originally posted by Pappy13

 

I do think WoW is somewhat differently viewed by your average game player than your hard core MMO player.  That doesn't make either group any more qualified in rating the game in my opinion, but they may very well rate games differently.  WoW brought MMO's to the main stream game player and that does make it a little bit unique and perhaps why there's a vast difference in how different players view the game. I've actually touched on that point before to try to explain how WoW has become what it has.

I myself do not consider myself an MMO player, I'm a game player.  I love all types of games, not just MMO's and so it's quite possible that the reason I see things differently from a lot of other folks on these forums is because of that fact.
 

Exactly.  This site is a MMO players site not a just plain gamer site.  So of course World of Warcraft is going to be viewed extremely different here then on Gamespot or some other general gaming site. 

It has nothing to do with how successful WoW is either.  The vast majority of probably could care less.  People seem to be more bothered by all of the "WoW vs. ?" posts and that is why there is so much negativity towards WoW. 

Personally I get annoyed by what I call "The Blizzard fanboy".  I am sure we have all heard one (and they exist for every company).  I haven't seen any on this thread but I did hear one the other day.  He actually said that Blizzard invented "PVP" with their Warcraft games.  Completely ignoring games like Doom, Wolfenstein, Meridan 59, MUDs (Gemstone III), etc.  I think it is comments like this that annoy the heck out of a lot of players.  And don't get me wrong comments like this come from all over, there just seems to be a larger amount of them coming from World of Warcraft players. 

Maybe it is because WoW players share a similar community with things like Xbox Live (UGH!!!).

 LOL it is obvious to any intelligent person that there can be no " Best of " when something so unique as one's opinion is concerned. So let's provide a constant that makes this a lil more scientific where we can at least have a clear winner.

Most, if not all, games are created by the creator(s) for some sort of profit or in rare cases recognition. If your a company making a MMO for profit and/or an individual investing in an MMO for profit/recognition, which MMO is the BEST?

If your saying anything other than the obvious answer your kidding yourself.

I've said this before and it bares repeating here, for a person to be able to comment on WoW with any validity he/she would have had to play WoW to a fairly high level. To have done that you had to have been interested/liked WoW for a decent period of time. Stop hating on the game because you've already enjoyed and are done with it. Why not just say I played WoW and then got bored of my level 60, 70, or 80 character so I moved on. Another way of looking at this is for anyone to hate a game with sooo much passion you had to have really loved it at one time.  (More mature readers will understand this last statement)

Originally posted by Cabe2323

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Cabe2323 

 

We know that the vast majority of these individuals have never ever touched another MMO because only a fraction of that number has cycled through other MMO titles.   The MMO market in the West before WoW was extremely small.  Everquest 1 (the subscription King before WoW) sold roughly 1-2 million copies (I can't remember the exact number) and never hit 1 million total subscribers.  Even if you add up all the games before World of Warcraft you would hit maybe 1-1.5 million total subscribers in NA/EU.  

So It is safe to say that the vast majority of World of Warcraft players have never and will never play another MMO.  World of Warcraft is not an example of the MMO marketplace.  It is an example of Blizzard's marketing and brand recognition power.   

 

Which is a more believable scenario? 

1. Gamers stopped buying new games and never try them
2. Many MMOs fail to deliver a competitive product to what WoW offers its playerbase

 

 

1.  No they go back to the type of games they normally play.  (Console Games and Casual games like Bejewelled, etc)

2.  WoW failed to deliver the competitive product when it launched as well.  It had way more bugs and issues then Warhammer Online did at launch.  Infininate more problems then Lord of the Rings Online.  The only recent MMO that compares to the level of problems that WoW had at launch is Age of Conan.  Yes WoW was about equal to Age of Conan.  So that isn't why WoW became so successful. 

People were willing to put up with the Bugs from a Blizzard game especially because the majority of them haven't played other MMO games and didn't know any better. 

The number of concurent subscribers in mmos around the release of WoW was closer to 7 million, not including free to play and people that were no longer active.  I think you seriously underestimate the number of people that have had mmo exposure around the release of wow.

WoW didn't deliver a competitive product yet people were waiting in line to play it.  It siphoned populations from other mmos, so yes experienced players did indeed choose to play it despite your claim.

EQ2 released at the same time and got demolished.  It was somewhat stable at release and had no waiting lines just to log in, but the experienced crowd chose not to stick around that game and they were merging servers withing the first year.  Why?  Gameplay sucked, because the game mechanics were not finished.  It didn't deliver a cohesive experience.

Lotro released a well polished game, but didn't explode population wise (lacking content past 30 and gameplay nearly identical to WoW hurt its ability to attract the wow crowd).  It is a fine game, but there is no compelling reason to switch to it from WoW if you are content with WoW.  If someone is burned out on WoW they most likely not find something new here.

Wahammer and AoC both were stable enough compared to WoWs launch, but what happened to the people there?  They left in droves.  Why?  Gameplay again. 

Ask yourself why people were willing to put up with bugs in WoW?  Why they don't jump ship in droves to new games?  

We can pretend that almost every single person who quits wow will never touch another mmo even to see what they are like.  The other alternative is that other games just don't offer the overall experience that WoW does and people are just choosing not to continue playing games that don't offer as much.

Which do you really think is the more likely possibility?

Alot of people on MMORPG.com are biased against WoW.  That's why the ranking is so low.  I would have to say WoW ranks at least in my top 10 of all time MMOs.  I think of my ranking based on what the game was at it's peak, since alot of games that I used to play are no longer up.  Anyways here's my top 10 from MMOs in the past 18 years.

1) Dark Age of Camelot - Still the has best PvP system, even with the low population.

2) Final Fantasy XI - A PvE players wet dream.  Very deep gameplay and storyline.

3) Everquest - Another great PvE game. Would be easily number 1 if SOE wasn't behind it.

4) Neverwinter Nights - My First MMO, so I might be biased with this one, but it was a great game.

5) Everquest 2 - A great all around game, again would be higher on my list if SOE wasn't behind it.

6) Star Wars Galaxies - Another great game that would probably be 4th if SOE wasn't behind it, and it was pre-CU.

7) Ashen Empires - An old 2D MMO, I played for years.  Made by a local company in Austin.  Still have friends I talk to today.

8) World of Warcraft - Should probably be higher on my list, if it was based solely on the game itself and not my feelings towards the games.  It would be much higher if Blizzard didn't do the Expansions like they did.

9) Lord of the Rings Online - A great PvE game.  The Monster Play should be expanded alot, this game would go up on my list if it did.

10) Ultima Online - A hard pick for this one.  UO wins based on the nostalgic feel I would get if I logged back in today.  Alot of other games are close though.

Honorable Mentions:

Eve Online, Age of Conan, Asheron's Call, City of Heroes, Guild Wars.  Any of these could be listed as #10 really, depending on the day hehe.

For most wowers wow is the one and only MMO, they wont try another MMO.

mmorg.com is a site for people that arent only interested in wow, but in the genre overall. So people here usually played more than just one MMO, are informed about MMOs and can vote about it. And so they find out, that wow isnt that good. Of course there are some wowers, which tried different MMOs and really prefer wow, but as I said most wowers never played anything else.

---

Originally posted by Recant

So I checked the ratings on this site and according to the list, World of Warcraft is rated at around number 21 of all released MMORPGs.  Ouch.  

---

Using the ratings on this site (or any other "site") is a big mistake to gauge how popular or better people think a game is.

If you base it strictly amongst most people gaming for years/years/years, Wow is not better. A lot of forum people are practically professional readers of forums, and form opinions based on what other's say or post.

If you base it on the purest form of "what's better" by using economics, Wow is the best MMO on the market. Millions are paying for it happily, they are in the majority so that means, at least to quite a bit, it's the "Best MMO" out.

To take another example using cars, car enthusiasts who spend all day reading, collecting and have their whole life invested in cars might say the best car ever is the Shelby GT, McClaren F1 Porsche or Jaguar E-Type. You'd get plenty carheads who'd say this.

But if you ask the average citizen buying a car based on what they spend, the "best car" for them is the Toyota Camry, Volkswagon Jetta or Honda Oddysey. Based on sheer numbers sold, these latter cars would win.

Your question cannot be answered really as its all taste and different measuring sticks.

Originally posted by Kilmar

For most wowers wow is the one and only MMO, they wont try another MMO.

mmorg.com is a site for people that arent only interested in wow, but in the genre overall. So people here usually played more than just one MMO, are informed about MMOs and can vote about it. And so they find out, that wow isnt that good. Of course there are some wowers, which tried different MMOs and really prefer wow, but as I said most wowers never played anything else.

There is plenty of evidence that lots of people have tried other mmos.  For example over a million each for Conan and Warhammer.  No other mmos have had that type of overwhelming intial momentum.  Load up any game out that has a free trial and you will see new players in the newbie areas trying the game out.  Just because there hasn't been a mass exodus from wow to other games doesn't mean people have not looked.  All that means is that other games have not had any success in retaining new players for any number of reasons. 

Plenty of previously FPS/RTS/RPG gamers first started out in the mmo genre by playing UO, EQ, DaoC and they had no problem trying out other mmos after they were ready for a new game.  It isn't like 2004 hit and suddenly everyone who was new to mmos was never going to check out another mmo after they got bored of wow.  It is completely unbelievable to make that kind of statement. 

Is the problem that millions and millions of people just refuse to try these other "better" mmos when they they are done with wow?  If someone really likes FPS shooter games, I am pretty suret they will try out another FPS game when they get bored of their current title.  That is why companies keep making new FPS games.  Why would it be any different for mmos?

For a market that you say is filled with so many awesome games in comparison to wow, why are they all shrinking in size?  It is hard to believe that almost no one will move to better products for the reasons you make.  Not that you really gave any reason for your opinion other than some notion that people here are "educated", but whatever.

Cabe2323 said:

       "World of Warcraft is not an example of the MMO marketplace. It is an example of Blizzard's marketing and brand recognition power."

I would have agreed with this except for one thing. SOE/Lucas Arts and Star Wars have waaaay more brand recognition and marketing than Blizzard and SWG tanked.

Originally posted by riceae02

Daffid011 said:

       "World of Warcraft is not an example of the MMO marketplace. It is an example of Blizzard's marketing and brand recognition power."

I would have agreed with this except for one thing. SOE/Lucas Arts and Star Wars have waaaay more brand recognition and marketing than Blizzard and SWG tanked.

That is basically because LA/SOE took the game, kicked most of the players in the nads and did a complete 180 on the game because some idiot saw WoWs numbers and thought they could grab a piece of thier pie.

All they ended up doing was ticking off a bunch of fans while sitting there with thier thumbs in thier ears going "lalalalalalalalala-gamesbetterthisway-lalalalalalala..."

All the ranking on this website means is that there are not a lot of WoW fans here. For WoW to make #20 doesnt mean I have to rank 20 games above it. I just need to rank 1 above it. So if I (and many others) rank Asheron's Call highly, and others rank LotRO highly, and others WAR, etc. this is what pushes down WoW, not someone ranking 20 games above it, but thousands ranking their own favorite game higher.

The ratings are an average, not a sum.  A game that many have liked and many have disliked will be rated lower than one that few have liked and far fewer have disliked.

Are there 20 MMORPGs that I'd like better than WoW?  I haven't played enough to know for certain, but probably.  As far as how much I've liked the MMORPGs I've played goes, WoW was about average, or perhaps a little below average.

Now, that is a self-selecting sample, as if it's obvious that I'll dislike a game, I never play it in the first place.  If I were to play every single MMORPG ever made, WoW would probably come out substantially above average.

I'm going to go ahead and agree with the McDonalds WoW analogy.  It applies here. 

Every but can get something from WoW, but there's probably a better MMO suited to your needs out there. 

WoW is a pretty good game, but it's made for the LCDs and soccer moms out there to be able to play it and feel like they're succeeding when in reality it's all being handed to them.

For all that WoW does right... there is still a lot that it does 'wrong', in my opinion.

I'm not sure what it is, but it seems that I really didn't notice the high level of asshattery amongst gamers until I played WoW.  The overall poor community feel to the game and lack of indivuality really sets the game back in many ways for me.

Community - Unless you are in a good guild, forget any real meaningful, educational, or good conversation with the public.  As soon as 1 person asks a legit question, 10 people chime in with 'noob', 'anal (spell/item/whatever)', or something. 

Of the 3 servers that I have played on... and the guilds I've been involved with on those servers, none of them really did much as a guild other than RAID for gear.  Help levelling?  Level/quest together... forget it.  You are welcome into the guild as long as you can help them get their gear.

Nothing in this game really ties the members of the factions together.  Teams in BG's?  Bah.  The biggest leap in open world PvP in WoW has come with Achievements that somewhat promote Cap City raids.

With 12 million people playing this game... there should be some of the most EPIC Open World battles of ANY game, bar none.  Even when you do get a good skirmish going... it doesn't do anything to the game world.