well another poll, this one a bit different. please vote, and comment on why you voted yes or no, thanks

No ofcourse not.
 
It where the stupid developers who think it would be great to copy all of WoW, and only upgrade the GFX and other minor stuff.
 
 
Wake up, and stop holding grudges against something. <Mod edit>

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Originally posted by Thatim

No ofcourse not.
 
It where the stupid developers who think it would be great to copy all of WoW, and only upgrade the GFX and other minor stuff.
 
 
Wake up, and stop holding grudges against something.<Mod edit>

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dude, i dont hate WoW it was my 2nd MMO and i enjoyed it till TBC came out then i quit and started playing other games, i dont think it ruined MMO's

There's actually two genre's of game, that seem confusingly like one.

There's the old skool MMORPG like UO, EQ, EQ2, DAoC.

There are games taht come close to these, or attract players that liked these games but wanted something even deeper, like Vanguard, SWG pre-NGE, Shadowbane, EVE.

Then there's the WoWified game, WoW and it's clones which are WAY solo friendly, and have almost NO sandbox elements.

I don't think they are competing for the same players. The WoW players would have never liked EQ or SWG pre-NGE, and they aren't going to like Darkfall.

WoW doesn't compete for those players. It's a new genre, with it's own player base.

There's the casual loot/level based solo player. They like WoW.

There's teh player that either likes grouping in games, or likes sandbox elements. They won't play WoW.

A game that appeals to one, doesn't steal players from the other.

Certainly not.  Blizzard just took what worked in other MMO's, polished it extremely well and hit the mass market.  If anyone is destroying the MMO genre it's all the other developers that haven't the brains or desire to see beyond the 'we want some of Blizzards pie' mentality.  The market at the moment is crying out for something different and that something would be a back to basics sandbox made to the high standards expected by todays gamers.

What's more how many TV ads have you seen over the holiday period for the likes of Warhammer or AoC?  Personally I haven't seen a single one while over the same period it has been almost impossible to miss the new Ozzy Osbourne ads for WoW no matter which channel you were watching.  Someone once said that running a business without advertising is like smiling at a beautiful girl in the dark, you know what you are doing but no other fucker does.  It is this aspect also that other developers and distributors seem to find completely alien.  They don't understand that the mass market are not those of us that frequent game sites or official forums, it's out there in TV land.

I dont know how one could suggest that one product ruined the market for others.  But in any event, WoW is just another option, and at the time, an advance to the mmo genre, which was fun 4 years ago.

After leveling to level 60, I bailed from sheer boredom since the game-play was too redundent and the PvP scripted and non-consequential and non-risk/reward based.

Actaully, I think the game gave promise to other games that plan to advance the genre again, though AoC was a complete failure at that attempt imho and WAR was alot of the WoW same redundecy.

I dont think you can blame any game for ruining a different game

yes, WOW is the "pie in the sky" subscriber base that many mmos would like to have

but its short sighted to say that  it's ruining other mmos

there are some comanies that wont touch mmo's (ie Microsoft) unless it gets millions of subscribers

but thats Microsoft's loss and MS was pulling the plugs on MMOs (ie Mythica) before WOW existed

In case of TL; DR, go to the bottom.
I realised I was ranting.

I believe it did, and before you flame me, let me say why I think this way.

World of Warcraft appealed to a very large player base - pretty much anyone who had played Warcraft III, and people who were playing other MMOs, but had also had experience with Blizzard's franchises in the past (i.e. Starcraft, Diablo/Diablo II)

World of Warcraft then sold millions, MILLIONS of copies, very quickly.

One does not think about the consequences of this - there are how many people in the world that play MMOs? What, like, maybe 50 million? I'm talking subscribers, here.

Now, WoW stole millions of those people away from other games. When some of them are only getting maybe 200,000 subscribers, and 100,000 flock to WoW like flies to honey, well, that's a big loss.

Many of the smaller MMOs were swept away in the emergence of WoW, and creativity was quickly lead to fear of "what if we can't take them away from WoW?"

Fury tried the PvP aspect - because that's still quite lacking - but failed miserably (which I blame on their Networking, and the fact that they didn't have a SINGLE server in AUSTRALIA.... fucking Auran)

Now where was I.

So, WoW grew into a monster, much like the magikarp to a Garados (and don't tell me you don't know what they are... we all were into pokemon at some stage! *shakes fist*)

With such a monster out in the world, one must look and marvel. They're making more than a Billion dollars a year. Game developers, for YEARS now, have always gone the way of "Just do what already works, and improve on it!"

Have you seen this in the world of First person shooters? Racing games?
They're all the same shit, but different, and with new, shinier graphics.

Game devs lost their creativity a long while ago, especially Blizzard (whose main directors behind games like Diablo and Starcraft left long ago) and, well, they want to make games that will surely make money.

WoW makes a lot of money. They emulate, they'll get money.

The problem is that WoW isn't getting better, it's staying the same little shit game, and when someone tries to create something different, they are but a splash of water in the MMO sea. WoW is an Ocean in that Sea, and that Sea will always be the same size.

.....

In summary, I agree, but I also believe that because WoW has become such a rediculous success, while not really doing anything extraordinary (you know, like, good.) other companies have pretty much said "why bother making good games, when WoW makes so much money from being shit?"

WOW just raised the bar with regards to 'polishing' a MMORPG.   In the past, games like Anarachy Online, Vanguard etc were the norm.   Players didn't really expect much from a new game.

I don't think WOW ruined games like AOC and Warhammer because they weren't close enough to WOW's ruleset.. I think WOW ruined games like AOC and Warhammer because gamers have seen that MMORPGs CAN be released polished and fun and won't accept crappy programming any more.

I think a game can stil launch and be highly successeful without being like WOW in gameplay.. as long as it is like WOW in regards to polish.   Bioware's MMORPG will be a good example of that.

Originally posted by Blazz

One does not think about the consequences of this - there are how many people in the world that play MMOs? What, like, maybe 50 million? I'm talking subscribers, here.

Now, WoW stole millions of those people away from other games. When some of them are only getting maybe 200,000 subscribers, and 100,000 flock to WoW like flies to honey, well, that's a big loss.

Are you nuts? WoW expanded the subscriber base immensely. Before WoW there were perhaps a few million tops if you exclude the asian playerbase. WoW didn't steal anything, they popularized the genre.

Before WoW you know what I was doing? Seeing new MMO release after MMO release go down in flames as they struggled to get a subscriber base. SB being the worst of it for me although Horizons certainly wasn't something to scoff at. The genre seriously looked like it was on a dead end at that point and certainly not worth investing in.

So before WOW MMO's had 10k- a few 100k *tops*, and now they're doing the same or hey, even better maybe depending on the real numbers the latest MMO's are showing.

If *anything* is wrong here it seems to be your expectations that other MMO's should be pulling in large numbers when no western MMO's besides WoW ever really have.

 WoW did not ruin MMORPGs ,the devs that want easy money did by releasing WoW clones.

Originally posted by Blazz

Now, WoW stole millions of those people away from other games.

How on earth does an MMO you've so elegantly described as a "little shit game" STEAL people away from other (presumably, better) games? That doesn't even remotely make sense.

/facepalm

It must be Tuesday ...

Wether you like the game or not WOW gave players what they wanted. I don't see how that is ruining anything. The game is getting old and it's time for something different.

I've never played WoW, but I can say, WoW revolutionized MMO's.  WoW is a phenomenon, and it opened the doors to so many of the new MMORPG's.  I respect WoW and in no way did it ruin MMORPG's.  If anything, it opened up the market to an entirely new spectrum of players.

Only the MMO vets are sore about WoW's effect, not the game itself (most of the time). They think it somehow made developers follow its pattern. That's only partially true. Believe it or not, for every disgruntled vet here saying they want it to be like the good ol days, there's 100 people playing WoW that say "we like the new model". Time marches on, sorry. It's very likely that new MMOs will continue in this fashion, improving upon one another, until before you know it a new mould is set. Who knows what that will be, something totally new or a mix of everything that came before it? Or both? 

WoW didn't ruin anything, WoW brought in millions of people and made the genre synonomous with it. Those who have never played the old sandbox games don't care about them, they're happy with WoW and, thus, the "WoW clones". When they get bored of WoW there's something out there that's similar but that takes it one or two or three steps further.

NO, the only reason why people even think WoW ruined mmorpgs, are cause they think WoW stole customers from another game that was way better thay WoW, and that WoW brought alot of immature people into the mmorpg world. I'll agree that WoW has brought alot of immature people to the mmorpg world, but thinking WoW stole customers from other game is totally unreasonable, if the the game is so much better than WoW, why would people quit their game to play WoW.

No WoW was only the first MMO that was designed for the mainstream (and not just "nerds"), I think its comparable to what Halo did to the FPS genre. There is nothing new with Halo except that it was the first really good console FPS and reached a new audiance and became a huge pop cultural phenomen just like WoW.

The problem with the MMO market is that now the old school companies whant to make mainstream MMOs but without the knowledge and the resources that Blizzard have for making games that are made for a mainstream audiance. That is why Turbine, Mythic and Fucom all failed to make sucesfull mainstream MMOs. Mythic is now backed by EA so they ahve the best chance to do so but it seems just money isnt enough.

And Im not "hating" on thoose games since I think both LotrO and WAR are high quality MMO products and AoC is probably slowly turning into one. But its to late for all 3 to be considered in the same league as WoW. (even if I rather play them before WoW ;) ) 

WoW made mmo's mainstream, which isn't a bad thing in itself

it used to be a great game in the old days, now it has lost everything and offers zero excitement, but we love WoW because it makes newer and fresher games like Warhammer show what mmo's on a large scale are truly capable of

it created the current mmo market, it definitely didn't ruin it, warcraft was a good thing for mmo's in general

Did WoW ruin mmorpgs? No.

The people WoW attracted to the genre ruined mmorpgs.