I voted Yes.

I played FFXI Online before this as well as EQA Online in beta and after.  I honestly believe that their intentions were pure - create something for everyone however, what came out isn't what was probably conceived in the beginning.  In the beginning WoW was great - just enough people to do things with and not that many kids playing. 

They went wrong when they tried to make it a game for everyone.  They tried to please too many people - make it easy, make it soloable but bring in PvP.  They have the chat filter so now the kids think that gives them the right to completely go off their head.  I very rarely heard language like that on FFXI - I honestly think because most times SE doesn't care about your money as much as Blizz - they care about the game and making it pure for everyone so they'll suspend you or heck even ban your acct.  Blizz on the other hand says - just /ignore - and even when they've found people using hacks - do you see them cancel their accts - nope.   They're not trying to make MMOs better, they're just trying to stay the latest, greatest thing.   So Yes, they've ruined it atleast for me until something comes out that corrects their mistakes.  But I won't hold my breath for that. 

For me it did ruin it for a while. I fell into the trap of everything fast and now. I had to go back and play a few older games before i was able to enjoy MMO's again.

Now happily playing EQ2

WoW didn't ruin MMOs.  If anything it raised the standards.  Unfortuantely i think SoE has really given up, and as for AoC and Warhammer I was mostly just dissapointed.  Hopefully 2009 will bring some more impressive games (Darkfall, Aion, New EQ server, Mortal etc.)

I think it didn't ruin MMORPGs but it set in stone a standard many players do not like.

Before EQ and WoW the standard did not include instanced dungeons, no risk pvp,

a world dedicated as an instance hub with very little content exept for very linier quest chains.

People who played pre Ren/AoS UO, Asherons Call, Lineage, Ryzom, DAOC either stll play there or are

semi retired waiting for something else, or still playing WoW waiting for something else.

In WoW or the current crop of games you really arent part of the world and can't change a thing.

You feel like your in a large chat room waiting for your raid group to form, or if your in a larger guild,

raiding all day. Thats about it. The ( non violent ) crowd have won the last 4 year war and are not holding it

back to rub it in and many of us are feeling a little stuck in the cold or just bored. But as for ruined I don't

think so. Same thing happened in UO and EQ no one thought they could be replaced but that's not

realistic, of course WoW WILL be replaced no way around it.

What in the hell is WoW?

LOL

World of Warcraft is just another MMORPG to play... plain and simple. Your question and this poll really doesn't prove anything or serve a purpose for that matter.

It is comparable to someone asking... "Did chocolate ice cream ruin it for all flavors of ice cream?"

Of course not. People will always like a variety of different flavors of ice cream that are available. Some people like chocolate, while others may favor strawberry. The same is true with MMORPGs, there are a variety of MMORPGs out there to choose from. Some people like World of Warcraft while others may favor FFXI.

So you see, if you have found a MMORPG that you really enjoy and like to play, then good for you. That is all that matters in the end.

It is my opinion that WoW transformed the MMO playerbase from loyal, honorable roleplayers into selfish, teamspeak loot whores. Maybe it's just the new generation of young players who came in with this attitude, but I think WoW has had a large part to play in the deterioration of the MMO playerbase.

Furthermore, I believe that many of these players who try new MMOs are stuck in the WoW attitude and try to play any new game like they are playing WoW where they get everything fast and easy. When it's not, they cry and complain until the developers change the game to be more like WoW.

Hi

Warcraft brought MMO's into the mainstream. That means more player, more money and hopefully more and better development. So in my opinion its not bad what warcraft have done ;)

On the other hand all the old style MMO's have won because i now appreciate them more than before.

my 2 coppers

Letus Darkglow

Originally posted by Jadedfire

What in the hell is WoW?

LOL

World of Warcraft is just another MMORPG to play... plain and simple. Your question and this poll really doesn't prove anything or serve a purpose for that matter.

It is comparable to someone asking... "Did chocolate ice cream ruin it for all flavors of ice cream?"

Of course not. People will always like a variety of different flavors of ice cream that are available. Some people like chocolate, while others may favor strawberry. The same is true with MMORPGs, there are a variety of MMORPGs out there to choose from. Some people like World of Warcraft while others may favor FFXI.

So you see, if you have found a MMORPG that you really enjoy and like to play, then good for you. That is all that matters in the end.

This is one of the only post that makes sense here, good analogy. How could WoW have ruined MMO's? That would imply that everyone thinks there's a problem... and I don't. As Jaded stated, people will continue to play what they like, and what appeals to them, for whatever reasons. I have played every MMO made, and at 28, I've seen most of them from the beginning. At this particular moment, I am enjoying WoW, as my playable time has dwindled due to my job and a young child, for that reason, WoW fits perfectly right now. That doesn't mean that I won't enjoy another game when it comes out.
WoW has done more for the MMO industry then any other MMO in history; it has brought in the crowd. Other developers should be happy as hell for that. They're here now... all you have to do is be creative and make a descent game, and you will bring in more people then you would have if WoW had never existed. Most people I talk to playing WoW are doing so as they feel it's the best option at this point, however, if another game came out, they would at least try it, if not leave all together.

In summation, I feel that WoW has helped the industry much more then anyone has given Blizzard credit for by bring people to the genre that otherwise may have never found their way.
 

Originally posted by Letus

Hi

Warcraft brought MMO's into the mainstream. That means more player, more money and hopefully more and better development. So in my opinion its not bad what warcraft have done ;)

On the other hand all the old style MMO's have won because i now appreciate them more than before.

my 2 coppers

Letus Darkglow

Usually when something goes mainstream, quantity goes up while quality goes down, which is exactly what we have seen since WoW pushed MMOs into the mainstream. There hasn't been one quality MMO since WoW.

Originally posted by Praetalus

Originally posted by Jadedfire

What in the hell is WoW?

LOL

World of Warcraft is just another MMORPG to play... plain and simple. Your question and this poll really doesn't prove anything or serve a purpose for that matter.

It is comparable to someone asking... "Did chocolate ice cream ruin it for all flavors of ice cream?"

Of course not. People will always like a variety of different flavors of ice cream that are available. Some people like chocolate, while others may favor strawberry. The same is true with MMORPGs, there are a variety of MMORPGs out there to choose from. Some people like World of Warcraft while others may favor FFXI.

So you see, if you have found a MMORPG that you really enjoy and like to play, then good for you. That is all that matters in the end.

This is one of the only post that makes sense here, good analogy. How could WoW have ruined MMO's? That would imply that everyone thinks there's a problem... and I don't. As Jaded stated, people will continue to play what they like, and what appeals to them, for whatever reasons. I have played every MMO made, and at 28, I've seen most of them from the beginning. At this particular moment, I am enjoying WoW, as my playable time has dwindled due to my job and a young child, for that reason, WoW fits perfectly right now. That doesn't mean that I won't enjoy another game when it comes out.
WoW has done more for the MMO industry then any other MMO in history; it has brought in the crowd. Other developers should be happy as hell for that. They're here now... all you have to do is be creative and make a descent game, and you will bring in more people then you would have if WoW had never existed. Most people I talk to playing WoW are doing so as they feel it's the best option at this point, however, if another game came out, they would at least try it, if not leave all together.

In summation, I feel that WoW has helped the industry much more then anyone has given Blizzard credit for by bring people to the genre that otherwise may have never found their way.
 

That analogy doesn't hold water, and here's why. Even though chocolate is still delicious, companies and people still make a LARGE assortment of other flavors, anything from coffee, to bubblegum, to mint chocolate chip. Popularity of chocolate hasn't really affected the production and quantity of other flavors.

Apply that to the MMO genre. Say WoW is chocolate and it is a massive success. If MMOs were icecream, the flavors that are created, produced, maintainted, etc would all be chocolate derived. The equivalent would be going into an Icecream store after Chocolate became super popular, and finding the store only has flavors that are or similar to chocolate.

People aren't mad that WoW became popular, people are mad because other developers have completely stopped making other forms of MMOs, and completely stopped thinking critically, and have all started producing copies or something incredibly similar to the oh so popular chocolate.

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Originally posted by Letus

Hi

Warcraft brought MMO's into the mainstream. That means more player, more money and hopefully more and better development. So in my opinion its not bad what warcraft have done ;)

On the other hand all the old style MMO's have won because i now appreciate them more than before.

my 2 coppers

Letus Darkglow

 

Usually when something goes mainstream, quantity goes up while quality goes down, which is exactly what we have seen since WoW pushed MMOs into the mainstream. There hasn't been one quality MMO since WoW.

Hi

Agree. But sometimes its better to slowdown quality a little bit to bring more people in it. This generates money and segments for the more hardcore players too. The companies then have the money for continuing good games with not so much players on it.

Its a hope, not more, that in the future there will be more good games then in the last 2 or 3 years. Most of the games are not so bad, but they are released too early, with to many bugs in or to less content.

No, wow did not ruin the mmo world..

The fact that the gengre became mainstream ruined the soul of it, because the gengre start to become a cheese parody (clones this, clones that)

The real quality is made in the underground, thats why many have never heard of it before wow came along, and some may even still think that wow is the only mmo on the planet.

Hi

Nope :) Daoc, everquest, ultima online, ... had millions of people subscribed. This was not underground, it was only a smaller segment from the large cake of games. Windows had the same discussion (it ruined pc's, it ruined the os, ...). I agree that there is potential to be better, for hardcore and casual player, but thats the way our system works. Wow now has the sucess, in a view years there will be another game the biggest, like in the past everquest was. Not one of them ruined anything.

Well, yes and no.

Yes in that it turned the MMO world into an instant gratification object of fantasy, and put all subsequent MMO's into EzPlay.  That type of player that WoW attracted unfortunately has stifled mmorpg growth to the point that I think that this will be the 'lost decade' of would-be challenging and fun mmos. 

Unfortunately because of this, I think it's 'killed' the market -- at least for a few more years.  When the behemoth that WoW is begins to wobble on it's top like EQ did, and clones of WoW continue to fail then new ideas (or old ones) will fall into play to breathe new life into the genre. Or so I hope.  I would hate for WoW to be the last popular MMO, when the genre could do so much more.

No in that there was SOME (not saying all) aspects that were polished up past what previous successors did.   One was the graphic engine, which allowed for a great majority of players of older PC's to play and didn't require a super-pc to run the game at low graphics.  This was probably the most single important aspect of the EQ2/WoW war during release next to a justifiable and unadulterated hatred of SoE.    The other was the questing system.  Unfortunately the questing system went from being a 'helper', to the only means of effective leveling.

I just can't get over that WoW and other recent MMO's just feel very hollow inside, and lacking depth, character, challenge, and community that the 1st generation MMO's had.   Is that WoW's fault though?  No, a plethoria of sub-par MMO's have come out since the 1st generation.  WoW is simply the most popular of them.

Popular does not neccessarily mean the best or greatest.  For more examples, just watch the Emmy Awards.

No!  All the half assed developers trying to rehash the same game to capitalize on its player base did along with all the publishers pushing for titles to compete with WoW.

In a way though they might have just perfected their style of MMO and game companies will start to realize that, and also realize that they can't compete directly with a cloned system.   This may create a ton of originality in the genre soon.  Especially after what is happening to Mythic, Funcom, etc.

Originally posted by Knived11

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

I'm sorry OP, but what is wrong with you?

World of Warcraft is the best thing that has happened to the genre to date. The biggest game subscription wise before WoW was EQ with 500,000 subs. (as far as I know, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) Do you realize how much people have opened their eyes for this genre since WoW launched?

Oh, and no, I don't play WoW.

How can wow ruin so much when so many play on wow? I saw that wow is biger than Austrailia on tv. All those people in Austrailia must be right if they like wow so much. I think wow showed other games how to be better and more like wow and now they are getting better like wow. But still wow is good and others that are like wow are good. WAR is good but it is like wow i think so that is why. The conan game tried to be like wow to but not as good as war. If it tries to be like wow then it is a good game I think.

Originally posted by Blazz

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?"

While what you say makes sense (except for the pokeman quote, sorry didnt even like my kids watching it and i'm not that old)but WoW/Blizzard Ent. have nothing to do with other companies failures. I've beta'd just about everything out there and found nothing of interest. There isnt any new creativity what so ever. I'm reading that in so many posts yet it doesnt get through to other MMO companies. They see the blizzard pie and think they can have it too. When the WoW beta showed up my bro in law bugged me to try it, i was an avid DAoC player and said "no way it looks cartoonish and i bet it's play style will suck." I was hooked from the first moment we logged in. I do have to say it lacks the sandboxness that it could have, but it has an excellent storyline and tons of lore. I was hoping that AoC would have what WoW offered with the sandboxness thats been needed in MMOs for so long, i had a lvl 80 within a week and was shocked that the endgame wasnt even complete, yet they were worrying about midlvl content. There were so many complainers( kids from WoW, even though it was a mature rated game) that the developers didnt even think to take care of the adults who had hit 80 and wanted to start PvPing with the guild cities and wanted to start raiding that they lost just about every adult playing after the 1st month. On top of that there wasnt the sandbox everyone had hoped for. It has nothing to do with WoW, but the devs themselves.  This senario can be pushed to just about any new MMO on the market.

As I said above about betaing just about everything out there, im not lieing. I saw AC betad by a friend when i was just a teen and have been interested in MMOs ever since. My list of betas go far back as AC2, neocron, and the like, ll the way to stargate worlds. I have tried any MMO thats looks reletively interesting and some that i thought might be a kick to play on a whim. Dont even get me started on Korean MMOs(point and click!? no WADS, Serious!?) There hasnt been even 1 for me to say "ooh thats the one im going to get for sure!" There are a few things in SGW, that if im invited back to the next closed beta, i am extremely happy to see in an MMO finally. SWG is made by a small company out of Arizona, if they can do it, any company can, it just has to want to.

If there are Devs that read this on their off time, new programmers looking for what gamers want. Creativity of a sandbox.

1. open crafting - meaning i found something cool, i learn to make that item if my skill is good enough. can learn to craft or gather anything at any time, like a real human.
2. open skills - u have your standard stats: stam, str, cord/dex, int, spirit. there isnt a limit to the amount you can raise them with exp. gained(AC style) same with skills. points into crafting making it open.
3. Endless Levels - levels mean nothing, its just a rank for how much XP you have gained, not what skills you can learn or what you can now do. maybe later levels get you prestige and every level hit will get you say an extra talent/training point with your class trainer.
4. building - homes near cities, guild cities where there arent cities. part of crafting. NPCs spawn at the level of the town. you upgrade the town with material collected. i.e. DAoC or AoC style.
5. economy - player based, open Auction houses, guild auction houses
6. storage -  think harry potter(sorry but this is the only thing i have seen that has it) bank vaults controlled by Goblins, with unlimited space at a price. i.e. 10 slots-free for being a citizen, 25 slots 25 silver/month scrip 100 slots 1gold/month scrip yadda yadda giuld banks, same thing
7. mounts at low levels - training required, skill points required for type of mount, i.e donkey to start all the way  to say a flying dragon, all with training and skill points.
8. Pack mules!!! - pay again by month or flat amount
9. NPC couriers - sounds weird right, no instant mail or 1 hour waits. You send a signal out in the field and one shows up, u decide on the level of protection for the courier for the item(s). it takes to whomever or your vault, all at a price.
10. dungeons - instanced and non instanced. instanced for groups/raids, non for pvp control for ores, minerals, and the like. i.e. cave that has mobs that have to be cleared, multi tiered and lvled. each tier has specific lvl crafting materials. something like that.
11. clans or guilds - taxes xp/money, ranks, war banners, tabards, mount tabards. again from above, banks and autionhouses.

The list goes on, but few MMOs have fully tapped into what can be done. LOTR had guild auction houses in beta, they didnt work when i played but i bet they do now. AoC had guild city crafting, felt limited when i played but i heard they expanded it. The MMOs i read on here all touch one thing or another but not all.

From this player begging some company out there to make something like this, please take the time you need. i know i will be waiting and i'm sure there are many others who are too.

They didn't ruin mmorpgs they simply moved down the bar of what is acceptable gameplay  and made changes to how easy mmorpgs should be. For instance now instead of working in raids you simply walk into the raid and ask the mobs very nicely to give you your gear or you will have to hit them once with your fish weapon.

Graphics were replaced with animations from Bugs bunny cartoons so that small children and bunny rabbits could enjoy the game more. Language filters were also added for the benefit of the kindergarden guilds that joined later.

Finally the greatest innovation of wow is the inclusion of 2 new races for the gay comminity, Blood elves and Dranei. Somone had to answer the gay pride call and WOW didn't let us down, now fags can enjoy wow to their hearts content.

WOW didn't ruin the mmo it jsut made it better,even if its better for people you might not want to neccesarily play with, all the less still better for everyone, even blind people can now play wow.

Originally posted by Faelsun

They didn't ruin mmorpgs they simply moved down the bar of what is acceptable gameplay  and made changes to how easy mmorpgs should be. For instance now instead of working in raids you simply walk into the raid and ask the mobs very nicely to give you your gear or you will have to hit them once with your fish weapon.

Graphics were replaced with animations from Bugs bunny cartoons so that small children and bunny rabbits could enjoy the game more. Language filters were also added for the benefit of the kindergarden guilds that joined later.

Finally the greatest innovation of wow is the inclusion of 2 new races for the gay comminity, Blood elves and Dranei. Somone had to answer the gay pride call and WOW didn't let us down, now fags can enjoy wow to their hearts content.

WOW didn't ruin the mmo it jsut made it better,even if its better for people you might not want to neccesarily play with, all the less still better for everyone, even blind people can now play wow.

They are jsut having an issue with the game now. You don't have to be so full  of rage, hate and evel