After reading some of the earlier threads, especially the one dealing with why it is Blizzard's fault for the state of the MMO industry at this time I felt like we needed to ask another question. That being why has no game (despite the hype of Vanguard and AOC) has managed yet to bring WOW down or compete seriously with it. The following are the reasons why I think there has yet to be a game that can compete with WOW as of yet.

Reason 1. The player base:

Some might be surprised by this but I believe this is the number one reason why no game has competed with WOW. Having myself played WOW I know that Blizzard works hard at fixing bugs and that the player base on WOW is patient enough to give them time to fix any bugs that come up. The one thing I noticed in particular with both Vanguard and AOC (just so you know I have played neither Vanguard or AOC as I don't have a computer capable of running either at the moment) is that neither game was given that same level of patience to correct the bugs when the game came out. From all I have read the Player base gave up on these games far to quickly.

Reason 2. Game companies didn't provide sufficient resources early on.

One of the things that definitely hurt Vanguard and possibly AOC is the lack of resources put into the game after release. From all I have seen Blizzard worked hard at updating and put resources into the game in its early days to ensure its success. The same cannot be said for many of the newer games that have come onto the market. Had SOE put significant resources into Vanguard early on then possibly it could have done better early on.

Reason 3. Media outlets not updating their reviews.

The one thing that I find odd is the lack of additional reviews for MMORPG's out there. Most companies just do their initial review and then ignore the game afterwords. It would be nice if the reviewers would go back to the these games once a year and update their reviews. Some games need time on the market to develop (I hear Vanguard has turned things around and a recent re-review did suggest improvements). This may give some games a needed 2nd chance.

Reason 4. Game companies trying to do to much

Some game companies made a mistake and made games that required so many resources that most people could not play the game on launch (Vanguard perhaps being the most notorious for this). Some of these games were increadibly ambitious and as a result failed by trying to do to much. Having lots of features is good but in order to compete with WOW games need first of all to be accessible to the gaming public (which means they have to be able to be run on most systems available at the time) and to not have so many features that it leads to bugs in all of them due to trying to do to much. Having lots of features is nice but bring them in gradually if it looks like it would lead to a bug infested game at launch.

Overall I think for a game to truely compete with WOW it will need a playerbase to be patient at launch and to give it time to develop (like a full year of patience). The company will need to provide sufficient resources early on to deal with launch issues (with the expectation of not making huge profits early on). The world will need to be immersive, with solid PVE and PVP play. The game will also need to be one that can run on most players systems effectively.

Developers simply need to develop a game that is worthy of a large playerbase. It has nothing to do with the playerbase being patient as the company shouldn't release a buggy mess.

Unfortunately no game is trying to be unique, they are all trying to be like WoW. You can't out WoW WoW itself.

Hmm... Why has no game managed to compete with WoW as of yet? Because the players will not let them compete..

Like the rest of the games currently out, wow also sucks. It's just they have the longest reach as far as getting the game into other countries unlike most games, so naturally,  more people get to play it.

PLayer base is patient?

Says who? You, thats it. Aparently, you haven't and don't read their forums.

Vanguard was managed by soe. Thats all you needed to know to know it was fail from the start.

Originally posted by erikk3189

Like the rest of the games currently out, wow also sucks. It's just they have the longest reach as far as getting the game into other countries unlike most games, so naturally,  more people get to play it.

that and it took the best elements from other games and polished it to near perfection. Flame away at the truth btw

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"Why has no game managed to compete with WoW as of yet?"

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How can you compete with something that you either:

(A) Try to emulate to a great degree, constantly forcing comparisions.

(B) Build it so sloppily that no one wants to stick around and play it.

(C) Niche it out so that only a select few actually want to play it.

Originally posted by Torath

After reading some of the earlier threads, especially the one dealing with why it is Blizzard's fault for the state of the MMO industry at this time I felt like we needed to ask another question. That being why has no game (despite the hype of Vanguard and AOC) has managed yet to bring WOW down or compete seriously with it. The following are the reasons why I think there has yet to be a game that can compete with WOW as of yet.

 

Reason 1. The player base:

Some might be surprised by this but I believe this is the number one reason why no game has competed with WOW. Having myself played WOW I know that Blizzard works hard at fixing bugs and that the player base on WOW is patient enough to give them time to fix any bugs that come up. The one thing I noticed in particular with both Vanguard and AOC (just so you know I have played neither Vanguard or AOC as I don't have a computer capable of running either at the moment) is that neither game was given that same level of patience to correct the bugs when the game came out. From all I have read the Player base gave up on these games far to quickly.

 While I understand your point here, I wouldn't call the WoW playerbase patient. Other game communities are as patient, if not more patient, than WoW's, honestly. The only reason you see more people leaving quickly and not giving the company a chance is because there are a lot more people playing MMOs nowadays, most of whom have the attention span of a squirrel. If the person thinks the game is worth it, even with the bugs, and the company shows signs of quick or significant improvement, they will wait. Simple as that.

Reason 2. Game companies didn't provide sufficient resources early on.

One of the things that definitely hurt Vanguard and possibly AOC is the lack of resources put into the game after release. From all I have seen Blizzard worked hard at updating and put resources into the game in its early days to ensure its success. The same cannot be said for many of the newer games that have come onto the market. Had SOE put significant resources into Vanguard early on then possibly it could have done better early on.

One reason why Vanguard was a flop, but I have to disagree with AoC. As much as I dislike Funcom, they did improve their game a significant amount (so I hear, I'm downloading it to see for myself right now). After they got rid of Gaute, or whatever that fucktwat's name was, and replaced him with some new guy, the game (apparently) has gotten much better. No doubt Avery feels better on the inside about defending the new guy rather than Gaute.

Reason 3. Media outlets not updating their reviews.

The one thing that I find odd is the lack of additional reviews for MMORPG's out there. Most companies just do their initial review and then ignore the game afterwords. It would be nice if the reviewers would go back to the these games once a year and update their reviews. Some games need time on the market to develop (I hear Vanguard has turned things around and a recent re-review did suggest improvements). This may give some games a needed 2nd chance.

Agree here.

Reason 4. Game companies trying to do to much

Some game companies made a mistake and made games that required so many resources that most people could not play the game on launch (Vanguard perhaps being the most notorious for this). Some of these games were increadibly ambitious and as a result failed by trying to do to much. Having lots of features is good but in order to compete with WOW games need first of all to be accessible to the gaming public (which means they have to be able to be run on most systems available at the time) and to not have so many features that it leads to bugs in all of them due to trying to do to much. Having lots of features is nice but bring them in gradually if it looks like it would lead to a bug infested game at launch.

Agreed.

Overall I think for a game to truely compete with WOW it will need a playerbase to be patient at launch and to give it time to develop (like a full year of patience). The company will need to provide sufficient resources early on to deal with launch issues (with the expectation of not making huge profits early on). The world will need to be immersive, with solid PVE and PVP play. The game will also need to be one that can run on most players systems effectively.

Many games are competing with WoW, otherwise WoW would have all the subs. However, I don't think that any game needs to compete with WoW in order to be successful or be a good game. WoW is an unnatural beast, an anomaly spawned from good timing, amalgamation of previous MMOs' features into one shiny box, a strong, popular IP, and excited nerds telling their friends about it.

 Personally I hate WoW. It was fun until tbc... But for some reason I still play it.

I think it's the most basic of human laws that comes into play. "Always choose the easiest way out." I have lots of friends that have wanted to try new MMO's as they looked cool etc, but didn't because "well I got a good toon in wow already, I don't wanna start from scratch again". And now with the second expansion out I think that only real chance a new MMO has is to either skip the leveling process totally which is kinda sad as it can be a really fun part or make a game that doesn't directly compete with WoW, e.g. a present-time or sci-fi game. 

But then again we might be seeing a slow down in WoW soon. Every week there is people saying in guild or friends that whisper that they will not renew the sub when game time runs out, Ulduar or no Ulduar. I don't know about others but personally my problem with WoW is that logging in and doing what ever raid there is get boring week after week. Sure I could PvP or even grind gold but what ever I do it's the same over and over.

Is it possible to make a MMO that doesn't have a grind at the end game? Is it even possible to make a MMO without a end game? 

I think WAR would have had a outstanding chance to compete with WoW if it would have only followed the short storys in the army-lists and the books more. The impression I got when I played it was that it was following the boardgame more the anything else. This might be good if you want to stay true too the IP but does it make a good game? Single-player maybe but MMO I'm not so sure. 

AoC I started playing again a few days ago. I really like the world, it's beutiful and the classes are interesting, I finally found my caster with the big ass two-handed sword, but it also has a problem with the userbase. I started out on a PvP server as I do like some casual outdoor PvP now and them, but this was just to much for me. As soon as I got outside the first city it was 15-20 people just running around killing everything they saw. There wasn't a chance in hell that I would be able to quest there so it was back to server selection screen and pick a PvE server. I think AoC has gotten so much bad publicity that it will have a really hard time getting things into a decent balance again in the playerbase. Kinda say as it's really a nice game with a really poor start.

SW:TOR I think has real potential to compete with WoW. It has a really known company backing it. I would dare to say that before the age of the MMO's, the name Bioware carried almost as much if not even a little more weight then Blizzard. Is this really important? Hell yeah it is. Ask any kid if he wants a free pair of Nike or Panther shoes. I bet 8 of 10 answers will be "Nike". Because they make better shoes? No, because they are more known. So having Bioware backing SW:TOR is giving it some momentum there already. I think their biggest obsticle will be peoples expectations. People want something new now, it's been so long without something really new and fun that they put the bar way to high for anything new that acctually reaches the market. This is probably another reason why WAR and AoC got slamed into the ground at launch. People wanted them to be the messiah of the MMO world and when they didn't walk on water instantly they got stoned. 

Originally posted by kithe

 Personally I hate WoW. It was fun until tbc... But for some reason I still play it.

I think it's the most basic of human laws that comes into play. "Always choose the easiest way out." I have lots of friends that have wanted to try new MMO's as they looked cool etc, but didn't because "well I got a good toon in wow already, I don't wanna start from scratch again". And now with the second expansion out I think that only real chance a new MMO has is to either skip the leveling process totally which is kinda sad as it can be a really fun part or make a game that doesn't directly compete with WoW, e.g. a present-time or sci-fi game. 

But then again we might be seeing a slow down in WoW soon. Every week there is people saying in guild or friends that whisper that they will not renew the sub when game time runs out, Ulduar or no Ulduar. I don't know about others but personally my problem with WoW is that logging in and doing what ever raid there is get boring week after week. Sure I could PvP or even grind gold but what ever I do it's the same over and over.

Is it possible to make a MMO that doesn't have a grind at the end game? Is it even possible to make a MMO without a end game? 

 

I think WAR would have had a outstanding chance to compete with WoW if it would have only followed the short storys in the army-lists and the books more. The impression I got when I played it was that it was following the boardgame more the anything else. This might be good if you want to stay true too the IP but does it make a good game? Single-player maybe but MMO I'm not so sure. 

 

AoC I started playing again a few days ago. I really like the world, it's beutiful and the classes are interesting, I finally found my caster with the big ass two-handed sword, but it also has a problem with the userbase. I started out on a PvP server as I do like some casual outdoor PvP now and them, but this was just to much for me. As soon as I got outside the first city it was 15-20 people just running around killing everything they saw. There wasn't a chance in hell that I would be able to quest there so it was back to server selection screen and pick a PvE server. I think AoC has gotten so much bad publicity that it will have a really hard time getting things into a decent balance again in the playerbase. Kinda say as it's really a nice game with a really poor start.

 

SW:TOR I think has real potential to compete with WoW. It has a really known company backing it. I would dare to say that before the age of the MMO's, the name Bioware carried almost as much if not even a little more weight then Blizzard. Is this really important? Hell yeah it is. Ask any kid if he wants a free pair of Nike or Panther shoes. I bet 8 of 10 answers will be "Nike". Because they make better shoes? No, because they are more known. So having Bioware backing SW:TOR is giving it some momentum there already. I think their biggest obsticle will be peoples expectations. People want something new now, it's been so long without something really new and fun that they put the bar way to high for anything new that acctually reaches the market. This is probably another reason why WAR and AoC got slamed into the ground at launch. People wanted them to be the messiah of the MMO world and when they didn't walk on water instantly they got stoned. 

No, you cannot create an MMO without grinding. You cannot live without grinding. No matter what, you will eventually do something over and over again. Breathing, for instance. The only way to get past that is by making the grinding so transparent (making it enjoyable, in a game sense) that you don't think about it. Like breathing.

That's the tricky part. No one has truly been able to do it, in my opinion. Which leads me to believe it's really not possible, and will have to be accepted by the MMO community.

WAR...well, yeah. In theory, the Tabletop would be a good setting for an MMO because you have large armies fighting each other. Unfortunately, that means players are treated as plastic/metal models, and that's exactly what they are in the game. Rock, paper, scissors. Tanks take out MDPS, MDPS take out squishies, and RDPS take out Tanks. It's good and bad - good in that balance is easier, but bad in that people want to be...or at least think they are...unique/different.

AoC, you should've rolled on a PvE server to start or read some info on it. Lol.

I completely agree with the last paragraph. Hype, along with fanbots, kill MMOs. Especially at launch, because you can only have one launch, and the company has to prove itself.

Aye, i cannot understand it either, WoW has been going for 4yrs now, and yet absolutly nothing as of yet has even come close to touching it. WoW is boring, Wotlk made it all too easy, dampened right down that you dont even need to be fully awake to walk through it. Yet not 1 game developer has brought anything new. Hell, they carnt even make another cloned game to run right. Its more like quick quick shove 1 together, throw it out and hope it sells, if not the die hard fanboi's will support it, even those give up eventually.

One day something new will come out, but i do fear it will be by Blizard themselves. SoE are nothing but money grabbers. (monthly fee's, extra content LOL called adventure packs (pay for teh download of it) others give it for free, SoE don't, now item malls, as i said greedy. Now they announce a big yearly loss and have frozen wages for a year (maybe longer), can see staff cuts for that company and possibly some game closures too LOL

TORATH

Reason 1. The player base:

Some might be surprised by this but I believe this is the number one reason why no game has competed with WOW. Having myself played WOW I know that Blizzard works hard at fixing bugs and that the player base on WOW is patient enough to give them time to fix any bugs that come up. The one thing I noticed in particular with both Vanguard and AOC (just so you know I have played neither Vanguard or AOC as I don't have a computer capable of running either at the moment) is that neither game was given that same level of patience to correct the bugs when the game came out. From all I have read the Player base gave up on these games far to quickly.
 

Sorry, they were given patience, when a patch was released it didnt really fix anything, maybe jumped you to the very next step of the quest and then it broke, but not only that several working quests seemed to get broken to the point that 1 in 5 actually worked. You had to wait 2 around 2 weeks for a minor patch to come out that actually made things even worse. After a month i left, after 3 months the last of my friends left after giving up with it. So they did have their chances. (Vanguard)

Currently trying out AoC right now, game seems to be running better than what was said about it at release. Resource gathering seems to be scarce, respawns are too quick most of the time. Annoying attacks from 1-5 NPC's when running in the game world (tend to happen every 20-30 seconds and several times when trying to harvest a resource (gets old very fast). Community on PvE servers seem ok, but forget the PvP servers, questing/mob killing etc forget it, you thought wow was bad, think of any FPS game were sides start out and go shooting each other, well thats basically the pvp servers. get the same thing for no monthly fee. Community also on these servers stink. Its also ment to be an 18+ cert game, bet my ass most on there are 10-15yr olds.

As for reason 3, they probably did take a look several months later but thought it wasnt worth mentioning again. Reason 4 i have to agree with you on that one.

I would have to agree with some points here. I played WoW for years, played alot of WotLK and whatnot. It's just missing something. Im bored while raiding, it used to not be that way. While I enjoy the people I play with, the game is just lacking, and I cant quite put my finger on it. My account is currently inactive.

I think it is mostly because game developers keep pushing out crap without really finishing it, trying to make money in a hurry.

Sadly, WoW was the last decent mmorpg released...

I am hoping Aion will be decent.

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Originally posted by Zorndorf
 
 
PvP is fantastic these days (again). High stamina, 800+ resilience and healers deciding the outcome.

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It's just too bad that Arenajunkies.com shows that the top teams are wearing about 60% RAID gear across the board since November 2008. When I saw this, I /cancelled. A few days later, I loaded up WAR and have enjoyed what I call "The only real PVP MMO on the market." In terms of PVP games, I've tried Eve, AoC, and WOW, but none of them really bring a style of PVP that I enjoy.
 
On the other hand, if you really want to know why nobody has topped WOW, the dev team simply understands the genre and their source material better than any other released game. Their clearly defined development strategies are a 50/50 blend of fun and marketing. Hell, some games try to use the exact same features as WOW, but don't even make them viable for their intended purpose.
 

Originally posted by Zorndorf

PvP is fantastic these days (again). High stamina, 800+ resilience and healers deciding the outcome.

As a Wow hater you don't like to hear it, but I couldn't care less. I am having fun. And wait till the new PvP gear comes in in just 2 weeks time.

That isn't really PvP, thats GvG, as in Gear vs Gear. Sorry, I'd rather play a game where my skill matters more than the shiny loot I'm wearing.

 Except for the raiding which I hate the game has good lore, some fun quests, battlegrounds can be fun, playable on most computers and I still enjoy starting playing it with my friends.

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Unfortunately no game is trying to be unique, they are all trying to be like WoW. You can't out WoW WoW itself.

That about sums it up.

Simple. Marketing.

Especially in the Asian demographic.

The art style of WoW, and the fact that Blizzard caters to the Asian market from the pricing plans to the incentives, has made WoW a beast that will not be matched very soon.

I for one have no particular loyalty to any game; I will try anything, and play as long as it holds my attention.

Personally, my fun with Wow pretty much ended with the endless gear grind at level cap, but the journey there was simply tremendous. No other game since has offered me anything like the potential to run around a large seamless world, pvping and doing fun stuff to my heart's content.

Were there a million things I would have changed in WoW? Of course! But it was a tremendous experience.

No other game has come close to offering a large, all-engrossing world to get lost in. Not even close. And I have tried a lot of them, many with considerable merits.

So, to answer your question, why has no game managed to compete with wow?

Because no game has been developed that is nearly as entertaining, involving.

Now, why have they not been able to do that? Another question altogether. A mix of money, vision, and talent, I would have thought.

Guess I see it differently.

While, I readily see WoW's success as phenominal, I try not use that success as the litmus test for other games. I believe in the bell curve theory can be applied here.

WoW is the heigth of the bell curve. On the left are games that are far worse. On the right are games that are far better. In the middle, where WoW is, is the highest population. As the quality of the game goes down, so does its population, but on the other hand, games that are 'better' than WoW,( i.e. more complex combat, or catering to specific desires such as pvp or crafting or sandbox or graphics, etc*) you again start to see a drop in population.

Now right now, I beleive because the game genre is in its infancy, the spike of WoW and the steep difference between it and other populations hasn't settled. Just as television of the 50s looks nothing like the television of today.

*On my graph the 'games far worse' and 'games far better' are totally subjective dependent upon personal opinion. For example, I believe EQ2 to be FAR worse than WoW, where someone else may think it is FAR better. In either person's graph however, WoW still spikes in the middle and EQ drops off on one side or the other, opinion dependent