Why WOW?

That is a a good question and there are many different answers.

Every game out there appeals to some more than others. For example, I love WOW. To me its the most polished game out right now, the genre (fantasy) appeals to me, it offers a ton of things to explore (I am still finding things that I have never seen before) and its simply the most fun game to me.

That's what it means. It does not mean that EVE isn't a good game, its doesn't mean WAR isn't a good game or LOTRO. The fact I like WOW means I like WOW, and means nothing about the quality of other games.

Now, I think the million dollar question is: What does WOW do that makes it so popular? (I am not equating popular to best, just popular).

Why is WOW at 11.5 million players (and holding steady) and 4 years old and other games that have launched in the last year can't keep a large audience around (meaning they lost a lot more players soon after launch than projected)?

As I mentioned before WOW is fun for me. Its simply fun. I am in a great guild with great people. It allows me to accomplish a fair amount in the limited time I have to play now. I would love to go back to corpse runs, experience loss, grinds and all of that like I did years ago in EQ but I do not have the time. This is another major benefit to WOW as well.

In the end, fans of WOW love the game for various reasons which just means WOW is great for me right now. And no, the next game that comes out that might make me enjoy it like I do WOW doesn't have to be WOW or WOW-like, just be polished, fun, and enjoyable even thought I have limited time to play.

Fishsticks?

What are you a gay fish?

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by Jackio81

This is all fine in dandy but the one thing I would have to agree with the OP is (well what I figure the OP is trying to say is) why won't ppl STFU about it.

Great game doesn't equal second coming...0o

And some ppl seem to treat it as that, I mean WoW has been around for almost five years and everyone still sounds like a broken record repeating the same shit over and over and over and over and over and over......

 

......

 

 

 

again.

 

and that's why my conclusion is all MMO gamers are a bunch of nerdraging absolutist mixed with crazy (don't forget the defintion of cazy is being unable to escape one loop of thought...aka talking about WoW in our case)...whether you love WoW, casual, or hate it completely...lol

 

it makes sense to compare something against somethign else that people actually know about.  Would it make sense to compare WAR with Dark&Light or Ryzome?  No, because no one would care=)  WOW has a lot of features, does them all well enough, so its decent measuring stick.   Maybe you don't like the game.  Thats fine.  But any new MMO will have to measure up to WOW.  Thats what happens when a game is succesful.  Future games are measured against it.  Its pretty hard to measure new games up against UO or EQ.  Its just not a fair comparison anymore.  I can't wait when a new MMO comes out and comparing WOW to it becomes unfair, because the new game is so much better.

Dude, you sound like a broken record....I've heard all this many many times. There's comparing games, and then there's obsessively bringing up a game like WoW all the damn time like they're addicted to it or something...0o

WoW for a lot of ppl is an obsession, and they're either obsessed with loving it or hating it.

If you want to talk about WoW bring up comments and arguments that havn't been done before......not stupid details like how many players are subs to the game which has been brought up by ppl 50 billion times already.

If I had a nickle for everytime a thread was made trying to tell me how many subs WoW I've be a very...yaah...>>

Why WoW...

Really? You honestly need to ask this?

Why compare something to the most popular MMORPG ever? This is something that confuses you?

Really?

... Sometimes, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

I don't play WoW, nor am I a rabid fan but come on, do you really wonder about this, or did you just want to start another WoW debate?

Originally posted by snowyjoe

Every time i go to a MMO blog, check some gameplay on youtube or even just browsing through some forums what i always see are these 3 words.

"WoW is better"

 

Now don't get me wrong, i like playing WoW, (lvl 80 Hunter, Horde, Emerald Dream... if anyone is intrested)

But what i don't understand is when everyone compares all the other MMOs to WoW.

Now I understand that WoW is currently the most popular MMO out there... but that dosn't mean every other MMO is a copy of it.

Take for example EVE. People commenting stuff about how EVE is boring and WoW is better...... seriously... WTF?
How can you compare a Sandbox, Sci-fi, MMO to a End-game, Fantasy MMO?

It's like comparing Nacho Cheese with Fish sticks... it just dosn't work.

I also don't know why people are talking about the "next WoW killer" for each new MMO that sounds cool.  Does WoW really have to die? As long as the game is good, and makes me pay $14 a month then I'm fine even if WoW dosn't die.

Seriously what is with people and this addiction of WoW = MMO?

8 years ago they compared it to Eq, who knows what they sey as the standard MMO in another 8 years?

People tend to use the most popular things as an example, it needs least knowledge about specific things.

As for if Wow needs to die, it will sooner or later as do everyone and everything. That will take long time however but another game will be the biggest a lot faster, there is a limit to how long a computer game can be the biggest, and Wow is aging.

What comes next is anybodys guess, but it will probably be different since Wow is doing the Wow thing very good. So too beat it you need something different and better, that will come sooner or later.

I don't compare EVE to WoW. Actually I have never seen anyone comparing the two. But EVE is boring as hell. Still a damn good MMO if you are into that kind of thing... spending hours deciding between laser guns with some crystal or faster turret ammo guns with harder shells or slower missiles with penetretion in shields or armor or maybe another combination... not for me thanks.

Originally posted by snowyjoe

It's like comparing Nacho Cheese with Fish sticks... it just dosn't work.

True but deep down they are both foods and people will have an opinion on them (which one they like better).  The current generation (me, i think...i can never remember) tends to associate anything that is not part of their opinion to negative things (boredom, waste of time/resources...ect).  This is where opinions on two seemingly different things occurs, they do of course have to have some similarity.

EVE is an MMO, so is WoW..thats all they need to form an opinion on them no matter how much they differ...its stupid but thats the way the world seems to work now.

Originally posted by lornphoenix

Originally posted by Dreamagram

Originally posted by lornphoenix

Nacho Chesse is better then fish sticks

Troll alert! Srsly!

That was suppose to be funny, yet true...
Did you even read the rest of my post?
You know the part about you can compare anything...
or the whole thing about WoW being the MMO that every other is gauged by because it was the biggest.
in no way was I trolling in that post.

I was joking. ;-)

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Originally posted by Josher 

 Lvling to 80 is not the be all end all.  Its not SUPPOSED to be challenging.  Its supposed to be FUN. 

It's all in the eye of the beholder.  For many, many people WoW is fun.  For me it was so boring and lacking in fun that I couldn't force myself to keep playing even though a friend was paying for my account just to try to get me hooked.

My friend loves WoW and plays it every day.  But me, after the first few times I played it I couldn't see any point in logging in again because it simply wasn't fun for me.  I made myself play a little longer just for my friend's sake but when you catch yourself groaning at the thought of playing a game then you know it isn't going to work out.

Neither of us is wrong it's just that different people like different things.  Which is something I wish the big gaming companies would figure out soon.  And when I talk about different I'm not talking about the setting I'm talking about the game play.

I agree with you.  I had a very good friend that got involved in the early days of WoW and got addicted and she wanted me to play with her.  I tried, I played it for about five-six months and I hated it.  It just wasn't interesting to me and from what I understand, everything that's happened since has made it even worse from my perspective.  I haven't played since, even though I have, sitting next to me, an unopened WoW Battle Chest with all expansions that I could install and play and... it'll never be opened.

Just zero interest.

Originally posted by snowyjoe

Every time i go to a MMO blog, check some gameplay on youtube or even just browsing through some forums what i always see are these 3 words.

"WoW is better"

 

Now don't get me wrong, i like playing WoW, (lvl 80 Hunter, Horde, Emerald Dream... if anyone is intrested)

But what i don't understand is when everyone compares all the other MMOs to WoW.

Now I understand that WoW is currently the most popular MMO out there... but that dosn't mean every other MMO is a copy of it.

Take for example EVE. People commenting stuff about how EVE is boring and WoW is better...... seriously... WTF?
How can you compare a Sandbox, Sci-fi, MMO to a End-game, Fantasy MMO?

It's like comparing Nacho Cheese with Fish sticks... it just dosn't work.

I also don't know why people are talking about the "next WoW killer" for each new MMO that sounds cool.  Does WoW really have to die? As long as the game is good, and makes me pay $14 a month then I'm fine even if WoW dosn't die.

Seriously what is with people and this addiction of WoW = MMO?

Some newbie high school / college students play WoW as their first MMO, then it is "better" because it is more popular.

In reality, these people never played an MMO that involved any risk, any difficult PvE systems (look at how many times they dumbed down Naxx in WoW), or real PvP systems (systems where politics govern who fights each other rather than some useless rating points gathered by combinations of overpowered classes.)

I played WoW for maybe.. a year?  Got through all of the instances, including pre-nerf Naxx.  I guess people like it because it's so easy?  This is a bad thing though, MMOs should be near impossible, and they should scare the shit out of people who play them.  Like in EQ you could run through kithicor woods as a level 1, but you had a good chance of getting killed / having a tough CR, etc.  Try doing that in a hand-holding baby MMO like WoW

I've noticed a bit of how if WoW is your first MMO (or any mmo for that matter) you become used to it's formula and anything different bothers the crap out of you. Like one of my friends that plays WoW he's played the crap out of WoW and was looking for something different. So I show him Atlantica cuz it's different and something new. But he's completely turned off by it because he said it's confusing, he doesn't know where anything is and just doesn't want to play it because of that. He said he's at a disadvantage to other MMOers who played multiple MMOs and kind of can figure this out. I was like what? Are you kidding me? You don't want to even give this game a chance because you can't figure out where shit is? And he was like how come I can't customize my character more. I was like it's squad based, the unique part is you choose the different mercs in your squad to make your team unique from others.

So in short what I got from him was "I'm not looking for a new game, I'm looking for WoW 2"

I enjoyed WoW, I had fun. The most fun I had was fishing in areas that were dangerious. But the game mechanics don't allow for stuff like that for long. And soon I became bored of the game because it was the same formula over and over. I told one of my freinds that has multiple toons maxed out that I feel like i've seen basically everything the game has to offer. And he really got on my case as he said I only hit the tip of the ice bugre and then I make a remark like what? More quests? higher level raids? And he just says yes... Honestly, I think I would have played more if the PVP wasn't so slight of hand. Like if a person is 5 lvl above you then you pretty much will lose. Because one, they have more skills/stats and second they probably went somewhere and got way better gear than you have.  So if you were in battle grounds I would get so pissed off if there was like someon in the low anything, like a lvl 51 or 31. It really pissed me off cuz then i see the other side and it would be all in the upper parts of the 10's For a game that has 11.5 million people you think they would narrow the lvl range in battle ground. But since I felt I was only competitive in battle grounds if I was close to being a tween and didn't play much there.

And I don't know about the rest of you, but I thought the game was like World of Walking, quests just got annoying when I had to walk so f'n far. And then walk some more. I know many games do it, but I felt WoW some how did it more...

I'm just worried that players who started off on WoW will become so used to it that will shun any new MMO that breaks the standard mold or that isn't completely user friendly and thus not letting it get the chance it needs because it's not WoW...

Originally posted by snowyjoe

Every time i go to a MMO blog, check some gameplay on youtube or even just browsing through some forums what i always see are these 3 words.

"WoW is better"

 

Now don't get me wrong, i like playing WoW, (lvl 80 Hunter, Horde, Emerald Dream... if anyone is intrested)

But what i don't understand is when everyone compares all the other MMOs to WoW.

Now I understand that WoW is currently the most popular MMO out there... but that dosn't mean every other MMO is a copy of it.

Take for example EVE. People commenting stuff about how EVE is boring and WoW is better...... seriously... WTF?
How can you compare a Sandbox, Sci-fi, MMO to a End-game, Fantasy MMO?

It's like comparing Nacho Cheese with Fish sticks... it just dosn't work.

I also don't know why people are talking about the "next WoW killer" for each new MMO that sounds cool.  Does WoW really have to die? As long as the game is good, and makes me pay $14 a month then I'm fine even if WoW dosn't die.

Seriously what is with people and this addiction of WoW = MMO?

Why do we usually use US$ as a measurement of prices of imports, but not some remote currency of an island somewhere lost in the oceans?

After all the economic structure of US is totally different from an island country, forest jungle brazil, highly populated China, or even the shinny deserts of the middle east.

US$ is used b/c its a common currency, most widely circulated, and more people understanding what that money stands for.  Few knows what 1 RMB buys, but vaguely more people can tell $1 = 1 toy in the $1toy shop (pun intended).

Same for WoW.  Its the most well known game.  It has the widest "circulation".  So why not use it as a standard of measure.  You do not need to play WoW.  You do not need to use US$, unless you are in the states.  But why do you feel upset when ppl use US$ or WoW as a way of talking and comparing?  WoW bite off your left leg and you have a personal grudge  (pun off)?

Its a standard, a common, a basis to start talking.  It does not mean the game being compared need to be WoW to be good or bad.  It just mean "hey, in WoW, you press spacebar to jump, in Oblivion, you space-bar to interact, which is more convenient ..." and the discussion goes on.

why not?