This weekend I decided to have a buddy over to show him the new place I had moved into. So we drank beers and to kill some time I gave him the full GW2 tour and explained why I’m excited for it. He is a newer gamer and started playing WoW near the end of Burning Crusade. He has also played many games after that, like Rift, and now SWTOR. His reaction to what I had showed him inspired me to ask this question about new gamers. But let me start with giving some perspective.

Old school MMO gamers like me have a different attitude towards MMO's I think. Back before the Clone War days embracing change in a game was common place. Games that we had played did not rely on one style of game play. UO was drastically different than EverQuest which was drastically different than Asheron's Call which was drastically different than DAOC, you get the point.

But my friend has never had this gaming diversity that the older MMO gamers are used to. All the MMO’s that my friend has ever played used that WoW clone formula. So when I was showing him GW2 he started barking the same complaints that we have all heard from ppl who played WoW as their first game. WTF no Raids?! WTF Tiny Hotbar? WTF no quest? To my surprise he was completely uninterested in this game because it did not have the element that, to him, is what makes an mmo --- well an mmo. For him if it didn’t have the WoW template than it was not a real MMO.

When the game releases, will the attitude that my friend had be a common reaction? Will Clone War Era gamers have trouble letting go of that WoW template they are used to? And will Guild Wars 2 have more trouble getting off the ground because of WoW gamer prejudice?

People like what is familiar to them.

It's why we still hear so much consternation that games dont come out like EQ and UO.

---

Guild Wars doesn't need to appeal to the WoW crowd, it has it's nown followers.

Sure it probably wants to attract a larger demographic but it doesn't need it. The great thing is, it is buy to play, no worries about sub dropoff.

Originally posted by WellzyC

When the game releases, will the attitude that my friend had be a common reaction? Will Clone War Era gamers have trouble letting go of that WoW template they are used to? And will Guild Wars 2 have more trouble getting off the ground because of WoW gamer prejudice? 

There will be all sorts of people that will have the same reaction as your friend, but it's not going to stop the game from doing well. If the game lives up to what they intend to deliver, it will see a consistant amount of sales after initial release as people gradually warm to the idea of what GW2 is about.  Some people will never change, and will never play. Consider it a blessing to not have those people in the game.

It'll get off the ground without a single WoW or WoW-alike fanboy. ArenaNet's fanbase is one of the largest and 100% of that fanbase is for the MMO genre.

Originally posted by fony

It'll get off the ground without a single WoW or WoW-alike fanboy. ArenaNet's fanbase is one of the largest and 100% of that fanbase is for the MMO genre.

Originally posted by WellzyC

 

When the game releases, will the attitude that my friend had be a common reaction? Will Clone War Era gamers have trouble letting go of that WoW template they are used to? And will Guild Wars 2 have more trouble getting off the ground because of WoW gamer prejudice?

 

I think most gamers have been ready to walk away from WoW for a long time now. Non-gamers, not so much.

Problem is, the non-gamers vastly outnumber the gamers, and publishers are largely non-gamers as well.

So they hire developers to make games for their own demographic.

To clarify: When I say "gamer" and "non-gamer" I'm not speaking of people who play video games, and people who dont play video games. I mean "gamer" more as in the lifestyle rather than the act itself.

It doesn't really matter, because those that are used to the WoW/EQ2 formula will wonder why so many people are hyped up for this "new kid on the block" and will try it, because there's really not much of a barrier to entry on this MMO. Some will adapt and enjoy GW2 for what it is, others will hate it and tell everyone why they hate it. But in the ArenaNet would have everyone's money. ^_^

Originally posted by WellzyC

 

When the game releases, will the attitude that my friend had be a common reaction? Will Clone War Era gamers have trouble letting go of that WoW template they are used to? And will Guild Wars 2 have more trouble getting off the ground because of WoW gamer prejudice?

Considering almost every game worth mentioning in the last five years has tried to slavishly copy Wows game design, yes to all three questions.

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

Originally posted by WellzyC

 

When the game releases, will the attitude that my friend had be a common reaction? Will Clone War Era gamers have trouble letting go of that WoW template they are used to? And will Guild Wars 2 have more trouble getting off the ground because of WoW gamer prejudice?

 

I think most gamers have been ready to walk away from WoW for a long time now. Non-gamers, not so much.

Problem is, the non-gamers vastly outnumber the gamers, and publishers are largely non-gamers as well.

So they hire developers to make games for their own demographic.

 

To clarify: When I say "gamer" and "non-gamer" I'm not speaking of people who play video games, and people who dont play video games. I mean "gamer" more as in the lifestyle rather than the act itself.

Originally posted by Tardcore

Originally posted by WellzyC

 

When the game releases, will the attitude that my friend had be a common reaction? Will Clone War Era gamers have trouble letting go of that WoW template they are used to? And will Guild Wars 2 have more trouble getting off the ground because of WoW gamer prejudice?

Considering almost every game worth mentioning in the last five years has tried to slavishly copy Wows game design, yes to all three questions.

Originally posted by MMOExposed
Why singled out WoW players? Didn't Everquest have both quest and raids?

Originally posted by fony

It'll get off the ground without a single WoW or WoW-alike fanboy. ArenaNet's fanbase is one of the largest and 100% of that fanbase is for the MMO genre.

 

I been curious, but what MMO do you play?

besides the betas i'm in, none. they aren't good to me. i do try them all out though, besides TSW since i couldn't get in beta and it's coming out real soon, likely fresh off of CBT so i' flying blind on that one.

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

Originally posted by WellzyC

 

When the game releases, will the attitude that my friend had be a common reaction? Will Clone War Era gamers have trouble letting go of that WoW template they are used to? And will Guild Wars 2 have more trouble getting off the ground because of WoW gamer prejudice?

 

I think most gamers have been ready to walk away from WoW for a long time now. Non-gamers, not so much.

Problem is, the non-gamers vastly outnumber the gamers, and publishers are largely non-gamers as well.

So they hire developers to make games for their own demographic.

 

To clarify: When I say "gamer" and "non-gamer" I'm not speaking of people who play video games, and people who dont play video games. I mean "gamer" more as in the lifestyle rather than the act itself.

 

Problem here is, what does non gamers have to do with this? By the way, Doesn't GW2 have more casual content and mini games than WoW? What you believe will attract non gamers to a MMO?

Well, the original question was about MMO players who are used to the WoW style being able to wrap their heads around new playstyles. Both gamers and non-gamers play MMOs. I just think the gamers will be more accepting to something new than the non-gamers.

At the OP.

A simple question deserves a simple answer, and though there were a lot of words involved, it was an exceedingly simple question.

Account for people, account for diversity, and think.

There are as many people out there who are fed up of Everquest-style (this includes WoW) MMOs as there are weak-willed people for whom these are their crack. However. It's idiocy to try and compete with WoW, and TOR will discover this when it falls flat on its face six months down the road. It's folly. The best business practises these days are to try and figure out what would reinvigorate the burned out players like myself.

You can either create Yet Another Clone (an absolute dullsville snorefest for people like myself, the sort of game where I feel like my intelligence would take a negative hit were I to play it), or you can do something different. It's a risk, but it has more of a chance of becoming wildly popular amongst the burnouts if you do it right.

Here is one example:

MMOs turn people into sociopaths. No, I'm not kidding. First they become asocial, then antisocial, and then you have the people who've gone off the deep end and abandoned their job, their family, and everything that mattered to them just for a bloody subscription-based pile of junk. And it retards and stunts their emotional and social growth. It impacts them negatively, especially younger gamers. I'm sick of that.

Here's what I mean: In Ultima Online, if you saw another person mining, you could pull up next to them and chat with them about their day. This happened all the time in Ultima Online. Lots of friendly chats, even people deciding to continue gathering together rather than halt their chat. Now, in the post-Everquest era that has turned into...

"You [censored], you [censored] [censored], that [censored] node was my [censored] right to take you [censored] [censored] [censored], I saw it first!!", "Yeah? Go [censored] your [insert family member/ethnic minority], you [censored] [censored], if this was yours, why the [censoredy-censored] did I get it first? You [censored] dumb [censored]!"

And tha's being generous. We all kow it's usually a hundred times worse.

In Guild Wars 2, resource nodes are instanced to the player - just like in Ultima Online!! That's beautiful! That means that if I see someone out when gathering resources, I can chat with them, maybe gather with them, and our gathering won't drive a stake between us, nor will it affect anyone else. "You want to come along with me and learn my gathering route? Sure! I mean, it's not like your gathering will ever affect mine!"

That... THAT is one of the important changes in Guild Wars 2.

The burnouts, like myself, are looking for stuff like that. We don't want a mostly single-player MMO where we only group on occasion and we're forced to group with socially stunted people. We don't want that. We want a friendly game. I'm an old fart now, and I don't have time for the sociopathic shenanigans of youngsters. I just want a game where I can not have to worry about someone griefing me or accidentally griefing someone else - with 'stolen' resource nodes, 'stolen' quest objectives, and so on.

I'm sick of the post-Everquest style game. Sick of it. Give me Guild Wars 2 or something like it instead.

Sadly, the answer to all three questions is going to be 'yes'.

We are already seeing a fair number of gamers who refuse to give this game a fair chance. They take a quick glance at it's features, and give it a close-minded dismissal for not being like WoW. Not to mention the amount of misinformation about this game, even though it has a very rich source of accurate info.

Sadly, this was also true w/ the first game as well. However, the first game looked so very different that people just dismissed it as being an MMO entirely. Now that the sequel is releasing, looking more more like the traditional MMO, i predict there will be a lot more confusion, because many new players will be expecting that traditional MMO template that some of us know as the 'WoW formula'.

It's not exactly fair, but that's what is going to happen.

Couple things..

1) I agree with you that wow'ers have a rough time coming out of the box.

2) I dont see why GW2 is the second coming. I dont like the style of the graphics, the gnarr or whatever looks like the Tauren. Its level based(Blah). I doubt the dynamic events will truly be that dynamic and I dont really see a deep crafting system. On the positive side the things I like is the different way skills wont crowd your hotbar and the spell synergy. Getting rid of the trinity wont matter much if combat is facerolling like 90% of the themeparks.  So, GW2?... Meh.

Originally posted by xDayx

Couple things..

1) I agree with you that wow'ers have a rough time coming out of the box.

2) I dont see why GW2 is the second coming. I dont like the style of the graphics, the gnarr or whatever looks like the Tauren. Its level based(Blah). I doubt the dynamic events will truly be that dynamic and I dont really see a deep crafting system. On the positive side the things I like is the different way skills wont crowd your hotbar and the spell synergy. Getting rid of the trinity wont matter much if combat is facerolling like 90% of the themeparks.  So, GW2?... Meh.

When people look at Guild Wars what they see is an MMO that did as well as Blizzard in a time when they were on the rise.  They look at it as a game without subscription fees and because of this they can buy it, play it and quit it like every other MMO while being able to come back for new DLC content.

What people don't realize of course is that first Guild Wars was a discount game.  Second it wasn't actually an MMO, it was just an RPG with online.

We need to not think that all MMO players are WoW players. That's flawed thinking.

A lot of gamers are ex-MMO players. On news sites like VG24/7 I often say people say stuff like "Guild Wars 2 is the first MMO I've considered playing in a long, long time." and I can understand that. If you think about it, that makes sense. The trouble with the current thinking is that you're thinking that only two groups of gamers exist.

1. WoW Gamers.
2. People who don't play games at all.

Originally posted by WellzyC

This weekend I decided to have a buddy over to show him the new place I had moved into. So we drank beers and to kill some time I gave him the full GW2 tour and explained why I’m excited for it. He is a newer gamer and started playing WoW near the end of Burning Crusade. He has also played many games after that, like Rift, and now SWTOR. His reaction to what I had showed him inspired me to ask this question about new gamers. But let me start with giving some perspective.

Old school MMO gamers like me have a different attitude towards MMO's I think. Back before the Clone War days embracing change in a game was common place. Games that we had played did not rely on one style of game play. UO was drastically different than EverQuest which was drastically different than Asheron's Call which was drastically different than DAOC, you get the point.

But my friend has never had this gaming diversity that the older MMO gamers are used to. All the MMO’s that my friend has ever played used that WoW clone formula. So when I was showing him GW2 he started barking the same complaints that we have all heard from ppl who played WoW as their first game. WTF no Raids?! WTF Tiny Hotbar? WTF no quest? To my surprise he was completely uninterested in this game because it did not have the element that, to him, is what makes an mmo --- well an mmo. For him if it didn’t have the WoW template than it was not a real MMO.

When the game releases, will the attitude that my friend had be a common reaction? Will Clone War Era gamers have trouble letting go of that WoW template they are used to? And will Guild Wars 2 have more trouble getting off the ground because of WoW gamer prejudice?

The same is more or less true for all genres now, all FPS or RTS use the same mechanics so I think it is kinda of a generation thing.

When I started gaming you more or less had to learn to play every single game from scratch and they could give you some really nasty surprises.

I miss that, EA and Activision have destroyed an entire generation of gamers with their generic crap.

Let´s hope that a counter revolution changes things again.

But you can make your own raids. Get 50 of your guildies together or 20 of them what ever your guild can support and go do x,y,z dynamic event. It scales and will take cornation and thought. I will say its different and I am not sold yet if I want to make this my new MMO home. All that matters is that when you reach end game there are things for you and your friends to do together. I think AN seems to be doing a good job on planing for that,