Ghettobooste - "I think you are wrong in your assessment of why WoW is such a big success.   When you say Everquest is a dead breed, I assume you are implying that the difficulty level and harsh penalties, very little solo content aspects of that game are dead.  This is just not true."

In no way was my article commenting on why wow is successful, it was merely looking into the risk/time vs reward system.

There has been no game since Everquest with the same strict risk vs reward system and unique feel that Everquest gave us, that is why I say its a dead breed, I just don't feel - or at least for moment - that we will ever get the kind of intense feeling that Everquest gave us in the early days.  MMO caters for an entirerly different audience, an audience that pays the bills.  It makes me sad as I invested a huge part of my life into Everquest and I keep wishing I will get something to fill the void around each corner.

Well nothing like a discussion with a bang.  I understand the "WoW haters", there is nothing really wrong with that.  Something that I think is very clear to everyone, even if its hard to utter the words; everybody who played and put their heart into Everquest (8 years here), will never experience another MMO in the same way. 

Everquest is a dead breed, a breed of game that catered for a very small percentage of - at the time - a hugely untapped genre of the gaming industry.  Blizzard tapped it, and tapped it hard.  Other game companies and publishers see how successful the genre can be, MMO's start popping up all over the place, trying to cater to as many players as possible.  Sony started it, Blizzard improved on it and now the shape of MMO's has changed forever.  If anything the response for this article proves this.  This is a discussion that has been beaten to death.

An interesting "Welcome back" to writing for mmorpg.com.  This would be my 5th or 6th article, I had to stop due to moving back to my home country.  I'm looking forward to many more discussions like this, its great reading, even if its not all positive and constructive, its still very strong opinions that keep the genre strong :)

- Haggis

You are quite right about the time invested in crafting.  However saying that, when my Fiance decided to play World of Warcraft and become a raider in my guild, I had the cash to buy all of the materials needed to make her spellfire set and spellstrike set in 1 afternoon.  The only investment on her part was crafting from 1-375 (about 2 hours of work).

If all the materials were no drop, then fair enough, but fact is, you can just simply buy the materials.  Also, one purple drop while your out soloing could bag you anywhere from 1k-1.5k (Druid staff from SSO).  For those that don't do that, my hat off to you and it will be very rewarding :)

When I wrote this article, I knew it was quite a stretch, however, regardless of my opinions on Risk Vs Reward, its such a huge part of MMO's in general, I felt it needed to be looked at in WoW, no matter how little risk is there.  Time investment, can be easily slotted into the category of risk.  Since the death system in WoW is fairly bland and there is no real substance to failing or wiping in a raid environment, the time invested is a big part of it.  The reason I didn't use time vs reward is to keep it in standard with other MMO articles based on Risk Vs Reward (I wrote one for Everquest about 5-6 years ago). 

Use this article and consider it a few years from now after a few expansions, I may come back and revisit it as a comparison :)

- Darren Bridle