Can any MMO really succeed today?

[TKMaster]

Maybe they need to stop trying to make WoW, and make their own MMO.

 

They have and do all the time, thier called niche games by the media / internet and scoffed at by the MMO nomads.

[Sarfux]

Yes, there will be another HUGELY insane popular mmo that will smash the **** out of wow's face that people will flock to. When? I don't know...but we are still in the generation where people are too afraid to try new things it seems. So until the future generations come up with something completely new, there will not be one to take over wow. WoW wasn't an anomaly, that's what they said with Egypt, Persia, Rome, Nazi Germany, Kings, Rulers.

 

No matter how big...or how small... they all rise, they all fall. It's just a question of when.

[TKMaster]

Also dont forget the MMO players of today ad thier crying about wanting something other than WoW....then crying when a product isnt more like WoW.

 

Someone said WoW wasnt an anomaly....yes it very much was / is. WoW was caught up in the middle of a perfect storm of media / cultural attention (i've known former blizz employees that have told me a running joke at the HQ was about sending Matt Stone and Trey Parker commision checks every year after "Make Love, Not Warcraft" ), wide availability of broadband internet, the inability of EQ2 to capture the lions share of old EQ players (WoW came about because Diablo programers were missing deadlines due to thier "Evercrack" addiction), and the lowering cost of PC's around 2005+.

 

Yes it was an anomaly and no, it will never be seen again, and if it is it'll be after this genre and it's players has destroyed itself completely.

Edited August 11, 2012 by TKMaster

[darkcerb]

What an mmo needs is to take what works in the industry now and add there own touch to it and no the old republic devs voice acting didn't count.

[denpic]

The problem for mmos similar to wow is theres 2 kinds of players

1 Wow players who won't play anything but wow and have stuck with it for years

2 Ex wow players who have played wow for a few years got bored and have bounced between every mmo released

Searching for something better

A new mmo will only attract players from category 2 not including players new to mmo gaming

Limiting numbers

I fall into catagory 2 and have 3 subs to different games and don't feel any loyalty to any of them

Edited August 11, 2012 by denpic

[Katsuragisama]

Also dont forget the MMO players of today ad thier crying about wanting something other than WoW....then crying when a product isnt more like WoW.

 

This. Gamers need to pick one or the other. I prefer an innovative MMO, with the quality of life functionality of something like WoW. Different combat feeling, tougher bosses, different **** to do than run the same ol dungeons/warzones. But have the LFG/WZ Queue, so that if I do want to do something, I can hop in, do it, and hop out.

 

Developers need to stop copypasting every concept of WoW, from the hotbars, to the combat, to the stats, to the dungeons, etc. Be innovative in your gameplay, make it FUN, and I'll play it, forever, repeatedly, until I'm burned out or bored. I still play some ol' PS2 games from time to time, because they were fun then and they're still fun now.

 

When someoen makes a good mmo with modern features at release that fails ill believe that mmos cant succeed anymore. But it hasnt been done since wow, so no i dont believe it.

 

And also this. You cant out WoW WoW itself. They've had too long to expand on content and gain a player base. As well as refine their system and work out bugs. If you can make something innovative and fun, and then fail, then I'll accept that MMOs are dying. Until someone does that and comes out with their own vision of a game, their own innovations, they will continue to fail.

 

We need something different. Atleast something a bit more innovative. If it's not the same UI, combat, etc as mentioned above, sure, I'll look into your game. If it looks decent as well as different, then I'll buy the game and try it out. If its not fun, oh well atleast I gave it a chance. If it is fun, well you just got yourself a customer. (Looking at you here ArenaNet...)

[Catsmeat]

The problem for mmos similar to wow is theres 2 kinds of players

1 Wow players who won't play anything but wow and have stuck with it for years

2 Ex wow players who have played wow for a few years got bored and have bounced between every mmo released

Searching for something better

A new mmo will only attract players from category 2 not including players new to mmo gaming

Limiting numbers

I fall into catagory 2 and have 3 subs to different games and don't feel any loyalty to any of them

 

I played Wow for less than a month, just plain didn't like it. Actually I hardly recall it lol. So I don't fit your 2 categories.

 

You need a 3rd category for those from CoH/CoV, Co, STO, TSW, Aion, UO, GW1, etc

 

I do keep multiple subs up on games as well. I make my decision based on how much I enjoy the game and how attached I get to my characters (this takes a few years).

 

This will be the first game I have left due to being treated poorly by the game provider. I liked playing quite a bit, but after having my 50s renamed I lost my attachment to them. After having my other characters trapped in the flawed server merges with zero help getting them out of limbo I've just had enough.

 

TSW is a new game, one I'm really liking, heck I even dropped $200 to life it. I'm expecting to also enjoy GW2. I played the beta weekends and also have loved the complete GW1 game (still play it too).

 

I'd say a good game has every chance at success. I'd say a bad or mediocre game with poor customer assistance and a firm that constantly lies and misleads its customers won't. It's not rocket science.

Edited August 11, 2012 by Catsmeat

[denpic]

TSW is a new game, one I'm really liking, heck I even dropped $200 to life it.

 

Yeah that's 1 of my current subs really enjoying it tho still undecided on pvp

the Stonehenge map makes me cringe even thou my faction seems to win it a lot

Go Dragons

[jason_ralph]

Yes.

In fact, Star Wars: The Old Republic wouldn't be going F2P (yes, I said WOULDN'T) if EA/BioWare was willing to take a risk and gamble.

The MMO market is saturated (spell check?) on the PC. I get that. And, I'll be shocked if Blizzard's next MMO after World of Warcraft doesn't go F2P soon after launch.

So, how could Star Wars: The Old Republic still be P2P then? Easy. The console. Look at DC Universe Online or Final Fantasy XI. The market for MMO's is there, just when will a developer tap that gold mine? Heck, DCUO's first competition in the two years it's been out will be Final Fantasy XIV if and when it ever releases. SWTOR is tailor made for the console. I get that the powers, and all that would have to be redone to fit on the console (the most you can have hot keyed is 8), but yeah. If EA/BioWare took a risk, I'd be shocked if this went F2P 5 years after launch... if it was done on the console. And just for what-ifs, how cool would it be to have the Xbox 360 have the Imperial side, and PS3 have Republic? That would add a new dimension to the whole PvP aspect.

But yeah, I can dream. And in the end, that's where a developer will have to go if they want to strike it rich (fyi DCUO's player base is made up 65%-75% PS3 gamers, and has been, since launch).

[Knockerz]

MMORPG games can succeed, but I don't think any future mmorpg can expect to copy wow and succeed. The problem is that wow has a huge lead with the wow mmo model that no new mmo can expect to succeed head on with wow. My opinion of the mmorpg games is that most people who would play them are getting bored with the wow model, which is why wow has been slowly shedding subscriptions. However, wow is also shedding subscriptions due to lack of content, but I think overall in the mmorpg market people are feed up with the wow model. I don't know if will try GW2 or won't try MOP.

 

Frankly, I'm tired of the wow model and want some thing different with more complex crafting, but not to the extent of eve, but a lot more than swtor or wow. Personally, I like SWG crafting and harvesting of resources method, but the game mechanics and content were below average. Finally, I'm extremely tired of the fantasy settings. Why can't we have a modern warfare mmorpg like world war 2 or more swtor future like mmorpgs? Basically, any mmorpg that doesn't use arrows, wizards, or elves.

Edited August 11, 2012 by Knockerz

[Etheric]

"Frankly, I'm tired of the wow model and want some thing different with more complex crafting, but not to the extent of eve, but a lot more than swtor or wow. Personally, I like SWG crafting and harvesting of resources method, but the game mechanics and content were below average. Finally, I'm extremely tired of the fantasy settings. Why can't we have a modern warfare mmorpg like world war 2 or more swtor future like mmorpgs? Basically, any mmorpg that doesn't use arrows, wizards, or elves.'

 

I was looking for something along these lines myself, and am currently reading about a game that seems interesting, not going to drop a name as i don't feel this is the appropriate place, but its Sandbox and looking to launch sometime in 2013.

[Jownz]

The problem with MMO's today is that there is always a new one coming out. People buy the game play it for a bit then get bored. I would bet most people are already talking about the next MMO there going to be playing even though they just purchased their current MMO.

 

When WOW, EQ, DAOC, first came out.. that was it! There wasn't anything else. The next MMO would be years in the makng. Today there's new mmo's coming out every year.. Most years there's multiple MMO's being released.

 

The new MMO's offer what the previous year's mmo's offered and then add something new and throw their own twist on the game.. Trying to keep a player base in todays world would be a nightmare!

[NamikazeNaruto]

The thing is though... MMOs as a genre have been around for quite awhile now. What new concepts can be brought to the table that would completely wow people?(no pun intended) People say they want something different from WoW but when something comes out that is different from WoW(niche MMOs) it isn't really that popular. If the game ends up being a lot like WoW, well it succeeds at first... but then people quickly grow tired of the game. Because hey, most people have probably played WoW for years and they are tired of that game. They did not buy a new MMO to experience WoW in a new skin.

 

From a business standpoint, making your MMO very different from the WoW model is extremely risky, and not something you would typically do if you wanted to get a lot of customers. However good the WoW copies are at obtaining customers though, they do not fare as well in retaining those customers.

[Goretzu]

Can any MMO really succeed today?

 

 

Yes.

 

It just needs to be innovative (Hybrid - Sandpark model), quality (fun with depth and breadth and finished when it's is released (not release and brought a point where it should have been released 6-12 months after Live).

 

 

 

However is the same old reskinned WoW-clone (or EQ1-clone really) ever going to be successful today or tommorrow? No. However that's a completely different thing.

[Tsillah]

I don't think it's the right question to ask.

 

The question should be this: Is there a company out there today that has the right combination of game developer talent, end user insight, financial backing and willingness to commit to long term, to create a MMO that has enough content, utility and variation at start and regular content updates after?

 

MMOs can succeed....it's the game companies that fail.

[Vellem]

Completely and utterly false in every regard other then WOW staying most popular currently

 

FACT: MMO competition has been feirce since EQ was designed to crush Ultima Online. Before that the MMORPGs mostly co exisisted and played to their nitch crowd.

 

NWN on AOL was the first and had the best community

Realms was more customizable and offered housing and character customization

Meridian 59 was die hard pvp

Even DSO appealed to some (lord knows why)

 

UO came out at a time of a industry change so had no real modern competition but EQ was designed from ground up to SMASH UO into the group cometition wise and every MMORPG since then has been designed in large or small to do just that as well.

 

If you think WOW created the MMORPG competition, you need to spend more time learning about the genre you are referencing.

 

FACT: WOW established and created ZERO MMORPG concepts outside of dumbing everything down. EVERY SINGLE ASPECT EVER put into WOW has been done before (and better) by a earlier MMORPG.

 

WOW had ZERO original concepts and offered the genre ZERO original content.

They simply beg/borrowed/stole everyone elses ideas and mechanics and then lowered it to the lowest common denomenator they could. When that didnt sell to the established MMORPG crowd, they paid some celebs to name drop the title here and there and they literally became a over night success.

 

The ONLY lesson anyone should learn from WOW is how to market a MMORPG.

 

FACT: WOW hasnt been dumbed down over time. It was dumbed down from word go! MMORPG reveiwers routinely refered to WOW (in beta and at original launch) as " A MMORPG on training wheels".

 

I really wish you people would stop trying to present WOW as this one time tough game.

IT NEVER WAS.

It has always and will always be a EASY MODE, INSTANT GRATIFICATION GAME!

 

FACT: The reason why post WOW MMORPGs have been failing is they try to reoffer WOW in a new skin.

 

People who leave WOW are looking for a different game, not WOW in a new skin.

People that like WOW are still playing WOW and ARE NOT the target audience of the new MMORPGs

 

EA and Bioware made a huge mistake thinking (like Aion, like Rift, like ...) if they remake WOW mechanics at the dumbed down levels that WOW HAS ALWAYS BEEN, they will recreate WOW success.

 

FACT: No one is going to recreate WOW success because its not based on MMORPG standards and concepts. WOW is and was a fad. The fad is losing steam and WOWs numbers are in a free fall because of it.

 

But all those players leaving WOW are not looking for WOW in space, WOW in a new fantasy land, WOW with Pandas. They have played easy mode and conquered. Now they want to step up to the next level.

 

FACT: The MMORPG industry is fine and a subscription based game can make someone buckets and buckets of money. IF THEIR PRODUCT DELIVERS THE GOODS. Fact 2.1-2.4 million people purchased TOR with every intention of paying a monthly fee more then tells us that

 

Right now, there is no MMORPG on the market or upcoming to the market that delivers the goods.

 

Make the right game and the people will play and they will pay and it will not be a issue.

Its only a issue when games under excell and fail to live up to expectations.

 

FACT: If you fail to develope a complete game, you will end up going F2P very quickly (as Rift has, as Aion has, as TOR is doing)

 

FACT: F2P is not this pot of gold marketting scheme. Its a last ditch effort to get some players back to your product in the hopes they will become addicted and subscribe long term.

 

Make no mistake, F2P is just a marketting ploy to boost sagging subscriptions when everything else tried has failed.

 

Closing: Its pretty clear you came to MMORPGs in WOW and simply havent done your homework about the rich and vibrant history of MMORPGs that started in 1991 on AOL with a game called Neverwinter Nights (Bioware years later would develop their own product using the same name). WOW was not first, WOW was not best. WOW was most popular but as any adult can tell you. Popularity and quality do NOT always go hand in hand.

 

WOW was simply this generations latest Sailor Moon, Garbage Pail Kids, Smurfs, ect (insert any low quality but hugely popular FAD over the years). And like them all its hold is lessening and people are moving on quickly.

 

WOW is NOT a indictaion or representation of the MMORPG genre.

WOW is a indication and representation of the "me generation infecting Online gaming" and has absolutely nothing positive to teach to upcoming developers beyond how to successfully market a video game to non traditional player base.

 

 

Wow, so much WoW hate....

 

The reason WoW got as big as it did (in my opinion) is that they opened the doors on the mmorpg market and made the genre accessible to a much larger audience. Sadly, there will always be a segment of the audience like yourself who talks about the good 'ol days walking up the hill to school in the snow both ways. These newfangled cars that take kids to school are just spoiling them.

 

I played EQ from the time it came out for a solid five years. It was a great game but I hated some of the mechanics. The exp loss on death for example. You basically punish me by erasing hours worth of exp I just grinded. To add insult to injury, you make me run naked back to my corpse to retrieve my stuff. The forced grouping. Sometimes it would take a couple of hours just to find a group to grind exp. What was fun or challenging about these things? Nothing at all. They were all designed from the get go as time sinks. You may or may not be aware but EQ was originally designed to be pay by the hour like some older online games (Imagination Network or a MUD like Gemstone III before it got picked up by AOL & Prodigy) so the game was just chock full of ways to keep you online like having to sit and camp certain mobs with incredibly long respawn times. You didn't want to log off and leave it cause then someone else might get it.

 

The point is, WoW took out or lessened the sting of the worst of these offenders and showed everyone that these types of games can indeed by fun and do not have to be niche, masochistic grindfests. 80 or 100 man EQ raids became 40 man raids in WoW. You could level up by yourself without having to play a specific class or two box another character. You could log on for an hour, do a few quests and log off and still have felt like you got something done unlike EQ were an hour would barely get you a pip of exp if you were lucky enough to find a group right away.

 

And the only thing you can say is that is "Dumbed down." Sad. More like gamers were growing and changing and the games had to change with them. When I was younger I could play EQ for four hours a night. I have a family now and don't have that kind of time anymore. Furthermore, I play games for fun, not stroke my ego. So if I do something stupid and die I like the fact that I won't lose a level from it. If that makes me spoiled in your eyes so be it. I paid my dues and I'm done with games that punish you as a form of time sinks. Most people seem to be because those types of games are mostly niche market.

 

The reason you don't see more sandbox type MMO's is that they are simply not as popular as the traditional theme park style and most publishers aren't aiming for the niche market. They are going to make what has proven to sell more and it isn't sandbox MMO's.

 

And another reason WoW is still so popular is that they made the gameplay crisp and fluid. Coming from EQ where controlling your character was like steering a bus to WoW where the handling and response was like a sports car, the difference was night and day.

 

So you can sit there and say they never did anything original and I'll say that they took the whole MMORPG experience and made it better in every single way. Kinda like the 3M motto: We don't make things, we make them better.

 

Anyway, it is no surprise that everyone tried to copy them to get some of their success. The problem this game had was that it wasted way to much time and money of voicing everything (Class and planet quests, ok. Every single joe shmoe that wants me to kill 10 rats? No.) and not enough fleshing out the game. They should have added way more fluff and mini games and activities for players to keep them busy in between content launches.

 

In closing, don't be so biased. Even MMO's I didn't care for usually had at least one interesting or compelling feature to them.

[Lazzer]

Wow, so much WoW hate....

 

The reason WoW got as big as it did (in my opinion) is that they opened the doors on the mmorpg market and made the genre accessible to a much larger audience. Sadly, there will always be a segment of the audience like yourself who talks about the good 'ol days walking up the hill to school in the snow both ways. These newfangled cars that take kids to school are just spoiling them.

 

I played EQ from the time it came out for a solid five years. It was a great game but I hated some of the mechanics. The exp loss on death for example. You basically punish me by erasing hours worth of exp I just grinded. To add insult to injury, you make me run naked back to my corpse to retrieve my stuff. The forced grouping. Sometimes it would take a couple of hours just to find a group to grind exp. What was fun or challenging about these things? Nothing at all. They were all designed from the get go as time sinks. You may or may not be aware but EQ was originally designed to be pay by the hour like some older online games (Imagination Network or a MUD like Gemstone III before it got picked up by AOL & Prodigy) so the game was just chock full of ways to keep you online like having to sit and camp certain mobs with incredibly long respawn times. You didn't want to log off and leave it cause then someone else might get it.

 

The point is, WoW took out or lessened the sting of the worst of these offenders and showed everyone that these types of games can indeed by fun and do not have to be niche, masochistic grindfests. 80 or 100 man EQ raids became 40 man raids in WoW. You could level up by yourself without having to play a specific class or two box another character. You could log on for an hour, do a few quests and log off and still have felt like you got something done unlike EQ were an hour would barely get you a pip of exp if you were lucky enough to find a group right away.

 

And the only thing you can say is that is "Dumbed down." Sad. More like gamers were growing and changing and the games had to change with them. When I was younger I could play EQ for four hours a night. I have a family now and don't have that kind of time anymore. Furthermore, I play games for fun, not stroke my ego. So if I do something stupid and die I like the fact that I won't lose a level from it. If that makes me spoiled in your eyes so be it. I paid my dues and I'm done with games that punish you as a form of time sinks. Most people seem to be because those types of games are mostly niche market.

 

The reason you don't see more sandbox type MMO's is that they are simply not as popular as the traditional theme park style and most publishers aren't aiming for the niche market. They are going to make what has proven to sell more and it isn't sandbox MMO's.

 

And another reason WoW is still so popular is that they made the gameplay crisp and fluid. Coming from EQ where controlling your character was like steering a bus to WoW where the handling and response was like a sports car, the difference was night and day.

 

So you can sit there and say they never did anything original and I'll say that they took the whole MMORPG experience and made it better in every single way. Kinda like the 3M motto: We don't make things, we make them better.

 

Anyway, it is no surprise that everyone tried to copy them to get some of their success. The problem this game had was that it wasted way to much time and money of voicing everything (Class and planet quests, ok. Every single joe shmoe that wants me to kill 10 rats? No.) and not enough fleshing out the game. They should have added way more fluff and mini games and activities for players to keep them busy in between content launches.

 

In closing, don't be so biased. Even MMO's I didn't care for usually had at least one interesting or compelling feature to them.

 

I agree with the poster you are arguing with to be honest, I also play EQ from the start and it is that experience that I miss, WoW was simply too easy, too much of gaming on autopilot, too much concentration on endgame.

 

It's not that I want a grind fest, what I want is a game that takes a long, very long time to level in but without grinding, a game where all of the content from groups to raids begin at low levels and are not all left until max level, a game with far more open world content and not one where every content is instanced with queues and ports to location to create an immersive environment, a game where people communicate with you and are in the game for the social aspects as well as the mechanical aspects. I could do without the camping of spawn points though.

 

The whole "everything is instanced and you queue from anywhere and port to your group" is not a massive multi-player game it's a waiting room for co-op play.

[Vellem]

I get what you are saying and I actually agree with most of it. The thing is, they didn't design the game like this on accident. It's all surveys and market research bs.

 

I don't have a link off hand but there was an article a while back talking about how over the years, less and less people in WoW were grouping and were treating the game almost like a single player affair. They cited bad experiences with other players as the main reason for the shift. So to some people that is an opportunity to steal some players. If I design my game to play like a single player, I can get all of those guys over here.

 

Other stuff they just handled badly. Like all the private instances that you mentioned. They would have been far better off borrowing the excellent public quest idea they came up with in their WAR MMO.

 

Anyway the point I was trying to make is that WoW made MMO's more accessible to a much larger audience of people and just because you and some others thought the game was too easy or a dumbed down version of a real MMO doesn't mean it was a bad game. It was an alternative for people who didn't have the time or patience to deal with the other much less forgiving options that were around at the time. They were in the right place at the right time.

[discosoc]

I get what you are saying and I actually agree with most of it. The thing is, they didn't design the game like this on accident. It's all surveys and market research bs.

 

I don't have a link off hand but there was an article a while back talking about how over the years, less and less people in WoW were grouping and were treating the game almost like a single player affair. They cited bad experiences with other players as the main reason for the shift. So to some people that is an opportunity to steal some players. If I design my game to play like a single player, I can get all of those guys over here.

 

Other stuff they just handled badly. Like all the private instances that you mentioned. They would have been far better off borrowing the excellent public quest idea they came up with in their WAR MMO.

 

Anyway the point I was trying to make is that WoW made MMO's more accessible to a much larger audience of people and just because you and some others thought the game was too easy or a dumbed down version of a real MMO doesn't mean it was a bad game. It was an alternative for people who didn't have the time or patience to deal with the other much less forgiving options that were around at the time. They were in the right place at the right time.

 

I was an EQ player when I got access to the friends and family alpha for WoW. Vanilla WoW was not really all that different from EQ, other than being more polished. Classes were better defined, and there was a way to level with questlines, that didn't involve camping spawns and grinding 100's of the same mob, ala Crushbone Hill.

 

I have many great memories of EQ, especially in the exploration department, but I can also admit that the game was very flawed with some of it's designs. The Enchanter class is a good example, in that it was a pure crowd control class that did nothing but make sure certain mobs stayed asleep... real fun, right up until someone uses AoE and wakes them all up, getting you killed in the process. Tanking was another good example of poor design, or rather, boring design. Aside from positioning the boss at the start of the fight, a tank could basically hold agro with /beg. For anyone who didn't play, /beg was a command you could use to, well, beg for some coin from NPC's. Except that it pissed mobs and guards off, so it worked like a taunt on raid bosses. It was so effective, you can find stories about stuff like tanks going afk for half an hour to watch a show or something, while the raid kills the boss.

 

Or how about the Shadowknight class, that gave everyone in your group or raid an XP *penalty* for simply being near you? Great from a fluff standpoint, since it's probably realistic to assume not many people would want to be around a walking embodiment of death, but mechanically kind of harsh.

 

My point is, EQ was not nearly as amazing as many people seem to remember (DAoC is another game that many people cling to like a first love), and WoW was not nearly as easy-mode and streamlined as it is today.

[Maltuvion]

Guild Wars 2 is the first game to truly break the mold with it's dynamic events, completely skill-based gameplay that is free of grind and it's unheard of levels of cooperative play.

 

I don't know if it will be a wow killer of if its meaningful to speak of something as that, but I am confident it will be alot more succesful than TOR, simply by virtue of not wanting to make the same MMO everyone else is making.

Edited August 11, 2012 by Maltuvion
addendum

[RobNightfall]

I think so, yes, but they have to stop putting out half-baked products like this one. SWTOR was doomed by a long laundry list of incredibly bad and stupid decisions that could have been avoided with a few hours of research on forums.

[Tic-]

They have and do all the time, thier called niche games by the media / internet and scoffed at by the MMO nomads.

 

They're typically called niche' games by their own designers as well.

 

But i would call EvE a pretty remarkable success, and that was tagged a "niche'" game as well, no?

Edited August 11, 2012 by Tic-

[Lazzer]

 

My point is, EQ was not nearly as amazing as many people seem to remember (DAoC is another game that many people cling to like a first love), and WoW was not nearly as easy-mode and streamlined as it is today.

 

You're correct, but the whole point is that everyone views their 1st MMO as a great experience, regardless of what it was or how good or bad it was everyone got an emotional jolt a feeling of nostalgia from that 1st MMO. Most people now drift around as they are looking to recapture a feeling that they only felt in hindsight.

 

My biggest gripe is that at 50 there is no open world content, no non-instanced dungeons, no non-instanced raid areas that you can explore. No open world contact with the opposite faction. Nothing to do in the open world once you hit 50 apart from repeatable dailies which are the very definition of the grind that they promised we wouldn't have.

[Kalfear]

Actually no WOW hate.

 

You read it how you wished to preceive it.

 

Again, I spoke nothing but FACTS.

Not fandom fiction

Not hater fiction

 

WOW was a marketing showcase

WOW was also a watered down MMO on training wheels (I didnt create that tagline btw, if you have been around as long as you claim, then you saw multiple sources using that tag line during the beta and at release for WOW. If you didnt, then you didnt pay half as much attention as you claim to the genre. WOW was not well received at beta and at launch. It was well received after a brilliant advertising campaign started, after Mila Kunis name dropped the game on Letterman (along with other celebrities that clearly never played the game and were being paid to advertise via social media) and yes after South Park made it famous.

 

Why on earth would I claim WOW was better, harder, more polished then it was?

 

Personally I beta tested game, found it insultingly easy and also got head aches from the cartoonish graphics and color usage. Game wasnt for me and I didnt play.

 

But that doesnt change fact that WOW was not innovative, WOW was not creative, WOW was not the creation of MMORPG competition.

 

WOW was simply EQ with saturday morning cartoon graphics and a insanely easy leveling curve.

 

As for your market research,

 

Ill say it again and Ill speak slower this time

 

If you ask 10000000000000000000000000000000000 WOW players what they want out of a MMORPG, they will tell you WOW.

 

HOWEVER, WOW players are already playing WOW so they are not the audience developers should be aiming for because THEY ALREADY LIKE THEIR GAME THEIR PLAYING.

 

Aion, TOR, Rift all targetted WOW players with the WOW market research and all of them (plus many others) have failed because THEIR customer base is not covered by the WOW marketting research.

 

Cant say it any more clear then that

 

You ask 1000 kids in McDonalds who makes the best burgers and they will most likely say McDonalds

Its not true, the reseach isnt valid, yet every person who agrees with the research outcome will try to use it like it is valid and usefull.

 

There is a reason people commonly refer to WOW as the McDonalds of MMORPGs.

High profit, high fan base numbers, LOW PRODUCT QUALITY

 

And like McDonalds, cheap knock offs dont end up very successfull (geee like cheap knock offs of WOW, amazing how it all comes togather.)

 

And lastly, the OPs post was COMPLETELY WRONG

He gives WOW credit where MMORPG titles that came 14 years before WOW launched were already developing ideas and mechanics and standards!

 

I dont hate McDonalds, but you will never convince me to set culinary standards and practices by what McDonalds serves and prepares.

 

And you will never convince me WOW was the be all and end all of creative design in the MMORPG genre.

 

Because neither (McDs or WOW as high quality products) are true.

They both are fast and sloppy, just the way the new generation likes things!

[Lazzer]

They're typically called niche' games by their own designers as well.

 

But i would call EvE a pretty remakable success, and that was tagged a "niche'" game as well, no?

 

Agreed, I for one would be happy if every single MMO released from now on was a niche game, it would at least provide us with a choice instead of homogenised rehashes of the standard model.

 

This could have been a great niche game if they had concentrated on story through endgame instead of dropping the story and going for the standard model.

 

It would have generated a different player base and not the standard crowd but it would have been sustainable, open world PvP instead of warzones, open world dungeons instead of Flashpoints and operations, world arcs requiring items and mobs from those dungeons and instead of adding new raids and warzones, sporting events like the hutball and Podracing and adding new quest arcs for items and gearing.