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A friend of mine who's been playing Wow for the past month or two offered me a 10-day Friend Pass, which I accepted last weekend. After playing WoW for a few days (but moreso on the weekends than on the weekdays, due to work and such), I can honestly say that I'm having fun playing it.
But I was curious: for the longest time since its introduction in 1999, Everquest seemed to be the 800 lbs. gorilla of the MMORPG world. Many MMORPG's came and went while others are still around, but no one MMORPG ever seemed close to toppling EQ from the top-spot until World of Warcraft came along in November 2004.
From what I heard, WoW sold better than Everquest 2 and had become the MMORPG world's new 800 lbs. gorilla. What is it about WoW that allowed it to take the top-spot, an achievement no other MMORPG was able to accomplish against EQ?
-G
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It blew out all previous expectations of how many subscribers a MMO could get even before the good news about how much fun it was could get around. That implies that Blizzard's excellent reputation combined with the Warcraft brand brought in a whole bunch of people who had previously not tried MMOs.
Then a bunch of them stuck around and started spreading the word due to the quality.
It blew out all previous expectations of how many subscribers a MMO could get even before the good news about how much fun it was could get around. That implies that Blizzard's excellent reputation combined with the Warcraft brand brought in a whole bunch of people who had previously not tried MMOs.
Then a bunch of them stuck around and started spreading the word due to the quality.
Yeah, I think a lot of Diablo love helped WoW get off to a fast start and then the fact that it was a lot less tedious than EQ (especially at low levels) really helped sell it.
You can't forget the EQ forced you to sit down and do nothing for long periods of time.
I heard they did actual studies of how long they could get a player to camp in a spot.
WoW removes the "sit & wait" for your mana return.
I remember how one of the guys in my gaming group at the time was telling us how he was going to have to rent a beeper, take a few days off from work and never be more than like 5 minutes from his computer for 3 days, so that he could be ready if this one monster spawned that he had to kill as part of this massively convoluted and complicated quest sequence to get the epic weapon for his class in EQ.
While some of the Raid (Up to 40 character) instances (AKA dungeons) in WOW can be very complicated and take a substantial number of hours to go through, I've not heard or seen anything in WOW that requires anything close to spending 3 days next to your computer, just to BE READY for something.
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They dumbed it down and removed all the challenge or depth. Although they did keep the raids, which were the worst part of the EQ endgame.
Less snarkily, WoW attracted a lot more casual players, who recruited their casual-gamer friends. The longevity of these games depends on the social networks that arise -- the more people who have an attachment to and play with on a regular basis, the less likely you are to stop playing entirely or hop to another game.
Having played pretty much every MMO since Ultima Online to max (or close to it), WoW is probably the one I've liked the least, and even I feel the tug to return occasionally simply because of the friends I have that play it.
What sucks is that every potential MMO developer now feels that they have to achieve WoW-levels of subscribers to be considered a success, so we're starting to see the same repeition and type of formulaic crap in the MMO market that you see in other forms of mass entertainment. I suspect my days of hard games with meaningful death penalties, actual travel and exploration, etc., are long gone.
And EQ2 seems to have been received with very mixed feelings. I have some friends, who play EQ (still ) and who seriously dislike EQ2. Also, WoW snatched the new MMORPGamers from the market, simply because it is the better game (only point where EQ2 can compete is the graphics, I guess), so EQ2 really had a rather small fanbase, and thus became a huge failure.
Bye
Thanee
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I suspect my days of hard games with meaningful death penalties, actual travel and exploration, etc., are long gone.
Have you played Neocron or Neocron 2? Sounds like that could be your kind of game (if you can live through the bugs, maybe they have resolved those issues in the meantime ).
Isn't Guild Wars also very successful?
Bye
Thanee
__________________
In our world, immortality is not for the living. The legend lives on!
In Memoriam Dave Arneson ( April 7th, 2009) & Gary Gygax ( March 4th, 2008).
Wondering what the Dungeon Tiles are like? Take a look here (up to DU5 Sinister Woods).
Guild wars is successful enough by the company producing its standards. I've been playing off and on for a year now and am having tons of fun. Heck I've just been mostly soloing and having a blast going through the main quest of the orginal game. They've added one add on since and another is due out within the next month. The first addon added a pseudo oriental theme, the next, nightfall, will add a middle eastern theme.
They've really been expanding on the game play options and allowing for more dynamic play. Lots of fun!
-Ashrum
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From what I heard, WoW sold better than Everquest 2 and had become the MMORPG world's new 800 lbs. gorilla. What is it about WoW that allowed it to take the top-spot, an achievement no other MMORPG was able to accomplish against EQ?
A variety of reasons, IMHO.
First, Blizzard has long had a name associated with quality, and a MMOG based in their most popular property (the Warcraft Universe) certainly held a great deal of appeal. Of course, Origins had this same reputation, once upon a time.
Second, the original EQ is a first-generation MMOG, and EQ2 built upon that legacy, including keeping some of the elements that many players had tired of in the first game. In short, EQ2 had not learned as much as you might expect from its predecessor.
Third, art direction. While EQ2 featured a reasonably attractive (but somewhat demanding) game engine, a common complaint was the whole hodge-podge nature of the world setting. It feels slapped together and doesn't have much character to it. WoW, by contrast, oozes character out it's pores. The consistent art direction reinforces the game world and it has a style, as opposed to EQ/EQ2's generic 'melting pot' fantasy.
Fourth, and this is a biggie, you don't feel the grind. The players I know all claim that the levelling process doesn't feel like WORK. EQ/EQ2 both made you feel like you have to spend significant downtime when you should be adventuring (such as sitting and waiting for mana to recharge in EQ).
Fifth, from what I've seen (and this point is obviously debatable), WoW sports a much better interface than EQ2. EQ2's interface is an improvment over EQ1, but WoW is a generation ahead and very intuitive and accessible. This counts a lot for more casual players.
Sixth, WoW makes casual players feel like they can still get a rewarding session out of the game. The whole sleep-XP concept makes it easier to keep up, for example.
Seventh, class and race combos are, from what I hear, much more balanced and enjoyable in WoW than in EQ. In EQ2, most of the races not that significantly different, being more like placeholders for some bonuses and faction memberships. WoW, of course, has two major factions, but the different races and classes are generally all fun, afaik.
Eighth, Blizzard doesn't hate it's customers. For reasons few can fathom, Sony Online Entertainment seems to really, really dislike the people who play their games, and they actively show their contempt routinely. Blizzard may not always thrill some of their customers, but they're generally well regarded.
This is what I've garnered from people who've played both games. Me, I barely have time for City of Heroes.
__________________ "I'd say it's more appropriate to say that videogames are RPG-ish, wouldn't you?"
or our older WizarDru's Story Hour? You Should.
I ain't linking to Piratecat's story hour...no sir, I just won't do it. He can just get the next half-million reads on his own.
Did I mention that I have a Livejournal? It's possible that I have.
Oh, and to put things in perspective, here is the latest update of the MMOG subscriber chart. Note that prior to WoW, the biggest MMOG in the world wasn't EQ or EQ2, but Lineage and then Lineage II, mostly played in Korea and parts of Asia. MMOGs are taking off like wildfire in China, for example, and may redefine what 'successful' means.
Even in it's heyday, EQ2 failed to match it's predecessor, let alone something like Final Fantasy XI. Now, many of them are in free-fall.
In this chart, which is 70-700,000 subscribers, we see that success depends a lot on the company making the game. Games like City of Heroes/Villians and Toontown Online are apparently doing well with their relatively small communities, while even Puzzle Pirates and a Tale in the Desert is thriving with their meager memberships at 35,000 or so.
__________________ "I'd say it's more appropriate to say that videogames are RPG-ish, wouldn't you?"
or our older WizarDru's Story Hour? You Should.
I ain't linking to Piratecat's story hour...no sir, I just won't do it. He can just get the next half-million reads on his own.
Did I mention that I have a Livejournal? It's possible that I have.
Speaking personally, WoW was destined to replace EQ because I played EQ with the makers of WoW. I remember talking to Rob Pardo in 2000 or 2001 on EQ (we were guildmates) and he mentioned plans to make WoW. I chatted with him about some of the things that make MMORPGS successful in the long run. The folks at Blizzard did their homework and knew first hand what worked and what didn't in EQ. They did an excellent job of making WoW an awesome experience.
I only played alpha and beta of WoW and cut myself off before retail because I needed to not get sucked in again. EQ devoured several years of my life and I wasn't ready for that to happen again.
Brain
(once known as Monq from Legacy of Steel on the Nameless or Grumblethorpe from Legions of Darkness on Innoruuk - EQ1)
Here's a great interview with Bill Roper, talking about Warcraft III and the World of Warcraft. As you can see, from the very start they were trying to make something much more streamlined that EQ and DAOC.
And they succeeded. I love WoW. I hated EQ. And I was lukewarm to DAOC.
`Le
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The art looks like it's done by actual artists, instead of some guys who know how to use a 3D art program. Characters have a purpose in the world beyond killing rats. Blizzard put in fewer game elements but makes them work really, really well instead of promising pie in the sky that never comes as an apology for the half-ass job that's here today (EQ1 is still waiting on its player housing and gambling in High Hold Keep, for instance). And Blizzard's devs are keenly interested in what works in their games (and others) and refining that over time (just look at how the three battlegrounds improved as each was released, with Arath Basin reeking of understanding why the other two are a mixed success at best).
Oh, and for the people who don't like raiding, Burning Crusade has the equivalent of more than 30 dungeons when you count separate wings of a dungeon (like Dire Maul is essentially three dungeons in one) and that's before you add in variable difficulty levels for each, adding replayablity. Blizzard learns from their own games as well.
And with cross-server battlegrounds, no one has to wait more than a few minutes for PvP in Arathi Basin or Warsong Gulch and even Alterac Valley has a reasonable wait now. I never climbed the PvP ladder in the past, because I didn't feel like waiting two hours for a 10 minute match, over and over again all night. Instead, I can log on in the morning before going to work, play a match or two, go to work and even squeeze in gameplay during lunch.
And, yeah, it doesn't hurt that Blizzard guilds have been among the most successful in every MMORPG to date. They know every MMORPG, in and out, both their gems and their warts.
There's a great transcript of a Rob Pardo presentation at Raph Koster's site that explains Blizzard's design philosophy. Even if you don't agree with all of Blizzard's design decisions, the fact that actual logic and analysis is involved is nice and, unfortunately, kind of unusual.
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