How did WoW dethrone Everquest?

[TwistedBishop]

What is it about WoW that allowed it to take the top-spot, an achievement no other MMORPG was able to accomplish against EQ?

WoW did everything that EQ did right, and fixed everything that EQ did wrong. I think it's really that simple.

 

[Thanee]

It's from Blizzard. That's why.

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

 

[Thanee]

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

 

[Ashrum the Black]

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

 

[WizarDru]

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.

 

[WizarDru]

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.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I don't know. But damn I do loves me some World of Warcraft.

 

[Brain]

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)

 

[TheLe]

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

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Essentially, it boils down to one word: Polish.

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.