Where did WoW go right?

[choklo]

I never played WoW, but I can't deny it's success. Many of my former EQ friends left for WoW, but the real problem was that they never came back. How did WoW maintain it's dominance all these years, while so many other games faded away? What have we learned about MMO's in the process? What type of game could replace WoW?

[Kraftwerk]

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Seems to be fading, especially with Panda Bear Xpac being the driving hope for a steady decline over past few quarters of 2M subs.

[choklo]

WoW has had a great run either way. No other games have done as well financially.

[jerok88]

WoW is a lot of fun to play for casual players. It also has some pretty intense PVP, and had some pretty fun raids. The fun, cartoony look and the ability to customize the way your character looks appeals to both casual and hardcore. Finally, faction vs faction is a lot of fun and people love to be a part of a gang, and WoW allowed that sense of pvp-gang without actually feeling threatened at all times.

Everquest didn't have the intense pvp, but it's raids were epic and the risk/reward was great. A raid on the plane of fear induced fear - the game felt like you were a survivalist in a real fantasy world. It was awesome - but a game that was made for the previous generation, it seems.

[godbox]

faction vs faction was really alot of fun and the feeling of breaching into enemy territory was great. ganking in ironforge was alot of fun if you could do it right and stay in for hours and hours without getting got.
instances were fun because everyone could learn how to do higher end content as they pleased without having to stay ahead of the learning curve. (fte anyone?)
wider variety of classes and class roles.
towns and cities felt like towns and cities I was so blown away the first time I went into stormwind.
was a good game but it got old I guess. maybe someday ill itch to play a vanilla wow emu *shrug

[afkbandito]

I want to point out that so far the posts have both talked about vanilla wow and not really the expansions.

For me personally the game was ruined after Burning Crusade. World PvP disappeared, the addition of Deathknights being incredibly overpowered, gear having thousands of a stat/hp/mana/spell power etc. Vanilla wow was a lot like EQ except you could solo pretty easily if you wanted to but there was still a drive to group to do instances and you still had to travel to do it. These days you just que and instantly travel to dungeons and are deposited right where you left. You never have to leave town to do anything.

E: As to why it's successful you can just read the last couple of sentences of the above paragraph and insert "people are lazy."

[godbox]

again ya with vanilla the thing that i loved about the game that i hate about eq was that you really needed to gear and regear your char throughout leveling and you couldnt do it soloing you needed to beat different instance bosses with at least a well rounded small group and more likely a full group.

[nilbog]

Originally Posted by choklo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I never played WoW, but I can't deny it's success. Many of my former EQ friends left for WoW, but the real problem was that they never came back. How did WoW maintain it's dominance all these years, while so many other games faded away? What have we learned about MMO's in the process? What type of game could replace WoW?

My opinion is that it was the best game available at the perfect time.

I played the WoW beta in 2004. Everquest released Omens of War in September 2004. Then WoW released in November 2004. I was a hardcore EQ player until that time. At first, I kept logging into EQ, but my desire steadily faded away due to raid sizes and the saturation of design. I play games other than mmorpgs; notably fps and rts. Doom3 and CS:Source released in 2004... woohoo. There were no other games in the mmorpg genre that could come close to competing with WoW.

Why it maintained its dominance is a good question. I have no idea. After completing the worthwhile parts of Burning Legion, I felt there was nothing to do. I lead a pvp guild on Burning Legion and I really enjoyed world pvp and original battleground*/s*. Zone line queue for AV then compete in the Southshore vs Tarren Mill battles. Then there was introduction of resource and ctf pvp maps, :T. I quit for a while. Shortly after, I rejoined due to my girlfriend playing and stayed throughout Burning Crusade. Thennn, I started Vanguard in like 2007.

WoW was easy to begin with. Then is was made more comfortable. Then it was made way too easy. When mentioned in sitcom dialogue, it was trendy. My only guess as to why so many people still play is that it was/is the flagship of friendly mmorpgs. If I had to guess, the majority of wow players don't leave for other games; they take a hiatus from mmorpgs. Unless trying games of the EQ era, I'm not sure what all these people are doing because there's certainly nothing on the horizon (that I'm aware of).

As far as what have we learned about mmorpgs since WoW.. the answer is subjective to the person. I learned that I don't want everything handed to me on a silver platter. I do want a lot of other people to play with. I do want more player to player interaction and less automation. I do want pvp, optional or not. I don't like instances in any fashion I've seen implemented that weren't created due to population vs. design caps. WoW created a distinct terminology in mmorpgs up to the point where something can be considered "wow-like".

What type of game could replace WoW? A different game of the same type, but likely a game of the same type that was as different as vanilla WoW was to post-PoP EQ. And make sure it has a lot of content.

I played Vanguard until I missed classic EQ. I could go on for paragraphs about why Vanguard wasn't sustainable, but I digress. A few google searches later, I was playing some of the servers in the eqemulator community. Since that time, there hasn't been a new mmorpg worth playing for longer than a month, imo.

[Kevlar]

WoW appeals to 12 year olds and for some reason millions upon millions of orientals. It is way too generic and watered down for my taste.

[Breeziyo]

Originally Posted by afkbandito [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I want to point out that so far the posts have both talked about vanilla wow and not really the expansions.

For me personally the game was ruined after Burning Crusade. World PvP disappeared, the addition of Deathknights being incredibly overpowered, gear having thousands of a stat/hp/mana/spell power etc. Vanilla wow was a lot like EQ except you could solo pretty easily if you wanted to but there was still a drive to group to do instances and you still had to travel to do it. These days you just que and instantly travel to dungeons and are deposited right where you left. You never have to leave town to do anything.

E: As to why it's successful you can just read the last couple of sentences of the above paragraph and insert "people are lazy."

Pretty much this. WoW became a PoS after TBC / WotLK depending on who you talk to, but I feel like WotLK lovers would be lying if they said the expansion wasn't the beginning of a slippery slope. Like EQ they didn't stay true to what made people really love the game in the first place and would rather think of ways to make more money. I mean it's their job to make a lot of money, but it sucks how they're going about it.

Now a lot of people view it as a really crappy game on an amazing game engine, so other games can't really compare because the bar is set so high.