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Why is WoW THE MMORPG?

post #1 of 137
5/13/09 at 2:32am
Thread Starter 
I'm not an MMORPG gamer, it's never really appealed to me personally as I always saw games as an escape into a solo affair in my head like a good book or a movie and if I wanted to socialise with people, I've got lots of real world friends to do it with. I'm probably going to get xbox live for the downloads and to play my mates at certain games but fully immersive online worlds I have to share with others just don't do it for me (unless it's something I have all to myself like Oblivion or what have you).

As a consequence, and because I'm sure there are at least a few online role players around here, I'm interested as to what in particular has made World Of Warcraft THE game that everyone plays seemingly, to the point that even South Park have done an episode about it.

There seem to be heaps of online games out there, from D&D, to LOTR, to The Matrix, to Guild Wars, to the world of Conan, but none seem to be really threatening WoW's dominance over the game genre.

Why? Is it really that much better than all the others? Was it around first? Is it easier and more accessible? It can't be the world, because if it was, then surely D&D or LOTR would have a leg up on it in the name recognition department.

I'm honestly curious to work out why this one game in particlar has seemingly become a cultural phenomenon compared to the many other titles of MMORPG out there.
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post #2 of 137
5/13/09 at 2:44am
It's easier to use, more popular and populated at this point which is a draw upon a draw, it's leagues deeper and more FUN than other MMO's I've tried, it's taken the basic MMO formula and perfected it over years into an art form that cannot be competed with, due to money, time, etc.

When WoW first launched it was getting 9.5's from Gamespot, thanks to expansions and patches WoW is at an 11. WoW dominates because of sheer quality of the experience, not to mention the range of experiences available through one game.
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post #3 of 137
5/13/09 at 2:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Domingo View Post
It's easier to use, more popular and populated at this point which is a draw upon a draw, it's leagues deeper and more FUN than other MMO's I've tried, it's taken the basic MMO formula and perfected it over years into an art form that cannot be competed with, due to money, time, etc.

When WoW first launched it was getting 9.5's from Gamespot, thanks to expansions and patches WoW is at an 11. WoW dominates because of sheer quality of the experience, not to mention the range of experiences available through one game.
This pretty much covers it I believe. But for me the thing that roped me in was that it didn't take an uber rig to run and the interface, at least in the beginning, is super easy to use and get used to.
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post #4 of 137
5/13/09 at 3:00am
What he said.

It's astronomically polished, they listen to players and change stuff that doesn't work, they add tons of "free" shit that are big changes, it runs on lots and lots of different computers thanks to a solid art style that doesn't demand anywhere close to a hoss of a system, it's easy enough to play solo if you don't have a friend who plays, and if you have friends it's fun enough for them to help you get you to new and higher level content, they've been out for a lot longer so that it's harder to remember the dark days that new MMOs have to go through...no fantasy MMORPG will ever overtake it, but a damn solid Sci-fi one could, given enough time in the oven, at least be a contender.
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post #5 of 137
5/13/09 at 3:05am
Plus those damn Holliday specials always bring me back in. I usually take a break in the summer, to, you know, get laid once in a while and play some beach ball. But once the winter hits I always take time to get back into it a bit when I can and check out the Halloween events, and Brewfest, and the Winters Vale stuff. It's alot of fun to take a break from the game and come back to find a completely changed experience.
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post #6 of 137
5/13/09 at 4:37am
1. It runs on 80 percent of the PCs out there.

2. It has an art style specifically chosen to be viable over a long life. Graphics wise, even without the minor improvements that have been made, it looks almost as good now as it was when it came out.

3. Gameplay wise I think it's the best designed game in existence. MMO or otherwise. Especially in the condition it's in right now. It has a perfect difficulty curve. You start with a couple of options and without realizing it end up juggling tens of different skills and items while fighting multiple foes simultaneously. And so it's nicely balanced that when this new degree of difficulty presents itself you actually welcome it. And contrary to what people say, within the game's normal gameplay you never HAVE to grind. Only during very specific activities like preparing for a raid or power leveling an alt character is it viable.

4. And finally in what other game can you adopt a war orphan for a week, take it sightseeing and buying candy and ice cream? Not to mention rewarding you for buying ice cream, eating it in front of the kid and not giving any to it?
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post #7 of 137
5/13/09 at 8:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stelios View Post
1. It runs on 80 percent of the PCs out there.
That's your big reason right there. While people with top of the line rigs were having to do tweak after tweak to get Age of Conan or Warhammer Online to run at the most basic graphic level, you could load WoW on pretty much any machine and be off and running.
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post #8 of 137
5/13/09 at 8:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
That's your big reason right there. While people with top of the line rigs were having to do tweak after tweak to get Age of Conan or Warhammer Online to run at the most basic graphic level, you could load WoW on pretty much any machine and be off and running.
My friend plays it on an old laptop with an integrated graphics card and it plays fine. It's like the only game he can run.
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post #9 of 137
5/13/09 at 8:47am
That's the big mistake developers make. They think people want the new and shiny graphics, when what they really want is solid gameplay and class/race balance. Granted, we don't want stick figures or bitmaps, but I also don't need every character in the game to be Gollum-level animation either -- it won't matter if the gameplay is lacking.
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post #10 of 137
5/13/09 at 8:52am
Besides the graphics, I think it really is the best of the bunch by a mile. And I've played almost everything else. I've played Everquest, EVE, Warhammer, Conan, LOTRO not to mention a few free ones. While many of them have great ideas in them, the melee combat in Conan, the public quests in WAR or the story quests in LOTRO, none of them managed to keep me hooked for more than a couple of months. I'm beginning to think that only WOW 2 will be able to unseat WOW from its place.
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post #11 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:04am
WOW has already had its 'polishing stage'; almost all of the technical issues associated with an MMORPG (memory leaks, lack of content, etc) have already been addressed, so it's a smoother running experience. Alot of the others that started later are going through/finishing up that final polish to the system, so they seem clunky when compared to WOW.

Case in point: Age of Conan. It's a much better game NOW, though.
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post #12 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:10am
One of the most important aspects of the game that other MMO developers have failed to really achieve (I think the closest might be LOTRO, which no matter what anyone tries to say is literally just WoW with Hobbits) is balanced progression. There's never a loss for something to do for the player. While you CAN spend hours just grinding mobs for no reason, you never have to. There's always a quest, always a path leading you from one zone to the next in an organic procession that keeps you from going "What now?"

Admittedly, if you play Horde, spending forever and a day in the Barrens can FEEL like you're spinning your wheels, the way the game is designed prevents the player from ever running out of stuff to do. You may get bored with the game, and that's understandable, since MMOs just aren't for everyone. But it's never going to be because of lack of direction.
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post #13 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:29am
The Barrens... Fond and hateful memories.
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post #14 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:34am
Barrens is where you learn the most valuable lesson of the game.

As soon as you start a new character, the first thing you do is type "/leave 1".
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post #15 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:35am
Im not completely sure, but i think Ultima Online is the original MMORPG. Just about everything that is now the standard could probably be traced back to it.
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post #16 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Millette View Post
Barrens is where you learn the most valuable lesson of the game.

As soon as you start a new character, the first thing you do is type "/leave 1".
Sadly now replaced by the Trade channel. It's like a realm wide Barrens chat.
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post #17 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZombieFever View Post
Im not completely sure, but i think Ultima Online is the original MMORPG. Just about everything that is now the standard could probably be traced back to it.
It was the first popular MMO, but the one that really created the genre as we know it was EverQuest.
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post #18 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stelios View Post
Sadly now replaced by the Trade channel. It's like a realm wide Barrens chat.
Trade at least only opens when you're in a capitol. For the most part on my server (Elune) it's pretty innocuous.
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post #19 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:47am
Yeah, UO was way too punishing for it to ever become mainstream. For fuck's sake even Lord British was PK'd.
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post #20 of 137
5/13/09 at 9:53am
Actually, for a really good explanation as to what makes WoW so popular, GameTrailers did a fun retrospective on Warcraft. The third part is all about WoW, up to right before the release of Lich King, and it's a pretty enjoyable look at the game from launch onward.
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post #21 of 137
5/13/09 at 10:14am
UO was awesome because there was no kid gloves. PK's, while they sucked, provided some hectic times back in the day. And the bounty system was great.
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post #22 of 137
5/13/09 at 10:32am
That's what I liked about EQ -- they made dying something you REALLY wanted to avoid. Now, at worst, it's an inconvenience having to repair gear or deal with a penalty for a few minutes. Part of me longs for the days when you had to stow an extra set of gear for the inevitable corpse run instead of death being the equivalent of unlimited extra lives in an arcade game or, worse, a mode of travel.
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post #23 of 137
5/13/09 at 11:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stelios View Post
1. It runs on 80 percent of the PCs out there.
Blizzard is also very Mac friendly, so people on both sides of the OS divide can play, unlike pretty much every other MMO. I got really into WAR for a while, but my primary computer is an Intel iMac and the only way to run a stable copy of WAR is to run Windows via Bootcamp.
Like everybody has been saying about polish, as soon as WAR came out everybody started comparing it side by side to WoW, which I think is pretty harsh considering WoW had already had years to debug, expand and improve.
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post #24 of 137
5/13/09 at 11:06am
And people tend to forget WoW's launch was pretty miserable. Multi-day server downtimes, hours-long server queues, server resets, emergency patches, loot lag, you name it.
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post #25 of 137
5/13/09 at 11:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
And people tend to forget WoW's launch was pretty miserable. Multi-day server downtimes, hours-long server queues, server resets, emergency patches, loot lag, you name it.
That's what really hurt Age of Conan when it first launched (along with blatant lack of content for certain levels). They've fixed almost all of that now; it's a completely different game NOW from what it was at launch: Raids work, sieges work (and are a BLAST), and there's alot of new content to fill in the levelling gaps. It's not perfect yet, but I'm glad that I stuck with it.
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post #26 of 137
5/13/09 at 11:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
And people tend to forget WoW's launch was pretty miserable. Multi-day server downtimes, hours-long server queues, server resets, emergency patches, loot lag, you name it.
So? Most MMOs have bad launches, but most don't also refund you money for the days that the game wasn't playable. The game was fine within a week, and has been exceptional since. And at this point, in the context of why the game is so popular, bitching about a launch from almost five years ago is completely irrelevant.
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post #27 of 137
5/13/09 at 11:27am
Hey, Brad's back! Long time no see.
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post #28 of 137
5/13/09 at 11:48am
Wasn't bitching about WoW's launch, just pointing out that people tend to forget its launch was less than perfect, especially when a new game has a bumpy launch. All games have bumpy launches -- no amount of beta stress testing can prepare you for a couple of hundred thousand people trying to log on on launch day. But now it seems like if a game doesn't come out with absolutely zero problems, oh well, it's not WoW, it must not be good. They're comparing a brand new game having launch problems to a five-year old game that also had launch problems.
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post #29 of 137
5/13/09 at 11:58am
I've been playing Champions Online for a few weeks now, and if they are able to have a smooth launch then this game is going to be pretty fucking awesome for comic nerds. The amount of customization is insane.
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post #30 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob View Post
I've been playing Champions Online for a few weeks now, and if they are able to have a smooth launch then this game is going to be pretty fucking awesome for comic nerds. The amount of customization is insane.
Is this the superhero game that is not City of Heroes? And if so, more info please.
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post #31 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob View Post
I've been playing Champions Online for a few weeks now, and if they are able to have a smooth launch then this game is going to be pretty fucking awesome for comic nerds. The amount of customization is insane.
I've been keeping an eye on that one. It's the only thing keeping me from re-subbing to City of Heroes, despite all the cool things that game is doing.

EDIT: For B_Metal: http://champions-online.com/. One of the really cool features is that when you create your hero, you also create his or her nemesis, who turns up to torment you throughout your career.
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post #32 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:09pm
It looks awesome, but takes a decent rig to play. But just the player creator is fucking insane. I've been just making heroes nonstop just to see what I can come up with.
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post #33 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:13pm
Buzz has been building for the Star Trek MMORPG (beautiful screenshots for it are out there if you do a search) and the NEW Star Wars MMORPG based upon 'Knights of the Old Republic'. Hopefully, one of those will connect for those of us who are looking for a good Science Fiction based game. SW: Galaxies turned to total shit.
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post #34 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:14pm
I still maintain that Galaxies was the best MMORPG while it was in beta. The amount of fun we had in the beta was no where to be found in the endgame.
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post #35 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:17pm
Like I said, it turned to shit. Hopefully they learned their lessons from the NGE fiasco. An MMO based upon the 'Knights of the Old Republic' game design could be a legitimate contender for the WoW throne if it's done correctly.
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post #36 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:18pm
Blame Sony. They fuck over most of their games.

*pours one out for Planetside*
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post #37 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacob Singer View Post
Hey, Brad's back! Long time no see.
Just had to throw my two cents in about WoW.
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post #38 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob View Post
It looks awesome, but takes a decent rig to play. But just the player creator is fucking insane. I've been just making heroes nonstop just to see what I can come up with.
Oh god, that was my downfall with CoH. I've still got about a dozen level 1 or 2 characters I made up just playing around.
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post #39 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
Like I said, it turned to shit. Hopefully they learned their lessons from the NGE fiasco. An MMO based upon the 'Knights of the Old Republic' game design could be a legitimate contender for the WoW throne if it's done correctly.
Unfortunately, some of the stuff I've been seeing has been giving off a serious "Jedi, Sith and ... everybody else" kind of vibe.
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post #40 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
Oh god, that was my downfall with CoH. I've still got about a dozen level 1 or 2 characters I made up just playing around.
Now imagine WAY MORE options. And they look so much better.
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post #41 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:36pm
The problem with City of Heroes is that there's ultimately no variety to the gameplay. You just kill mobs, and that's it. By the time you've reached level 20, you have all the powers you're going to get, you've got flight or teleportation, you've got your cape. Character progression stops dead, and then it's just an endless grind from then on out.

As for TOR being a contender to WoW's throne, it's not going to happen. WoW is pretty much the unstoppable force at this point, and its success has been a complete anomaly. TOR could certainly do well for itself, and doesn't really NEED to try to compete with WoW, though. Same with any other MMO. EVE Online has been a success, though why people play it completely escapes me. As far as I'm aware, LOTRO is successful enough to keep going comfortably as well.
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post #42 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:37pm
Damn, I really wanted in that beta too. First MMO beta I've missed out on in a while. Did Galaxies, CoH, Vanguard, Conan and Warhammer, but no love from Champions.

And Brad, what you say about CoH is precisely what keeps me quitting every time I get back in. I get excited about it, and then I log in to my level 27 Blaster and realize, "Oh look, it's that same warehouse layout from when I was level 10." And for all the customization and powers, I just keep using the same three or four over and over again. The user missions have supposedly injected a little bit of life, and the Going Rogue expansion looks interesting (it lets you move from hero to villain and vice versa, and starting characters start of neutral and drift one way or another depending on game play), but I don't know, if Champions better scratches the super-hero itch, I'd have a hard time ever going back.
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post #43 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:38pm
Yeah, I've betatested pretty much all of the major MMO's to come out in the last decade or so. Vanguard was the worst one of the bunch.
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post #44 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:40pm
We all need more time sinks to get into, don't we?

FWIW, consider giving AoC a try again. Alot of people have been re-subscribing to it lately (most of them dropped it shortly after the launch fiasco) and have been enjoying it immensely. The guild vs guild sieges are working correctly and are a blast to participate in.
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post #45 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:44pm
I can say as of now, Champions is way more fun than CoH. But that still may be the new MMO smell getting to me. I haven't been able to play that much (as the days it's open to test I usually have other priorities) but what I have played has kept my attention.

But I think I'm starting to get sick of MMO's in general. I can only waste so much time that when I have free time, I'd rather do other things. If they can connect this to the 360 like they've said, and it works well then I'll be addicted.
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post #46 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:44pm
Vanguard beta was terrible. Best beta I played was LOTRO because it was super polished before it was relased.

I play Age of Conan right as I got bored with wow.

No star trek for me where everyone is going to be a captain.

The games I am waiting for is Star Wars and The Secret World.

IF you haven't heard of the secret world you should check it out. No levels totally skill based.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_World

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsLXQ...om=PL&index=48
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post #47 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:46pm
I agree with all the points here about why WoW is the MMO, but it can be summed up by, it's created by Blizzard. Blizzard is in the game to be the best out every time.
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post #48 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bonoharvey View Post
I play Age of Conan right as I got bored with wow.
Same here. It's also one of the most beautiful looking games out there; some of the instances are truly stunning looking. It's a system hog, though.

I'll also add that Guild Wars is a pretty fun, stable game to play. I enjoyed the strategy involved in putting together competitive builds for your characters; you really had to think about what you wanted your guy to do, as you could only enter the field with 8 skills available to you.
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post #49 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
I'll also add that Guild Wars is a pretty fun, stable game to play. I enjoyed the strategy involved in putting together competitive builds for your characters; you really had to think about what you wanted your guy to do, as you could only enter the field with 8 skills available to you.
I have to admit I didn't try guild wars because it was free to play. I've been hearing good things about it though.
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post #50 of 137
5/13/09 at 12:58pm
Judas, I may just give Conan another go from what you're saying. But I remember trying to swim down a river to get to a certain location and running into an invisible wall that wouldn't let me go further. The location was a place I had a quest to go to, but even I wasn't supposed to be there, couldn't they have come up with a better to tell me than just stopping me?
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