Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[Zarzak]

The difference pre and post WoW?

1. a M.MULTIPLAYER.O was ACTUALLY MULTIPLAYER. Not "solo to level cap in about 30 /played hours"

2. The world was acually MASSIVE. Run from one end to the other took well over an hour easy. Entire regions in WoW+ games are the size of single zones.

3. There was a reason to do something besides sit in town afk once you were level cap. Being "ready for raids" did not translate into "anything besides raiding will offer nothing to your character"

4. The world was actually dangerous. Run through a level 50 zone at level 40? Suicide. WoW+? "EL OH EL I RUNZ THROUGH ALL THE THINGS! Whole zone beating on me? Eh /shrug afk"

5. Raids actually fulfilled the definition of a raid ("a type of mission in a video game where a very large number of people combine forces to defeat a powerful enemy") instead of just another group event. In games prior to WoW what is considered a raid these days was "/shout hey our group spawned a named that we can't beat can we get some help".. actually you prolly ended up with more people that way.

6. Group play in general? Random and dynamic. Another group could wipe and chain aggro your camp. A named could randomly spawn on your face. A giant could path by and stomp your face in. A goblin could walk up behind you and throw a bomb at your face. WoW+? "oh look the EXACT same thing every time. Around this corner there will be 2 couerl and 1 goblin black mage standing in a triangle pattern, next is the boss who will do 2 backflips then throw candy in a 360 degree radius before landing in a hand stand. And guess what!?!?!!/ Soon as we kill it we will zone out. Click the queue button again and do the EXACT same thing again!! YAY!!!!"

[Cynric]

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Over simplification. WoW did good and bad things to the genre. Streamlining features would of happened with or without WoW, because MMO's started streamlining things that WoW made popular before it existed. I don't really like WoW much, but I wont pretend it made the genre much worse. It just changed up the formula a bit and that was successful. The types of players that started playing (a lot more than before) are what changed things . Of course if you have tons more people playing you'll have people with different ideals on what is and isn't a good idea in a game.

[Zarzak]

Over simplification. WoW did good and bad things to the genre. Streamlining features would of happened with or without WoW, because MMO's started streamlining things that WoW made popular before it existed. I don't really like WoW much, but I wont pretend it made the genre much worse. It just changed up the formula a bit and that was successful. The types of players that started playing (a lot more than before) are what changed things . Of course if you have tons more people playing you'll have people with different ideals on what is and isn't a good idea in a game.

WoW released in the age when a 12 year old could actually convince their parents to put their credit card online for a game. Pretty much explains everything that happened. Now there are no MMOs for anyone over the age of 12.

[Cynric]

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Most MMO's are for teens and up and always were for teens and up. You're just mad or disappointed. I understand that. It doesn't change facts though.

Quests were streamlined with markers before WoW. Skills were placed on hotbars without the use of macros before WoW. Leveling through content was eased in many games before WoW. These things all happened because that's what people complained about at the time. Extreme death penalties were also removed before WoW existed because people didn't find that fun.

You wont find many games even back in the day where a level 1 monster would kill a level 1 character even a level 2 monster usually wouldn't kill a level 1 player solo. I've seen far more people complain about leveling taking too long back then, than I have seen people complain it being too fast now.

WoW just became popular and introduced all those things people wanted from different MMOs in one at the time for them fun, theme park package. Thus standards for the genre were born.

[Zarzak]

Quests were streamlined with markers before WoW. Questing wasn't even a thing in WoW terms before WoW. Prior to WoW it was "I want this really special item so I'm going to do this 1 quest that will spawn several parties/days to complete for this reward" WoW questing is "THE ONLY THING YOU WILL EVER DO IF YOU WANT TO BE AT ALL EFFECTIVE!!! YOU WILL DO 100000 QUESTS WHICH WILL EACH TAKE 30 SECONDS AND BE TOTALLY MEANINGLESS OR YOU WILL SUFFER THY WRATH. Oh and PS. Half the time if you attempt to group up to do said quests... They will take LONGER because half of them you have to compete for quest objectives."

Skills were placed on hotbars without the use of macros before WoW. Never mentioned hotbars as a problem?

Leveling through content was eased in many games before WoW. Such as?
You wont find many games even back in the day where a level 1 monster would kill a level 1 character even a level 2 monster usually wouldn't kill a level 1 player solo. 1v1? At that level? Likely not. Beyond level 10? Prolly.

10characters

[Cynric]

10characters

Last response to you because you wont listen no matter what I say. Which is fine, believe whatever you want to.

There are quests that take longer than 30 seconds to complete post, pre, and during WoWs popularity in many games. There are also quests post, pre, and during WoWs popularity that are fairly quick to complete. I can tell you for sure that whether it was 30 seconds or 2 weeks, not a lot of players cared to read the flavor text. The only thing they cared about was the reward. You even said it yourself, they do it for some item they want. You don't need that item to be relevant usually. Just like you can ignore every quest in pre or post WoW era and level however you want. It wont be as fast. But that's basically the same. Just like how pre/post WoW there were quests which have stories which you need to complete to progress further in those games.

As for games I can't name all of them, but I can tell you I played most of the MMO's out back then. FFXI is probably the only game that took you years to hit max level before the level cap was even raised.

Also no not just at level 1. Levels 10's aren't usually killed solo by 11-13, and this trend usually echoed though most games and all the way to level cap. There are and were very few games(if any) with as dangerous an open world as FFXI. This has nothing to do with WoW at all.

[Meshico]

I like this post from the OP, and the translator.

Thank you for this and if you guys agree, make sure you hit "like"