Quote Originally Posted by Magis View Post
Except for all the MMOs that failed under WoW's model and either are stagnant or went F2P. Tera, ESO, SWOR... the only one I can think of that hasn't been a failure is EVE Online and funny enough, that is an earlier 2003ish MMO that decided to go against the "formula".

The formula doesn't work, why? Because people who want to play WoW are already playing WoW. People who quit WoW are bored of WoW's system and want something else. FFXIV is actually an interesting anomaly, mostly being backed by brand due to the large population of people who "never played an MMO before" as well as the unique circumstances of it's creation (1.0 the giant failure, 2.0 success). However, the WoW formula had little to do with it's success since if it was the case, the other clones should have also been.

The fact there even is a "formula" shows how stagnant and manufactured MMOs are these days. Gone are the days of creation a virtual world for people to "live" in... now it's a giant content delivery system with a new coat of paint or some gimmick.
Except alot of people that played WoW are now here... and alot of people play this game.

SWOR was bioware's first foray into a real actual MMO.
ESO was developed by Zenimax which is a subsidiary from Bethesda... they didn't even participate in development outside of naming it.
Tera was made by Bluehole studios.... yup you guessed it low funding.

SE has capital. They can push this sort of thing to it's potential because of that. If you make a race car out of aluminum foil and a toothpick it wont go very fast. It's not the design, its the materials and money that can be pushed into it.