The massive MMORPG collapse - MMORPG Center.com

[Velhart]

No, I got your point, hence my point of throwing in DoA, MK, MvC and SC (all unique in their own way and equally as popular), hating on success isn't really the issue at hand though it seems a lot of people think it is.

You can't blame WoW for being successful, you can blame it for what it spawned though. Any unique or new MMO that isn't a WoW clone or can't be picked up and played in the same way as WoW was, is doomed merely because of that fact. No matter how good the MMO is, "This ain't WoW!" gets it killed.

It's become very hard for new MMOs to stand on their own two feet, which is why Guild Wars 2 for example has only 1 shining grace: The fact it's not following the typical Buy-to-Win, Pay-2-Play or F2PCashShop models, much like Tera's only saving grace was it's battle system and even that novelty has worn off on almost everyone who played it due to lack of content. Rift only got popular because what did it do differently from WoW, realistically? Almost nothing, and that's why it succeeded.

Then blame other companies for not deciding to be creative. Is Blizzard coming out and saying "Only way you will get anywhere is by copying us."? No, even they have said others won't succeed over them unless they create their own unique game.

I do seen your point to an extent, but you have to blame the gaming community on that one.

[Wolfie]

Still had tons of issues, still had a lack of content, still was very vanilla just like every MMO before it at launch. It was truly no different.

I hope you're ****ing joking, because WOW released with approximately two dozen instances (and these weren't the 20-minute dungeons you know now, they were 1-4 hours long), three of which were raid instances (two 10 man, one 40 man), fleshed out continents and zones, hundreds of quests and impressive quest chains.

Every major flaw that it had, was fixed with hotfixes and patches in its trial period.

[weeble]

no offense to all that think that thread was garbage but i agree with 100% of it. i use the phrase "MMO Planned Obsolescence" when i think modern mmo now. they are garbage u can't play for more then the free month, maybe little more b4 you need to just toss it in the trash. at this point i almost don't want to play mmo's cause i haven't been able to find a mmo i can play for over 6months and still enjoy playing.

simply put making everything for "the masses" doesn't work, don't care if the money is there or not. the same like he said for movies and music. they try to squeeze every type of personality into a tv shows, if everyone and there mothers aren't watching it, ...bam canceled. look at stargate universe, and tera nova. they trying to appealed to more then the scify people by adding crap to the show and then everyone leaves. they dont get "the numbers" they need to keep it. hell my mom watches syfy channel while i haven't used that channel in years. lol.

games, movies, music ...they don't care, they will keep pushing garbage till they get there numbers. it's not like they don't make money either way. ....is simple to me, create games for all types not just masses. or make separate dang servers. but you know why not separate? cause the casual servers will be empty either way in few months. those left playing there that are casual will then run to the full ones and complain again they not getting everything. and the big reason, they make garbage mmo's ...spend less resourses on the parts of game that matter and pump it will crap for casual masses to play. theres no reason they can't go all out for the non masses first then dumb it down and have 2 servers.. no reason.

as for wow and blizzard my thoughts are this, diablo 3 gonna be a game everyone in game can sell gold and items right inside the game, why i mention this? well if they do this don't they need carrot on stick game play again like old mmo's? have items with hugely low drop rates? maybe hard ass content to get threw to do? other wise they won't make money on this idea right? ... even tera is adding crono skulls witch is just an item u can buy in game with the game currency from people in game and it gives u game time. really bad i think to add to games but my thoughts are this, if they do well, witch i think d3 will do very well, the next bliz mmo after wow might have this same thing to it? ...maybe all mmo's will start to copy it again? then maybe we can finally get back to mmo's like they used to be. but this is a lol, thought in my head of possibility, i don't like rmt or the thought of it rampid in mmo's but ...if it gets me back my mmo's then oh well. right now mmo's just suck and i can't stand the thought that there will never be another mmo like ffxi again cause of wallets....and mainstream mindsets.

[Blarp]

Oh look, a bittervet hipster wrote a story about how the "retards" ruined his favorite genre. All those "dumb lazy" people who wanted to try out MMO's screwed everything up. Efff Blizzard for making this genre popular and bringing in the lowest of the low. These people who want games where casuals can progress are so dumb. They ruined everything.

Meanwhile, this same person just wiped his entire raid in WoW because staying out of the bad shit is too deep of a concept to understand.

[Wolfie]

I have talked to WoW players and the ones I have talked to pretty much say WoW is the best MMO and they would never play anything different.

As for me I would rather die than play WoW, and you never told me what position you hold at blizzard

You've met maybe like 20 people that you've had that kind of discussion with, and you bring your own prejudices about what it means to be an MMO player. You make yourself sound more like a religious fanatic than a person playing a video game.

I played WOW for three years and I haven't touched it in three years, because I dislike the new development team. That doesn't stop me from acknowledging what WOW did well early on, and it also lets me see that WOW's in some pretty sharp decline right now because of a crappy dev team.

EDIT: Totally going to stop replying to you in this topic, because I feel it's like arguing with a rock.

[Defmetal]

Look simply put, WoW is successful because it has content for all players, of all backgrounds, and each group is treated equally to new content.

All casual players get the same amount of new things to do as raiders.

That keeps every group of the population happy. Most MMOs, especially a lot of WoW clones, try to cater to one group. Rift tried to cater to the PVPers and Raiders and ignore casuals. WoW tried to cater to PVPers. Everquest II tried to cater to Raiders. When I tried WoW I never felt there wasn't anything to do, no matter how I felt like playing. If I wanted to Solo, there was an endless amount of solo content. Or group content, raid content, or even just farming rare mobs and achievements.

WoW is a game for all groups, and that's why it has more players. FFXI was a asian style grind fest akin to Korean MMOs. It was fun, most of us enjoyed it, but that's a very small population.

WoW clone games try to pick apart the thing they like best about WoW, and then try to do it better. "WoW was good except this part..." so they focus 10fold on that part and neglect the other factors. We already have a perfect World of Warcraft, we don't need anymore "I can do what WoW does but better". SWTOR for example, follows WoWs basic structure, but once you get past level 10 it really doesn't feel like WoW. It took the good ideas of "content for all", and it is a similar style game setup, but by making it storyline oriented MMO drew in a new crowd, rather than try to expand an existing market.

I think SWTOR cuts into FFXI/FFXIVs market more than WoW does, because FFXI was the Go-To MMO for storyline lovers. And SWTOR, lets face it, is infinitely better at this than SE is. They have a fantastic budget and big-name voice actors handling every cutscene and NPC interaction. I mean, SOLID SNAKE IS YOUR MAIN CHARACTER (if you're a jedi). Nathan Drake (uncharted) is your main character if you're a consular. That's cool!

[Vanguard319]

Considering that the majority of complaints about FFXIV over the last year and a half consisted mostly about the game not being more like WoW, (or a direct clone of FFXI) I would say the author's argument is quite valid. It seems that people immediately criticize a new MMO as bad if it isn't a WoW clone, but they will still label the game as bad regardless, because it is a WoW clone. This mindset seems to have spread to game critics as well, valididating the author's other argument: that the MMO market has gone from quality games for mature gamers, to bad-quality games made with idiots in mind.

[weeble]

swtor sucks, it's only fun for the first toon u level, even then watchign threw all the voice over was tedious and i skiped threw it all. it's like forcign you to read the boxes in wow. no thanks. only diff is your looking at a npc model talking it..lol

you get geared up and then nothing to do, guilds are empty other then during raid times. pvp is horrible. the warzones are ok till the 100th million time entering huttball, and watching one side feed wins to the other since everyone on both factions play against each others. story is important, but no way in hell does it have a story better then ffxi and ffxiv. the opening cinematic was great other then that...meh. it's just a run of a mil crapfest. ffxi story telling was top notch, no other mmo can touch it.

[Wolfie]

Considering that the majority of complaints about FFXIV over the last year and a half consisted mostly about the game not being more like WoW, (or a direct clone of FFXI) I would say the author's argument is quite valid. It seems that people immediately criticize a new MMO as bad if it isn't a WoW clone, but they will still label the game as bad regardless, because it is a WoW clone. This mindset seems to have spread to game critics as well, valididating the author's other argument: that the MMO market has gone from quality games for mature gamers, to bad-quality games made with idiots in mind.

I'm sorry, I didn't know "lag free interface", "intuitive gameplay", "content other than grinding", and "stable economy" made a game a WOW clone. Silly me, let me go back on everything I said.

[Delsus]

You've met maybe like 20 people that you've had that kind of discussion with, and you bring your own prejudices about what it means to be an MMO player. You make yourself sound more like a religious fanatic than a person playing a video game.

I played WOW for three years and I haven't touched it in three years, because I dislike the new development team. That doesn't stop me from acknowledging what WOW did well early on, and it also lets me see that WOW's in some pretty sharp decline right now because of a crappy dev team.

EDIT: Totally going to stop replying to you in this topic, because I feel it's like arguing with a rock.

O.o you know me irl? you know I have talked to 20 people with that view STALKER!!!

Seriously, you really havent seen both sides of the argument, you have said one thing against WoW and that is WHAAAA I hate the new dev team!!!

Apart from that you are just blindly saying all good things about the game, either like a Blizzard spy or a blind fanboy and you talk about how polished WoW is, well it doesnt take long to add content based on those painful graphics, and any bugs can be squashed in no time on a turn of the century (few years later, but close enough) game, lets look at some examples shall we, i like examples.

STO: a decent MMO, battle is fun, cool storylines, and a decent amount of content and based on one of the biggest franchises there has ever been, now F2P if I had the money I would pay a subscription, but the big thing is its nothing like WoW

DCUO: so much fun, about the best battle system I have seen brilliant storylines, main downside is once you are lvl 30 its the same old raids and PvP which could have contributed to its move to F2P, but its again nothing like WoW.

Champions online: alot of fun, masses of content, nice battle system, but again nothing like WoW and its F2P

Rift: never played it but a blatent WoW clone and moderate success.

Notice a pattern emerging, with WoW fanboys its "make it WoW or its a sucky failure" /farewell prove me wrong, or have I made you cry yourself into a coma after you realise the truth about your precious WoW.

WoW fanboys = Golum "Its mine, my only. My precious"