The massive MMORPG collapse - MMORPG Center.com

[Defmetal]

The thing I have about WoW now is, I don't have any memorable Cataclysm experiences. FFXIV even had a few but lately its so blah.

In FFXI, EQ1, DAoC, WoW Lich King, UO, etc, because of the community and common goals with your allies you'd strive for an accomplishment, get knocked down 30 times, and eventually overcome incredible odds and difficulty to achieve a new plane.


Let me list a few examples of some incredible experiences in MMOs:
FFXI - Defeating Alexander as a Thief. Lost about 8 times to it, that win was such an incredible feeling.
Same with Chains of Promathia or the Shadow Lord. FFXI put in road blocks, and challenges, sometimes where even the road to the boss fight was just as difficult as the boss (CoP). You'd struggle to learn strategies, gear up, find the right methods to win, and then finally earn your prize and recognition.

EQ1 - Planes of Power was one of the most memorable times in that game. Sure vanilla was great, but the progression through the Planes of Power. Going through the Plane of Nightmare, Plane of Earth, Fire, etc until you got to Time to defeat Quarm - along with all the previous bosses. That was a pretty epic and fulfilling time in the game history.

Ultima Online - Joining a Faction and taking over the world as your faction. Being on the Council of Mages and stealing the entire server from those True Britanian bastards, then holding onto the server. Being nominated to be President of the Council of Mages through the elections and then managing the towns resources.

WoW Lich King - The entire journey was pretty fun. The dungeons, the raids, the PVP. Having all of the story modes tied together, working through with friends to eventually beat the Lich King.

Even Old Republic - Coming up as your Jedi, defeating the Sith Apprentices, working your way up to getting even with your nemesis at the end of Act I. Then working along your journey to free the entire galaxy from the Sith Emperor. That's been a fun journey albeit single player.

Cataclysm destroyed the social boundries by adding cross-server raids, and groups. I didn't get to know a single player in Cataclysm who I didn't know already. I didn't gain a reputation because half the people I grouped with were on different servers never to be seen again. You can't make friends that way.

I think what helped FFXI was the small community of players where everybody knew your name and what you had done.
FFXIV has that still sort of.

MMOs are about community, and it doesn't matter the content as much if you can create and hold onto a community. Where FFXIV is failing is, the community is being destroyed. Your friends are quitting, your guildmates are logging off for months at a time, and the servers are not bringing in any new players. When your core group of friends stops playing, the game begins to stop being fun if you're paying $15 a month for repetitive content.

[Sidious]

That's an odd thing to say since there's millions of people that apparently do. WoW still offers something to strive for; not every player is going to be able to do heroic raiding or high level PVP. People cheer and boo for different guilds going for world first kills. There's a mad dash every time there's a content patch -- guilds on the same server are always competing to finish first. A lot of people would love to be a part of something like that, and work towards it.

It's not strange at all. WoW's remaining population is a remainder of what it achieved in the past. Trends show a sharply declining population. The ones that remain, myself included, do so mostly out of habit. Some are further enticed by the prospect of getting Diablo 3 for "free".

Heroic raids? They're a tiny sliver of content, and not enough to set the tone of the game as a whole. When people get their easy-mode "raid finder" gear, they look almost identical to heroic mode raiders. Why bother doing normals or heroics? Some aren't after the challenge; they want to emulate the best, and now they do with relative ease. Once they do that, however, the realize that they're bored. So they leave.

Cross-server dungeon and raid finders have considerably dampened the need to interact with people on your own server. As a consequence, most people don't even know who the top guild on their server is anymore-- let alone individual personalities. You interact with random people from the entire battlegroup that you will never see again. Mad dashes for content have not stemmed the tide of losses this past year; Cataclysm hasn't posted a single positive quarter since its release.

The reasons behind its failure are too numerous to list here. To give you an example of what WoW is like right now, however: You stand around in Orgrimmar (or Stormwind) and either queue for one of three new heroics, or you queue for raid finder (which is the "easy mode" raid). If you're in a guild, you may also attempt to do the Dragon Soul raid on Normal or Heroic mode(s). All three of these options supply you with "valor points", up to a weekly cap of 1,000 (150 per heroic, 500 for completing the entire easy mode raid, etc). It doesn't matter if you're a casual or a hardcore. That is the extent of WoW's PvE content right now-- I'm not even exaggerating. No progression, no reason to do anything but those things I listed. It puts everyone on a level playing field, but is it worth 15 dollars a month? The clear answer is "no."

In short, what WoW had/has is irrelevant if the current game is so dumbed down and so shallow that it cannot gain and retain new subscribers to replace those that leave.

People are so discontented with WoW because they've been playing it for over seven years. The majority of people still love the game. It's just like any other MMO; the malcontents are the loudest, but it's never representative of the larger population. WoW lost ~2 million subscribers. They still have ~8 million players who still enjoy the game. I'd say they're doing something right.

No. North America has had WoW for seven years, other countries have had it for substantially less. Brazil has had it for less than a year, for example. There are still far more gamers throughout the world who have not yet played WoW. The difference now is, as I mentioned before, WoW is not retaining people like it used to. There's nothing to aspire to because everyone is an equal now; there's no reason to remain a long term sub. It's as simple as that. I remain subbed 1.) Out of habit and 2.) Because I can get Diablo 3 for "free". That does NOT mean the game is currently enjoyable.

[ARytheart]

I think that Wolfie aka "pinkie pie" could teach alot of people on these forums some sence. HOW COME I CANT LIKE YOUR POST MORE. Good article in that link. BUT can you blame WoW for getting what they did right? Lets face it they got alot of things right. Go look up gear transmogrification and reforging. And for that matter consider the several complex money sinks WoW has to keep people from getting to much bank to fast. How many does FFXIV have. Or XI had for that matter. You cant build a five hundred foot pyramid if the blocks at the bottom are woobly. Dont blame WoW for the mechanics it did right. I mean DAMN i want my gear to be the color i want without sacrificing the other important aspects of what we consider "standard" to MMOs am i right? Blizzard, wether you like it or not is still on the cutting edge of the genre with the next mechanics in MMO, even though the core of WoW is dino bones... Everything else it that article is completely solid. One second though. Maybe WoW is to blame. I mean. When you set the bar high and all.

[ARytheart]

I would like to say. I played FFXI and WOW both. XI WAS A BETTER GAME. How many times did I find myself sayn. I wish XI had Gear altering such as gems and enchants. Or Man i love the way classes like war and rogue work together, One puts a bleed the other gains damage buff from it. I thought! FFXIV would be a taste of the best of both. Super long lvl was YES part of the fun of XI. Sadly. XIV as of yet is not. Heres to the future. My hope rests in you and your team Mr yoshi-p. Good luck.

[Northman]

Excellent writers you are. See you in Academy...

[Mortikhan]

I played WoW and FFXI also. Both had their good and bad qualities based on what you were looking for. I had a far better group in FFXI and I liked the community better there than in WoW but I also started WoW much later.

The problem with WoW was not that it destroyed the MMORPG, it just never really incorporated the RPG element all that much. It set a standard for MMOs that was unachievable unless you had a lot of bucks to throw at the project and one hell of a staff. After that you are basically working out of a hole to gain profit...and a big hole. Not many companies are looking to push the EPIC button on finances for gaming anymore because there have been so many failed projects that can, will and have ended gaming companies when someone has tried to revolutionize the MMORPG that the risk is just too great unless they spawn a reskinned version of WoW or any of its competitors.

Most of the failures that have popped up are due to people just not wanting to give up what they have accomplished in one game to start over in another. There is also the problem of companies devoting too much to making the game LOOK cool and flashy and not hiring anyone to tell a story. Character models and skills only look cool the first 46576 times you see them...after that you have to throw some substance into the game or it fades fast. I have played a lot of games (28 years worth) and have seen some very sorry plot lines but MMOs are absolutely the worst in this department. They focus too much on mechanics, balance and graphics and not enough on telling a story. Ask yourself this...given the current plot lines for every MMORPG that you have played to date, would you play those games as a stand alone single player game? To me MMOs are just gathering points for me and my fellow geeks (and closet geeks) to play a crappy storyline game together and swap stories about other games we enjoyed and really got into.

[Jinko]

before WoW we got a few good MMOs, now we get sub par MMOs coming out left right and centre from everyone trying to "become the next WoW" because if they do that it will make money.

WoW is like marmite, you either love it and nothing else will do, or you hate it and wouldnt touch it with a 50ft barge pole, there is no inbetween.

Thing is before WoW, MMO's were unique and not mainstream which is part of what made them so different, now there are MMO's everywhere and the experience has become a lot less unique, I think a lot of it is Nostalgia as well, you always look back on your first MMO differently.

I look back at FF11 as a convoluted mess much of the time with far too much timesink, it still doesn't change the fact it was my first MMO and I still have some great memories of getting to Lu'fraise for the first time and running to Jeuno as a level 18 hoping not to get killed on the way.

As someone mentioned do you blame street fighter for making fighting games mainstream or Doom for making FPS mainstream ?

People just like to attack WoW because its successful.