whats wrong with wow?

[Lycanthroat]

wow might be for me the greatest mystery in the history of gaming.
i ve never seen a game that sucks so hard to have such great success.... well mb except wii or... anw u get the point

[Abriael]

wow might be for me the greatest mystery in the history of gaming.
i ve never seen a game that sucks so hard to have such great success.... well mb except wii or... anw u get the point

It's actually not that much of a mistery. It's the theory of mainstream. Popularity isn't often affected that much by quality. TV has several similar example. Just look at the big brother and similar trashy reality shows. Their quality is zero, but millions upon millions of people wouldn't miss an episode.

[Quanta]

It's actually not that much of a mistery. It's the theory of mainstream. Popularity isn't often affected that much by quality. TV has several similar example. Just look at the big brother and similar trashy reality shows. Their quality is zero, but millions upon millions of people wouldn't miss an episode.

Reality TV's a poor example given our species' love of spectacle:
The media realizes this, and they act accordingly, producing shows and whatnot that cater to the idea. Everyone loves a good train wreck, whether they'll admit to it or not.

Games are a bit different though. Nobody will hunker down and play a train wreck of a game unless:

1) it's otherwise well designed and fun, and if it's well designed and fun, it's difficult for it to qualify as a train wreck, or
2) it's so bad that you simply have to play it so that you can make fun of it.

WoW, if anything, qualifies as #1 because, whether you want to admit it or not, it's a well designed and fun game, and Blizzard has taken great care to ensure that they can please as many people as possible without having all the hardcore players jump ship because it's too easy, or all the casual players jump ship because it's too hard.

As far as whether WoW is easy mode or not, one of the top guilds in the world (if not THE top guild), sums up their thoughts on Cataclysm's first tier of raiding.

[Abriael]

Games are a bit different though. Nobody will hunker down and play a train wreck of a game unless:

1) it's otherwise well designed and fun, and if it's well designed and fun, it's difficult for it to qualify as a train wreck, or
2) it's so bad that you simply have to play it so that you can make fun of it.

It's not as a farfetched comparison, from a marketing point of view, as you may think.

Everything in WoW isn't designed just to be "fun", there are tons of MMORPGs there that are very well designed on the "fun" aspects, probably even better than wow. Yet they aren't as popular. Not even nearly.
This without mentioning that "fun" is relative to the target, and not an absolute parameter.

Reality shows are specifically designed to cater to the lowest common denominator of human behavioral patters, so they are enjoyed by a large demographic of people.

WoW is designed to appease the lowest common denominator of gamers. No matter if you're a third grader or a soccer mom that has trouble even with the wii or if you have a PC from world war 2, the majority of WoW's activity are designed so that you can thrive at the game, and when you "hit the wall" (on part of the endgame, that's a bit more challenging), you have invested too much into the game to quit.

It's a simple marketing strategy. To make something mainstream you design it so that it has the widest target possible. Of course such a wide target has it's disadvantages (the quality of the community is one, the extremely and childish generic backstory and art direction is another), but those disadvantages affect majorly only the most demanding and discerning of the customerbase. And those are the vast minority compared to a mainstream target.

[Quanta]

It's not as a farfetched comparison, from a marketing point of view, as you may think.

Everything in WoW isn't designed just to be "fun", there are tons of MMORPGs there that are very well designed on the "fun" aspects, probably even better than wow. Yet they aren't as popular. Not even nearly.
This without mentioning that "fun" is relative to the target, and not an absolute parameter.

Reality shows are specifically designed to cater to the lowest common denominator of human behavioral patters, so they are enjoyed by a large demographic of people.

WoW is designed to appease the lowest common denominator of gamers. No matter if you're a third grader or a soccer mom that has trouble even with the wii or if you have a PC from world war 2, the majority of WoW's activity are designed so that you can thrive at the game, and when you "hit the wall" (on part of the endgame, that's a bit more challenging), you have invested too much into the game to quit.

It's a simple marketing strategy. To make something mainstream you design it so that it has the widest target possible. Of course such a wide target has it's disadvantages (the quality of the community is one, the extremely and childish generic backstory and art direction is another), but those disadvantages affect majorly only the most demanding and discerning of the customerbase. And those are the vast minority compared to a mainstream target.

So what's the assertion here then? That because the game is simple to get into and progress all the way to the level cap, it's of poor design and quality? We're going to ignore the parts where genuine mastery and quality of play are required to be successful (eg. hard mode raiding and high-rated PvP)?

I mean, what I'm taking from all of this, particularly with this sentence--"No matter if you're a third grader or a soccer mom that has trouble even with the wii"--is that FF gamers are akin to nobles and are expressing their disdain for the peasantry, as if they're somehow better than them. Is that your position?

[Kilta_Firelotus]

honestly WoW lost its challenge with vent and the 20+ addon ppl use. Sorry using outside sources to "cheat" your way through events is asinine. Sorry I know addon don't play the game for ya physically, but it does when you have signals for stuff you should learn about.

And once you do stuff 20 times it does become easier. Your more prone to what happens when. Sorry WoW ppl don't learn how to win. They learn what Addons to use and scream on vent.

I personly found WoW easy. Since most of the dungeons didn't have a level cap, a high lvl can drag you through it. I'm sorry where is the challenge? TBH I think Zelda ocarina of time is more challenging then WoW. Least that game makes you think. WoW from my play time not so much.

Why most ppl find ffxi challenging? exp loss on death. So you can easily die so much you need to stop to relevel just to enter the location. Also there are road blocks while leveling.

WoW rehashes stuff. Like how many times was onyxia revived? 3 times.

[Ostia]

honestly WoW lost its challenge with vent and the 20+ addon ppl use. Sorry using outside sources to "cheat" your way through events is asinine. Sorry I know addon don't play the game for ya physically, but it does when you have signals for stuff you should learn about.

And once you do stuff 20 times it does become easier. Your more prone to what happens when. Sorry WoW ppl don't learn how to win. They learn what Addons to use and scream on vent.

I personly found WoW easy. Since most of the dungeons didn't have a level cap, a high lvl can drag you through it. I'm sorry where is the challenge? TBH I think Zelda ocarina of time is more challenging then WoW. Least that game makes you think. WoW from my play time not so much.

Why most ppl find ffxi challenging? exp loss on death. So you can easily die so much you need to stop to relevel just to enter the location. Also there are road blocks while leveling.

WoW rehashes stuff. Like how many times was onyxia revived? 3 times.

This is the perfect example of somebody who cant let go of the "Old Day's". And has no idea as to what she/he is talking About.

First off, ventrilo does not dumbs down difficulty, is just a million times more efficient, than typing in the middle of an encounter while a million things are going on

Second, add-ons DO NOT DO! Anything that the Wow default UI already does They do not play the game for you, they do not give you stats, they do not one shot bosses, all they do is display the information that the UI already gives you, in a different way

Oh and losing EXP on death, does not make anything harder I played EQ so yeah not hard, just a hassle and another time sink :P

[Xatsh]

Square does need to take things from WoW and other mmos. But they need to leave the simplistic, shallow, solo focused gameplay out of ffxiv, there are like 12 mmos like that already with 3 more big mmos being launched soon which follow the solo player concept.

Most the people opposed to the ideas from WoW are because people do not want a Solo based western style game, they do not want dumbed down gameplay ffxiv is already overboard on this as it is, they do not want everything to ultra simplistic and easy to do. They want a feeling of accomplishment, a challenge, and something to work towards over a period of time... and WoW's game design offers none of this.

Some things from WoW would be great. Such as the party finder (although i am against it warping you to an instance... that is stupid and does nothing for the community) but where it would help is it will auto put you into a group for leves/missions/quest/normal partys would solve half the party issues. The dungeon system concept where there is a taste of endgame throughout the whole game is a great concept, just need to keep it level capped in ffxiv and make them harder. PvP battle fields and arena I think would be the best way to implement PvP in ffxiv. WoW's UI for the keyboard/mouse users is the best in the business they need to just copy paste how that works. And I would say most Fanboys of FFXI would probably not disagree in most these areas, but outside those changes I would rather not see anything else added from WoW.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

um ostia... read my post.

addons take the LEARNINGaway from stuff. I hate WoW addons as ithey corrupted my pc. Sorry a big flashy screen with chims and whistles when mob moves are casting or the infamose "don't stand in the fire" addon.

I know the addon don't play the game for you. They take the challege of learning away. Big different. Like the sims 3 master cheat where you by soot the llama. it don't play the game for you, just takes away the challenge. I've tried WoW addons and I personally hate vent. I much rather have a planing stage, and do the plan. But have a dude scream over his mic what I need to do second by second.

That is stuff I should know after playing my character. I should know what to do and What is needed. Learning these things is part of a games challenge. I don't play Zelda while some guy is telling me out to play it.

Vent and addon take away the challenge in my eyes. Sorry but effient ppl don't need to be told what to so second by second.

[Quanta]

um ostia... read my post.

addons take the LEARNINGaway from stuff. I hate WoW addons as ithey corrupted my pc. Sorry a big flashy screen with chims and whistles when mob moves are casting or the infamose "don't stand in the fire" addon.

I know the addon don't play the game for you. They take the challege of learning away. Big different. Like the sims 3 master cheat where you by soot the llama. it don't play the game for you, just takes away the challenge. I've tried WoW addons and I personally hate vent. I much rather have a planing stage, and do the plan. But have a dude scream over his mic what I need to do second by second.

That is stuff I should know after playing my character. I should know what to do and What is needed. Learning these things is part of a games challenge. I don't play Zelda while some guy is telling me out to play it.

Vent and addon take away the challenge in my eyes. Sorry but effient ppl don't need to be told what to so second by second.

With an ideal group, composed of people who know exactly what they're doing, addons and even Vent are not required--specifically, addons like DBM, which report the boss' supermoves and whatnot.

The reality is a bit more harsh: you will never have an ideal group unless you're one of the top guilds in the world (and even they use addons, because why wouldn't they? Their competition is going to be using them, after all). More often than not, you're going to have to bring a few average or even below-average players with you just because there's no other way to move forward; you can't keep progression frozen forever waiting for the perfect players to show up and fill your spots. This is where addons and Vent will save your bacon: they can help the worst of your group perform at an acceptable level that you can clear content and push forward, or at least give you an idea of where your group's problems lie.