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Topic: World of Warcraft popularity
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Mortalis3
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I didnt want to go off topic for the SWTOR thread but a comment within that thread made me wonder.
What is it that has made WoW so popular?
What does WoW have now that others do not offer. There really isnt anything new (original) that WoW introduced that I can really point to and say, "Hey, I want to play this game because of..." and especially want to players to stick around for.
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Sworks1
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Mortalis3 posted:
I didnt want to go off topic for the SWTOR thread but a comment within that thread made me wonder.
What is it that has made WoW so popular?
What does WoW have now that others do not offer. There really isnt anything new (original) that WoW introduced that I can really point to and say, "Hey, I want to play this game because of..." and especially want to players to stick around for.
I personally think it was more about the company that put it out vs. the game itself. MMOs were a niche, Blizzard already had a HUGE following for their games, so when they release a MMO there already a huge base for the game. People that would have never paid monthly for an MMO were now willing because it was a Blizzard game.
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Seffrid
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Partly the company and its established playerbase - and the demographics of that playerbase - and also the fact that they took all the tried and tested features of MMOs, dropped the bits that didn't work and assembled in one game all the bits that did work in an extremely polished way.
The shame is that they then dumbed the whole thing down to the point where many players of other MMOs now find it impossibly tedious to play WoW while its own players flatter other games by trying them out but can't stick to them beyond a few days because they can't cope with a normal MMO, let alone an old school one.
That game really does have an awful lot to answer for, and the shame is that if you could tolerate the cartoony graphics it really was a decent game to begin with.
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Ravynmagi
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I think it's choice of animation style is a big reason. They went with a bright, cartoonish, fun look that appeals to a very large age range and types of people. The graphics are simpler, so even as you turn down the settings for lower end computers the game still looks pretty good. And since it didn't go for the cutting edge realistic look, even as the game ages, the graphic style still looks relevant and modern (and they do update the engine and add features regularly).
I think this bright, colorful, cartoon style really appealed to a lot of people, even a lot more than ever really cared about the Warcraft name.
And Blizzard seemed to have the resources to make sure the game was fairly polished when it was released and remains that way.
Geez, now I want to start playing it again. Haha.
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Sworks1
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Seffrid posted:
Partly the company and its established playerbase - and the demographics of that playerbase - and also the fact that they took all the tried and tested features of MMOs, dropped the bits that didn't work and assembled in one game all the bits that did work in an extremely polished way.
The shame is that they then dumbed the whole thing down to the point where many players of other MMOs now find it impossibly tedious to play WoW while its own players flatter other games by trying them out but can't stick to them beyond a few days because they can't cope with a normal MMO, let alone an old school one.
That game really does have an awful lot to answer for, and the shame is that if you could tolerate the cartoony graphics it really was a decent game to begin with.
I agree but didn't want to start down the WOW dumbed down the MMO genre road
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Sprawl-zero1eye-
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Not to completely over simplify it, because I believe many factors played a role, but ultimately it's the right company at the right place at the right time.
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-Mithan-
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Subject:
World of Warcraft popularity
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Mortalis3 posted:
I didnt want to go off topic for the SWTOR thread but a comment within that thread made me wonder.
What is it that has made WoW so popular?
What does WoW have now that others do not offer. There really isnt anything new (original) that WoW introduced that I can really point to and say, "Hey, I want to play this game because of..." and especially want to players to stick around for.
If you played earlier games, it is easy to see why WoW kicked ass.
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Marzuk
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Subject:
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-Mithan- posted:
If you played earlier games, it is easy to see why WoW kicked ass.
Or later games. So many feel sluggish / have poor UIs (no excuse for that imo). Many shoot so high with their graphics that they have performance issues or lack a consistent art style as well. AoC had a nearly 30gb install if memory serves, and the UI looked like something out of a 10 year old MMO. Really, 30gb and you cant even make a decent interface?
You can't just make a poor copy of WoW and then expect it to do well. Sure any random company can throw together a solo questing theme park MMO, but when its inferior in terms of quality why would I want to play it. I'd say its not so much that WoW kicked ass but that other games failed to get even the obvious correct.
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Quazimortal
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Subject:
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Marzuk posted:
I'd say its not so much that WoW kicked ass but that other games failed to get even the obvious correct.
That's pretty much the whole of it.
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-Aleister-
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Subject:
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Quazimortal posted:
Marzuk posted:
I'd say its not so much that WoW kicked ass but that other games failed to get even the obvious correct.
That's pretty much the whole of it.
Given the goal to sell boxes and hold subscriptions... some decisions the past few years have been flabbergasting. They don't have to cater to me for me to appreciate their game as a solid release... but I can count on one hand the releases that didn't have big time issues that should have been obvious to whoever was funding them.
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Karsus_the_Great
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Subject:
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Seffrid posted:
Partly the company and its established playerbase - and the demographics of that playerbase - and also the fact that they took all the tried and tested features of MMOs, dropped the bits that didn't work and assembled in one game all the bits that did work in an extremely polished way.
The shame is that they then dumbed the whole thing down to the point where many players of other MMOs now find it impossibly tedious to play WoW while its own players flatter other games by trying them out but can't stick to them beyond a few days because they can't cope with a normal MMO, let alone an old school one.
That game really does have an awful lot to answer for, and the shame is that if you could tolerate the cartoony graphics it really was a decent game to begin with.
There is your answer.
I quit that game so many times only to get dragged kicking and screaming back in. I have been gone for a long time now and wont be back. It's just been dumbed down waaay too much for me now.
For me it was Asheron's Call for many years before WoW, and EVE for years during and after that. IMO part of what blizzard successful is they always release polished and finished material. Other than the original launch, I dont recall them ever really releasing anything bug ridden or anything like that.
Oh, and I firmly believe, all successful MMO's are about 70-80% solo content and the rest is group oriented. WoW seems to fit in that and so does alot of the big MMO's.
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IvanDF
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Subject:
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I think what got wow through the first year of bugs and glitches was the warcraft theme. after that it was it's ability to play on damn near any computer, and lots of people used it as a social network, which brought lots of casual players.
I could never stay in the game until they put in the dungeon finder. I can not stand playing a MMO to only do solo quests, it's a freaking MMO play with other people!
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Marzuk
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Of course the dungeon finder was an interesting solution, but it just went one step further into making the game Diablo 2. I've joked for some time that Diablo 2 was the MMORPG that most people say they want, even though the reaction people had was usually... pretty typical of VN.
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Motar98
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Subject:
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polished game
classes all felt unique and catered to very different play styles
end game that guaranteed people had something to do once they hit max lvl
system req were low enough that everyone could play it
large warcraft fan base to start
really they just didn't mess up any aspects of the game
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Ravynmagi
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Subject:
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Motar98 posted:
classes all felt unique and catered to very different play styles
Oh that reminds me. I love how solo friendly every WOW class is. I can pick whatever play style I want and not feel gimped. And whatever I choose I didn't have to deal with downtime.
Coming from DAOC where most classes had retarded downtime unless you bought a second account and strapped a bot character to your ass. Argh, Mythic!
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Sworks1
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Ravynmagi posted:
Motar98 posted:
classes all felt unique and catered to very different play styles
Oh that reminds me. I love how solo friendly every WOW class is. I can pick whatever play style I want and not feel gimped. And whatever I choose I didn't have to deal with downtime.
Coming from DAOC where most classes had retarded downtime unless you bought a second account and strapped a bot character to your ass. Argh, Mythic!
LOL unless you played EQ, you have no concept of down time
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Lonestar_1
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wow 
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Seffrid
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Subject:
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Sworks1 posted:
LOL unless you played EQ, you have no concept of down time
Ain't that the truth!
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Nakal
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Sworks1 posted:
Ravynmagi posted:
Motar98 posted:
classes all felt unique and catered to very different play styles
Oh that reminds me. I love how solo friendly every WOW class is. I can pick whatever play style I want and not feel gimped. And whatever I choose I didn't have to deal with downtime. Coming from DAOC where most classes had retarded downtime unless you bought a second account and strapped a bot character to your ass. Argh, Mythic!
LOL unless you played EQ, you have no concept of down time
I think I timed it once, It took like 20 minutes or more for my health to regenerate as a max level warrior (this was during the Vellious expansion mind you..)
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Sworks1
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Subject:
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Nakal posted:
Sworks1 posted:
Ravynmagi posted:
Motar98 posted:
classes all felt unique and catered to very different play styles
Oh that reminds me. I love how solo friendly every WOW class is. I can pick whatever play style I want and not feel gimped. And whatever I choose I didn't have to deal with downtime. Coming from DAOC where most classes had retarded downtime unless you bought a second account and strapped a bot character to your ass. Argh, Mythic!
LOL unless you played EQ, you have no concept of down time
I think I timed it once, It took like 20 minutes or more for my health to regenerate as a max level warrior (this was during the Vellious expansion mind you..)
Try staring at the spell book
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Nakal
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Gah, yeah I remember those days too. My poor druid lol. It was easier as a necro
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Setharion
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For me, its all timing.
WoW was a product of absolutely perfect timing. It came out right about when the big 3 were fading in popularity, EQ was amazing and i loved that game to death but i got lost in the huge guilds and i think only the HARDCORE guilds and members around 04 were really rockin things, but i feel EQ was sort of thinning out in popularity around that time.
Asherons Call was another that was big, but Turbine didnt really give the game the longevity it needed and by 04 i think AC was pretty down and out.
And then DAOC, the love of my MMO life...started off fierce and just amazingly. But they really hurt things badly with killing off Emain, ToA wasnt really what the game needed, and i feel they dropped it for WAR way to quick which again was around the time WoW was coming out.
And i think "so" many people were eagerly waiting for that next big thing, WoW was on the way and i think the timing was impecable...everyone jumped aboard and i think the popularity is also because nothing has been good enough to trump it in a large large way.
Ive been through so many MMOs and of course all have their good and bad, but nothing has given me years of enjoyment like the old original pioneer MMOs.
So in my opinion timing was really what made WoW what it is and it just built from there, the popularity i think was just meant to be with that game.
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Marzuk
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I think one of the biggest problems with DAOC was that the vocal minority thought that RvR was so great, where the majority thought it was crap and avoided it. Looking at the stats demonstrated that while most people had multiple 50s / maxed crafters etc, few people went beyond RR3 or so. After RR5 it really thinned out, even though you could get to it pretty easily.
People only RvR'd for RAs / character advancement. I recall a time when RPs were not being granted, and no one bothered to go out.
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Sworks1
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Setharion posted:
For me, its all timing.
WoW was a product of absolutely perfect timing. It came out right about when the big 3 were fading in popularity, EQ was amazing and i loved that game to death but i got lost in the huge guilds and i think only the HARDCORE guilds and members around 04 were really rockin things, but i feel EQ was sort of thinning out in popularity around that time.
Asherons Call was another that was big, but Turbine didnt really give the game the longevity it needed and by 04 i think AC was pretty down and out.
And then DAOC, the love of my MMO life...started off fierce and just amazingly. But they really hurt things badly with killing off Emain, ToA wasnt really what the game needed, and i feel they dropped it for WAR way to quick which again was around the time WoW was coming out.
And i think "so" many people were eagerly waiting for that next big thing, WoW was on the way and i think the timing was impecable...everyone jumped aboard and i think the popularity is also because nothing has been good enough to trump it in a large large way.
Ive been through so many MMOs and of course all have their good and bad, but nothing has given me years of enjoyment like the old original pioneer MMOs.
So in my opinion timing was really what made WoW what it is and it just built from there, the popularity i think was just meant to be with that game.
I'd have to disagree it was timing because of the numbers. You could take all of the players from EQ, AC, UO, DAOC and it wouldn't add up to the numbers WoW had. MMOs were still very much a niche. The name Blizzard is what brought in the numbers plain and simple.
People keep saying that was was such a great game and that's why it succeeded. But if you look at the market then, had WoW been released by another studio that didn't have the player base Blizzard had, do you really think it would have done as well?
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Sworks1
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Setharion posted:
For me, its all timing.
WoW was a product of absolutely perfect timing. It came out right about when the big 3 were fading in popularity, EQ was amazing and i loved that game to death but i got lost in the huge guilds and i think only the HARDCORE guilds and members around 04 were really rockin things, but i feel EQ was sort of thinning out in popularity around that time.
Asherons Call was another that was big, but Turbine didnt really give the game the longevity it needed and by 04 i think AC was pretty down and out.
And then DAOC, the love of my MMO life...started off fierce and just amazingly. But they really hurt things badly with killing off Emain, ToA wasnt really what the game needed, and i feel they dropped it for WAR way to quick which again was around the time WoW was coming out.
And i think "so" many people were eagerly waiting for that next big thing, WoW was on the way and i think the timing was impecable...everyone jumped aboard and i think the popularity is also because nothing has been good enough to trump it in a large large way.
Ive been through so many MMOs and of course all have their good and bad, but nothing has given me years of enjoyment like the old original pioneer MMOs.
So in my opinion timing was really what made WoW what it is and it just built from there, the popularity i think was just meant to be with that game.
I'd have to disagree it was timing because of the numbers. You could take all of the players from EQ, AC, UO, DAOC and it wouldn't add up to the numbers WoW had. MMOs were still very much a niche. The name Blizzard is what brought in the numbers plain and simple.
People keep saying that was was such a great game and that's why it succeeded. But if you look at the market then, had WoW been released by another studio that didn't have the player base Blizzard had, do you really think it would have done as well?
It's just like SWTOR, how many times I've read it wont suck cause its BioWare. BioWare has its fans. Personally I think DA2 sucked compared to the original and BioWare has no experience with MMOs. But there are people that will buy it just because it say BioWare on the box.
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Lonestar_1
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Sworks1 posted:
It's just like SWTOR, how many times I've read it wont suck cause its BioWare. BioWare has its fans. Personally I think DA2 sucked compared to the original and BioWare has no experience with MMOs. But there are people that will buy it just because it say BioWare on the box.
From all the descriptions I have been told, was that SWTOR is more like a KOTOR with multiplayer options then like a WoW type game. Lots of campaign story etc...
Marzuk posted:
I think one of the biggest problems with DAOC was that the vocal minority thought that RvR was so great, where the majority thought it was crap and avoided it. Looking at the stats demonstrated that while most people had multiple 50s / maxed crafters etc, few people went beyond RR3 or so. After RR5 it really thinned out, even though you could get to it pretty easily.
People only RvR'd for RAs / character advancement. I recall a time when RPs were not being granted, and no one bothered to go out.
Partly people RvR'd for RA's. I know plenty that just went out for a good time to RvR. RvR was hell of a lot more fun then ToA. And I farmed the hell out of ToA and other areas. The only thing that made ToA bearable was our group(s). RvR was still the best thing DAOC had going, before and after ToA (even today probably).
Early days it took a long time to reach RR5. That changed and later patches after ToA you could reach RR5 in a couple of days.
Taking mythic's other mmo. Reason War failed so hard was that after racing to tier4 there was little content and the RvR was not that good (too much balance and other issues). Game just got less fun the higher the tier. If they spent more time fleshing that out before hand it would of had a better lasting appeal.
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Marzuk
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Early days, 10-15 days /played was decent to get a character to 50 (short of very unusual circumstances). On the other hand, you could hit RR3 in a week of RvR just going out a couple hours a night at prime time, and easily hit RR5 in a few weeks. Compared to the time it took to get a character to 50, it was trivial.
And yet, so many people had multiple 50s, and so few statistically had > RR5.
The information that was available at the time was overwhelming in demonstrating that as the advancement slowed, people stopped doing it entirely. Even RR5 was a bit of an oddity, especially before the RR5 class ability was added.
Prior to RAs, 50 people (total!) was considered "zergy" on one of the most populated servers. Once the treadmill was added though, participation went up, but only until people stopped gaining new abilities. RR6 was pretty much single digit territory per server per realm IIRC. Think about that. As stated RR5 was pretty easy to hit. RR6 on the other hand while only being double RR5, had dramatically fewer players who had achieved it.
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VN-Half-Elf
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World of Warcraft popularity
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Back when WoW came out in 2004, it was quite simply an amazing game in terms of zone design, the cartoonish artwork style, and the easy questing system. The original leveling 1-60 experience was incredible, especially on PvP servers before battlegrounds when large battles would occur just for fun. You were not forced to group just to hit max level, which for us ex-AC players here at IGN was a major selling point. That set up alone was enough to keep many of us entertained for years.
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Setharion
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World of Warcraft popularity
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Sworks1 posted:
Setharion posted:
For me, its all timing.
WoW was a product of absolutely perfect timing. It came out right about when the big 3 were fading in popularity, EQ was amazing and i loved that game to death but i got lost in the huge guilds and i think only the HARDCORE guilds and members around 04 were really rockin things, but i feel EQ was sort of thinning out in popularity around that time.
Asherons Call was another that was big, but Turbine didnt really give the game the longevity it needed and by 04 i think AC was pretty down and out.
And then DAOC, the love of my MMO life...started off fierce and just amazingly. But they really hurt things badly with killing off Emain, ToA wasnt really what the game needed, and i feel they dropped it for WAR way to quick which again was around the time WoW was coming out.
And i think "so" many people were eagerly waiting for that next big thing, WoW was on the way and i think the timing was impecable...everyone jumped aboard and i think the popularity is also because nothing has been good enough to trump it in a large large way.
Ive been through so many MMOs and of course all have their good and bad, but nothing has given me years of enjoyment like the old original pioneer MMOs.
So in my opinion timing was really what made WoW what it is and it just built from there, the popularity i think was just meant to be with that game.
I'd have to disagree it was timing because of the numbers. You could take all of the players from EQ, AC, UO, DAOC and it wouldn't add up to the numbers WoW had. MMOs were still very much a niche. The name Blizzard is what brought in the numbers plain and simple.
People keep saying that was was such a great game and that's why it succeeded. But if you look at the market then, had WoW been released by another studio that didn't have the player base Blizzard had, do you really think it would have done as well?
Well, the reason i say timing is also because popularity traveled. I think that on top of the "coolness" factor for alot of the kids hitting abour 12-15 years old around 2004.
Think about it, if there was lets say 8 million people playing MMOs combined and a good 5-7 million stopped and went straight to Blizzards game, and the game was solid too so it wasnt a bad game by any means...the word of mouth spreading, the friends getting friends to play, the new crowd of younger kids coming up....its all timing.
Blizzard is also a part, i mean im not sure if my post gave off the impression it wasnt Blizzard...i mean Blizzards game itself did it, but they timed it perfectly...i dont see what would be wrong with that.
All those players playing WoW built over the years, the numbers they have now im sure wasnt a day 1 number...i know there was alot but theyve continued to grow. The combonation of a good MMO, the death of many other MMOs at the same time and Blizzards name on it, to me is what made WoW the juggernaut that it is.
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