WoW: Expanding the MMO market, or destroying it?

Games
61

There’s a hell of a lot more going on in the cities on roleplaying servers.
I guess PvPers ARE the anti-social fuckheads I generalise them to ;)

Raid content is the biggest problem I have with MMOs. Its very existence,
that is. Having to gather larger-than-group-sized raid parties is a pain they
could bloody well design around. Planetside is a game where spontaneous
raiding can happen because the whole game is just a constant PvP raid.
Gathering 20+ people to kill a series of nasties (or just a dragon) is silly.

So, anyone know what LotRO and Warhammer are planning for the highest
levels? Big PvE raids, or sensibly sized groups that are actually realistic to
build on short notice? If either of those do bravely choose to let casuals
enjoy the highest level content, they get my subscription money.

(A modifiable UI and good social tools would be wonderful, too!)

62

“Mechwarrior Online 3025 was a couple of really great steps in the right direction. Add a character creation screen, customizable mech paintjobs, places to congregate with your House/Clan before and after missions and it’d have kicked major ass.”

That remains my number one game, even if it never came out. Don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun in any game as I had in 3025.

On the OT, I agree that no-one can out-WoW WoW. You’d have to be Blizzard to do it, have five years, millions upon millions, and a publisher that let you, and does anyone have all of those except, well, Blizzard?

What might work is a well-polished, well-designed, innovative game. Not every game has to be DIKU, after all.

63

There’s a hell of a lot more going on in the cities on roleplaying servers.
I guess PvPers ARE the anti-social fuckheads I generalise them to ;)

I lasted about 3 minutes on a PVP-RP server, sticking “thee” and “thou” at the start of every sentence and having a hissy fit because you mentioned Lag doesn’t make you a roleplayer. Maybe I was just unfortunate on that particular server to bump into the people I did, but it sent me scuttling back to the PVE server sharpish.

64

I played a lot of that in its beta (and I guess only) form. It had some potential, but it was just a first step or two. But yeah, I kinda wish it had had a chance to evolve.

65

I agree with HRose. People should consider that not all the people playing WoW won’t want to change their palette to anything new, ever. Isn’t it feasible to think that by the time (not 2007) there’s a new crop of MMO’s with competitive quality and playstyles that a lot of the new entrants in WoW won’t have moved on in life? That is, they’ll either stick to only WoW, or they’ll be sick of of 25-40 person 6-10hr raids and the whole treadmill no matter how slick? I bet there’s a good % of players that if WoW was their first MMO or their first dedicated MMO that they probably will never have that same kind customer advocacy for a similar game again.

66

If you do not have raids, what is a gamer to do at the level cap? Personally, I do not like raids, but I can’t see them being eliminated.

I think the problem is not raids themselves, but the over attention they get from the devs.

I saw a statisic somewhere, I wish I could remember where and exactly what it was, but it was something on the order of only 20% of players in WoW who HAVE 60s actually raid.

That would mean all this content development for the past year by blizzard has been for only 20% of thier audience.

Since WoW came out we have gotten at least 9 raid encounters added (including the out door raid bosses) but only 3 battle grounds added. This would make no sense if that above statisitic is even remotely true since BG are the only alternative to non-raids for a level 60 character once you finish your baisic 60s quests.

67

I got stuck on AD after a friend convinced me to start there, and then promptly quit. It was really bad in the beginning, but I think people just gave up. The guild I’m in doesn’t even bother with the RP stuff, and for that I’m extremely thankful.

68

Is WoW:BC going to have any lower level content or will it all be 60-70 stuff? I would love to start new characters in WoW and bring them through new areas. I am sure, eventually, I will get it so I can get my one 60 through some new content, but, honestly, I have been so disinterested, I know little about what is going on with the “Biggest Expansion Release in the History of the Universe”.

69

I believe that the only new lower level stuff is Lvl 1-20 areas for the two new races.

70

That’s funny, because the game really needs help in the 35-50 region.

71

Er… huh? The sci-fi genre is hugely popular. It’s not like Half-Life, Doom, Command & Conquer, Dawn of War, and the approximately one billion other sci-fi games that have come out over the years are all unsuccessful niche titles. There’s aren’t many sci-fi MMORPGs, but I don’t think there is any sort of genre aversion preventing them from taking off. As others pointed out, if Blizzard had decided to do World of Starcraft, we’d probably be awash in sci-fi WoS clones right now.

Personally, I’d love to see a sci-fi MMORPG. Or even any RPG that wasn’t fantasy. Don’t get me wrong–I love fantasy games–but we already have tons of them in the MMO arena, and I’d like to see more variety. KotOR Online? Yes, please! I think it’s very possible to do good sci-fi combat in an MMORPG. The recent Phantasy Star Universe beta has great combat (it’s actually the only part of the demo that I really liked).

I think that was exactly the problem–the game wasn’t fresh. It was more like WoW with a car theme. As Ry said, If they had done Interstate '76 Online, I’d be so there. An inferior WoW wannabe with little trucks that cast healing spells? Not so much. The game got almost universally bad word of mouth before it launched, so I’m not at all surprised that it tanked. If you want to see an example of an online “CarPG” done right, check out Test Drive Unlimited. It’s not a combat game, and I suspect that they’d need to offer more opportunities for progression (more clothes, more stuff to spend money on, etc.) and a longer progression curve if they wanted to have a monthly fee, but I very much like the concept.

72

I’m looking forward to AoC, I respect Eve Online and I’ve got a very soft spot for SWG. SWG is like the worst relationship I’ve had in my life (I’ve had a pretty uneventful life) but I just keep going back.

But ultimately, I think the future for profitable MMOs won’t be trying to be WoW or to compete with WoW. I suspect as you’ve got McDonalds in the world you’ll find some smart fellows dreaming up better, classier, places that cost more to get into, have better service and demand better behavior and dress codes from the clientele. I can see easily paying the price of a single console game a month, say $60, if that meant going into a single-server MMO with active event staff and a highly managed experience online. Give me West World. I’ll pay.

73

Thanks Indie. I am sure that answer was 2 left mouse clicks away somewhere. Yeah, I’ll probably get it, but I reserve the right to whine about it afterwards in a completely hypocritical fashion.

Agreed. They need to have little mini-expansions like EQ2.

74

Re: Comments on WoW selling because of Blizzard’s name…

I will grant you the Intel sales and interest of WoW was because of the name of the developer. However, anyone who still professes the idea that WoW is still popular is because of the name association of Blizzard is deluding themselves. WoW is as strong as it is today because it is simply a great game.

If Publishers / Developers look at WoW and say “We can’t beat the name recognition of Blizzard, therefore we can not beat WoW.” really do not get it.

Before WoW, it was EQ. There was a lot of speculation that even Blizzard would not dethrone the 800lb gorilla. There were cries about how the US market could not support more then 1,000,000 players total and how EQ had 450k of that.

Then Blizzard came along and proved everybody wrong.

Once again you see the same reports of now how the market has reached its saturation point and the only way to gain subscribers is to take them from someone else. That is total bullshit logic. It has no foundation in any kind of science. I have never seen any kind of science that showed where the real saturation point is. It is all speculation.

I can easily see in 10 years time, that there are 50 million US subscribers to MMO entertainment and people still spouting the fact that any growth will require cannibalization of the market. Ill also see a lot of people buying this line of BS logic without questioning it.

If any company out there wants to make a very profitable MMOG you just need to do one thing plain and simple. It is the same thing every game maker has always had to do.

Just make a game that is clearly better then your competitors. Any excuse you have outside of the problems intrinsic of making a good game are lies you tell yourself, your investors, the press, etc…

You do not need to beat WoW to make a very lucrative MMOG. Just side-step them. Do not make a fantasy genre, swords and sorcery game.

If company X did a super-hero game with the same polish of WoW, you can bet your ass their subscription numbers will be measured in the millions. I am sure a sci-fi genre would also work.

In answer to the OP’s question, as to weather WoW has helped or hindered MMOs:

It has helped tremendously. It has brought it into the main-stream. It has proven to everyone that thought EQ was the immovable object completely, and utterly wrong.

On the bad side:

WoW has become deified, just as EQ had been. Lack of confidence and creativity have spawned dozens of projects which will not innovate, but try and duplicate. These will be a waste of time and money. As I said earlier, you need to make a clearly better game, not an ‘equal to’ or an ambiguously better game.

Wondering where to go? I can tell you from this consumers point of view what I want:

I want a super hero game that is vastly more dynamic then CoX, and at least as dynamic as Freedom Force. I want a rich story line, and I want my actions to matter. I want an end game that isn’t as mindless and pointless as CoX.

I want a FPS-MMOG better then Planet Side. I want dynamic environments. I want capturing bases to really matter. I want capturing continents to really matter. I want to ‘win’ or ‘lose’. I do not want a static world. I want a much, much richer character development system. I want it designed so that team-play is required, and zerg offense is nothing more then an exercise in futility.

I want an RTS MMOG. So little has been done here. The only rules I require are that the game can be won or lost. No giant static RTS games can never be resolved.

I want the ultimate FPS-RTS-MMOG game.

I want a space MMOG with an epic story line and is heavy on the exploration factor and low on the grind factor. I want factions that are very different. I want weird shit to happen. Rifts to other dimensions, a general invasion by the bogey man race, I want very different / flavorful classes. I really liked the explorer class in E&B, make a much less gimped version of one of those. I like the spirituality aspect of the Quantar in Jumpgate. I want player projects, such as starbases, capitol ships, and the whole nine yards. Yes I know that Eve has some of this, but is lacking the whole adventure aspect and is far to grindy.

75

The problem with the 35-50 leveling is that for most players it just doesn’t take that long, so making new content for it is making content for a minority of the players. It makes more sense to make high level content. Players will get more use out of it.

That said, I’d like to see Blizzard shuffle around the old instances a bit. There are five – Scholo, Strat, Dire Maul, and Upper and Lower Blackrock Depths that aren’t going to get the same kind of play they once got. These are the non-raid level 60 instances, and most of us played them many times. Now players will simply push on to the new zones in Burning Crusades at level 60 and either just do these once or skip them entirely.

This gives Blizzard the opportunity to retune all the level 40-60 instances and space them out a bit. There’s no reason that Dire Maul and Scholomance, for example, can’t be mid-50’s instances, or even lower 50’s. Maybe they can bump down Mauradon and Sunken Temple to lower levels and space out the other instances to fill the gap. Heck, I’d even go so far as to remove a bit of content from all these to shorten them a bit. I think players want 60-90 minute instances rather than 2-3 hour instances.

76

I think the new difficulty system allows you to play old instances scaled up to your level or something. Even if it’s just “Deadmines with all mobs at level 70”, that’s something to do.

77

And I still think that’s not the right perspective.

You can make a game in a different genre that feels even more repetitive and dull. The problem isn’t the genre, but the interpretation.

The fantasy, as a genre, has still a lot to say. WoW does very little for the fantasy genre. It’s an extremely superficial point of view on what the genre IS and can deliver.

In this case even the same fantasy genre is PERFECT to bring innovation and games that feel different and are more deep. Exactly because I think it’s easy to think it in different, more interesting forms.

It isn’t possible to outgrow WoW and make a bigger, more polished version of it. But it is possible to take the Warcraft universe and paint it in a different way that can be competitive.

It’s not a problem of genres. It’s a problem of ideas and vision. It’s a problem of the lack of a mmorpg design culture. Every other genre is more alive, vibrant and interesting than the mmorpg genre.

And that’s definitely a paradox.

78

No it doesn’t. None of the old areas will be retrofit. Instead some of the new dungeons will have a normal and a difficult mode. Apparently some of the non-70 level dungeons in hard mode will be about the equivalent of the L70 normal dungeons and the L70 hard mode will be obviously the hardest things in the game. There doesn’t look to be any retrofitting going on.

For whatever reason Blizzard is abysmally slow at producing new content in comparison to the other games out there.

79

Very well said. I don’t think you’re a freak – and if you are, I am too (and given that this is QT3, odds are good we both are). One of WoW’s key strengths for me is how well it serves as a substitute for single-player CRPGs. You have to group to see the dungeons and raids, but there’s more content for a solo player than you can find in any other MMO. And it looks better, sounds better, and has more amusing dialog than any of the others as well.

80

It could have something to do with the “quality” people use to describe most of the content in WoW.