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Why WoW has not fallen?
mastersomrat
Member UncommonPosts: 373
Since Blizzard released World of Warcraft, it has been dubbed with many names like the King, 800 pound gorilla and the like. While I myself also played WoW (for many years) and agree it was a great game and in some respects, remains great, one can't help but to wonder how it is, it hasn't fallen yet.
There are now hundreds of mmo's, with hundred of millions dropped into some and billions dropped into the mmo gaming world.
With this in light; how can it be, with hundreds of companies, experts galore, gaming enthusiast galore, billions spent, and decades to achieve, that Blizzard WoW remains the King (as far as P2P mmo's go)?
When I think about it; there can only be two explanations. One, Blizzards has hired the absolute best gaming experts in the world and paid everyone else off not to assist or work for other companies. Two, there is a secret coalition of developers that have gotten together and decided that regardless of man power, money, ideas, innovations, etc. they will not under any circumstances make a game better than WoW.
imo... ;o)
Comments
Bite Me
The reason WOW has not fallen ... Simple ... it is the benchmark that other gamess are based on. It did what others wanted to do but never did fully and it gave it to the masses.
Simply put
1) it is easy for everyone
2) Fun and enjoyable
3) it will run on almost everythign out there.. no matter how old your system is (and yes I saw it running on a netbook)
Or...
Nostolgia: A game that has been a big part of many peoples lives before MMos weren't over abundant keeps people returning due to familiarity. Those people draw friends and they play and get the same deal.
Its not becuase its the best, because there are plenty of games out there that offer better content then WoW (in some part due to WoW being dated). Its a good game but much of its appeal is Nostogia which they keep drifting further and further from. Its less people getting sick of wow but more so they feel its turning to far from its roots and being diluted. They feel less attached so their desire to play is far weaker then it was. Add in the fact anything they do is so quickly trivialized it makes it hard to really stick to the game.
Its not fallen because it had a good base. No game will EVER match its success unless some major crash occures and the MMO market spirals down. Its virtually impossible to excell in todays market. The last big MMO that really took off was Aion (which, despite not being so popular for the US or EU, is an even larger game then WoW in Asia) and that was some time ago and not to the extent games like Everquest or WoW ate up the market.
The way I see it it's mostly three: the network. Of course the game (besides what many people claim) is still very good, but at this point not really better than many other options around... but what WoW does have that no other game have so far is so many people playing that it reached a point where you are bound to know someone that plays it. If someone is looking to start an MMO, they will most likely go to the one his friends are playing, and by numbers alone we can assume that there are bigger chances of his friends playing WoW than other MMOs, if you're between MMOs, then WoW is a safe choice because you're bound to have friends playing, or if you played before, at the very least some of the friends you made back then will be still playing it.
Back when I did play WoW I can't remember how many times I heard "I like X game better, but all my friends/guild are playing WoW so I'm here as well".
Of course, it also helps that at this point you can probably run it even on a cheap calculator..
What can men do against such reckless hate?
Let me guess you point your nose towards the sky and scoff everytime you see white bread?
Bite Me
Mainly because a huge portion of WoW players are not MMO players, they are only WoW players. They werent around before WoW to experience those games, started playing WoW because its popular and their friends play, and you often wont see very many of them outside of WoW even trying other new MMOs. They typically cant think outside the box that is WoW, and if you actually do see them in other games, whats the 1st thing you see from them "OMG why doesnt this have this thing like WoW, and that thing like WoW. This is stupid. This game sucks. WoW is awesome" even when the game is intentionally very different from WoW.
Just try to picture your typical WoW player ina completely different type of game such as EVE or Darkfall. Think of the reactions they would have just trying to survive a few days in those games. Thats why WoW stays on top.
Along with that, the majority of MMOs released since WoW dont even hide the fact that their game is a direct copy/paste of WoW with a different name and different skin. Millions of people arent going to leave WoW just to play an exact copy of it.
Simple
WoW brought the genre to mainstream. Still not to say it is the only successfull one.
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2
Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
WoW has stayed #1 because of it's cultural label, "WoW". Everytime I say that word it makes me think of WoW. If I see a beautiful sunset at the beach, and breath out, "wow", my mind rushes back to WoW for some reason.
That is the obvious and scientific fact reason that WoW is still #1.
The other day my boyfriend made me say, 'wow!' and guess what happened... you got it... my mind went back to WoW!
SZ
Why do people still watch Michael bay movies?
Sweet Potato Bread here - White bread is for facebook-lurking, obese soccer moms and teen degenerates.
Like humanoid pandas.
Wow has stayed number 1 because of one thing despite what anyone says, Its fun. Thats all it takes, U want people to play your games they can't be jobs they can't be so punishing to make people run away, Games have to be fun thats why they are games and wow is still alot of fun
I recently rolled a warlock for the upteenth time and the new way they did the class is so much fun, Im really having a blast again, I have played for over 6 yrs, I took a breif break for tor which i still like and sub to but wow is still a blast and im still playing, I stayed subbed even when i wasn't playing alot.
That said people on this site rip wow all the time but wow isn't popular because of the white break analogy or because everyone plays it so others played it to play a game with them
People play wow because its fun, Period,
In the reverse of what is seen as the typical Wow player according to a lot on these forums i am a middle aged male with children who has been online gaming since the UK Prestel MUD days (lunch times on the research machines at school). Went through quite a few games over the years with probably my all time favourite being the EA destroyed Earth & Beyond, had a couple of accounts on EvE for a while (next best substitute for E&B) and loved the 0.0 mega battles but it just became a huge life sucking time sink.
I think there is a combination of things that have kept me in Wow for so long now, the way it has taken the best of other MMO's and incorporated it into the game, the social aspects (have made some good friends outside of the game and maintained friendships with those from Eve that came over) as well as the fact that i can switch between play style depending on my mood.
The upshot is that it entertains me for a very minimal cost and it is pretty much as simple as that.
It must be Thursday, i never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Its the total package. It offers everything for a fantasy base mmo and it does most things better then any other mmo out on the market. Couple this with a widely known IP (Warcraft) and one of the best game developers (Blizzard) and you have a game that excels leaps and bounds above the competition.
Blizzard has the best marketing department out there.
If it were to be released now in it's current state it would fail
Wow is living on it's past success as it was for a good few years the best MMO on the planet. It was successful because it combined PvE with PvP allowing high levels to kill low levels which in turn made the world dangerous and when you have a dangerous world you have instant atmosphere. The battles of Redridge will go down in folklore ledgend, Strangelthorn Vale will always be remembered as the most dangerous place to quest where everyone has a story to tell.
Most MMO's are watered down carebear fests where the devs try to make everything fair and even, Blizzard said no and just made it real. I loathe games where you have total balance, I much prefer to have certain classes that you should fear, it all makes for a great experience.
There is obviously thousands of different reasons, from nostalgia, to loving the warcraft ip, to whatnot.
Plus, it´s still a good game with tons of things to offer despite what most of you would love to believe.
The main reason for WoW's initial sucess was that it was a solid well pollished game on release that gained a huge following. This lead to word-of-mouth popularity that grew it further. For many people its become a comfortable habit and especially for those who hadn't played anything else. It has a huge social following and many people still play just to meet with friends.
I think it has finally peaked in popularity, but the decline will be slow due the shear momentem of its huge player base. Also most of the new games are over-hyped so players are disappointed when they don't live up to expectations and return to older favorites like WoW.
I've started playing GW2 and experienced the same rush as when I first played WoW. While this doesn't make it an immediate WoW killer, it will definately be a slow drain on the WoW player base, especially since there is no monthly fee.
I would say Nostalgia, fun, and Love. Think about the MMO world when WOW first released. What was really out? For me I had bounced around from games Like E&B, to Runscape, to some Muds, EQ1, Graal, Illarion. Final Fantasy 11 was the last MMO I played before wow.
I really Liked FF11. I would play that game with a RL friend of mine for hours a day. Then I caught wind of WOW (Pre-battlegrounds.)
Started playing it and fell in Love. The Graphics were cartoony and fun, Questing was awesome, The Dungeons. PVP in Tarren Mill. I enjoyed that when I died I would not lose XP like i did in FF11. And wait..... I can walk through a Zone's Boarder and Not see a load screen? And I can look back and see my friend still standing in the other Zone! thats amazing.
All those plus more really made me fall in Love with WoW.
After awhile the love started to fade. Never Left mind you, but faded a little. Now what kept me playing? The Nostalgia. I would think back to when I was a lower level toon and would do things like bait lvl 60's to attacking me in Winterspring near ever look. Only to run around a small hill where 4-5 of my lvl 60 friends would be waiting to gank the Said 60. We called it Sucker fishing and it was a hell of a lot of fun.
I am sure many people have stories or "Adventures" that they hold close to the heart like i do. And when your WoW love starts to Faulter you often think back to that, and continue to sub. Plus there is new content added about yearly just when the Nostalgia starts to fade. Bringing it back.
Ea is like a poo fingered midas ~ShakyMo