World of Warcraft was the first MMO 10 million people played.
Nothing any game company can do will change that and nothing they do will make those people stop seeing WoW as their first and original MMO experience.
You want 10 mill subs in a game? Figure out how to get 10 million new people in to the MMO sphere. Suckhole to the Chinese Government, that's where most WoW gamers are located.
Just one question thats off topic but always on topic. Why is WoW the only mmorpg or game in general that spits out reports.
When every mmorpg came out they had a lot of numbers logged in. You only see games saying hey we hit X subs or players. But WoW is the only game that puts out major numbers. You can report what ever you want to. But no one thought to think maybe its just fake numbers. 10m subs. You telling me they are making 150m every year but can't put out games. Or give better stuff. (I my self hope Over watch comes out right) You make that much money why is Heros of the storm not in open beta. But yet you are making people pay to get into the beta when you are the money king company. Seems like they are feeding people but making it where you have to give them money then trap you into something haha idk. Just my thoughts. People always think what they read over the Internet or what someone tells them is correct. This is no better then listening to the media lie to us.
So i guess my question is where is other Pay to play games where are the numbers they have. Even free games still have subs. So why are they not reporting anything? Anyone have an idea. I mean I am not here to flame or whatever i am just a guy asking the right questions. Someone will see this and get all butt hurt and fell the need to say something silly that will not be a educated answer and I shall laugh. But to the guy that will give me some real feed back thank you sir.
I don't think the numbers are made up. How they are choosing to count the number of players they have may not be clear, but I honestly don't see how that is relevant either.
If any other game hit that number of players, even with non-paying trial accounts, you'd bet they would report it. A number like that does wonders for marketing, as a lot of people want to try something popular just to see what the fuss is about. The fact that none of these other games boast about their numbers is perhaps because there's nothing to boast about.
It's hard to pull people from wow if you spend so many years in wow. What are other mmo doing? making people level again from start in a big grind, then if you get disappointed at max level and just makes it harder and harder to just leave wow, But not sure if there getting mass of new players then old players that played be for.
Originally posted by Bladestrom There are more players playing other MMO than wow. Don't worry about the dinasaur, let it plod along while the majority have fun with more modern games.
WoW right now is the most modern MMO... unfortunately.
There something wrong when MMO trying to appeal the social gaming crowd by integrating stuff like selfie and Twitter. It's open up a whole new can of worms.
Wow! You guys just don't get the secret of the success of WoW.
No matter how many words you might use, no other MMORPG offers more for the majority than WoW. It's like sitting back waiting for Wal-Mart to go out of business!?! I do not understand why it is so hard for anyone to realize that 'modern MMO's' basically structure themselves around two or maybe three niche features (PvP, Graphics, Gameplay), whereas WoW has ten to fifteen Wow Features!
*Mounts
*Crafting (Barely a grind -a profession, not a career... simplistic.)
*Raiding (unlike RIFT where most players never make it to the second Tier)
*Daily Reward System
*Chat (Not a second thought but a first one)
*100% WASD
*On-The-Fly combat discipline change (A healer can press one button and become a tank.)
*Events
*Graphics that can run on a 386 processor
*'Just the right size' Open World
*Rich Story line
*'Zero to Hero' capability
*So easy to play, a five year old can grasp the basics
*PvP if you wanna
*PvP if you dare
*PvP cause you cant stop meh
*Mounts, Mounts, Mounts
*I look like you but you don't look like me gear
-Best Expansion: Wrath of The Liche King
-Worse Expansion: Cataclysm
Free to Play (up to level XX)
I don't play WoW. It's not for me. Ignorance is the biggest problem with WoW haters. If you ever played, I get it... you outgrew it, wonderful. Does this make it bad because you mind has gained the ultimate WoW achievement?!?
*You have been playing for a long time and just earned the infamous Lifetime Title: Non-Subscriber
Wow! You guys just don't get the secret of the success of WoW.
No matter how many words you might use, no other MMORPG offers more for the majority than WoW. It's like sitting back waiting for Wal-Mart to go out of business!?! I do not understand why it is so hard for anyone to realize that 'modern MMO's' basically structure themselves around two or maybe three niche features (PvP, Graphics, Gameplay), whereas WoW has ten to fifteen Wow Features!
*Mounts
*Crafting (Barely a grind -a profession, not a career... simplistic.)
*Raiding (unlike RIFT where most players never make it to the second Tier)
*Daily Reward System
*Chat (Not a second thought but a first one)
*100% WASD
*On-The-Fly combat discipline change (A healer can press one button and become a tank.)
*Events
*Graphics that can run on a 386 processor
*'Just the right size' Open World
*Rich Story line
*'Zero to Hero' capability
*So easy to play, a five year old can grasp the basics
*PvP if you wanna
*PvP if you dare
*PvP cause you cant stop meh
*Mounts, Mounts, Mounts
*I look like you but you don't look like me gear
-Best Expansion: Wrath of The Liche King
-Worse Expansion: Cataclysm
Free to Play (up to level XX)
I don't play WoW. It's not for me. Ignorance is the biggest problem with WoW haters. If you ever played, I get it... you outgrew it, wonderful. Does this make it bad because you mind has gained the ultimate WoW achievement?!?
*You have been playing for a long time and just earned the infamous Lifetime Title: Non-Subscriber
Wear it well.
Can't for get LFR, helping a ton there to keep people that can't raid that elite core, still see the content and not end up waiting next level cap to see it.
Blizzard/WoW did even inspire Crowfalls art direction when LOTRO would have bveen so much better!
Well, i am out of the genre anyway for how much time soever...dont see anything living up the Hype.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
There is only 1 secret to WoWs success - its made by Blizzard!
Really - there is NOTHING else but some good timing back when they released.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
Online gaming is not reality but it is a reality for anyone with imagination. Online gaming, even FPS based, have traditionally been a place where people could communicate and exchange cultures, ideas, stories, experiences and the like.
I've said this years ago, 'Online games are nothing more than modernized chat lines.'
We can mask our intent, inept, or masterful skills at communicating but the bottom line is we all end up in town asking questions, forming friendships and passing time. It's much safer than the other world we live in and the drawbacks are not even on the same scale as the real world.
Gaming is nothing more than a social skill builder and a place to share a life with another without the fault of judging a book by it's cover. Players unite from across the globe in a single place to experience the most for the least of risk. This has been the blood of online gaming and the backbone of the internet.
So... your skills are honed, you have mastered an avocation and perhaps gained all the infamy possible in a game... How is your real world coming along?
Call it a day? There are plenty of good themepark games, unfortunately most people can't see that and only think of WoW because it's the most popular. As I've always said about pretty much anything, just because something is popular or successful doesn't make it the best or sometimes even good. The music billboard is a perfect example of this. To me, Blizzard is like the Apple Inc. of games. They're good at marketing and business and making themselves and anything they make look like gold even if it's nothing special underneath. Maybe WoW was a great game once upon a time (I wouldn't really know) but the WoW I have played and seen today is bland, boring, uninspired, and lacks what I would consider a challenging endgame. The raids and boss mechanics have been dumbed down to where a 5 year old could do them. They're a joke even compared to LOTRO's raids back in OD and ROI. There's still games like FFXIV that have pretty damn hardcore raids. So why should we call it a day? I won't lie and say I'm not annoyed that WoW is so successful. I wouldn't mind it so much if other good games were just as successful or at least more successful than they are so they don't wind up going F2P. But companies do this, either out of greed or to make a quick few bucks before the game completely tanks. But I'm going to keep supporting and playing other MMOs if they have what I want (a good endgame, plenty of depth and class customization, a fun and interesting combat system, decent graphics, a believable immersive world and environment, to name a few). I for one, will never play WoW (and probably any Blizzard games after how bad Diablo 3 was) and I always try to get any friends I know that do to try to open their eyes and broaden their horizons. I won't give up on the MMORPG genre just because WoW is the most successful. Not yet.
Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
Why WoW still has so many players who still plays a 10 year old game can be linked with people who have been in prison for very long time, some have problems handle being free with so many choices, they were used to have a strict daily rutine for so many years that they cant handle it outside the walls so either they commit suicide or start drinking and doing drugs to numb every feeling they have or do anything to get back to prison to a world they know.
I think this is why so many WoW players keep returning to WoW, they try new MMOs, either It's not like WoW, It's to open, to much sandboxy, to "alien" gameplay for them that they just cant handle the changes or It's a subpar WoW clone so they return to a world they know best....WoW.
The person who wins the decathlon is often considered the best athlete. This person very rarely wins all the events. Most often they do place high in all the events and so come out with a better score than everyone else.
Whether you personally like it or not wow places high in virtually every category.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I don't think there is only one reason for WoW's continued success. I'm sure all the reasons posted on this thread apply at least to some subscribers.
I just don't understand the desire to bash on WoW, or rub it's perceived success in people's faces for that matter. I get that WoW's financial success has made it THE MODEL to emulate from a business stand point, which partly caused the last 10 years to be void of true diversity and options in the MMO genre. But that's not Blizzard's fault. They weren't expecting the success they had either, and like any good business they've built on it in ways that has worked for them.
Perhaps we also need to consider that the last 10 years, or rather the last 20 years, have been transformative in the world in general. The place of computers, digital electronics, and the internet in our daily lives continues to shift in both subtle and significant ways. Along with that, the place of games in this excedingly interconnected world has changed, from being simply a form of entertainment to being a work of art, to then becoming another facet of social connectivity and communication. For better or worse, companies adjust their products to better match the market's demands, and that market is ever-changing.
WoW has held on to it's position in spite of losing players (me included) along the way, for many reasons. I just think that the state of the MMO genre, in so far as things are bad, can be blamed on many things as well, not just WoW's success.
Just one question thats off topic but always on topic. Why is WoW the only mmorpg or game in general that spits out reports.
When every mmorpg came out they had a lot of numbers logged in. You only see games saying hey we hit X subs or players. But WoW is the only game that puts out major numbers. You can report what ever you want to. But no one thought to think maybe its just fake numbers. 10m subs. You telling me they are making 150m every year but can't put out games. Or give better stuff. (I my self hope Over watch comes out right) You make that much money why is Heros of the storm not in open beta. But yet you are making people pay to get into the beta when you are the money king company. Seems like they are feeding people but making it where you have to give them money then trap you into something haha idk. Just my thoughts. People always think what they read over the Internet or what someone tells them is correct. This is no better then listening to the media lie to us.
So i guess my question is where is other Pay to play games where are the numbers they have. Even free games still have subs. So why are they not reporting anything? Anyone have an idea. I mean I am not here to flame or whatever i am just a guy asking the right questions. Someone will see this and get all butt hurt and fell the need to say something silly that will not be a educated answer and I shall laugh. But to the guy that will give me some real feed back thank you sir.
This is like asking why microsoft dont' give away the new windows for free since they make trillions of profits.
Because it's a business.
End of the day, WoW is the best mmo that exists for the majority of MMO gamers. They would not throw their money and time at it if they thought otherwise (and no it's not time invested or habit because ffxi had 500k subs and now barely has 100k), there is a mass amount of choice now. There is no benchmark of BEST anyway because best is opinion, many people say ffxiv has great graphics but the style of them is an eye sore to many players so again best means what the majority see as the best.
The amazing combat and top of genre graphics of Tera didn't dent hurt wow, the pretty graphics of ffxiv didn't hurt it, the fast content updates of rift didn't dent it, the fixing of all the mmorpg complaints of Gw2 (end to trinity etc) didn't, nor did the amazing budget and story of swtor. All those things only gave all those titles a niche audience.
WoW is the king of mmorpg titles and that ain't gonna change for a very, very long time. Even when they get behind all they have to do is minor things like the recent character revamp to remain top of the hill.
End of the day, even if you hate wow you should love it. Because if not for the WoW all the other mmorpg titles would not of been given the go ahead of given the massive budgets they were.
Blizzard is giving their fanbase what they want...
-a mever-ending gear chase
-PvE content
-raids
-more PvE content
-smooth combat controls, which have dominated the genre. This is where I think other MMO studios have failed to understand how important smooth combat controls & smooth animation is
-accessibility, low computing requirement
-no annoying cash shop baits, it's very nice to pay $15 a month and not get nickel & dimed on every little thing you do ingame. SOE/Daybreak games are notorious for nickel & diming their playerbase with heavy cash shop items
-a return to wacraft, like the new garrisons feature in WoD expansion, have to give them credit for thinking this one up because it really helped them draw their fanbase back
-updates to their character models, zone graphics, and engines. Worth noting SOE never did that for Everquest, instead they created a second Everquest and now on the way to creating a 3rd. Blizzard was not dumb enough to segregate their playerbase by making a WoW 2, instead they focused on upgrading 1 game and it's paying off for them. In other words, they make their fanbase happy by giving them what they want.
They failed hardcore at designing Ashran, and PvP balance as a whole is a mess this expansion. As a PvP player I was really disappointed to see what they've done for PvP. But as a MMO gamer, I see what they've done right also. PvE is Blizzard's bread & butter, it's what draws them the crowds. Everything I've mentioned above draws the players to them and why they continue to be the largest MMO in the U.S.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
¨The king¨ in this case, is just a point of view, like the 10 mill of subs. Most of the Western MMOs do not play on the Asian Market, So if you wanna make a fair comparision with Western MMOs, you cant take the asian numbers, and it WoW case, is pretty much 70-80% of the 10 Mill of subs Lie.
Like someone said, there is more people not playing WoW, than actually, playing it. The only people who play the game is the same playerbase that have been playing it for the last 10 years. For them, yes, it is the king.
I don't think there is only one reason for WoW's continued success. I'm sure all the reasons posted on this thread apply at least to some subscribers.
I just don't understand the desire to bash on WoW, or rub it's perceived success in people's faces for that matter. I get that WoW's financial success has made it THE MODEL to emulate from a business stand point, which partly caused the last 10 years to be void of true diversity and options in the MMO genre. But that's not Blizzard's fault. They weren't expecting the success they had either, and like any good business they've built on it in ways that has worked for them.
Perhaps we also need to consider that the last 10 years, or rather the last 20 years, have been transformative in the world in general. The place of computers, digital electronics, and the internet in our daily lives continues to shift in both subtle and significant ways. Along with that, the place of games in this excedingly interconnected world has changed, from being simply a form of entertainment to being a work of art, to then becoming another facet of social connectivity and communication. For better or worse, companies adjust their products to better match the market's demands, and that market is ever-changing.
WoW has held on to it's position in spite of losing players (me included) along the way, for many reasons. I just think that the state of the MMO genre, in so far as things are bad, can be blamed on many things as well, not just WoW's success.
Agreed, but WoW's success has a lot to do with it because the vast majority of people that play MMOs are playing it, thus ignoring everything else even if it could be good. People tend to flock to whatever is most popular because it's what their friends play and it's all they hear about. I bet a big portion of WoW players haven't even heard of most other MMOs or if they have, have no clue what they're about nor care to learn. I never took any interest in WoW because I didn't have any friends that were interested in it, and by the time I got into MMORPGs, WoW was already pretty old, had dated graphics and an artstyle that I could not grow accustomed to. In a way, I feel lucky that I was sucked into playing it and blindly following Blizzard like a cult as so many of their players do. But I do also wish that I could've been a part of something as big as the WoW community, and not feel so isolated.
Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
If you want to test the quality of a game ask yourself this. If the game was released today. Would it compete with the other contenders in ths genre? what would we say then about a game with 10 year old patched gfx, broken pvp, broken crafting, constant balancing issues, long periods where the only real content is repeating the same bosses over and over/ all with a £10 sub where the vast majority of that sub goes steaight to shareholders. It would be laughed of the street, just like wildstar (and that was much more up to date)
Sentimentality and addiction to an achievement record does not make a great game.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
¨The king¨ in this case, is just a point of view, like the 10 mill of subs. Most of the Western MMOs do not play on the Asian Market, So if you wanna make a fair comparision with Western MMOs, you cant take the asian numbers, and it WoW case, is pretty much 70-80% of the 10 Mill of subs Lie.
Like someone said, there is more people not playing WoW, than actually, playing it. The only people who play the game is the same playerbase that have been playing it for the last 10 years. For them, yes, it is the king.
Where are your sources proving anything you posted? Plus most mmo titles are running in china (or did till they closed down).
Originally posted by Bladestrom If you want to test the quality of a game ask yourself this. If the game was released today. Would it compete with the other contenders in ths genre? what would we say then about a game with 10 year old patched gfx, broken pvp, broken crafting, constant balancing issues, long periods where the only real content is repeating the same bosses over and over/ all with a £10 sub where the vast majority of that sub goes steaight to shareholders. It would be laughed of the street, just like wildstar (and that was much more up to date)
Sentimentality and addiction to an achievement record does not make a great game.
This doesn't make much sense, wow and any modern mmo are out and competing directly with each other right now. If the other titles were so good people would simply swap.
As I also posted they don't just play wow because of sentimentality or addiction either, if that was the case ffxi would not currently have 10-20% of the players it used to have.
Same goes for Everquest.
People play WoW because it's still does everythign as a package better than the rest, it's the top mmorpg on the market because it simply does nothing terribly.
Comments
World of Warcraft was the first MMO 10 million people played.
Nothing any game company can do will change that and nothing they do will make those people stop seeing WoW as their first and original MMO experience.
You want 10 mill subs in a game? Figure out how to get 10 million new people in to the MMO sphere. Suckhole to the Chinese Government, that's where most WoW gamers are located.
Just one question thats off topic but always on topic. Why is WoW the only mmorpg or game in general that spits out reports.
When every mmorpg came out they had a lot of numbers logged in. You only see games saying hey we hit X subs or players. But WoW is the only game that puts out major numbers. You can report what ever you want to. But no one thought to think maybe its just fake numbers. 10m subs. You telling me they are making 150m every year but can't put out games. Or give better stuff. (I my self hope Over watch comes out right) You make that much money why is Heros of the storm not in open beta. But yet you are making people pay to get into the beta when you are the money king company. Seems like they are feeding people but making it where you have to give them money then trap you into something haha idk. Just my thoughts. People always think what they read over the Internet or what someone tells them is correct. This is no better then listening to the media lie to us.
So i guess my question is where is other Pay to play games where are the numbers they have. Even free games still have subs. So why are they not reporting anything? Anyone have an idea. I mean I am not here to flame or whatever i am just a guy asking the right questions. Someone will see this and get all butt hurt and fell the need to say something silly that will not be a educated answer and I shall laugh. But to the guy that will give me some real feed back thank you sir.
I don't think the numbers are made up. How they are choosing to count the number of players they have may not be clear, but I honestly don't see how that is relevant either.
If any other game hit that number of players, even with non-paying trial accounts, you'd bet they would report it. A number like that does wonders for marketing, as a lot of people want to try something popular just to see what the fuss is about. The fact that none of these other games boast about their numbers is perhaps because there's nothing to boast about.
WoW right now is the most modern MMO... unfortunately.
WOW is the worst thing that has happened to mmo`s
average game with a huge community without any taste!
Wow! You guys just don't get the secret of the success of WoW.
No matter how many words you might use, no other MMORPG offers more for the majority than WoW. It's like sitting back waiting for Wal-Mart to go out of business!?! I do not understand why it is so hard for anyone to realize that 'modern MMO's' basically structure themselves around two or maybe three niche features (PvP, Graphics, Gameplay), whereas WoW has ten to fifteen Wow Features!
*Mounts
*Crafting (Barely a grind -a profession, not a career... simplistic.)
*Raiding (unlike RIFT where most players never make it to the second Tier)
*Daily Reward System
*Chat (Not a second thought but a first one)
*100% WASD
*On-The-Fly combat discipline change (A healer can press one button and become a tank.)
*Events
*Graphics that can run on a 386 processor
*'Just the right size' Open World
*Rich Story line
*'Zero to Hero' capability
*So easy to play, a five year old can grasp the basics
*PvP if you wanna
*PvP if you dare
*PvP cause you cant stop meh
*Mounts, Mounts, Mounts
*I look like you but you don't look like me gear
-Best Expansion: Wrath of The Liche King
-Worse Expansion: Cataclysm
Free to Play (up to level XX)
I don't play WoW. It's not for me. Ignorance is the biggest problem with WoW haters. If you ever played, I get it... you outgrew it, wonderful. Does this make it bad because you mind has gained the ultimate WoW achievement?!?
*You have been playing for a long time and just earned the infamous Lifetime Title: Non-Subscriber
Wear it well.
Can't for get LFR, helping a ton there to keep people that can't raid that elite core, still see the content and not end up waiting next level cap to see it.
Blizzard/WoW did even inspire Crowfalls art direction when LOTRO would have bveen so much better!
Well, i am out of the genre anyway for how much time soever...dont see anything living up the Hype.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
There is only 1 secret to WoWs success - its made by Blizzard!
Really - there is NOTHING else but some good timing back when they released.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
Sorry... forgot to step down from my soapbox.
Online gaming is not reality but it is a reality for anyone with imagination. Online gaming, even FPS based, have traditionally been a place where people could communicate and exchange cultures, ideas, stories, experiences and the like.
I've said this years ago, 'Online games are nothing more than modernized chat lines.'
We can mask our intent, inept, or masterful skills at communicating but the bottom line is we all end up in town asking questions, forming friendships and passing time. It's much safer than the other world we live in and the drawbacks are not even on the same scale as the real world.
Gaming is nothing more than a social skill builder and a place to share a life with another without the fault of judging a book by it's cover. Players unite from across the globe in a single place to experience the most for the least of risk. This has been the blood of online gaming and the backbone of the internet.
So... your skills are honed, you have mastered an avocation and perhaps gained all the infamy possible in a game... How is your real world coming along?
Ataaka -because we are not single-celled.
This thread made me remember this term "Wildstar is NOT a WOW clone ... it's WOW 2.0".
As mentioned before from other posters here, good games won't stand a chance against WoW. There is simply no market left for new subscription mmorpgs.
Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
Why WoW still has so many players who still plays a 10 year old game can be linked with people who have been in prison for very long time, some have problems handle being free with so many choices, they were used to have a strict daily rutine for so many years that they cant handle it outside the walls so either they commit suicide or start drinking and doing drugs to numb every feeling they have or do anything to get back to prison to a world they know.
I think this is why so many WoW players keep returning to WoW, they try new MMOs, either It's not like WoW, It's to open, to much sandboxy, to "alien" gameplay for them that they just cant handle the changes or It's a subpar WoW clone so they return to a world they know best....WoW.
This is how I see it.
Whether you personally like it or not wow places high in virtually every category.
I don't think there is only one reason for WoW's continued success. I'm sure all the reasons posted on this thread apply at least to some subscribers.
I just don't understand the desire to bash on WoW, or rub it's perceived success in people's faces for that matter. I get that WoW's financial success has made it THE MODEL to emulate from a business stand point, which partly caused the last 10 years to be void of true diversity and options in the MMO genre. But that's not Blizzard's fault. They weren't expecting the success they had either, and like any good business they've built on it in ways that has worked for them.
Perhaps we also need to consider that the last 10 years, or rather the last 20 years, have been transformative in the world in general. The place of computers, digital electronics, and the internet in our daily lives continues to shift in both subtle and significant ways. Along with that, the place of games in this excedingly interconnected world has changed, from being simply a form of entertainment to being a work of art, to then becoming another facet of social connectivity and communication. For better or worse, companies adjust their products to better match the market's demands, and that market is ever-changing.
WoW has held on to it's position in spite of losing players (me included) along the way, for many reasons. I just think that the state of the MMO genre, in so far as things are bad, can be blamed on many things as well, not just WoW's success.
This is like asking why microsoft dont' give away the new windows for free since they make trillions of profits.
Because it's a business.
End of the day, WoW is the best mmo that exists for the majority of MMO gamers. They would not throw their money and time at it if they thought otherwise (and no it's not time invested or habit because ffxi had 500k subs and now barely has 100k), there is a mass amount of choice now. There is no benchmark of BEST anyway because best is opinion, many people say ffxiv has great graphics but the style of them is an eye sore to many players so again best means what the majority see as the best.
The amazing combat and top of genre graphics of Tera didn't dent hurt wow, the pretty graphics of ffxiv didn't hurt it, the fast content updates of rift didn't dent it, the fixing of all the mmorpg complaints of Gw2 (end to trinity etc) didn't, nor did the amazing budget and story of swtor. All those things only gave all those titles a niche audience.
WoW is the king of mmorpg titles and that ain't gonna change for a very, very long time. Even when they get behind all they have to do is minor things like the recent character revamp to remain top of the hill.
End of the day, even if you hate wow you should love it. Because if not for the WoW all the other mmorpg titles would not of been given the go ahead of given the massive budgets they were.
Interesting.
Blizzard is giving their fanbase what they want...
-a mever-ending gear chase
-PvE content
-raids
-more PvE content
-smooth combat controls, which have dominated the genre. This is where I think other MMO studios have failed to understand how important smooth combat controls & smooth animation is
-accessibility, low computing requirement
-no annoying cash shop baits, it's very nice to pay $15 a month and not get nickel & dimed on every little thing you do ingame. SOE/Daybreak games are notorious for nickel & diming their playerbase with heavy cash shop items
-a return to wacraft, like the new garrisons feature in WoD expansion, have to give them credit for thinking this one up because it really helped them draw their fanbase back
-updates to their character models, zone graphics, and engines. Worth noting SOE never did that for Everquest, instead they created a second Everquest and now on the way to creating a 3rd. Blizzard was not dumb enough to segregate their playerbase by making a WoW 2, instead they focused on upgrading 1 game and it's paying off for them. In other words, they make their fanbase happy by giving them what they want.
They failed hardcore at designing Ashran, and PvP balance as a whole is a mess this expansion. As a PvP player I was really disappointed to see what they've done for PvP. But as a MMO gamer, I see what they've done right also. PvE is Blizzard's bread & butter, it's what draws them the crowds. Everything I've mentioned above draws the players to them and why they continue to be the largest MMO in the U.S.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO
Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
¨The king¨ in this case, is just a point of view, like the 10 mill of subs. Most of the Western MMOs do not play on the Asian Market, So if you wanna make a fair comparision with Western MMOs, you cant take the asian numbers, and it WoW case, is pretty much 70-80% of the 10 Mill of subs Lie.
Like someone said, there is more people not playing WoW, than actually, playing it. The only people who play the game is the same playerbase that have been playing it for the last 10 years. For them, yes, it is the king.
Agreed, but WoW's success has a lot to do with it because the vast majority of people that play MMOs are playing it, thus ignoring everything else even if it could be good. People tend to flock to whatever is most popular because it's what their friends play and it's all they hear about. I bet a big portion of WoW players haven't even heard of most other MMOs or if they have, have no clue what they're about nor care to learn. I never took any interest in WoW because I didn't have any friends that were interested in it, and by the time I got into MMORPGs, WoW was already pretty old, had dated graphics and an artstyle that I could not grow accustomed to. In a way, I feel lucky that I was sucked into playing it and blindly following Blizzard like a cult as so many of their players do. But I do also wish that I could've been a part of something as big as the WoW community, and not feel so isolated.
Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
Sentimentality and addiction to an achievement record does not make a great game.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Where are your sources proving anything you posted? Plus most mmo titles are running in china (or did till they closed down).
This doesn't make much sense, wow and any modern mmo are out and competing directly with each other right now. If the other titles were so good people would simply swap.
As I also posted they don't just play wow because of sentimentality or addiction either, if that was the case ffxi would not currently have 10-20% of the players it used to have.
Same goes for Everquest.
People play WoW because it's still does everythign as a package better than the rest, it's the top mmorpg on the market because it simply does nothing terribly.