No amount of advertising can sell a game people don't like especially when its a subscription based model. How many times do people need to repeat this or has the WOW hate completely engulfed what little rationality some of you have left=) Also, WOW had millions of subscribers before any sort of massive ad campaign even started. Word of mouth sold WOW.
Plenty of MMOs would be selling in the millions now if fanbase, name or marketing had anything major to do with it. The Sims and Starwars esspecially have the largest fanbases and names in entertainment/videogames, yet both MMOs did poorly.
Blizzard have excellent advertising schemes as well, the Mr T Night Elf Mohawk, a class that doesn't exist but so should, caught viewers attentions, and Ozzy sold Wrath to the masses. But then, as others here have stated, Blizz can afford to do stuff like that whereas other less fortunate companies can just about afford word of mouth and web banners. :S In the world of competition, reputation and mass advertising rule together.
And yet, WoW was already popular when they started running the Mr T and Ozzy commercials. Advertising wasn't what made WoW big.
Agreed, those gimmicky, celebrity filled commercials for WOW came out years later AFTER WOW was a huge success.
I see alot of people also saying that money made WOW a success. This I don't beleive. All the money in the world doesnt make a game successful, innovation and mass appeal does. Now if you say Blizzard took all that money and bought the best developers in the industry and thus became a success I would partly agree, but other games that have failed horribly also had the best developers. Look at Tabula Rasa! Year in the making and led up by an icon in the industry, Garriott. Also had loads of capital poured into it. It ended up as an abyssmal failure. Why? Simple it didnt have enough innovation or appeal to more people. Again, the WOW formula for success:
Accessability
Fanbase
Mass appeal to all the gamer types (Casual, CORE & Hardcore)
PVP for the PVP crowd
Innovation
Every MMO that has failed recently (or at least lost tons of subs) has been missing one or more of the elements above. They are either:
graphically challenged, with only the best machines able to run them properly;
too niche;
too unknown;
Too casual OR too Hardcore not allowing the various gamer types to engage in the game simutaneuosly.
- Accessability sucked a lot in many cases
- Fanbase was partially there through the warcraft series (I'm a fan of these too) and others came mostly through the advertisements.
- Mass Appeal only when it comes to newbies and people that had no idea what a mmo is previously, experienced players mostly touch the game once and let it be afterwards.
- pvp in the game was a joke in the beginning so they looked further and see there? After they checked out the heroes ascent from Guild Wars they all of sudden announced the battlegrounds. The same goes with the fame stuff they added later. :P
- the too unknown point is the major point and the lack of advertisement the next one when it comes to the most of these new mmos you are talking about. It doesn't mean that all are failing but that most of them are running in a lower scale.
Tabula Rasa would had been a much larger success if they had sticked on the original plan they had in my opinion.
The characters, the graphics, the world and everything else we had saw and read so far were very appealing and then they all of sudden dropped everything and remade everything to the sci fi game they delivered at the end. <_<
I guess that was what caused mainly the doom of this game which is very sad since it had lots of potential.
Most of all and I think we agree all to that, the majority of the players rather like fantasy then sci fi.
Well you can be sure that any good PR department and by that I don't mean only Blizzards but any company will tell you things about "unicorns and rainbows" so take such announcements always with a good grain of salt portion. Anyway.... for me was, still is and if they don't mess up in the future always be the best developer on MMOs and one of the first ones ever NCsoft. I can't wait for AION and Soul&Blade to go into the beta status or be released! Even Gems like City of Heroes/Villains, Guild Wars and many other games they brought were much better than WoW will ever be. Not to mention what Blizzard ripped from games like that and sold them as "new ideas" which wasn't the case. Heck even free mmos are out there that are more fun than wow. I remember the days where the first C&C came out from a VERY small company that couldn't afford large advertisement and stuff and then all of sudden Warcraft that "surprisingly" were using the exact same system popped out of nothing with the Blizzard name on it, lots of advertisement and money to push things to success which we all know took place. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Warcraft series (except wow of course) till the frozen throne and I still have them. Fact is though that money rules the world in many occassions (sad but unfortunately true) and blizzard is the best example on this.
You have obviously already made up your mind about wow, so I see little point in trying to prove you wrong. Fact is, money has nothing to do with Blizzard's massive success. All your arguments are based on speculation and your own biased opinions. Your only aim here seems to be to bad mouth WoW, for some reason. I don't like DF that much, but I don't go around pushing peoples buttons to start flamewars about it.
Agreed, those gimmicky, celebrity filled commercials for WOW came out years later AFTER WOW was a huge success. I see alot of people also saying that money made WOW a success. This I don't beleive. All the money in the world doesnt make a game successful, innovation and mass appeal does. Now if you say Blizzard took all that money and bought the best developers in the industry and thus became a success I would partly agree, but other games that have failed horribly also had the best developers. Look at Tabula Rasa! Year in the making and led up by an icon in the industry, Garriott. Also had loads of capital poured into it. It ended up as an abyssmal failure. Why? Simple it didnt have enough innovation or appeal to more people. Again, the WOW formula for success: Accessability Fanbase Mass appeal to all the gamer types (Casual, CORE & Hardcore) PVP for the PVP crowd Innovation Every MMO that has failed recently (or at least lost tons of subs) has been missing one or more of the elements above. They are either: graphically challenged, with only the best machines able to run them properly; too niche; too unknown; Too casual OR too Hardcore not allowing the various gamer types to engage in the game simutaneuosly.
- Accessability sucked a lot in many cases
- Fanbase was partially there through the warcraft series (I'm a fan of these too) and others came mostly through the advertisements.
- Mass Appeal only when it comes to newbies and people that had no idea what a mmo is previously, experienced players mostly touch the game once and let it be afterwards.
- pvp in the game was a joke in the beginning so they looked further and see there? After they checked out the heroes ascent from Guild Wars they all of sudden announced the battlegrounds. The same goes with the fame stuff they added later. :P
- the too unknown point is the major point and the lack of advertisement the next one when it comes to the most of these new mmos you are talking about. It doesn't mean that all are failing but that most of them are running in a lower scale.
Tabula Rasa would had been a much larger success if they had sticked on the original plan they had in my opinion.
The characters, the graphics, the world and everything else we had saw and read so far were very appealing and then they all of sudden dropped everything and remade everything to the sci fi game they delivered at the end. <_<
I guess that was what caused mainly the doom of this game which is very sad since it had lots of potential.
Most of all and I think we agree all to that, the majority of the players rather like fantasy then sci fi.
How did accessability "suck" in WOW? any old computer can play the game, if thats not accessability I don't know what is.
When WOW launched, I didnt see an advertising blitz. The only strong adverts for the game has been recently.
Mass appeal is hardly due to newbies. I know alot of MMO vets (like myself) that are still playing WOW.
WOW is basically a PVE centric game, with PVP being a kind of "mini game". However its taking better shape with the addition of WIntergrasp open RVR zone. We shall see how it goes.
I played TR in beta through launch. The game didnt fail because it was scifi, it failed due to lack of content and innovation that would appeal to more people. I will agree that at this point in MMO history, scifi lags quite a bit behind fantasy, but thats not what killed TR.
Why must another game compete with WoW? Personally I feel Wow is just a freak of nature after playing a ton of MMOs I dont see how a game of WoWs quality (thats basically inline with the others) has that many subs. Lets take wow out of the picture for a second Whats the average Sub base in all other MMos? 100k-300k? personally those are the numbers I care about, If a new game releases and has a steady 100-300k sub base its great and can live on for years. that's all I need and that's all you guys should need as well. To the OP no game will ever have a world wide sub number as big as wow ever again, not even Blizzards next MMO. Hell I'll go on record as saying Even Bioware's monster Offering TOR wont get much larger than a million subs worldwide at its peak.
I agree 100%. I'm tired of every other game being belittled for how it didn't garner "WoW numbers". WoW is the exception. As long as the game has a healthy playerbase, and that player base is enjoying themselves, why do games have to be "the next WoW"?
It just doesn't make sence. If you like WoW over new games, great.
I just don't understand how people want to like something other then WoW, play other games, find it's not what they're looking for, and then label it a failure. If there's a healthy sub base (100K+ for sub based games) then it's obviously enjoyable for enough people (@100K ;subs) to get $1,500,000 a month in revenue. One Point Five Million a month. Eightteen Million a year. That's plenty of money for a game to continue, thrive and evolve for it's fan base, and that IMO is a success.
Developers simply need to develop a game that is worthy of a large playerbase. It has nothing to do with the playerbase being patient as the company shouldn't release a buggy mess. Unfortunately no game is trying to be unique, they are all trying to be like WoW. You can't out WoW WoW itself.
QFT,
However... an MMO used to be considered successful at breaking 100k subs. It was a significant milestone, 150k subs was a big deal. Now we have games we consider failures that have 400k subs and we, as gamers, and the media covering these games, are tainted by WoW's unprecedented success. You do not have to be the top game to have a successful MMO, but you DO have to be prepared NOT to be the top game and plan accordingly so that the inevitable 50% loss in initial subs can be handled with minimal effect.
Why is it inevitable that games will lose 50% of their subscribers at release? There have been several games that have had good retention rates after initial sales and even seeing increases in populations well after release. EQ, DAOC, WoW, Eve, Lineage, Coh, etc.
The unavoidable decline you theorize is more likely caused by the condition many games are released in and not some laws of subscriber based gaming economics. A game with 400k users [which game is this anyhow] isn't really a failure if they were shooting for 500k. However games now have super inflated budgets and team sizes compared to anything from back in the days when 100k users was a success.
Having budgets that are measured by multiple tens of millions of dollars and selling 1.5 million game boxes to retailers shows what type of initial release expectations are at. When those same games sell nearly 1 million copies to subscribers and then lose 7 to 9 out every 10 players in a few short months it is obvious it is a case of the games having problems and not some natural effect of retention rates.
Dude simple answer is money! Noone has enough money to compete with WOW. Plus blizzard has some of the best artists, graphic designers, and animators in the business.
Unfortunately you can forget about an MMO getting the sub base WOW has. On top of that blizz is announcing their new mmo this yr which will probably grab another 10 million people. I for one don't play WOW and only played the vanilla version, I did not care for TBC nor do I care about WOTLK. All of their origrinal guys for WOW left (well not all but the most important devs did to go elsewhere) and the company has become very greedy IMO. Diablo 3 is probably going to sell like hotcakes though I don't like the artstyle too much like warcraft. I will not be buying (hence the word buy I can always torrent the sucker to see if its worth it though I like the randomly generated dungeons and world in diablo 2 and 3 is not going to have that).
I think the next MMO to grab at least 1 to 3 mil subs will be Star Wars TOR by Bioware but its Bioware's first MMO so it might be a little shaky they never did an online game (MMO). Also another MMO that will have a great following will be The Elder scrolls mmo and Fallout mmo which are yrs away anyway. Star trek will tank since it looks odd, WAR is tanking by the week (shame because I hop in and out and do RVR and PVE every now and then game engine needs some loving IMO), all SOE games are slowly dieing by the week (I refuse to give SOE any money whatsoever worst company ever).
Right now Guild Wars and WAR are the only games I play and I only login to WAr every now and then (since I have to play it with most stuff turned down to get a good framerate while Guild Wars I can play with everything turned up and it looks better go figure that one out).
WoW has the best all round package that no other mmorpg can offer.
- Good PVE
- Good PVP
- Fun classes
- Raids
- Mostly Seamless world
- The fantastic Warcraft lore
- Polish
- You'll more than likely have atleast one friend playing it where as most other mmorpgs you wont.
- Great quality content always being patched in.
etc etc.
It just has the best all round package that no other mmorpg offers. There are mmorpgs that do things better in certain areas but then the rest of the game falls to crap. I think the main success though was purely down to Blizzard having far more experience making games that people like than any other company making mmorpgs today. They were able to nail a polished mmorpg from launch and no other mmorpg out there has done that. They nailed the fun classes and fast paced combat and no other mmorpg I played does that quite as good as Blizzard. They took what they learnt from Everquest and UO and all the games they made and put it into WoW and delivered the best all round mmorpg that took things to a whole other level. For example WoW revolutionized the way quests are done in mmorpgs. Before WoW we had quests but it wasn't done quite ike WoW where you can go through the whole game purely on quests moving one zone to the next. WoW also took away many tedious things like EQ having no map and it put in a helpful map so you always knew where to go.
They just made the perfect mmorpg for it's time.
Now people are getting bored of that type of mmorpg and Blizzard are working on something new that'll probably come in and do the same thing.
You also have to remember that things like customization and crafting and all the stuff we mmorpg veterans love is a very niche thing. Most people out there just love to kill things and do quests and instances. If you look at the stats of crafters in SWG for example they made up such a tiny percentage of the overall population.
WoW has the best all round package that no other mmorpg can offer. - Good PVE
- Good PVP
- Fun classes
- Raids
- Mostly Seamless world
- The fantastic Warcraft lore
- Polish
- You'll more than likely have atleast one friend playing it where as most other mmorpgs you wont.
- Great quality content always being patched in. etc etc.
It just has the best all round package that no other mmorpg offers. There are mmorpgs that do things better in certain areas but then the rest of the game falls to crap. I think the main success though was purely down to Blizzard having far more experience making games that people like than any other company making mmorpgs today. They were able to nail a polished mmorpg from launch and no other mmorpg out there has done that. They nailed the fun classes and fast paced combat and no other mmorpg I played does that quite as good as Blizzard. They took what they learnt from Everquest and UO and all the games they made and put it into WoW and delivered the best all round mmorpg that took things to a whole other level. For example WoW revolutionized the way quests are done in mmorpgs. Before WoW we had quests but it wasn't done quite ike WoW where you can go through the whole game purely on quests moving one zone to the next. WoW also took away many tedious things like EQ having no map and it put in a helpful map so you always knew where to go. They just made the perfect mmorpg for it's time.
Now people are getting bored of that type of mmorpg and Blizzard are working on something new that'll probably come in and do the same thing.
haha! Dude you're like this sick WoW AD campaign.
I don't know whether to tell you im happy for you that you found a game you love or report you as a spamming Viral marketer.
You find almost no flaw In WoWs Jack of all trades ,master of none gameplay style I find that amazing.
Guild Wars 2 = if they can pull it off it just might be the leader in MMO gaming soon enough. Like I said if they can pull it off. Here we are in almost April and no info yet about it.
Hmm... Why has no game managed to compete with WoW as of yet? Because the players will not let them compete..
I think I understand exactly where you are coming from and I totally agree. I think that because Blizzard has managed to commercialize their game, making WoW Worldwide known, that it ends up being many players' first MMO. People that don't even game have very possibly heard of WoW. So if you tell your friends, "I play MMORPG's," they're like, "....huh?" If you say, "Yea, I play WoW," they're like, "Oh yea, I've seen that Mr. T commercial! Is that any good?"
There are so many other media outlets for WoW, such as forums, and books, comics, and (possibly) soon, even a movie. It's fun to go back and play Warcraft I, II, and III or read the books and see how your favorite NPC's started out and came to be who they are today. ...Then go make history with them in the game.
Take all that and then add human nature; the fear of the unknown, and the comfortability of home, you have a lot of people not even willing to try anything else out---even if it is almost a guarantee that it will be a better, more satisfying game. As my wife would say, "I don't like gaming, I like playing WoW."
WoW has the best all round package that no other mmorpg can offer.
- Good PVE - Good PVP - Fun classes - Raids - Mostly Seamless world - The fantastic Warcraft lore - Polish - You'll more than likely have atleast one friend playing it where as most other mmorpgs you wont. - Great quality content always being patched in.
PVE If you're talking about dungeons and raids then yes it is enjoyable at times.
PVP No world of warcraft is probably the worst game for pvp.
Raids Thats apart of PVE
Mostly Seamless What is your definition of seamless? I am assuming you mean lack of loading screens then yes.
Fantastic Lore Yes the Warcraft story is great however I find the majority of players have not played Warcraft 1, 2 or 3. So this is not the main reason people play WoW
Friends No this depends on your circle of friends
Great Quality content I'd have to disagree, full content updates only happen 2-3 times a year at most in WoW and very significant patches they make they sell to you again where as most mmo's do not charge for. Most content updates is the same thing with different artwork, eg new armour/new zone/new dungeon/new raid. "Same stuff different colour".
WoW is catered towards players who do not wish to have a risk/reward scenario, they want reward only and also this game is incredibly easy I found myself with nothing to do after 3 weeks of the game. I already fully geared my character and did all possible content besides getting all achievements but thats retarded anyways.
Now it isn't that no game has managed to compete with WoW it is that no game wants to compete with WoW. WoW is a casual MMO that is very easy. The reason for its popularity is due to its marketing and the fact it had a tangible box. WoW was the first MMO for many people. In my opinion a persons first MMO is likely to be where their fondest MMO experiences are.
Lastly, you do not play WoW for pvp. It is not a pvp game at all. They put in battlegrounds and arena to try and appeal to pvp players but it pales in comparison to games that were designed for pvp such as Guild Wars.
The only reason other games do not fair well is because the lack of advertising. Most people who play MMO's besides WoW were actively looking for an MMO or was introduced by a friend/family.
A) WoW is someone's First MMO, and they have it set in their mind that WoW is the perfect MMO
or
They rather have an easy walk in the park then actually trying.
or
C) They are a Fanboi
but in my opinion i rather play a game like LotRO where it has more like 350k players and they are all freindly and helpful, unlike the {Mod Edit} 10 year olds of WoW.
I think the next MMO to grab at least 1 to 3 mil subs will be Star Wars TOR by Bioware but its Bioware's first MMO so it might be a little shaky they never did an online game (MMO).
I guess it depends how soon the 1 million+ is to be expected
even WOW took around 4+ months to achieve their first 1.5 million subscribers
First off there is no best game or we'd all be playing it...so please stop the nonsense.
The problem is (and let's be honest) very few publishers have offered a compelling alternative to WOW.
Why play a WOW clone when the real thing is still available and still crazy popular? All Publishers have to do is provide a Polished alternative and people will come. There are Millions (like myself) itching for a title that provides the fun of WOW only with the depth, strategy and required knowledge of character it lacks.
Furthermore a title doesn't have to compete with WOW it simply has to provide a well made, quality alternative. Those titles that have are doing just fine (L2, EVE, LOTRO, CoX, Guild Wars etc.. While subscription numbers are clearly important they are in no way the only measure of success. Customer retention is key and like WOW fans the above titles also have loyalty to their titles. I know many players currently playing the above titles who've either no interest in WOW or tried it and said this isn't for me.
You know, I remember these same posts 6-7 years ago when EQ1 was king of the hill and it's rabid fanboys would make posts like this and the haters would spark up en-mass.
The next successor to the thrown will come in due time.....it always does.
Who wants to play a multiplayer game with only 20 other players of which you will never see because of the huge amounts of wasted space and level difference?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I love how 90% of this thread is drivel spewed by people who dpnt not, have not, and probably will never play wow. You lot need to suck it up and just accept that wow is the most popular because its the best. Stop trying to fix number to show they only have 5 subscribers because your stupid little mind cant read properly, and stop telling us, the wow players
(and btw, my heritage is this UO for a brief stint > Legend of Mir 2 for a long long time, you want to talk hardcore? Yeah play this then come beat toastoncheese or tingwilla > various unsatisfying junk a friend showed me L2 but I didnt get into it, couldnt stand EQ sorry but I thought it was fucking shit > WoW > everything afer wow but you know aht, its shit, nothing has compared to wow since then, get over it! But I admit, TBC was fucking shit, I didnt stay till the end of TBC came back to wrath after a month or so. and I will be trying DF if/when it ever becmes available currently im a little hot for MO). All the while playing every console rpg under the sun I am an RPG addict and what is fun is fun, get the fuck over it! Just because you are some lame ass troll who faps to another kind of porn doesnt make you special.
Your game is not special, just like wow is not special. It just happens taht you are sore where wow rammed its huge old cock up you and said 'BAHAHA I WIN' and you could not do anything about it
BTW blizzards figures DO NOT COUNT DEAD SUBS. You know, if they coutned dead subs then theyd number over 25million right now. DO they claim 25m subs? No, STFU!
Playing polished, lag free, feature complete games is carebear. Whining about a game you hate but still play is hardcore man!
Dont think so. Its more because WoW offer most simplistic gameplay in MMO acceptable for everyone.
There is no conflict between being best and being simple. You never heard of the KISS principle? Complex is NOT necessarily good.
And WOW is complex enough. Have you tried some of the more complex boss fight? For example, trying to do Sarth with 3 Drakes up is impossible with a PUG group. Don't tell me it is not complex to coordinate all the tanking (sarth, drakes, adds), healing, avoiding fire wall and stuff like that. And that is an EASY raid compared to the one coming in 3.1.
I love how 90% of this thread is drivel spewed by people who dpnt not, have not, and probably will never play wow. You lot need to suck it up and just accept that wow is the most popular because its the best. Stop trying to fix number to show they only have 5 subscribers because your stupid little mind cant read properly, and stop telling us, the wow players
(and btw, my heritage is this UO for a brief stint > Legend of Mir 2 for a long long time, you want to talk hardcore? Yeah play this then come beat toastoncheese or tingwilla > various unsatisfying junk a friend showed me L2 but I didnt get into it, couldnt stand EQ sorry but I thought it was fucking shit > WoW > everything afer wow but you know aht, its shit, nothing has compared to wow since then, get over it! But I admit, TBC was fucking shit, I didnt stay till the end of TBC came back to wrath after a month or so. and I will be trying DF if/when it ever becmes available currently im a little hot for MO). All the while playing every console rpg under the sun I am an RPG addict and what is fun is fun, get the fuck over it! Just because you are some lame ass troll who faps to another kind of porn doesnt make you special.
Your game is not special, just like wow is not special. It just happens taht you are sore where wow rammed its huge old cock up you and said 'BAHAHA I WIN' and you could not do anything about it
BTW blizzards figures DO NOT COUNT DEAD SUBS. You know, if they coutned dead subs then theyd number over 25million right now. DO they claim 25m subs? No, STFU!
By your logic I we would assume the following are truths.
Soulja Boy is really popular, it must mean it is the best Music ever.
Ipods are really popular, it must mean they are the best MP3 Players ever.
Iphones are really popular, it must mean they are the best phones ever.
The majority of developed nations populous are overweight and unhealthy, it must mean being a fat lazy slob is the best way to live.
The majority of the worlds population speaks Mandarin Chinese, it must be the best Language in the world.
I love how 90% of this thread is drivel spewed by people who dpnt not, have not, and probably will never play wow. You lot need to suck it up and just accept that wow is the most popular because its the best. Stop trying to fix number to show they only have 5 subscribers because your stupid little mind cant read properly, and stop telling us, the wow players
(and btw, my heritage is this UO for a brief stint > Legend of Mir 2 for a long long time, you want to talk hardcore? Yeah play this then come beat toastoncheese or tingwilla > various unsatisfying junk a friend showed me L2 but I didnt get into it, couldnt stand EQ sorry but I thought it was fucking shit > WoW > everything afer wow but you know aht, its shit, nothing has compared to wow since then, get over it! But I admit, TBC was fucking shit, I didnt stay till the end of TBC came back to wrath after a month or so. and I will be trying DF if/when it ever becmes available currently im a little hot for MO). All the while playing every console rpg under the sun I am an RPG addict and what is fun is fun, get the fuck over it! Just because you are some lame ass troll who faps to another kind of porn doesnt make you special.
Your game is not special, just like wow is not special. It just happens taht you are sore where wow rammed its huge old cock up you and said 'BAHAHA I WIN' and you could not do anything about it
BTW blizzards figures DO NOT COUNT DEAD SUBS. You know, if they coutned dead subs then theyd number over 25million right now. DO they claim 25m subs? No, STFU!
Well, nobody will be arguing that you are definitely a WoW player.
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.
Comments
No amount of advertising can sell a game people don't like especially when its a subscription based model. How many times do people need to repeat this or has the WOW hate completely engulfed what little rationality some of you have left=) Also, WOW had millions of subscribers before any sort of massive ad campaign even started. Word of mouth sold WOW.
Plenty of MMOs would be selling in the millions now if fanbase, name or marketing had anything major to do with it. The Sims and Starwars esspecially have the largest fanbases and names in entertainment/videogames, yet both MMOs did poorly.
And yet, WoW was already popular when they started running the Mr T and Ozzy commercials. Advertising wasn't what made WoW big.
Agreed, those gimmicky, celebrity filled commercials for WOW came out years later AFTER WOW was a huge success.
I see alot of people also saying that money made WOW a success. This I don't beleive. All the money in the world doesnt make a game successful, innovation and mass appeal does. Now if you say Blizzard took all that money and bought the best developers in the industry and thus became a success I would partly agree, but other games that have failed horribly also had the best developers. Look at Tabula Rasa! Year in the making and led up by an icon in the industry, Garriott. Also had loads of capital poured into it. It ended up as an abyssmal failure. Why? Simple it didnt have enough innovation or appeal to more people. Again, the WOW formula for success:
Accessability
Fanbase
Mass appeal to all the gamer types (Casual, CORE & Hardcore)
PVP for the PVP crowd
Innovation
Every MMO that has failed recently (or at least lost tons of subs) has been missing one or more of the elements above. They are either:
graphically challenged, with only the best machines able to run them properly;
too niche;
too unknown;
Too casual OR too Hardcore not allowing the various gamer types to engage in the game simutaneuosly.
- Accessability sucked a lot in many cases
- Fanbase was partially there through the warcraft series (I'm a fan of these too) and others came mostly through the advertisements.
- Mass Appeal only when it comes to newbies and people that had no idea what a mmo is previously, experienced players mostly touch the game once and let it be afterwards.
- pvp in the game was a joke in the beginning so they looked further and see there? After they checked out the heroes ascent from Guild Wars they all of sudden announced the battlegrounds. The same goes with the fame stuff they added later. :P
- the too unknown point is the major point and the lack of advertisement the next one when it comes to the most of these new mmos you are talking about. It doesn't mean that all are failing but that most of them are running in a lower scale.
Tabula Rasa would had been a much larger success if they had sticked on the original plan they had in my opinion.
The characters, the graphics, the world and everything else we had saw and read so far were very appealing and then they all of sudden dropped everything and remade everything to the sci fi game they delivered at the end. <_<
I guess that was what caused mainly the doom of this game which is very sad since it had lots of potential.
Most of all and I think we agree all to that, the majority of the players rather like fantasy then sci fi.
Word of mouth did not sell WOW
many stores were SOLD OUT by the 1st weekend of release
pc.gamespy.com/pc/world-of-warcraft/569888p1.html
you call that "word of mouth" ?
EQ2 fan sites
You have obviously already made up your mind about wow, so I see little point in trying to prove you wrong. Fact is, money has nothing to do with Blizzard's massive success. All your arguments are based on speculation and your own biased opinions. Your only aim here seems to be to bad mouth WoW, for some reason. I don't like DF that much, but I don't go around pushing peoples buttons to start flamewars about it.
Anyway, that is all I have to say about that.
- Accessability sucked a lot in many cases
- Fanbase was partially there through the warcraft series (I'm a fan of these too) and others came mostly through the advertisements.
- Mass Appeal only when it comes to newbies and people that had no idea what a mmo is previously, experienced players mostly touch the game once and let it be afterwards.
- pvp in the game was a joke in the beginning so they looked further and see there? After they checked out the heroes ascent from Guild Wars they all of sudden announced the battlegrounds. The same goes with the fame stuff they added later. :P
- the too unknown point is the major point and the lack of advertisement the next one when it comes to the most of these new mmos you are talking about. It doesn't mean that all are failing but that most of them are running in a lower scale.
Tabula Rasa would had been a much larger success if they had sticked on the original plan they had in my opinion.
The characters, the graphics, the world and everything else we had saw and read so far were very appealing and then they all of sudden dropped everything and remade everything to the sci fi game they delivered at the end. <_<
I guess that was what caused mainly the doom of this game which is very sad since it had lots of potential.
Most of all and I think we agree all to that, the majority of the players rather like fantasy then sci fi.
How did accessability "suck" in WOW? any old computer can play the game, if thats not accessability I don't know what is.
When WOW launched, I didnt see an advertising blitz. The only strong adverts for the game has been recently.
Mass appeal is hardly due to newbies. I know alot of MMO vets (like myself) that are still playing WOW.
WOW is basically a PVE centric game, with PVP being a kind of "mini game". However its taking better shape with the addition of WIntergrasp open RVR zone. We shall see how it goes.
I played TR in beta through launch. The game didnt fail because it was scifi, it failed due to lack of content and innovation that would appeal to more people. I will agree that at this point in MMO history, scifi lags quite a bit behind fantasy, but thats not what killed TR.
Current Games: WOW, EVE Online
I agree 100%. I'm tired of every other game being belittled for how it didn't garner "WoW numbers". WoW is the exception. As long as the game has a healthy playerbase, and that player base is enjoying themselves, why do games have to be "the next WoW"?
It just doesn't make sence. If you like WoW over new games, great.
I just don't understand how people want to like something other then WoW, play other games, find it's not what they're looking for, and then label it a failure. If there's a healthy sub base (100K+ for sub based games) then it's obviously enjoyable for enough people (@100K ;subs) to get $1,500,000 a month in revenue. One Point Five Million a month. Eightteen Million a year. That's plenty of money for a game to continue, thrive and evolve for it's fan base, and that IMO is a success.
QFT,
However... an MMO used to be considered successful at breaking 100k subs. It was a significant milestone, 150k subs was a big deal. Now we have games we consider failures that have 400k subs and we, as gamers, and the media covering these games, are tainted by WoW's unprecedented success. You do not have to be the top game to have a successful MMO, but you DO have to be prepared NOT to be the top game and plan accordingly so that the inevitable 50% loss in initial subs can be handled with minimal effect.
Why is it inevitable that games will lose 50% of their subscribers at release? There have been several games that have had good retention rates after initial sales and even seeing increases in populations well after release. EQ, DAOC, WoW, Eve, Lineage, Coh, etc.
The unavoidable decline you theorize is more likely caused by the condition many games are released in and not some laws of subscriber based gaming economics. A game with 400k users [which game is this anyhow] isn't really a failure if they were shooting for 500k. However games now have super inflated budgets and team sizes compared to anything from back in the days when 100k users was a success.
Having budgets that are measured by multiple tens of millions of dollars and selling 1.5 million game boxes to retailers shows what type of initial release expectations are at. When those same games sell nearly 1 million copies to subscribers and then lose 7 to 9 out every 10 players in a few short months it is obvious it is a case of the games having problems and not some natural effect of retention rates.
LOL, rofl, this is classic. Woo that was a good laugh. It's the players fought. ROFL .
glad I could make you smile.. :-)
care to hear more?
It's fine
...
Dude simple answer is money! Noone has enough money to compete with WOW. Plus blizzard has some of the best artists, graphic designers, and animators in the business.
Unfortunately you can forget about an MMO getting the sub base WOW has. On top of that blizz is announcing their new mmo this yr which will probably grab another 10 million people. I for one don't play WOW and only played the vanilla version, I did not care for TBC nor do I care about WOTLK. All of their origrinal guys for WOW left (well not all but the most important devs did to go elsewhere) and the company has become very greedy IMO. Diablo 3 is probably going to sell like hotcakes though I don't like the artstyle too much like warcraft. I will not be buying (hence the word buy I can always torrent the sucker to see if its worth it though I like the randomly generated dungeons and world in diablo 2 and 3 is not going to have that).
I think the next MMO to grab at least 1 to 3 mil subs will be Star Wars TOR by Bioware but its Bioware's first MMO so it might be a little shaky they never did an online game (MMO). Also another MMO that will have a great following will be The Elder scrolls mmo and Fallout mmo which are yrs away anyway. Star trek will tank since it looks odd, WAR is tanking by the week (shame because I hop in and out and do RVR and PVE every now and then game engine needs some loving IMO), all SOE games are slowly dieing by the week (I refuse to give SOE any money whatsoever worst company ever).
Right now Guild Wars and WAR are the only games I play and I only login to WAr every now and then (since I have to play it with most stuff turned down to get a good framerate while Guild Wars I can play with everything turned up and it looks better go figure that one out).
WoW has the best all round package that no other mmorpg can offer.
- Good PVE
- Good PVP
- Fun classes
- Raids
- Mostly Seamless world
- The fantastic Warcraft lore
- Polish
- You'll more than likely have atleast one friend playing it where as most other mmorpgs you wont.
- Great quality content always being patched in.
etc etc.
It just has the best all round package that no other mmorpg offers. There are mmorpgs that do things better in certain areas but then the rest of the game falls to crap. I think the main success though was purely down to Blizzard having far more experience making games that people like than any other company making mmorpgs today. They were able to nail a polished mmorpg from launch and no other mmorpg out there has done that. They nailed the fun classes and fast paced combat and no other mmorpg I played does that quite as good as Blizzard. They took what they learnt from Everquest and UO and all the games they made and put it into WoW and delivered the best all round mmorpg that took things to a whole other level. For example WoW revolutionized the way quests are done in mmorpgs. Before WoW we had quests but it wasn't done quite ike WoW where you can go through the whole game purely on quests moving one zone to the next. WoW also took away many tedious things like EQ having no map and it put in a helpful map so you always knew where to go.
They just made the perfect mmorpg for it's time.
Now people are getting bored of that type of mmorpg and Blizzard are working on something new that'll probably come in and do the same thing.
You also have to remember that things like customization and crafting and all the stuff we mmorpg veterans love is a very niche thing. Most people out there just love to kill things and do quests and instances. If you look at the stats of crafters in SWG for example they made up such a tiny percentage of the overall population.
haha! Dude you're like this sick WoW AD campaign.
I don't know whether to tell you im happy for you that you found a game you love or report you as a spamming Viral marketer.
You find almost no flaw In WoWs Jack of all trades ,master of none gameplay style I find that amazing.
Playing: EvE, Ryzom
Because WoW is easy mode now.......it could be beat, but why try something hard, when you can play easy mode, and pwn? O.o
OOPS I forgot!
Guild Wars 2 = if they can pull it off it just might be the leader in MMO gaming soon enough. Like I said if they can pull it off. Here we are in almost April and no info yet about it.
I think I understand exactly where you are coming from and I totally agree. I think that because Blizzard has managed to commercialize their game, making WoW Worldwide known, that it ends up being many players' first MMO. People that don't even game have very possibly heard of WoW. So if you tell your friends, "I play MMORPG's," they're like, "....huh?" If you say, "Yea, I play WoW," they're like, "Oh yea, I've seen that Mr. T commercial! Is that any good?"
There are so many other media outlets for WoW, such as forums, and books, comics, and (possibly) soon, even a movie. It's fun to go back and play Warcraft I, II, and III or read the books and see how your favorite NPC's started out and came to be who they are today. ...Then go make history with them in the game.
Take all that and then add human nature; the fear of the unknown, and the comfortability of home, you have a lot of people not even willing to try anything else out---even if it is almost a guarantee that it will be a better, more satisfying game. As my wife would say, "I don't like gaming, I like playing WoW."
PVE
If you're talking about dungeons and raids then yes it is enjoyable at times.
PVP
No world of warcraft is probably the worst game for pvp.
Raids
Thats apart of PVE
Mostly Seamless
What is your definition of seamless? I am assuming you mean lack of loading screens then yes.
Fantastic Lore
Yes the Warcraft story is great however I find the majority of players have not played Warcraft 1, 2 or 3. So this is not the main reason people play WoW
Friends
No this depends on your circle of friends
Great Quality content
I'd have to disagree, full content updates only happen 2-3 times a year at most in WoW and very significant patches they make they sell to you again where as most mmo's do not charge for. Most content updates is the same thing with different artwork, eg new armour/new zone/new dungeon/new raid. "Same stuff different colour".
WoW is catered towards players who do not wish to have a risk/reward scenario, they want reward only and also this game is incredibly easy I found myself with nothing to do after 3 weeks of the game. I already fully geared my character and did all possible content besides getting all achievements but thats retarded anyways.
Now it isn't that no game has managed to compete with WoW it is that no game wants to compete with WoW.
WoW is a casual MMO that is very easy. The reason for its popularity is due to its marketing and the fact it had a tangible box.
WoW was the first MMO for many people. In my opinion a persons first MMO is likely to be where their fondest MMO experiences are.
Lastly, you do not play WoW for pvp. It is not a pvp game at all. They put in battlegrounds and arena to try and appeal to pvp players but it pales in comparison to games that were designed for pvp such as Guild Wars.
The only reason other games do not fair well is because the lack of advertising. Most people who play MMO's besides WoW were actively looking for an MMO or was introduced by a friend/family.
Cuz WoW is like DMT.
Either
A) WoW is someone's First MMO, and they have it set in their mind that WoW is the perfect MMO
or
or
C) They are a Fanboi
but in my opinion i rather play a game like LotRO where it has more like 350k players and they are all freindly and helpful, unlike the {Mod Edit} 10 year olds of WoW.
I guess it depends how soon the 1 million+ is to be expected
even WOW took around 4+ months to achieve their first 1.5 million subscribers
www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200503/N05.0318.1018.13592.htm
seems to be a new trend - to try a game a month and move on and maybe return after the game matures
how many gamers are going to give Bioware a four month sub ? to be seen
EQ2 fan sites
First off there is no best game or we'd all be playing it...so please stop the nonsense.
The problem is (and let's be honest) very few publishers have offered a compelling alternative to WOW.
Why play a WOW clone when the real thing is still available and still crazy popular? All Publishers have to do is provide a Polished alternative and people will come. There are Millions (like myself) itching for a title that provides the fun of WOW only with the depth, strategy and required knowledge of character it lacks.
Furthermore a title doesn't have to compete with WOW it simply has to provide a well made, quality alternative. Those titles that have are doing just fine (L2, EVE, LOTRO, CoX, Guild Wars etc.. While subscription numbers are clearly important they are in no way the only measure of success. Customer retention is key and like WOW fans the above titles also have loyalty to their titles. I know many players currently playing the above titles who've either no interest in WOW or tried it and said this isn't for me.
You know, I remember these same posts 6-7 years ago when EQ1 was king of the hill and it's rabid fanboys would make posts like this and the haters would spark up en-mass.
The next successor to the thrown will come in due time.....it always does.
Elgin Baylor>DR. J>Michael Jordan>Kolbe Bryant>Labron James>>>??
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.
Who wants to play a multiplayer game with only 20 other players of which you will never see because of the huge amounts of wasted space and level difference?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I love how 90% of this thread is drivel spewed by people who dpnt not, have not, and probably will never play wow. You lot need to suck it up and just accept that wow is the most popular because its the best. Stop trying to fix number to show they only have 5 subscribers because your stupid little mind cant read properly, and stop telling us, the wow players
(and btw, my heritage is this UO for a brief stint > Legend of Mir 2 for a long long time, you want to talk hardcore? Yeah play this then come beat toastoncheese or tingwilla > various unsatisfying junk a friend showed me L2 but I didnt get into it, couldnt stand EQ sorry but I thought it was fucking shit > WoW > everything afer wow but you know aht, its shit, nothing has compared to wow since then, get over it! But I admit, TBC was fucking shit, I didnt stay till the end of TBC came back to wrath after a month or so. and I will be trying DF if/when it ever becmes available currently im a little hot for MO). All the while playing every console rpg under the sun I am an RPG addict and what is fun is fun, get the fuck over it! Just because you are some lame ass troll who faps to another kind of porn doesnt make you special.
Your game is not special, just like wow is not special. It just happens taht you are sore where wow rammed its huge old cock up you and said 'BAHAHA I WIN' and you could not do anything about it
BTW blizzards figures DO NOT COUNT DEAD SUBS. You know, if they coutned dead subs then theyd number over 25million right now. DO they claim 25m subs? No, STFU!
Playing polished, lag free, feature complete games is carebear. Whining about a game you hate but still play is hardcore man!
Dont think so. Its more because WoW offer most simplistic gameplay in MMO acceptable for everyone.
There is no conflict between being best and being simple. You never heard of the KISS principle? Complex is NOT necessarily good.
And WOW is complex enough. Have you tried some of the more complex boss fight? For example, trying to do Sarth with 3 Drakes up is impossible with a PUG group. Don't tell me it is not complex to coordinate all the tanking (sarth, drakes, adds), healing, avoiding fire wall and stuff like that. And that is an EASY raid compared to the one coming in 3.1.
By your logic I we would assume the following are truths.
Soulja Boy is really popular, it must mean it is the best Music ever.
Ipods are really popular, it must mean they are the best MP3 Players ever.
Iphones are really popular, it must mean they are the best phones ever.
The majority of developed nations populous are overweight and unhealthy, it must mean being a fat lazy slob is the best way to live.
The majority of the worlds population speaks Mandarin Chinese, it must be the best Language in the world.
Well, nobody will be arguing that you are definitely a WoW player.
Science flies people to the moon. Religion flies people into buildings.