It's called the snowball effect.
Roll a hand size lightly packed snowball downhill and watch it increase size as it gathers more snow.
It's also like Facebook popularity. One tells another, both tell even more, then 4 tell 8, then 8 tell 16,32, 64, 128 then later millions.
Things like this always happened in life. In my younger party days It was bars and taverns. In my local area Tuesday night was "The Station complex" only because they had an average band that night. Word-Of-Mouth and Boom !!!!.....Popular !
Let's analyze World of Warcraft:
Vanilla World of Warcraft, first of fun loving easy going second generation mmorpg's. Friendly and social, it was the "first of it's kind" that truly ran on computers when computers were made like crap.
Some marketing and advertisement but largely Word-Of-Mouth. Thousands turned to millions...Finally something new for people at home to do !.... Kids at school had to play or they were rejected in conversations in the school yard.
*Important*
When something like this catches on, "it can't do nothing wrong*….It will remain popular until the fad is over !
REMEMBER THIS FOR LATER ON.
Obviously as time went on players chewed through the all the content as players explored every tree and rock, Blizzard had to create expansion's.
-The Burning Crusade
-Wrath of the Lich King
-Cataclysm
-Mists of Pandaria
-Warlords of Draenor
Well, some ware between Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm, World of Warcraft changed its formula drastically. MOST WOULD SAY IT'S UN-RECOGNIZABLE. I don't think anyone can argue...It's not the same game.
FORCED changes !!
Millions rejected it.... Millions accepted it
One thing for sure "it can't do nothing wrong" It will remain popular until the fad is over.
Let's analyze EVERY OTHER mmorpg:
With FORCED changes of World of Warcraft and "it can't do nothing wrong", other developers followed the format that millions rejected.
But, players didn't have to accept.... Why?.... They're NOT World of Warcraft.
Only World of Warcraft "can't do nothing wrong"..... Only now, it's a slow dying Fade.
Comments
You've lost your damned mind. This is incoherent drivel, go to bed.
It had/has easy medium and hard content for all walks along with the best social hub that's un-matched even today.
Yes, the first of it's kind !
We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
At launch EQ2 was far more like it's predecessor and SOE tried to keep up by adopting more and more WOW features as most other games would come to do in the years to come.
Besides, some would argue Asherons Call 2 was the first real quest driven MMORPG which both EQ2 and WOW would emulate.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
We had Empires run by Emperors, we had Kingdoms run by Kings, now we have Countries...
And unless things changed extremely drastically from when I was in High School, I highly doubt, "Kids at school had to play [WoW] or they were rejected in conversations in the school yard."
I doubt there will be another WoW since Vanilla was made for the audience at the time, and mmorpgs had an adult audience then. Tyranny of the Center/Tyranny of the Masses
The video game industry has kind of entered the post-WotLK phase, where the amount of people watching other people play a game is like the game's iLevel. Players just look at that number and decide if a game is good or not based off of that. Its an awful system, and it reminds me of that Black Mirror episode where all society evolved around people's social rating number.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
He's repeating the same drivel over and over again just to up his post count.
This estimate charts shows WoW has been slowly but steadily losing subs since 2016, after it had a small peak in subs due to Legion expansion release, and it's projected to lose subs in the coming years.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/
Sure EQ2 was more difficult in terms of mob positioning and having lots of group content, but in terms of actual gameplay, WoW was more like EQ1.
For instance, in EQ2 were locked into a fight and had to allow someone to assist you by typing something. They couldn't just help. They couldn't even attack the mob. The buffs like Spirit of the Wolf dropped in combat. Neither of these was true in WoW.
WoW also just felt very EQish in terms of moving around and targetting things. In its early vanilla days, it had a lot more group content in the open world areas.
Aside from being instances the dungeons also felt more EQ1 like in nature.
Reading some other posts, perhaps EQ2 was the last of the previous generation.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
It could always do like it did with me. I at one time was a "better" color and it lost my achievements. It does seem smart enough not to give me the achievements back when I regain them -- so I am probably perpetually green. I wonder how many people are in my boat.
I was afraid to hit the next ability, because I MAY have a seizure just watching it !!!!
If at first you dont succeed, call it version 1.0