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Doom Forecasted for World of Warcraft
The ever interesting Grimwell.com has commentary available forecasting doom in the near future for World of Warcraft. Commentator Geldonyetich argues that, by the very nature of the Warcraft game design, the impressive subscription numbers they currently boast are fleeting. From the article: "World of Warcraft is a tremendously successful game. Its subscriber numbers are reaching peaks that threaten even the lofty Korean Internet Café centered Lineage series. Those of you who are stuck behind overloaded servers, don't despair: I can see WoW's success as being a very temporary thing."
DOOM and WoW craft together?!?!? I won't leave my house for a month!
This guy seems to think WoW is doomed because it is not "epic" enough.
A MMORPG cannot just be a game: When you start charging a subscription, you're promising it to be more than that. It has to genuinely interest players in investing time in it for meaningfully compelling reasons. World of Warcraft is far too trivialized, it's evident in the quick grind, the artificial world, and the punch-out trade skill system. World of Warcraft, in matching casual friendly (even console-game like) design expectations, is simply not built to last as a top 5 MMORPG.
In other words, he believes that due to the fact that WoW is simple and easy to pick up, and doesn't have tedious things like trade skills of old EQ, this will somehow drive people away. How someone can think a grind in a game is a good thing is beyond me. EQ1 subscription numbers are now dropping quickly, even with a new "epic" expansion filled with yet more content accessable to uber guilds only. I would dare say the players in EQ1 in the last year were simply their due to the social experience with their uber guilds, as much better games have since come out.
I see WoWs success in another way. The game is simple, easy to learn and thus people are enjoying themselves. Friends are having a much easier time convincing someone to play WoW over other games. There isn't any talk about the problems of old EQ1 when WoW comes up, like the 15-30 minutes of downtime EQ1 used to have to regenerate health. Since WoW is so easy to get into, people are more tempted to run a character to 60, then try a completly different race. The diversity in the game is quite nice.
Only time will tell though. So far, it seems the server issues haven't scared off a noticible amount of people. And for many, the server issues are their only complaint with the game.
Of course, all this assumes that the current state of WoW is the final state of it. Surely once WoW's numbers start going down they'll modify the game to make it more accomidating to socialisers (it's not hard). As for people leaving for greener pastures, can anything stop that?
It's interesting to think of other MMOGs and Geldonyetich's three categories. Think about The Matrix Online (TMO). It's definitely in category three, so what's going to keep people around when the novelty of the gameplay wears off? I think the answer is story.. TMO is one of the few games where paid actors actually direct the gameplay.
Of course, I generally stop playing MMOGs in category three for a completely different reason: they get too hard. I find this especially annoying in single player games which have good story (like Simpsons: Hit & Run). Why do they have to keep making it harder? I don't want a "challenge" I want to have *fun*. I guess this is also the reason behind the popularity of cheat codes. With that in mind, I think the worst thing you can do in a MMOG is force people to take harder mission/quests. Just give me the option of Easy/Intermediate/Hard missions and I'll pick the level of challenge I feel up to today.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Yes, I've RTFA, and I am a WoW player, and I totally disagree with this article.
World of Warcraft has quite a few things going for it. It has a rich history of 3 amazing games, and its this history that has introduced the MMORPG genre to gamers who would have previously not given it a second glance. Most of the people I've spoken with that fall in this category are not planning on leaving WoW any time soon. From this type of gamer's prospective, it allows a micro view of the previous games; building your character instead of building towns and armies, but without losing too much of the original games.
From an MMORPG player prospective, this game offers what many other MMORPGs have strived to do; have a great and interesting quest system that's not too repetitive. I played CoH and quit after a couple of months because as interesting as the concept of that game weas, the quest system was purely repetitive; something I have yet to experience in the 5 months I've been playing WoW.
Another great aspect of WoW is that if you prefer playing alone, you can. If you prefer playing in groups you can. You can hunt and level by your lonesome, even attempt dungeon quests by yourself. Something that lacked in AO. If you prefer playing in a group, WoW has one of the best and fairest party systems that I've seen (and I've played about 7 MMORPGs dating back to the launch of Asheron's Call).
Will Wow's numbers go down? Most probably. All North American/European MMORPGs suffer from this. But it's my personal opnion that it will be on top of the MMORPG list for quite a while.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
Yes, poor, poor Blizzard. They have a "failure" on their hands just like Diablo II.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
For what it's worth, depending on what class you played, the game doesn't really "start" until a bit later.
... well, i'm still waiting on that one, and she's 21 right now.
I have a hunter, a rogue, and a priest that I play regularly - for my hunter, 30 was where it got really interesting; for my rogue it was 20; for my priest
My roomates and I were discussing it the other night, and basically came up with this:
Levels 1-10 are training. They're the turorial levels, where you learn how MMOs work, the basic mechanics and all.
Levels 11-20 are advanced training. Class-specific stuff starts popping up, basic grouping and instances, that sort of thing.
Levels 21-30 are when the training wheels come off. Around 25ish, depending on class, tons of zones open up for you, and you get a much better feel for the world. If 11-20 is High School, this is the college phase of the game.
31-40 are the first red meat you get. Lots of quests, lots of instances, lots of stuff to do and see. Most of the world is open to you now. This is when you should be joining a guild, learning to PVP, etc.
41-50 is endurance. Sadly, this is the most painful part. I almost quit, myself, around level 47 or so. At 40-41, you just got your mount, and by god you'll need it. Be ready to spend lots of time traveling - FedEx quests, lots of grinding, etc are the norm here.
51-56 is where you learn that you are pretty weak on your own. Sure, you can grind out those levels, if you want to, but soloing is much tougher, and the options for where to go are pretty limited.
57-60 are the final meat of the game. Scholomance, Stratholme, BRD, LBRS, UBRS, etc. Sadly, this is also where the fun starts to taper off. After a few days you realize this is all you've got left, except maybe runs against Onyxia, MC, Azuregos, and Kazzak. And, of course, farming set gear and epics =\
If your account is still active, you might want to try making it to 30 or so. You might find that the interest level picks up quite a bit from there.
Cheers to ya,
-A.
student of animation and the fine arts
Article sounds like the author is trying to convince himself that he picked the right horse.
Nothing to see here.
It all comes down to change. MMORPGs lack change. Even in the newer generation games, there's nothing going on that begs for players to get involved. Pen and paper RPGs still reign supreme in the area of an evolving storyline.
In WoW, the same thing that happened yesterday is going to happen today. There no mission you are going to do that someone hasn't already done twice.
Games like Asheron's Call were so huge that, at least for a while, the idea that you were the first person to travel to a new area was still there. You could approach some remote location and find a tower, mountain, or valley that no one had ever been to.
The devs would add new monsters and npcs every month or two. It revolutionized the way players actually played the game. Reports would come in, via the game, about a new mob attacking one of the towns, and then you could go there and actually find/see it.
MxO looks to be the only game that might have a player-driven storyline. Unfortunately, the game is buggy as hell, and won't be going anywhere for a while till they get those issues resolved.
I've Beta'ed Guild Wars, and currently play WoW. Both are great games in completely different ways.
WoW is stronger in the traditional MMO/PvE content. Especially once they flesh out the end-game a bit more. Hardcore dungeon crawls, raids, etc. Guild Wars has none of this. (PvE is on a much smaller scale in GW)
Guild Wars really shines on the PvP front. The entire purpose of the PvE segment is simply to get you up to speed to PvP. Most of a characters development isn't vertical, it's horizontal. (Quick run to 20, then spend time fleshing out your arsenal of abilities) And the skill system leads to plenty of variety and strategy in combat.
Honestly, comparing the two doesn't make sense. They're different types of games, with different goals.
Total waste of time...
He classifies WoW as a "slasher" (one of his designations) along with EQ and some others. He then goes on to say that slasher games don't last long in the market place, ergo WoW will fail soon. He ignores the fact that EQ is still running and relatively viable even 8-9 years after it's release.
His worst error, though, is in picking two games, seemingly at random (CoH and Planetside), saying that WoW is just like both of them and that since their historical subscriber #s showed an inital peak and then a drop-off WoW's #s would behave in the same manner.
That hypothesis is so wrong for so many reasons: * Planetside isn't an RPG, it's an FPS. * CoH is lacking in a # of important areas for player rentention. The most glaring one is the lack of loot acquisition, something WoW has in spades * Just like in the stock market past performance of #s is not indication whatsoever of future performance.
I'm a level 148 Berserk Troll Snotgurgle, and let me tell you, the game doesn't even get started until you get past level 120! Not until you've lost your job, your car, and your family does it really get interesting! Now that, my comrades, is some heavy ass epic shite!
At about level 120 (or perhaps much, much sooner for some of you), you'll find that your life in Warcraft has snowballed far beyond that of your own. Just make sure you are able to steal enough from your roommates to make the light bill, and pray that your next door neighbor doesn't secure her wireless connection anytime soon!
You will also notice that other quests emerge in the comfort of your own home... seeing your own penis will become difficult due to your runaway girth... finding a clean dish or garment will be next to impossible... others come to mind, but the experience gained by battling these epic quests will only serve to enhance your WoW skillz.
In Soviet WoW, trolls own you~!
Talk about grinding? HA. We had to grind random jobs AND PAY people to be allowed to teach them. Then as soon as you became a master and actually could do anything usefull you had to unlearn everything you worked so hard on learning to make room for the next profession.
Content you say? Tired of running? Why I can still remember having to do the exact same run 6 times through the most hostile planets in the universe JUST to be allowed to open up the option to make a lethal run dozens of times to turn hard earned combat experience into force experience at a conversion rate that would shock banks at airports.
Pfff, you guys don't know how good you have it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.