Age of Conan's "Kinda" Launch and Massive Pre-Orders

While some are already enjoying the joys of Age of Conan via the early launch, many more will soon be enjoying the fruits of Funcom's labor. An amazing 700,000 copies of the game are being shipped to retailers for day one sales and in some locations pre-orders will not be filled due to server limitations. Between this and the new Warhammer game on the way, should Blizzard be worried, or will Wrath of the Lich King continue to hold their competitive edge?

Comments

WoW's peaked.

[SatanicPuppy]

I think there is definitely room for something new; a lot of people have been talking about WoW's mass market appeal and it's true that it has a great mass market appeal. It's definitely brought the cult of MMORPG to a much wider audience. I wonder how many people though, have really thought through the implications of that?

The most common implication I've seen tossed about is the whole "WoW has dumbed down MMO's forever, and oh, how I long for the EQ/UO good old days." There is something to that; certainly WoW showed MMO publishers how to make a product that's friendly to the masses. In this case, it's "defer all the annoying repetitive grind until the endgame", rather than forcing you to do it during the leveling process.

What it also did was pull a huge number of non-MMO players into the mix...Players who've picked up the basic skills, and maxed out a half dozen characters, and are now bored to tears with WoW's pointless and repetitive endgame grindfest. For all that it's different from what came before, it's still pretty typical, and lessons learned in WoW will transfer quickly to other MMOs.

Basically, they created the ultimate MMO gateway drug. Now a lot of new products are hitting the market, and I think WoW will see a lot of defections as players who've hit the upper limit and gotten everything it's possible to get in the game, start looking for a new challenge and a less happy candy colored world.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Lovedumplingx]

Basically, they created the ultimate MMO gateway drug. Totally spot on. I've always been in RPGs and people I know who hated the genre got into WoW and were playing religiously. Personally I never enjoyed it that much because of the reasons you stated.

Hopefully you're right and with the demise of WoW we'll see more interesting MMORPGs that have the same draw of the number of people that made WoW worth playing.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SatanicPuppy]

Too much leisure time is one thing, but most people blow some time on pursuits that are purely pleasure, and WoW is no better or worse than most of those. I used to play WoW; I played a lot during a period where I was freelancing and doing contract work. Played a lot less when I started in on a full time job. Less still when my first kid came along.

If I can find time to play WoW, have a full time job, a kid, and a social life, what's the problem? People always treat it like there is some character flaw in playing an MMO, but they ignore the fact that the person'd be playing some other game, reading a trashy novel, or slacking in front of the TV.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[morari]

Unless you are playing quite often, it's simply not worth the subscription fee. That is assuming it's worth the price to begin with, which may be debatable given the continuous expansion packs that eventually become necessity. That's how I see it at least. If I had no life and could play it for several hours a day almost every single day, then the subscription price might be justified (assuming the combat wasn't of the boring click-n-wait variety). But since that isn't the case, it's essentially just a waste of money.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

Totally agree. People need to learn to let others live the way they want to. To too many people someone spending 3 hours bored out of their mind at a local bar is somehow fundamentally better than that same person having fun for 3 hours in an MMORPG. Sure YOU might prefer one or the other, but why worry about others who happen to take pleasure from different activities than yourself?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

Why is it that 2 trips to the movies, lasting MAYBE 6 hours tops, is treated as worth $14.95, but a game needs to be played "several hours per day every day" to meet the same value? We'll assume 30 hours per week as a nice approximation of "several hours per day every day". What you're then saying is that an entertainment venue is too expensive to you until it gets below $0.50 per hour. Just how broke are you?

Understand that I'm not questioning whether or not you want to play the game in the first place - that's a fine and legitimate reason. But you've taken a different stand that it's not worth it to people who DO want to play a limited amount of time.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SydShamino]

Huh? The subscription fee is like $15 a month. That's less than two movies at the theater (assuming you don't buy snacks), or a evening bowling, or a new hardback novel. Those other things are six to ten hours of enjoyment, tops, which translates to just two to three hours a week of WoW for the same thing.

Break that up into an hour Saturday morning while the kids watch some shows, and a half hour twice a week while waiting for dinner, and it's a downright reasonable way to spend free time. It's the same price or cheaper than many other options.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Ephemeriis]

"... start looking for a new challenge and a less happy candy colored world"

What about the real world?

(said with a bit of sarcasm and a tad seriousness)

If the only reason to leave WoW is to play another MMO game, then, maybe... Have you have played WoW for several years and still want more "challenges" why not "Get a life"? *sigh*
Seriously! Why is there always such negativity associated with MMOGs? Why is there always the suggestion that people should stop wasting their time and go do something else?

Most folks have some leisure time. Some people have more than others...but most folks have at least a little. And generally speaking folks will do something fun with that time. Some people read books, others watch TV, some play board games, some go out drinking, some play video games, some listen to music, some make music... Why is any one of these wastes of time any more or less acceptable than any other?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Ephemeriis]

Unless you are playing quite often, it's simply not worth the subscription fee. That is assuming it's worth the price to begin with, which may be debatable given the continuous expansion packs that eventually become necessity. That's how I see it at least. If I had no life and could play it for several hours a day almost every single day, then the subscription price might be justified (assuming the combat wasn't of the boring click-n-wait variety). But since that isn't the case, it's essentially just a waste of money. Obviously, to the folks who do pay the subscription fee and do play the game, it is worth the fee. Regardless of how much/little they play.

There are folks out there who pay multiple hundreds of dollars for a bottle of wine or a cigar. There are folks spending $100+ a month just for cable television. What's wrong with spending $15 a month on WoW, even if you only play for an hour or two?

Worth is highly subjective.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Aix]

In this case, it's "defer all the annoying repetitive grind until the endgame", rather than forcing you to do it during the leveling process. Wait, "kill 10 bears" then "kill 10 scorpions" then "find 10 doodads" ad nauseum in order to get from level 23 to level 24 is not the "annoying repetitive grind"? Sheesh, I'm glad I quit playing at level 40. Everybody kept saying "wait until the endgame, then it gets fun."

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Fozzyuw]

I think WoW will see a lot of defections as players who've hit the upper limit and gotten everything it's possible to get in the game, start looking for a new challenge and a less happy candy colored world.

I think this really sums up WoW right now. It's not that AoC is "better" than WoW, it's that WoW is killing itself with a nearly 2-year release between expansions and game progression.

MMOers want to continue to progress their character(s). 2 years is FAR too long to give people really something to progress with besides horizontal progression with a couple new dungeons thrown in once in a while.

Having Beta tested AoC, I think it's an ok game, but I do not see anything in there that I think is "better" than WoW. Except that it's "new". That means new classes, new lands to explore, new quests to do, more levels to grind. That's what people are really going to be leaving WoW for. Progression. If WotLK came out today, AoC wouldn't be so "big" in the news right now, nor would people be "leaving in droves" to play something else.

I'm sure most of the people who will leave for AoC will be back for WotLK. Until then, I think it's great to eat up the new stuff as well as it being particularly fun to be apart of an MMO launch. Given that a lot of new people start MMOing with WoW, this will be their first major chance to play an MMO from launch. I'm just waiting for the servers to crash at the stress and all the kiddies to come out in droves to forums and start flaming funcom for being worthless programmers. hehe It happens in ever MMO launch.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

oops. Meant to write "30 hours per month", not "30 hours per week". The math works as I intended but I used the wrong word there.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Basically, they created the ultimate MMO gateway drug. Now a lot of new products are hitting the market, and I think WoW will see a lot of defections as players who've hit the upper limit and gotten everything it's possible to get in the game, start looking for a new challenge and a less happy candy colored world.

One of the aspects of MMO that Blizzard seems to understand really well, but no one else has to date is the value of the networking. All the supposed WoW-killers have technologically limited their potential users to a small subset of what WoW supports. This is understandable to some degree, but they have all taken it to extremes by emulating other games system requirements instead of mainstream games like WoW, the Sims, etc. If 60% of WoW players have a system that can play a new game, can you expect up to 60% to switch? Likely, no, because almost all of those 60% want to continue playing with their friends, one of whom at least probably does not have a system that will run the new game.

The formula for a real WoW-killer is a system that will run on a midrange system from two years ago (a little higher than Wow's requirements but nothing like AoC and about what Blizzard targeted when they released), which has a Mac version from day one, and which still keeps the learning curve relatively low. Running on consoles is a step in the right direction, provided they can interact with PC users. Finally, it needs to keep from changing the basic features that appeal to the mainstream (like not primarily PvP). On top of that there is plenty of room for innovation with better game play, more user content, the ability to buy third party content, etc. But the key is not to lose the ability for people to keep playing with their friends in a casual way... and that is where every single so-called WoW-killer has failed to date.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[morari]

To be fair, I rarely go out to the theater in part because movie tickets are horrendously priced. I don't have any sort of television subscription for similar reasons. Just because something is of comparative value doesn't necessarily mean that it's a deal.

The other thing is that you must first go out and purchase the game before you are even hit with the subscription fee. The game is probably cheaper now than it was originally to purchase in store, but that's still an initial investment on top of a monthly subscription fee. Add to that the growing number of expansion packs that are needed for the entire experience and you could have already bought one or two games that don't require a monthly fee. Furthermore, everyone I know that plays an MMO pays for two accounts so that they can play with their wife or husband.

This is just how I see it however. I'm more than willing to accept that many people see it as just another competitively priced form of entertainment. I just wouldn't be able to think of it in that light myself if I were considering a purchase. I'd much rather pursue something along the lines of Morrowind or Oblivion, which can easily provide hundreds of hours of gameplay with room for even further expansion byway of user created mods. The only thing you would really be missing is multiplayer (which is a shame, the Elder Scrolls would be great with two or four person LAN play).

Perhaps I am just more value orientated than most? It's hard to tell. I have a NetFlix subscription, but that's $15 for two (or more) hours of entertainment a day. I get "three at a time" and send them back pretty quickly, which results in six discs per week. That's is a time and price range pretty on par with what I was originally talking about as far as MMOs go.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Thrymm]

I had played EQ a long time before skipping off that train for Dark Age of Camelot since I loved the Realm vs. Realm for a time. When WoW came out, I bought it, and it was fun, however eventhough the graphics were awesome, I didnt like the cartoonish look of the toons. That alone didnt turn me off, the fact it was rather easy to race to 60, and when questing people wanted to do green quests more than trying for the red quests for a challenge.

I went back to EQ 2 years ago when they opened the progression server and outdated graphics aside I don't know how I ever left, gameplay and challenges still meet my needs there.

But to be more on point, theres always room for a new comer, if they fail, they fail. How many have come and gone already? Many.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Brigadier]

replace 'People' in "....People need to learn to let others " with either 'my wife', 'my girlfriend', or 'my mother'. Lets be honest if you take care of your responsibilities they are the only ones who still have a problem with you playing games.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[je ne sais quoi]

To too many people someone spending 3 hours bored out of their mind at a local bar is somehow fundamentally better than that same person having fun for 3 hours in an MMORPG.

I find it relaxing to play a MMORPG and have my characters spend their time in the bar, you insensitive clod! :)

P.S. You'd be surprised how many people like to play drunks in RPGs, I think it must be because it's more acceptable to that because "it's only role-playing".

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Duradin]

Especially with the bar example, I believe it is a case of: "If *I* have to be bored out of my gourd at the bar then you have to be as well. The value of my suffering, and thus self worth, is entirely defined by how many people are being miserable at the same time I am."

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Samizdata]

I have to agree. I just restarted playing again, just to be able to play with my two housemates.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Talderas]

You can download the game for free, along with the Burning Crusade expansion for free, then just start paying the subscription. I don't recall whether when the new expansion comes out if they require you to buy the game or provide the expansion for free for download, though most people buy the game anyway just so they have the hardcopy of the disks for reinstallation.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[vux984]

Why is it that 2 trips to the movies, lasting MAYBE 6 hours tops, is treated as worth $14.95,

And if you go to a see a major rock band, you can expect to pay several hundred dollars for a couple hours of entertainment. Why these major price differences?

How about: supply and demand? and cost of the product?

but a game needs to be played "several hours per day every day" to meet the same value?

Lets compare WoW to other video games, because that actually makes sense.

For the price of WoW+expansions you could buy buy a new game every couple months. If you are only playing a few hours here and there this is probably better value. If nothing else, at the end of a year you've got half a dozen different games to play whenever you get the itch.

Plus, if you are only playing a game like WoW sporadically, its almost impossible to accomplish things, you are perpetually miles behind your friends, you are left out of the social element, its hard to get into a worthwhile guild or group when you do login... so now you are paying $15/month for a much poorer experience than the game has to offer.

On top of that, relativism kicks in. The people gettin the most out of the game, playing 60 hours a week, are paying 0.6 cents per hour. And sees FAR more of the game for that price. Me, on the other hand, averaging 10 hours a month, was paying 1.50 per hour for a much reduced experience... I was paying 25x times as much per hour as the hard core player to futz around in crappy neglected parts of the game struggling to find groups to go into crappy instances, while he explored the end game content that was actually interesting. That's a tough pill to swallow.

We'll assume 30 hours per week as a nice approximation of "several hours per day every day". What you're then saying is that an entertainment venue is too expensive to you until it gets below $0.50 per hour. Just how broke are you?

30 hours per week is 12.5 cents per hour. And yes, he's saying MMRPG entertainment isn't good value until it hits about that threshold. Personally I think that sounds about right. Other forms of entertainment have different price thresholds, there is nothing strange about that.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting parallel: alcoholism vs. gaming addiction

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Daimanta]

I'm sociophobic you insensitive clod!

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

You can download the games from their website for free (I've downloaded them several times), but you do have to pay for the account and account upgrades.

The regular game though is only $19.95 though which includes your first month, so really it's only $5 to get the account setup. The Burning Crusade expansion though is $19.95 to upgrade your account. You can choose to do that through buying a boxed copy or online.

Interesting tidbit: since the client is free (you're really just paying for your account when you buy the game), the trial version actually includes the whole game. As a way to speed up new installs, I bought a trial DVD disc from gamestop for $2. It's the same install, but instead of the 4 CD's of the retail boxed game, it's on 1 DVD instead, and I don't like swapping discs :).

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Graff]

Yeah I beta'd AoC too. It was ok but definitely not better than WoW. In fact, some aspects are much worse, such as the UI. The UI is terrible, non-intuitive and you can't do a lot of things you'd take for granted, such as setting UI element transparency. This wouldn't be so bad if there was some allowance for UI modifications but nope, there is no API available for it and mods are not allowed. This sets it far below WoW in that if there is any deficiency with the WoW UI then you can be sure someone will program a mod to work around it.

AoC will get some people to try it but I'm betting that it doesn't last. People will get over the novelty and will leave unless they loosen up the game restrictions quickly.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[mc900ftjesus]

A bar? That would even be considered "doing something."

People, somehow, will tell you you're wasting time playing video games and that it's dumb and childish or whatever. You've heard it before. That same person will sit down and watch 3-4 hours of TV every night of the week. Probably some riveting stuff like American Idol, House, CSI:Junk Science Theater, some manner of home makeover show even though they don't own a single power tool, or some other crap.

Yet, if you sit and do something that requires some logic, reasoning, and reading, you're the one wasting time playing video games. I won't say games aren't a waste of time, but TV is a much bigger waste of time than pretty much anything you can legally do.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[milsoRgen]

The most common implication I've seen tossed about is the whole "WoW has dumbed down MMO's forever, and oh, how I long for the EQ/UO good old days." There is something to that; certainly WoW showed MMO publishers how to make a product that's friendly to the masses. In this case, it's "defer all the annoying repetitive grind until the endgame",...
and

Players who've picked up the basic skills, and maxed out a half dozen characters, and are now bored to tears with WoW's pointless and repetitive endgame grindfest. I'm assuming you don't even play the games your talking about do you? Everquest, which I played from retail release on, had no actual skill requirements until end game. It was the quintessential "grindfest". No one longs for EQ1, sure some days I wish I could go back to when it was top dog, before all the expansions and it took 45mins to run from one town to the next, but I think that really boils down to looking at the past through rose colored glasses.
Anyways I like MMO's and I've played more then my fair share and I feel your comments do not reflect the reality present today. As WoW is a wonderful system that seems to aim at three distinct play styles, large groups=tactics=thinking, pvp=tactics=thinking, solo=grinding. So yeah I guess if you are going to pay 15 bucks a month to play by yourself you have way worse problems on your hand then how boring, addicting, formulated or whatever the game is. As the fact remains these are multi player games and it's the people working within the system that makes them fun. Not the system itself...
The fact remains these are wonderful games, WoW imho being the most finely tuned and polished. That is why it is and will continue to be the leader in this market for the foreseeable future.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

Interesting parallel: alcoholism vs. gaming addiction Eh, I'll bite.

Interesting tidbit: most alcoholics drink more at home than at bars (yes I know I used it as an example in my post as GP, but I actually DO go out to bars). Reasoning is simple: drinks (be it mixed, shots, or beer) cost a LOT more at a bar than you can buy it for yourself. Your average cocktail at a bar (made with house spirits) is going to run you between $5 and $10 each, and has between $0.75 to $1 worth of ingredients in it. Not comparing the value of the two here, I'm just saying that for someone whose goal is simply to get drunk (ie, an alcoholic), they'll often choose the cheaper route and stay home. Matter of fact the alcoholics I know drink mostly Zemkoff Vodka. If you're not familiar with it, it runs about $11 per GALLON. I've never seen the stuff in a bar (it's terrible), but virtually every corner liquor store sells it.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the real world? Nah. Too much grind.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Thaelon]

The most common implication I've seen tossed about is the whole "WoW has dumbed down MMO's forever, and oh, how I long for the EQ/UO good old days." There is something to that; certainly WoW showed MMO publishers how to make a product that's friendly to the masses. In this case, it's "defer all the annoying repetitive grind until the endgame", rather than forcing you to do it during the leveling process.

Then you should try EVE Online. Least dumbed down MMO on the market as near as I can tell. Steep learning curve. Vastly more exciting because losses matter. In no other game I've ever seen does the term "PvP shakes" apply. I've been playing for two years and still get them.

My corpmates and I have ganked people and had them contact us and tell us it was the most exciting time they've ever had in a game and then ask to join us. This is after we just blew up their ship, mind you.

There's a new, free (as in your normal subscription costs cover it) expansion coming out this summer too. And as is always the case with MMOs, the first hit is free.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you get to have your clan tell you when you have to be on to play every week so that they can play the same dungeons over and over again, and if you're a good boy they'll eventually give you some of the big loot. See? That's MUCH more fun.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[cHiphead]

I agree, once I started playing Real Life (TM), suddenly I was getting paid real money to work and do repetitive actions for hours at a time, and with that money I could afford women and drink, and I went forth and drank and hath women.

But watch out how fast you level, now I'm married with a kid + 1 on the way, and I suddenly find myself needing to work exponentially more hours to have any of the glorious monies, and have started thinking about paying money to play games again cuz its cheaper than drinking. ;)

Cheers.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SatanicPuppy]

Not compared to UO or EQ...You have all the same problems, but add to that the hefty death penalties, and the larger time sinks, and you understand the true meaning of futility.

There were times when I played EQ where I was tired, logged on, and then got killed, and sat there staring at the screen while the realization that, if I just hadn't played, I'd have saved myself hours of extra meaningless work.

The WoW endgame is amazingly tiresome. You have to have a guild, which means guild politics, guild drama. You have to run big instances, which is hours and hours of work for occasional payouts, and it's HUGELY repetitive; you'll run the same instances dozens and dozens of times.

And all for what? Incremental equipment upgrades? Lot of people here are complaining about the long upgrade cycles in WoW...They'd lose all their hardcore players if their upgrade cycle was quicker, because you'd just get your full set of top-tier gear when the expansion would come out and it would all be replaced with crappy quest greens.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[sukotto]

Because killing people in the real world is a felony?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Darinbob]

What about the real world? Too much griefing.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[poena.dare]

"What about the real world?"

My wife, my son, and I all play MMOs. Discounting the cost of computers and the net connection, I spend $45/month for hundreds of hours of absorbing entertainment. This leaves significant dollars left over to improve our quality of life.

Sure I like to get out once in a while, but at my family's socio-economic class, reality is highly overrated.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

And if you go to a see a major rock band, you can expect to pay several hundred dollars for a couple hours of entertainment. Why these major price differences?

How about: supply and demand? and cost of the product? Maybe I'm just seeing different bands, but I've been to quite a few concerts and NEVER paid more than $75 for a ticket. That's beside the point though except to establish an even higher upper limit of what entertainment can be worth.

As to supply and demand, that only applies to physical goods. For services, particularly access services such as cable, satellite tv, or membership to a gym, you're looking simply at demand. We're talking about an access issue here. There is no "supply and demand" on a monthly access fee to a game. The price is simply set at what people are willing to pay.

Lets compare WoW to other video games, because that actually makes sense. It only makes sense to compare it to video games in the same genre. IE, MMORPG's. All of those charge a monthly access fee because they have to facilitate running their servers to power the infrastructure. About the only similiar game that DOESN'T follow a similar pricing model is Guild Wars.

For the price of WoW+expansions you could buy buy a new game every couple months. If you are only playing a few hours here and there this is probably better value. If nothing else, at the end of a year you've got half a dozen different games to play whenever you get the itch. Only if you're into those type of games instead. You have to think though: how much play time do you get out of those games? I get between 6 and 15 hours out of most games these days. 40 hours for some huge RPG. At $60 a pop, that's 4 months of WoW time in which one can play a lot longer if they wish.

Plus, if you are only playing a game like WoW sporadically, its almost impossible to accomplish things, you are perpetually miles behind your friends, you are left out of the social element, its hard to get into a worthwhile guild or group when you do login... so now you are paying $15/month for a much poorer experience than the game has to offer. That's a personal opinion, and you are free to rationalize that WoW might not be worth playing if you don't play it a lot. Many people do play pretty sporadically though and are just fine. In my guild, pretty much hang out and have fun. Our raiding these days has been whittled down to 1 ZA run per week (that is sometimes canceled) on Tuesday nights, and various 5 mans/heroics whenever guildies feel like it. Sure we're not going to go whup up on anything in the Sunwell, but we have a lot of fun together playing.

My basic point is not that "WoW is OMG teh awesomeness and every1 should play it!", it's that "it's too expensive" is a pretty poor excuse unless you're living in a straw hut. Saying "I don't like the game so I'm not willing to pay for it" is one thing. Saying that "I'm not playing it because it costs too much" is something else.

On top of that, relativism kicks in. The people gettin the most out of the game, playing 60 hours a week, are paying 0.6 cents per hour. And sees FAR more of the game for that price. Me, on the other hand, averaging 10 hours a month, was paying 1.50 per hour for a much reduced experience... I was paying 25x times as much per hour as the hard core player to futz around in crappy neglected parts of the game struggling to find groups to go into crappy instances, while he explored the end game content that was actually interesting. That's a tough pill to swallow. That's the same with ANY unlimited access venue though. The guy who goes to the gym for 4 hours every day compared to you going twice per week is paying less per hour than you. The guy who eats 6 plates of food at the local buffet compared to your 1 is playing much less for his food than you. The guy who downloads 250gb of files per month compared to you downloading 15gb is paying much less for his bandwidth than you. It only makes a difference if you let it bother you. If you discount what other people are doing, and simply justify it to yourself whether or not you wish to partake in the service to begin with, then it works out much better.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[debatem1]

Trust me, the grind in EQ was way, WAY worse. Having said that, I'm really not a fan of it in either game.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[mweather]

Some people watch TV only an hour or two a day and pay ten times the subscription fee of WoW.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[debatem1]

Not to burst your bubble, but just because you don't like a game, doesn't mean nobody likes a game. There are an awful lot of people who do long for a game more like EQ1 than WoW- or maybe more aptly, more like DragonLance than Munchkin.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Z34107]

Sigh. It's fine if it's not exactly your cup of thistle tea, but you don't have "no life" or "play it for several hours a day almost every single day" in order to enjoy World of Warcraft.

$13 a month isn't all that expensive of a hobby. For someone with a healthy BMI, that's, what, 3 fast food meals you gave up to afford your WoW fix? And, it's easy to quit, because they'll keep your account and characters around nigh indefinitely should you ever return. (Of course that makes it easy to return, too, but that's the point.)

Although WoW isn't exactly CounterStrike, it's more than just point and click - especially in Arena games, or any other kind of player versus player. You need some mastery of your class in order to be able to do well against other teams - you can't just right-click and wait for the player to die.

Blizzard's also been good about keeping down the cost/value ratio. New dungeons? Quest chains? Islands? Neutral cities? World events? What EverQuest or The Sims would release as an expansion, they release as a free patch to all subscribers. To date (the game's been around 4 years, hasn't it?), they've released one expansion pack - and that added 2 races, 10 levels, easily a dozen new dungeons, and a planet.

Now, what do you do with your spare time? Because I can guarantee you that that's a "waste of money," too.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[tacarat]

I prefer the rationalizing that a month of playing WoW with my friends when I have spare time is still cheaper than a single round of drinks with those same knuckleheads on the weekend. I can still do both, but I get more for the $15/month than I do that first or last round of sweet, tasty liquid love.

*goes off to find a Guiness*

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Awptimus Prime]

"... start looking for a new challenge and a less happy candy colored world"

What about the real world?

(said with a bit of sarcasm and a tad seriousness)

If the only reason to leave WoW is to play another MMO game, then, maybe... Have you have played WoW for several years and still want more "challenges" why not "Get a life"? *sigh*
Seriously! Well, it's just like any other hobby. Some people find recreation in tinkering with Linux with no professional interests, should these people "get a life" as well?

I know folks that range from art directors, a couple of doctors, to a professional angler in real life who all play WoW to whittle away some spare time. None of them have ground up multiple characters to max, none of them sit in raids, or live in basements. They just log in a few times a week and play. This is the average player, if the millions of people who have accounts did that, Blizzard would need many times the server capacity they have currently.

Anyway, back on topic. The non-article linked in the headline lacks to mention one of the more important things about this game: They are probably going to release a version for the xbox 360. This will give an advantage leaps and bounds ahead of what Blizzard has done, since it allows people who don't play games on their computer or have Windows (like me), but still crave a real MMO on the console. I won't play them on the PC because I don't want to have to install voice conferencing software to talk to 1% of the user base, but just use the headset that comes with every 360 with Live access. All the social typing involved with current and previous generation MMOs is the real life-drain IMO. There's also plenty of other benefits to a console driven MMO because the fun goes away, for me, once people start installing mods and scripts on their PC to make their characters more powerful or quicker than they should be. I like an even playing field, not one ruled by whoever dropped $3k on the latest gaming rig and knows all the database, mod, script sites to further advantage them.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[drik00]

My friends forced me to sit down and play Diablo II, then I moved to SWG (*wretch*), then WoW, and I can truly say that MMO's have saved me thousands of dollars in bartabs and dinner bills. When you're a single guy with no kids, you tend to have a lot of time on your hands, and usually that time gets taken up by things that cost money on a near-hourly basis. $15/month is a lot better than the couple hundred I'd spend on gas, food, drinks, and women. Not to mention, it's still a social environment if you chose to take advantage of it. I've got WoW-only friends from across the world that I've been playing with for well over a year, sometimes two.

Yes, I love the game, and its a great way to pass the time. I see easily how people get burned out by grinding the end-game content, but, in all honesty, you have to put in a LOT of time to do those raids with any frequency. Personally, I don't see how people can do it.

I think the trick is to schedule your real life and fill the gaps with games, not the other way around.

J

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SatanicPuppy]

I've played Eve, actually...It is a good game, and one that you can participate in in a lot of different roles.

And yea, you get the shakes. Trying desperately not to lose a ship because you didn't spring for insurance gets your teeth chattering and your hands shaking. Fight or flight city. Dying in WoW is just tiresome, and it leads to a lot of weird griefing, because there is no cost to dying...In no other game have I seen griefers that are so pimped out with gear. At least in Eve, the griefer's usually have crappy ships ;)

Re:WoW's peaked.

[mrmeval]

Yea but REAL alcoholics brew their own beer and mead and also run off some corn sugar alcohol!

Without the taxes the stuff is cheap!

In the US the feds don't care about beer up to 200 gallon if not sold but anything distilled is treated as a capital crime worse than terrorism.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

In the US the feds don't care about beer up to 200 gallon if not sold but anything distilled is treated as a capital crime worse than terrorism. You can also make homemade wine as well (which is as I understand a bit simpler than beer, though I've never tried making beer). There has been some legislation recently though to try and get rid of the laws against home distillation. So far no luck there. Personally I doubt I'd do it, but I think others should be free to. Then again, both my grandfathers were moonshiners so I could just keep the tradition alive :).

Re:WoW's peaked.

[t0qer]

Less still when my first kid came along.

Heh it was the exact opposite for me. My wife isn't exactly a night owl, so the first few months when the baby had to be fed every two hours I'd stay up till dawn playing WoW with my daughter parked by my side.

Only problem with this playstyle is it limited what I could do in WoW. No more 4 hour grinds, let alone trying to find players to raid with at the later hours. Eventually I just gave up on WoW and went back to FPS gaming. I got so bored with FPS gaming that I went back and started cleaning some of the CSS on some of my old websites.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[servognome]

As to supply and demand, that only applies to physical goods. For services, particularly access services such as cable, satellite tv, or membership to a gym, you're looking simply at demand. We're talking about an access issue here. There is no "supply and demand" on a monthly access fee to a game. The price is simply set at what people are willing to pay.

Economic supply/demand theory does indeed apply to services. Supply doesn't just refer to the supply of a given product, but also the amount of substitutes available for the industry. Cable TV, even monopolies compete with other entertainment avenues like movies, sports, etc.

It only makes sense to compare it to video games in the same genre. IE, MMORPG's. All of those charge a monthly access fee because they have to facilitate running their servers to power the infrastructure. About the only similiar game that DOESN'T follow a similar pricing model is Guild Wars.

No you need to compare it to the industry as a whole. Most people don't go out to buy an MMO, they go to buy entertainment. The product differentiation that MMOs provide for $X is the cooperative networking, and competitiveness of a persistant world.

People will always complain about entertainment they aren't interested in costing too much because the effective utils of anything is up to the individual.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Das Modell]

Add to that the growing number of expansion packs that are needed for the entire experience and you could have already bought one or two games that don't require a monthly fee.

Yes, you could have. But how long will you be playing them? It takes me a maximum of one week, but usually just a few days, to play through a game, and I usually don't touch it for a long time afterwards. Paying 70 euros for a few days of entertainment doesn't seem like a sound investment to me. WoW is the kind of game that people play for years on a daily basis, so the monthly fee is extremely cost-effective. Even assuming that you only play a few days a week or something, it's still a better investment. Only multiplayer games without a monthly fee, such as Counter-Strike, can compete with that.

By the way, WoW was originally released in late 2004 and the first expansion came over two years later. It's not like you're constantly buying something.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SL Baur]

Add to that the growing number of expansion packs that are needed for the entire experience and you could have already bought one or two games that don't require a monthly fee. Furthermore, everyone I know that plays an MMO pays for two accounts so that they can play with their wife or husband. That's still not a big deal. Movies tend to bore me. I've got said 2 family accounts. I'll be in line to purchase WotLK when it is released.

In no particular order:

1. I like grinding games. What makes or breaks a game for me is how long it takes to get bored. I've been bored with WoW at times, I didn't play at all between Christmas and April, for example. The boredom has never lasted and I'm back to leveling my second level 70.

2. Blizzard is unusually responsive to real criticism of game mechanics. I started playing about a month before the BC expansion. In that time, there has been a steady improvement on all the issues of the game that have irritated me the most. I'm sorely displeased with what they did to boar pets in the last patch, but I guess that just means I'll have to change specs on my hunter. The other changes they made, the new island, etc. were all positive, welcome additions.

3. It's a computer game that works on systems I use. I play on a Mac Powerbook Pro. WoW is also a platinum Wine application. Will Age of Conan or Warhammer support Mac OS X?

Basically, the cost is negligable compared to the amount of enjoyment I've gotten out of playing it. That's me and apparently to many others as well because the subscription base keeps growing.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Das Modell]

For the price of WoW+expansions you could buy buy a new game every couple months.

I end up playing those games for a few days and then possibly never touch them again. There's just no replay value.

Plus, if you are only playing a game like WoW sporadically, its almost impossible to accomplish things, you are perpetually miles behind your friends, you are left out of the social element, its hard to get into a worthwhile guild or group when you do login... so now you are paying $15/month for a much poorer experience than the game has to offer.

You're assuming that everyone is interested in that. I could not care less about guilds or competing with other people. I haven't had problems "accomplishing things."

On top of that, relativism kicks in. The people gettin the most out of the game, playing 60 hours a week, are paying 0.6 cents per hour. And sees FAR more of the game for that price. Me, on the other hand, averaging 10 hours a month, was paying 1.50 per hour for a much reduced experience... I was paying 25x times as much per hour as the hard core player to futz around in crappy neglected parts of the game struggling to find groups to go into crappy instances, while he explored the end game content that was actually interesting. That's a tough pill to swallow.

What's also a tough pill to swallow is paying 70 euros for a 360 game and getting bored after a few days. It's an epic waste of money.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[AnomaliesAndrew]

I enjoyed being in the world that WoW depicted, but I think South Park's parody where the kids determined they'd have to kill a few million sheep /pigs/wolves/whatever to reach the top level was about accurate for me.

If you're saying that the annoying repetitive grinding was saved for the end game in WoW, then I'm sure as hell glad I quit at level 63, because I couldn't imagine that game getting more repetitive and boring than playing basically alone always or in PUGs, 10 levels behind my friends (the reason I wanted to play in the first place) for a year straight.

Good riddance, WoW! I'm glad I made the peon cry.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[neersign]

How about some bar math? (Not that people don't drink while playing WoW) For the sake of argument, lets say 1 beer is $5 at the standard "big city" bar. So, 3 beers is equal to one monthly fee of WoW. Depending on various factors like what city you are in, what bar you go to, and how drunk you like to get, it could be possible to drop a year's subscription to WoW in one night, even at the bulk discount rate. Some might say it's worth it because seeing and being seen at a bar is much better than sitting at home and playing WoW. Others might think it's crazy to spend $15 on 3 beers. It all comes down to the fact that different people have different hobbies and like to spend money in different ways.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trolls being modded insightful? Must be bashing MMO players. There's also a story about a new Linux distro being released, why don't you go over there and tell those people to get a life too?

You think frolicking in the trees is the pinnacle of past times? Good for you. The rest of us want to play our video games without being insulted on /. of all places.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[dave562]

If you can't afford to burn $15 a month then you probably have bigger concerns in your life than playing WoW. Anyone with a decent job who can afford a computer and internet connection can afford $15 a month to play WoW. If $15 is a big deal to you then yes, don't play WoW. You obviously have other pressing financial concerns that you need to deal with and your ability to deal with them is only going to be negatively impacted by the time you might spend playing WoW instead of addressing those concerns.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a NetFlix subscription, but that's $15 for two (or more) hours of entertainment a day. I get "three at a time" and send them back pretty quickly, which results in six discs per week. That's is a time and price range pretty on par with what I was originally talking about as far as MMOs go.

You want to talk about wasting money on WoW and you actually PAY to rent movies? Oh man, what kind of sucker are you?!?! ;)

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SL Baur]

Hopefully you're right and with the demise of WoW we'll see more interesting MMORPGs that have the same draw of the number of people that made WoW worth playing. Hopefully, you both are wrong.

If you fail to understand why WoW is the sucessful game that it is, you won't be able to come up with a replacement.

I'm not much into PvP and have ignored all the Arena stuff, but I've had no problem finding content beyond the level 70 cap that I enjoy.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[residieu]

Yeah, I remember all those dragonlance games where I spent 3 levels fighting rats and snakes, longing for the day when I could take on a Giant Wasp. Some day I'll be able to replace my rusty dagger with a more worthy weapon.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[drsquare]

EVE is a game that plays itself. You click to go to an asteroid, your ship makes its own way there. You click on an asteroid, and the ship does its own mining. I'm not sure there's actually a game there.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Theoboley]

Oh, You mean Liquid turpentine? That stuff will take the rust off of a bumper.. Only one other that I know of that is even worse, and that's 5 o'clock vodka. But regardless... I Don't play WoW for the simple reason: It doesn't interest me. Also, i'm not a fan of pay-to-play games. Hence the reason i chose a ps3 over the Xbox360. I will however pay for updates, just not a subscription to a game that i'd rarely ever play.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SL Baur]

Sheesh, I'm glad I quit playing at level 40. Everybody kept saying "wait until the endgame, then it gets fun." That's too bad. Level 40ish was probably the hardest, most boring part of the game. That's been fixed, of course. In large part it was due to running into a wall where you had to find groups for every quest sequence.

Now, you can play solo if you want or group up. The tedium of leveling between 20 and 60 has been considerably reduced. Repair costs have been adjusted by adding additional vendor bonuses for Revered and Exalted reputation. The variety of quests has been increased - one quest sequence in Shattrath has you going around collecting unpaid bills for an Ogre in the local bar, another quest sequence in Nagrand has you running around picking up monster droppings. Advanced endgame daily quests has you using your flying mount to drop bombs on things on the ground.

Wait, "kill 10 bears" then "kill 10 scorpions" then "find 10 doodads" ad nauseum in order to get from level 23 to level 24 is not the "annoying repetitive grind"? To each his own and WoW is not the game for you. May I ask what you do consider fun in an MMORPG?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Jack9]

Having Beta tested AoC, I think it's an ok game, but I do not see anything in there that I think is "better" than WoW. Except that it's "new". That means new classes, new lands to explore, new quests to do, more levels to grind. That's what people are really going to be leaving WoW for. Progression.

You mean CONTENT, which is what ALL MMOG players strive for, not progression. The people seeking increased difficulty are a demonstrably small subset.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

upper limit of what entertainment can be worth Have you people never met a girl before? You could easily spend several hundred dollars on dinner and light shopping with most of them.

Oh wait, this is /.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[smbarbour]

Have you tried playing an MMO that doesn't require you to play every possible hour you can to keep up, such as EVE Online?

There are no levels, only skills, and they continue to train even when you are offline. It costs about $20 to start a subscription and $14.95 thereafter. If you devote enough time, you can even pay in-game currency for game time, which results in free play.

The game is constantly being updated with expansions that cost nothing to the player.

Of course, if you wanted to stick to the Internet swords motif, there are several free-to-play MMOs available.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[deathy_epl ccs]

How bad must someone's income be for $15 a month to be something that breaks the bank. I keep hearing this argument, like paying $15 a month is not only a great hardship, but that this is enough money that the subscriber has the right to expect special treatment.

Meanwhile, the average office worker spends twice that on mere coffee every month.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Theoboley]

Everybody up? let's do this leeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrooooooooooooooooyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnsssssssssssssss

Re:WoW's peaked.

[deathy_epl ccs]

There's a slight dichotomy in your statements. In your earlier post, you stated that you don't have time to play an MMO but then you state in the above post that you get two hours of entertainment a day via NetFlix. Just how many hours a day do you think you'd have to play an MMO for it to be "worthwhile?"

Not being interested is fine, and more power to you, but you're introducing some flaws in your argument that started with the premise that you don't have enough time to play for you to consider it worthwhile.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[cvas]

Unless you are playing quite often, it's simply not worth the subscription fee. That is assuming it's worth the price to begin with, which may be debatable given the continuous expansion packs that eventually become necessity. That's how I see it at least. If I had no life and could play it for several hours a day almost every single day, then the subscription price might be justified (assuming the combat wasn't of the boring click-n-wait variety). But since that isn't the case, it's essentially just a waste of money. Good thing you added "That's how I see it at least", because this is just one more post attacking people who don't share the same hobbies as the poster. This one just didn't have any cursing or leet speak in it.

Lets list your hobbies and how much you spend on each one. Chances are you spend more time and money than I do playing WoW. And I'm reasonably certain I can look down my nose at things you enjoy as well.

And before you start going on about me defending a game or some crap, I'm not. What I'm posting about is the attitude that somehow the way you spend your free time is more...important? than how I spend mine, and if I don't do something from your "approved" list, I'm throwing away money.

Isn't it fun to be an ass? And if you weren't trying to be an ass, you might use the Preview button next time.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SatanicPuppy]

There is plenty of grinding in the lower levels, but there is also progression. You're constantly getting better gear, better skills, seeing new areas, and working toward real goals.

What happens when you max your level? Gear grind. Faction grind. That's it. New skills? Nope. You may pick up a new crafting recipe, but that's it.

And the gear grind is evil, because it's so incremental. You can't just jump to top tier gear (well, not without a whole lotta friends), so you have to run 5 mans until you've maxed 'em. Then you need to run 5 man heroics. Then Kara, etc.

And the true horror? If you're a ground breaker, and I did the ground breaking a few times, you get to watch while the stuff you sweated blood to get through by the skin of your teeth, that accomplishment which you were so proud of, becomes trivial as bliz keeps adding new content and new gear.

I was in one of the first guilds on one of the first servers to clear Molten Core. It was a fricking nightmare; you went through massive amounts of potions, one shot buffs, everything. We were the first ones to down a boss, we were the first to clear the instance. Now you can cream it in an hour with a pug.

It's a fricking rat race, and your achievements are utterly ephemeral, because the next expansion will take it all away.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Theoboley]

And how much says i get bad karma for this?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[bigstrat2003]

imnsho, that's the worst thing about Eve, and why I don't intend to ever play (well, one of the reasons). Real time translates into in-game power, which means that no matter what, I will always, always, always be at a disadvantage to someone who started playing the game on day 1. Fuck that shit, imo.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Qetu]

[..] another quest sequence in Nagrand has you running around picking up monster droppings.[..] That quest is shit.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that the only fully supported customizable UI has been WoW's?

UO's original UI had no information in it, skillups were seemingly random. A third party executable was created to support numerical values for skills (UO Explorer?).

Asheron's Call had Decal which added some elements to the game, but the fundamental interface never changed, and couldn't be changed.

Never played EQ.

Shadowbane's interface sucked. It was static.

I think that this is one case where WoW has done things far and above any other game, and to be considered in the same ballpark as them, a game needs to have a fully scriptable and customizable user interface -- which isn't very likely, because that is hard to do.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[smbarbour]

It's a common misconception that someone with fewer skill points is always at a disadvantage. Skill points only get you so far, you have to know what you are doing and how to handle every unique situation. For instance, the largest alliance in the game, "GoonSwarm", has a massive amount of members, and a fair percentage of them don't have a clue what they are doing (though there are plenty of them that do). Throw a bunch of them at an experienced player, and the experienced player is going to die.

Additionally, there are a number of people that buy an experienced account (expressly forbidden, but it does happen). These people are completely clueless, and will die easily.

It's all a matter of what you are bringing to the fight. A sniper with 20 years of experience is no match against a guy with a suitcase nuke that was trained yesterday to hold the button until it's time to detonate. If the sniper shoots, he's dead. If he doesn't shoot, he's still dead.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[William-Ely]

Sure everyone indulges in some form of escapism but whenever I read a book or watch TV I can get up and walk away whenever I want without the characters getting pissed.

Any game that you can't put down at a moments notice without some sort of penalty is saying that the game itself is more important than anything else you might have going on.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[lymond01]

Most folks have some leisure time. Some people have more than others...but most folks have at least a little. And generally speaking folks will do something fun with that time. Some people read books, others watch TV, some play board games, some go out drinking, some play video games, some listen to music, some make music... Why is any one of these wastes of time any more or less acceptable than any other?

"Quit playing video games and get outside! It's a beautiful day!" - most people's mom at some point.

The old days of video games (Missile Command, Pac-Man, Bard's Tale...even Baldur's Gate) with regards to time-sink are to MMORPGs as sneaking a cookie before dinner is to stealing an ice cream truck.

Seriously, some people don't get that MMOs include personal interaction, thinking, excitement. Some think it's mind-numbing...like watching soap operas on TV, or CNN Headline news. It CAN be, if you play that way, but it can be just as brain-stimulating as anything else. So to answer your question of why people are so harsh on MMORPGs?

"It's a beautiful day out! Get your butt oustide!"

Re:WoW's peaked.

[debatem1]

I'm talking about the dragonlance books, actually, but either way, there are people who *do* like those games, and again, the fact that you don't like them really means less than nothing.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[GaryPatterson]

The WoW endgame is amazingly tiresome. You have to have a guild, which means guild politics, guild drama. You have to run big instances, which is hours and hours of work for occasional payouts, and it's HUGELY repetitive; you'll run the same instances dozens and dozens of times.

I'm there already. I have a level 64 Paladin, but have lost interest in the game largely due to my realisation of the massive mountain I'd have to climb to see the end-game content.

I'll probably level to 70 in preparation for the next expansion, and I'll give that a go eventually, but I've done nearly all the exploration I can in the game. I'm looking for new places and things to do, and Warhammer looks like it'll fit that bill.

And all for what? Incremental equipment upgrades? Lot of people here are complaining about the long upgrade cycles in WoW...They'd lose all their hardcore players if their upgrade cycle was quicker, because you'd just get your full set of top-tier gear when the expansion would come out and it would all be replaced with crappy quest greens.

The hardcore players are already upset over what they call "welfare epics" (rewards given to battleground players for time played, not success) and dumbing down of raid bosses over time. There's an elitism out there that's (thankfully) minor but definitely present.

I look forward to day one of the new expansion, where they kill a frost bear or frost pig or maybe a frost murloc, and pick up a green item with better stats than the purple item they slaved for in raid after identical raid.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[DocHoncho]

EVE is a game that plays itself. You click to go to an asteroid, your ship makes its own way there. You click on an asteroid, and the ship does its own mining. I'm not sure there's actually a game there.

I hear this a lot and I wonder what exactly is so exciting about making your toon walk everywhere? Do people get some kind of perverse enjoyment from holding down W?

And as far as combat (in traditional MMO's) is concerned, it boils down to a sequence of 1,4,3,5, heal, 1,4,3,5, etc, etc. Not exactly my idea of stimulating. (Not that mining in EVE is any better...)

Not trying to troll, but I just never got the whole "EVE is too automatic" thing.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Ephemeriis]

Sure everyone indulges in some form of escapism but whenever I read a book or watch TV I can get up and walk away whenever I want without the characters getting pissed. Of course the characters don't get pissed...they're fictitious! The NPCs in a MMOG also do not get pissed, because they are also fictitious. Comparing a MMOG to something solitary like reading a book is not the best parallel... I throw it in there because it's a past-time that many Slashdotters can relate to.

Instead, let's compare it to something that involves multiple people... Let's say you're in the middle of a good game of D&D with a few buddies when your pager goes off and you have to go in to work - are they going to be upset? Maybe "pissed" would be a strong way to put it...but I'd imagine they'd be at least a little annoyed?

Or maybe if you were entertaining guests and had to run off to the office? Or if you were out drinking with the guys and your wife needed you to come home for something? Or what if you're in bed with your wife/girlfriend and get called away on some emergency?

It isn't the characters that get annoyed/upset/pissed, it's the other people.

And I would assume that if you're enjoying yourself even a little bit you'd also be annoyed/upset/pissed to have your recreation interrupted.

Any game that you can't put down at a moments notice without some sort of penalty is saying that the game itself is more important than anything else you might have going on. This has nothing at all to do with the game. What "penalty" does the MMOG impose on you? Does WoW get upset and refuse to let you play for a week if it catches you looking at EQ? It's just a game. It's software. It's bits and pixels. It isn't the game that is the issue here, it's the people.

If you're in the middle of doing something with a bunch of friends and have to leave abruptly, people are going to be annoyed. If you routinely have to cut things short they're going to be more annoyed. If you make a real habit of disappearing in the middle of things they may not even invite you back next time. That is true regardless of whether it's a MMOG or going to the movies with friends.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Kagami001]

I like happy, candy-colored worlds.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Dog-Cow]

So basically team sports are bad?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[lgw]

What's also a tough pill to swallow is paying 70 euros for a 360 game and getting bored after a few days. It's an epic waste of money. Do they not rent console games in Europe?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[BobMcD]

To too many people someone spending 3 hours bored out of their mind at a local bar is somehow fundamentally better than that same person having fun for 3 hours in an MMORPG. Chance of getting laid after spending 3 hours at a bar: Roughly 15-20%*

Change of getting laid after spending 3 hours playing WoW: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

And that's coming from a WoW player!

*totally made up statistic...

Re:WoW's peaked.

[lgw]

Thet's really the key. Most players level up simply to unlock new content, or new gameplay style (which is arguably also content. The WoW-killer will be the game where the designers figure out how to add content 100x as fast as Wow - which really isn't that hard if you design around that requirement (and hire a pool of actual writers).

Re:WoW's peaked.

[lgw]

300K people liked EQ1, and cried loudly that casual gamers didn't matter as they wouldn't play an MMO anyhow (and certainly they were right about casual gamers and EQ1). 10M and counting people liked WoW, which went out of it's way to cater to casual gamers (as I understand it, you can play for a year or so before you have to join a guild to progress).

So, sure, there are people who *do* like EQ1's style: about 3% of the customer base. Heck, someone who doesn't need outside funding might even write a new game for that niche one day. What was your point again?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Khuffie]

More importantly, where on earth do you live that a movie ticket is $7.50?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[DMUTPeregrine]

It's fun to lead raids, or to be a class lead. Then every raid seems different, there are different problems to solve, etc. To just be a player in a raid is boring.
Arena PVP is also endgame, and has roughly equivalent gear. Human opponents provide far more varied experiences than raids (9 classes, assume 2 pvp viable specs each, 5 players chosen. that's thousands of different possible matchups just by class and spec alone, ignoring player skill and style all together.)

Re:WoW's peaked.

[mattack2]

There's the Seinfeld episode where George asked Jerry if he could watch a rented movie at Jerry's house. Jerry asked why, and George explained essentially that -- that he felt like he was 'doing something' if he watched it at Jerry's house (when nobody else was there) rather than at home.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[debatem1]

My point was that just because you like the game doesn't mean that everybody else in the world thinks it's the greatest thing since Catherine the Great's horse. WoW is without a doubt a finely crafted game, but is by no means the be-all-end-all of the MMORPG market, let alone the MMO market, given how many of the major gaming audiences dislike its style of gameplay. In other words, unless you have a better reason than "I love teh game lololol" to claim that a game that is no more popular than Gran Turismo is going to dominate one of the fastest growing segments of the gaming industry "for the foreseeable future", I don't buy your argument.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Sage Gaspar]

too many people someone spending 3 hours bored out of their mind at a local bar

You're doing it wrong.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Das Modell]

I really don't know if "Europe" rents console games, but there aren't any rentals where I live.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[vux984]

I haven't had problems "accomplishing things."

Anyone can lower their expectations to the point that whatever they are doing is an accomplishment.

I don't meant to be offensive, because you might genuinely be enjoying yourself... but imagine if you bought a movie, and could only watch the first half. No matter how much you enjoyed it, you've paid full price for a movie, and you've only seen half of it, maybe you can be satisfied with that... I'd feel ripped off.

What's also a tough pill to swallow is paying 70 euros for a 360 game and getting bored after a few days. It's an epic waste of money.

Ah, but they have a solution for people with just that problem. Its called 'rentals'.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Opportunist]

WoW simply did a few things right that went wrong in other MMORPGs. First, they already had a good franchise name, Warcraft. It's been an established name in the game world, already drawing in a lot of people just simply for the name. This created a sizable basic userbase that included old MMORPG players as well as people who played the Warcraft series so far and decided it's cool to try an MMORPG in that world.

But what really let WoW take off was that it managed what other MMORPGs didn't get to: Pull your girlfriends in. Let's be blunt here, the number one reason why people stopped playing was their SOs being pissed off by it. Or their parents. Now guess what, WoW managed to get these people on board.

That's what makes the success of this game. It convinced non players to play. Now, the question is why. How did it do that? My personal guess is that it has a VERY low learning curve and is VERY heavy on the reward buttons of the human brains. It gives you a fair lot in the beginning, makes you pretty powerful right from the start, and leveling is quite easy, while at the same time offering you the feeling you achived something. Most MMORPGs of the time when WoW started were grindfests from end to end, starting at lv 1 and ending long after you reached the max. It was one of the first MMORPGs, at least that I know of, that spoonfed you quests from beginning to end, you could literally level constantly with quests, and the quests led you from one to the next, slipping you easily into the next continent or "level area".

Being also fairly single player friendly, it did certainly also appeal to people who were used to single player games, who often discovered the chance to play together with other players as a pleasant surprise rather than the necessity it was in earlier MMORPGs. Having a fairly easy to use trading and delivery system (i.e. auctioneers and ingame mail) only faciliated that. It made the transition from single play to group play very, very smooth for people who were new to the genre.

That's what made WoWs success where others struggled to survive. It catered to the needs of "new" players. Whether repeating something like this also means instant success is debatable. I don't know a single "old hardcore" MMORPG player that deemed WoW worthwhile. Too carebear, too dumbed and watered down, not enough challenge. And yes, I include all those oh-so-challenging high level heroic instances.

It is likely that those who started their MMORPG experience with WoW might want something with a bit more bite now, too.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Darby]

Matter of fact the alcoholics I know drink mostly Zemkoff Vodka. If you're not familiar with it, it runs about $11 per GALLON.

Ha! There's a Tequila called "Bandalero" that comes in that ultimate mark of quality spirits, the plastic bottle. I saw it in a store long ago. I was at a Mexican restaurant that had some deal along the lines of "If you can name a tequila we don't have, your next drink is free". I didn't see Bandalero on their list so I mentioned it. They went in the back, brought out the bottle, and said that they keep it on hand for situations like that but there's no way in hell they'd ever serve it to their customers ;-)

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Tarcil]

Compared to DAOC WoW failed horribly in the community aspect. In all games befor WoW there was a sense and feel of community among the people that played the games. You would frequently visit the forums and could happily contact the opposing side or mates that you play with when not on. Blizzard is an amazing marketing company and knew how to sell their game and get a wider range of people to play and get into the Online games, some of whom have never done anything more then send emails and look up recipes have now been opened up to a whole new world online. I congratulate them in that aspect but WoW's coming to a boring repetative cycle. Grind grind grind and grind more. PvE content can be fun but once you have done it you throw away the game as thats all WoW has. WoW killed the community feel to it as your just another body in the same coloured armour as 10000 other people on the server. DAOC had a great community, a tighter 8v8 community. WoW is for the PvE environment, and the PvP aspect of the games was thrown in half thought out. The Battlegrounds took even more community away as theres no pvp against your own personal server anymore. From my personal aspect Warhammer will be the next big game provided EA lets Mythic do what they do best and make a great game. PvP will be the main focus of it and I know most of the older DAOC community who joined MMORPGs for pvp will be jumping to that.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Miseph]

Yeah I pay about $6.50 which, for all you math majors who've long ago forgotten how to do basic arithmetic, is a whole dollar less.

I'm going out on a limb and guessing that your prices are higher, since $7.50 is on the low end of the national average for movie tickets.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Das Modell]

Anyone can lower their expectations to the point that whatever they are doing is an accomplishment.

I haven't lowered my expectations. I have no interest in joining a guild or structuring my life around raid schedules.

Ah, but they have a solution for people with just that problem. Its called 'rentals'.

There are no rentals here.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just him who prefers WoW to EQ1.

Go look at the subscriber numbers.

You might be right that there are an awful lot of people who long for a game like EQ1, but a lot more prefer a game like WoW.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[vux984]

I haven't lowered my expectations.

You don't expect to see or do most of interesting parts of the game. How much lower can they get?

I have no interest in joining a guild or structuring my life around raid schedules.

I completely understand and respect that. However, that's what Warcraft -is-.

Rejecting that and just doing the 'other stuff' is pretty thin value for $15/mo.

Plus, for you to tell me you are the sort who picks up a game plays it for a few days and then is bored... but simultaneously can play WoW month after month after month... how does that work? Especially since you can't even do most of the interesting stuff in WoW, and WoW even at its best isn't that interesting, unless you are part of a social group doing bigger things... but that's the part you aren't interested in...

Re:WoW's peaked.

[zwei2stein]

Because they are more like glorified chat rooms. Except they are not.

withtout humans, there is just no good gameplay in there, anything interesting is gonna be copy pasted till its dull as hell. Once you look past all those things that designers want to hide ...

  * Repetition1: L1 killing L1 monster is equivalent of l10 character killing L10 monsters nad L100 character killing L100 monsters. There is nothing interesting, but people dig having bigger numbers. It screwed rpg "character growth" concept. Now everyone thinks that good RPG NEEDS to have levels, at least 50 of them. They would scream like that angry german game kid if there was mmo without power progression.

  * Repetition2: Kill 10 of X, bring me 10 of Y. If that is not boring, welcome to traditional bring me 10 of Z which is just laying around. You get theese quests in each MMO. All the time.

  * Repetition3: Activate skill 1,2,3 in sequence. rinse and repeat. You cant even do anything else in game, because it would be too hard. Developers make sure that nothing requires thinking, all you have are those skills (which you replace with stronger versions, but they stay eventually the same). Noone can be allowed to fail miserably and repeatedly, so there is no way to fail. Hell, all MMOS have exactly same tactic: tank-nuke-heal.

* Repetition4: Gather X of Y resource, use it to improve skill so that you can gather X of Z resource to improve it further.

For all intents and purposes, all MMOS have gameplay as interesting as if you had progressquest ( http://www.progressquest.com/ ) runing on background while chatting on irc.

One game tried to be different: GW (pointless leveling, nearly no bring me X of Y quests, interesting gameplay where noone is guaranteed to win just because they spent x hours playing, tank-nuke-heal being worst tactis, etc ...). Quite few people missed all the dull and dumb things for some reason. They got very vocal about it, and there is no end to them.

From that i realized one thing: Lots people do NOT play to socialize, maybe not event to have fun. They play for e-peen. They require boring, dumb, gameplay, where they can sink hours of their life grinding and end up having virtual persona of celebrity grade. They dont want challenge because that would eventually slow down their grind or make it impossible. They want to feel fetter than someone who plays less that they do or just want to feel good about time they wasted.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[geminidomino]

Seriously, some people don't get that MMOs include personal interaction, thinking, excitement. Some think it's mind-numbing...like watching soap operas on TV, or CNN Headline news. It CAN be, if you play that way, but it can be just as brain-stimulating as anything else. So to answer your question of why people are so harsh on MMORPGs? Having "socially interacted" with WoW players, in-game and out, I have to say, you're being a little harsh on General Hospital.

Guild Wars got it right with its Heroes/Henchmen setup, even if the AIs are apparently the result of some developer's DeVry project in "Artificial Stupidity".

The natural version is far worse.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

>That's how I see it at least.
Apparently others see it differently - amazing, I know.

>If I had no life
We can only wish.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[KDR_11k]

Meh, that game is overrun by chinese farmers, PvP is banned unless you join a raid guild that will take your whole time and the permadeath sucks.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[wildstoo]

EVE is an offline grind. Just because you don't have to be physically sitting in front of the machine to "progress" doesn't mean it's not a grind.

With a gameplay model like that, charging a monthly fee seems cynical at best. You're paying to watch stats increase. The longer you pay, the "better" your character gets. No randomness, no excitement, nothing unexpected, no opportunity for skilled players to advance faster.. the entire game is tied rigidly to the clock, or - given the time it takes to train skills - to the calendar.

No thanks.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[hatchet]

I play eve-online, i have 2 accounts and i pay for playing with isk. But, cccp is terrible in their PR, there are still bugs present since 2004 when i started playing, un-intuitive GUI, horrible PVE experience and simply, they don't give a damn about user's suggestions. Not to mention stupid POS/blob warfare. Lately, when i log-on i simply don't know what to do... everything has already been done, all goals achieved... game beaten? When did cccp put in some new goals to achieve? 2 years ago when they added capital ships. That's it.
It has some bright points though... mainly PVP aspect of the game. The player-driven economy, production, science... it's just better than in other games.
WOW is different, it's noob friendly. It has so few bugs (compared to eve-online for example) it's mind-boggling. PVE experience is great, most of the stuff to do is not repetitive.
And blizzard is constantly adding new content - new goals to achieve, so there is always new stuff to do, new stuff to try.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[d_i_r_t_y]

WoW is a horrible game. Sure, it seems great while you're playing it, but deep down you know you're over it, you know it's repetitive, mindless, and really dumbed-down yet you still play it.

If this is you, just quit. trust me you'll thank me later, and probably your real-life friends will too.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Das Modell]

You don't expect to see or do most of interesting parts of the game. How much lower can they get?

This is completely subjective. I am not interested in raiding. I'm not interested in PvP either.

I completely understand and respect that. However, that's what Warcraft -is-.

It's what WoW is to many people, but WoW can be played in a variety of ways.

Plus, for you to tell me you are the sort who picks up a game plays it for a few days and then is bored... but simultaneously can play WoW month after month after month... how does that work?

It just does.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[KDR_11k]

Yes, a 50 Euro game (what, you have an XBox 360 or something?) won't take as long to "finish" as an MMORPG but from what I've seen the amount of content is roughly identical, MMOs just require you to mash the same three monsters over and over again for hours or even days until you can move on to the next area, in other games you are almost always moving forward, leaving old areas behind and thus burning through content faster.

You can download a Tetris clone for free and play that for hours a day for years. Sounds dull? Well, yeah but to me MMORPGs are no less dull*. I'd rather pay 50 Euros for a 10 hour game that actually contains variety than 20 Euros for a threadmill. Cost over time is just one out of a large number of things you can rate a game by.

*= I played some MMORPG once where the combat was so boring I'd click on an enemy to start the fight, then pull out my Gameboy and play until the battle finishes, then sit down and continue playing GB until the character is healed. At some point I just ditched the occassional mouseclicks and just played the gameboy game.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[KDR_11k]

I can't quite get what you mean with the first paragraph. Are you saying that an experienced player (one who knows how to play well and has the skill points, I presume?) can get beaten by a bunch of idiots if they zerg him?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[KDR_11k]

They even rent PC games. Not terribly useful for online play though if the game has that.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Das Modell]

Yes, a 50 Euro game (what, you have an XBox 360 or something?)...

Yes, I currently play on the 360. Games cost 70 euros.

... won't take as long to "finish" as an MMORPG but from what I've seen the amount of content is roughly identical, MMOs just require you to mash the same three monsters over and over again for hours or even days until you can move on to the next area, in other games you are almost always moving forward, leaving old areas behind and thus burning through content faster.

You obviously have not played WoW. There's a shitload of areas on two separate continents (plus the expansion content), and they're all very big and divided into different subsections. Enemy types also vary. Right now my character is level 59 which means I'm supposed to start playing the expansion content, but there's a large number of areas in the original game that I haven't begun to play yet. Some of them I have not even visited. Content also depends on what race and faction you are. Alliance and Horde have completely different areas and their paths do not start to converge until level 20-30. Different races also have different quest areas. But those are just the areas... then you've also got the different classes, PvE, PvP, crafting, instances, raiding...

In terms of content and variety, I cannot think of any singleplayer game that comes even close to WoW.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[d_i_r_t_y]

The only MMOG that comes close to offering the features i want is Darkfall, due for release this year.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[ichigo 2.0]

There are two big differences between WoW and Eve. Firstly, Eve is much more PVP oriented. If you're the kind of guy who frowns upon ganking low level players in WoW, then stay far away from Eve. You need to be ruthless to get ahead in Eve and I suspect most of the top players would sell their own mothers for a few ISK.

Secondly, Eve is not for solo gaming (ok this is pretty much point 1 rehashed, so sue me). The only things that are feasible alone are mining shitty ore in empire space and doing crappy low-level missions. Both are akin to staying in uncontested territories in WoW and mining copper. Except you don't need full epics and 50 level 70 guildmates to cover your ass if you want to go to STV and mine some iron.

In conclusion, WoW is to Eve as swimming in a pool is to bungee jumping with a broken bungee cord and your hands tied behind your back naked into an acid-filled pool with piranhas and sharks with laser beams on their heads.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[DerWulf]

Indeed, Worth is highly subjective and I certainly wouldn't argue that someone who doesn't like WoW should waste money on the subscription.

To be honest though, if 15 per month seems expensive to you then digital entertainment per se is just not for you. Neither is anything else really. If I were so broke, I'd go find a better job instead of discussing WoW. Surprisingly, this is not meant to be a flame. Really: if you like WoW but can't afford the monthly fee, get a better job.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[ubrgeek]

You're right. There are a ton of different creatures. Each unique.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[MBGMorden]

Charleston, SC. Is $7.50 really that different from most places?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[DerWulf]

Hey, leave 'House' out of this! Otherwise I completely agree. I took a break from WoW a quarter of a year ago because I felt like I was wasting my time. When I ended up watching "Germanys Next Top Model" at some friends house I thought 'well, NOW I really need an intervention' ;)

Re:WoW's peaked.

[DerWulf]

that's very true but then again, the whole of life is endless repetition and a grind of the worst sorts. Just look at golf, tennis, chess or any other sport: it's the same thing over and over and over again.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[vkevlar]

What it also did was pull a huge number of non-MMO players into the mix...Players who've picked up the basic skills, and maxed out a half dozen characters, and are now bored to tears with WoW's pointless and repetitive endgame grindfest. For all that it's different from what came before, it's still pretty typical, and lessons learned in WoW will transfer quickly to other MMOs.

That, if anything, will work against all MMOs to come, much as it did with EQ1 before it.

Now that you've worked your way through one mmo, and figured out the genre is basically a hack-and-slash grindfest, what's the incentive to pay for another one, especially if the new one is a derivative of the old?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad thing is I've heard several girls (not the hottest but not ugly either) talking about their WoW characters and guilds.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SatanicPuppy]

Raiding is awesome; being at the forefront of clearing an instance for the first time is awesome.

I was in a guild that was one of the first to clear Kara, and the amount of work we put into it was mind-blowing. Hours and hours spent farming potions, grinding cash and buffs so we could kill just one more boss. Blowing a thousand gold worth of stuff in a single fight was possible, and necessary.

At this point in the game, kara is simple. Any semi-competent guild can run it, and comparatively cheaply. It was a great achievement in the early days of the expansion, and now it's completely devalued.

My first character was a Pally; I made it on release day, and I played it until June or so (2005?)...I got the "Blade of Hanna" which was one of the best weapons in the game at that point. All my friends were playing Alliance on different servers, so we all went Horde on one server to hang out together, and stopped playing our alliance toons.

But when the expansion came out, I decided to level the old pally, just for fun. In the first zone I got a quest sword for killing some pigs that was better than my coveted BoH...It wasn't an uber weapon by that point, but still. Yea. Welfare is the right word.

I'm not super hardcore, but it's still annoying to see something that was a real achievement become commonplace. Takes the fun out of the game, because nothing is really worth striving for.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Creepy]

The math isn't the same as a movie. I can buy a newly released $50 single player game (the equivalent of seeing a movie in the theater) and expect to get 30-60 hours out of it, so I would need to get at least 10-20 hours a month to make it cost effective. MMORPGs are usually considered continual development, so that $15/month is really for additional content and tuning of the game itself.

If you don't feel you are getting $15/month in content or enhanced experience + additional enjoyment, it isn't worth the fee.

The content enhancement argument is really BS (yes, they might add some, but why then charge a fee for expansions like The Burning Crusade? - that should be part of your service fee), the real reason most MMORPGs charge a monthly fee is for one reason and one reason only - profit - services are the most profitable market in software, and you are basically agreeing to a service contract for a product. Do you really think Blizzard added $150 million in new content when they hit 10 million active subscribers? My guess is they spent at most 10 million (including network and hardware costs) and pocketed 140 million in that month. The movie industry model is similar yet different - they release several versions of hit movies over time, usually with unreleased content, new endings, interviews with cast, etc, hoping collectors will buy every one.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[jahudabudy]

Just to add to this point: you are also much less likely to do something stupid like drive home drunk, talk out your ass and get beat up, etc. when you are drinking at home. The few alcoholics I've know inevitably fail at some social norm when smashed in public.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[SatanicPuppy]

I don't know. Leading is fun, but playing your role with skill and panache is cool too. Some of the most fun I ever had while raiding was in turning the tide, and holding things together through my own personal uberness for long enough for everyone else to recover.

Arena pvp, on the other hand, isn't as much fun for me. There are certain groupings that have a huge advantage, and the gear advantage quickly became insurmountable. God help you if you're not a standard arena build.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[garylian]

upper limit of what entertainment can be worth Have you people never met a girl before? You could easily spend several hundred dollars on dinner and light shopping with most of them.

Oh wait, this is /. Oh, come on. You don't think /. folks PAY for women?

Re:WoW's peaked.

[garylian]

That's one of the reasons I found myself preferrign EQ2 over WoW.

In EQ2, I rarely went on a raid that lasted more than 2hrs, and if it did, it was with a casual group of friends that took its time instead of trying to be efficient. The fun may have been higher with the friends, but the raid would have sucked if it wasn't for those same people.

And I found that a PUG raid of 24 people in EQ2 really was a hoot 9 out of 10 times. My PUG experiences in WoW were only good about 10% of the time.

Really, EQ2 offers twice as many character classes, no race restrictions with more races, and more content. Major game updates seem to come out about every 6 months, as opposed to every 12-18 months. And, there are less jerks playing, because there is so much less PvP to do.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[garylian]

You do realize that the only fully supported customizable UI has been WoW's? '

Talk about not knowing what you are talking about!

EQ2's UI is fully customizable, and there is absolutely NO BETTER UI addition to ANY game than the EQ2Maps project. Even the game Devs us it when they play. Any new player is immediately told to download it by people they meet, and once they get it set up, they always say "holy ! This is incredible!"

Re:WoW's peaked.

[rehtonAesoohC]

It's Progress Quest!

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Avatar8]

MMOers want to continue to progress their character(s). 2 years is FAR too long to give people really something to progress with besides horizontal progression with a couple new dungeons thrown in once in a while.

You're only focusing on the small percentage of single-minded, "hardcore," single character, playing 16 hours a day achievers who will burn through any amount of content that Blizzard throws at them in half the expected time because they're too focused on getting to the "end" as opposed to playing the game. I've known a few of these consuming players who play one character to max level, get a few pieces of decent gear, visit a couple of dungeons and they're "done."

I strongly believe that does NOT described the greater percentage of casual to semi-hardcore players. The 10+ million who are still actively playing are still wanting to see content added last January with Burning Crusade. I know the guilds I associate with are still working on Gruul's, Magtheridon's Lair and Serpentshrine Cavern. We've attempted the Sunwell dungeon released in the most recent patch, but found our gear was inadequate since we haven't seen the end game content of the original BC. Knowing there are many guilds ahead of us and many more behind us, I'm guessing we're right in the middle of the pack.

I know I won't be amongst the early achievers who will level to 80 in less than a week when WotLK releases. When it does, I'm certain we'll see WoW jump to 12 million active subscribers as those consumers mentioned above will return to gobble up their fraction of the new content in a month and be "done" again. Meanwhile the bulk of the population will still be struggling to fathom how many more choices and paths they have before them. The amount of content in WoW, for those that wish to really play, is daunting. I know a few who quit shortly after BC because it was "too much to keep up with."

It comes down to who Blizzard is trying to please the most: the quick consumers who only see 10% of the content before moving on to new things, or the 90% who are there for the long haul and want to enjoy as much of the game as possible. Blizzard's answer is both - they provide new content in a timely enough manner to keep the faster consumers coming back, and enough depth to keep the explorers and more casual players engrossed for months.

I know BC caused the dissolution of several guilds because members had differences of opinion on this same topic: take the leading edge or take a more casual pace. WotLK will likely cause this again, and depending on what the new content is like, I may soon adopt the "too much for me" group and depart. Any MMO is going to suffer this same division of players in relation to content updates. How well the game replays for secondary characters or keeps new players in mind will determine its success or failure.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Cornflake917]

There are no levels, only skills, and they continue to train even when you are offline. It costs about $20 to start a subscription and $14.95 thereafter. While offline training was one of the few things I really liked in Eve, let's not fool ourselves. The speed at which you train skills is significantly affected by your implants. If you don't grind to get the quality implants, you will constantly be loosing ground with the other players. Also, let's not forget the huge downside of this system. You will never ever catch up to the veteran players who have maxed their learning skills and implants.

If you devote enough time, you can even pay in-game currency for game time, which results in free play. Essentially, you get paid 15 dollars a month to play Eve! It's almost like having a job (which is what playing Eve feels like).

Re:WoW's peaked.

[lymond01]

My first (and pretty much last MMO) was EverQuest. One certainly gets a share of odd people, but rarely did I wind up grouping with people so annoying I couldn't stand them.

I was definitely one of those people who enjoyed playing alongside others, because if you made EQ a single-player game, it would be pretty damned boring. Some people played it like that -- kill, meditate, kill, meditate. I just shrug and continue to be amazed at the diversity of human personality. :-)

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Das Modell]

Enemy types vary within each zone, and there are no doubt more unique mobs in WoW than in most singleplayer games.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Seattle area, all the prices have been raised over the last 6 months, and it's $9 minimum, as much as $12. Even the matinee shows are at least $7.50.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[lgw]

Well, Blizzard does have a history of dominating mature markets, and the MMORPG market was stale enough for Blizzard to do its thing. It's no stretch to predict that WoW will continue to domainate the MMORPG market until "MMORPG" stops meaning "game that plays like EQ". After all, "fastest growing" does not necessarily mean "innovative".

I expect that in a few years someone will release an MMO that makes it 100x as easy for designers to add content (thereby making *interesting* programatically generated content practical), and the genre will transform leaving WoW behind. But until there's some sort of fundamental change in the products coming out, Blizzard's past successes make it likely that they'll continue to dominate the "first-person MUD with pictures" market.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not legal in the US asny. Renting software used to be big in the 80's, I got a lot of C64 software that way.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[vux984]

This is completely subjective. I am not interested in raiding. I'm not interested in PvP either.

I used to play Civilisation a lot, but I'm not really interested in empire buiding, micro-management, or research trees...I don't have the time or interest to figure all that out or be bothered with it.

I just drive my settlers around exploring the map picking up bonuses until they get munched by barbarians.

Some people might say I'm not really playing Civ, but they're wrong. Civ can be played in a variety of ways...

It's what WoW is to many people, but WoW can be played in a variety of ways.

Yes. Just like Civ. So I'm not saying you are 'wrong'. I'm saying that you aren't getting good value. If I only enjoyed the part of Civ involved with driving my settlers around, I'd have been better off playing a different game.

Similarly if you reject WoW's PvP, and Raiding, and group content...well.. you're spending $15/month for what exactly? Like paying $1000/week extra to stay at a 5 star all inclusive resort and only eating lettuce salads and drinking water.

I'm not saying you should be a gluttonous drunk... but if you consume too little you are getting terrible value... I mean... why not just skip 'all inclusive' and just pay for your salads?

Indeed I'd probably still play WoW if I could buy time pay-as-you-go... buy a hundred hours for 20 bucks, and that would probably see me through 6 months. 0.20 cents an hour seem low to you? It shouldn't. That's still easily double or triple what most raiders pay, and they are seeing parts of the game you never will too.

It just does.

I hear that a lot. Even the most avid solo players can't find much to recommend it. Its boring and tedious and repetitive and you don't even have a hope of seeing the 'endgame'. There's really not much to recommend it is there?

I played it myself for a year. I still can't figure out what I actually enjoyed about it, maybe nothing. I started out with a friend, and that was genuinely fun, but after a while we drifted apart due to different time availability...we eneded up different levels, in different places, and mostly on at different times. So ultimately we ended up just soloing, and maybe chatting the odd time we happened to both be logged in...

Reminds of me smoking. There's a reason these games are called 'addictive'.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[debatem1]

My guess is rather that genres other than scifi/fantasy will invade the MMO market, and markets like the twitch shooters etc are so much larger than the MMO market that it'll probably just be engulfed. I'm also thinking that the (awful darn big) RPG crowd is probably going to generate some competition in the MMORPG space, fueled by more modern graphics and the lessons learned from the relative successes of EverQuest and WarCrack. Between the two, the ~60% market share of warcraft is probably going to be diluted down to the point where maintaining market leadership will just be a matter of semantics.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[brkello]

Actually, WoW is easier to catch up to other players than Eve. Eve pretty much guarantees you will never ever catch up with the older players unless they forget to train or don't use implants.

You don't grind levels, but you grind missions to earn enough money to buy ships (that you have to train before you can fly) and weapons (that you have to train before you can use) etc. etc. The grind to me is worse in Eve because the PvE is so mind numbingly dull.

Pretty much all MMOs (including WoW) have free content upgrades. The expansions that WoW have actually bring a huge amount of content and are worth the price IMO.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[lgw]

Personally, I think the WoW killer will be the game that brings the real RPG experience to MMOs (by making the content creation very easy). However, we may both be overestimating the size of the RPG crowd.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[debatem1]

Supposedly D&D is at a 20M globally, but it's without a doubt the most popular game of its type, and previous video game adaptations have- *ahem*- been less than successful. Again, my thought is that other large genres will move in on the highly successful subscription model that MMOs have going. If they bring enough technical innovation to the party I think we might see the mechanics necessary to support on-the-fly generation of complex story elements in the next decade, a number I am pulling out of my ass with wanton abandon. Don't get me wrong, though- I'm a reformed D&D player myself, and I would love to see a video game offer a similar level of interaction and character development.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[smbarbour]

Of course, what's actually important is that you don't need to catch up to the older players. Additionally, if they make a major mistake (such as not having an updated clone) and get killed, they will be at a MAJOR disadvantage for quite a long time (Like a level 70 character dropping to level 30 because he didn't have the right armor)

The group that I'm in however, we don't buy ships. They are provided for us. Weapons are also provided and/or found.

It is even possible (and quite profitable) to game the market which can be done without EVER undocking (Even from the point of character creation)

But like you said, WoW is easier. If you want a challenging game where you are free to do what you want, you know where to look. And if WoW is too hard, there's always Hello Kitty Island Adventure.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Fozzyuw]

You mean CONTENT, which is what ALL MMOG players strive for, not progression.

Wrong. I mean Progression. And it is NOT what all MMOG players strive for. Such a holistic comment is stupid on it's face.

Thet's really the key.

Wrong. Progression is the key. All the content in the world is pointless if you cannot progress through it. Example, what if WoW required you to kill a level 70 elite monster at the end of a dungeon to reach level 2? You cannot leave the starting area until you reach level 2. All other "content" is still in WoW. Not very fun if you cannot progress. Eh?

The WoW-killer will be the game where the designers figure out how to add content 100x as fast as Wow

Progression is an action, Content is a thing (albeit virtual thing in this sense). Progression implies content (you cannot progress through anything if there is nothing there), but content does not imply progression (see my previous example).

This is a human trait and the same feelings can be found in the real world. As one example: I can pile up all kinds of math books (content) in front of you. Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Algebra II, Calculus, Linear Algebra, etc. To read (progress to) the Algebra book, you'll first have to finish/understand pre-Algebra (ok, it's not entirely true, but you get the idea). To get to Calculus, you have to finish/understand through Algebra II. If you cannot understand/finish pre-Algebra, all the other high level math books I throw at you is pointless! You'll never understand/progress through or to them. However, if you started progressing through pre-Algebra and really started to understand the concepts more and more, and your progression increased you really start to enjoy math a lot more! Because you "get it". You're *progressing*! Of course, until you hit Calculus and that all comes to a screeching halt because they forgot to tell you that you need better equipment to raid that book. =P

That's my point. Bliz. can add all the Black Temples, Sunwell's, Gruul's, AQ's, ZA's, Karazahns, etc. but if you cannot do them, they're as good as not even existing. Any casual gamer, like myself, does not have the time to invest in a lot of these. Progression has gotten to be slow to the point of non-existence (or at least slow enough to remove enjoyment from the game). As I said in my previous comment, 2-years is far to long to add progression back to the game, at least for WoW. Even casually playing and taking an 8 month break has made me run, more-or-less, out of progression as a fairly casual gamer. Now the Sunwell is nice because they gave all those new daily quests... except, I've progressed through the reputation points/levels and there's nothing I can really spend my money on to progress my characters items (BoP items are to thank for that, I'm not sure if they're really a better solution than my days playing EQ *shrug*)

So, there you have it. It's a confusing topic because progression actually implies content. So, you cannot have it without content. But you can have content without progression. Which makes the notion of adding content "100x faster" fine... if you could progress through it at whatever rate you enjoy the most.

Cheers
Fozzy

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Jack9]

Wrong. I mean Progression. And it is NOT what all MMOG players strive for. Such a holistic comment is stupid on it's face.

Try TALKING to any mmorpg developer. They will tell you the same thing. Players devour content. "Stupid on it's face." sounds a lot like "I'm talking out of my ass."

Once anyone gets to the top progression they quit? How long was MC the highest dungeon in WoW? The moment that PvP BGs came out (where there is no "progression" only new content in terms of items) people ate it up. People auction special mounts or pets or toys that have no game function other than visuals. If players needed to kill level 70 elites to get the 2nd level dungeon, you'd see a hundred level 1's suiciding to train the mobs away while a million more ran past to SEE the new content without being able to do anything. You discount content as a motivator like you have real evidence to the contrary.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand how an anti-social person might have trouble with the notion that when they choose to commit to something with other people, those people get upset with them if they bail on them.

That's basically what is being said here. A solo activity (reading) is better than a social activity (WoW) because you don't have to worry about other people's feelings.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to have a guild, which means guild politics, guild drama.

Sounds like you would do better with a single player game.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Fozzyuw]

Try TALKING to any mmorpg developer.

I have talked to MMO developers and people involved in MMO games. They were called MUDs back then, though. I've also known people from game studios Raven and Humanhead. They're not MMO companies though. Lastly, I've written research papers in college on virtual worlds for a computer science class on networking and graphics. I'm no guru for sure, but I know enough to form some strong opinions.

They will tell you the same thing. Players devour content.

This is true. No one is arguing they don't, which is why you're missing the point.

"Stupid on it's face." sounds a lot like "I'm talking out of my ass."

Here's a tip, saying: "ALL MMOG players strive for [...]", no matter what is a stupid comment to make. All I need is one person to disagree with your statement (myself) and your statement is false. Instead, say "a lot". Any holistic statement where anyone claims "all people do this" are stupid on their face.

Once anyone gets to the top progression they quit?

Generally yes.

How long was MC the highest dungeon in WoW?

I didn't write it down. I see where you going, but you'll be wrong because you're missing the point.

The moment that PvP BGs came out (where there is no "progression" only new content in terms of items) people ate it up.

You're wrong. The BG's offered lots of progression, which is why a lot of people "ate it up".

People auction special mounts or pets or toys that have no game function other than visuals.

"toys" have a game function. You'll have to remember what it means to play an RPG, which is more than just "Min/Max"-ing your stats.

If players needed to kill level 70 elites to get the 2nd level dungeon, [...]

You're trying to re-design my hypothetical situation to fit your needs. Obviously, you're missing the point.

You discount content as a motivator like you have real evidence to the contrary.

Wrong. Content and progression are two sides of the same sword. They are both required for an MMORPG to be sustainable. However, my point is that people are wrongly apply the term "content" to "progression". Let me reiterate...

Simplified, Progression is an action. Content is an object. Progression needs content. Without it, what is there to progress through? Content does not need progression. You can create all the content you want, but prevent anyone from accessing it. Of course, why would you want to do that?

Progression is not just your character level. It is not just being level 70 of 70. It is also not a black and white value of being done or not done, max level or not max level. It's also a perception. If a player feels like they're not progressing or that the time it takes to progress is too daunting, it has the same effect of actually not being able to progress. Everquest's "hell" levels are an example of this. Some players got so frustrated with the extremely slow progression through these levels that they quit. Myself included.

Progression can be gaining character levels, reputation faction, advancing a story line, gaining more powerful weapons or items, gaining wealth or prestige, explore all of the land, or more. As you can see, this means that the BG's allowed progression. At first it gave you ranks that you need to progress through. Then it gave you points (wealth), that allowed you to purchase more powerful items. It's also competition which allows person to gain prestige by being the "best" PvP player by whatever metric they want such as being the top of the kills list or just being 'famous' on the server for being hard to kill.

Molten Core all

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Jack9]

Any holistic statement where anyone claims "all people do this" are stupid on their face.

Taking a literal stance on a statistical fact is a common way to try to short circuit the truth of the statement. In the end, it's unlikely you even behave contrary to the theory.

have talked to MMO developers and people involved in MMO games. They were called MUDs back then, though.

You should attend some GameDeveloper conferences and talk to the developers of your MMORPGs of interest. A typical MUD player's first (and most common act) is to move to (or otherwise access) new areas until the full extent of the world is explored. It's not like modern MMORPG developers didn't play MUDs.

If players needed to kill level 70 elites to get the 2nd level dungeon, [...]

You're trying to re-design my hypothetical situation to fit your needs. Obviously, you're missing the point.

Your situation is not really hypothetical. Player behvior is rather uniform in this scenario (abandonment is also a popular option, it depends on how much content is accessible OTHER than dungeons to predict the %'s). Although this scenario was hyperbole (yours), the bahavior of players in WoW, Shadowbane, EQ, Lineage, Lineage2, on and on (both due to the creators making too difficult content or bugged content) has already played out this scenario and I have described the behavior, which is part of the theory (players will access content at almost any cost) comes from.

Molten Core allowed progression because it allowed players to first progress through the dungeon, killing (supposedly) hard and hard bosses. Then to progress their characters by getting new items and complete set pieces. Of course, all this great content wouldn't be worth much if that hypothetical boss was the first thing you saw in Molten Core. He'd prevent anyone from progressing through Molten Core and therefor not see any of that content.

In fact, This hypothetical boss DID exist within Molten Core... and Deathwing's Layer and other dungeons. It was called "40-man raid". Only a fraction of the WoW population where actually actually getting 40 people together and set aside a few hours of constant game play.

If the "end of content" is in the form of a raid dungeon or the END of that raid dungeon, does it matter? All players are faced with the same choice. What to do in the face of NO progression.

Progression needs content. Without it, what is there to progress through?

That's a circular argument, assuming that you want to or CAN progress. Progression does not need content if you simply reuse the same content with increasing difficulty. WoW Heroic Dungeons? Lineage 1+2/WoW/EQ/UO/SB/CoV+H/DaoC reusing monster models in increasingly harder areas? But this does not explain WHAT PLAYERS ACTUALLY DO when faced with no option of progression (even if the option is to find a guild and get into a raid, many players wont do this and are faced with the same issue as an endgame raider). They either find new non-progression content to chase or they quit.

Social Aspects
You should ask all the WoW PvP players or the Gunbound players who buy special hats that look cool but have NEGATIVE stats. In the end, getting something different or even NEW is considered its own minigame (people still go back to do level 12 quests to see things they may have bypassed, although more commonly in the form of an alt). If you have an MMORPG player who cannot find or create their own motivation (in the form of change), you have a cancelled subscription. Not all of these changes have to be incremental, if they have a social benefit. For those that do not participate in social achievements find most of these games very limiting and end up grinding out achievements until they grow bored and quit and then complain how the game is boring.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Jack9]

Apologies if I come off sounding like a dick. I take your opinions and deductions very seriously in forming my own opinions, which have been developed over a very long time.

Re:WoW's peaked.

[Fozzyuw]

You should attend some GameDeveloper conferences and talk to the developers of your MMORPGs of interest.

You're right, I should attend more.

Although this scenario was hyperbole (yours), the bahavior of players in WoW, Shadowbane, EQ, Lineage, Lineage2, on and on (both due to the creators making too difficult content or bugged content) has already played out this scenario and I have described the behavior, which is part of the theory (players will access content at almost any cost) comes from.

Gotcha. Except, isn't saying "people will access content at almost any cost" the same thing as saying, "people will try to progress at any cost"? Though, I think a cleaner statement is saying people will try to play a game until the cost of trying to play it out weights it's value (to them). Each person has their own tipping point. Some are even "any cost" kind of people. They're the one's who annoy developers as they find wall-hacks, print-screen jumps, and so on to access areas not meant to be accessed.

If the "end of content" is in the form of a raid dungeon or the END of that raid dungeon, does it matter? All players are faced with the same choice. What to do in the face of NO progression.

First, I'll have to say that I didn't quite follow along your train of thought on this one. Second, I just thought of something. Isn't it funny how we (third person plural) call such content "end" content. Signifying that there's no progression after?

Progression does not need content if you simply reuse the same content with increasing difficulty. WoW Heroic Dungeons? Lineage 1+2/WoW/EQ/UO/SB/CoV+H/DaoC reusing monster models in increasingly harder areas?

Interesting argument. However, I'd say that re-using content does not mean content ceases to exist. (just because content is reused does not mean it is not content) It just ceases to be the motivation behind progression.

Usually content is the primary motivation. People want that shiny new item or to see that far away city.

In the case of WoW Heroics, they added new content in terms of items. Though, I'm sure if they didn't, there are some people who would do it for the challenge.

In the case of re-skinned models, people are motivated to progress for the sake of gaining character levels, seeing new lands, and/or gaining new abilities or items. Even if the monster content is reused there's other content that drives a player to progress.

I disagree, progression still needs content, even if it's old or reused content.

But this does not explain WHAT PLAYERS ACTUALLY DO when faced with no option of progression (even if the option is to find a guild and get into a raid, many players wont do this and are faced with the same issue as an endgame raider). They either find new non-progression content to chase or they quit.

A very interesting point. What I would ask you is, what do you consider "non-progression" content?

In the end, getting something different or even NEW is considered its own minigame (people still go back to do level 12 quests to see things they may have bypassed, although more commonly in the form of an alt).

Completely agree.

If you have an MMORPG player who cannot find or create their own motivation (in the form of change), you have a cancelled subscription.

Interesting that you say "create their own". After all, isn't that what the game is suppose to provide for you? Why should one have to create their own content to entertain themselves? Why *would* anyone pay someone else to create their own content? This is an interesting part of the social networking side of MMOGs.

You should ask all the WoW PvP players or the Gunbound players who buy special hats that look cool but have NEGATIVE stats.

I agree with you actually and I think this still falls into pr

PvP games

[shawnmchorse]

Just based on the fact that it's a PvP oriented game, I know I'm not really going to be interested in it. Same goes for Warhammer. As someone who has much more fun in PvE play, I appreciate games where I can expect that there won't be huge changes made based on PvP concerns.

Re:PvP games

[Anonymous Coward]

Just based on the fact that it's a PvP oriented game, I know I'm not really going to be interested in it. Actually AoC is not heavily PvP driven if you don't want it to be. Both PvP and PvE servers have a huge amount of PvE content. The only difference between the two are the PvP servers have open world PvP and the PvE servers do not. Their is raiding, dungeons and quests and you could very easily never PvP in the game at all and still have a huge amount of things to do.

If you like PvP then the game has a lot to offer, with world PvP, PvP minigames, and larger scale seige warfare. If your looking for only PvE you won't be disappointed. I've been playing the beta for several weeks without doing any PvP and have had no lack of stuff to do. From what I've seen stated even the seige warfare will be open to PvE only players, with your enemy being played by NPC's instead of other players.

Re:PvP games

[KevMar]

People are looing for the next wow killer. The new products know they can not fight with Blizzard directly. But what they can do is make more targeted MMORPGs that can pick up where wow leaves off. WoW can be the gateway drug that gets people addicted.

AoC and War focus on the PvP side and look to build a solid base that wants that. They will have PvE elements, but if you are a real PvE'r keep looking. AoC does have a good quest system and pulls you into the story. The shinning element is the seige PvP for AoC. If that fails, the game will die. If AoC fails at raid PvE content, few people will care and will be willing to wait for them to get it right.

WoW does alot and it reaches alot of people. These other games can target a select group and shift the game to their needs. WoW has PvP, but it is forced and added on late in the game. Thats why AoC and War are targeting those parts of the game. WoW has a lot of players asking for more when it comes to PvP.

Re:PvP games

[LandDolphin]

Carebear /Couldn't resist //Enjoyed UO back in the day

Re:PvP games

[Keill]

Ditto here...

Though I also need a bit more variety in my PvE gameplay, which doesn't seem to exist yet - (got bored with EQ/AO/SWG/WoW etc.

The funny ting is that the only game I found that I liked is a PvP one (Eve Online) which is funny...

Re:PvP games

[underpants_gnome]

Unfortunately WoW fits in your description, given that Blizz wants to transform the Arena into some "e-sport" thing. =/

Re:PvP games

[shawnmchorse]

I really don't have much direct experience with WoW. I tried it briefly when it first came out and it just didn't grab me. My wife plays it though.

Lord of the Rings Online and City of Heroes are the two games I have played that were concentrated on PvE, and didn't really seem to let PvP concerns affect that. There is some PvP in both games (now), but they're obviously just side areas for those that enjoy that sort of thing. I'm fine with that...:-)

Re:PvP games

[Ephemeriis]

People are looing for the next wow killer. People are always looking for the next -whatever- killer. Folks were waiting for the EQ killer, folks were waiting for the DAoC killer, and now folks are waiting for the WoW killer. It seems to me that a lot of people just don't really understand how MMOGs work...

They're all very similar. They'll have different settings, different themes, different gameplay dynamics... But in the end it's all the same kind of stuff. Kill critters to get better gear and more experience, so you can kill bigger critters to get better gear and more experience, so you can kill the biggest critters to get better gear and more experience... It's all grinding, all of it. It doesn't matter what game or how they try to hide it - all MMOGs boil down to grinding eventually.

What really makes or breaks a MMOG is the community. The setting/gameplay/quests/whatever will keep people interested for a while... But once you've hit the level cap with a character or two and you're at the point where you're raiding 'til your eyes bleed, what keeps you coming back is the people around you. Either friends that you enjoy playing with or competition to be the best. Take away the community and you just aren't going to have a game that is worth playing.

There will certainly be some folks who leave WoW (and all the other MMOGs out there) to play these new games. And they'll race through the content to see everything that's there. And they'll raid and get some nice gear and level up some alts. But unless there's a reason to keep playing they'll quickly get bored and go play something newer and shinier as soon as it is available.

Re:PvP games

[CodeBuster]

I find that people who claim to dislike PvP have very often not tried it for themselves. You say that you enjoy PvE play, but for me there is nothing like going head to head against other players in a free-for-all type world where anyone can attack anyone else at anytime, anywhere, and for whatever reason. It really brings out the realistic and dangerous aspect when there is completely open PvP and that is what makes the games fun and challenging in ways that no AI can presently match. Also, there are not nearly as many problems with item farmers or spawn campers in open PvP games (among other benefits) because you can attack them for being lame.

Re:PvP games

[Darinbob]

I'm anxiously waiting for AoC. Then we can finally be rid of those LOTRO players who keep posting on the forums about "plz add more pvp options, or I'm leaving!"

Seriously, I do expect a lot of annoying personality types to start vanishing once they have something new to play with.

Re:PvP games

[debatem1]

Although I think that by and large the 'grind' is a technical limitation rather than an unfixable problem, I wish I had mod points to hand you.

Re:PvP games

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed you mentioned DAOC in your post, but then state that "every MMO has an endgame of PVE raiding"...

Did you never play Dark Age of Camelot? The endgame was "RvR", realm versus realm combat. Meaning you spend however long you must spend to get to max level, you do a quest to get the best gear in the game (epic quests shortly after release), and then you spend the rest of your days, using that character you just completed to fight against the other realms in endless combat. It is a never ending war to capture the opposing realms "keeps", and "relics", holding those give your realm more power.

And the more enemies you kill, the more strength your character achieves.

This is the same model being used for Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning as well, since the games are both being made my Mark Jacobs of Mythic Entertainment, recently acquired by EA.

So ya, some MMOs are made for carebears who raid endlessly, some are made for player versus player endgame.

Re:PvP games

[Hawk-ML]

Yeah...and there's nothing like some jackass ruining your evening of gaming by corpse camping you. Some people enjoy pvp, some don't. That's what pvp servers are for.

A lot of people don't like pvp because of those types of experiences. They don't want other people interfering with their gameplay.

Re:PvP games

[bidule]

OTOH, you have graveyard trolls who just sit on your body to deny you play time. Their only pleasure is to stop others from having a good time.

I find that people who claim to enjoy PvP have not experienced that. They have enough play time that losing an hour doesn't bother them, they'll level fast enough that griefers can't catch them and/or they spend so much time in-game that their skills are too good to be an easy prey.

I was on vent with someone trying the PvP realms in AoC, he couldn't even log off because some graveyard troll was ganking & camping him.

In PvP, item farmers or spawn campers can deny you the resource even better by keeping you dead. I never had problems stealing what I needed off spawn campers, and even if my raiding gear is good enough to win PvP I'd much rather have fun playing *my* game than someone else's.

Re:PvP games

[1in10]

I don't know where people get the idea AoC is a PvP game. It's a PvE game first, PvP game second, much like WoW. Just look at the server counts they went with initially: 9 PvE vs 5 PvP in the US.

Sure, PvP is in the game as a core element rather than tacked on as an afterthought, but that doesn't mean it's a game intended to only appeal to PvP players.

Re:PvP games

[Pengo]

Yup, I'm not much for MMO's any more, but I spent years playing DAoC. The endgame was sooo much more interesting to myself than WoW. (I played wow for a couple years as well, but have stopped playing about 6 months after BC launched).

In trying to qualify my above statement, DAoC had a magic formula of never-ending endgame fun. There was enough mass warfare that could involve people of various levels of commitment.

I played an Archer (scout), I could login, check the map and see where there was action going on at .. in the old gate, a miles-gate or post Frontiers, the new keeps. I could crawl up , find a kill spot and try to get a few snipes in before I was caught and killed.

While I was running with friends, we would use Teamspeak to coordinate ambushes, and sometimes even go and take a tower, or pick on an apposing realm while they where chewing on a enemy keep.

My group of friends, we where not coordinated or time committed enough to be a formidable frontal threat, but we REALLY enjoyed playing the role of guerrilla tactics in that game.

There was an almost sub-game of stealth-war going on, and it didn't require standing around at a portal keep hoping you where in a guild or had a spot in a really good 8 man group.

In a lot of ways, World of Warcraft satisfied that same play style in AV, for example going around and re-taking towers making it hard for the apposing team to kill the map lord, a good group of 6-8 people could make all the difference in a game of AV. Arena's where too dependant on gear at first , I just never got into the arena matches.

Anyway, after watching a year or two go by of craptastic WoW PvP, I have little doubt that there will definitely be an appeal for a next generation 'daoc' style pvp game. I know that people like my wife would never move beyond WoW to something like that, it's just not her playstyle... but for people like me, WoW is pretty much tired and boring, and it's not just level achievement or a new set of gear to grind through that has us waiting for something new.

One of these days a company will impliment a game in the spirit of DAoC and do it without all the bugs, and imballance that impaired DaoC.

Re:PvP games

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree, I quit WoW recently, mainly because I was unfortunate enough to think a PvP server would be "fun". I started about 2.5 - 3 years ago (on the same server), recently I've found myself becoming a casual and suddenly I see world PvP in WoW for what it is: a griefing fest. There are few objectives in world PvP (and those are fun) but mainly, most of the Player on Player action is some uber character (or group) in full arena gear running around ganking casuals in quest gear trying to do... well... quests.

PvP = see who can waste the most time doing: wasting other people's time!

There is no dis-incentive for griefing other players (denying people the chance to play PvE), and on the contrary, Blizzard's new honor system rewards world kills regardless of circumstances w/ instant honor (did you know you can get *a lot* of honor by corpse camping and killing the same player up to 20 times! That's right kids TWENTY!)

So PvP servers are there to let griefers (or as they would be called in non-MMO speak: sadists or sociopaths) a grand ol' ball at the *expense* of casuals, those who eneded up on a PvP server due to friends, or people that believed the little snippet in the WoW manual about griefers getting "dishonorable kills" where if they accrued enough "Even vendors of their own faction won't want to deal with (them)".

Oh and to the people who'll say "Form your own group to kill the griefers!", well rarely that works, most of the time though the people getting ganked don't want to bother, instead they log off (yes, they stop playing the game). If you do form a group, you usually end up with is a mix of non PvP oriented players in non-PvP gear and thanks to the huge discrepancy between the gear obtained by questing doing 5 man dungeons vs PvP gear it's no contest.

Gear and how you spec your character has trumped skill.

Go to a different server? Sure, that would be great except there's 2 choices, start a *new* character on a PvE server (yeah, after 200+ days of play time accrued across my 4 70's I'll just, start all over!). Option 2 pay $25 PER character to have them moved, lets see, 2 accounts (mine and my GF's) 8 characters (if we abandon our under level 40 characters) to xfer, $200 to *possibly* enjoy a game I wasn't enjoying but on a new server...

Re:PvP games

[maglor_83]

but for me Right there is the problem with your argument. Everyone is different. Not everybody likes having the threat of somebody taking them out while they're fighting a tough mob.
Me, I quite enjoy PvP, but not all the time. Hence I like the battleground system in WoW, and (used to) play on a PvE server.

Re:PvP games

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to clear something up, nothing ever killed EQ 1, it's still king of the castle. The problem is if you devoted every hour of the day to it you would still be behind the curve - I don't know how, I don't know who is setting the curve or how the developers keep pushing content for it, but that game is fucking ridiculous. Before I quit my guild did original bosses --> Tacvi in 3 months raiding 6 nights a week for like 8+ hours a night (and farming in the 7th night and before/after the raids) and we didn't actually compete for top end until DoN. That's insane. As someone who played DAoC top end, WoW top end (twice), and EQ II high end I can honestly say there is no game or content out there that competes with the lore of EQ 1, the addictive factor, or the community - but all that being said (and an avid gamer who is forming an AoC guild tomorrow) I wouldn't go back to EQ 1 if I were making all the money that MMO's make myself for doing it - EQ 1 makes life into a sickly depression where dragons not only can't be killed, but can't even be found: and there is no sex so hot as cyber-sex that accidentally slips into guild chat while sitting on the shore of the subterranian lake just inside the back entrance to Paladual Caverns illuminated by phosphoresence and glowing algae on the walls, or under the waterfall in The Eastern Wastes of Velious, or on the secret mountain vista in Eastern Commonlands that looked out over the whole, bustling zone. There's playing games, and there's living lives - and EQ 1 was definitely the second.

Re:PvP games

[vkevlar]

I find that people who claim to dislike PvP have very often not tried it for themselves.

Alternately, we have, and found we didn't like it, especially in a level-and-gear dependent genre like RPGs.

For my PvP, I prefer first-person shooters, or console games.

Re:PvP games

[theghost]

I don't like MMO PvP. I engage in it regularly with WoW, but the overall experience (even in Arenas - their supposedly pinnacle PvP platform) doesn't begin to compare to a shooter like TF2.

World PvP is just a litany of annoyances - rez timers, corpse campers, ganking, etc. Why bother?

Re:PvP games

[revengance]

People will tend to get bored and get on with life regardless of how good the game was, is and will be. Sure, there will always be some hopeless addicted freaks who thought that they rule the game by being the remaining few, on the whole, games do get boring after a while. I am not even addicted to Tetris anymore ;)

Early Launch went well

[Anonymous Coward]

I played under early launch, and the experience was surprisingly smooth. I had zero server or client crashes. A number of minor graphical glitches, and one bugged quest. Other than that, it was a great experience. Oh, and I was playing on a Mac, running Vista, via Bootcamp.

Re:Early Launch went well

[SoylentRed]

What mac? I have a dell it's running terrible on (but it's my fault - and I am backing up to wipe it out - I'm also copying the game over now to the vista in my bootcamp on my macbookpro. :) Hoping that runs it better lol...

Re:Early Launch went well

[Anonymous Coward]

I was running on a MacPro 2.4Ghz, 4GB, X1900XT

At 1920x1200 (Apple Cinema Display, baby!), default graphic settings caused it to be choppy (~25 fps), but very playable, and gorgeous.

Reducing the resolution and settings of course increased playability but reduced lick-ability.

Yes, probably a problem for Blizzard

[HomerJ]

As good as World of Warcraft is for some people, a lot of people I know that used to play it just had enough of it. You play the same game for years, you tend to get bored of it, new content or not.

World of Warcraft won't be going anywhere for at least another couple years, but I'd expect at least either AoC or Warhammer to get into the millions of users and take a chunk out of WoW's userbase.

Re:Yes, probably a problem for Blizzard

[gparent]

World of Warcraft won't be going anywhere for at least another couple years, but I'd expect at least either AoC or Warhammer to get into the millions of users and take a chunk out of WoW's userbase. People were saying this when the game came out, but it's simply wrong. Yes, a bunch of people will leave for Warhammer - The population of WoW players will still grow, just like it always did. WoW is as strong as ever, with around 10 million subscriptions, and another expansion around the way. It is getting somewhere.

Re:Yes, probably a problem for Blizzard

[Achoi77]

I believe most likely that Blizzard isn't going to make any sweeping additions untill they see a proven formula that works. Once they see something that works, then they will jump in, begin development, pump millions to polish it up and resume the top spot.

I pretty sure Blizzard still has their trump card hidden in preparation for the next wave. The 'world pvp' in WoW is a joke, Blizzard is currently just dropping little breadcrumbs in their pvp space to prevent people from defecting too quickly. But right now they still have technical hurdles they have to overcome (how do you have thousands of people in a zone without excessive lag, all the while not causing the servers to die in a fiery mess?), but they have plenty of time, and a good amount of property, and a large enough consumer pool to deliver a desirable product - when the time is right. It's just not at this moment - which sucks for us consumers.

Once WAR comes out and Blizzard sees that they are beginning to lose subscribers, they will release their new world pvp setting beyond just Northrend. Right now they are just waiting for to someone to press the big red button first.

Re:Yes, probably a problem for Blizzard

[sgant]

Well, unless these games have the same polished, smooth gameplay experience, then no....Blizzard has nothing to fear.

AoC seems to me to be rushed out of the door too early as all these games seem to be...giving people that pick it up early a bad experience with downed servers and buggy content.

What happened to Vanguard? Or Lord of the Rings Online? They too were suppose to carve a chunk out of the WoW numbers but neither did this.

Hey, I hope I'm wrong about AoC. I hope it has a smooth launch and is an excellent gameplay experience...but I'm not holding my breath. You have to go a LONG way to match the quality of a Blizzard product. Yes, people may be sick of WoW and Blizzard...but you can't deny that they give you a quality product.

Re:Yes, probably a problem for Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

One game i'd definately play is a World of Starcraft. sort of like Action RPG MMO. that would be great

Re:Yes, probably a problem for Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

As good as World of Warcraft is for some people, a lot of people I know that used to play it just had enough of it. You play the same game for years, you tend to get bored of it, new content or not.

World of Warcraft won't be going anywhere for at least another couple years, but I'd expect at least either AoC or Warhammer to get into the millions of users and take a chunk out of WoW's userbase. I must agree with this comment. WoW is boring after 3 years of raiding and now it's pvp. For someone like me who hates pvp, it's really the last straw and I got out as fast as I could.

Conan will...

[Mr. Beatdown]

Conan will crush it's enemies, see WoW driven before it, and to hear the lamentations of its (very few) women.

Re:Conan will...

[Capt James McCarthy]

Conan will crush it's enemies, see WoW driven before it, and to hear the lamentations of both its women.

Fixed.

Re:Conan will...

[WankersRevenge]

hahahaha ... great quote ... My wife and I just watched Conan the other day. She rolled her eyes when I popped it into the dvd player, but after the first ten minutes she was hooked. At the end of the movie, she said she was surprised that she liked it. Besides the T&A elements and the horrific lines ("Two or three years ago, there were just another snake cult, but now, they're everywhere") and Arnold's wooden stares, it's a great fantasy flick with a great soundtrack. I mean, how many Hollywood fantasy films hold a philosophical question at the heart (what is the riddle of steel). And James Earl Jones was a kick ass villain, using his charisma as a weapon. Check it out again if you have some time to kill.

Re:Conan will...

[Anonymous Coward]

Conan will crush its enemies, see WoW driven before it, and hear the lamentations of both its women.

Fixed more.

Re:Conan will...

[everphilski]

That's not the Conan I know and love.

Conan the Librarian: Don't you know the Dewey Decimal System?

Re:Conan will...

[Anonymous Coward]

Conan will crush it's enemies I hardly call that "fixed".

Re:Conan will...

[hostyle]

spayed by a top-heavy apostrophe ? - oh, not that sort of fixed ...

Re:Conan will...

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

Indeed, the first Conan movie is a classic. Superb soundtrack. I still listen to it once in a while.

But the second Conan movie is pretty forgettable. It's probably a good thing the original plan of making 10 or 12 of them was abandoned.

Re:Conan will...

[krunk7]

Do you want to file forever?

Re:Conan will...

[bidule]

Conan has 2 women?

Re:Conan will...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also, as far as I know, the only film where Arnie punches a camel.

Re:Conan will...

[DanWS6]

Agreed. The second movie felt like they went back 20 years on special effects and tried to reuse the same soundtrack. First one was great though. It's amazing how great it looks for being released so long ago. The music is very well done. I can't think of any movies these days that can get away with the main character not speaking until 20 minutes into the movie. This is also great:

Although Conan and Valeria are shown together frequently throughout the movie, he only speaks five words to her in the entire film - and they're all in the first thirty seconds after they meet: "You're not a guard", and "No".

Re:Conan will...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still prefer my Conan the O' Brien.

Re:Conan will...

[Opportunist]

Hey, it's still pre-release, has a few 100.000 players, so... probably yes.

Re:Conan will...

[kripkenstein]

Also, people might want to check out the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. They're really very good.

Tolkien is truly the father of modern fantasy, but the 'other' major fantasy novelist of the 20th centiry is Howard, and he was damn good as well. Even Tolkien said about the Conan stories, "I actually liked them".

I played AoC's beta...

[HerculesMO]

And it's a decent game, very buggy (although it was beta) and ran very choppy on my reasonably good machine (4GB ram, 8800GTS 320MB, Core2 Duo).

For others it ran well.

The PvP is pretty good -- think of it as a type of "Guild Wars" game. The classes are EXTREMELY imbalanced, where the ones that can 'stun' can stun you for a half hour. You can get DoTs that last a long time, and all you do is cast it, and run away -- eventually the other guy dies.

World of Warcraft will not be unseated or even touched by this game. It's going to be a rush to try it out, and you'll see everybody go back to WoW. WoW is simple to play (not a lot to figure out, it gets more advanced as you level), it takes a very little power machine, the classes are VERY balanced, and every instance and dungeon is well thought out. It's not to say that the game is that great either -- but the social aspect of WoW is a lot nicer than AoC will ever offer, and it's why they have 9 million subscribers. Because it's easy to group, easy to socialize, and easy to play.

AoC is a good game for those looking for a 'hardcore' experience, or Guild Wars on steroids. I don't know about WAR, but I'm patiently waiting for beta access (fingers crossed!) to see how it plays out.

Right now though, I am sticking to WoW.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[subsoniq]

And it's a decent game, very buggy (although it was beta) and ran very choppy on my reasonably good machine (4GB ram, 8800GTS 320MB, Core2 Duo).

people who are in the early release and downloaded the RTM client (with huge patch included!) have said the new client is worlds apart from that open beta client. for some boneheaded reason Funcom released an open beta client with full debugging code compiled in and turned on. Not a smart move for an open beta just 2 weeks before launch where you're trying to generate buzz about the game, and people have to subscribe to an annoying service to get the client. still, while the early release people aren't seeing any issues right now, we'll see what happens at release time when hundreds of thousands of players try to get on. the client may have been cleaned up but we haven't seen what the servers can handle yet.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[HerculesMO]

May well be true, but honestly... it still takes a beefy machine to run the game well.

It will not run like WoW runs, on a piece of crap machine and still quite playable.

And to relate TFA -- it means AOC won't make any competition to WoW.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[Cheeko]

I'm one of the early release players AND I played in the closed beta for about 4 months.

While the beta did have its minor issues in the end, you can tell that they were definitely holding back on the production client/game in the beta and focusing heavily on testing the game systems.

The look and feel of the game upon release blows away the beta. The client is half the size and much more stable. I played from launch until the servers came down for the first patch (about 30 hours, minus a few hours to sleep) without a single crash or freeze.

Occasionally you will run across a bush thats shaped strange or similar things, but they appear to be few and far between and largely trivial polish issues. In MMO terms this has been a pristine launch, though admittedly it was only a small subset. The real test will come Wednesday.

From a technical perspective the game is exceptional. I'll leave the deeper content debate for another time, but I'll say in short that I think you're underselling the PvE. The beta again held back a huge amount of the lore/story elements so as not to show all its cards. Any fan of the Conan lore and/or fantasy in general will probably find the storyline progression and heavy quest centric leveling to be very fun.

Heh, I probably sound like an ad or some wicked fanboi. In either case, I wouldn't discount the game. I think 1 mil subs is probably a reasonable possibility. Not going to unseat WoW, but still an achievement for any MMO. The month free play will probably hook more people than you think.

As a side note I'm also seeing a HUGE WoW backlash in the AoC forums and even in game in some guild names. It would appear that there is a very disgruntled subset of WoW players who were waiting for ANYTHING good to come out for them to go to. Seems like every time something new came out it was seriously flawed and those people stuck with WoW. I think finally they have a viable alternative.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been in AoC beta for months. The game is great. The amount of work done in the last month has been nothing short of amazing.

The biggest seller to me is getting away from all of the 12 yr old WoW players. WHile I am sure there will still be many who use their parent's cc to play, I hope it will not be anything like the joke that WoW is.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[Anonymous Coward]

The game doesn't have to beat WOW to be a success. Being second to WOW still makes you alot of cash. This game is very good and should be around for years as well. IMO.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[dave562]

May well be true, but honestly... it still takes a beefy machine to run the game well. It will not run like WoW runs, on a piece of crap machine and still quite playable.

Where do people get that WoW runs alright on a POS machine? I have a P4 3ghz with a gig of RAM and a 256MB GeForce6600 AGP card. That is a pretty craptastic machine and it isn't playable. I get 4fps in Shatt. I get 4fps in Gruuls. Maybe 10fps in Kara. It's so bad that I miss key attack animations from bosses. For example in Gruuls there is a cave in attack. I don't even get the associated animation. It wasn't until I saw it on my friend's computer that I even knew what it looked like.

I can quest just fine on my computer, but raiding is a joke.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[HerculesMO]

Okay, let's not equate POS with "ability to surf the web" type of machine.

Use a little sense on that one... the comparison being made is that AOC takes far more resources compared to WOW, and that is considering both games at the first launch dates. WOW was still a less hungry beast.

As for your low FPS -- well, if you play Maeiv (where I used to play), nobody's ever on so that FPS should pick up some since you have nothing to animate :)

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[PIBM]

Next to me is sitting a computer with much lower specs than that one, and it's doing fine in every of the place you mentionned, and it was doing fine in 40 mens runs too.

I though slashdot members knew how to get rid of viruses / trojans / whatever was slowing your computer ?

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've played WoW on computers with lower specs than that and had absolutely no problems.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, I've been playing the EA and it is in no way a "Guild Wars" type of game. I see it as a new version of WoW. It is good enough to end up 3rd behind WoW and GW if WaR doesn't take its spot, but won't take much market from either of the 'better' games.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[GaryPatterson]

for some boneheaded reason Funcom released an open beta client with full debugging code compiled in and turned on.

Surely that would be normal in a beta?

I guess the beta could be fine-tuning the game's stats and data though, but I'd imagine the clients would still be delivering an awful lot of data back to the server to help analysis.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[subsoniq]

Surely that would be normal in a beta?

I would expect that in closed beta, or maybe an early open stress test beta, but something done 2 weeks before the game is released? It was already RTM'd, and most people taking the time to subscribe to fileplanet to participate were looking to get a feel for the game to help decide if they would buy it. At that late stage it would seem that an open beta was more of a PR exercise to generate buzz for the game, so it wouldn't make sense to release a very sloppy client. That's just my 2 cents.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[tm2b]

Where do people get that WoW runs alright on a POS machine?

You neglect to tell us how many UI mods you're running, and what your net pipe looks like (and whether you're, say, loading your tube with bittorrent or other traffic). That machine should be perfectly fine everywhere in the game, you've got issues that have nothing to do with the machine itself.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[MWojcik]

Where do people get that WoW runs alright on a POS machine? I have a P4 3ghz with a gig of RAM and a 256MB GeForce6600 AGP card. That is a pretty craptastic machine and it isn't playable. I get 4fps in Shatt. I get 4fps in Gruuls. Maybe 10fps in Kara. There's something wrong with your PC or system. On my 2.4 Athlon, 2G RAM and Radeon 9800 Pro I get steady 10-15 fps in Shattrath and about 15-20 in larger raids or AV.

Re:I played AoC's beta...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've played both. WAR is AoC with WoW's artwork (actually the other way around since the original Warhammer, the table top game, was around 10 years before Blizzard and they invented that "look") and slightly less open pvp.

I loved Eve, living in 0.0 and the constant open pvp, what I hated was the cost (endless PvE to make enough to buy another ship) to re-up when you died. AoC solves that issue.

For long term interest, PvP is where it's at. PvE is just so damn boring after a while. It puts me to sleep... I kept going back to swg because you could PvP all you want and the penalty for dying is negligible. Nothing beats the rush and adrenaline of killing other players and getting killed, occasionally being able to win in a 5:1 fight.

I just hate the disney like graphics of WoW. It's too damned cartoony so I never got into it. It's just so cheesy... so cheesy that I'd rather play a Star Wars game, and that's pretty bad.

-AC

My take...

[Drakin020]

I got in on the early release. Managed to get to Lv 9.

I was not impressed. The combat system is cool for about an hour or 2 then it's somewhat annoying. Mages are overpowered in that you cast one spell and the enemy dies.

Also everyone has Hide (AKA Stealth) yeah...everyone. There are some limitations but the ability is still there.

I think it needs a bit more tweaking, but again I'm not to thrilled with it.

Re:My take...

[residieu]

The stealth makes sense. Everyone should have some basic idea about how not to be seen.

Re:My take...

[XanC]

Everyone should have some basic idea about how not to be seen. All I know is not to stand up. Is that the trick is this game?

Re:My take...

[residieu]

Yes. Now please stand up so we can give you your prize.

Re:My take...

[Cheeko]

Everyone is OP until about 15-16. The point in the early levels is to learn the game.

Even as a healer I was 1-shotting things up until about 12.

After that it tails off and you need much more damage to kill things.

Level 9 is not a good enough sample to judge a whole game IMO.

Re:My take...

[YukiKotetsu]

You're too big to be a thief.

Re:My take...

[andphi]

When it comes to not being seen, isn't the key really not to be blown up while not being seen?

Re:My take...

[Anonymous Coward]

What game are you talking about? AoC or WoW? I honestly can't tell.

I have played a Mage to level 70 in WoW and I can happily inform you it takes up to _4_ spell casts to kill a regular monster. 2 if both crit. 3 if one does. More if I get completely resisted, which happens literally about 1% of the time.

Only Night Elves have a built in stealth. I bet you rolled a male, they are the gayest by far. If you played Waracraft 3 then the reason why they all have a stealth ability should be very apparent to you.

I think I'm a fanboy.

Re:My take...

[Opportunist]

Doesn't work. Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zekiZYSVdeQ

Conan hardly competes....

[ivan256]

WoW fills an enormous niche. A game like Conan, no matter how great, will likely find it isn't even competing in the same market.

WoW runs on crap hardware. When something like 95% of your customer base is a "casual" player, that's an important (of not the important) feature. The shitty $400 Laptop or $300 PC you bought from WalMart will probably give you a satisfactory experience playing WoW, and it's likely that the vast, vast majority of WoW's customer's are running on low-end machines. Conan doesn't even have a shot at those customers. They can't even run the game if they wanted to.

If you want to de-throne WoW, you've got to build a well marketed, feature and content rich MMO that runs on today's low-end machines. Otherwise you are selling to a much smaller market than Blizzard.

This is nothing new for Blizzard, either. All their games have always been targeted at low-end (mainstream) machines. And they always sell like crazy. This isn't a coincidence.

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[Anonymous Coward]

With a player base of 10 million, taking on WoW is a huge financial endeavor with a high probability of failure. One (or both) of the following will kill WoW:

• Another Blizzard product. Unlikely if Blizzard maintains the expansion strategy.
• An MMO with truly user-generated content. Spore will be nudging the genre in this direction. Blizzard knows this is coming, Rob Pardo (a Blizz VP) was on a GDC '07 panel discussing this.

Blizzard is stepping up the pace on expansions, it's been their aim to release one per year. They will likely announce another expansion later this year at Blizzcon '08 (they announced the previous expansions at Blizzcon '05 and '07).

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[Aerynlore]

If you want to de-throne WoW, you've got to build a well marketed, feature and content rich MMO that runs on today's low-end machines. It's more than this, though. World of Warcraft came with several million fans before the game was even released. By the point WoW came out, Blizzard had plenty of people drinking the Blizz Kool-aid from playing the Starcraft and Warcraft series. Blizzard could have put together a box with a pretty picture on it, labeled it as "Our next game" and sold it for $60 and people would have still bought it.

WoW's biggest initial leap forward was the fan-base that came with having Blizzard's logo on the box. There are very few companies that have the kind of 'brand loyalty' that Blizzard does in the PC gaming market, especially in the fantasy genre.

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[ivan256]

I think the pre-existing fan-base explains the initial uptake, but I don't think it explains the insane, continued, and even accelerating growth. Especially compared to the other games on the list, some of which I would consider to be "better" games.

I think that if they had written their game with higher end hardware in mind, the growth would have slowed after that initial fan-base got their fix. I think there are two reasons behind it. First, it would have taken them less time to saturate the market of people with that type of gaming rig. And second, the types of people who are into those types of gaming rigs are also likely to move on to the next big thing when it comes out. Those gamers already left WoW for LotR, and that's where I would bet most of Conan's players come from too.

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree about Conan isnt going to be a competitor in the same league Wow is. Mature content leads to a much more smaller potential market.
  But i can hardly believe 95% wow players are "casuals". To go through 70-lvl for the first time, it easily takes about 3-4 months of an 3 game hours average a day. That isnt something i can call "casual".

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[ivan256]

I only picked that number because I heard once that Blizzard said only about 5% of the players make it to the end-game raiding content. Maybe more of them PvP, but my impression is that most people never even make it to level 70.

I know that I know plenty of people who have played for six months or more, and are still below level 60.

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[Awptimus Prime]

Back when WoW was new, you really needed a top of the line PC with an expensive graphics card before the cartoon-like artwork looked right.

Not to mention, the PVP was terrible unless you had these things, too. Nothing like being in the middle of a fight and standing still for 3 seconds while your computer loads the graphical effects of the spell being cast on you.

Point is, when a game comes to market it tends to be in the higher end of the hardware market and then the hardware eventually climbs to it's level. This, I figure is beneficial for something like a MMo, since it limits the rate of growth to a level that can be managed resulting in a more tweaked gaming experience a couple of years down the road (see WoW).

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[RTofPA]

While I agree conan and WoW are in different markets, I do not think its (solely) because of the system requirements. WoW is a light, cartoonish, and child-friendly world were the most brutal sight is an abomination walking around. Conan introduces itself as "the most brutal, savage, and sexy MMORPG in existence", or something like that. (couldn't find the exact quote.) Yes, Funcom is restricting itself to a smaller market than WoW, but it did that when it chose the setting. System requirements are just icing on a cake that screams "not your usual MMORPG!" and I think that is why it has done so well pre-launch (i.e. pre-orders and beta signups) and, hopefully, will continue to do well. That is, its definitely NOT WoW, nor does it try to be.

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because Blizzard targets a high end machine, but when 2-4 years later the game is complete and released that high end system is now a low end system.

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[WobindWonderdog]

That's more due to the fact that the 'end-game' content you're referring to, only the ultra-ultra-ultra hardcore raiders ever achieve. A large percentage of the remainder are 70, and since the changes to levelling made the grind to 70 easier, there have been more people achieving that milestone.

However, the 5% that literally live for raiding see the actual current end-game content. Those of us who have not the time to spend raiding a few days a week have to be happy with what lower level raids we can get. Hell, I can't even commit to twice a week for raiding, so I don't see a lot of the higher end raid instances.

It's not really the time commitment overall that prevents players from getting into raids, it's the fact that the time committed -must- be scheduled to match everyone else's (who are hopefully in the same time zone). I'd much rather have the leeway to say "Sorry, I'm not raiding tonight, going out with friends" than "Sorry, can't go out with you, have got to raid". And so, I miss out on end game content =P

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[Aereus]

Yet other famous franchises managed to flop -- you can't tell me that Blizzard/Warcraft is more well-known than Sony/Starwars to the average Joe. Dungeons&Dragons. Lord of the Rings (which is even quite good IMHO, I felt it was almost as polished as WoW). Everquest2. Blizzard's claim to fame has always been these three major points IMHO: #1 - They don't release a game until it's ready. #2 - It runs well on very modest hardware. Not only 10% of the hardware like the ones that try to woo through graphics. (Looking at you AoC) #3 - They are willing to scrap a game if it doesn't live up to their standards. (Warcraft Adventures/Starcraft Ghost)

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[DrSkwid]

I would have said the Diablo series brought more ppl to WoW than Starcraft, but that's just a guess.

Re:Conan hardly competes....

[Slime-dogg]

A Diablo MMO will definitely injure WoW's main player base.

REMEMBER BNETD!

[IdeaMan]

Don't forget people, Blizzard is evil.

They were one of the early abusers of the DMCA hammer, and they used it to shut down reverse engineering of the server protocol that would have allowed widespread modifications of the Diablo 2 engine.

Blizzard does not allow mods like Valve does.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[loafula]

I bet your WoW toon is a Troll, too.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[nuzak]

> Blizzard does not allow mods like Valve does.

Refresh my memory, which MMO does Valve run?

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Eg0Death]

They were one of the early abusers of the DMCA hammer

How was it abuse? My experience with Blizzard's games leads me to believe they want to deliver their products with as few hitches and hiccups as possible. Adding mods to Diablo 2 would make the hitch and hiccup prevention far more difficult.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[nuzak]

Refresh my memory, which MMO does Valve run?

Hey mods, fuck you.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[nuzak]

I suppose there's some ironic justice in textually flipping off the community of mods when the first copy eventually got modded up again, making me look like an idiot. C'mon guys, justify my nerd-rage! ;)

Blah. I need to take another extended slashdot break.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down. Whining -1

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad they did. Fuck you, you stupid hippie.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Lunatrik]

> Blizzard does not allow mods like Valve does.
Additionally, you must be using a fairly narrow definition for "mods". I played a number of incredibly clever maps for both Starcraft and Warcraft 3 - while not total conversions like Valve allows for, I would certainly define some of the upper tier maps as "mods".
Not to say Blizzard isn't evil.. they nerfed my priest!

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Gorm the DBA]

You mean....you mean...you mean they prevented people from creating stand along copies of their work so that people could play the game without paying for it, using pirated copies?

ZOMG! They are the DEVIL!

Of course they shouldn't take appropriate action to make sure that people obey the licensing restrictions they agreed to when purchasing the product. That would be evil.

They wrote it, they are within their rights to say "No, we don't want you using it this way". You want to play a RTS that has multi-player capability on an open LAN? Write it yourself.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo 2 is a MMO? Wow, fooled me

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Scudsucker]

Refresh my memory, which MMO does Valve run?

You don't need a refresh, you need a slap upside the head. Both Valve and Blizzard make games. One company encourages modification, and the other freaks the fuck out. WTF difference does it make that one is an FPS and the other is an RPG?

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you're lying. BNETD was an open implementation reverse engineered SERVER SOFTWARE, not game client software. They did not have licensing restrictions on the server code because THEY NEVER SOLD IT.

And it is disingenuous to say the BNETD guys ignored auth, when Blizz made a stink about it, the BNETD guys asked to have a webservice to call, or any way to tell, and they would have put it in. Blizz refused. It was merely a cheap tactic so that trolls like you could parrot it.

The real problem is that BNET was a buggy, hacked POS, full of jerks running genned CD keys (so the piracy argument was out the window) that had 100s of duped items and Stones of Jordan (Diablo 2 de facto currency since gold was worthless). A legit player had to wade through tons of hackers and item seller ads that openly abused the Blizz api to advertise their crap, all the while having trouble forming a group run due to the signal to noise ratio. Don't pretend SC was any better, it sure as heck was not.

BNETD would have simply allowed you to play by your rules, the same as many other games do with their private servers.

"Of course they shouldn't take appropriate action to make sure that people obey the licensing restrictions they agreed to when purchasing the product. That would be evil."

More times than not, the restrictions are evil, and go way beyond what copyright grants them. So yes, take out the sarcasm and your point is actually spot on.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Aimbots in a MMO are a little more of a problem aren't they?

Looks like the MMO forum kids got over here again. You little guys are so cute with your colerful little insult-language.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[IdeaMan]

Nope, they were all Blood elves or humans. Troll female hair is nasty lookin.

I played WoW for 2-3 months (for free), and now I'm done with it and am back to serving the sadomasochists at Funcom (AnarchyOnline.com). I would really like to be able to host my own MMO server with available source.

Saying an MMO should not be open source is to espouse security through obscurity.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[plasmacutter]

I'm sorry but bnetd is NOT their IP.

it was designed from scratch using researched information, and by researched information I don't mean looking at blizzard's source code.

and yes, it is within their rights to say they don't want you using their clients this way, or to issue takedowns on any copies of their OFFICIAL server floating around, but they have absolutely no right to issue takedowns on somebody else's hard work.

There are numerous other methods of enforcing this, such as re-engineering the handshake like apple did/does itunes and fairplay whenever it's broken. suing others for making a product that does the same thing is like lowes suing home depot for ALSO operating a home improvement superstore.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[IdeaMan]

I'm the author of 2 or 3 polished maps, including Traps & Towers TD for WC3.
I love the power of the editor, however, the server does not allow modified clients and blizzard does not allow users to run their own servers.
One of the rather severe drawbacks with WC3 is the lack of client side storage space for map driven save game data. Another is the lack of the ability to chain to another map in multiplayer. With those two capabilities you could implement a full up version of Neverwinter Nights. A modified server would handle these.

So unfortunately, your example only serves to reinforce my point.

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[IdeaMan]

Yes they have the right to try to lock down their servers, and we have the right to punish them in every way possible for locking out legitimate uses of their product. One of the fundamental tenets of the GPL is to maintain the rights of the end users to do what they want with the software they have received. They do not have the right to shut down other peoples servers.

That's what you're missing. It's MY software, I bought it with MY money, I can use it the way I want to. They do NOT have the right to restrict how I use my software.

The fact that they were using it to play pirated copies is a real shame. There are many more reasons to have a reverse engineered server than mere piracy. If it were as simple as you say then why is the EFF into it?

Oh and I did work on an a multiplayer first person RTS: It was called Island of Zaran, and it was based on the Half-Life engine. (It was a buggy mess so I gave up. That and Hellgate London came out which implemented most of the ideas I was shooting for.)

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Lunatrik]

I will grant you, of course, that their are stringent limitations placed on how much modding you can do with Blizzard games (specifically, lets say, WC3). However, I would argue that these maps are in and of themselves mods, albeit not with all the power (server side, client side capabilities) that you may want.

Largely, our disagreement is strictly linguistic: you apparently define a mod as something that enables server side modifications and more dramatic client side capabilities, whereas I would accept anything which makes drastic modifications to the original gameplay as a mod (WC3 Tower Defences, RPGs, ect.).

Re:REMEMBER BNETD!

[Scudsucker]

Aimbots in a MMO are a little more of a problem aren't they?

I suppose you could see it that way, if you were the biggest idiot on the planet. Shooters are based around aiming. RPG's are based around stats, storylines and the level grind.

Looks like the MMO forum kids got over here again.

Never played online RPG's, never will.

From what I've seen of Conan...

[Skuld-Chan]

I don't think it will make much of a dent sadly. The game is still too unrefined, and the animations are pretty horrible.

WoW didn't just get mass market appeal overnight - they actually did it by giving gamers a very polished MMO. WoW players complain about bugs all the time, but really its small potatoes to what came before - and none of these bugs are what I'd call critical.

Re:From what I've seen of Conan...

[Anonymous Coward]

the animations are pretty horrible What? What game are you playing? Or, what game are you comparing to? My experience in AoC the past two days has been that the animations (melee, caster, emote, run, walk, swim, jump, quest dialog, creature, you name it) are excellent, at least compared to WoW. A lot of that is the much higher poly count, but it's also the skill of the animator.

Take a look at an AoC character while emoting "/clap", for an example of what I mean. The character claps, nods his head approvingly, changes facial expression appropriately. Muscles move believably.

Re:From what I've seen of Conan...

[Colonel Korn]

I'll have trouble playing another MMO (I quit WoW 6 months ago after playing since beta and raiding since MC was novel) unless it offers the degree of UI flexibility that WoW does. I dislike the UI in most games, but it doesn't bother me too much because I can work around it. I tend to like minimalist UIs if they're not going to be perfect, so something like GTA4 is pretty nice for me. But when I actually care about being competitive, which is something I've only felt in an MMO, default UIs never hold up. MMOs by design offer vastly different types of characters, and what's good for 90% of them won't be good for me. Being able to design my own UI, or use a popular and configurable one, allowed me to perfect my playing experience in WoW like in no other game. I'd love to play another MMO, this time for ~5 hours a week instead of...well, much much more than that, but I don't think I'd be able to get over a preconfigured UI.

Re:From what I've seen of Conan...

[gyranthir]

AoC plays much like Guildwars did. It's terribly linear, and boring. It had some potential but it fell apart as development went along. It will probably pull more than Guildwars did, but still won't be the mega-hit that WoW was. Warhammer still holds some potential but it has very stiff competition.

Re:From what I've seen of Conan...

[Cheeko]

Are you judging that off beta or release? While I didn't think beta was that bad, I was amazed at how much better the release client is. They definitely held back in beta.

Re:From what I've seen of Conan...

[jmd82]

At first, WoW, much like most MMOs, was far from polished. I played since launch until last year (raid burnout), and there were definitely bugs galore. Servers crashing out. A lot. For days. Loot lag. The boat working/not working. Later on, nightly MC/ony/bwl runs while all the other guilds were causing massive raid lag. I could go on, but WoW's being polished on release was about on par with other releases.

Fancy MMO's MEH...

[hyperz69]

Give me my Red Dragon and Exiled. The old BBS days. We had Ansi Colored Text... and we LIKED IT like that.

Re:Fancy MMO's MEH...

[oodaloop]

You and your fancy colored text. Back in my day we had Pong!

Re:Fancy MMO's MEH...

[Yvan256]

You and your fancy electronic ping-pong. Back in my day we had board games!

Re:Fancy MMO's MEH...

[Digestromath]

You and your fancy 'board games', back in my day we used to sit around the fire and tell stories, just waiting to die at age 20 from any number of diseases, predators or starvation.

Re:Fancy MMO's MEH...

[archen]

You kids wouldn't have that problem if you got off your butts and hunted things like I did back when I was your age. Now the kids just sit around the campfire talking about things. Talk. We didn't have this problem until they invented that new fangled language stuff.

Re:Fancy MMO's MEH...

[Schnoodledorfer]

You and your fancy talking! Back in my day, we just grunted and picked the insects out of each other's hair. And what's this "fire" thing you sat around?

Re:Fancy MMO's MEH...

[Neo Minder]

I miss BRE, but LORD was good too. And planets, and lod....

-Minder

Re:Fancy MMO's MEH...

[drsquare]

Hair? You don't know you're born. In my day, we were just protein stands in the primordial soup. And we liked it.

Re:Fancy MMO's MEH...

[Opportunist]

Spoiled brat! We had to assemble our proteins ourselves, by hand. Or rather, we'd have KILLED to have a hand!

muttermutteryouthoftoday...

Greetings!

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new Barbarian Overlords!

Linux and Mac compatible??

[Foofoobar]

I dumped City of Heroes after I got my MAC. I was tired of having to log out of Linux to play COH and decided I was just going to dump it entirely and just install WOW on my Mac. I can also play it on Linux via Cedega/WINE really well. Yes this is maybe 10% of the desktop market total but WOW caters to it and as a result is the dominant MORPG for Linux and MAC players. Windows players have a million options to choose from for MORPG's and tons of people fighting for their dollars while 40% of college students are all purchasing Macs and nobody is fighting for this disposable income market.

Seems like someone other than Blizzard would see the wisdom in supporting OpenGL and this expanding market

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Yvan256]

Indeed, I really hate this "Windows owns 95% of the marketshare" myth.

It really is a myth, as far as games are concerned:
- the marketshare numbers we keep hearing about are not about installed base, but sales
- even if we go with these numbers, it's still wrong because it counts Windows servers and corporate desktops and laptops
- it counts all users as being a possible market for games, which it isn't

As you say, if 40% of college students are buying Macs, why the hell are game companies so stuck up on the "Windows has 95% of the market" mantra? Are they all stupid, or what?

That's like all these game developers who keep saying that the Wii is inferior hardware and isn't really a next-gen system (but they still continue to make PS2 games anyway). So what, that's the best-selling gaming system right now, apart from the Nintendo DS, which is not only another Nintendo system, but even more "inferior" specs-wise.

If the gamers have Macs and Wiis, then make games for these systems!

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Foofoobar]

Well as you can see... for some reason, I got marked as a troll for even saying this. All factually based but for some reason people don't want to hear it. *shrug*

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I would say Eve Online is a better MMORPG for Linux players, since they actually provide an offical, supported Linux client. Sure, you can run WoW in Cedega/WINE, but Blizzard won't provide you any support for it.

BTW, neither I nor anyone I know have been able to get a decently running WoW setup in Linux. It will run, but the performance is utter crap.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Awptimus Prime]

This often happens to me when I bring up how nice of a platform the 360 is because OH GOD ITS MICROSOFT. It's a narrow little club on here who likes to mod down folks over less popular opinions and not over whether you are actually trolling.

It's been sad though, it took a while for the Mac client to come out for WoW. Also, nobody seems to remember the ban-hammer being wielded over folks running it under Linux with wine.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Foofoobar]

Really? I used to play City of Heroes and Wow via Cedega all the time. The framerate was faster than Windows but dependeing on the game, you may not have the best graphics; COH graphics sucked but WOW was EXCELLENT! I suggest giving Cedega a another shot. You may have had an old copy or something. I paid for my copy and received constant updates and never had an issue with WOW. Other games were sometimes iffy but you just had to tweak the Cedega settings usually and you were back online.

The other cool thing is it made it a helluva lot easier to hack the game and 'see through walls' and stuff. People have built some cool hacks for WINE supported games.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Foofoobar]

Oh man! I DO remember that! That's right. It's been so long but they lifted that after tons of people went 'WTF?'. But still they are like nazis with who can see their data stream and on what platforms it can run. Hell Mac is just another UNIX variant as well so what's the big deal. I use the command line on a regular basis on my Mac. But I think they realized that afterward and lifted the ban.

I sympathize on the 360. Microsoft decided to focus on games and put alot of time and money into it and it now shows. I think they could still do better because they are still getting shown up in several ways by Wii and in some ways even by Playstation (but developers aren't taking advantage of the cell yet so no one will really see anything for awhile). But they blew tons of profits trying to take over that market and now they are a dominant player... of course, at the cost of people playing on Windows. Which kind of is a dumb move. Because now that they pushed people onto their consoles, people play games on consoles and can purchase other operating systems now like Macs.

They should have kept people reliant on Windows as their gaming platform and the desktop as a gaming platform. I think the 360 is good but is pulls people away from one of their markets where they are dominant and puts them into another where they have to compete.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[AK Marc]

I sympathize on the 360.

I don't. The 360 is a poor excuse for an upgrade. Microsoft did little to help the people out that bought the original X-Box. The PS2 is still running strong. There are even Gamecubes being sold new in stores. But I can't find a controler for an X-Box. The game development for the X-Box ended pretty much on the day the 360 came out. They may have made great consoles, but after the way they abandoned the people that bought the X-Box, I'm never buying another one from them. My experience with the PS and PS2 is that games come out for years after their replacement is out, same with Nintendo, and both are better for backward compatibility than the 360 as well.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Awptimus Prime]

What are you smoking? The Xbox just had a normal lifespan for a console. It's like saying you won't buy another Sega game because they quit making DC before you were tired of the platform. The key, really, is to get the console at the beginning of it's span and you won't have this problem. The same goes with laptops, cell phones, etc.

Anyway, you can still get replacement controllers at Gamespot.

You also have to blame developers that have nothing to do with Microsoft for not developing games for the platform anymore. It's not just one company at work, it is many. Keep crying foul and making "I'm not buying this because of that" protests and you'll find yourself in a wilderness cabin making your own butter soon enough.

All that aside, I do believe the 360 will be around much longer, if for no other reason the amount of money to be made off Live and MMO games, such as Conan, for some time to come.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Awptimus Prime]

Yeah, I was irritated because I was actually playing WoW when it happened. My issues were people running macros and gold farming chinamen. Those damage the game far more than the Linux bogey man ever would. Still, kudos to them for lifting it.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[AK Marc]

The Xbox just had a normal lifespan for a console.

What are the consoles of the same generation? The PS2? Tell me how long the PS2 has been out and whether they are still making games for it. Also, please feel free to mention the percentage of PS2 games playable on the PS3 and compare that with the X-Box and 360. Even the console "failures" like Nintendo had a longer life and better forward support than the X-Box. Then end when the 360 came out was abrupt, not like every other company on the planet. If you disagree, please share numbers. Are any of the X-Box contemporaries still sold new in stores? Oh really, all of them? And the X-Box as been unavailable for years, but the others released at about the same time are still being made new? Sure, that sounds like it's "normal" for a console, as long as you except every other console ever made.

All that aside, I do believe the 360 will be around much longer,

Good for them. I'll never play it. Maybe I was spoiled with the original Playstation, but they are still making those in small numbers, from long before the X-Box to long after.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Awptimus Prime]

Wow, you really care a lot about the end of life for the Xbox. If you really want number, go look for them yourself. All I know is my Xbox originals play just fine on my 360. I was playing Street Fighter Anniversary online, with a pretty decent population of other players, just this last weekend.

I still say it was pretty normal. I got mine on release day in November 2001 and played it until November 2005 when my 360 showed up. That's four years of steady play and since everything worked on the new console, the old one just became a full time video player up until the 360's dashboard update made it completely irrelevant with the addition of more codecs a few months ago.

Perhaps there's more to your hatred of the Xbox line than you are saying. It's pretty simple business logic :)

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Yvan256]

I also got modded as a troll, probably by a combination of Microsoft + Sony fanboys who can't handle the truth.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Darby]

The game development for the X-Box ended pretty much on the day the 360 came out. They may have made great consoles, but after the way they abandoned the people that bought the X-Box, I'm never buying another one from them.

You hang out here and didn't *know* that's how they'd treat it?
Honestly, you have nobody but yourself to blame for that one.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Lucky_Norseman]

No, simple business logic would be to keep making games for the old console until the number of sold games fell below the profit line.
Like everyone did/does for PSone and PS2.

With Xbox they totally abandoned their existing customer base and only sold to the new crowd.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Awptimus Prime]

It's amusing that after losing nearly $5 billion on the Xbox project, getting their asses handed to them by Sony in sales, and having a very large percentage of the ownership population pirating games that nobody at Microsoft would have figured out what you guys are saying here.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[AK Marc]

They probably did. They probably considered the X-Box a failure, so wanted to abandon it as fast as possible. They probably had great purpose in abandoning it so fast. I don't care what there reasons are. They abandoned their console faster than any other upgraded/replaced console in history. Since they have a data point of one, I can only assume it will happen again, so I will never buy a 360. This isn't a bash on Microsoft. This isn't a complaint about the play of the consoles. This is a statement of fact about how they acted in regards to the X-Box, and how that affected one former customer of theirs.

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[AK Marc]

You hang out here and didn't *know* that's how they'd treat it?

No other console maker has abandoned a console so fast.

Honestly, you have nobody but yourself to blame for that one.

I disagree. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... Uh can't fool me again.

They won't get another entertainment dollar from me. I couldn't have known that's how they'd do it. No one else ever had. Sure, there were people guessing that ended up being right, but that doesn't mean people "should have known."

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Darby]

No other console maker has abandoned a console so fast.


But what "console makers" do is irrelevant to what *Microsoft* does.


They won't get another entertainment dollar from me. I couldn't have known that's how they'd do it. No one else ever had. Sure, there were people guessing that ended up being right, but that doesn't mean people "should have known."

Yes, people should have known. What do you mean no one else ever had? Microsoft does that sort of thing all the time. It seems like your not actually looking at the relevant facts and getting confused with irrelevancies. It might be true that nobody has done that *in the console market*, but that's irrelevant, because what the market in question is is irrelevant.
Microsoft does that sort of thing in *every market they enter*.

So you're looking at a market as if that's relevant to the players in the market, whereas you should be looking at the players themselves and see how they behave regardless of market.

It's not a question of "fool me once", given how often they make fools of people (not that you're a fool, mind you). It seems like you're giving them the benefit to fool you once per market segment, which doesn't make any sense at all. The company is still run by the same people, so assuming that they'll not act like they've always acted just because they're selling a different type of widget doesn't make any sense either.

I was just joking with you, but if you're going to try and defend that reasoning I have no choice but to taunt you a second time ;-)

Re:Linux and Mac compatible??

[Awptimus Prime]

Again, the Dreamcast had a shorter run of less than three years. A few games continued to come out, but it was dropped like a bomb and nothing but refurbs were available after that time.

Beat WoW? What?

[gparent]

Nothing will beat WoW for a while. Just about every MMORPG released in the last 2 years were said to beat WoW, spawning hordes of fanboys who would come on the forums only to say "LOTRO will kill WoW! Vanguard will kill WoW! X will kill WoW!" and they were always wrong. At this point saying a game will kill WoW is simply a laughable trolling attempt intended to 'scare' blizzard into changing the game mechanics so that said person can stay on WoW, even though they would either way.

Re:Beat WoW? What?

[Endo13]

You're absolutely right. I myself finally quit playing WoW, but it's a pretty safe bet they got 10 new subs at the same time to replace mine. Their number of subs is still increasing. Ten million and counting (if not 11 mil by now). I wish there were another better MMO coming soon to replace WoW, but there's not. Nothing anywhere on the radar will even make a dent. AoC and Warhammer will both have less than 500K subs at the end of this year, and WoW's number will still be going up as well.

Re:Beat WoW? What?

[Anonymous Coward]

While not quite the same thing due to the size, all the dominate MMOs of the past seemed untouchable.

There will be a time when wow drops off a lot and fast. Hardcore fans will say the same thing that X wont kill WOW. They will be right in the same way that everquest and UO are still around. How quick did EQ and UO die up?

Re:Beat WoW? What?

[Darinbob]

Actually, I don't want LOTRO to beat WoW. It would ruin the game! I like having a niche game, one that doesn't aim for the lowest common denominator. I like having more mature players, not hearing net-speak, not seeing people show of their epeens, not hearing PVP trash talk, not seeing characters name "dorfpwner", not hearing characters brag about themselves, etc. If a game wants the WoW player base, they can have them.

AoC has come a long way in just the last two weeks

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of the complaints about the client, animations, and performance have been resolved in just the last few weeks of the beta. The difference in performance is astounding.

There are many players using mid-range to even lower range systems that are getting very decent performance with the client. As with any MMO of course there are bugs, and as with any MMO they will be corrected in time.

If you haven't actually played the game in the last week of beta or as part of the early access then whatever opinion you have about it is most likely based on very flawed and incorrect information.

I think WoW will be many peoples last MMO game...

[bleh-of-the-huns]

I know this was a factor for myself, atleast in the late 20's early 30's age category.

I played EQ for 7+ years from early beta, I played EQ2 for abit too, but ended up playing DAoC for abit before moving to WoW. I spend years, thousands of hours, played in the lead horde guild for that time, and got completely burnt out just before the first expansion pack came along.. with multi characters all at level 60....

Once I quit, I have not started a new game, and do not plan to, and I am sure I am not the only one... Those of us who started playing in our late teens early 20's, have probably had enough, especially those of us who finally have families or significant others who demand our attentions, and real life things like going out, playing sports (I mountain Bike) and hobbies (I woodwork), I would just not have time for a game, hell I barely play my Wii or Xbox (original) anymore, I just do not have the time.

What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

OK, I downloaded the trial of World of Warcraft a few days ago to see what all the fuss is about. The game seems to work as thus:

1. You see a mob walking around.
2. You right click on it, you fire a few arrows at it, it runs towards you, you automatically fight it.
3. It dies, you get some xp.
4. Do it a few more times and level.
5. Goto 1.

I got up to level 6, and that seems to be all the game really has. You get more powerful with each level, and better equipment, and can fight more dangerous things, but the game's still exactly the same. Instead of clicking on a level 1 boar, you click on a level 6 scorpion or something. Does it actually get more fun when you get to the really high levels? The combat system is awful, worse than Golden Axe which is like twenty years old. All this modern technology and it's like playing an old text-based MUD: "you hit the boar for 10 points of damage, the boar hits you for 5 points of damage etc."

It's very slow walking around, and there isn't much of interest to look at. There are a couple of small villages, some dirt tracks, and not much else.

Quests seem to be either:
1. Kill ten things, bring its drops back.
2. Carry something from one place to another.

Apparently this is the greatest ever MMO, ten million players, bigger than Jesus etc. and I was completely underwhelmed. The graphics are pretty uninspiring, the world is a bland orange with no real features or vegetation: you sort of expect roadrunner to go past at any moment. NPCs just stand around doing nothing other than giving you quests, other players don't even talk to you, it's like playing a single player game.

I tried Everquest 2, which is pretty much exactly the same game but with better graphics and a worse interface. Are all MMOs like this? If so I really don't see why they carry so much interest.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

um, have you looked at other parts of the world in WoW? It seems you are making a judgment on once very tiny part of the game? level 6 is all you went to? That can be done in like what an hour? I think before you trash a game you actually look at more of it then one small area.

Re:What's the appeal?

[mdm-adph]

I gather from your post you experienced all of this alone, right?

The joy of an MMO is, believe it or not, playing with other people. If you find a good group of people to hang around with, it can be an absolute blast. I seriously don't care what the game looks like -- I've met so many interesting people from all around the world through MMO's like WoW, and I wouldn't trade that social interaction for all the fancy DX10 LEET HD BLOOM effects in the world.

Re:What's the appeal?

[morari]

Yep!

That ridiculously boring combat system is the main thorn in every MMO's side. Clicking an enemy only to watch as you automatically take turns attacking is not fun or interactive in the least bit.

Age of Conan does seem to want to rectify this to some extent. How well it turns out is anyone's guess though.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Endo13]

Congrats, you played an Orc hunter to level 6. That's like reading the title on the cover of a music CD and deciding you know all about their music and that it sucks.

Re:What's the appeal?

[nuzak]

> The graphics are pretty uninspiring, the world is a bland orange with no real features or vegetation:

The quests are indeed boring, but, ah, the rest of the world doesn't look like Durotar. But you did play EverQuest "Study On The Color Brown" 2, so I guess you can be forgiven for thinking other MMOs do all look the same throughout.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Endo13]

Whoops, sorry for mistakenly assuming your hunter was an Orc. Clearly it was a Troll.

Re:What's the appeal?

[immcintosh]

Translation: Yes, that's all there is to the game, but you get to do it all with other people.

Re:What's the appeal?

[paitre]

Sounds to me like you started off as an Orc or Troll.

Their starting area (Durotar) is -deliberately- barren - it's supposed to be. The Orcs were driven into one of the more desolate parts of the world after the second war, since it was about the only place they could find some peace and quiet.
If you want cool shiny graphics and lots of eye candy, start off with a Blood Elf. Even the Tauren area is pretty neat (but then, I -really- dig the American Indian 'flavor' to the lore around that race).

But that all said - it doesn't get fun until you start making friends, or play with friends. A good friend of mine quit the game entirely recently because most of her IRL friends quit playing, or moved to different guilds/servers.

It's the people that make the game fun. And WoW has a lot of 'em.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Kildjean]

The main appeal of a game like World of Warcraft is the story behind every nook, character or issue in the game. Back when wow was just "the old world" it was a different blend of graphics, an interesting story that by the time you get to lvl 70, you see why the alliance is fighting the horde and why the horde is not at all that much "evil". I play a game for the story and background it had. Vanguard had all the uuuuh ooooh ahhh a game can have... better graphics, a world so huge you would get lost... in the end it sucked. Not all games are made to satisfy everybody, and while wow is not perfect, its a damn good example of what to do in order to become #1 (or achieve 10 million subscribers). I bought AoC for my GF to play. For the hecvk of it... but i dont think its going to take our attention from wow. I dont knopw yet because we havent played it. But I doubt it. I think WAR is going to be more of a challenge for WoW than it is AoC. The other thing I like about Blizzard Games is that they all run natively on macs. Why can't other mmo companies develop their games in OpenGL like Blizzard does, and to have that tiny 10% nook of the mac market is anyways like 1 mill or 2 mill players in the pocket. I think if you only played till level 6, you missed about 99.9% of the world wow has to offer. When you get to lvl 65 or 68, lay out your critics, and it will be more balanced and objective, till then, you are just criticizing a book by its cover.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Colonel Korn]

Lots of your comments are spot on, but the game really does get better. The biggest complaint you seem to have is that you right click and auto-kill things. At more advanced levels of the game, you might use 10 special (manually activated) abilities in a single solo fight, some of them requiring very precise timing and contextual decision-making.

If your only goal is to level or finish a quest, you might use fewer abilities and not have to think, but if you somehow get into the game (I'm sort of baffled at how many people, like me, did) then you can actually care about making yourself 20% more effective by thinking on your toes and strategizing beforehand (pvp is one of the more obvious cases of this).

Most MMOs are like that, and if you don't seem to like it right away, don't bother trying to make yourself like it. It's an expensive and time consuming hobby.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Jthon]

I know I'm just feeding a troll, but I think you need to take a closer look.

It takes maybe an hour or two to hit level 6 in WoW. At this point you haven't been introduced to more than couple skills, and talent points don't even become available until level 10!

Blizzard purposefully slowly introduces you to all your skills so new players are not overwhelmed. Once you hit around level 20 you have most (but not all) of your class defining skills and gameplay is much more active than just watching some text scroll by.

What class are you playing? Everyone seems to say you just click on a guy and watch yourself autoattack but that's not the way most classes should be working.

Rogues should be using up those engergy points building combos and doing finishing moves, mages/locks/priests/druids have to actively cast spells etc. Perhaps you only tried out a warrior which is pretty slow early on.

As for the boring brown you must have started in durotar on the horde side. That is sort of a a drab boring brown, but as you move around you'll find the different areas are all quite different. On the side you started with Durotar/The Barrens are a bit drab, but if you go visit the undead you'll their starting zone looks completely different. Or go start a blood elf and check out Silvermoon. You'll soon see that the various landscapes in WoW are fairly different.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Ephemeriis]

I tried Everquest 2, which is pretty much exactly the same game but with better graphics and a worse interface. Are all MMOs like this? If so I really don't see why they carry so much interest. All MMOGs are basically chat clients with a shiny GUI and monsters to kill. The whole point of a MMOG is the MM part. What makes a MMOG engaging is the community - either people you enjoy playing with or competition to be the best.

Think of it like a game of D&D, or poker night with the guys... What is it that makes those fun? Is it actually the D&D rule book, the pencils and paper, the deck of cards? Or is it the people you're playing with?

Re:What's the appeal?

[Dark_MadMax666]

[quote]
That ridiculously boring combat system is the main thorn in every MMO's side. Clicking an enemy only to watch as you automatically take turns attacking is not fun or interactive in the least bit.
[/quote]

Even in PvE it is far from the true (especially for raids). WoW has one of the most complex and interesting tactical combat systems in any game period (completely different classes, lots of skills ,trinkets, potions ,positional moves ,etc) . But to appreciate it to full extent you have to play against other players. Guild wars withs its 10 slots is a joke compared to wow , high level pvp character has a choice at any given moment out of several dozens actions and combinations.

Having said that I don't play WoW. Don't have time for item grind which is a prerequisite for any high level fights.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

No, it was an orc. So how does the game get more interesting? Is there anything more than grinding on mobs/quests until you get to the top level? I can't explore too far as then everything kills me.

Where are the interesting non-orange places?

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Group dynamics of encounters can be somewhat more interesting than simply kill this mob, kill that mob repeat.

Threat mechanics, crowd control, mana conservation tactics, are all things you really don't get to experience much in single player.

It adds quite a bit to the gameplay imo.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

The part of Everquest 2 I played was this very nice looking forest with a beautiful sea next to it. Unfortunately the game was pretty poor. After fighting level 1 worms, I move onto wolves that kick my arse, giant spiders, and mushrooms that shoot me dead instantly.

Maybe I made a mistake picking an orc, but all areas of the game should be nice. I know people are saying don't judge a book by its cover, but I'm playing a 14 day trial, I'm not going to be going on level 70 raids. I would have thought they'd make the newbie parts fun and interesting, rather than a desert.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Skuld-Chan]

WoW is an extremely dull game unless you have friends that play. I wouldn't play it at all if they quit. But yeah if you don't have any friends that play - don't - its very dull.

Quests that do you also get more and more complicated and challenging - its not just go get this item turn it in. Probably one of the more fun quests at lvl 60 you get to fly around bombing targets.

I think its safe to say that the bulk of the game starts at lvl 15-20 (when you can start doing dungeons). At lvl 70 you can do higher end dungeons and raids - which are pretty fun actually.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I made a mistake picking an orc, but all areas of the game should be nice.

You do know you can create as many characters as you want on the 14-day trial, right? Try a different one.

But really, the single player experience of questing is indeed a boring repetitive drag. If you don't know anyone to play with, it's probably not worth the subscription fee.

Re:What's the appeal?

[dave562]

I tried Everquest 2, which is pretty much exactly the same game but with better graphics and a worse interface. Are all MMOs like this? If so I really don't see why they carry so much interest.

The social aspect is what keeps them going. For example my girlfriend and I play on a server with a bunch of her co-workers. The game provides us something else to do on Saturday night when we don't really feel like going out. It is something to do if you have an hour or two to kill before bed during the week.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

I don't think I'll have time, I'm using Vista which fucks up in a completely different way every single day, so I probably won't get to play again until my trial runs out.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every windows era PC game can be boiled down into, you move the mouse, you click it.

Re:What's the appeal?

[schlick]

The first 10 levels are still teaching you the basics of the game. As a hunter at around lvl 10 you will get a pet that you control that aids you in fighting the mobs. There is lots lots more to do but you have to progress through the levels to get there. You have a bunch of secondary skills like cooking and fishing and firstaid that you can learn . Then there are professions that you can do like leatherworking or blacksmithing to make armor and weapong that you can sell to other players either directly or through the Auction House. Yes there is a lot more to do than just kill mobs.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your whole argument is about the same as saying, "I don't see what the big deal is with this Lord of the Rings book. I got to page 12 and nothing's happening."

Judging by what you wrote you rolled an orc or troll hunter and played for about an hour. "There are a couple of small villages, some dirt tracks, and not much else" because you start out in the backwoods of that continent. It's part of that whole "hero's journey" type of progression where you start from relatively nothing and work towards great things.

"Quests seem to be either:
1. Kill ten things, bring its drops back.
2. Carry something from one place to another."

A lot of the quests are like that I'll grant you, but they're pretty prominent in the initial phase of the game because they're easy to comprehend and to be honest, that's how most level-based rpgs work. You kill things to get experience to gain levels so that you can go kill stronger things.

"It's very slow walking around," you say, but had you played longer you'd find that not only does your class get an ability that lets you run faster, but there are mounts in the game that let you travel pretty quickly. It's called paying your dues (also known as a timesink).

You complain that "the world is a bland orange with no real features or vegetation: you sort of expect roadrunner to go past at any moment." Sure, when you start out in Durotar. But beyond that are lands that cover just about every climate and vegetation type. It's a world filled with pirates, ogres, swamp monsters, dwarves, the undead, space Russians, demons, dragons, magic, power, greed, gold farmers, and everything inbetween. You're basing your entire worldview around an area about the size of a dirt farm in the middle of Arizona.

"Other players don't even talk to you, it's like playing a single player game." I know this is going to sound harsh, but interacting ingame works a lot like it does in the real world. If you see someone, you might try talking to them first (introduction). See if they're doing the same quests as you (similar interests) and see if they'd like to group (activity). Do this enough and you might find yourself being added to their buddy list (friendship). Pretty soon you might even create or join a guild (circle of friends) that you can hang out with and before you know it you're not playing by yourself anymore!

Re:What's the appeal?

[Endo13]

No, it was an orc. Okay, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. *cough*...

So how does the game get more interesting? Is there anything more than grinding on mobs/quests until you get to the top level? The game gets more interesting as you get a lot more moves and better gear, and actually start playing with people. Which is, you know, the primary point of an MMO. And then there's the PvP that a lot of people enjoy, which you haven't even touched yet.

I can't explore too far as then everything kills me. That's pretty true in any RPG. And exploring is always fun. So it's one of the "carrots" you're playing for. Of course you won't be able to explore it all by level 6. What fun would that be?

Where are the interesting non-orange places? Everywhere except the starting zone for the race you chose. Literally. Durotar is the only zone in the game with that color scheme. Some of the zones are really fun to explore.

Re:What's the appeal?

[SatanicPuppy]

In some ways it's better; once you get higher up you can get better weapons, better skills, pick up a crafting profession, etc, etc.

But yea, in the end it's just a grind. WoW is better scripted than most, and it's pretty balanced, but, at the end of the day, if killing a million of the same thing to incrementally increase your "experience" isn't your cup of tea, then you're going to hate it. Pvp adds some savor; if you play on a pve server, you'll die of boredom, but having someone jump out of nowhere and kill you makes a difference.

It's a proven formula though; you'll hardly ever find an RPG online or offline that doesn't fall into the whole "Stats, skills, experience" mode.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

But is there really time to do all that in a ten day trial, most of which is taken up by Vista not working?

If I were making a game, I'd make it fun from the outset. I learnt mining and got a pick, but couldn't find an actual mine.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah level 6, you really tried the game. lol

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should anyone keep playing after the first hour if it is as tedious as drsquare describes. (Never played WoW myself.)

Re:What's the appeal?

[SkyMarshal]

The game's variation comes not in the quests, but in your character development. Yes, all the quests are exactly as you describe, either kill & collect drops, or escort.

But character development - from talent builds to gearing - differentiates the playstyle on those quests enough to provide variation and make it interesting. Rogues, hunters, warlocks, mages, warriors, etc. all do the same quests much differently than each other.

The higher your level, the more pronounced those differences become, as your character has talents, skills/spells, and gear that define its tactics and strategy. Check out forums.worldofwarcraft.com to see all the discussion on optimizing talent builds and gear, with the ultimate goal being to dominate PvP or Raid Progression.

As for the geography, if you want to see something non-orange or different, try a different race. Humans start in a forest near a moated keep, Dwarves and Gnomes start in a frozen wintry landscape near a Moria-like city built into a mountain, Night Elves start in gargantuan tree, Blood Elves in magical forest, Tauren on a grassy plane, etc. etc. Every ~10 levels you move onto a different geography.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen Brother!

Re:What's the appeal?

[Endo13]

But is there really time to do all that in a ten day trial, most of which is taken up by Vista not working?

If I were making a game, I'd make it fun from the outset. I learnt mining and got a pick, but couldn't find an actual mine. Is WoW the only MMO you've ever tried? Because it sure looks like it.

If anything, your problem was not with the game but Vista. If you only played enough to get to level 6, you barely played enough to even figure out if you liked the UI.

I've yet to see an MMO that even comes close to WoW in terms of being "fun from the outset".

Re:What's the appeal?

[UnknowingFool]

A lot of the MMO experience deals with interacting with other players and not just the environment. There are a few things that you didn't do:

1. Grouping up to complete quests
2. Dungeons (5 players) and raids (up to 40 players)
3. Battlegrounds and Arenas (teams of players battle each other)
4. Auction House. I only use the AH to get stuff but for some people it's all they do is buy, make, sell, and trade stuff.

It's very slow walking around, and there isn't much of interest to look at. There are a couple of small villages, some dirt tracks, and not much else.

WoW like other MMO's has the concept of zones. Your zone is safe for lower levels and has very little variety besides basic quests. As you get to higher zones, the scenery, difficulty, and options increase like battling a dragon, taking on a sea monster, bombing NPCs from overhead, etc. Also you get access to mounts and flight points that make travel easier.

Re:What's the appeal?

[cgori]

You appear to have selected and orc hunter, about as bland an experience as possible.

Level 1-6 should take about an hour and take place all in a tiny portion of one zone (of which there are 40-60 in the game, with everything from lush jungle to winter wonderland, to medieval castles, to strange biodomes)

You gave up on a game after an hour? I assume you are not a big devotee of the original Warcraft series (the RTS), or the lore/storyline that goes with them? As you advance along, there really is a plot describing what is happening in the world and the different conflicts that are playing out before you. In the end-game you are actually part of the conflict.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

I'm not buying that '12 page' argument. I'm a tenth of the way into the original level cap. Which is equivalent to 100 pages into a normal 1000 page book. If you're not enjoying yourself that far into a book then there's something wrong.

Maybe if I level up I can run faster or ride a mount and explore the whole world, but I'm on a limited trial so limited to the early game, this means I only get to see the first part of the game that doesn't impress at all.

I've talked to other players, they don't respond. In fact no-one talks at all. They hang around, then run off. Maybe they're all talking by microphone, but this isn't a very social game. In the real world, if you greet someone, you expect them to respond. In WoW, it's acceptable for them to completely ignore you. Maybe MMO players are just ignorant.

Although I had a suspicion that my initial post would draw out a lot of enraged fanboys, I suppose I have to reap what I sew.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

I've played demos of WoW, EQ2 and Eve, other than that I've only played MUDs, which are pretty much the same without graphics.

I spent a couple of hours or so getting to level 6, that should be enough to judge a game. Although I admit I am having a lot of problems with Vista. I thought that after all these years they'd have made their OS better, rather than worse.

If WoW is the best of the lot, then I think I'll stick to sports and action games.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

No I've never played a Blizzard game before. I didn't give up on the game, I just played the trial. I found it very bland, maybe I picked the wrong race/class, but I thought orcs would be more interesting.

I'd play again but am having technical problems, by the time I get them fixed I'll probably have run out of time for the trial.

I've got nothing against the game, I wanted to enjoy it, I wanted to see what everyone else saw in it, I just couldn't get into it.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most recreational games are actually simple. People just sometimes enjoy them. Let's describe a few more:

1. Get a few sticks and pick one.
2. Hit a white ball towards a hole.
3. Repeat 2 until the ball goes in the hole.
4. Repeat for 9 or 18 holes.
5. ???
6. Fun

Or how about:
1. Get a stick.
2. Hit a puck towards the other team's net.
3. Try to keep the puck out of your net.
4. Repeat for 3 periods of time.
5. ???
6. Fun

Or:
1. Deal some cards.
2. Find cards that match or get cards in a row.
3. Win or lose chips.
4. Repeat until you win all the chips or lose all the chips.
5. ???
6. Fun

People find recreation interesting, it's human nature. I guess I don't see that WoW is any better or any worse than any other recreation.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you are starting in the Orc/Troll area. Their starting area is really boring.

Try re-rolling blood elf. Their starting area is *fantastic*.

Also, keep in mind that:
a) complexity scales as you level
b) the first few levels are meant to go by really fast

You are meant to move on to your second town the first day you are playing. Nobody is going to be talking in the starting area because everybody is grinding past it real quick.

Once you get to the 18-20 level range and start doing instances, there will be much more interaction. It starts as a simple/boring single player game and gradually adds more and more elements. At level 10 you get introduced to talents. At level 20 you get instances and PvP battlegrounds.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Endo13]

I've played demos of WoW, EQ2 and Eve, other than that I've only played MUDs, which are pretty much the same without graphics.

I spent a couple of hours or so getting to level 6, that should be enough to judge a game. Well, there's something you need to realize about MMO's that sets them apart from all other video games, including MUDs. MMO's are huge interactive worlds with 3D graphics, where players are meant to spend thousands of hours of gameplay. Not the 6-50 hours expected in a typical single-player game, or the few hundred most players end up spending in a good multiplayer game. That means they have to spread it out somehow, which means every minute will not be action-packed and extremely fun. So no, a couple of hours is not enough to judge an MMO.

Although I admit I am having a lot of problems with Vista. I thought that after all these years they'd have made their OS better, rather than worse. Yeah, you'd think so. But then, we are talking about Microsoft here.

If WoW is the best of the lot, then I think I'll stick to sports and action games. That's probably a good conclusion for you to make. MMO's definitely are not for everyone.

Re:What's the appeal?

[digitalbeing]

If you didn't form a group and go through an instance you missed about 90% of the appeal of WoW.

Granted, if you start a character on a random server where you don't know anyone it is harder to get started.

Ask one of the people who told you the game was great what server they play on and join it. Ask if they will show you the ropes.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not going to tell you that you sould be enjoying it, but you aren't even close to 10% of the way through the game. The difference between level 1 and 2 is not the same as the difference between level 69 and 70.

If I had to guess, I'd say you had seen much less than 1% of the game.

Re:What's the appeal?

[brkello]

Yeah, if you read 10 pages a book and stop you probably won't get it either. The first part of the game starts very slow for casual people to get the hang of playing. Getting to level 6 takes about an hour so you really don't have much of an idea what is going on after playing so little. The higher level you get, the more skills your learn and the more interesting combat becomes. Some classes are more interesting than others and some suit different types of play styles.

I don't think everyone has to like WoW but your analysis after barely playing it is a waste. But you know, all RPGs are going to be about killing, leveling, and doing it again. The people you meet and the combat make it fun (and you aren't qualified to talk about the combat since you haven't even scratched the surface). Essentially, people just modded you up because they dislike WoW, not because you said anything new or insightful. It's like reviewing a movie when you only saw the trailer...just silly. Or, you are a troll...if so, good job.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just from that description I can tell you started an Orc or Troll Hunter, and were levelling in the Valley of Trials. And yep, the newbie zones for the pre-expansion races are pretty terrible, because the quest development engine at the time was pretty poor. The starting zones for the expansion races (Draenei and Blood Elves) are much more interesting, largely because of the improvements in the quest engine between the time WoW was released and the release of the first expansion.

That said, most of the classes don't really start to get a nice mix of abilities until level 20 or so.

As for the appeal... levelling and some of the end-game grinds are a lot like Tetris or Bejewelled: sure you're doing the same thing over and over again, but are their ways to do it better or faster, or whatever. The more enduring appeal is in finding a good guild and going and doing some of the more interesting multi-person dungeons.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, the leveling is very boring. Once you hit level 10 you can start getting into PvP which is where the real fun starts. Lower level brackets are pretty imbalanced because all of the balance focus is at level 70.

Once you're 60 (or 70) you can start raiding. It's fun, you fight big guys but it is just the same thing over and over again. You raid only if you want to go through the storyline. WoW shines in it's PvP, that's all I like about it. Early PvPing gives you good rewards but later raiding gives better gear than the top-end PvP equipment.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on your class, you might be able to understand what its combat will be like by level 30. In some important cases (warriors, for one) it's impossible to understand before 40 or 50. They literally get their main ability at no sooner than 40, and possibly later if you don't know what you're doing. Even then, important changes happen above level 60, though the class dynamics have mostly settled by that point.

But, at level 6, the combat is rightfully called crap. At the very least, get to ~20 as an alliance character and try the "Deadmines" instance. That should be obtainable during the trial, and can give you a small glimmer of what's in store.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

The graphics are pretty uninspiring, the world is a bland orange with no real features or vegetation: you sort of expect roadrunner to go past at any moment. NPCs just stand around doing nothing other than giving you quests, other players don't even talk to you, it's like playing a single player game. Err, if you don't like the orange desert area, then don't play as an orc or a troll (or level past 6.) Yes, NPCs don't do anything-- welcome to an MMO. Finally, if people aren't talking to you in the low-level zones, then be thankful-- it's going to be predominantly the young and the stupid, otherwise they wouldn't be there. Well, I guess that doesn't really change much as you level up... it is WoW afterall.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

You neglected to investigate the social element. Girls actually play these games, for example. When the game actually starts at max level (which isn't so hard to get to as you've noticed, it's all just a big training ground). Some LV73 critters aren't so easy to kill. My guild just killed Kael after something like 15 attempts and several months of trying different 25 man strategies, and we're only like the fourth on our server to do that. Huge rush. I doubt I'd get that kind of emotion from a personal solo hobby like woodcutting.

People say that the classes are balanced, but playing as a Mage, I can say that each class actually has huge hurdles and limitations to try to overcome. People say the game is complicated, but I just push the same three buttons pretty much over and over and usually in the same timing sequences.

The quests are filled with rich back story that you aren't going to appreciate at level 6. But if you started in Stormwind then they are prepping you for the Defias backstory. Which will lead to your first cooperative encounter in the Dead Mines, which leads to a jail break investigation, to the Dark Iron Dwarves involvement, to investigation of Gnomeregan and Ulduman, unveiling backstory about the creation of the world by its gods, explaining this Ragnaros fellow that you hear about from the beginning by the various cults in the game. And you get all this just leveling up your character with bonus experience.

There are SciFi books written about this game's universe. There's plenty of sides and no clear bad guys. Some of the end game bosses actually made my girlfriend sad due to the factors involved: the madness of Illidan when all he wanted was to protect his love, or the enslavement of the dragons by Deathwing to name a few...

In Final Fantasy XI, my static party would go out to some god awful end of the world place that takes an hour to get there, and then we'd grind on the same four monsters (respawn time was about 6 minutes, battles just about 2 minutes per monster). We'd do this for four to six hours a day and eventually we'd all get two levels. Then we'd pick a new location with slightly higher monsters and do it again. No questing, no backstory, very little immediate character advancement. Oh, and if you ever died by lag or some freak mob ability, you'd lose hours worth of experience. Now that is a grind. WoW hides it very well.

And, oh, since I had most of my femur removed because chondrosarcoma rotted it out, its like, way better than Solitaire. People fail to understand this. It's better than everything else so it's great. It really is the best. It runs on shitty computers and it doesn't require a great connection. People need to realize that yes, WoW is very simple, half the characters names are two nouns or adjectives stuck together to form a new single word. Half the quests reinforce the same tired concepts, and you're right, nearly all of them follow the same requirement formula. Why the hell hasn't anybody made anything better yet?

Re:What's the appeal?

[tim_darklighter]

I started playing the game at launch with my brother. We played together some, but the important part is that we made friends in-game and shared each others friends. I currently play with a friend from work and all of the guys he met in-game two years ago, who he now sees in real life every few months. As other posters have said, try to find a server with friends or workmates (that you can stand!) and level up together. The dungeons and quests are a lot of fun with people you know (and hopefully) trust. Sometimes the most relaxing weekend nights for me are a few drinks and WoW with voice chat. The grind factor decreases immensely when friends are involved, and you can actually talk to them. At that point it is much like CoD, Halo 3, Madden, etc. (if you play those), except with tauren shamans and blood elf warlocks.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get up to fighting Kael'Thas (been there), Archimonde (done that) or Illidan (next up), then we'll speak again.

Re:What's the appeal?

[EQ]

Does it actually get more fun when you get to the really high levels? It's very slow walking around, and there isn't much of interest to look at. There are a couple of small villages, some dirt tracks, and not much else. Are all MMOs like this? If so I really don't see why they carry so much interest. Its like sex.

Yeah, you can do it by yourself like you did. But its repetitive and boring, as you found out.

Its a lot more fun with someone else. Especially if they really know how to play well.

And you saw only the beginner area. You missed all the exciting advanced content, plus as you get better at it, its a lot more enjoyable. ;-)

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

The appeal of MMOs is actually the community. I know it has already been said already but a MMO lives or dies by its community.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, basically, you stuck it out for about an hour (levelling to 6 is trivial) and thus formed your opinion of the game?

It's appeal is in the soundtrack, the vast explorable land areas, the stunning visuals (probably more stunning with better hardware) and, most importantly, the social networking aspect of the game. I was rather underwhelmed the first time I tried it out but as I progressed through levels I was able to appreciate the detailed back stories of many of the quests. I even picked up two of the books from the bookstore which explained some of the history of the game's 'verse which added a whole new level of richness to the playing experience.

Lastly, if you don't have the patience for this type of game then stick with GTA IV or some other console shooter with much shorter gratification cycle.

Re:What's the appeal?

[duckInferno]

So you played what amounts to a tutorial for 30 minutes and didn't socialise with anyone, in a leveling bracket that is approximately equal to a game of snap in complexity. Good for you! Just please don't make posts as if you're an expert on the subject.

It's like looking at a car and mentioning to your buddy, "Pfeh! It looks like you just aim it and press the accelerator!". It's a little more than that. You may want to give it a test drive rather than just fondle the door handle.

Re:What's the appeal?

[duckInferno]

Blizzard had a choice: feed the skills and options in as the player levels, or lump it all on them right from the start. They chose the former. The result is a fairly boring game at lower levels, especially if you're used to fast paced action (don't worry, the fast paced action comes, especially if you're on a PvP server).

If you want an example of a game that gives it all to the player the instant they log in, try out EVE Online.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Arivia]

Trial accounts can't talk to others.

Additionally, each new part takes longer to complete than the last - the time it takes to get from 60 to 70 is roughly equal to the time it takes to get from 1 to 60. There's a lot of different time investment and content ahead of level 6 in Durotar.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they are not! Apparently you missed out on the golden age of EQ, UO, etc.
What they gave you was the wonder of experiencing:
"Hey stop that kill stealing you #@!@#!!!" when you tried to actually play with someone your first time or my personal favorite "Stay in character!" (this means that they expect you to say things like "but foresooth, I go-est to avenge the honor of the fairy princess."
I prefered Diablo II where you could hack and slash, and still converse on an adult level (to be fair there were/are TONS of problems with D2, but they seemed less obnoxious than the MMO ones.)

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

You raise a fair point, but I think you might be missing out on perhaps the most appealing element of the game. Quite simply, playing with friends. Yes, random people you encounter aren't going to talk to you very often. They're doing they're own thing, and chatting to people they already know. They don't have time to respond to every new player who walks up and says hi.

The idea is to get a bunch of friends together, all start from the start of the game, and go through the levels in a group. Chat to people while you perform the mindless automatic activities. Trade and compare items that you've found. Go exploring together. If you play a MMORPG as you would a single player game (ie, by yourself), then it's going to be boring. That's not how it's designed to be played.

Re:What's the appeal?

[DeltaSigma]

Final Fantasy XI is rooted in the same pattern you illustrate outright. A couple key differences might just interest you, however.

First, it requires teamwork. There are few quests or story advancing missions one can complete on their own. A player can hardly acquire experience on their own (with the exception of one or two specific jobs). One must work with others at a nominal level to even survive to 75 (our max). A group of players that work well together will be highly rewarded. Teams that don't work together as well will still advance, but not as quickly.

Second, there's stories. Lots of stories. Sure starting out you'll see your share of "Kill X enemies," "retrieve X items," or "ferry this item" missions. It'll seem very familiar at first. Stick it out, though, and missions start drawing you into the lives of the NPCs, the politics of our nations, the history of our lands, and the traditions of your very own job.

These are some high quality stories as well. Here's a script of the cutscenes belonging to just one of our hundred-plus missions. If you don't mind reading spoilers, you can see I've dropped you at an interesting turning point in the story. Every character name you see in there has a back story, that you've discovered by now. They have their own motivations, and you're the thread that briefly weaves their fates together.

Once you're out of the lower level quests you might just find yourself pursuing quests with very poor rewards JUST to see what a particular NPC's story is, or simply because you believe it will be entertaining.

We've comedy, we've tragedy. When it comes to story lines, I'd say FFXI players are a pretty spoiled lot.

I'd love to go over the team-work oriented battle-system, but I'd really rather get back to playing.

Re:What's the appeal?

[SilverJets]

The die-hard fans are going to tell you it gets better and there is more to the game, but honestly you really have the basics down. Even if you do group with other people is pretty much the same thing. Kill the mob, get the loot, get xp. All that changes is WHERE you kill the mob. In a jungle, in a forest, on a beach, in a desert, in a dungeon, in a castle, in a house, in a field, in a graveyard, underwater, etc.

And yes, it is VERY slow walking around which you get to do until level 40 where you can finally spend a large amount of gold to buy a mount and learn to ride it. There is "public" transportation but you still have to walk around a lot.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try playing something that is not an orc.

While the combat will not be any different, the environment certainly will be. The Orc starting zone is arguably the worst of the lot, with Trolls close behind (Both of which lead to The Barrens at level 12ish, which is the worst zone full stop).

Undead start in a dank cemetary, while the first zone is a slowly decaying area outside the former Alliance capital.

Tauren have lush, rolling plains (quite fitting for cows) though they also go to The Barrens at 12ish).

Blood Elves (for BC owners) have a fantastic start zone based around their old city, with the dead scar running through it (the path Arthas took on his way to Northrend).

Dwarves and Gnomes start in freezing, snow covered hills.

Elves start in a typically lush, secluded island.

Humans start in typical human lands, farms, woods etc.

It is very unfortunate that you chose to go with orc for your initial trial. The graphics are not top notch, but the art direction is spot on, the colors of the world are vibrant when fitting or drab and washed out (in the case of undead, which is, again, entirely fitting).

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you might have missed a few things.

Apparently, you played an orc or a troll and as a hunter. For about 30 minutes.

You didn't:
Try any other race.
Try another class.
Train/Use skills other than auto-attack.
Actually visit a capital. (granted, in 20 minutes play time for someone brand new to the genre, let alone the game, this would be a stretch)
See any screenshots on the official site.
Visit the official forums and look around.. though given the community, I don't begrudge you that.

WoW is a HUGE world and 20 minutes in the orc starting area isn't going to do the game justice at all. Try it again, this time with less of an emphasis on playing and more on just exploring and seeing what it has to offer.

As a hunter you should have held out for level 10. That's when you start actually playing a hunter. A pet allows for a very different gameplay then what you were seeing at level 6. Sic your pet on monster, then sit back and fire your arrows at it. You get the joys of using other skills too.

If you like, I suggest the human starting zone (pick human at character creation to start there). It's in a lush forest, plenty of farms, and it's very close to Stormwind, a capital city. Takes less than 5 minutes to get to by foot.

Try a few of the other classes. Mages can be a blast (no pun intended), Warlocks are great (and get a pet just like the hunter does.. only even earlier). If you still want to play a hunter, but want a less desolate place to start in, try a Tauren or a Night Elf.

The higher levels are rewarded with great quests and zones to visit. The towering spire of Karazhan, the majesty of the Twin Colossals (which you can skydive off), the spookyness of Tirisfal all await you.

Good luck!

Re:What's the appeal?

[Nodamnnicknamesavial]

You're quite right, sadly.

If you want more of a multiplayer MMO, try Dark Age of Camelot - it actually requires people to work together if they want a meaningful end game experience - and the community (what's left of it) is pretty good.

Soft grouping is what killed WoW for me. Noone actually wants to play together, they just want your help and vice versa for just long enough to complete whatever quest that has an elite monster in it.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think what you're seeing is only half the game.

The other half is the high end content where Raiding comes into play.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW's strengths come during higher levels, or end-game.

Besides, at level 6, you wouldn't be able to PvP much, if at all. You also don't have many of the more fun spells, and you don't have a mount to speed up your traveling.

For me, I play the game to PvP, and trust me, you don't want to PvP at level 6.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you actually train your abilities, or did you just auto-shoot everything?

Re:What's the appeal?

[DrSkwid]

That's odd, I thought that the EQ2 gfx were one of the best features second only to SWG.

Re:What's the appeal?

[eeyoredragon]

You got to the oh so high level of 6... You didn't even go to 10 when, as a hunter, you get your pet... which is a defining aspect of the hunter class. As simplistic as WoW is, you can't really comment on it.

You started as a troll or an orc in Durotar which is similar to the grand canyon. Hey, little vegetation and lots of orange... You should have started a blood elf or a tauren if you wanted something pretty to look at or undead if you wanted something dreary.

All the physical damage classes start off the same way pretty much. autoshot then autoattack. Casters start with *spam whatever spell they give you at first repeatedly*. It makes the learning curve not exist. As you level up, you get tend to get crowd control spells/abilities and are much more able to take on multiple enemies.

You should have picked the other easy pve class (you realize you picked the easiest pve class didn't you?) where you could at low levels be taking on three things at time using chain fear and your demon pet.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside of the starter areas, the mobs (monsters) are agressive. Mobs in the starter areas won't attack you unless you attack them first. This is a big scary change the first time you run into it.

There's 4 quests really:
Kill X of monster Y (if you're grouped one kill counts for everyone)
Kill named monster (Edwin Van Cleef, there are usually series of quests that lead to this).
Kill X monster and collect its (body part)(the level of enjoyment on these quest depends totally on the drop rate)
Deliver item X to person Y (or see person Y)

Try not to pass judgement until you run a dungeon (instance). The mobs are more closely packed and often linked (if you attack one, 2-3 more come)

Many of the basic skills haven't been learned yet at level 6 (rogues can't dual wield until level 10, hunters don't get their pet until level 10, etc)

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

All MMOs are like that for the first several levels. As you progress you get more spell/moves that make combat more interesting and complex.

Re:What's the appeal?

[theghost]

Levels 1-20 are really training levels. They start you off with a few basic skills and quickly add more. Even so, combat vs. single npc opponents is rarely going to provide a skill challenge. It's more about figuring out the best combo of abilities than about clicking fast or aiming.

Sounds like you started with an orc or troll - Durotar and the Barrens are two of the least interesting areas in the game imo. If you're set on horde, you might find the Tauren, Forsaken, or Blood Elf starting areas to be much more appealing, otherwise you might try making an Alliance character - their areas seem more polished at low levels.

Re:What's the appeal?

[plasmacutter]

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

I don't know anyone who plays the game. Maybe that's the problem.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

I don't think I'll have time, as I mentioned in another thread, I'm on Vista which is fucking up and refusing to let me log into the account I have warcraft on, so the trial will have run out by then.

Re:What's the appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Level 6 is not level 70, the idea of the first 30 levels or so is just to teach you how to use the controls. Play to level 70 and then the real game begins. that being said I'm bored of WoW and going to play AoC, but it took me 2+ years to get bored of WoW and I might well end up back there after a 6 month break.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

Well, it's taken me nine hours to get to level 10. Am I going to have to play for months before it actually gets enjoyable?

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

I'm not sure how you find a group exactly. The 'looking for group' button does nothing, and when you talk to people they don't respond. It may as well be a single player game for the way no-one wants anything to do with you.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

Since then I've played a couple more characters, including a mage I got to level 15. I've been playing for probably a total of about 30 hours, and the game's no different than when I started, it's still grinding on mobs which are all pretty much identical.

All enemies attack the same way. They walk up and down, you attack them, then they make a beeline towards you, so you keep firing spells at them. Sometimes they stand still and fire things at you, in which case you just mash the spell button to kill them. It's so tedious.

People kept saying I'm judging a book by its cover, but if you read a book for thirty hours and it's still boring, what are the chances of it getting better?

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

But all the people in WoW are shit. They are pretty much all illiterate, only able to speak in txt speak. You only see them in the channels peddling crap, they don't actually talk to you in the game. You walk into a town, dozens of characters everywhere, no-one says a fucking thing. You try to start a conversation, no-one replies, you ask a question, not one person even has the decency to reply.

If this game is based on the community, then there really is no reason to play it.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

I have given it a test drive. I've tried three different races and classes. I put 20 hours into it, and the game's not improved at all. Instead of killing level 1 boars, I'm now killing level 15 boars, which fight in exactly the same manor.

How long do I have to play this game before there's more to do than grind on mobs or run around doing tedious quests? A hundred hours? A thousand? Five years?

Re:What's the appeal?

[duckInferno]

Other posts have mentioned the main drive behind WoW's appeal - other players. Specifically, friends. I have to admit on its own, WoW sucks the hard one. It's when you play with friends (with some soloing and pugging with randoms on the side) that the game shines.

To answer your questions though, I personally think the game picks up around the level 30 mark, a further boost at level 50ish, and then again at 60 when you hit Outland. As for fighting mobs in the same manner, that's fine - mobs aren't exactly the smartest things in the world and tactics to use against them are limited (depending on class). You'll find fighting other players a whole different game (assuming you didn't shoot yourself in the foot by rolling PvE), but failing that, instances and raids (where you group up with friends and fight high powered mobs) tend to have a lot more tactics and teamwork thrown in to the mix.

But again, it's all for naught if you just play on your own.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

How do you find people to play with then? It's impossible to find a group.

Re:What's the appeal?

[duckInferno]

We're getting a bit specific here :P

Try asking for a questing buddy in the general channel, or the LFG tool (not likely to be of much help unless you're looking for an instance group). Talk to random people you see in town. Talk to people that look like they're doing the same quest as you.

A *way* better solution is to start a character with a friend or three (meatspace or cyberspace) and play with them.

Re:What's the appeal?

[drsquare]

Well, people in town don't talk, at all. I'm not allowed to use the channels on a trial, and I don't have any friends to play with. I think I'll stick with Fifa for now.

Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop...

[mdm-adph]

...I don't think Blizzard has anything to worry about (1.7Mhz P4, 512MB RAM, 32MB Geforce 2 -- 20-30 FPS). WoW plays wonderfully on integrated video -- it's one of the few games that does.

Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[morari]

I don't like MMOs and never will. The very fact that I have to pay to play the games keeps me from caring. Outside of that however, I find that Age of Conan (in theory) fixes a lot of the problems inherent within popular MMOs. The most obvious of these problems being the ridiculously dumbeddown combat. Clicking on an enemy and watching as your character takes turns attacking it is not fun. I don't know how well Conan's system works, but real time, actual skill-based combat is sure a step in the right direction anyway you slice it.

Robert E. Howard's "Hyborian Age" is the perfect setting if done correctly. It certainly puts to shame all of the weak "high fantasy" out there. It's just a shame that it's being relegated to an MMO which may or may not even catch on with the population.

Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[yli2008]

Fighting AI-controlled bots is not fun? Really?!

Instead of talking about something which you implicitly have very little experience in, you should check out WoW's PvP gameplay. Try a google for arena 3v3 matches: very skill-based, with an extra emphasis on teamwork and coordination.

Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[Colonel Korn]

Lots of people complain about arena pvp, but it was always my favorite. I have a netherdrake on my defunct rogue from 3v3. This is another area where WoW does pretty well. There are 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 arena matches with serious in game rewards. The difference between 2s and 5s is huge. Then there's BG pvp, and then depending on server, open world pvp. BGs mostly killed that, though, which is a pity.

Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[slash-tard]

The problem with your point is:

1) Classes are not balanced.

2) Other FPS style games do "arena" fights much much better.

3) It takes a stupid amount of time to get to the point you can actually do arenas if all you want to do is PVP.

Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[unity100]

arena is bullshit. the favorite class combo of that particular month gets the game most of the time. regardless of 'skill'. there cant be no 'skill' in a game where crowd control spells rule the gameplay.

Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[yli2008]

1) Classes are not balanced.

You are right, but this is not relevant to my point. Just because classes aren't balanced does not imply anything about skill. Two Rogue-Mage-Priest teams going against each other will rely on skill to resolve who wins.

2) Other FPS style games do "arena" fights much much better.

Again, irrelevant. "Better" how exactly? I am not, and never was, comparing MMO's to the likes of TF2, anymore than I would compare Pacman to Chess. Different game goals.

3) It takes a stupid amount of time to get to the point you can actually do arenas if all you want to do is PVP.

True, but once again this invalidates my point how? I'm assuming you're talking about WoW, and not some game like Guild Wars, where you actually *can* jump right into PvP. Saying that is like me saying Counterstrike lacks significant character development.

Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[josteos]

I don't like MMOs and never will. The very fact that I have to pay to play the games keeps me from caring. Actually, for a large online multiplayer game, a monthly fee is pretty important. Forget the server maintenance argument....

You want to pay because it gives the devs a reason to keep working on the game. New zones; new monsters; new weapons; new game mechanics; game balances; and anti-cheat/hack mechanics.

Sure, some game devs keep releasing stuff (I'm looking at YOU, Valve!), but some folks need some financial motivation to keep enough devs on the game. Blizzard, for example, has added a bunch of new stuff to WoW in the year I've been playing. Thats way more bug fixes and content (by several log units!) than I've seen from EA on BF2/BF2142.

Personally I'd rather have a MMO model where the game costs US$0.00 and depends on the monthly fee for income. That provides incentive for the devs to get working content out there for players at release (otherwise you only get one month of fees form the disgusted players who drop!), as well as keep working on new stuff to keep them longer. It also lowers the barrier to entry so it provides more players, which is always important in a MMO.

Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[brkello]

You don't like them but you feel the need to post in a thread about them. I doubt you have really played any since all of them really do have skill-based combat. Just reading the feature list of any game is going to make it sound new and groundbreaking. Just speculating about a genre that you don't play is pretty ridiculous. With the number of players that WoW has, I have a feeling Blizzard knows what they are doing.

Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[teflaime]

but real time, actual skill-based combat

Unless they've changed something in the last 24 hours, it's not really all that much better than any other MMO, combat wise. Sure, you have to press buttons a lot more. But that doesn't make combat any more interesting or fun. And, quite frankly, the story, as far as I got through it in beta, was just okay. Better than EQ. But WoW uses it's lore better, AoC just uses it more.

As for Howard's setting, Swords & Sorcery can only go so far. Yeah, people who hate elves will probably prefer it, but being all human, with no discernable alien presence, will make Hyboria too gritty for light escapism, which is what the huge portion of so called "casual" players are looking for. And since those are the players who have made WoW fabulously successful, it points ill towards AoC being a WoW-killer.

Re:Age of Conan Does Look Interesting...

[Slime-dogg]

FTry a google for arena 3v3 matches: very skill-based, with an extra emphasis on teamwork and coordination.
Unfortunately, 3v3 is 90% the correct class combination, and 10% skill. Very little in WoW is actually dependent upon player skill.

The Answer is No

[moore.dustin]

...and it is an emphatic No.

WoW brought non-gamers into the fray and can boast 10 million users as a direct result of tapping a new market of non-gamers(Non PC Gamers at least). Wow did not turn these people onto PC gaming on a larger scale though, it isn't opening doors for others genres (or games in this case) to get these users. These users playing WoW, that would have otherwise not be playing anything on a PC are, 1) Not looking for another a new PC game and more importantly 2) are still very happy with what WoW is giving them given the longevity of its sustained user base. If a company wishes to tap the same users that made WoW wildly successful, they have to earn it! Blizzard created its new market by drawing people to their game and other companies will have to do the same. The point here is that a company cannot just make a game and sell a bunch of copies early on and claim to be challenging WoW. Instead they have to start well, sustain growth AND THEN they may be able to draw the new coveted market Blizzard has cornered at present. Let us not forget that WoW did not really take off with the Average Joe for a good 12+ months after it went gold(at least).

These other games may get some of the gamers that knew the genre's(MMO) landscape before WoW and actually care to try other MMO's. They will not eat into WoW's new bread and butter - in fact, they are all just scurrying around for the crumbs.

Re:The Answer is No

[Anonymous Coward]

I've played WoW and never really liked it, that being said. I do not believe that there is one game coming up that will dethrone WoW. I believe that it eventually the player base will disburse into many other games that have carved out a niche that appeals to that player.

System Requirements Indicate WoW will Remain King

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I don't think it likely either of these will dethrone WoW. First, the system requirements for both seem to be missing the "midrange computer from two years ago" that is the normal target for mainstream games. As such, they're only hitting the relatively small "extreme gamer" market. Next, there is no support for the Mac, which cuts out 14% of the total US market and much more of the game buying market. Third, losing a small portion of the market because of requirements can lose you much bigger portions of the market because these are networked games. If just one person in a group of friends has a Mac or a lower end PC, the entire group may well decide to stick with WoW or some other game that they can all play (especially if that one player is the cute co-ed gamer in the dorm).

Really, there is nothing wrong with either of these games, but they just aren't targeted at the same demographic as WoW, or if they are they are very poorly targeted. Some day someone will come out with a WoW-killer but I don't think either of these are even viable candidates.

In the words of Conan on this development...

[Upaut]

CROOOOOOOOOM!!!

Something new?

[ichwillauchwassagen]

So this is another "normal" MMORPG. It might have a darker setting and more action-oriented combat, but it still looks much like WoW to me.
WoW has set some kind of standard for MORPGs, but i am not sure, this is good. WoW IS a fun game to play, but it is not really an RPG. There are no real "characters" but avatars with mainly combat-relevant stats. The world is somewhat non-continuous, with the instances, etc.. Every player character can resurrect immediately, but you are allways send on quests to kill enemies in order to "end that threat" but when you visit them again, they are reborn, just like the players. And as far as I know, most of these points are similar in Conan. And they are similiar in most other MMOs like LOTRO.
I think all that makes sense for WoW, but it is not what I expect from an RPG. I want a continuous, consistent world so i can empathize with my character and its adventures.
So, why is there no game for "traditional" RPG fans? A game where combat is just one apect of... well... roleplaying. A game where things like social interaction, fame, alliances, etc. matter more than how much dps your sword does. Why does no developer try things like permanent death (of course it wouldnt make sense for WoW, but it could make sense for a real RPG, it works in pen and paper games, too)? Why do enemies have to be reborn instead of being replaced by new ones? Why are game masters only there for troubleshooting instead of creatively influencing the game world? Why does no one try a new approach to online roleplaying? Everyone just publishes new WoW-clones to compete with the most succesful online game.

Re:Something new?

[r2rknot]

Because in a normal pen and paper game, if the DM has taken more than 6 people into the game, its very crowded. Now think of a MMO-RPG that somehow got 30,000 subscribers (modest success I'd think). Just to have a 'crowded' experience that company would have to hire 5,000 "GM's" to facilitate play. In Addition to the people needed to maintain the backend, patch, and expand. Not to mention any additional CS they might need. Even if the ratio was 1 GM to ever 100, thats still 300 'gms' If you are wow that's 110,000 'gms'

Re:Something new?

[servognome]

Basically you are asking for the holy grail of MMOs. An ever changing world where characters actions actually impact change is something everybody is shooting for, but in practice it's very difficult to accomplish. You have developers trying to create content for hundreds of thousands of people each logging several dozen or more hours a month. Developers just can't create that much content with depth to keep up.
Star Wars Galaxies was (before NGE) one of the best games for ROLEplayers, with several choices for tradesmen, dancers, politicians, and other everyday folk. The problem is the audience for that type of game is realtively small, most want to be the hero adventurer that destroys all in their path. It's the same reason hack'n'slashers like Diablo are more popular than more traditional roleplaying games.
Probably the closest you'll get right now to your ideal, is Neverwinter Nights persistant worlds. Community driven "MMOs" that cater to the more traditional Pen & Paper type crowd.

End Game...

[SoylentRed]

There are a few things I find myself hoping for in AoC.

1st - as I've gotten a bit older (Yay... 30 in a week... And yes I know - 30 isn't old... I said older...) I have far less time to play MMOs. From what I understand the leveling time in AoC (when compared to other MMOs) is far less to get to top level. (Last I heard from beta was about 3 days of /played time to get from first to last level... and this didn't change for release.)

2nd - raiding for me isn't an end game solution. Yeah - I played WoW - did the grind to level 60 - went on a few raids to MC - then quickly realized the amount of time I would need to devote to sitting in the same dungeon OVER AND OVER AND OVER to get the gear I wanted. Only to find myself signing up for raid nights in the next tier dungeon to do that over and over and over. (And yes - I understand they system has changed now that BC is out and it is better - but what do you do...)

That being said - raiding dungeons cannot be the only end game for an MMO... And if that is - all you get is a group of people who max out their gear then sit in the big cities doing /flex over and over for people to see how cool they are. I am waiting anxiously to see if AoC will pull through on the city siege aspects of the game.

Having a player city you and your fellow players get to build up and have to defend against attacks is something I would love to rally around...

Re:End Game...

[Skadet]

(And yes - I understand they system has changed now that BC is out and it is better - but what do you do...)

Let me emphatically tell you that it is NOT better.

I was in a Hyjal/BT guild for some time, and it's more of the same. When I first hit 70 and ground Kara over and over and over, I figured, "Man, Tier 6 content must be so much better and interesting than this stupid grind!!"

It's not.

It is EXACTLY the same, and generally BT (and Archi in Hyjal) is even harder -- as expected, but artificially so. If one person in your 25-man screws up, you're all dead. Any person, any class. Full wipe.

Thankfully, I really like PvP. I gave up endgame raiding for Arenas and battlegrounds. Still a grind, yes, but at least it's on my terms now... I only grind when *I* want to, not when 24 other people say I should.

Re:End Game...

[Colonel Korn]

The only thing I enjoyed about raiding was being in charge. Eventually even that got dull and the repetition and need for a perfect performance from every member of the raid got to me. My guild would lose at least half of our attempts because of disconnects, not from chronic bad connections, but just from random people. That could be so demoralizing.

Also, repetition didn't just mean going to the same instances to do the same fights each week. It also showed up in the fights themselves. Most raid bosses have what, two to four stages? Within each each you usually repeat some 10-45 second pattern again and again. If my guild showed it could repeat the same thing perfectly 5 times in 3 minutes, that didn't mean we were necessarily on the verge of success, because a typical fight would involve ~10 minutes of that repetition. Someone gets disconnected on repetition 8? Everyone spends 15 minutes to die, respawn, run back to the boss, buff, and retry. All of the repetition isn't there because it's more fun to repeat the same actions in the fight for 13 minutes than for 3, it's there because it makes the encounters artificially slow to master, meaning they take longer to master, meaning you keep playing the game for longer without needing more content.

Re:End Game...

[AK Marc]

That being said - raiding dungeons cannot be the only end game for an MMO...

WoW has expanded its end-game. If you want mindless grind at top levels, you can do that in dungeons for rep. You can grind dailies for gold. You can grind PvP Battlegrounds for Honor. You can grind PvP Arena for Arena Points. You can grind raids for the best gear. You have more choices. Any one of them could end up boring you, but then you switch to another for a while. Or try to keep a mix for more interest. I'm grindig gold with my 70 and dumping it on leveling other characters to 70. Why? Because I have played a hunter to 70, but would like to tank, heal, melee DPS and cast DPS for the fun of it. I just wish there was more opportunity for accelerated leveing for those that have multiple 70s already.

Re:End Game...

[WobindWonderdog]

That being said - raiding dungeons cannot be the only end game for an MMO...

WoW has expanded its end-game. If you want mindless grind. You can grind. You can grind. You can grind. You can grind. You have more choices.

Fixed.

It's not so much lack of end game content, it's inaccessible end game content that isn't worth accessing. Meanwhile, endless repetition to pass the time to get to the inaccessible content you don't want to bother accessing.

(Can you tell I've burnt out on WoW? =P)

Class balance? NERF!

[Skadet]

classes are VERY balanced

NERF ROGUES. Stunlocks FTL

Re:Class balance? NERF!

[duckInferno]

You're a couple years late there buddy.

Re:Class balance? NERF!

[Slime-dogg]

Stamina is the stunlock nerf.

Re:Class balance? NERF!

[Skadet]

Bah. 13k hp, 493 resil, and jackass rogues in quest/dungeon blues can stunlock me to ineffectiveness if they're skilled.

1850+ 2v2 teams, so I'm not *that* terrible.

Re:System Requirements Indicate WoW will Remain Ki

[Uncle Focker]

First, the system requirements for both seem to be missing the "midrange computer from two years ago" that is the normal target for mainstream games.

Required OS: Windows Vista/XP Processor: 3GHz Pentium IV RAM: 1GB RAM Video Card: Shader Model 2.0 and 128MB RAM: NVIDIA GeForce 5800 or ATI 9800 Outside of the 1 GB Ram, the requirements are for hardware that is many years old at this point. The requirements don't even require a system from 2 years back. The CPU and Video cards they require them would have been old hat in a system back in 2003.

Age of conan has been a blast

[unity100]

and still is. i got into early access and i can say that im gonna be in for a loooooooooong time. (forever, if they keep the in game content top notch in expansions, like they have done for launch). ive never been a fanboi of anything, ever. so you can read what i type below as the sincere experiences of a gaming veteran.

im an uo, swg, wow veteran. (not counting countless other brief stints like eve, potbs etc). though i enjoyed some or many aspects of all these games, none of them whacked my mind outta like aoc did.

tbh i didnt expect that much effort, care and love put into a game. this game has more polish on one of its fingernails than wow has in its entirety.

quests feel like not a mmo, but playing kotor (some odd, version of it passing in prehistoric times, definitely). i forgot i was in a mmo, leveling and such and newbie etc, but totally got hooked up with the storyline, and the cinematic quest thing they got going on in there.

the destiny quest line is astounding. you climb rooftops at night, sneak to eavesdrop conversations, break into shops, whack out people out of the still of the night. its not like playing a game, but watching an interactive movie in which you are the leading actor. i was level 13 without even realizing i was advancing.

graphics and realism of the world is mind boggling. you can boast 3.5 km view range if you do have the computer to handle it. detail is so that the stitches and pads on a padded armor armpiece will be twinkling under light effects. stuff seem better than the best drawn, painted colored conan comic, and they look REAL.

music is good, so good that it sometimes gives you the goosebumps.

gameplay ? boy. it feels like playing an arcade instead of a mmo that has turns and queues and stuff and all that. you may find yourself getting excited and moving your head here and there with your barbarian's moves. and when it comes to that, aoc barbarian is one of the most fun classes i ever played in any game. get a 2 hander, jump in out of stealth, start swinging the death dealer - oh boy.

launch was probably the BEST in entire mmo history. with only 1 hour delay, they have succeeded in providing everyone with undisrupted gameplay on the first day, everything went smooth. it was so that all trolls and ex beta testers that were babbling in the forum all shut up, and instead thank you topics started to pop up every 10-15 minute. everyone was amazed how they were able to fix the beta client that was very problematic a week ago so fast that the game smooth like butter at launch. not only that, they stuck with what they announced - they needed to make 2 hour maintenance at the launch after the first night, then they announced they needed to extend it one hour more, and when the time came, all servers were up like a clock and never went down. on both saturday and sunday. no single glitch, no accidental log out, no drop out, nothing. undisrupted gameplay for 8 hours until morning. many people who had to go to their jobs on monday had gone without sleep.

the game quest/storyline/gameplay captivates to such an extent that entire guild forgot each other, despite we have all decided which server to roll a prior, rolled at the same time, got in at the same time and found each other. all of them got hooked up on the quests and following the story. theres little talk in general chat channels despite this being a game launch and guilds were not around on first 2 days yet, probably because of that - people are playing some kind of Thief (the game) in multiplayer.

in the end, it was worth the wait. aoc is a f@cking stellar game. i assure you it knocks the socks off of ANY mmo out there, bar none.

i want to thank everyone who had participated in the making of this great game of our times, from the artists to code grunts, to network people to beta testers to lore masters. thank you for producing something that is worth the wait, and worth to pay for.

Re:Age of conan has been a blast

[Usekh]

Presuming they didn't fail to fulfill you preorder and refuse to provide you with a refund. I have -never- met a ruder, less helpful and more condescending pack of customer support people. And that includes Sony and Blizz

Re:Age of conan has been a blast

[justinlee37]

Okay, how much did they pay you?

Re:Age of conan has been a blast

[shawnmchorse]

A lot of early adopters in MMO sound like this. Wait a bit, and you'll see them posting something very similar about Warhammer and how it blows away Age of Conan.

Re:Age of conan has been a blast

[hypergreatthing]

I'd have to agree with the summary. This is an awesome game. I've been hooked on it for hours since i started on saturday. The launch was a hell of a lot better than any other mmo I've seen. The gameplay rocks. I still want to see how the later levels (and everything past tortage) will play out, but from what i've seen so far it's pretty damn good.

Re:Age of conan has been a blast

[unity100]

still havent been able to decide on the class though. barbarian is fun, but there are other fun classes like conqueror, or hell, ranger. im totally at a dead end.

please stop the bullshit

[unity100]

really, which game is that one you speak of ?

the aoc im playing knocks the socks off of any other mmo in graphics, detail and setting.

Re:please stop the bullshit

[Skuld-Chan]

Except my character runs around like he's holding quarters up his ass - seriously.

The actual combat animations I didn't think looked better than wow - it seemed cumbersome in comparison.

Re:please stop the bullshit

[unity100]

you have a particular problem then. none of my 20 guildmates experienced anything, nor thousands posting in forums.

Re:please stop the bullshit

[Skuld-Chan]

Case in point

it runs on low end machines

[unity100]

it doesnt lock itself down to low settings however. if you have a high end machine, a crossfire or sli, it gives what you ask for.

unlike wow, which is set to run on a laptop, and run on an ultra fast gaming pc as it runs on a high end desktop.

aoc basically makes you able to go to a whole different world with its graphics and realism, whereas wow takes you to l337 land.

No, there is pvp for both pve and pvp

[unity100]

in pve servers, you have a huge zone, borderlands, that has ffa pvp in it. guild battlekeeps and other stuff, all battlegrounds are to be in that zone. rest of the world is not ffa pvp in a pve server. but, the thing is, pve server will have the same kind of endgame pvp as the pvp servers. so thats something very handy.

Re:No, there is pvp for both pve and pvp

[shawnmchorse]

"pve server will have the same kind of endgame pvp"

That's what tells me I won't be happy there. I liked Dark Age of Camelot an awful lot, but that 'endgame pvp' phrase was what ended up killing it for me. Too many changes were made based on the PvP side of the game that affected me negatively, despite the fact that I didn't participate in it.

Re:I think WoW will be many peoples last MMO game.

[Ephemeriis]

I know this was a factor for myself, atleast in the late 20's early 30's age category.

I played EQ for 7+ years from early beta, I played EQ2 for abit too, but ended up playing DAoC for abit before moving to WoW. I spend years, thousands of hours, played in the lead horde guild for that time, and got completely burnt out just before the first expansion pack came along.. with multi characters all at level 60....

Once I quit, I have not started a new game, and do not plan to, and I am sure I am not the only one... Those of us who started playing in our late teens early 20's, have probably had enough, especially those of us who finally have families or significant others who demand our attentions, and real life things like going out, playing sports (I mountain Bike) and hobbies (I woodwork), I would just not have time for a game, hell I barely play my Wii or Xbox (original) anymore, I just do not have the time. WoW will also be many people's first MMOG. Sure, there are folks like you (and me) who started playing these things a few years back and don't really have the time anymore because of friends/family/work/whatever. But there are also plenty of people who are just now entering their 20's and 30's and have plenty of time to spend on MMOGs.

Please dont comment without knowing about

[unity100]

what you talk about.

aoc is not pvp oriented. there are more pve servers than pvp servers at the launch, and not only there is mind boggling massive pve content. neither the content is boring like whatever crap was back at wow when i played.

Re:Please dont comment without knowing about

[shawnmchorse]

The thing is, I've seen this sort of thing with Dark Age of Camelot. I actually played on a PvE-only (cooperative) server, which had no PvP of any kind other than duels. And yet, PvP affected me on a constant basis. Powers that were too good in PvP would be "adjusted" (aka nerfed). Powers would be added that were really only useful in PvP play. Etc. Everything I've seen about Age of Conan leads me to believe that they'll be concentrating more on PvP play, and there's no reason for me to believe that there won't be similar trickle down problems there. I'm much happier with games where PvP is just a sideline.

Re:Please dont comment without knowing about

[Anonymous Coward]

PvPers, by and large, are anti-social (in the sense that they're out to screw the other PvP factions). They will also act to screw the PvE factions for "ruining PvP" if they dare speak against any of the PvP "enhancements" they want.

IMHO, a game should either be PvE or PvP, not some unholy mix, because the two sides will end up in a metagame war with each other on the forums and you'll never have peace.

That's right, PvP shouldn't even be an *option* in a PvE balanced game, and vice-versa or you'll never hear the end about the "carebears" and whatnot.

So if you want PvP, go hardcore, like EVE Online, not halfway. Different servers only helps so much. It's better that the two factions play different games entirely.

And I say that as an ex-imm from long ago.

Re:Please dont comment without knowing about

[residieu]

EVE is not a pure PVP game. There are huge parts of the world that are PVP free, and you can get along fine with only brief runs through pvp-legal space when traveling from point to point (And in most of those areas, you're perfectly safe 99% of the time). I've looked at the forums, there's plenty of flamewars going on between PVPers and "carebears"

Re:Please dont comment without knowing about

[smbarbour]

No part of the EVE universe is PvP free. You can be killed by another player in ANY system (the attacker may lose his ship as well, but if you're flying around in a piñata, the loot may be worth far more than the lost ship.)

Additionally, if you are in a non-NPC corp (which most people that have a clue are) a war can be declared on you, which means you can be attacked without retribution from the "police".

not quite

[unity100]

if you take down all the graphic settings, it will still look like better than wow, and will run on normal machines.

Re:not quite

[HerculesMO]

That remains to be seen :)

I don't play an MMO for the graphics -- it's about the gameplay. And while AOC is not bad, its questing engine is a direct ripoff of WOW, and its social networking ability (groupings, raids, etc) are not nearly as intuitive as WOW.

The PvP is better, but not by a lot. It's just not a game that's revolutionary, only evolutionary, and given the amount of time people have invested into WOW, I doubt you will see a lot of people going to AOC over WOW. The people that will flock are those that "used to play" WOW, and got bored with it. They need their next addiction. WOW is good enough for me, because I can play it casually and still have enjoyment out of it (thus far). And the cartoony graphics and simple gameplay, mean that I can probably get my fiance (soon to be wife) to play it as well and enjoy it :)

Re:not quite

[unity100]

I don't play an MMO for the graphics -- it's about the gameplay. And while AOC is not bad, its questing engine is a direct ripoff of WOW, and its social networking ability (groupings, raids, etc) are not nearly as intuitive as WOW. i play everything for the gameplay. im specifically and stubbornly avoiding playing gothic 3, because the gameplay and storyline didnt captivate me, despite one of my friends blowing my ear off praising its graphics.

graphics are important when they supplement the atmosphere. when you see a very life like corpse dangling up the city gate of tortage, the city gate going up and down in all its realism, you really forget you are in your living room, playing a game. this is the thing.

social networking, abilities are yet to be seen. remember, wow was much worse at the launch, it was totally pathetic compared to the smooth gig conan had.

given the amount of time people have invested into WOW, I doubt you will see a lot of people going to AOC over WOW. had level 70 gladiator geared rogue, and shaman, level 45 warlock, 3 more other level 30-40 chars.

i dont care about effort, fun matters. i went into aoc, saw that each and every combat was exciting and fun, arcadish, even, and im not looking back now. seeing my barbarian swing his 2 hander this way and that way, and pull out combos as i hit the keys beats everything i had done in wow just by itself.

great

[unity100]

so you got to level 9, was killing enemies with one mage spell, and it was boring.

whopping amount of the game, you have seen while you were leveling to level 9. thats about it - entire game, and enemies die by just a mage spell in further levels. youre missing nothing.

you should immediately cancel your subscription to aoc, because it will be a waste of time (since all content and the game actually matures up to level 9, and there arent 80 levels) because you seen all of it, and you learned and mastered the combat system. it will also be good for the other subscribers, you not being a member of the community.

i also would thank the loons who used mod points informative on this.

thank you, loons. a person comes up and says that 'enemies die with a single spell at f@ckin level 9 therefore combat system is boring', and you mod it INFORMATIVE.

Re:great

[Tridus]

Maybe they should put a warning on the box "game requires 20 hours of play before you get to the fun"?

"You only got to level 9, you can't judge it" is an idiotic argument. The games job is to entertain. If it doesn't do that, it fails. Making people play something really boring for 10 hours until they get to something interesting is the hallmark of a bad game.

Re:great

[Drakin020]

I got bored after reading the second sentence of your useless post.

Re:great

[nthenudie]

Say what you want about being a hardcore gamer or not, but one of WoW's huge advantages is that it's very easy to get started and the early game (ie the first 10 hours) plays well. This is one of the things that Blizzard really got right and is one of the reason they have so many people playing for whom this is their first serious MMO. I certainly will quit games after an hour if the controls make no sense and things don't seem rational. Damn my short attention span!

Re:great

[Darinbob]

"You only got to level 9, you can't judge it" is an idiotic argument. The games job is to entertain. Agreed. My philosophy is that each and every level in a game should be fun. There should not be a long period of boredom (or grinding) to put up with before a game becomes fun. Newcomers to LOTRO keep asking about end game content, as if they're planning on power-levelling or have been conditioned to believe that the fun only starts once they can start raiding.

Re:great

[Sylos]

I *am* in the EA program and I've hit interesting and fun points before level 9! I've saved lives, poured lava down on an army and saved a woman! In WoW...you're gear grinding from level 1...

Re:great

[drsquare]

The start of a game is how it's judged. If the beginning of the game is shit, then it doesn't matter how good the rest is, because no-one will play it. If the combat system is so great, why didn't they show it off in the early levels when people will form their impressions of the game?

Re:great

[unity100]

just check out that idiot's other posts in this thread to see whether you can trust his badass wannabee shithead opinion or not. you move on the assumption that what some jerkwad says is reliable because some foolheads modded it informative.

Re:great

[revengance]

maybe the warning should be "hame requires 20 hours of play before you get addicted"?

What AoC needs for serious players

[edremy]

I've been playing WoW for a while and frankly I'm getting fairly bored- I've seen a good chunk of the PvE content (Midway through Hyjal and Black temple) as both DPS and healbot and it's getting to seem more of a chore. I've been looking forward to AoC and I'll be picking up a copy tomorrow.

But the one thing that Blizz absolutely nailed was the UI extensibility. I simply could not play a raiding priest with the stock UI- Grid and Clique are utterly essential, and without deadly boss mods I'd die even more often. Other folks in my guild use healbot, or x-perl, or who knows what. The UI in WoW is unbelieveably flexible, and there are a brazilion mods out there to tweak every detail of your interaction with the world. I haven't heard anything at all about this from any of the testers and I really hope they got this one right, or I suspect I'll drop it as soon as I start getting into serious combat

you are forgetting

[unity100]

wow brought many non gamers into play because of its cartoonish looks and the players dragging in their friends, coworkers, relatives, spouses. many of those peopla also quit the game in the first few months. i witnessed many coming in and going out quick. yes, they have 10 m subscribers, but a small percentage of them are running subscriptions. most of them are just canceled accounts.

if you talk about non gamer appeal, conan has much more punch than wow can ever dream to be. conan novels were out EVEN before lord of the rings's first word was written on paper by tolkien. (dates back to 1930s), and conan comics have been around much longer than any lotro material. entire generations grew up on conan comics. a game that looks better than best drawn conan comic, is a surefire candy for any of those people. and i assure you, it is.

Re:you are forgetting

[moore.dustin]

Because the cult of Star Wars, which far far surpasses that of Conan, made SWG a huge success among the crowd in question right?

The answer is no. Also, it is not a small fraction of 10 Million subscriptions, in fact Blizzard defines the term to avoid this confusion.

Blizzard.com says:

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules. So you seem to have you facts confused here. The cartoonish graphics didnt draw people to the game, instead like you said, peoples friends and colleagues got them playing. That is exactly why Wow is so successful, people can easily recommend the game to friends knowing how the game plays for new users themselves.

Wow succeeds because of this line of thinking among its users: "Hey you should play this game I got a while ago, it is pretty cool. If you want to play I can start a new character with you and we can pay together if you want."

Re:you are forgetting

[unity100]

Because the cult of Star Wars, which far far surpasses that of Conan, made SWG a huge success among the crowd in question right? The answer is no. Also, it is not a small fraction of 10 Million subscriptions, in fact Blizzard defines the term to avoid this confusion. hahahahahaahahaaa.

well, actually the answer is YES, until soe screwed it over.

swg was stellar in the first 3-4 months, when it was filled with many sw fans. the atmosphere was so good that, i could just log in and wander around for hours, enjoying star wars atmosphere, created by that many fans in the game. (and im coming from starcraft background, note that, its hard for me to stay around without hard action).

then it started. in order to pull in people from other games, sony started to pour in crap. first, there was the creature handling horror. it was done so that, you HAD to have at least 1 pet behind you in order to be able to do missions. soon everyone had 1 or more pets running behind them, many had gruul maulers. it looked not like star wars, but some kind of f@cked up zoo.

this eliminated the first wave of star wars fans.

then came the horrible 'lets attract people from ad&d games' phase. to get gamers from other medieval and ad&d style games, soe boosted up the stupid SWORDSMAN, PIKEMAN, FENCER, TERAS KASI (this one is basically karate) classes they put into the game SO much that, entire game turned into a medieval fest rather than star wars. blasters meant nothing. some zygote with bare hands was able to knock you down from 30 m range, and kill you without you being able get up even once. people with PIKES, TWO HANDER swords were running everywhere.

this has been the major blow. at this phase we lost SO many star wars fans that game didnt look like what it was 2-3 months before that time.

then it all went downhill. then they alienated powergamers by changing the skill system, combat upgrade, then giving jedi thing to everyone, and lost the single segment of gamers they had left. soe did its crap, game went downhill and that.

so its irrelevant. had soe been HALFway decent with the game, swg would still be running. now its a flying fart.

So you seem to have you facts confused here. The cartoonish graphics didnt draw people to the game, instead like you said, peoples friends and colleagues got them playing. That is exactly why Wow is so successful, people can easily recommend the game to friends knowing how the game plays for new users themselves. Wow succeeds because of this line of thinking among its users: "Hey you should play this game I got a while ago, it is pretty cool. If you want to play I can start a new character with you and we can pay together if you want." thats exactly why im saying that 10 m userbase is hot air. many people come in, being dragged in by people like me, just cancel out in a few months. they dont stay. i'd wager paying numbers are 2 to 3 million.

Re:you are forgetting

[dave562]

peoples friends and colleagues got them playing. That is exactly why Wow is so successful, people can easily recommend the game to friends knowing how the game plays for new users themselves.

You're right on the money. WoW is a game that you don't have to be a major computer geek to play. I've been playing computer games since the late 1980s but my girlfriend didn't even have her own computer until we started dating. Although we started playing on one server with some friends of mine, we are now playing on a server with a bunch of her co-workers. They're a raiding guild but we're casual players. We can show up and raid on Saturday night with them and do other things during the rest of the week. The fact that WoW can cater to the whole spectrum, from the casual gamers like us to the guys who make a job out of farming materials for potions and gear and what not for a raid is what keeps it successful. If you just want to play the game and raid you can go on a PvE server (FTL). If you want a more indepth and intense experience you can play on PvP.

I'd really like to see is some real world PVP, where you can take over towns and really make life miserable for the other side. It will never happen because the game isn't setup that way, but it seems to be the only element that WoW is really lacking. It would be great if they could set up certain zones to be just like the RTS game. The players would have to protect peons who gather wood and food and gold. Buildings would have to be built and maintained. Eventually one side would dominate the area and then there would have to some sort of epic NPC onslaught to reset everything back to normal. Perhaps each zone could have a specific third party race that the alliance and horde would have to gang up on to take out first. Once that race or faction was gone then they could get into the real business of going after each other. Obviously the system I've described isn't perfect but it could add a really engaging, dynamic aspect to the world.

Why AoC will rock WoW hard... but not unseat it.

[RaigetheFury]

World of Warcraft is a game that has wide appeal specifically to people with little time or short attention spans. In Everquest it took time and talent to do a lot of things. It was COMPLETELY gear dependent. That meant, you had to be good, and dedicated to be the best. It also meant that when you saw someone with a glowing weapon or had an aura on their cape that person was IMPORTANT. They earned their way there. WoW, while I love the end game and play actively, removed that. In everquest the target age I'd see in end game guilds (real end game guilds) was college and older. Very few young kids. In WoW, the majority of players are 13-18. You can argue statistics with me but log on any server and talk to the average end game guild. The age bracket dropped and THATS what the problem is. The lack of maturity, the increased ADD, and various other reasons are the primary reason why AoC is enticing. None of this faction versus faction bs. If you piss someone off by whining you're going to die. If you stalk newbies, chances are you're going to get tromped hard. The biggest thing is that most "annoying kids" won't have the dedication to get high level. It will be too much work, where as people my college age and older will openly welcome this. The higher level you go the higher average of ages get and the maturity level goes up. I don't think AoC gives a DAMN about the entire wow appeal. They want to focus on the more detailed player. Someone who wants to EARN what they get. Take it back a bit so that everyone doesn't have "epics". So when you walk through a town and you see someone sparkling you know that they are someone.

Re:System Requirements Indicate WoW will Remain Ki

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Outside of the 1 GB Ram, the requirements are for hardware that is many years old at this point. The requirements don't even require a system from 2 years back. The CPU and Video cards they require them would have been old hat in a system back in 2003.

Try comparing them to the system requirements for something like, the latest Sims2 expansion pack, which is targeting the mainstream, casual gamer market. It works with three different Intel integrated graphic chipsets and with a GeForce2. It requires a 2.0 Ghz Pentium 2. The lowest end graphics card for AoC is the GeForce FX 5800, released in 2003 (not old hat in 2003) and which was a high end card at the time. I have a midrange consumer laptop (like about half of casual gamers these days). I bought it this year and it does not meet those requirements. You can buy an $800 desktop from Dell right now that doesn't meet those requirements.

The truth is, AoC does not run on a good portion of the casual gamer systems in use to play WoW today. It doesn't run on OS X, which cuts out a big chunk of WoW players right there. I think your view of what a casual gamer's machine looks like is severely skewed, probably because you're a computer geek or possibly an "extreme gamer." If you want to hit the casual gamer market you need to look at what Walmart was selling a couple of years ago, and pick one of their mid-priced systems, not something that shipped with a several hundred dollar graphics card at the time and not a "gaming computer" from any period in time. You also can't assume users will have upgraded their RAM, most don't and don't even know that it is an option for them.

Re:System Requirements Indicate WoW will Remain Ki

[Uncle Focker]

Try comparing them to the system requirements for something like, the latest Sims2 expansion pack, which is targeting the mainstream, casual gamer market. Because clearly high action MMOs and a Simulation game are clearly analogous.

Irrelevant

[unity100]

funcom is not the ones that didnt 'fulfill' your preorder. the store you bought from was responsible with keeping track of what they said and delivering them. some of them has been lax in acquiring early access keys and delivering them, some not. i bought from gamersloot.net just 3 days before ea started, and i got in.

and its not fulfilling your 'preorder' btw, its the shop you bought from not supplying you with an early access key, and you werent being able to put it in time to get in ea.

Re:Irrelevant

[Usekh]

I got the key, but couldn't use it. Their reply has essentialy been sucks to be you. And not much more diplomaticaly than that either. So 5 bucks of my money down the drain, and ~100 bucks less for them.

Re:Irrelevant

[GaryPatterson]

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php

Probably a bit harsh, but I saw your comment about ten minutes after I read that comic, and couldn't help linking the two.

they paid VERY big

[unity100]

they paid a great game, just at a time when i was losing interest in gaming in general. which is very, very important for me. i appreciate stuff nicely done.

Re:Why AoC will rock WoW hard... but not unseat it

[dave562]

I'm having a hard time following the logic here. Most people I know who are doing well in college or in the real world don't have lots of time to play video games. Following your logic those people should be drawn to WoW because it allows for casual players who can't devote their lives to it. Conversely, the people out there who have lots and lots of time to devote to a video game are the kids who can come home from school and jump onto the computer. Therefore if you have a game that requires long periods of time to get anywhere, you're going to end up with a lot of kids and basement dwellers who have all sorts of free time to spend on it.

Re:I think WoW will be many peoples last MMO game.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this was a factor for myself, atleast in the late 20's early 30's age category.

I played EQ for 7+ years from early beta, I played EQ2 for abit too, but ended up playing DAoC for abit before moving to WoW. I spend years, thousands of hours, played in the lead horde guild for that time, and got completely burnt out just before the first expansion pack came along.. with multi characters all at level 60....

Once I quit, I have not started a new game, and do not plan to, and I am sure I am not the only one... Those of us who started playing in our late teens early 20's, have probably had enough, especially those of us who finally have families or significant others who demand our attentions, and real life things like going out, playing sports (I mountain Bike) and hobbies (I woodwork), I would just not have time for a game, hell I barely play my Wii or Xbox (original) anymore, I just do not have the time. And as your age group graduates from video games there's a new one right behind it ready to get in.

let me tell you what idiotic is

[unity100]

just rolling a single class (which would not fit in the general archetype of the same class you played somewhere else btw), and then just after 3 hours of playtime (yea you get to level 9 in 3 hours), deciding that the COMBAT SYSTEM (not that class, not that level range, not anything else but ENTIRE combat system ffs) is not fun. this is much more idiotic.

i consider that you are a troll or a wow or some other game fanboi, and ill just drop any further comments or response. adios.

Re:let me tell you what idiotic is

[Darinbob]

If a game isn't fun after 3 hours, why should a new player want to keep going? Why would a game developer make those first three hours boring or frustrating? Players will make a choice about whether they want to stick around in a game very quickly.

What PvP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you really played it? Wow havent PvP component in practice. About half servers are PvE, and even in PvP servers an overwhelming percentage of players do only PvE. In the past, when BG were isolated from server to server, there were a lot of problems and waiting queues to play them.
  All the high-end content is mainly dungeons or raids, and little new content is aimed to PvP.
  Even if you dont believe me, in Wow you can forgot about PvP component at all. Go to a PvE server and play dungeons in coop. No one is going to harass you.

nay

[unity100]

it aint so as i mentioned. hyboria is a HUGE world.

borderlands constitute only 10% of the map. the rest of the map in pve servers are no pvp zones. can you imagine doing it that way, and leaving those zones without content ?

the reality is, im on crom now, (pve) and im looking at a good 3-4 months of solid kotor-like content experience, from what i played on the weekend.

This is what will kill WoW...

[Digital Vomit]

What will kill WoW, in the MMORPG market, is a game where much the content is generated three ways: carefully designed by the developers, randomly generated by the game, and created by the players themselves.

Imagine a game where you can design you own swords and armor, or build your own houses. Players can build their own cities, running markets and shops (perhaps the shopkeep can be one of their 'alts', or their player when they are not online) -- even set up their own questgivers (perhaps you need some number of rare items to build your own magic device). Toss in the random spawning of troll villages in the boonies, or brigands on well travelled roads, and combine that with an epic main storyline created by the game designers with the usual castles and quests.

Until we get a game with more dynamic content -- mainly, random and user generated -- I can't really see anything displacing WoW. That game just does to many things right, and not one of its competitors appears to be building on that.

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[yli2008]

The WoW killer won't be an MMORPG. That market's pretty much been saturated by WoW already, and unless Blizzard makes a string of ridiculous business decisions, there's just too much barrier to entry for any other MMO game to rival its status as big fish. WoW isn't perfect, but it's done enough things right that even *if* a perfect MMORPG game came along, WoW can probably coast on pure momentum alone and still make a profit for the foreseeable future.

I've heard the "dynamic/generated" content theory before, and my opinion is that it's just a fad. The number one theory of the Internet is that if something *can* be turned into porn, it will be. Add that to the "myspace" factor, and you can imagine countless user-created zones with blinking dancing neon trees, loud obnoxious soundtracks, and weapon and armor made to look like flaming penises and huge boobs. Sure it might be fun for about 15 minutes (okay maybe more), but definitely not grandma-approachable.

What will eventually overshadow (probably not kill) WoW are probably going to be wireless portable web-based games like Puzzle Pirates or Pokemon.

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[myowntrueself]

Imagine a game where you can design you own swords and armor, or build your own houses.

There is kind of an attempt at that and let me tell you it has problems...

In There, whenever you move you have to stop for a while to load up all the crazy models and textures that other players have put into the game. The lag is enormous. It can take several minutes to load an area enough to do anything.

In AoC or WoW all the graphics are stored on your computer. When you enter a new area or a spell is case or you see someone wearing something, the graphics are read from your hard drive.

In There much of the graphics are on the server. It has to come down the wire from the server to your screen. Sure, it can cache it, but the cache will be limited and need to be refreshed.

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[brkello]

I don't think something that targets a completely different market will make a difference to MMORPGs. Completely separate customer base. I am sure the future will see something that replaces WoW for the top spot...but I am betting it would probably be made by Blizzard. They just polish, refine, perfect, and balance better than any other company I can think of. Plus, they have the funds to make it happen. Who else can do this?

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you talking about EVE online ?

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[American Scum]

Oh, you mean Eve Online?

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[cbelle13013]

What will kill WoW, in the MMORPG market, is a game where much the content is generated three ways: carefully designed by the developers, randomly generated by the game, and created by the players themselves.

Imagine a game where you can design you own swords and armor, or build your own houses. Players can build their own cities, running markets and shops (perhaps the shopkeep can be one of their 'alts', or their player when they are not online) -- even set up their own questgivers (perhaps you need some number of rare items to build your own magic device). Toss in the random spawning of troll villages in the boonies, or brigands on well travelled roads, and combine that with an epic main storyline created by the game designers with the usual castles and quests.

Until we get a game with more dynamic content -- mainly, random and user generated -- I can't really see anything displacing WoW. That game just does to many things right, and not one of its competitors appears to be building on that.

They already had a lot of that in Starwars Galaxies. It was awesome for a lot of reasons, but mostly because the players could interact with the way the game worked. I never played the Bounty Hunter role, but if I recall correctly (which I often don't), some of the missions for top level bounty hunters was to fly around and hunt OTHER bounty hunters. How awesome is that?

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[Bazouel]

That game is coming out soon. It's called Spore and I can't wait for it.

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[The_reformant]

The trouble is most user created content isnt very good. UO had some steps in this area allowing houses and stuff but what resulted was a vendor wasteland (huge swathes of land full of houses / stalls of automated traders).

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think many people are looking at this the wrong way. It isn't about killing WoW, there is PLENTY of room in the world for more than one mmorpg. This is what AoC is after. This is how business works. I think with the launch of AoC and the soon launch of Warhammer, there will finally be some needed competition, finally an alternative and positive changes to the genre will take place in the near future. What other product in the world has no competition? I know the company I work for has their work cut out for them, no one else's does? Increased competition only means a better product.

Re:This is what will kill WoW...

[leahzero]

I think you're on to something. This is the appeal of Second Life and The Sims, and to some extent Oblivion and various FPS games which ship with map/mod editors. I'd argue that part of WoW's lasting appeal is in the same vein with its deep UI customizability. The capability to personalize and alter a game (or a game client) draws a player from being a passive user who interacts in defined ways with an immutable world, to becoming an active creator and shaper of that world--which is precisely the goal that almost all MMORPGs have aimed for, yet failed to achieve thus far (UO being closer than most as regards a persistent world, and WoW being the closest to complete UI customizability).

not the same

[unity100]

endgame pvp is not like in other games.

there is a zone named borderlands. in this zone, there is ffa pvp (even in pve servers). this zone constitutes roughly 5-10% or so of the entire map.

at this zone, guilds will be able to erect battlekeeps, siege other guilds' battlekeeps and take them over. also battlegrounds in the form of sieges (48 man is being developed) are going to be, as well as arena like 2v2, 3v3s etc (minigames they are called).

rest of the game is independent of this pvp content. as i said before, im very astonished with the kotor-like gameplay of the quests (and the good storylines with well written stories), i cant wait to roam around entire hyboria doing quests.

Two years wasn't an issue

[Shivetya]

You have to compare your thought about waiting even two years between expansions because it gives a false impression about the game. WOW released a lot of content between opening day and TBC and is doing the same between TBC and WOTLK. Is progression restricted to leveling? If releasing expansions at a regular clip was all it took to be a success then how do we explain the lack of population for EQ and EQ2 now? Yes they are both big but not on the scale of WOW.

AoC is coming out way way too early. It just isn't ready. What Blizzard did that was more important than being friendly to all players was to raise the bar in perceived quality. They may have actually raised it too high as most gamers no longer tolerate buggy and unbalanced software that we used to accept for granted. WOW presents a polish. Yeah it covers some major dings underneath but the overall effect is that looking at it most players never encounter anything game breaking. The same can't be said for some major releases post WOW or even post TBC. Blizzard also allows for an incredible amount of interface customization, beyond what many other games can even conceive. Don't like a certain display - change it. If not you then hundreds of others have and it all is "protected" by the fact the game client knows what it can do so you don't have to worry about your password/account being mailed to china for installing a plug in

Hell Turbine came down with two of the biggest and storied names in Fantasy and flubbed them both. D&D Online and LOTR Online. What was the difference? Polish and usability. Those two games should never had an issue yet they failed to hold onto any significant numbers. Turbine likes to use the line that they don't release numbers on their servers because of "professionalism" but the simple fact is they are embarrassed.

I am quite sure that most people playing WOW won't even notice AoC's effect on the population of their favorite server for very long if at all. I bet a sizable portion doesn't even know it exists. Simply put they don't care to look. That is a magic you can't buy. I am very sure AoC or any other MMORPG would love to just have WOW's churn as their account numbers!

No it didn't dumb down MMORPGs, the closest comparison I would make is what Apple did for Unix based operating systems when they released OS X. They took a good, known to work system, and made it easy to use, understand, and accessible. That isn't dumbing down, thats doing it right.

Re:Two years wasn't an issue

[SatanicPuppy]

Is progression restricted to leveling? Actually...Yes.

The endgame grind requires way too large a time commitment for the casual players that WoW caters to. Lot of people quit or look for other things when they hit 70 and can't come up with anything else to do.

The way the crafting system is set up, it's impossible to be a good crafter and a casual player. All the good recipes require a ton of grinding.

Pvp is too dependent on gear; a person with average gear is helpless in pvp, regardless of their personal skill.

Meaningful PvE requires a huge time commitment; the upper level instances have steep requirements, and you're pretty much limited to pugs for the lower instances, which is a misery.

Re:Two years wasn't an issue

[WuphonsReach]

AoC is coming out way way too early. It just isn't ready. What Blizzard did that was more important than being friendly to all players was to raise the bar in perceived quality. They may have actually raised it too high as most gamers no longer tolerate buggy and unbalanced software that we used to accept for granted. WOW presents a polish. Yeah it covers some major dings underneath but the overall effect is that looking at it most players never encounter anything game breaking.

^^ This

The first two weeks that I started to play WoW, I constantly found myself admiring the amount of polish that went into the starting areas and class designs. Yeah, there were some design decisions that I didn't agree with, but Blizzard gets it about 95% right. Lots of moments where I said, "oh, that's a nice touch". Getting started in WoW is extremely easy. You get gear upgrades at a steady pace from quests or drops. There's a good bit of variety in how the classes work. It's very casual-friendly, which is where the big money is.

EQ never got much above 70-80% "right" (given the sheer number of nerfs, reversals of decisions, over-boosting then over-nerfing then taking 3 more patches to find the balance point).

EQ2 was close, but they still only got to the 85-90% mark.

Re:Two years wasn't an issue

[lewp]

I think that sums it up pretty nicely, and I think it cuts the other way too. "Hardcore" players have been clearing Black Temple since last, what, June? And they just recently got new content in the form of Sunwell. Now Sunwell is great -- just like Naxx was -- but really, six bosses? At least Naxx was huge. 5/6 of those bosses are already dead, and as soon as Kil'jaeden dies, there'll be no more content until WotLK is ready. Knowing Blizzard, and judging by the way they're stalling on arena season 4, that could be another year. Having another well done MMO sitting there with lots of "world firsts" available while WoW is stagnant is, I think, going to entice many of the top guilds to take a break at least until WotLK.

Meanwhile, there's a ceiling right about where Magtheridon is in progression that the average I-don't-play-WoW-like-a-full-time-job player just isn't going to get past. If you can't devote 3-4+ hours a night at least 2-3 times per week, you can't even think about stepping into the real 25 man game. There's ZA and Magister's Terrace, but they're both small, only tangentially related to the main story (Kael is just a joke at that point, he's aleady been "killed" once), and how many times can you honestly run those two instances? If you're bumping into the ceiling, and you hear about another MMO that's fun with tons of quests and story to do, I think you might just give it a try.

This is the perfect opportunity for a new game to come steal some subscribers from WoW. Will it die? No, of course not. 10 million players who have, in some cases, invested a year or more in their characters aren't just going to evaporate no matter how bad the game gets. Still, I think more people than Blizzard would necessarily like are ready to jump ship.

Re:Two years wasn't an issue

[Hubbell]

Turbine fucked upbecause they are utterly inept and incapable of running an MMORPG. Look at what they did to Asheron's Call. While it was never terribly successful, it was one of THE BEST games lore wise and pvpwise out there. This was when Microsoft ran the show, then once they bought the game rights from MS they sent that game down the shitter. The fast and fluid pvp was ruined via an unending amount of defense/hp boosting items as well as ever increasing amounts of instant heal items. They introduced in one patch the ability to debuff the breastplate (or any piece of armor covering the breastplate area, which included full coats of armor covering upper and lower arms as well as abdomen) so that melees/archers could essentially one hit people. It took 2 days for them to hotfix it as hundreds of accounts were cancelled all at once. They couldn't even handle compressing all the bitmaps with the Throne of Destiny expansion, which exploded the amount of memory the client used from 20-40megs, 60 if you had a memleak, to over 200 for a single client.

Re:Two years wasn't an issue

[yodleboy]

Lot of people quit or look for other things when they hit 70 and can't come up with anything else to do. EXACTLY!!! I spent DAYS hitting 70 on my mage. Now what? I jokingly said when i hit 70 i would just quit. Well, it's coming true. The daily quest grind for gold and battlegrounds are getting old. It's becoming too much like work to get those gear upgrades and less like playing a game. I'm in a small guild with some friends, but the fact is i would have to leave and join a large one to do any real raiding. Without that, i can only progress so far.

Re:Two years wasn't an issue

[AdamWeeden]

Pvp is too dependent on gear; a person with average gear is helpless in pvp, regardless of their personal skill.

I disagree. I'm a semi casual player. I only play about 5-10 hours a week MAX. Sometimes less. I have a 70 hunter with nothing spectacular gear wise (no purples, and only a few blues) and I hold my own in PvP. In the BGs I am almost always in the top 3 in DPS and do a fair job of helping my team. The worst part of this is I'm a PVP noob. I only played PVP when I got to 68, aside from a couple BGs at 19 and 29 where I got smoked by twinks.

Re:Two years wasn't an issue

[SatanicPuppy]

BGs are different; you can do well, depending on your faction, as long as your gear is reasonable.

The real deal is the arena fights. That's a whole different world, and that's where the good pvp gear comes from.

Re:Two years wasn't an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only person left on the planet that remembers WoW being quite the buggy mess for the first couple months of release? Insane queues, massive lag, CTDs which put you back in the queue, server crashes, and my all time favorite the loot lag which made it practically impossible to play the game. There have been worse launches, that's a certainty...but there have been far better launches both before and since.

And balance? They didn't achieve any real balance until TBC opened up all the classes to both sides, and there's still some issues. How can anyone make a game where all but one of your classes on each side are carbon copies except for 1 or 2 abilities and not be able to balance them? To this day I don't understand how this could possibly be the same company that made Starcraft. Then again, I guess for the most part it isn't...

well

[unity100]

they put in bold words that early access slots were limited, and you needed to register it fast.

the blame lies on your store that didnt fetch you the ea key on time.

Re:well

[Anonymous Coward]

The rules may have been spelled out. But it sounds like a crappy way to do it. Why were they selling more slots than they could fill?

Re:well

[Usekh]

Not sure how your reading comprehension is going. I put my key in, paid the 5 dollars direct to them to get access. They accepted the charge, were unable to provide the service I paid for and are now refusing to refund me money. And being insulting about it.

Re:well

[unity100]

it seems that you have just missed with minutes.

if they are being insulting about it, post what they told you here, so we will all know.

Re:System Requirements Indicate WoW will Remain Ki

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Because clearly high action MMOs and a Simulation game are clearly analogous.

The Sims has been the standard for casual gaming for years now. Between the Sims and WoW products and expansion packs they made up six of the top ten PC games titles in 2007 and the situation was similar in 2006, 2005, etc. If you're really aiming at the mass market casual gamer, then you should be looking really closely at the system requirements for two games, WoW and the Sims. It's not about genres of games, but markets for games. No game targeted at a much smaller market is going to unseat WoW. The reason I used the latest Sims2 expansion pack for my example is because it has higher system requirements than WoW (being new) and is more representative of what a publisher needs to target today in order to still reach a similar size market.

I predict an AoC fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I had been looking forward to Age of Conan for a couple years. I followed the hype closely and got in on the PvP beta and the recent open beta. I was very disappointed. So much so that I cancelled my pre-order and have no interest in getting the game now that it is being released.

The combat is slow and clumsy. They have tried a lot of new things that probably looked good on paper and I applaud their effort and creativity. But many simply do not work in the actual game.

The future of the company - Funcom - pretty must lies in Age of Conan being successful. They admit this in their own papers. I think their company in in trouble.

Re:I predict an AoC fail

[mwbay]

You did realize you were beta-testing a game, not playing it, right?

I was a closed beta tester. Funcom was making massive changes to all aspects of the game right up until the Early Access launch. Some of what I saw WAS frustrating, but Jeebus, it was a BETA!

AoC isn't going to be a WoW-killer, and I don't think Funcom expects it to be. I think it will be a successful MMORPG, it will carve out a strong niche of players who are interested in the setting and the gameplay it offers. Much as LOTRO did.

Re:System Requirements Indicate WoW will Remain Ki

[SnapperHead]

No Mac support is the #1 reason I won't even give AoC a try. Regardless of how fun it is, I don't feel like rebooting into Windows to play a game. The fact that WoW plays very well on the Mac was the primary reason I was willing to give Mac a shot. Yep, I am a switcher. After 2 years, I have no desire to ever use a Windows machine again. I know quite a few people who are doing the same. Everything from grandmothers down to hard core developers.

EQ2 was also a massive failure due to its very high system requirements. I upgrade my machines on my schedule, not to get the newest game or application. Not sure why companies feel they will succeed doing this.

I wish AoC the best of luck. I have a lot of friends going to play it. Its not even close to being a WoW killer. Maybe in time when they get the kinks worked out it will have a shot at taking a chunk of Blizzards market.

Kudos to the idiot who modded this guy informative

[unity100]

just read this jerk's parent comment :

I got bored after reading the second sentence of your useless post.

and read his below comment, which has been modded informative by some idiots who happened to have mod points :

I got in on the early release. Managed to get to Lv 9. I was not impressed. The combat system is cool for about an hour or 2 then it's somewhat annoying. Mages are overpowered in that you cast one spell and the enemy dies. Also everyone has Hide (AKA Stealth) yeah...everyone. There are some limitations but the ability is still there. I think it needs a bit more tweaking, but again I'm not to thrilled with it.

see a psychological deficiency pattern ?

we need more meta moderation in slahsdot.

EVERY mmorpg gets old... including WoW

[Morpeth]

I've played WoW pretty intensely since it came out, but it's lost its luster for me. It's NOT that it's a bad game, heck it's terrific, BUT how much of the same thing can you swallow? That's true of ANY mmorpg. I've played EQI/II, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot & Guild Wars. They each had something fun and interesting to offer -- but at some point the content, quests, graphics & 'feel' of the games become too familiar imo. How many times can you visit the same zone/terrain, and kill the same monsters? Change is good.

WoW has become a game of grinding, 'dailies' (daily quests) are just repetitive and boring, essentially a way to move the carrot a bit further out while they work on the next expansion. Personally for me, the carrot's no longer appetizing.

People get so defensive about the greatness of their mmorpg of choice -- fact is, no mmorpg will reign supreme forever. New graphic engines come out, new ideas grow, etc. Personally I'm glad it's that way, I'd hate to think I'd be playing WoW 3 years from now

Re:EVERY mmorpg gets old... including WoW

[plasmacutter]

I agree.

I'm seriously considering quitting, and am pairing back my time spent on WoW.

I've geared my destruction warlock to the point where only t5 level tanks can hold aggro, and the game just isn't that fun anymore when the only advancements you can make involve annoying guild politics.

If i want to get involved in politics i'll do it in the real world, where at least the headaches will result in real change.

Re:Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop

[loafula]

...I don't think Blizzard has anything to worry about (1.7Mhz P4, 512MB RAM, 32MB Geforce 2 -- 20-30 FPS). WoW plays wonderfully on integrated video -- it's one of the few games that does. 1.7 Mhz? I have a calculator that is faster than that.

both ducks

[Tom]

My girlfriend was in the closed beta for AoC, and I've seen several of the demo beta versions of WAR.

Without breaking any NDAs, I can say that neither will live up to the hype. Conan looks good and has some very interesting ideas in it, but for the most parts it's simply another MMORPG. Warhammer has already lost its hardcore crowd with the last versions, because all the typical-computer-game "look ma', new graphics card" colourful shiny glowing effects - that's not the Warhammer world most of us grew up with, which is dark and dirty. They made it too much like WoW, and unless they can beat WoW at its own game, that's where they'll look a lot like their orc in the trailer.

I'm still waiting for that innovative MMORPG. You know, the one that's not simply like all the others, but has new ideas, new concepts, a new gameplay. The one that teaches us that "MMORPG" is not necessarily synonymous with "EQ/WoW clone".

Re:both ducks

[Reapy]

I think the problem with innovating is the high cost of maintaining and designing an mmo. It is a very risky venture, and how do you successfully break the mmo forumla? I mean, most character based games work the same way, auto attack something. Use skills to make it more interesting. What next? Guild wars changed it up a bit in that you could instantly get into end game content and start trying new skill combos for free.

I honestly don't know what new thing an mmo could do. I felt like shadowbane was a huge step in the right direction for a different feeling mmo. The ffa pvp, city building, quick leveling (skill based so once you get 1 skill up high you can hurt high level players), and forcing you to join a guild past level 35 all lent itself to a very exciting, dynamic world, that you could participate in almost immediately. Unfortunately the tech wasn't there to keep it going.

Planetside also had huge potential. It has a great combat system going with the guns and vehicles available, but the developers forgot to build an interesting game world to play in, leading to boredom and repetition. There were perhaps 5 or so base types, stamped all over the game world. Instead of making the bases look different on each continent, all they did was add new landmasses and spread the player population out more. This was another mmo on the edge of being something great and unique that failed.

I wonder if mmo's can continue to look towards muds for examples? I remember reading about achea (sp?) mud's wonderful combat system and couldnt help but think it would be a very cool graphic game. I tried to get into the mud, but a mud requires too much attention to keep up with the scrolling text, and I can't shut the world out like that (even though that can be fun :) ).

My MMO flags are pointed towards darkfall online, hoping they can show me something new, but I have a feeling it is going to end up like shadowbane.

In the future if we ever get more bandwith, MMO's might play around and start to give us more action content, like when I swing my sword it will actually do some sort of collision detection, and I can roll and dodge between an ogres legs as he swings his big club at me.

I guess the more they can visualize and put in the players control what the stats are doing in an MMO, the more interesting it'll be. Nut that takes more and more bandwith and development time to be able to do that.

But hey, maybe one day we can both win the lottery, found our own mmo company, and make that unique mmo we are waiting for!

Wait a second...

[Dekortage]

Are you saying that Slashdot isn't an MMORPG?

Re:I think WoW will be many peoples last MMO game.

[dave562]

Exactly. I just don't have the time or inclination to really get into anything else. I don't even really have the time to put into WoW when you get right down to it. I have the good fortune of being in a half way decent raiding guild simply because my girlfriend works with someone whose boyfriend is a raid leader. My girlfriend and I only play for a couple hours on Saturday night once or twice a month and maybe 4-6 hours over the course of the week.

Age of Conan

[initialE]

It says here that Conan is 61. But then again it says here that Conan is 45. So I guess I have to shell out a few bucks and play the game to find out what is the age of Conan.

Re:Age of Conan

[myowntrueself]

Its set after he has dealt with a certain insurrection involving a certain Acheronian sorcerer brought back from the dead, but before he met Zenobia and had kids.

So I'd say 45 is a reasonable age.

61 would place it just before "Conan of the Isles" where he leaves Aquilonia forever.

Re:Age of Conan

[WobindWonderdog]

I think you missed the links the OP posted. =P

Re:Age of Conan

[myowntrueself]

yeah but I've read most of the books... nearly 30 of them in the last few months.

Re:Age of Conan

[WobindWonderdog]

Er, not doubting your knowledge at all...

Psst, you might want to at least mouseover the links in the OP's post.

Yep

[Sycraft-fu]

That's the way I've always looked at MMOs. To be worth it, they basically have to be about 2 movies worth of entertainment time per month, so about 4-6 hours. If it starts dropping below that, then it is getting to be time to evaluate if I feel it is worth it. However that really is very little. That would be playing the game one hour a week basically.

All said and done, MMOs tend to be real cheap entertainment.

Re:Yep

[drsquare]

That's assuming that every form of entertainment provides the same level of excitement per hour. An hour watching a great classic film, or seeing your favourite band in a once in a lifetime experience, or watching a sports game that will be remembered in years to come, may be worth more money per hour than filling time in a game killing cockroaches.

Re:Yep

[gnuman99]

That's why you play EVE Online instead! You spend months training and ratting/trading for that mothership, then get it and in that battle on Sunday night, you lose it. I'm sure you'll remember that day for a while!

More nitpicks

[Z34107]

Either your definition of "supply" is screwed up, or else your definition of "physical good."

Providing service to 16 million players requires lots of servers, hefty storage and redundancy, and bandwidth. The supply is how many accounts worth of capacity they choose to support - every user takes up a variable amount of bandwidth, in addition to the sunk costs of software development (new content, bug fixes).

You think 100-odd realms just materialized out of thin air? This isn't some magic^H^H^H^H^H intellectual property idea here; each player ties up "scarce and limited", very physical resources. When WoW was first released, Blizzard credited a lot of people's accounts for server outages - they underestimated demand, which quickly outstripped supply.

Even assuming marginal costs are zero, that little "supply" line still enters the equation - either as "supply of capacity" or "supply of competing MMORPGs." If there was only World of Warcraft on the market, I'd bet they could definitely get away with charging $20 or even $30 monthly - heck, you can't get cable for that much. Now, consider that we have City of Heroes/Villains, Final Fantasy XII, or even Age of Conan...

Re:More nitpicks

[PaulMeigh]

BURN. Was wondering if another econ geek out there would point this out.

No supply? Never experienced login queues I guess.

Re:More nitpicks

[CountBrass]

"Burn"? What a wanker.

Re:Why AoC will rock WoW hard... but not unseat it

[Skuld-Chan]

Do you think the decreased level curve in aoc is an issue for noobs? I've heard it takes one played day to get to max level. I think if the entry level is lower the more kids will be running going "will you PLEASE run me through x dungeon?!".

I think one of the things that kept kids out of games like EQ was the sheer amount of time and effort it took - nothing came easy (I would argue little in WoW comes easy either, but its at least attainable). I used to play L2 (Lineage 2) - same thing - no kids, but it was a rather hardcore game and it took a lot of effort/work (yes it felt like a second job) to get anywhere in that game.

I personally don't care if someone else has a piece of gear I have - I just want to play a game that is fun. I play wow now, but I'm wishing that the end game stuff was a bit more accessible. While I know and realize that end game raiding in WoW isn't nearly as hard core as L2 or EQ - it still requires an amazing amount of effort and work - not that I'm opposed to effort, but I do think they could make those instances fun without being massive gear checks.

Or - maybe I'm missing the point of /flex with all kinds of epic gear.

Certianly an important factor

[Sycraft-fu]

At least if you want to get large numbers. As you noted, there are lots of people who just don't have high end gaming rigs. So if you don't cater to them, well then they can't be customers. Also there's the fact that many of the people with high end rigs are the kind who are always looking for something new. That's part of the reason to own one (I know that's part of the reason I own one). So you may find them to be not that loyal. They'll play your game for awhile, then move on when something else comes along.

However, even if you don't fall in to those categories, if you have a high end machine and stay with an MMO you like for a long time, there's still reason for the lower requirements. I am in this category. I've been playing WoW since about 1 month after it came out, and I still enjoy it. One of the things I like is that it is easy to run. Not because my system has any problem, it is rather high end, but because it means when I go to visit my folks, I can run it on their system. If I'm stuck at work after hours waiting for a backup to complete, I can run it.

Unlike many games, I don't need my nice gaming system. I can run it on pretty much whatever is available, including my old laptop that work provides. That is a feature worth considering. Having entertainment that travels well is a nice thing.

company cant do nothing

[unity100]

if a player is not self-aware enough to check out and choose a class that would fit his/her playstyle, and just pick one that doesnt go well with his/her tastes well, and get bored in 3 hours. there is NOTHING that can be done against that. thats the way with mmos that offer more than one class to play, and thats going to be as such. just check one other post of that idiot in this thread, who got bored after 3 hours, in the curiously +3 informative modded shit of a post on top of this thread :

I got bored after reading the second sentence of your useless post. at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=557492&cid=23466090

just tell me it isnt useless to make such kind of faggot to like anything. that guy needs to be hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital instead of playing games.

so

[unity100]

whats the problem with it ?

Re:so

[DrSkwid]

All those flappy capes takes me back to DAoC!

Re:Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

Not with vista. I have a P4 3.2 Ghz and integrated graphics. 1GB ram. I get 12fps. It still runs though and I can play, just not well.

If it isn't balanced

[Sycraft-fu]

It's screwed in terms of competing with WoW. This is really the most key feature of WoW in my opinion, the one thing I've never seen in any MMO prior: They really work at having a balanced game. That isn't to say they always succede, but they TRY. Not only do they try, but they actually have some science behind it.

For example in most games, items have abilities that are somewhat arbitrarily assigned. A designer thinks it sounds good, so they make it like that. Ok, but that leads to some things being over or under powered. WoW doesn't do that. They have a formula. Items have a given quality and a given level and that determines how many points they get. Different stats cost different points. In that way, Blizzard has a model to determine how powerful an item should be.

Now of course that doesn't mean it is perfect, they have rebalanced what abilities are worth what a number of times, but it does mean they are consistent, and also gives them a strong base to evaluate things against. If certain items seem to be too powerful, they can run statistical analysis to see if some stats are under valued.

Thus they are the first MMO that seems to really try at balance (especially for PvP) and thus the only one I've stayed with for any length of time. All the other ones I've tried seem to totally ignore class imbalance issues (like the original Everquest) or let them sit until everyone is playing the "god" class, then fix it, piss everyone off, and just create a new "god" class in the process.

I'm not sure why this is such a hard concept for MMO developers, but they really don't seem to understand it. While there seems to be attempts to imitate Blizzard's easy starting (which is also key), they all seem to ignore the importance of balance between sides.

I think Blizzard had some really good experience in this area with Starcraft. That was the first time I'd played an RTS that had 3 sides that were extremely different. I mean they didn't even do fundamental things like construct buildings the same. However they were perfectly balanced. There was no "best" side.

That sort of balance is what is needed in MMOs especially PVP ones. If they don't bring that, then I can't see them competing with WoW.

Re:If it isn't balanced

[HerculesMO]

Well said, and to add -- these things can happen with one-race/class games. It's why I look forward to DarkFall Online (I am a fanboy, I'll admit it), because it's a skills based system where all the players have access to all the skills. No being locked into a "rogue" or a "priest" -- you can be both.. but as you take on more skills, it gets more complex for you as well.

WoW has in game balance down pat -- and it's their highest strength.

Re:If it isn't balanced

[jeremyp]

I'm not sure why this is such a hard concept for MMO developers

I think it's because it's really hard to get it right. Even with WoW virtually every single patch tweaks aspects of the classes, presumably to improve balance.

Re:If it isn't balanced

[Sycraft-fu]

Not saying it isn't tough, but most don't seem to even try. They go for a more single player design approach where things are just done because the designers think they are cool.

As I said, one very important step WoW takes is having mathematical models for things in their game. That way they can keep things on an even field and, if they have to re balance something, know what needs re balancing and by how much to make it consistent.

Also they seem to do a pretty good job of actually looking for balance issues and addressing them when they come up. It isn't immediate, of course, nor would you want it to be you want them to make sure the fix doesn't cause more problems than it solves, but it is fairly swift. The other games I've tried, to the point that they even care (as I said, EQ was ok with classes being totally unbalanced) take forever to acknowledge and fix balance issues. Then when they do, the fix is often worse because they really haven't tried it.

Meh.. Windows Only Client

[donweel]

Looks interesting, but not enough to fire up boot camp. WoW is just fine for now and you can customize it with add-ons. I was boot camping for Bioshock but since WoW I lost interest.

MAC Address?

[antdude]

Why would play games on MAC addresses? [grin] Oh, you mean Mac. :P

AoC + Linux?

[inflamez]

Will AoC run on Linux? As far as I know AoC has its own graphic engine built buy Funcom, using many DirectX10 features and it's also part of Microsoft's "Games for Windows" line-up. Any chance Wine will be able to handle AoC any time soon? I am not sure, maybe anyone here has more insight.

I would love to play something new, but so far the only MMORPGs that work perfectly smooth are WoW and Eve Online. WoW even runs faster since I switched to Linux. :-)

My expectations are high for "The Chronicles of Spellborn" which will be using a modified Unreal engine and should be easier to port, since most of the work has already been done with other games using nearly the same engine. Until then, I'll (have to) stick to WoW to get my daily MMORPG dose.

Re:AoC + Linux?

[joshtheitguy]

WoW even runs faster since I switched to Linux. :-) Hmm, I wish I had that problem when I was still playing WoW.

I checked the winehq.com app DB. It is basically at a "Garbage" rating. Installer works but the game will not launch. Though most of the testing was done during the AoC beta, maybe the full version will be better.

I'm playing Age of Conan now.

[CrazyJim1]

Actually not now cuz servers are down for 5 hours, but I was playing it. I'm glad WOW introduced the idea of thieves as DPS... Because in D&D thieves were just sucky in combat compared to fighters or clerics. So you have Tanks, DPS, mages and priests. It works out pretty well.

There is nudity and gore in AOC which is different than other MMORPGS, but if there is a real problem with AOC is that it may cause a lot of people to get upgrades to play. This notion of upgrading your computer to play a video game is nothing any gamers should be foreign to though. Funcom has a track record that isn't bad. I like Funcom, but I like Blizzard more.

Nothing is gonna kill WOW out right. It will still live on as a MMORPG, but people who want something new will always be bouncing to the next new game. Age of Conan is the next new game. The interesting thing is that while Blizzard is allowing WOW to stagnate instead of constantly updating it, Blizzard is working on future MMORPGS. So WOW isn't the last thing you're gonna hear from Blizzard even if it does get knocked off its mighty perch(which I doubt will happen because of just one game).

Re:I'm playing Age of Conan now.

[mordenkhai]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that WoW did not in fact introduce the idea that Theives/Rogues were primarily high damage output classes. EQ had rogues which were a "DPS" class prior to WoW at launch, I'm not even sure EQ was first.

Pirates won't dethrone WoW

[WillAffleckUW]

I can't even get Pirates to run on my WinXP laptop that was brand new in 2006.

Sorry, but I can get it to run WoW.

Does that answer your question? ... now if they could get it to run in Linux ...

Re:What's the appeal? - Not brown places

[Jthon]

Hey drsquare if you're interested in at least seeing some OTHER landscapes try to start (or walk your character) to any of the following places.

Horde: Make a Tauren or visit thunder bluff here you start in a grasslands area with an American Indian motif on the buildings. Think American Midwest pre corn.

Make an undead. You start in a forested area that's been corrupted by plague, sort of green but dark and spooky.

Make a blood elf. You start in a combination of a corrupted area and shiny forestland. You have some really interesting elf buildings to check out.

Go Alliance.

Create a dwarf/gnome and check out the snowscapes of outside Ironforge.

Make a human and see the forests of Elwynn.

Make a nightelf and start on the massive tree "island" of Teldrassil, a forest but a totally different style from Elwynn.

There are many more unique places to visit but nothing safe until you've leveled up. I think the Alliance side has the biggest variation in landscape leveling up (Lots of horde see durotar then the barrens both of which are brown/orange city).

Once you get beyond 10-20 you'll start to see a lot of the variation in the world, the deserts of Tanaris, the wasteland in Desolace, the spooky forests of the Darkshire area, the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale and more.

"Enormous Niche" ??

[mhotchin]

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Re:"Enormous Niche" ??

[ivan256]

niche
              n 1: a position particularly well suited to the person who
                        occupies it; "he found his niche in the academic world"

It means exactly what I think it means. What do you think it means?

They rope you in

[Brain-Fu]

MMO games are dangerous. At first they are fun, and if you don't have addiction problems you can balance your play time with your real life quite easily (though some may have the nagging feeling that they aren't getting their money's worth if they don't play very often).

However, eventually, you join a guild (or equivalent). And they raid with you. And your availability becomes an issue for them. Suddenly, every time you don't play, nine or more of your friends can't run they dungeon they want to run, and it is YOUR fault.

That is the real killer...the sense of importance you get from being so relied-upon, combined with the pride you get from towering over your peers due to your uber raid gear, make the end game destructively addictive.

Sure, you can quit any time, so long as you don't mind disappointing and/or pissing off a whole bunch of friends who have been relying on you, and supporting you, and sacrificing for you, for quite a long time.

Re:They rope you in

[Ephemeriis]

Sure, you can quit any time, so long as you don't mind disappointing and/or pissing off a whole bunch of friends who have been relying on you, and supporting you, and sacrificing for you, for quite a long time. And how exactly is this different than if you were routinely playing D&D with a group of friends? Or had a regular poker night going? Or if you got together with some buddies routinely for a LAN party? Or a bridge club? Or if you were on a local sports team?

Any group activity where people start counting on you can be hard to quit. And I'd suggest that it is even harder to quit some of these RL activities than their virtual equivalents because you have to see their faces when you let them down.

This isn't unique to MMOGs. You see a lot of press about people getting addicted to MMOGs, spending craptons of time/money/whatever on them, guilds pressuring people to put the game ahead of their family/whatever. None of this is new, only the game it's happening in is. Folks have been getting addicted to TV shows, books, gambling, and whatever else for years. Folks have been pressured by their buddies to show up for various activities for years.

A MMOG is no more dangerous than any other diversion out there.

no

[unity100]

they said it was limited and everyone who ordered it should put in their keys asap. many shops didnt even care about that, just sold games and delayed everything. you should be pestering your store about it.

Re:no

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't my question. WHY WERE THEY SELLING MORE SLOTS THAN THEY COULD FILL? I didn't buy the game, but it seems like a way to unnecessarily piss off some of your customer base.

Re:no

[unity100]

you should ask this question in their forums then.

Re:no

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, sorry. It looked like there was a discussion here about a monumentally stupid way to do preorders. I guess I was mistaken and I'll go sign up for the forums to a game I'm not really interested in.

Re:no

[unity100]

if you preordered, you already have a right to an account at funcom. if you open your account you can log in to forums and put your case.

Re:System Requirements Indicate WoW will Remain Ki

[AK Marc]

Because clearly high action MMOs and a Simulation game are clearly analogous.

Correct. To a casual gamer, they can play what works on their system, and they are unlikey to buy a system beacuse it doesn't play the newest game, but instead will just not buy the game (or if they do, they will play it, hate it, and badmouth it to their other casual gamer friends). The casual gamer doesn't see a difference between Sims and MMOs. Both are games they will play if they like them and they play well on their machines. So yes, the latest FPS with insane graphics, a RTS, and solitaire are clearly analogous, when talking about casual gamers.

Even more information

[Anonymous Coward]

All these articles about AOC which've been published today do not show all the information given. I found it on the Norwegian stockbroker site Newsweb.no. If you can't read the PDF (http://www.newsweb.no/newsweb/atmnt/FUNCOM_Update_190508.pdf?id=55484), you can read all the info here: http://koew.net/310

Not a chance they'll beat Wow

[Snaller]

None of them have yet understood that it has to be good in ALL aspects - not just the game play (though that helps!) but also details, for instance they NEED an interface which can be customized as much as Wow can - no way in hell I'll ever go back to a game where i can't increase the font to readability (not being a 16 year old with hawk eyes) - and most players will have something they say is important and Blizzard has just about catered for all of it. WoW has been designed to be less hard on old computers, none of the new ones are - the freaks will upgrade perhaps, but the millions will stay with a program that works on their machine.

Blizzard are just waiting for the two others to poke their head out of the bushes and then they'll chop them off.

Age of Conan may have asked for payment for 700000 licenses (you can't sell something which the payee does not own) but most of them will leave in droves when the next Warcraft expansion comes out later this year.

Conan will be lucky if he has 70000 barbarians to play with in a year.

Uhh, have you tried City of Heroes/Villains?

[JSBiff]

Ok, ok, I know some people don't like the comic-book hero concept. But, that said, I thought CoH was pretty innovative, in terms of having game play that, in a lot of ways, is quite different from most of the other mmorpgs I've played. Less emphasis on 'gear' (still some emphasis on that - they introduce a crafting system last year to create better stuff than you can buy from NPC's, but, it's not *so* much better that you can't get by with the standard stuff, if you want to).

But, the real place where CoH shines, in my opinion, is grouping. With a decent group (it doesn't even have to be a finely tuned group, though a little bit of tuning never hurts), gameplay is much brisker than in most other MMORPG's I've played. In my experience, with most MMOG's, whether you are soloing, or in a group, you are fighting one enemy at a time, or a very small number of enemies at a time (maybe 2-4). The differnce with the group is that instead of the 1 or 2 enemies you are fighting being equal level, you might take on 2 enemies that are +1 or +2 levels higher than the highest member of the group.

With CoH, you will often be fighting 10-12 enemies at a time, which has a very comic-book feel, and a very heroic feel to it, if you ask me. It's mayhem, and it's fast, and there's not a lot of downtime. It's not uncommon for a group to just steamroll from one pack of enemies to the next on a map. This is partly due to CoH's approach to powersets.

Many MMORPG's have a pretty small/restricted number of character powersets to choose from, with a fairly small total number of different types of powers. CoH has a *lot* of different types of powers in the game. This can be confusing, especially at first, when you are learning the game - I have to confess that I don't really know all of the powersets available, but I have a good understanding of most of them. Most MMO's have a 'healer' class for instance, and possibly one 'buffer' class. CoH has the "Defender" and "Controller" arch-types, and in each of those archtypes, there are 6 or 8 different classes, with a mix of a variety of different powers. You have the "Empathy" powerset, available to both Defenders and Controllers (as a 'Primary' for Defenders, which means they can use it more effectively - larger effects on each of the powers, and in some cases, able to use the powers much more frequently, as a 'Secondary' set for Controllers), which is the closest to the classic 'healer' class from most other games. But, even the Empathy set doesn't exclusively have heals - they also have several decent buffs. But, where it gets interesting is powersets like Radiation, ForceFields, Sonic Manipulation, and Kinetics.

Some of the effects that Defenders and Controllers can apply outside of healing:

* Faster movement (like, *much* faster, not 5% faster), faster power recharge (that is, each power has a certain amount of time you must wait before you can re-use it again; for some of the powers this is 5 or 10 seconds, for others, 2 minutes, and for yet others 10 minutes),
* Faster/higher jumping
* Flying
* Faster energy recharge (you have a pool of energy which is required to use your powers [similar to most games which have some concept of spells or special abilities] which is about 100 points when full [there are a small number of ways to increase this in the game - I think you can max it at 110 or 115]; run out of energy and your gonna have a hard time defeating enemies)
* Higher Defense - you get hit by enemies much less often
* Higher Resistance - you take less damage when enemies do hit you
* Higher Accuracy - you hit enemies more often
* Higher Damage
* Status protection (avoid getting knocked down, stunned, etc)

What I think makes CoH stand out from other games is, more than the effects available (because, well, obviously they aren't completely unique), is the magnitude that the game allows the effects to reach. Most games I've seen go out of there

Re:Uhh, have you tried City of Heroes/Villains?

[SilverJets]

I totally agree! I LOVED COH. I stopped playing about 6 months after the release of COV and started on WOW. Now I'm bored of WOW and tried to go back to COH. Unfortunately it is no longer the game I remember. Most servers are deserted and the ones that aren't (Freedom and Virtue pop into mind here) just seem to be filled with people standing in Atlas Park using it as a big chat room.

Too bad it was an excellent game. (I never liked COV...to me it was just COH with different skins. Nothing villainous about it more of a vigilante feeling.)

Re:Uhh, have you tried City of Heroes/Villains?

[Tom]

True, CoH and CoV had some interesting ideas. I like the "sidekick" system a lot, for example.

But, as far as actual gameplay goes, it's still grind, kill X monsters, kill more monsters, kill even more monsters, kill some more monsters. The differences and advances are still in the details, not the gameplay.

The only MMORPG I know that comes close to being innovative is Tale from the Desert. Except that in most areas it's still grinding.

If any MMORPG designer listens: I don't want to grind. For repetitive, boring work, there is, well, work. And you get paid for that instead of the other way around. And you can study to avoid it and get a more interesting job. I'd love to have that option in an MMORPG.

Re:Uhh, have you tried City of Heroes/Villains?

[uncledrax]

I concurr. CoV you weren't a Villian.. you were just an anti-hero.. you still wacked the same baddies).. which is sad because there was great potential there.

Furthermore, what I really liked about CoH was the LACK of an economy orignally.. they added one sorta in now, but it doesn't have the feel of a system of a bigger MMO..
and secondaly, was the ability to play with your friends, regardless of level.. (the Sidekick/Exemplar) system, which imo, is the single greatest thing they brought to the MMO genre (since I'm not a big fan of level-based MMOs).. .. It let the casual player (me) play with some of my more hard-core player friends that were usually 2-3x my level.

The bad part of CoH is it's totally a grind fest, which is why it didn't have any staying power for alot of people likely.

Re:Kudos to the idiot who modded this guy informat

[Drakin020]

Yes, god forbid someone makes a game that is interesting when you open the box and not 10 days into it. /fail

As an economics student...

[KKlaus]

You're absolutely wrong about your discussion of supply and demand, which does not require a physical good (please don't make up fake economics rules). The good is a WoW account, and people will purchase more or fewer of them depending on how they cost. Depending on how much they cost, Blizzard will be willing to supply more or fewer or them. It is not free for Blizzard to provide accounts - all those accounts need to be run on servers, and have people looking after them, etc.

How much of Blizzard's pricing is due to the cost of supply is probably small, because they have a monopoly on WoW accounts and so follow a different set of profit maximizing rules than the so called "price takers" of a competitive market, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And it certainly doesn't mean that services (particularly "access services" as you call them) live in some other universe where supply and demand don't exist. Yes, the same goes for satellite TV and cable, and certainly gym memberships (Do those exercise machines look like they're free to you? What about the building they're in? Can a gym really admit as many people as it wants for free?). Stick to talking WoW, and avoid econ until you know a little more about it.

When AoC meets latency. . .

[JSBiff]

I think there is a reason most games have a semi-automatic operation for characters. That reason is lag/latency. If my computer meets the requirements for AoC,I might check it out over the summer. But, every MMO I've ever played has suffered, to one extent or another, from latency issues. With MMOG's, this seems to be even more of an issue, for some reason, than with your typical minimally-multiplayer game (like FPS's, or RPG's like Dungeon Siege, Neverwinter Nights, etc, where you run your own server, basically).

It'll be very interesting to see if you can get the level of responsiveness out of AoC which would be required for a more 'interactive' experience.

RAGNAAAAAAAARRR!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw this; I want my Dreamfall Chapters!

Re:Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop

[Pengo]

Until you upgrade your 12" monitor.

It seriously boggles my mind how people get their panties in a bunchie because a game doesn't work in software emulation mode.

I don't do THAT well, but i can at least afford a last-generation budget video card. ($100 video card can play just about any game on a 19" at decent framerate)

Cheap ass

test

[Anonymous Coward]

test post

Price, Value and Time

[serodores]

For the price of WoW+expansions you could buy buy a new game every couple months. If you are only playing a few hours here and there this is probably better value. If nothing else, at the end of a year you've got half a dozen different games to play whenever you get the itch. Only if you're into those type of games instead. You have to think though: how much play time do you get out of those games? I get between 6 and 15 hours out of most games these days. 40 hours for some huge RPG. At $60 a pop, that's 4 months of WoW time in which one can play a lot longer if they wish. And even less if you buy games that came out a year ago or so, and sell for $20 or so now. If you like WoW, it's a tough argument to say you can't wait a year or so for a non-MMO game, given that 90% of WoW's content is much older than 1 year. It's also pretty cheap if you have a console and already get something like Blockbuster's online deal for movies, where you can get 2 console games/month (via guaranteed monthly coupons) for about 2 weeks each, at about the same price as WoW's monthly fee (~$16/mo.) Even if you do buy it brand new, chances are you could sell it as 'like new' on something like half.com and make most of your money back when you're done with it (unless you take several months to finish it).

Plus, if you are only playing a game like WoW sporadically, its almost impossible to accomplish things, you are perpetually miles behind your friends, you are left out of the social element, its hard to get into a worthwhile guild or group when you do login... so now you are paying $15/month for a much poorer experience than the game has to offer. That's a personal opinion, and you are free to rationalize that WoW might not be worth playing if you don't play it a lot. Many people do play pretty sporadically though and are just fine. In my guild, pretty much hang out and have fun. Our raiding these days has been whittled down to 1 ZA run per week (that is sometimes canceled) on Tuesday nights, and various 5 mans/heroics whenever guildies feel like it. Sure we're not going to go whup up on anything in the Sunwell, but we have a lot of fun together playing. My basic point is not that "WoW is OMG teh awesomeness and every1 should play it!", it's that "it's too expensive" is a pretty poor excuse unless you're living in a straw hut. Saying "I don't like the game so I'm not willing to pay for it" is one thing. Saying that "I'm not playing it because it costs too much" is something else. As several others have said, having a kid, it greatly helps playing a game you can 'pause' at any second. You can't quite do that in the middle of a raid on WoW. Going back to the price issue, I tend to look at how much fun I get out of something vs. how much it costs. Eternal grinding at an MMO isn't as fun as doing a completely new game (e.g., God of War) that you've never played before, and is reasonably cheap (e.g., $20 to own, much less to rent or buy/sell).

Re:I think WoW will be many peoples last MMO game.

[merreborn]

I had a similar experience -- I played an MMO 20+ hours a week for years.

Then I moved out of my parent's house, got a full time job, and got married. I rarely game even 5 hours a week these days.

But for every one of us, there's a 13 year old who just got his first copy of WoW. One generation ages out, another begins. Something will replace WoW one of these days. You and I won't play it, but millions of kids will.

You will be assilimated

[American Scum]

It's going to happen to all of you, eventually - why fight it, and why put yourself behind, skill-wise or monetarily, when you can just subscribe to Eve Online now? It's complex, and even frustrating, because it's an adult-level game. If it was simple, thousand would leave it like they've left WoW (one does not go from Eve to WoW, but how many WoW players left WoW for Eve?) It has PVP with a lasting effect - you know you just took away something someone worked an hour, or days, for when you kill them, and they don't get it back. WoW may never be beat as there are always new pre-teens and teens willing to waste time, but when you've finally matured and need that 'something else' every WoW player knows is out there, the vacuum of space will be waiting.

Re:You will be assilimated

[greymond]

I don't really consider Eve a game for mature players. I have a full time job, a wife and a dog so games get very little attention. In WOW I feel I can accomplish "something" within a short amount of time (1-2 hours a week) and because of that I continue to give Blizzard my support.

Eve was very pretty I thought and the fact I could set a ship to mine while not logged in was very cool, but at the same time I could get killed while offline too doing that. Not to mention traveling around took a sandwhich or refill soda break.

That said I really wish SquareEnix would have taken some direction from Blizzard, since I really liked their game world and a lot of their story line, but getting 6 people together to kill 1 mob at a time for 6 hours a night to maybe gain half a level was just too silly and time consuming.

Re:You will be assilimated

[American Scum]

My younger brother had to quit eve for the very same reason - a wife, kids, cats, and a house take up the time that a complex game would otherwise demand. For that short of a time period, hell, I really don't mind FPS military games from even a few years ago - a few successful sniper shots, making other people's days a little more miserable, and I'm happy. That's accomplishing something right there, and just what the doctor ordered. Most of the games I used to play were even downloaded demo versions that were enough for me, for those short time periods I had to play. I don't remember the names of them, but they were all WWII games. I've never played WoW, but I've heard there was very little sense of accomplishment because nothing gained is ever lost.

Re:You will be assilimated

[American Scum]

I wonder why my paragraphs won't parse? Damn, that's annoying.

Sure they'll announce it

[Snaller]

But it'll still take them forever to do it - that's also Blizzard

Re:I think WoW will be many peoples last MMO game.

[Snaller]

You play other things, you have other hobbies - its not a question of having time - its a question of you choosing other things to spend your time on.

Coming soon from the same company...

[Anonymous Coward]

Era Of Leno, Epoch Of Letterman, and Century Of Kimmel.

Has anyone actually read a review of AOC? CRAP!

[plasmacutter]

from what I read, it's utter crap.

It certainly does not qualify as an RPG.

Particularly: it combines the twitchy experience of an fps with the annoyingly complex button combos of a fighting engine.

This game is for the CS/Halo3 crowd and the DOA version X crowd.

Re:Has anyone actually read a review of AOC? CRAP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading a few posts and stating facts isn't a very informed opinion worthy of posting.

It does qualify as an RPG. You have skill trees which help to customize your character. You have ability scores you can also customize. The single player portion is well voice-acted and enjoyable.

The twitchy experience of an FPS is exactly the reason people are enjoying it. Complexity requires attention, speed and certainly digit-dexterity. This is the "skill" part of it that WoW dumbed so heavily down.

I don't like CS/Halo and didn't play DoA.

From closed beta to early access the game improved substantially. I have been thoroughly impressed with the improvements, the launch strategy, game speed, quest flow and pvp aspects.

This game is astoundingly addictive and my only complaint is that the EU folks seem to think it's ok to start US server downtime at 5:00pm. I hope this little detail STOPS after launch because it's pissing my addicted ass off!

Re:Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Why do those bonehead developers design for the very latest video cards anymore anyway?
I read the article a few months back about one of them (was it Carmack - can' remember?) complaining about this and wanted to scream at him.
Don't get me wrong, I love beautiful graphics as much as the next guy, but there is nothing more frustrating than to see a game that looks really cool only to discover that the developers are snubbing integrated graphics so I can't play it. There is just no excuse for that. I have a laptop PC with insanely more CPU, memory and video "horsepower" than I had even 10 years ago (much less the nearly 20 that my PC career started at) and I'm lucky if I can play a new game.
I chose a laptop because I prefer to be around my family more (versus heading off to be a game troll like I did with my old desktop) and just didn't have the money to buy one with a dedicated video card.
Until the developers get that game play can overcome "uber graphics", then this will continue (one other benefit would be that non-cutting edge graphics might be easier to port to Linux.)

wow+bc+wotlk = 35% of your leveling ALONE

[plasmacutter]

blizzard's choice to offer expansion as disjoint rather than seamlessly merging them, harmonizing loot tables, and selling the unified package with a new price tag has hurt their gameplay experience.

after bc was released the leveling experience became a horrible, lonely chore from about 45 to 58. Nobody wants to run instances when the loot tables suck and they'll get better green quest rewards once they rush to outland.

This will only get worse as wrath adds another full 10 levels to this horror.

Re:AoC has come a long way in just the last two we

[OutLawSuit]

That may very well be true but in order for a MMORPG to succeed, it needs to generate sufficient hype in beta that will carry it through to release; last minute changes don't do that. I guess it is unfortunate but a lot of people decide if they will purchase an MMO from their beta experiences and word of mouth. If an MMO doesn't do well at launch for whatever reason, there's very little chance at recovery. The only way to ensure a success at launch is to have a nearly flawless yet fun beta but that isn't realistic for most developers except for Blizzard...

Why no MMORPG will dethrone WoW anytime soon

[Opportunist]

Simple. Can be summed up in one phrase: WoW was no bananaware at release.

I was in the WoW beta. I was in quite a few betas during my playing time, starting way before most people even thought of playing MMORPGs. And I was already back then surprised how "finished" WoW was. When I think of other Betas, like the one of EaB ... even the skills weren't comlete. But WoW was at a good 99% when it was pushed into release. Namely:

1. All classes existed and could be played.
2. Content up to maxlevel existed and was quite playable.
3. Quests were mostly bugfree.
4. Crashes were rare.

Sure, much was added. But much of what was added was by no means crucial. Being able to summon people to the instance is a "nice to have" feature, nothing that defines a game.

Now, fast forward into the present and today's MMORPGs. Let's take a look at some of the touted "WoW killers" and what became of them.

Vanguard. Released with mostly nonexistant highlevel content, a balance that didn't exist and a stability of a pig on stilts.

EQ2. Released with a nonworking crafting system, an insane difficulty level and hardly any sensible group finding options to match the group dependency.

TR. Released with nonworking skills, zero (no kidding, zero) high level content and buggy quests, getting only worse the further you leveled.

The list goes on. And it all comes down to those "WoW killers" being unable to push the king from its throne for a very simple reason: The game is not ready for release. Half a year later, and it could have been the one to take away the crown from WoW. But by being released unfinished and in a state of a very sorry early beta, people looked at it and decided they won't want to pay to play a beta version.

They turn away from it and they don't return. Not to mention that most studios immediately withdraw sizable amounts of manpower from such a project as soon as it is shipped, pushing the game down the vicious spiral: Fewer people to patch, people leaving due to bugs and lack of content, leading to less money being pumped into the alleged failed game.

All the games I mentioned above and quite a few more had the potential to kick WoWs rear. They all had very good ideas that would have sunk WoW easily. But they simply committed one cardinal sin: Releasing the game before it is ready for it.

Blizzard has made this one thing right with WoW: Releasing it when it was ready. Sure, WoW was not 100% finished either when it came out. But the various shortcomings weren't obvious enough that people noticed them within the first three months. And that's what counts. Also, Blizzard appearantly didn't just cut away all but the bare minimum of workers from the project just because it was pushed out the door. They did actually finish it, and you could see the progress.

This is what keeps new games from actually "killing" WoW.

I have never prayed to you before

[__aawdrj2992]

If you can pray to Crom for vengeance, I'd say Blizzard is screwed.

Supply is not infinite

[aepervius]

You have to set up more server and network, and even then you will have a population which will peak out at a certain point, as bandwidth is not infinite as well as processing power of the machine holding the "world". Then there is the fact you need moderator and game helper, maintenance, new contents etc... Which is also limit supply.

When did I hear that ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, At the end of the beta for most MMORPG I heard hyped. Funny how they are now buried and forgotten, and the problem in beta were STILL present at launch to some extent.

In-game skills != real-life skills

[Wee]

imnsho, that's the worst thing about Eve, and why I don't intend to ever play (well, one of the reasons). Real time translates into in-game power, which means that no matter what, I will always, always, always be at a disadvantage to someone who started playing the game on day 1

IMO, that's the best thing about Eve. You need to take care of stuff in real life? Go on ahead. (I'm in the middle of moving to a new state, and haven't logged on for a couple weeks; still training.) You want to go for a certain area or style of play? Train it up. In a couple weeks, you'll be able to shoot at all sorts of people. In fact, with the new character creation, you can have a brand new character in a destroyer (which is a little bit up from a frigate -- basically a flying gun) in like 3 hours of training time. That's pretty nice.

There's just no sense of grinding in Eve. You just don't need to do it. Sure, people who have played longer can fly more ship types than you, but I've killed many, many players who were a couple years older than me (and I've been killed by players younger than me). As an added bonus, if you have a younger player in the group, he can easily fly anywhere the more experience people can go. When he gets there, he can take an active role in the gang.

It's not about in-game power. A 4 year old character won't always beat a 1 year old. Not like with WoW or whatever. Hell, most other games have worked it out so that a 4 yo and a 1 yo can't fight (or there's no point in fighting, same thing). Not so in Eve. Just because he's got 3 years training on you doesn't mean squat when it comes to his battlecruiser against your interceptor (or whatever). It's about tactics, and your actual skill as a player at that point.

You need to play it before you form opinions. The training system in Eve is what keeps it a grind-free experience, where it's up to the player to decide how well he'll do in pvp. It has very little to do with player age.

-B

Re:In-game skills != real-life skills

[ichigo 2.0]

You need to play it before you form opinions. The training system in Eve is what keeps it a grind-free experience, where it's up to the player to decide how well he'll do in pvp. It has very little to do with player age.

In WoW you grind mobs and quests, in Eve asteroids and missions. When will someone come up with something new?

Same stuff, new wrapping...

[MrOion]

I have been playing most of the MMO games out there, and there is nothing new in the games released now.

WoW was my addiction for a long time, but when I discovered that I was just another hamster running around in the grinding wheel, I got bored. A few examples of this: At level 60 I was participating in all the high level dungeon raids to get "the best" items. When I got them, the expansion came out I decided not to get trapped in the dungeon grinding again, and went for the PvP gear. Every time I got the best PvP gear available, a new set came and I had to start all over again... and now I have given up.

Age of Conan is nothing new. The combat system is different but not revolutionary. The rest is copy/paste from other games. I'm going to try it for a while, but if I see any sign of itemization and dungeon/PvP grinding, I'll leave.

I am more than willing to pay a monthly fee for for a game that let me have fun without looking like work. That means I'm probably not going to spend so much time online (due to grinding), but they will still get money from me every month...

nutshell

[Anonymous Coward]

At a very basic and core level you are correct, that is what WoW ammounts to. However, the early levels are deliberately "easy" and unencumbered so that you can learn a number of game mechanics, not necessarily fight mechanics; things like picking up and returning quests, chat interfaces, action bars, character management. Its no coincidence that you cant start chosing a talent path until level 10 after you have spent some time in the "game world" and got used to what happens.

A lot of long time players seem to forget how hard it was to learn to use the chat interface effectively, learn all of the / commands etc etc first time that they picked the game up and focus on other parts of the game that you miss out on.

The whole levelling experience is a LOT different now than it used to be, I could reach level 40 quite easily solo within a day of played time, something that would have been unimaginable when it was released. This helps newer people level faster as most of the realms will have low sub level 60 populations, meaning that the game experience is somewhat stunted compared to 2 years ago when it was easy to find groups/help. It also leads to a basic misunderstanding of a class and its roles in a group situation (which is something vastly removed from the solo experience), it often takes a couple of hours trying to explain the group/raid mechanics to someone who is new to the game on how to conduct themselves.

A lot of what people have said is correct though, the game is vastly different at 70 than at level 6. Believe it or not there are actually some quite fun quests (one where you become a box to listen on a conversation comes to mind) mixed in with the tedium of killing x number of animals (arg Nesingwary in Nagrand I hope you die). The instances in the 60-70 range actually borrow a lot from the high end game in vanilla WoW and the dungeon design is far far better at 60-70 than before it.

Despite what a lot of people say about the expansion, the class, character, dungeon, quest design and development is significantly better than it used to be. You only really "get" that when you have progressed into The Burning Crusade content though.

I will point out that without anyones help getting to 70 is probably as dull and tedious as it can possibly be ... but then its other people that make this game special and not the solo play. If you want to delve into that, then you should really visit the official realm forums and ask, typically some idiot or two will flame you, but then these people have far too much aspartame in their systems, generally you will get some help though ... there are enough genuinely nice people playing wow (usually those in long established guilds) that it offsets the "tard" population by a long way.

Also a tip - if you want (generally) a better and more tight knit population ... stay horde.

A view from a WoW player

[Fross]

I've been playing WoW since the beta, I played a LOT for the first year or two, less lately. I have 4 level 70s, most Karazhan geared, two with some SSC/TK stuff.

I've bee playing Age of Conan's early access program for the last few days, levelled 4 characters up to 10, and can really see what will be its good points and what will appeal to people.

First thing to determine though, is the audience for the game. It's not really the few thousand wishing MMOs went back to EQ/UO style in some way or other. It's the several MILLION who play WoW, probably never played an MMO before, and want something new.

The good points:
- the graphics engine is really, really good. Great light/fog/bump mapping effects. The textures are brilliant, and the modelling exquisite. Tortage looks great, but when you get to the cities further on, it takes your breath away. People used to WoW will be completely blown away.
- the character creation is amazing as well, dozens of sliders to tweak every facial and body characteristic if you so choose.
- the starting quests are pretty good, even though all characters start in the same area, the quest lines diverge by class quite early on. this will give replayability value.
- lots of tweaking of stats through abilities, feats and the like
- a more interesting hierarchical approach to classes, with explicit subclasses of different types.
- different pvp styles, such as free for all or culture vs culture.
- the combat system, will spellweaving and combos, is really awesome. a good innovation and a lot of fun.

Bad points:
- the interface needs a lot of work. A LOT of work. "/cc addbuddy name" to add someone to a friends list? The clunky chat windows? WoW with no mods is pretty bad too, but this is even worse.
- needs better guides to learn how to use the interface. this will probably come with the full game.
- Some abilities peter out at higher levels, but there is no indication of this. eg Slam is awesome around level 5-6, but around level 7 or 8 simply stops working, without telling you this will happen.
- needs to make it easier to group with people to do group quests/areas. there is no indication of even what these *are*. WoW's LFG system is a good example of how to do it better.
- some open areas are "instanced", to keep the number of visible players low. eg you can both be in tortage but not see each other, until one moves to the other's instance. i understand this is a performance issue, but it can be a real problem and very disorientating for new players.

Overall, I'm really excited about it. The game is gorgeous which is incentive enough to play it, but with a bit more handholding to players for new concepts and the clunky UI. It looks like it could be really awesome.

In terms of the launch, it was delayed about 4 hours from the original time, but then came up without a glitch. Some people are forgetting how bad WoW used to be around major patches :)

True, but they have done something about this

[Fross]

Loot tables in eg sunken temple now have a far larger chance at their end bosses to drop an epic (I've seen them drop every other run), and possibly the same with BRD. But your point does stand, the 50s are really just a race to get to Outland and lose much of the charm of the original game.

Not to mention all the old endgame content (MC, BWL, ZG, AQ, Naxx) which is now just ignored and rotting. very poor decision there.

Re:Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop

[mdm-adph]

I know, I know -- that Intel powerstepping is a pain in the ass.

Re:Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop

[mdm-adph]

I think you solved your own problem. ;)

Re:Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop

[mdm-adph]

Framerate is independent of monitor size... :\

Are you talking about resolution? I get this same framerate on a 17-in monitor, with this very same hardware.

Conan!

[BigDaveSittingOnHisC]

Well, i was in the open beta and currently in the early access..

and this game is, by no other word, awesome!!
even though Funcom promissed DX10 with the release in a few days, this is not going to happen, but none the less, it STILL looks amazing in DX9.

So there is my 2 cents on the graphics =d

I am pretty impressed with the state of the game for launch..
I've encountered emm, well, 0 bugs, and err, 0 crashes; which in my opinion, is pretty impressive for a just released game.

very nicely polished!

for all the nay sayers out there, just try it for yourself and make your own mind up... but its got my vote for sure...

a serious contender for WoW (or at least the more mature player of WoW)
if I were blizzard, i would be worried, heh

tapestry and embroidery

[unity100]

pal if thats your major problem, you would be far better off in a tailor shop than a mmo game.

Re:tapestry and embroidery

[DrSkwid]

When you spend most of the time with your avatar's back facing you, it is an issue.
And I was a master tailor in DAoC so ner !

Re:AoC has come a long way in just the last two we

[theghost]

The fact that the experience changed so much during the last week of beta should be a big red flag in and of itself.

I have no direct experience with the game, but that sets off big alarm bells in my software developer brain.

Re:I think WoW will be many peoples last MMO game.

[jeremyds]

I pretty much went through the same thing you did. I started playing EQ when I was 21 and moved on to WoW during the stress test beta. Now I'm 30 and don't play any MMORPG's at all. Over the course of the past 9 years I've managed to graduate from college, get a job, get married, buy a house, and now I have a kid. I've progressively had less and less time to devote to gaming, especially since having a kid.

It's kind of weird since I always thought I would be heavily in to gaming. However, times change and it's been relegated to a very small part of my life.

Re:Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop

[Pengo]

I use a 30" monitor. To get native resolution, I have to run at 2560x1600.

Monitor size and native resolution, in my case, definitely effects which video card I can use.

A 17" or a 19" might have the same video resolutions in certain cases, but it's hard to believe that if you get larger than 24" that you can get away with a 1280x1024 native resolution.

Re:Considering I can play WoW on a 6-yr-old laptop

[mdm-adph]

...and the point is now moot, because a person needing to run WoW on cheap hardware probably wouldn't have a 24'' monitor to begin with.