A View From the Road: World Without Warcraft

[John Funk]

A View From the Road: World Without Warcraft

What if World of Warcraft had never been made?

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[Kellerb]

Warhammer online would be more succesful, and therefore the world is better

 

[Loop Stricken]

I'd have had to find something else to have filled the last five years of my life and I would've missed out on meeting quite a few people, and dare I say, friends?

I'd be so much more antisocial, and I'm hardly the belle of the ball as it is.
Wait, that's not what I meant!

... oh, you mean the gaming landscape in general?

 

[macatombe]

FOR THE HORDE

OT: Since WoW got me into pc gaming in general without it I would probably be playing MW2 now with some American twelve year olds. I would have missed out on so much.

 

[John Funk]

Warhammer online would be more succesful, and therefore the world is better

I think WAR's flopping had less to do with WoW (though WotLK didn't *help*) and more to do with WAR being a kind of mediocre game.

On the other hand, you could argue that WAR has more subscribers in a world with WoW than it would in a world without, since more people were introduced to MMORPGs and might have gone on to give it a try.

 

[tehroc]

It would be a grand world with MMO games with communities worth wasting my time away in. The genre wouldnt be dominated by mouth breathing mendicants begging for everything to be handed to them win or lose. Innovation has become a thing of the past in MMO designers, every one of them hoping to get a piece of the WOW pie. Designers post WOW are afraid to try anything else.

MMOs have degenerated into SPORPGs. Of course theres other people in these worlds, but heaven forbids they have an impact on my gameplay. Oh shit now if have to depend on another person to finish a quest, they run and cry to forums shouting bloody murder.

 

[John Funk]

It would be a grand world with MMO games with communities worth wasting my time away in. The genre wouldnt be dominated by mouth breathing mendicants begging for everything to be handed to them win or lose. Innovation has become a thing of the past in MMO designers, every one of them hoping to get a piece of the WOW pie. Designers post WOW are afraid to try anything else.

MMOs have degenerated into SPORPGs. Of course theres other people in these worlds, but heaven forbids they have an impact on my gameplay. Oh shit now if have to depend on another person to finish a quest, they run and cry to forums shouting bloody murder.

I think you're exaggerating just a tiny little bit. There are certainly unsoloable quests in WotLK, and last I checked I still need a minimum of 9 others to tackle any of the endgame content.

But needing to sit around for an hour spamming LFG to just go out and level isn't fun. Sure, it works when you can get a group, but when you can't it's just frustrating. Eliminating that requirement is probably the best thing WoW ever did.

 

[iMaxx]

It give some credit to your statement, I have got a few people playing WoW who have 1.) Never played an MMO, and/or 2.) (As is the case with my GF.) never played a PC game beyond Flash games on FB.

So yeah, WoW has introduced many non gamers into the fold.

 

[Schlagwerk]

The fact that this article is written by someone who got to level 80 discredits everything in it.

 

[BioTox]

If WoW was never developed... IDK, I've been playing WoW too long [4 years]. I do agree that Warcraft player are willing to buy new games and then just go back to raiding or w/e they were doing in WoW. I even stopped playing WoW about 4 months to play Warhammer Online but the developers messed that game up. Not World of Warcraft. I even have the collector's edition of WAR.

WoW was the game that finally got me away from Guild Wars too. LoL If it didn't exist, I wouldn't play so many MMO [RPG or not] games.

 

[The Great JT]

If World of Warcraft was never made, my delusions of grandeur wouldn't be what they are today. Plus I'd still be spending most of my time on my X-Box 360.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

In a World without World of Warcraft we also might not have money grubbing game companies looking at Subscription models for everything.

 

[phoenix352]

besides cold,joyless ? id say we had more people developing quality games rather then mmo's all year long...

the US probably wouldn't be in a economic downfall right now...

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

If WoW hadn't been developed though, there wouldn't have been the move away from EQ2/EQ, and CoX etc. would have had more subscribers.

The one point about thousands of stories that would have been lost is met by the thousands of stories that were lost from groups splitting.

So...the real difference between a world with WoW and a world without WoW, is just...WoW.

Nothing more, nothing less - on average.

Now, if we're talking about a world without EQ or Ultima.... Or Warhammer (which WoW almost photocopies from at times)... Or Dungeons and Dragons... Or Chainmail...

WoW may have stitched together the massive multiplayer game, but it's a Frankenstein's monster from a lot of corpses (and some that are still twitching).

But needing to sit around for an hour spamming LFG to just go out and level isn't fun. Sure, it works when you can get a group, but when you can't it's just frustrating. Eliminating that requirement is probably the best thing WoW ever did.

What were you playing before WoW? In EQ, EQ2, CoX, Guild Wars the only time I sat calling LFG was with my cleric, and that never lasted longer than 5 minutes. Most characters could easily solo as long as you knew where. And I'd much rather have to sit facing a wall with a Continual Chain Heal going than be screamed at for "MORE DOTS!".

 

[John Funk]

If WoW hadn't been developed though, there wouldn't have been the move away from EQ2/EQ, and CoX etc. would have had more subscribers.

The one point about thousands of stories that would have been lost is met by the thousands of stories that were lost from groups splitting.

So...the real difference between a world with WoW and a world without WoW, is just...WoW.

Nothing more, nothing less - on average.

Er, I think you're missing the part where tens of millions of people started playing MMOs that would have never touched the genre otherwise. So no, it's a significant net gain.

And I'd much rather have to sit facing a wall with a Continual Chain Heal going than be screamed at for "MORE DOTS!".

Well, that's your problem then

And whether or not your own personal experience (as a healer, no less) supports this, making a game where you have to rely on finding a group to do the simplest things like advance is simply not fun, and it relies on having a thriving server population in the first place. God, if WoW needed a party to level up, you'd be screwed in the 30s-60s.

 

[quack35]

Well, assuming that a few married couples first met on WoW, some people may never have been born. Creepy thought.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Er, I think you're missing the part where tens of millions of people started playing MMOs that would have never touched the genre otherwise. So no, it's a significant net gain.

I'm not sure if that is due to WoW though, or just due to the money being put into it. Even from a WoW fan like yourself, WoW doesn't really do anything levels better than games that came before it. Counter Strike brought millions to the FPS genre, but is that a significant gain?

making a game where you have to rely on finding a group to do the simplest things like advance is simply not fun, and it relies on having a thriving server population in the first place. God, if WoW needed a party to level up, you'd be screwed in the 30s-60s.

But that's what I said? I've never run into a game yet where that does happen, and I've played a lot of MMOs. It's perfectly easy to level straight to 50 in CoX solo, but more fun in a group. It's "just" possible as a EQ Cleric, but Clerics get groups easily anyway.

What WoW seemed to do is make groups=work, and that wasn't fun. At all.

 

[Ultrajoe]

And now I know where to find you, Funk.

Get ready for the shanking of a lifetime.