Five Reasons Why The Old Republic Can?t Touch WoW
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
I still think BioWare's best bet is to not even try to beat World of Warcraft. Sadly, they've already failed with constant shows of how different they're trying to be to World of Warcraft, which is a shame, because there's enough market for more than one MMORPG.
And besides, look at that picture on page 2. If you're going to assault a well-fortified and entrenched foe, you need flame throwers, which clearly The Old Republic has...
And besides, look at that picture on page 2. If you're going to assault a well-fortified and entrenched foe, you need flame throwers, which clearly The Old Republic has...
Ugh, I don't even want to have TOR seen as competition to WoW. I don't want that playerbase in my Star Wars, I don't want them complaining how class X is OP, how class Y needs a buff and how it sucks that they are forced to do something for longer than one nanosecond that doesn't give them top level gear. I just don't want these people there. Don't have more than an hour in a week to play? Don't play MMOs, damnit.
All that said, yes, TOR will be compared to WoW as it will stand during TOR's launch. That is good, but I dearly hope that will not create yet another first month rush after which the game slowly dies out like it has happened with many other MMOs that have come out.
All that said, yes, TOR will be compared to WoW as it will stand during TOR's launch. That is good, but I dearly hope that will not create yet another first month rush after which the game slowly dies out like it has happened with many other MMOs that have come out.
Another set of really good speaking points about TOR vs. WoW. All I hope is there won't be too much discussion of this topic. We're not even out of January yet. I don't want to get sick of hearing about this game before it's even out.
Hate to tell you this, but it's practically inevitable. Those people were playing MMOs well before WoW and they'll be playing MMOs well after.Eversor said:
There was one big namer (that I know of.) And it did rather poor to average. And you should know by now how gaming works. If a game fails, companies see it as taboo to try to succeed where it stopped short. Thus we see the same rehashed games rather than new content.dogstile said:
The Old Republic will be fine.
Mainly because of 1 thing.
Essentially everyone knows about, and loves Star Wars.
And for every person playing WoW, there are more who aren't playing it, and more who hate it and want something that isn't set in a fantasy.
Whether or not those people will play TOR, well we will find out soon enough.
But there is a huge chance that a big chunk will check it out.
Because if you ask someone what they would want to play more; Boba Fett, or a Paladin, the answer from most people will be Boba Fett.
Mainly because of 1 thing.
Essentially everyone knows about, and loves Star Wars.
And for every person playing WoW, there are more who aren't playing it, and more who hate it and want something that isn't set in a fantasy.
Whether or not those people will play TOR, well we will find out soon enough.
But there is a huge chance that a big chunk will check it out.
Because if you ask someone what they would want to play more; Boba Fett, or a Paladin, the answer from most people will be Boba Fett.
Nothing short of all the WoW devs getting instant amnesia and a massive power surge that fries all the servers and backup databases will kill it. It may die a slow death, but that is years away.
Knights of the Old will have a first good few months, as will Star Trek, but it won't be the grand battle of the mmorpgs that some people are envisioning.
Knights of the Old will have a first good few months, as will Star Trek, but it won't be the grand battle of the mmorpgs that some people are envisioning.
Actually senior members of WoW's team change all the time, but that's neither here nor there I guess. If you're expecting TOR to take players away from WoW, I'd say you're wrong. They should be aiming for wow players to play TOR in addition, since it isn't hard or time consuming to keep up with WoW.
I agree with many of your points, but I have to say that you're forgetting some of the most arguments for the toppling of Blizzard's massive tower. Now, granted, WoW is a much more well-established MMO than any of the other big names to date, but that can also work against it, I think.
The problem has been, thus far, that the companies trying to "out-perform" Blizzard have stumbled over their own feet at every turn (at least that's the way it seems from my end). Warhammer had an opportunity, but in its effort to crank out the title before the holiday rush, the game suffered from bugs galore, and had relatively ineffective game managers at the time (again, from my experience). And by the way, bravo to whatever executive at Mythic that wasn't watching the release date for WotLK. Excellent business move there, rushing a title to completion only to release it alongside the more polished tyrant you're trying to bring down.
My experience with Aion (again, in theory, another contender for the throne at first glance) has proven to me two things. First, that Aion is very pretty. Second, that Aion is very pretty because resources were put into the art department after being pulled from the desk of the person responsible for developing the combat system.
You've already included Champions in your article, and my exposure to it was very limited anyway, so I can't really make a value judgment there.
And what else is there in the market? EVE? The only MMO that actually rewards you for not playing it.
I agree, EA's got to do some major polish if they want TOR to sell well against World of Warcraft, but I also don't think Blizzard is the stalwart titan you paint them to be. Their player base is full of people, like me, who have gotten bored with the same old encounters (giving old abilities and "tricks" from past instances to the new raid bosses). A fair amount may be tired of being "ignored" by the developers when certain imbalances and exploits remain unresolved for months (or worse, you finally see a development message on the subject to the effect of "Yeah, it's broken. But we're just going to design the game around it being broken.").
Or, and I guarantee this comprises the larger group, the people who wouldn't mind starting fresh somewhere else if it meant we wouldn't have to play the style of MMO to which we've grown accustomed in that damnable fantasy setting anymore. I mean really, from 1999 (launch of EQ) to now (with WoW's utter dominance), in order to play a halfway-decent MMO, you're forced to play with ELVES!!!
I cannot emphasize this enough. I would pay twice what it will cost to join TOR if it means no more elves.
The problem has been, thus far, that the companies trying to "out-perform" Blizzard have stumbled over their own feet at every turn (at least that's the way it seems from my end). Warhammer had an opportunity, but in its effort to crank out the title before the holiday rush, the game suffered from bugs galore, and had relatively ineffective game managers at the time (again, from my experience). And by the way, bravo to whatever executive at Mythic that wasn't watching the release date for WotLK. Excellent business move there, rushing a title to completion only to release it alongside the more polished tyrant you're trying to bring down.
My experience with Aion (again, in theory, another contender for the throne at first glance) has proven to me two things. First, that Aion is very pretty. Second, that Aion is very pretty because resources were put into the art department after being pulled from the desk of the person responsible for developing the combat system.
You've already included Champions in your article, and my exposure to it was very limited anyway, so I can't really make a value judgment there.
And what else is there in the market? EVE? The only MMO that actually rewards you for not playing it.
I agree, EA's got to do some major polish if they want TOR to sell well against World of Warcraft, but I also don't think Blizzard is the stalwart titan you paint them to be. Their player base is full of people, like me, who have gotten bored with the same old encounters (giving old abilities and "tricks" from past instances to the new raid bosses). A fair amount may be tired of being "ignored" by the developers when certain imbalances and exploits remain unresolved for months (or worse, you finally see a development message on the subject to the effect of "Yeah, it's broken. But we're just going to design the game around it being broken.").
Or, and I guarantee this comprises the larger group, the people who wouldn't mind starting fresh somewhere else if it meant we wouldn't have to play the style of MMO to which we've grown accustomed in that damnable fantasy setting anymore. I mean really, from 1999 (launch of EQ) to now (with WoW's utter dominance), in order to play a halfway-decent MMO, you're forced to play with ELVES!!!
I cannot emphasize this enough. I would pay twice what it will cost to join TOR if it means no more elves.
This...LockeDown said:
If an MMO comes out that is interesting and polished enough, then I think you might be suprised how many people will switch. I bet most wow players have tried a lot of other MMO's searching for one that is good enough I know I have.
Most have bits which would work if the rest wasn't so lame, WARs PvP settings, LOTROs atomosphere, AIONs graphics. But they just aren't the complete package. It's going to be hard to break into the MMO section in a big way simply because it has to be polished straight away.
I'm mostly concerned with reason 4 honestly.
If I can actually play it on my system (and I fully intend to make liberal use of any trial account opportunities to determine that), then I will be playing TOR, from the get-go.
My loyalties are squarely with Bioware.
Blizzard is great, my first big social gamingsphere was old lan parties with warcraft 2.. and I loved Diablo, Diablo 2, Starcraft, and to a lesser extent Warcraft 3, and I have been an on-and-off (mostly on) wow player for 4 years.
That being said, Bioware sold me my 3 xbox consoles (KOTOR for the first one, Mass Effect for the 360, and when my 360 died, I bought another one to play Dragon Age and soon Mass Effect 2). They brought me some of my most cherished social gaming stories.
Playing a 4 player Baldur's Gate 2 game is actually more fun then playing a whole mess of Raids in WoW, as fun as they can be. Raiding in WoW has a lot of commitment requirements, and once you get the content down, you're bored with it and are forced to continue to run it to stay competitive.
WoW brought me back into the MMO-space after I crashed and burned on Asheron's Call and Everquest, but TOR will hopefully keep me playing MMOs for the next 5 years.
If I can actually play it on my system (and I fully intend to make liberal use of any trial account opportunities to determine that), then I will be playing TOR, from the get-go.
My loyalties are squarely with Bioware.
Blizzard is great, my first big social gamingsphere was old lan parties with warcraft 2.. and I loved Diablo, Diablo 2, Starcraft, and to a lesser extent Warcraft 3, and I have been an on-and-off (mostly on) wow player for 4 years.
That being said, Bioware sold me my 3 xbox consoles (KOTOR for the first one, Mass Effect for the 360, and when my 360 died, I bought another one to play Dragon Age and soon Mass Effect 2). They brought me some of my most cherished social gaming stories.
Playing a 4 player Baldur's Gate 2 game is actually more fun then playing a whole mess of Raids in WoW, as fun as they can be. Raiding in WoW has a lot of commitment requirements, and once you get the content down, you're bored with it and are forced to continue to run it to stay competitive.
WoW brought me back into the MMO-space after I crashed and burned on Asheron's Call and Everquest, but TOR will hopefully keep me playing MMOs for the next 5 years.