A View From the Road: World Without Warcraft

[Vlane]

Yay CantFakeTheFunk is on the same raid level as me. We both don't have the TogC achievments.

Now I'm special and I know on what realm you play so prepare for some spam.

Really nice article (like always actually) though I'd like to know one thing: What keeps you playing? The community? Your Guild? The raids?

Edit: And I'd like to see a screen of your UI.

 

[John Funk]

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?

Uh... yes, it is due to WoW. And I would disagree - other games may beat WoW in individual aspects, but WoW maintains a pretty high quality throughout, it's tremendously accessible, newb-friendly and not demanding from a technological perspective.

I don't think Counter-Strike got nearly as many people playing to play FPSes who weren't already playing FPSes as WoW introduced to MMORPGs. FPSes were already popular, but WoW blew out all expectations by an order of magnitude.

It would be like if MW2 were expected to sell 10 million copies and then suddenly sold 100 million copies.

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.

Groups are work? Huh? I've always enjoyed playing in a group in WoW, but have always appreciated the fact that it was a completely optional thing. My friend has horror stories from FFXI just because he had the poor sense to roll a Dragoon.

 

[Ridrith]

Sisters of Elune? I play on the same server as John Funk, however he's Alliance so hopefully I've killed his ass a few times when playing at Wintergrasp or in a BG. Bastard.

 

[John Funk]

And now I know where to find you, Funk.

Get ready for the shanking of a lifetime.

I'm sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of my Shadowmeld -> Swift Flight Form.

Yay CantFakeTheFunk is on the same raid level as me. We both don't have the TogC achievments.

Now I'm special and I know on what realm you play so prepare for some spam.

Really nice article (like always actually) though I'd like to know one thing: What keeps you playing? The community? Your Guild? The raids?

Edit: And I'd like to see a screen of your UI.

A little of all of that, actually. I like my guild, I like doing PvE content. And my UI isn't anything special - I got used to using an unmodded interface during the BC beta, and while I've got mods for my Feral stuff and to help me heal when I'm Resto, it's the standard framework.

 

[Pengupower]

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?

Even in a world where it is just due to the money being put into it, I would still say it had a significant change on the landscape of who PC gamers are. It is quite possible that what I see is not characteristic of the WoW community as a whole, but I have met quite a few people that have never played a PC game of any kind before it. It seems to have done quite well at creating an environment that is enjoyable for a different audience then previous games (especially MMOs but even games in general). Of course, the ability to create hype about this type of game was also important as just creating a non-traditional-gamer friendly environment wouldn't be enough to cause them to find it.

 

[Contun]

If World of Warcraft was never made I guess I wouldn't be considered a nerd.

I got my Welp in the mail too, he's pretty awesome...

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Groups are work? Huh? I've always enjoyed playing in a group in WoW, but have always appreciated the fact that it was a completely optional thing. My friend has horror stories from FFXI just because he had the poor sense to roll a Dragoon.

Oh god, I'd tried to forget FF. Solo play on that was bad enough for me never to want to be in a group.

As for views of WoW, you do project a view of it that simply doesn't mesh with the view I had. Whether that's different viewpoints or not I don't know, but many of the other games have seemed far more "real" than WoW did. WoW just seemed to be, like Mafiawar, built around the players rather than the world. Perhaps that's why it's so popular as it requires less belief, but high quality throughout? I have to disagree. Sorry.

 

[Mullahgrrl]

They might have made Warcraft 4 instead and saved me the grevious feling of betrayal.

 

[John Funk]

Groups are work? Huh? I've always enjoyed playing in a group in WoW, but have always appreciated the fact that it was a completely optional thing. My friend has horror stories from FFXI just because he had the poor sense to roll a Dragoon.

Oh god, I'd tried to forget FF. Solo play on that was bad enough for me never to want to be in a group.

As for views of WoW, you do project a view of it that simply doesn't mesh with the view I had. Whether that's different viewpoints or not I don't know, but many of the other games have seemed far more "real" than WoW did. WoW just seemed to be, like Mafiawar, built around the players rather than the world. Perhaps that's why it's so popular as it requires less belief, but high quality throughout? I have to disagree. Sorry.

What you're getting at is the difference between making an MMOG with the intent of making a virtual world, and making an MMOG with the intent of making a game. WoW is certainly the latter, and I recognize that it's not to some peoples' tastes.

But it is far and away the highest-quality MMOG I have ever played. Maybe it's just the ridiculous polish on everything, but there's a core there that caters to pretty much everything I've ever wanted in a game (well, almost everything. I'd kill for player housing and cosmetic outfits like LotRO) without being needlessly obtuse.

 

[Vlane]

If World of Warcraft was never made I guess I wouldn't be considered a nerd.

I got my Welp in the mail too, he's pretty awesome...

But he still has to learn the deep breath (that animation is very cute by the way). I prefer my Kel'thuzad pet though.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

What you're getting at is the difference between making an MMOG with the intent of making a virtual world, and making an MMOG with the intent of making a game. WoW is certainly the latter, and I recognize that it's not to some peoples' tastes.

I think that it's the polish that puts me off the most. I quite like the "rough around the edges" feel, and it carries the feel of mass-marketing where all is the same, in the same way that the McDonalds in Glasgow looks like the McDonalds in Texas. It's comforting for some but it makes my skin crawl.

But it is far and away the highest-quality MMOG I have ever played. Maybe it's just the ridiculous polish on everything, but there's a core there that caters to pretty much everything I've ever wanted in a game (well, almost everything. I'd kill for player housing and cosmetic outfits like LotRO) without being needlessly obtuse.

I think ( too much usually) that's where my real niggle lies - and carries over into Star Wars: Galaxies - you just aren't LORD DOOM MCSTABBY OF MOUNT NIGHT, you're Mr. Doom McStabby of 28b Goblin Street, and you've been that way since you joined.

But, if everyone on leaving Mount Night to live on Goblin Street, Mount Night's gonna get closed for ever, even if it's got player housing and cosmetics up to its elbows.
(As well as LotRo's NPC play, Warhammer's Artillery and all the other things that other games do so well.)

Final Fantasy was still godawful though.

 

[Fearzone]

I sometimes wonder if WoW had changed anything ... if the absence of WoW would have been anything more than the absence of WoW, with the rest of the gaming world chuggin along as always.

For the financial success that WoW is, I am constantly perplexed at how game designers fail to emulate it.

Blizzard has shown us the success and profitability of:
1. Performance over graphics.
2. Good art design over pushing polys and textures.
2. Gameplay first.
3. Gameplay offerings to suit a multiplicity of gaming tastes, i.e. casual AND hardcore in the SAME GAME, and many tastes in between.
4. Tight, intuitive, and highly customizable controls.
5. Highly customizable user interfaces.

You can expect many of these features in any Blizzard game. WoW has them all. On top of that, WoW has excellent animations. Yet few games from any other company has more than a handful of these and clearly suffer in comparison.

 

[gamefreakbsp]

The world would be a much better place. Eve online would get more players. Nuff said

 

[John Funk]

The world would be a much better place. Eve online would get more players. Nuff said

I'm not sure that it would. EVE is a bit of an anomaly in the MMOG space, as a game that's steadily grown on word of mouth since its inception with a very unique style of play. I don't think it would be much bigger without WoW at all, since I'm not sure how much the two game styles overlap.

 

[Byers]

Yes, a world that encourages less people to live their lives in front of a computer screen is clearly a horrible place.

 

[JohnReaper]

Okay i am anti wow because it is so big now every game on the market is trying to be Wow2 the return of more CRAP play some shin megami tensai imagine online its on par with or not surpassing wow's " great world" and you know what else

ITS FREE YES A FREE GAME BEATS WOWcrap

in all honesty though Wow sucks its too generic and cartoony for my tastes and I know i am goign to get flamed for this but

World of warcrap can suck a hourses dick and i still wouldn't play it as lon as i have my shin

with out wowcrap gaming would be agin more diverse

 

[John Funk]

Okay i am anti wow because it is so big now every game on the market is trying to be Wow2 the return of more CRAP play some shin megami tensai imagine online its on par with or not surpassing wow's " great world" and you know what else

ITS FREE YES A FREE GAME BEATS WOWcrap

in all honesty though Wow sucks its too generic and cartoony for my tastes and I know i am goign to get flamed for this but

World of warcrap can suck a hourses dick and i still wouldn't play it as lon as i have my shin

with out wowcrap gaming would be agin more diverse

Wait, the Shin Megami Tensei MMO beats WoW?

Are you kidding me? I tried it out and it was possibly the worst hour I have ever spent in ANY online game ever.

Regardless of what you think about WoW, the SMT MMO was god awful.

 

[Naheal]

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.

WAR's failure had more to do with the fact that a buggy game was released rather than the game being poor.

 

[John Funk]

Have you every Tried Playing the game Like a game and not a grind fest you ass mucnhing monkey ?

Okay i am anti wow because it is so big now every game on the market is trying to be Wow2 the return of more CRAP play some shin megami tensai imagine online its on par with or not surpassing wow's " great world" and you know what else

ITS FREE YES A FREE GAME BEATS WOWcrap

in all honesty though Wow sucks its too generic and cartoony for my tastes and I know i am goign to get flamed for this but

World of warcrap can suck a hourses dick and i still wouldn't play it as lon as i have my shin

with out wowcrap gaming would be agin more diverse

Wait, the Shin Megami Tensei MMO beats WoW?

Are you kidding me? I tried it out and it was possibly the worst hour I have ever spent in ANY online game ever.

Regardless of what you think about WoW, the SMT MMO was god awful.

Wowtard, the combat system in SMTI is better than wows grind fest you little monkey I loved the game for its Customization and Demon control but you probably didnt do that cause you can't be bothered to play a game!

Haha, okay.

So, first lesson: Don't flame people on our forums. We welcome disagreements, we welcome discussions, as long as they're respectful. But flaming and personal attacks are absolutely uncalled for.

Second Lesson: Mod/staff sass. Don't do it.

Third Lesson: Especially don't flame people who have the power to ban you. That's like asking a police officer if he wants to come along when you hit up the convenience store across the street.

 

[Souplex]

City of Heroes came out a few months before Wow and made MMOs perfectly accessible. The only thing it didn't have that WoW had was brand recognition.