Blizzard: You Can't Beat WoW Out the Gate
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
In what way are other MMOs trying to "beat" WoW? In terms of money made, it probably won't happen, but in terms of gameplay, there's no way to measure. I like almost every other MMO I've ever played better than WoW. So to me, it's already been beaten. Several times.
Considering every AAA MMO after WoW has tripped in the gate, and had it's rider shoot it in the foot after one lap, we still have a ways to go before anything even challenges WoWs 20 lap lead.
Not to say I don't hope it happens.
/end silly horse race metaphor
Not to say I don't hope it happens.
/end silly horse race metaphor
To me it doesn't matter if it's going to beat WoW. For example, I'm going to pick up 'The Old Republic' when it comes out. It's never going to beat the following that WoW has, but I like the universe of Star Wars a little more than the World of... Warcraft. Sure, the game might not do as well but considering my personal gaming habits of playing for a bit then moving to another game, it's not like I will really suffer if the game world crashes and dies. I'll play it until I get bored then deactivate my account.
well Blizzard is well on it's way to let maybe another MMO take it's place on the top with these updates to World of Warcraft and their idea to ruin the game as a whole.Me and my friends were devout players but are now quiting cause of the new direction they are going.KInd of fine by me though, that extra 15 bucks can go to help buy better games in the end
I think the thing I've been wondering about is what exactly they're trying to out-do WoW on.
Money? Players? Monthly fees?
Seems to me like they need a more finite goal in mind before they try to 'unseat' WoW and put it in it's place. To me, WoW already has been outdone by a lot of different games, but not in an over-all way. World of Warcraft did nothing new...at all, really. Everything it's done has been done before, but less polished. But the big draw of the game is that it's able to do just about everything there is to do in online MMO gaming, and that's what makes it so successful. It can do all of that, and still come out relatively well made and polished (if needing some bug-patches now and then).
WoW isn't even in my top five for MMO's I've played that absolutely blew my socks off; but it is the second most played MMO I've dedicated my time to simply because there's just so much content.
I think what the game companies who want to out do WoW need to think about is what exactly they need to out sell Blizzard, making a blockbuster MMO that everyone and anyone will want to play, even if they have a current WoW account with end-content characters. That...is a really high bar to attain, but it's possible if they try at it. Sadly though, Blizzard is right: you can't beat them with a game that's just out of the gate. It's going to take time, effort, dedication, and several DLCs and/or expansions in order to tie or beat that monster.
Money? Players? Monthly fees?
Seems to me like they need a more finite goal in mind before they try to 'unseat' WoW and put it in it's place. To me, WoW already has been outdone by a lot of different games, but not in an over-all way. World of Warcraft did nothing new...at all, really. Everything it's done has been done before, but less polished. But the big draw of the game is that it's able to do just about everything there is to do in online MMO gaming, and that's what makes it so successful. It can do all of that, and still come out relatively well made and polished (if needing some bug-patches now and then).
WoW isn't even in my top five for MMO's I've played that absolutely blew my socks off; but it is the second most played MMO I've dedicated my time to simply because there's just so much content.
I think what the game companies who want to out do WoW need to think about is what exactly they need to out sell Blizzard, making a blockbuster MMO that everyone and anyone will want to play, even if they have a current WoW account with end-content characters. That...is a really high bar to attain, but it's possible if they try at it. Sadly though, Blizzard is right: you can't beat them with a game that's just out of the gate. It's going to take time, effort, dedication, and several DLCs and/or expansions in order to tie or beat that monster.
The problem with his logic is that a lot of MMO gamers these day expect MMOs to have everything WoW has else its a bad game. You hear it a lot on forums, outcries of features missing in a game and players wondering why this new game doesn't have it when WoW does.
I say this to guild mates in WoW quite often, only because I hear it SO DAMNED MUCH.
When another "promising MMO" appears on the horizon, I can guarantee that at least one guild member will state the following:
"I'm only playing this until (New MMO) launches, then it's goodbye forever to WoW."
to which I ALWAYS reply, "See you in three weeks."
Seriously, be it Guild Wars, Vanguard, Warhammer, City of Villains, LOTRO, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, Aion... hell, my entire GUILD once "quit" WoW for Age of Conan. (You can imagine how well THAT turned out.)
Now with Star Wars: The Old Republic on the horizon, it begins all over again.
It may sound arrogant, but Blizzard is ABSOLUTELY correct. They've had half a decade to refine a game that was fairly bare-bones, but user-friendly out of the box, and companies expecting to usurp their throne have another thing coming.
When another "promising MMO" appears on the horizon, I can guarantee that at least one guild member will state the following:
"I'm only playing this until (New MMO) launches, then it's goodbye forever to WoW."
to which I ALWAYS reply, "See you in three weeks."
Seriously, be it Guild Wars, Vanguard, Warhammer, City of Villains, LOTRO, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, Aion... hell, my entire GUILD once "quit" WoW for Age of Conan. (You can imagine how well THAT turned out.)
Now with Star Wars: The Old Republic on the horizon, it begins all over again.
It may sound arrogant, but Blizzard is ABSOLUTELY correct. They've had half a decade to refine a game that was fairly bare-bones, but user-friendly out of the box, and companies expecting to usurp their throne have another thing coming.
Nah not necessarily. Fact is, WoW's been up and running for so long most of the people there aren't the ones playing since the launch. Sure, there's a number of them, but they're nowhere near being one of the main groups of people playing WoW atm.Direwolf750 said:
A lot of those who go through WoW eventually start looking for a clean slate. Look for those who've played a couple of years and you'll see a considerate number of them with faction/server changes. Trust me, I've seen a lot of people leave for other games as well from WoW, problem is, no other game has actually so far offered a worthwhile experience.
It's not (just) WoW's age that's keeping competition away. Most of the ones that failed just jumped at the idea of being a "WoW-killer" that they forgot to actually offer something significantly different. More importantly, out of all the things they ripped off from WoW, most of them didn't rip off the one thing that still keeps and will keep WoW alive for a long time to come - constant content updates that had a lot of effort put in.
You ever wonder why TF2 sits as one of the most awesome and popular FPSs? Why whenever someone asks "should I get TF2 on my PC or my Xbox" there's a 100% literally unanimous clamour of "PC all the way"?
The MMO doesn't need to beat WoW from the get-go and Greg's right - there's a VERY slim chance any MMO will. What he said there isn't a really great mystery or some super-secret business tactic, it's what I (among about a million other people) have been saying for years now, it just needs to offer something exceptional in some way, delivered in top notch quality and then keep that going. Don't get me wrong, by top notch quality I don't mean a 100% perfect game, just one that isn't rushed, that had work put into it and one that's immediately followed up by patches fixing whatever issues players have with it (there'll always be some, but still need to make an effort for that all important first impression).
I play other games, but WoW is still going and still absorbing. Haters gonna hate, but maybe other games companies shouldn't try and compete with WoW and just set out to do the best they can. Not everything in this world should be a popularity contest, there should be some pride left in making games.
I think if they make a simpler and more action-y MMO (a la the fabled Torchlight MMO), they'd have much greater success. The combat system is generally what sets one RPG apart from another - if you can distinguish yourself drastically from WoW, you don't have to try to crush WoW to get a big playerbase.
You can't really believe this. If you do, you're a fool.tehroc said:
Yes, how dare they want to make their game better. Oh, Classic grognards, never changeBlood Countess said:
