Five Reasons Why The Old Republic Can?t Touch WoW

[BirdBot]

"being able to play on both Macs and PCs is crucial for enabling gamers to jump ship to a different MMOG. Remember, MMOGs are social games: people go where their friends are, and they go with their friends."

I'm so so glad you mentioned this. I should be the perfect potential customer for this game. I'm getting tired of Wow, I'm a big fan of BioWare games, KOTOR in particular. But if The Old Republic isn't available for Mac, I will only ever check it out briefly. I play Wow with a large group of friends, and playing with friends is the most important aspect of an MMO for someone like me. We as a group are ripe for a new game to woo us away from Wow, but only if that game is available to everyone in my circle of friends. No Mac version = loss of far more than just Mac sales.

 

[The Great JT]

I really just want WoW to still be successful and for TOR to become a giant in its own right, both games being equally good for different reasons and both player bases enjoying themselves, even if they are playing two different games.

Of course, I'm sure that 90% of TOR's player base, much like another former heralded WoW Killer, Warhammer Online, will be made up of disgruntled WoW players who proclaim WoW is for babies and that Warhammer Onl...I mean TOR is for manly men.

Look, I enjoy World of Warcraft. Warhammer Online has its pluses and minuses, but the biggest one is a fanbase made entirely of assholes, jerkasses and dickheads who will NEVER say anything nice about World of Warcraft, like that the classes or locations were varied and interesting. I bring this up because I don't want the player base of The Old Republic to be like that. Like it or loathe it, World of Warcraft is a great MMO, and there is room on the internet for WoW and The Old Republic to coincide and be equally respected by each others' player base. Could TOR be the next Warcraft and garner a nice big chunk of player base? Absolutely. Will it be the heralded WoW killer and cause the game to be utterly ignored for TOR? Absolutely not. Why? Because even if diminished by another game's player base, WoW will always have a player base, and Blizzard will support that player base.

 

[Silva]

Oh, John. Really. When will you get it?

Get some perspective here. Really. There are six point five billion people in the world, and a third of those have probably played a video game. Only ten million of those subscribe to WoW - that's not even a third of the people living in your country.

You might think that WoW has reached "black hole" status, but that's because you're sitting at the centre of the storm - you play WoW because those around you (Americans and fellow gamers, by the look of it) play it, especially in your work life. You forget just how many people don't play the game yet. You forget that most of the world still hasn't heard about WoW, let alone played it.

You don't need to compete with WoW at all (except perhaps in the critical sense, impressing reviewers into giving potential consumers a heads up to its release, and creating the viral rumour effect) to be a successful MMORPG.

It simply doesn't matter if a game is a "WoWkiller" or not, just that it will reach the audience. There is a more than big enough audience out there to tap into that is NOT WoW players.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

to be fair WoW gets pretty boring after a while, if your a PvE'r like me after you get all the current good gear etc it just gets boring, even when new contenet is released, same shit differant raid, these days the only thing thats keeping me on WoW is the people iv met

and they keep adding really annoying stuff like Emblems of Triumph from 5 man heroics yeah thats good, now any fresh dinged 80 can be ready to raid Icecrown in like 4 days of farming, it was waaaay better when you acctually had to work for your gear by working your way up raids

and then the constant buffing and nerfing of the classes because people keep moaning that this is OP or that isn't! as Yahtzee said in his Torchlight review WoW classes are about as easy to keep balanced as a stiltwalker with one leg on a treadmill

I think one of the worst decisions Blizzard made for wow was raising the fucking level cap... i was so pissed off when TBC was launched and i replaced all my epics that id worked hard to get with Greens from the lame quests in Outland, they shoulda just added more questing area's and raids, battlegrounds etc to give players more variaty but kept the damn lvl cap at 60

But really how can you start comparing TOR to other MMO's like WoW, its not even out yet and your judging it. at least wait until its released and you have acctually played it before judging it

oh and please dont start Quoteing me and starting an argument with what iv said, this is strictly my opinion

 

[Valiance]

And what else is there in the market? EVE? The only MMO that actually rewards you for not playing it.

Rested bonus?

(I jest, but still.)

 

[ma55ter_fett]

A night elf jedi?

My mind can't handle that amount of fail.

 

[thiosk]

I am so over star wars. I can't help but wonder if a lot of other people are, too. So I'm not going to be playing any ToR.

I think tor has potential where WAR didn't, because its set in a lore-rich future world, while wow and war were set in lore-rich high fantasy.

Sure, there are other futuristic mmorpgs out there, but none of them have the lore backing that TOR, WAR, and WOW had.

I think ToR will succeed where WAR failed, in that WAR was designed from the ground up as a wow killer, but who really wants to level up an ork... again. I've long argued that a well-executed war40k mmorpg would have been a much better move for that studio.

But will it be a wow killer?

Really doubt it.

 

[Dommyboy]

<quote=John Funk>John Funk wants to know why he can't just play a Night Elf Jedi.

Are you daft man? No game could handle such awesomeness.

Though, perhaps there is one beacon of light. I shall enjoy playing my Night Elf Jedi in Duke Nukem Forever.

 

[John Funk]

Oh, John. Really. When will you get it?

Get some perspective here. Really. There are six point five billion people in the world, and a third of those have probably played a video game. Only ten million of those subscribe to WoW - that's not even a third of the people living in your country.

You might think that WoW has reached "black hole" status, but that's because you're sitting at the centre of the storm - you play WoW because those around you (Americans and fellow gamers, by the look of it) play it, especially in your work life. You forget just how many people don't play the game yet. You forget that most of the world still hasn't heard about WoW, let alone played it.

You don't need to compete with WoW at all (except perhaps in the critical sense, impressing reviewers into giving potential consumers a heads up to its release, and creating the viral rumour effect) to be a successful MMORPG.

It simply doesn't matter if a game is a "WoWkiller" or not, just that it will reach the audience. There is a more than big enough audience out there to tap into that is NOT WoW players.

I've never once denied that - in fact, I was talking about that same thing back in August [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/view-from-the-road/6479-A-View-From-the-Road-If-You-Cant-Beat-Em].

It's all relative: Does WoW have a Black Hole effect in terms of the population as a whole? Absolutely not, not in the same way that, say, Facebook does. But in terms of the gaming population - and especially the MMOG population - it absolutely does. It's had over 24 million subscribers over it's lifetime; that's a HUGE number considering the total number of gamers.

A MMOG that takes the new crown from WoW is going to have to do to WoW what WoW did to EQ et al - expand the market drastically, because there ARE so many people playing FarmVille and Mafia Wars. I've never tried to argue otherwise.

 

[Silva]

I've never once denied that - in fact, I was talking about that same thing back in August [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/view-from-the-road/6479-A-View-From-the-Road-If-You-Cant-Beat-Em].

It's all relative: Does WoW have a Black Hole effect in terms of the population as a whole? Absolutely not, not in the same way that, say, Facebook does. But in terms of the gaming population - and especially the MMOG population - it absolutely does. It's had over 24 million subscribers over it's lifetime; that's a HUGE number considering the total number of gamers.

A MMOG that takes the new crown from WoW is going to have to do to WoW what WoW did to EQ et al - expand the market drastically, because there ARE so many people playing FarmVille and Mafia Wars. I've never tried to argue otherwise.

Then I fail to see the relevance in the article itself. Are you merely dispelling the very misguided speculation that The Old Republic is a potential WoWkiller? A noble purpose, I suppose, except that it probably is falling on deaf ears. Even if you get through to those making such unrelated speculation, it's still more important that they realise just how big a potential audience there is out there, if it just gets expanded.

But, I'm glad that you agree. It's good to see that the right ideas are flying around the MMO world about how you have to expand the gaming audience itself.

 

[DeAvatar]

There's always the Night Elf Mohawk.

This.
And NE Jedis...*shudder* No, please God NO.

 

[toapat]

the only company who can wield the WoW Slayer is Blizzard.
Blizzard is currently forging the WoW Slayer

NCsoft makes the same money as WoW. and they dont even spend it.
NCsoft is making lots of money for shit effort. Blizzard prints money to improve WoW's awesomeness so it can print more money more effectively

 

[Earthmonger]

TOR doesn't interest me at all, naturally being set in the Star Wars universe. Bleh.

It would take hours to write up every little thing that turns me off about WoW, but point #4 is the one of the biggest: It's a cartoon that uses all of eight colors. I find it insulting, to be honest. Then there's the Warcraft setting, which I find about as appealing as Star Wars. Instancing. Forced grouping. Etc.

So, I'm still waiting for a real MMO to come along.

 

[Cody211282]

I'm not looking for a game to overtake WoW, I just want one to be diffrent

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

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.

I can guarantee you, that crowd will always be there. It isn't the WoW playerbase mind you, it's the gamer playerbase. Go to ANY forum for ANY multiplayer game (competitive or coop, doesn't matter, though the former obviously has more of it), and you'll see people crying about such-and-such being overpowered.

The only way to prevent people from crying about balance issues is to make a game single-player, and even then you'll have people complaining that it's either too hard or too easy.

 

[GodKlown]

Not many can argue the success of WoW in the MMORPG genre, and eventually it will happen that something will cause it to finally recede into the background (hopefully within our lifetimes). TOR or STO has a capacity to change how the genre are viewed, and possibly take some gamers away from WoW, but it is highly doubtful that it will collapse under its own weight.

There are examples of companies that pushed out free to play MMORPGs, some with mild successes, but nothing that could seriously tempt people away from WoW. There is a strong chance with BioWare's past success in crafting an artful and motivating RPG that it has the talent to produce a good game, but it will forever be compared to WoW. When was the last time anyone compared something to EverQuest?

I absolutely agree that MMOs need to stray away from the elvish fantasy already. There are plenty of examples of games that have attempted to mimic WoW with little success as people would prefer to play the leader of the genre than a cheap rip-off. Pepsi is not Coke and vice versa, and it is pretty similar with MMORPGs. There is still plenty of room in the cyber market for another game of the MMORPG genre set in another universe, no one will deny that. System specs may be sky-high (or not), but it will not deter some from giving the games a chance anyway, if only to see a different backdrop from WoW. Some of the players have to be sick of seeing that game by now and willing to try something different, if only to tell their guild on WoW whether a game sucks or not. I'd like to believe that people are always looking for a new challenge in this area, that they can't get stuck doing the same thing all the time. Blizzard has attempted to refresh the franchise to keep people interested, but frankly I can't understand how anyone has played the game from the first launch and is still excited about it. Five years is a long time to devote to playing a single game, many don't have a shelf life of more than a year. Perhaps there is more to the game than I give it credit for, but right now I have no idea what I'm missing, and this ignorance is bliss.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I absolutely agree that MMOs need to stray away from the elvish fantasy already. There are plenty of examples of games that have attempted to mimic WoW with little success as people would prefer to play the leader of the genre than a cheap rip-off. Pepsi is not Coke and vice versa, and it is pretty similar with MMORPGs. There is still plenty of room in the cyber market for another game of the MMORPG genre set in another universe, no one will deny that.

The continued existence of EVE Online is proof of that. EVE might not have WoW-level of success (which will never happen due to the game having a very very intimidating learning curve), but the game proves to be very successful. Frankly, I'd love to see a game along the same vein as EVE Online, but in more of a flight sim model.

 

[Kollega]

Whatever. I don't care for MMORPGs. I'm still waiting for a proper MMORTS, which could show planetary conquest in somewhat realistic scale.

 

[Coldie]

I see another problem unique to TOR - the innovative MMO storytelling mechanics. Specifically, the choices you're supposed to be making as you Adventure! around the Galaxy. While on paper this looks like a wondrous merger of the best of both MMO and Single-Player worlds, there are some concerns.

1. In order for the choices to Matter (tm) at all, they must be persistent. Are you only allowed to do each event once and that's it for the character? Or are you forced to repeat the original choice each time you re-run the instance/event/adventure/quest for that elusive [+5 Lightsaber of the Space Whale] drop from the Jedi Master Pinn Atta?

2. This brings us to another question - how do you handle the decisions when you're in a party? Bob the Sith Lord wants Admiral McFailure dead, but Tim the Bounty Hunter wants him alive to get the best-in-slot [Blaster Rifle of Stormtrooper Accuracy] from his quest. Party splits up and you have to find replacements that want to do it your way. Of course, if the decision matters for the current run only, no problem, just run it again. What was the point of choices again?

3. Otherwise, you run into another issue common to single-player games. The content, however varied and plentiful (and incredibly fantastic) eventually runs out. If - thanks to the Choices - you can't repeat the fun parts of the game, you're reduced to hanging out in Coruscant waiting for the next content patch. Or making alts to check out the different paths. Until you've seen it all, much like a single player game.

The "Fully voiced cutscenes" clause also puts a limit on content. There's only so much voice acting in only so many languages you can create before you run out of dev time, budget, disk space, voice actors, etc. Unless half the game is wookies gargling subtitled nonsense in your face.

P.S. Oh, and how do you skip cutscenes in a party, especially ones with player-selected responses? Unskippable cutscenes get old in about... one view. I'm sorry, Arthas. I can't watch you do this.

 

[The Big Eye]

You know, back before I played WoW, I didn't know what all the fuss is about.
Now that I have played WoW, I really don't know what all the fuss is about.