Former Dev: WoW Has Killed the MMO Genre
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Someone already posted a video on the subject. WoW never demanded that everyone follow in it's footsteps. WoW, never went out of it's way to rip apart any MMO that didn't follow it's formula. It was business suits and investors that made MMO's as they are. Nobody wants to invest in a game if it isn't WoW. Not Blizzards fault. They just made a hugely successful game. However the rest of the industry decided that WoW sales are supposed to be the new norm. Despite the fact that it's own success was abnormal.Silentpony said:
I don't agree with the idea it's WoW that killed the genre. WoW took the model of end-game content being important and pumping out expansion after expansion from Everquest.
And I can tell you, grinding out levels in the Everquest days were BOOOOORRRIIIINNGGG. I remember gunning for lvl 22 on an enchanter because it meant I finally got a somewhat useful buff.
Compare that to running deadmines, or any of the quests in Westfall, no comparison. WoW was the better product.
If the majority of WoW's content is effectively skipped (which is sad b/c instances like Scarlet Monastery and Uldamon were my favorites), than why not scale these zones to your level?
I played pretty high level running MC and BWL with my guild every week for a time, plus PvP grinding and I still made time to screw around in instances like deadmines or BRD just because they were so cool.
TLDR: scale content to the players. that way if you miss it once you're high level, you can go back and experience it.
And I can tell you, grinding out levels in the Everquest days were BOOOOORRRIIIINNGGG. I remember gunning for lvl 22 on an enchanter because it meant I finally got a somewhat useful buff.
Compare that to running deadmines, or any of the quests in Westfall, no comparison. WoW was the better product.
If the majority of WoW's content is effectively skipped (which is sad b/c instances like Scarlet Monastery and Uldamon were my favorites), than why not scale these zones to your level?
I played pretty high level running MC and BWL with my guild every week for a time, plus PvP grinding and I still made time to screw around in instances like deadmines or BRD just because they were so cool.
TLDR: scale content to the players. that way if you miss it once you're high level, you can go back and experience it.
Good old EQ. THAT was a game that knew how to get the most out of the leveling experience. "Wandered too close to an opposing faction's outpost? Grats, you just died, lost 6 hours of grinding worth of exp and are now naked 4 zones away and have to run a nude monster gauntlet just to loot your own gear off of your own body. Hope you don't die again! Muhaha!" "P.S., Train to zone, VS is with them and I'm coming left!"Fordo said:
WoW hasn't changed the players expectations by introducing fast leveling, they merely reacted to what players already wanted.
The reason why people want to get to the "endgame" is precisely because they feel like worrying overly about gear that you'll just replace a day later is a waste of their time. It also severely hampers you when you want to play an MMO with friends if you have to force yourself to stay the same level that they are so you can reasonably adventure together. Once you hit max level you can play with everyone else who's max level, and players naturally want to hang out in the largest part of the community.
Levels spread out and divide the community, they artificially restrict you from really exploring the world, they take away a lot of what makes an open world appealing. Players instinctively know this, which is why they want to escape the level system.
The problem is that pretty much all MMOs have responded by making leveling faster, instead of just realizing they should either ditch leveling all together, and create a horizontal progression path, or change the leveling system in such a way that a level 1 character can meaningfully participate in the adventures of a level 100 character. I remember Ultima Online, even a character only hours old in UO could throw a healing spell on the most badass character in the realm and help him out that way. Sure, being that weak in a dangerous area was harrowing, but it was possible.
Firefall is one of those games that try their best to kind of give you the best of both worlds, but in all honesty, it just kind of falls flat. There isn't enough to do in Firefall to really work as a game that doesn't guide you along with levels, and the fact that your character has no real identity but is just any random guy in a suit makes it boring to play from a sandbox standpoint. Sandbox is all about player generated content, but you can't even generate a unique character in Firefall. All the random content that pops up in it is obnoxious to deal with. Towns get attacked, which is cool, I can totally get behind that, but more often than not you have to run 10-15 minutes to get there and by the time you show up someone else has already taken care of it.
The irony is that the main motivation to do anything in Firefall is leveling up your frames and finding the resources to upgrade them, which feels like a huge pointless grind, especially since it's one of those games that goes "Well why would people keep digging for resources if they already have the best gear? Oh oh, I know! Because their gear breaks and they have to make more of it" ...
I really wish someone would make an MMO where the reason I keep playing is the adventure. The problem is that every time someone tries to copy UOs approach to MMOs the only thing they focus on is PKing and losing gear all the time, as if those things were what made UO good. The truth is though, what made UO great was the fact that you could spend weeks exploring the same dungeon, and when you knew it inside and out and got kind of bored you could find a different one to explore. It's all the stuff that people say that defined UO that actually made it less popular than it deserved to be. What really defined it was the fact that you were constantly exploring in it.
The reason why people want to get to the "endgame" is precisely because they feel like worrying overly about gear that you'll just replace a day later is a waste of their time. It also severely hampers you when you want to play an MMO with friends if you have to force yourself to stay the same level that they are so you can reasonably adventure together. Once you hit max level you can play with everyone else who's max level, and players naturally want to hang out in the largest part of the community.
Levels spread out and divide the community, they artificially restrict you from really exploring the world, they take away a lot of what makes an open world appealing. Players instinctively know this, which is why they want to escape the level system.
The problem is that pretty much all MMOs have responded by making leveling faster, instead of just realizing they should either ditch leveling all together, and create a horizontal progression path, or change the leveling system in such a way that a level 1 character can meaningfully participate in the adventures of a level 100 character. I remember Ultima Online, even a character only hours old in UO could throw a healing spell on the most badass character in the realm and help him out that way. Sure, being that weak in a dangerous area was harrowing, but it was possible.
Firefall is one of those games that try their best to kind of give you the best of both worlds, but in all honesty, it just kind of falls flat. There isn't enough to do in Firefall to really work as a game that doesn't guide you along with levels, and the fact that your character has no real identity but is just any random guy in a suit makes it boring to play from a sandbox standpoint. Sandbox is all about player generated content, but you can't even generate a unique character in Firefall. All the random content that pops up in it is obnoxious to deal with. Towns get attacked, which is cool, I can totally get behind that, but more often than not you have to run 10-15 minutes to get there and by the time you show up someone else has already taken care of it.
The irony is that the main motivation to do anything in Firefall is leveling up your frames and finding the resources to upgrade them, which feels like a huge pointless grind, especially since it's one of those games that goes "Well why would people keep digging for resources if they already have the best gear? Oh oh, I know! Because their gear breaks and they have to make more of it" ...
I really wish someone would make an MMO where the reason I keep playing is the adventure. The problem is that every time someone tries to copy UOs approach to MMOs the only thing they focus on is PKing and losing gear all the time, as if those things were what made UO good. The truth is though, what made UO great was the fact that you could spend weeks exploring the same dungeon, and when you knew it inside and out and got kind of bored you could find a different one to explore. It's all the stuff that people say that defined UO that actually made it less popular than it deserved to be. What really defined it was the fact that you were constantly exploring in it.
Ferisar said:That's relative from person to person. I appreciate my efforts in, say, WoW, because when I look back at the BC and WOTLK expansions, I remember good times, not epic loot. That's the thing, the padding to all MMO's is going to be material to some degree, but what you do with it is entirely up to you. Yeah, I raided, yeah I ran dungeons a bunch, yeah the leveling was leveling was leveling, but the stuff that was inbetween, especially the stuff with the players and friends is what made for the good time, not the 1337 l00tz. Much like anything else that's virtual, its value is entirely up to how much you invest in it.RJ 17 said:
This isn't to say that your opinion isn't valid, but that's not the attitude a lot of people have about the game.
OT:
WoW is weird. I can't reasonably disagree with this guy but neither can I fully agree. I nostalgia (that's right VERBS ************) over vanilla and BC, and the experience, and the leveling, and the questing and so on and so forth, and a lot of it is actually -true-. I was immersed, I was drowning in the game. I was, also, younger. A lot of it was new, a lot of it was completely unseen before by me. Warcraft 3 is what drove me to WoW. Now? Well, I don't know. The Cata newb-zone redesign is really fun in most places. I was actually interested in the quest lines, but not the overall feeling of them. I was entertained, but it was often so tongue-in-cheek that the whole factor of "looking back" was entirely devalued. Did I think Horatio Lane in Westfall was too fucking funny? Yes. Does it mean anything to me two years down the line? Well...
As far as WoW having killed a whole genre, hah, well, maybe. I would argue that the "WoW Killers" killed the MMO genre. WoW is just the cause because its own success made it look like an infallible model worth imitating, which is simply not true. The magic that WoW rode can't really be retraced.
I guess I'll try out Firefall, but I have no great expectations of MMO's anymore. It's just not healthy.
You're a good person. Just wanted to throw that out there.DugMachine said:
This ^^^...this whole exchange is good. I've played a few MMO's, and played WoW since it started. I always loved Blizzard, for me it started with Super Nintendo "Lost Vikings" game and Warcraft. WoW introduced me to MMO's and showed me a whole world of games (no pun intended) that I could try with varying degrees of similarities to WoW. I've gamed since the "old" Nintendo, so gaming isn't new to me, but the idea that the world continued when I logged off was awesome, and foreign. I don't know if WoW killed MMO's, but it definitely changed the rules. No longer were they for the niche crowds, though the niche could (and probably still can) find something in WoW to enjoy (imo). I actually play SWTOR (please don't judge me, I love star wars!) and have played in open betas for a few others and I always come back to WoW. My guild is pretty awesome, and some guildies I've become good friends with. It could also be soul-crushingly addictive to me. Yup, that's probably it
And... You've just described how I lost my first lvl 25 Monk's gear. =PFrost27 said:
Like someone mentioned earlier, you could log into WoW and want to do BRD or UBRS back in the Vanilla days, but that was no guarantee that was what you were going to do. Traveling to the destination, and getting into the instance was often tricky if the opposing faction was massed just outside the instance. I used to love the challenge these little moments provided to remind you of just how big WoW was and you were just one piece of an entire community. I remember a gang of my friends on the horde would take one day a week at least to charge into menethil harbor and dance around on the roof of the town hall to take on any alliance brave enough to stop our dancing on their lands.
Being able to log in, teleport to your goal, do a fairly routine instance and log out must be rather boring.
I completely agree. When WoW was first out, it took me two years to get to the top since I was busy PvPing and studying inbetween game sessions, but those few gaming sessions were absolutely amazing. I remember fondly of entire adventures being lost in WoW with a friend at my younger age and the joy it brought us. Hell, you had two level 20 Night Elf's running through Horde territory with no idea how the game works other than quests and suddenly we're in "Hostile" territory? Confusing! So we snuck past Horde NPC patrols that were way too high a level for us and tried to survey the land we've never been in befeore. We spent hours there trying to figure out what's going on, since this was when mounts were level 40 so it took us forever to travel. Hell, I uh, kind of destroyed my Heartstone by accident while I was there and my friend had to protect me for about an hour until we escaped back to Alliance territory after being chased by a few Horde players since we accidently attacked them.VladG said:
It sounds boring on text but we spent literally hours walking through enemy territory new to this game having a blast back in 2004 just getting in all sorts of trouble. Every time either of us leveled up we were estatic and of course sent each other the infamous "DING!" whispers to alert one another. It was a celebration whenever one of us leveled.
Then TBC came out and we went from level 58 to 70 in 2 weeks. There were no adventures, just quests, xp, and then dailys to farm gold for mounts. It became boring, unfulfilled. Having left WoW just a few weeks before WotLK launched, I went to other MMOs but the only one that could offer a new experience was Star Wars Galaxies. All the others were just clones in some way. Now that SWG is dead, WoW is still thumping it's chest, and MMO's continue to copy it, I just left the market entirely. MMOs were my favorite during my early gaming years. Now they are dried up.
I'm not blaming WoW, but WoW was the game that brought MMO's to it's knees. I miss vanilla WoW.
(Sorry for the long response, just got swept up all of a sudden in memories)
Who CARES about the endgame??That's not why I play.It took 2 years to level up my Warrior to 85,and I enjoyed it every step of the way.Now with Pandaria,I have the opportunity to go to 90,so if anything it's a new bullet in a long list of things I haven't done in WoW!
Indeed, to each their own, I was simply expressing my views on the matter, just as you have yours. I won't deny that a big part of the appeal to raiding in WoW WAS the social aspect more than the material aspect. Just the same, however, that's still countless hours of effort and work to washed down the drain when your gear is rendered obsolete by a new expansion. As I said, the negating of those hours of effort by removing the value of the reward for that effort was just one of the reasons I ended up leaving WoW.Ferisar said:
The other part of it was guild drama that I didn't want to deal with anymore.
Actually "nostalgia" is a noun. The verb form is either "nostalgize" or "wax nostalgic". The only reason I point this out is because you made such a big deal of it yourself.
Makabriel said:
It does work, or it did until Sony decided to kill it. SWG pre-CU was amazing, and it was a true sandbox game. There was nothing forcing you into any path, and honestly I leveled one character up doing nothing buy killing random mobs because I felt like it. I had another character who was afraid to leave his homeworld of Tatooine, so instead he started his own town and became a mayor (having leveled up as a bureaucrat). Yet for those who wanted a story, it was there was well. There were plenty of quest lines to follow, there was the whole galactic civil war happening, and they had it open to do with as you pleased.
As for what the Firefall guy said, I think he's just a bit miffed that his game is so bland. It was an interesting concept, but from what I played of it, the entire game is just a resource grab. It is almost as though you are role playing the part of an scv in starcraft. Don't get me wrong, there is content in the game, but for the most part you will spend most of your time harvesting resources (which is pretty fun the first hundred or so times you do it).
This is why I play on a Burning Crusade private server. Leveling is slow and tedious at that expansion, but it actually makes it worth playing those early levels, unlike new WoW where you blow through it all, making the Leveling experience dull in of itself. There's nothing wrong with accessibility, there is something wrong, however, with hand holding up until max level, and then some. There's no challenge or worth to anything you do in WoW anymore. I'm glad a damn developer finally gets this, and not just a playerbase.
Yeah, how DARE a company provide what a significant number of consumers want.
And how DARE those consumers want that thing!
And how DARE they form a business arrangement that results in profits for one and enjoyment for the other!
Blaming the consumer for liking something and he producer for providing it is the same as blaming the tide for rising and falling.
But oh no, let's take shots at the guy on top and those sell-out unwashed masses for purchasing that obvious tripe. Congratulations, you have the sour-grapes gaming hipster.
Captcha: rocket science
No, it's market forces - economics.
And how DARE those consumers want that thing!
And how DARE they form a business arrangement that results in profits for one and enjoyment for the other!
Blaming the consumer for liking something and he producer for providing it is the same as blaming the tide for rising and falling.
But oh no, let's take shots at the guy on top and those sell-out unwashed masses for purchasing that obvious tripe. Congratulations, you have the sour-grapes gaming hipster.
Captcha: rocket science
No, it's market forces - economics.
Y'know, if you put it that way, drug dealers don't sound so bad all of a sudden...Abomination said:
Not saying WoW is a drug (or at least not more than anything enjoyable tends to be), but just because people want it doesn't mean it's the right thing in the long term. And through creating high expectations both on the player and on the investor side, WoW has effectively killed the genre. But for me it's just expression part of the current AAA moloch.
Fair point. But only work for past expansions, of after xp nerfs. Getting to level 90 in pandaria would take a week or two, if you didn't power leveled through it.
But WoW is also the most played MMO of all history, and one of the most profitable franchises of all entertainment, so I guess they don't really care.
But WoW is also the most played MMO of all history, and one of the most profitable franchises of all entertainment, so I guess they don't really care.
Did they ramp up the leveling process from 1 to 90?
Yes they did.
Is this a bad thing? I don't really think so. I had a friend join the game for the first time a few months ago. That's 5 expansions worth of content to get though and everyone he knew was already at the max level. Meaning that he had to "power level" to get himself to a point where he could play with us...which was pretty much the whole reason he started playing.
Since then, he's also rolled an alternate character with whom he's playing through the game story and enjoying at his own pace. The idea that the path from X to Y is too fast only really counts if your audience can't take advantage of the slower pace as well...which of course they can.
Now I will admit that their sloppy handling of the in game time line makes that experience a little less enjoyable but when it's all said and done that's not a deal breaker.
As for not wanting to play another WoW Clone...well yeah I'll agree with that. I already play WoW I'm not going to pump another $15.00 a month into another MMO that's just the same experience (Star Wars: The Old Republic...you know what you did.) That's why I still play The Secret World and why I'm really looking forward to Wildstar.
Yes they did.
Is this a bad thing? I don't really think so. I had a friend join the game for the first time a few months ago. That's 5 expansions worth of content to get though and everyone he knew was already at the max level. Meaning that he had to "power level" to get himself to a point where he could play with us...which was pretty much the whole reason he started playing.
Since then, he's also rolled an alternate character with whom he's playing through the game story and enjoying at his own pace. The idea that the path from X to Y is too fast only really counts if your audience can't take advantage of the slower pace as well...which of course they can.
Now I will admit that their sloppy handling of the in game time line makes that experience a little less enjoyable but when it's all said and done that's not a deal breaker.
As for not wanting to play another WoW Clone...well yeah I'll agree with that. I already play WoW I'm not going to pump another $15.00 a month into another MMO that's just the same experience (Star Wars: The Old Republic...you know what you did.) That's why I still play The Secret World and why I'm really looking forward to Wildstar.