WoW in 2008

Rev Hellfire

Surprised no one posted this already.

There's an interesting on the register about Warcraft and the kicking its given challengers which arrived this year.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/17/mmo_games_in_2008/

KoKane

There are lessons to be learned allright.
But its like the devs of new MMOs only want to learn the lesson of WoWs success rather than the unsuccess of other MMOs taking, or trying to take, pieces of its pie.

The MMO genre will explode when WoW dies. God knows when that will be, but 11 million players, of which a fair chunk are new to MMOs entirely, will branch off into new MMOs probably.

On a personal note, I despise the game

No freedoms, very linear and I've become more and more against 'Team 1 versus Team 2' MMO's. I wont even comment on the "PvP".
Coming from 11 years of Ultima Online however, it was never going to deliver my needs.

I gave WAR a shot as it was less Carebear than WoW but the essence is still very much alive in it.

If Darkfall doesnt deliver...

Ivan

If Darkfall doesnt deliver, then I and many others will just completely give up on the holy grail that is an Ultima Online clone.

I love WoW. But I'm growing tired of it. In fact I always grow tired of it, but the time between it being awesomely new and exciting and the boring stage gets shorter and shorter.

Darkfall will never compete with WoW and I fear that may be its biggest shortcoming. Player base has always been a large factor with MMO launches and you can rapidly see an MMO disintegrate before your eyes when the first few players begin to leave. Servers becoming ghost towns and guilds rapidly dwindling in size.

Darkfalls 3 server plan has me hopeful though. I'd prefer an MMO had too few servers than too many.

But yes, you are totally correct. So many MMOs look at WoW and say, "we could do that... and make millions on the process". Lets copy WoW and then restylize it, add some shiny features and then resell it as the next generation MMO. We cant lose! And then they do, and seem surprised in the process.

MMOs should be organic, but in current MMO standards change needs to come quickly and reliably or you are just as doomed to failure as if you didnt change at all. With that in mind, the best bet is to be as rock solid and as complete as is humanly possible; long before release date. If you dont have that, then you had damn better have an army of coders and some silver-tongued CMs on your side.

Darkfall seems to have a combination of both

Dustaz

Thats a really brilliant article and it shows in a nutshell why UO-esque games will always live in wow-esque games shadow.

No matter how good darkfall is, no matter how perfect it is in terms of gameplay, graphics or combat system it will fail to compete with wow utterly simply because such a tiny percentage of the gameplaying public dislike àssholes.


You can call people carebears and go on rants (like that eve fanboy in the darkfall thread) about wow killing socialising in mmos(wtf), but the bottom line is that 11 million people prefer the more "policed" world that wow provides.

I dont really like the pvp that wow provides but its eleventy billion times better than a FFA Full loot game. i LIKE working for items and aiming to get the best possible spread of stuff, i LIKE not having this stuff looted by being ganked 5v1, i LIKE not being griefed by people who are so bored that only inducing massive rage from other people can interest them. and theres 11 million others that agree.

anyway, just my 2c

Venom

While Darkfall may very well deliver on its hype of being a super uber hardcore game for hardcore players only it will never become a large MMO success. It can hit every one of its promised features and will at best have just enough subscribers to keep the devs in redbull, twinkies and novelty t-shirts.

Like Dustaz said the modern MMO player will not subscribe to a game where a dropped DSL connection can result is weeks/months of work being wiped out or being ganked by griefers 10 feet outside of town. Players today are happy with logging in, having some fun and logging out with as little or as much risk as they desire without the fear of billy no mates and his gang of assclowns being in the same area


Vanguard claimed the same good old days type of gameplay as EQ1 with long level times, serious effects of dying and more hardcore attitude than WoW. Sadly the VG devs forgot one very important thing, not all the old EQ1 players want to see that type of gameplay back which made playing the game more like a full time job than actually playing a video game. There is no doubt that EQ1 was a huge success and really did help build the framework for 3D style MMO's, but you do need to stand back a bit,take off the rose tinted glasses and remember there wasnt anything else to play back then.

These days with with a new MMO popping out of the woodwork every ten seconds and most having more hype than content (Cough warhammer cough) its easy to drop media soundbites like WoW killer around but not as easy to deliver on those promises. Blizzard didnt do anything new or inovative to make WoW a 11 million subscriber monster, they just polished what others had though of first, make it easy and fun for those who dont want a second job and didnt rush it out the door as an unfinished pile of crap (cough AoC cough). Personaly I think the only game to kill WoW will be made by the same company that made WoW

KoKane

Yup. Theres no taking it away from Blizzard that getting there first made the difference.
The timing, the style and ofcourse the scale were all delivered nicely. As in, World of <insertnameofknowngame> would have done it. Blizzard got there with Warcraft.

a game where a dropped DSL connection can result is weeks/months of work being wiped out or being ganked by griefers 10 feet outside of town.

Is that meant to be in referrence to Darkfall?
I dont think it works like that. The only thing you have to show for weeks/months of work is your characters skill rating (like Swordsmanship 100% etc) and then your own personal skill at playing the game.
Theres so much hype about "full loot" being a feature and its really ridiculous.
People have become so attached to items.

Overall, I dont see how anyone can end up comparing Darkfall and WoW. Two very different games, or at least they should be.

KoKane

KoKane wrote: »

Two very different games, or at least they should be.

Haven't heard that one before...

Venom

KoKane wrote: »

Yup. Theres no taking it away from Blizzard that getting there first made the difference.
The timing, the style and ofcourse the scale were all delivered nicely. As in, World of <insertnameofknowngame> would have done it. Blizzard got there with Warcraft.

Blizzard didnt get there 4th never mind getting there 1st, but they did get it right for when they did get there and thats what breaks the competition. The days of SoE rushing out bugged and unfinished MMO's and having players pay to play these games with the promise of fixes and content on the long finger thankfully are coming to a close if the currrent state of AoC is anything to go by

KoKane wrote: »

Is that meant to be in referrence to Darkfall?
I dont think it works like that. The only thing you have to show for weeks/months of work is your characters skill rating (like Swordsmanship 100% etc) and then your own personal skill at playing the game.
Theres so much hype about "full loot" being a feature and its really ridiculous.
People have become so attached to items.

Overall, I dont see how anyone can end up comparing Darkfall and WoW. Two very different games, or at least they should be.

Well the Darkfall devs are going on and on about a full loot system with a no holds barred up and at them playing style which wont win them suscribers in the millions. Players have become very attached to items as they are the carrot on a stick to MMO players and without said items most players would quit a month or two after they hit max level.

Sand

Dustaz

You can call people carebears and go on rants (like that eve fanboy in the darkfall thread) about wow killing socialising in mmos(wtf), but the bottom line is that 11 million people prefer the more "policed" world that wow provides.

Hi! The word you're looking for is not "people", its "carebears". Carebears arent people.

I dont really like the pvp that wow provides but its eleventy billion times better than a FFA Full loot game. i LIKE working for items and aiming to get the best possible spread of stuff, i LIKE not having this stuff looted by being ganked 5v1, i LIKE not being griefed by people who are so bored that only inducing massive rage from other people can interest them. and theres 11 million others that agree.

You cant lose those items unless you do something dumb. If you do something dumb, you deserve to lose those items. The first dumb thing many do is bring stuff they cant afford to lose. The problem is many seem to want the game, the GMs, the developers, God etc etc to protect them from the consequences of their decisions. A sort of MMO "quick-reload" option bound to the f9 key when they make an oopsie.

Christ forbid they have to interact with other players! That they seek out player organisations to defend their interests! That there be any need at all for serious player groups and conniving. The terror that fills you when you consider your epically dressed self getting ganked 5v1 is exactly what drives players to band together, against all comers. The same thing that drove humans to band together in the first place. WoW protects you from that already, so who needs player driven organisations, with compelling player interaction?

Venom

Theres so much hype about "full loot" being a feature and its really ridiculous.

This is true. What I can say from experience of this "full loot" phenomenon is that people simply judge risk, and bring what they can afford to lose. Be careful about talking about hype though in relation to DFO. Hackles are raised, fanboys attack.

People have become so attached to items.

No carebears are attached to items. Meaningless pixels. Again, carebears arent people.

Players have become very attached to items as they are the carrot on a stick to MMO players and without said items most players would quit a month or two after they hit max level.

Youre right, most players would quit a month or two after they hit max level in NPC/epic loot driven MMOs unless there was another expansion rushed out with new NPCs! New Epic Loot!

Unless of course, there was meaningful player interaction. Which of course carebears fear and abhor. What if someone took their epic loot?!?!? They could never take it back.......could they?

Ivan

The difference will be, that items will be significantly easier to obtain than in WoW. Which is saying something

In wow, character class is insignificant and gear is often the decider. In Darkfall, gear will be insignificant and character class (or lack thereof) will be the decider.

There are other variables to be taken into account, but for most scenarios, that will be the case.

What this means, is that you can have a game that allows for free loot, that doesnt require hours upon hours of instances/dungeons/raids to be competitive. Instead, you can run out pvp/pve, die, lose your gear. Run to a (player) vendor, buy some new gear and then go back and do it again, if you so wish.

Eventually, you may get to the stage where your gear is more difficult to come by than most. The risk of losing it may be unsettling, but the reward of putting it to good use and/or looting someone elses difficult to come-by gear, would go a long way

KoKane

Venom wrote: »

Well the Darkfall devs are going on and on about a full loot system with a no holds barred up and at them playing style which wont win them suscribers in the millions. Players have become very attached to items as they are the carrot on a stick to MMO players and without said items most players would quit a month or two after they hit max level.

Well yeh, they do mention it but only to describe what will make DF different from other leading MMOs currently on the market I'd say.
Its the freedoms given to the player I wish people would look at more.
I also agree that the style of the game wont appeal to '11' million but as long as they can fill 1 server with this supposed 10,000 players per server ****e they are going on about, I'll be more than happy. (provided it delivers on the PvP front)

They've been awfully ambitious for years.. They're just begging for a huge fckup at launch or something.

Dustaz

Sand wrote: »

Hi! The word you're looking for is not "people", its "carebears". Carebears arent people.

LTNS:P
No, the word is people. Maybe theyre carebears in eve, but were not talking about eve or DFO specifically, were talking about the mmo market in general and as such, Carebears make up 99% of the market. So unfortunatly for you, very very few games will be produced without at least a passing nod to them.

Christ forbid they have to interact with other players! That they seek out player organisations to defend their interests! That there be any need at all for serious player groups and conniving. The terror that fills you when you consider your epically dressed self getting ganked 5v1 is exactly what drives players to band together, against all comers. The same thing that drove humans to band together in the first place. WoW protects you from that already, so who needs player driven organisations, with compelling player interaction?

So wow players dont interact with other people? Am i imagining the hundreds of guild per server? Am i imagining all the people ive met and remain friendly with through instances, levelling and guilds?
People in wow arent filled with terror ever. Thats the point. The type of mmo i want to play is aimed toward pve progression and not pve. Im not saying i wont enjoy DFO (I suspect nothing will ever live up to the standard of pvp and player driven politics set in MUDs however) but without a pve side to keep it fresh, im not sure how long i would stay.

Youre right, most players would quit a month or two after they hit max level in NPC/epic loot driven MMOs unless there was another expansion rushed out with new NPCs! New Epic Loot!

Speaking for myself (and i suspect a lot of others), its the content that keeps us playing and the loot is a function of that, not the main reason.

Funky

Never know how all those people who've since been introduced to MMOs by WoW will react to a sandbox game, there hasn't been much if any done decently in the last few years... excluding EVE cause fantasy MMOs just appeal to more people.

Of course games with 'hardcore' rulesets won't come close to the same numbers as WoW, but to say that they can't even be successful is ridiculous. Yes the masses love their items but an evolving world appeals to a good few people more than a virtual race.

Dustaz

Im not saying it wont be successful, theres clearly an opening for a UO/daoc style game out there and if tis done right it will sell well and more importantly have a large shelf life.

As much as i hate to do this, Sand made a post on the aoc forums a good while ago which sums up perfectly what games companies need to do.

Sand wrote:

Game Devs are going to have realise something. WoW has been done. WoW does it pretty well. If someone prefers the WoW gamestyle, theyll play WoW. Not your ****ty WoW derivative #592. I mean, how many MMOs have come and tried to take a portion of WoWs success and just failed hard?

Come up with something revolutionary. Chuck out the grinding gameplay. The levels and XP...create a new product that creates a new market, attracts gamers who havent found the MMO they are looking for.

Couldnt agree with that more.

Funky

Sorry that wasn't aimed at you. Just disagreeing with:

Venom wrote:

While Darkfall may very well deliver on its hype of being a super uber hardcore game for hardcore players only it will never become a large MMO success. It can hit every one of its promised features and will at best have just enough subscribers to keep the devs in redbull, twinkies and novelty t-shirts.

Also people gotta remember that a large MMO success can be like 200,000 subscribers. WoW didn't set the bar, it just made its own exclusive competition.

Sand

LTNS
No, the word is people. Maybe theyre carebears in eve, but were not talking about eve or DFO specifically, were talking about the mmo market in general and as such, Carebears make up 99% of the market. So unfortunatly for you, very very few games will be produced without at least a passing nod to them.

Of course. Every game needs carebears so that real people can revel in their grief and frustration and trauma over losing meaningless pixels.

So wow players dont interact with other people? Am i imagining the hundreds of guild per server? Am i imagining all the people ive met and remain friendly with through instances, levelling and guilds?
People in wow arent filled with terror ever. Thats the point. The type of mmo i want to play is aimed toward pve progression and not pve. Im not saying i wont enjoy DFO (I suspect nothing will ever live up to the standard of pvp and player driven politics set in MUDs however) but without a pve side to keep it fresh, im not sure how long i would stay.

Your interaction with people youve met is meaningless in any real sense for the game. They cant affect you, you cant affect them. Those interactions dont mean anything more than say the interactions of a bunch of drunken UT players chatting. Doesnt affect MMO gameplay in any real sense.

Let me give you an example of meaningful player interaction that I had recently:

My group of guys are killing a target. Target dies. A random bystander [ who we couldnt shoot ] decides to steal some minor bit of loot. Mistake. I warn him there are consequences. He laughs. He thinks he is playing WoW where players "arent filled with terror ever".

I warn him I will war dec his corp. 48 hours and I will be shooting him and all his associates. He's starting to panick a bit now. Telling me its a waste of time. They arent active etc etc. Active enough to steal from me though.

Long story short a lot of excuses, begging etc etc. War dec goes in and the will power of this lost WoW player collapses like a dam. I demand a significant compensatory payment [ worth more than 50 times what was actually stolen], a personal apology to be delivered to myself. And the stuff he stole of course. I get it all. The apology was sweetest. [ I couldnt care less about the loot, this was about another player trying to screw with us...]

Those guys could have fought us. They could have called in friends. They could have paid for mercenaries. They didnt, but those were all options.

It was simple player vs player interaction, consequence, negotiation and result. A *very* small scale example. He decides to screw with us, we screw him back ten times as hard. There are more epic examples but they all come down to player agendas conflicting with the plans of other players. Drama ensues. Meaningful player interaction is what makes MMO gameplay compelling for people.

The modern trend - WoW - is to restrict player interaction, make it meaningless. All thats left is the scrabble for more epic loot. DFO is very admirable in that its one of the few new games that actually doesnt think "OH GOD, LOOK AT WOW! I NEED TO BE LIKE WOW 2.0, THEN EVERYONE WILL JOIN ME!!!"

DFO wont get rewarded for going against the grain however. Itll probably end up with a stable if relatively tiny subscription base. It may actually put the nail in the coffin of attempts to rebuild UO type games. Hello Kitty Online is the future.

Speaking for myself (and i suspect a lot of others), its the content that keeps us playing and the loot is a function of that, not the main reason.

i LIKE working for items and aiming to get the best possible spread of stuff, i LIKE not having this stuff looted by being ganked 5v1,

TBH Dustaz, you highlighted items, loot, and so on as the example of why you LIKE limited player interaction. Be honest, call it content if you want, but loot, getting new loot, is why a lot of people play rather predictable, riskless games with no meaningful player interaction. It is all there is to do. The only way to compete with others.

Venom

Funky wrote: »

Sorry that wasn't aimed at you. Just disagreeing with:



Also people gotta remember that a large MMO success can be like 200,000 subscribers. WoW didn't set the bar, it just made its own exclusive competition.

Well WoW pretty much did set the bar in taking the MMO style game and not only getting a very diverse player base (kids,soccer moms,granddads) but also making a fortune in subscriber fee's. I agree the 200,000 subscriber figure is more than enough to keep a MMO going with a healthy player base but sadly the big game publishers dont as they just focus on that magic 11 million figure.

Dustaz

Sand wrote: »

Of course. Every game needs carebears so that real people can revel in their grief and frustration and trauma over losing meaningless pixels.

Not meaningless pixels, Time Invested.

Your interaction with people youve met is meaningless in any real sense for the game. They cant affect you, you cant affect them. Those interactions dont mean anything more than say the interactions of a bunch of drunken UT players chatting. Doesnt affect MMO gameplay in any real sense.

Ive met quite a few people through drunken cs. I still play with them 6 years on in a lot of different games. That affects me and my gameplay experience quite a lot thank you.

Let me give you an example of meaningful player interaction that I had recently:
Meaningful player interaction is what makes MMO gameplay compelling for people.

No idea of the politics and etiqeutte bheind eve so i cant comment on the example but while i wont argue that meaningful player interaction is key, "meaningful" is a subjective term.

Banding together to protect assets and engage in pvp/rvr/ffa/whatever is great, its a human tendancy to seek protection like you said and its a gameplay mechanic thats attractive to most.

Griefing purely to revel in someones annoyance is just being a còck.

You drew an analogy about guilds for protection and real life. Well, your hated 'over-policed' world is surely a better analogy to human life today?

i LIKE working for items and aiming to get the best possible spread of stuff, i LIKE not having this stuff looted by being ganked 5v1

You say tomato, i say interpreting is fun.

TBH Dustaz, you highlighted items, loot, and so on as the example of why you LIKE limited player interaction. Be honest, call it content if you want, but loot, getting new loot, is why a lot of people play rather predictable, riskless games with no meaningful player interaction. It is all there is to do. The only way to compete with others.

WoW is probably the easiest mmo ever made at this point. You practically just stop at a vendor and it shoots epic loot at you for no effort made. Loot isnt what has me playing the game. I still play it for the ENTIRE pve side of the game, working out and beating encounters, professions, achievements, etc etc. Sure loot has a part to play, but its certainly not my main priority in "things i enjoy".

Sand

Not meaningless pixels, Time Invested.

Nah, seriously - its meaningless pixels. If you lose something in game your reaction shouldnt go beyond "Ah, **** it."

Now, when peoples reaction goes past that point, it creates much drama and is extremely entertaining. But people really shouldnt do so.

Ive met quite a few people through drunken cs. I still play with them 6 years on in a lot of different games. That affects me and my gameplay experience quite a lot thank you.

Youre talking about shooting the breeze on vent or TS or whatever with some guys playing games. Which is nice. But not my point.

Its fairly irrelevant in games like WoW if another player hates you with the fire of a thousand suns, because the game prevents and strictly limits player interaction. What can he do really to really screw you? Can he infiltrate your corporation, feign friendship, earn your trust, get appointed to a position of power in the corp, steal all your assets, kill you in your most expensive ship and pod you in your most expensive implants? Wiping out all your ingame assets? Nope, probably not.

In games where player interaction IS the game, then questions of - does this guy hate me? Is he someone I trust? Is he friendly? Etc etc etc are all more important, because quite simply some guy can pretend to be your best friend, drag you down into some side alleyway and beat you to death for your shoes.

So player relationships are more important - if you annoy someone, well, you might have a problem. If someone genuinely assists and helps you out, it means more because the game didnt force him to be nice, he decided to be nice. If you need to protect yourself from that 5v1 gank, then you need friends you can rely on to back you up, scout for you, etc etc. If you give a guy hanger access in your corp, you better be able to trust him so he doesnt steal everything in the hanger. Etc, etc.

I amnt saying you cant make friends, or enemies, with people in games like WoW. I am saying those friends, or enemies, are irrelevant in terms of gameplay.

Griefing purely to revel in someones annoyance is just being a còck.

You drew an analogy about guilds for protection and real life. Well, your hated 'over-policed' world is surely a better analogy to human life today?

Griefing is a matter of perspective. Usually when I kill someone they take it on the chin and dont even bother to comment. Which is fine. Thats the game. If I get killed I'll usually either not comment myself, or pass on a congrats wherever its merited.

Its the guys who freak out, who have a sense of entitlement, who question your e-honour. These guys feel like theyre being griefed by the most despicable low lives on planet earth. But nothings changed from my point of view - I am just playing the game. I do enjoy their rages though.

I amnt sure I get your last point: If youre saying that I dont want the game to be as heavily policed as the real world, then Id agree - thats true. I dont play games so I can done for speeding. Id also note again that an MMO should be about player interaction primarily - heavy policing discourages player interaction, because if you have the police to protect you the game just becomes a glorified chatroom.

Loot isnt what has me playing the game. I still play it for the ENTIRE pve side of the game, working out and beating encounters, professions, achievements, etc etc. Sure loot has a part to play, but its certainly not my main priority in "things i enjoy".

I understand the "working out and beating encounters" type thing - I get a similar level of buzz from the hunt; searching for a war target, finding his system, is he active? is he afk? Is he in space? Probing him down or correctly estimating his route and cutting him off - all the time working against a human intelligence, which can range from very dumb to very smart.

But if the challenge is the main event, you wouldnt be that bothered about the prospect of that gear being looted from you? Surely it would just be a challenge to get more gear from new raids or whatever? Or you could find the guys who looted you and get your stuff back. Overall, it would be a better game surely?