Comments on: Why is World of Warcraft Still Growing?

By: LAS

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:00:47 +0000

I agree that KOTOR came up with a number of innovative things. I just worry that Bioware is already looking at what World of Warcraft is doing i.e. with the combat in Dragon Age: Origins essentially being a hybrid of the Baldur’s Gate pause system and WoW cooldown abilities …

Also – while you’re right they’re going for a far more story driven experience with the voicing etc. I think potentially they’re going to run into a couple problems – first that people have trouble lining up the same quests to experience at the same time if they’re not repeatable ‘instance runs,’ and somebody who doesn’t need that part of the story won’t want to accompany etc. Maybe they’re making a MMO that is too single player focused, when by all accounts Dragon Age already fills that niche.

I hope for the best, I don’t currently play any MMO, and would love a good Star Wars one after Galaxies massively disappointed. I’m just not sure they can pull it off.

By: Nick

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:55:00 +0000

I agree with the article. I would also like to say about Swtor. Bioware is indeed the “best hope” of today that something good can be brought to the table. But i disagree with “WoW reskinned for Star Wars”. I know this because i have played Kotor. Bioware needs nothing or very few things to copy from other games. They have already invented what they want for their game by themselves. I believe it will have the best leveling up experience offered in an MMO to date, with spoken dialogues and decisions, things that not only no MMO has offered yet, but also those games arent even compatible with those things. Trying to record voices for WoW would be silly.

About end-game raid etc, WoW’s PvE has been so perfectly honed over the years that it’s nearly impossible to be matched however bright a developing team might be. It’s like trying to cut a perfect diamond in 5 seconds. It just cant be done.

All in all, i think tons of people will purchase Star wars TOR and finish all the story-driven content. It’s not even a debate on how good the level up will be. We have seen it before in Kotor. But if Bioware has the means to keep those people, remains to be seen.

By: Tesh

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:40:03 +0000

You cannot compete in the mainstream with cutting edge technology. Age of Conan learned this, and Aion will learn it as well. (Tangentially, the PS3 learned this as well.) They will find their hardcore niche, but a significant part of WoW’s success is rooted in solid art direction that makes the most of low system specs. When you can’t use the crutch of pixel shaders and bloom effects, you need a more solid core product. To date, WoW is pretty solid.

By: LAS

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:35:28 +0000

So a few responses – first – yeah, addictive mechanics are obviously what is going to keep you coming back to any game – but something like Uncharted 2 I think is a little more story driven etc. and even though I completed it I don’t have the desire to go back and re-play the same content to see it again the way I might to keep playing new characters in Diablo 2 to get new gear.

Also – of course WoW has gold farmers and hackers, every MMO is going to have those and naturally if you’re going to be farming gold, the largest MMO is likely going to have the largest audience. I was just going off a few articles that have come out saying AION was actively losing players because of those things, which I haven’t seen from WoW lately. That being said, I don’t think you have to ‘compare WoW to something its own age,’ that’s precisely my point. AION doesn’t have the luxury of 5 years before players are going to compare it to WoW. It’s a sad fact of timing that lots of WoW players are going to try AION now and they’re merely going to compare the game experience, that’s part of the incumbent advantage. Blizzard had the luxury of releasing in a time when no MMO had more than a couple hundred thousand subscribers and clearly wasn’t saturating the industry.

Also I think the simple graphics, while obviously out-dated, are another reason WoW is so popular. Anybody can play the game, and while it’s not so much an issue in the West anymore, in China there are lots of internet cafes where the computers can’t handle AION on high settings and a lot of its graphical advantages are negated.

By: Meta

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:36:44 +0000

I think you’re being a little bit unfair on AION, your post suggests that WoW does not have gold farmers and hackers/scammers, but it does. And AION is still brand new and finding its feet, I think it’s an unfair comparison, you should be comparing WoW with something a little more it’s age for it to be fair. And it’s pretty much a “No shit Sherlock” that WoW probably won’t be brought down because a lot of people still have the opinion that WoW is the BEST MMO and that playing any other is just asking for disappointment.
I played WoW for about 10 minutes before losing all interest, not only are the graphics atrocious but it is horribly grindy and I felt like it was a chore to get out of the starting area… which was so very OBVIOUSLY a starting area. It is not seamless. It’s patchy. It’s not perfect, it has just as many gold farmers and hackers if not more (percentage-wise) than AION.

By: Pete

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:17:41 +0000

Addictive prize mechanics are the hook for any game, not necessarily loot for MMOs – whether it’s a high score table on pinball, coin payouts on slots, or tokens in MMOs. On the whole, I continue to agree. Do I think Bioware can pull it off? I believe they’re more capable than any other company who’s had previous titles in the MMO Genre (excluding Blizzard themselves). The other question of course is, what precisely IS Blizz’s nextgen MMO? Are they saying it’s NewIP to keep people off the scent, or is that factual? Very interesting times, certainly more interesting than the last 5 years of MMO’s existence. It’s near like the start of the genre again, ‘cept we’ve all grown up just a little.

By: LAS

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:07:52 +0000

Yeah – I think everybody’s a little excited about The Old Republic but to be honest – it didn’t help the previous Star Wars MMO (although that one was designed terribly) and I don’t think TOR is going to bring anything new to the table other than WoW reskinned for Star Wars. If anything, it’s tougher to get the class balance right when everybody wants to be a jedi, the lore doesn’t mesh with gameplay mechanics. But yeah – I think Bioware will have to do something completely different if they want to compete and honestly the ‘every line is spoken’ hook just doesn’t seem to be enough. Addictive loot mechanics are the base of any MMO, not story.

By: Pete

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:58:31 +0000

Very well thought out and written article. The one thing you don’t mention is the looming intellectual property giant in the corner – Bioware doing Star Wars. Practically everyone on the planet knows the Star Wars franchise. AION’s launch isn’t a real challenge for Blizzard. LucasArts and Bioware will be.

By: Tesh

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:10:34 +0000

You can’t out-WoW WoW. You shouldn’t try. The MMO genre has huge potential, much more than what we see in even Blizzard’s flagship (which is understandable afraid of real innovation). The best way to find success is not to jump into a saturated market with “me too” design, but to find a blue ocean to be a big fish in.

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