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Five MMOs better than World of Warcraft
- Thread starter ManaByte
- Start date
Open Source
Banned
FLEABttn said:
Does WoW's popularity increase the likelihood of a genuinely inventive and fun (as opposed to addictive) MMO being made? No, just the opposite, because people will copy the WoW formula and we will end up with even more regressive EQ clones.
UO didn't remain a niche game because of brutal PvP. It was its ugly, primitive graphics. EQ's PvE model was far more unavoidably brutal and frustrating than UO's PvP, but it did better because its graphics were more mainstream. EVE Online is niche because of its complexity, sterile space theme, small marketing budget, low profile of its developer, etc., but the underlying concept of a dynamic player-driven ecosystem is far more mainstream than the static, mechanical, number-centric shooting gallery dressed up as a world in WoWlike games.
jakershaker
Member
Open Source said:
Thats not how a market works. If the market grows(by WoWs popularity) then after a while niches will be created. Some people will grow tired of the mainstream(WoW) and want to expand into their favorite aspect of the game. This will give rise to subgenres where games choose to focus on just those things. Well in this case the subgenres are pretty much already there and everyone is ganing from the popularity of MMOs.
MMO genre growing bigger, regardless on who is drawing people in, is good for ALL games. There will always be copies of the most popular one but there will always be stuff thats diffrent and people to try those too. The MMO market is more healthy then ever, next step should be a major MMO hit on consoles to take the market to the next step.
Open Source
Banned
jakershaker said:This is where you're wrong.
In the end, people want to play games and experience content so don't expect those kind of mmo's to vanish any time soon. The "virtual world" can be made very complex but there is a limit where the fun to be had from it starts to decline.
I'm with you on that mmos will get more dynamic and influenced by players but not in the same way as EVE does it. And you can define progress in the mmo space in diffrent ways, popularity of the genre and to expand on the "virtual world" concept.
And to be frank, whats really so diffrent about EVE and WoW. You still have to level your character(well in EVE it goes by itself over time), you still have to get money by grinding stuff or farming and gameplay wise it's still pushing skills which have cooldowns. At it's core they're really similar and the main diffrence is the user created stuff in EVE which make it extremely time consuming if you want to be a part of something that matters. In WoW you can play your own game and still reach some kind of satisfaction.
But I'm glad both exists and that EVE is doing really well. There is room for both complex social mmos and content driven eq clones now that the market has grown. I expect the eq clones to become the main force in the genre though as they are more accesible. And you still have the pure social mmos like Second Life but lets not go there
The "experience content" (roller coaster) games will shift to smaller multiplayer experiences with large player bases, like Diablo 2 and Guild Wars. No need to have 2000+ people in one world if you only ever play with 5-24 at once. Do you really benefit from all those other extraneous players sharing the same play space? No. All they do is harvest your nodes, kill your quest mobs, and fill your chat channels with chuck norris. All the benefits they provide (contribute to player economy, co-op play, etc.) would still be available with shared hubs, matchmaking, etc.
WoW and EVE are different because you can exert influence on and change the game world. Your goals are bigger than "get more loot and levels" -- the progression is a tool you use in shaping the world, rather than the game's ultimate goal. And those goals change, too. You are truly free to pursue a wide range of objectives, while there is only one objective in WoW.
jakershaker
Member
Open Source said:
I have to disagree there. You can't have the same community in either D2 or Guild Wars as you can on a big server. And saying that EQ style games will die out and become D2 style games, really?
Engage backwards timetravel
The next big MMO will with a pretty big certainty be a content driven mmmo with levels and loot deciding the progress. Anything else is going against the odds.
Open Source
Banned
jakershaker said:
The MMO genre getting bigger is most certainly not good for all games, because MMOs are parasitic. And the MMO market is most certainly not healthy, and it never has been. There are one or two big winners while everyone else loses their ass. The barriers to entry are gigantic, the competition is well-entrenched, and the risks in starting a project, even one with a "safe" design model, are huge.
jakershaker
Member
Open Source said:
You just described the gaming industry.
There will always be MMOs that fail and shut down but in the end a bigger market will make more games reach critical mass to keep the servers alive and the content coming.
I didn't say it was easy to get in but more customers makes it a bit easier for multiple games to be active at the same time.
Open Source
Banned
jakershaker said:
You certainly can have the same community. The ability to seeing random people running by every now and then isn't necessary for a viable community. Sure, the community features need to be more robust than in Diablo 2, but a shared game world isn't necessary. Hell, how many people play WoW outside of instances anyway? The community in WoW, EQ2, etc. is mostly built in public chat channels, hubs/cities, and forums, not in encountering people in the shared adventure areas.
Not sure what you mean about backwards time travel. D2 and GW both came out well after EQ did. And GW sold millions of copies, and would easily have surpassed WoW in sales if WoW were made by a rookie studio with a smaller budget and no brand recognition and GW were made by a studio with millions upon millions of existing fans in countries across the globe on a $60 mil budget.
I played Wow since a couple months before launch, and recently quit, but it doesn't take a rocket scientists to realize there are better MMORPG"s.
World of Warcraft did two things right. The polish (game is super polished) and the content for Casual players. Thats about it.
DAOC was the best PVP game ever. EQ was the best PVE. EVE and SWG had the best economy. SWG, though broken was the funnest IMO and had the best crafting system in any game, ever, period. Then instead of fixing the game, they destroyed it.
World of Warcraft did two things right. The polish (game is super polished) and the content for Casual players. Thats about it.
DAOC was the best PVP game ever. EQ was the best PVE. EVE and SWG had the best economy. SWG, though broken was the funnest IMO and had the best crafting system in any game, ever, period. Then instead of fixing the game, they destroyed it.
I think WoW is a pretty fun MMO. Blizzard is pretty good with getting their content out. It is a grindy timesink, but most MMOs are unfortunately. The rest of that list is bleh. I liked FFXI, but the only thing it really has going for it are the story missions, art style, and music. It'd be neat to get a mix of wow & ffxi in an mmo.
The problem is that despite all the instances, Guild Wars was all one one big sever, while most MMOs are splintered across dozens. The community didn't exist to me because while I had a half-dozen friends playing WoW, they were all from different circles (university friends, highschool friends, community friends, online friends..). So by the way they designed it, it's impossible to play with all your friends without playing 5 characters at once. Which is made impossible by the gigantic time commitment each character is.jakershaker said:
That was one of the nicest things about EVE. There's only one world.
dark_chris
Member
I dunno why but I find FFXI more entertaining than WoW
Open Source
Banned
Kodiak said:
OK, let me rephrase, since you want to quibble over semantics and ignore the main point: how many WoW players have meaningful social and gameplay interactions outside of instances and cities, that would not be possible without shared adventure areas?
I was once saved from death by a random passerby. But that's about the extent of it.Open Source said:
Oh, and some guys 8 levels below me tried to lead an NPC raid on a shack I was visiting. I thought one of the NPCs I needed to talk to was in there, so I slaughtered the NPC raiders and killed the two players when they were stupid enough to attack me (on a PVE server).
:lol
Then I realized the guy I needed to talk to was at the NEXT outpost...
But your point is made. Those were the only two times when it made a difference to me in my time with the game.
Open Source said:
Having been a part of UO, Shadowbane, and DAoC, the problem was not the graphical limitations (although UO in particular did suffer in that regard). The problem is that the majority of people simply do not like that kind of game.
I say this as someone who has a particularly affinity for DAoC; it's simply not what most people want. Perhaps I'm reading you unfairly, but your post reads much like this: "What people really want is a game like UO, but the graphics weren't good enough, so they picked WoW." I personally think this is what you want to believe, not what is actually the case.
I've delved into this quite deeply with a good number of people, and it's clear to me that the majority of people do not want a UO/Shadowbane style game. It's not the graphics -- they just don't want that sort of gameplay. They want a WoW style game.
I think it's important to emphasize this point not just to you, but to many out there, who seem to think WoW's success is a stroke of luck or simply a consequence of Blizzard's brand recognition or something of that nature; that if the masses could simply be "shown the light," they'd understand that UO is a much better game and they'd all understand why I love it and they'd all stop playing WoW. I've tried, and that simply isn't the case; people genuinely, honestly prefer WoW-style gaming.
KyanMehwulfe said:
Try asking BoB how that's working out for the Goons right about now. :lol
Our friends abandon us
Because their alliance leaders quit
After their members refused to fight
Since they realized goons were using them as meatshields
Because goons can't take territory on their own
When their support fleet can't take out a cynojammer
While their cap fleet sits unused
Due to bad leadership
After their good leadership quit
Because failswarming QY6 isn't fun
Since BoB is better.
They need to stick to their Jihadswarm. I'm sure they'll get tired of being DD'd into oblivion sooner or later.
Takeda Kenshi
blew Staal
Holy shit I find myself agreeing with that article quite a bit...
Hopefully AoC will be joining that list. ;o
Hopefully AoC will be joining that list. ;o
I'm going to summarize my post above because it was so repetitive (which was intentional -- I did it for emphasis) and state it in a more general way.
For many or most people, when a game or genre they love isn't very popular more generally, they look for reasons to explain this: the games in the genre haven't had a lot of funding, or the companies that make them don't have a large enough marketing budget; the games are sophisticated and take practice to understand; or most likely, they insist that most consumers are dumb and don't know better, and that the only reason the games they like aren't selling is that people are stupid.
In short, people tend to look for any explanation other than to admit that they games they enjoy simply aren't all that popular, and that other individuals tend to prefer to play other types of games. We all want the stuff we prefer to be well liked in general; we want to be part of a community and have more people to talk to about our interests, so it's a natural protection reaction that I'm very much prone to myself. What I'm hoping people can do is try and check that impulse, and ask themselves, "is it possible that other people simply prefer a different style of game than I do?" because there is nothing wrong with liking unpopular genres, just as people who prefer more mainstream titles or genres aren't all fatuous imbeciles.
DAoC is the father of my personal interest in MMOs, and I'm fine with the fact that most people don't want a game like that.
For many or most people, when a game or genre they love isn't very popular more generally, they look for reasons to explain this: the games in the genre haven't had a lot of funding, or the companies that make them don't have a large enough marketing budget; the games are sophisticated and take practice to understand; or most likely, they insist that most consumers are dumb and don't know better, and that the only reason the games they like aren't selling is that people are stupid.
In short, people tend to look for any explanation other than to admit that they games they enjoy simply aren't all that popular, and that other individuals tend to prefer to play other types of games. We all want the stuff we prefer to be well liked in general; we want to be part of a community and have more people to talk to about our interests, so it's a natural protection reaction that I'm very much prone to myself. What I'm hoping people can do is try and check that impulse, and ask themselves, "is it possible that other people simply prefer a different style of game than I do?" because there is nothing wrong with liking unpopular genres, just as people who prefer more mainstream titles or genres aren't all fatuous imbeciles.
DAoC is the father of my personal interest in MMOs, and I'm fine with the fact that most people don't want a game like that.
Ultima Online was a revolutionary game that has yet to be surpassed in many of its features. It was one of the first (if not the first) to have a seamless, gigantic overworld (without instancing bullshit), a real estate market with many different lodging types (you could buy a castle in this game), a diverse skill-based system, tactical PVP and PVE gameplay, and a rudimentary economy with player-crafted items and a vendor system. It even had entire player-built towns in its later years.
I've heard various reasons for its demise, ranging from EA's incessant meddling to PVP griefing, but I feel the biggest reason was that it was a 2D game in an industry that was rapidly relegating 2D games to the classics archives. Even with the greatest graphic engine, that fact alone simply made it unable to compete with the likes of Everquest in the mind of consumers, regardless of the fact that the sprite-based engine allowed for a far more versatile gameplay possibilities.
I agree with the prior poster that I won't consider getting into MMOs again until one comes along that at least matches the best parts of UO.
I've heard various reasons for its demise, ranging from EA's incessant meddling to PVP griefing, but I feel the biggest reason was that it was a 2D game in an industry that was rapidly relegating 2D games to the classics archives. Even with the greatest graphic engine, that fact alone simply made it unable to compete with the likes of Everquest in the mind of consumers, regardless of the fact that the sprite-based engine allowed for a far more versatile gameplay possibilities.
I agree with the prior poster that I won't consider getting into MMOs again until one comes along that at least matches the best parts of UO.
Raids are the absolute worst things about modern MMOs. The fact that the focus of Everquest is raids should automatically put it at the bottom of the list with the rest of the painfully unfun timesinks. Classic Ultima Online, where the focus was on complete freedom and the players basically decided and enforced the rules, will never be topped because no one will ever attempt to top it. WoW has made sure of that. Designing a game around pointless, repetitive, never ending grinding is what brings in the money.
The graphics didnt destroy this game, it was EA. They have slowly converted it to a 2d version of every other MMO. The player run servers still have thousands of people playing under the old rules.
argon said:
The graphics didnt destroy this game, it was EA. They have slowly converted it to a 2d version of every other MMO. The player run servers still have thousands of people playing under the old rules.
argon said:
EA is to blame. They EQified UO into shit. Freeservers (with thousands of players) still exist that replicate the "golden days" of UO:
www.uogamers.com
www.uodivinity.com
Both are run by the same team of people, they just replacate two differen't era's of UO: UOG being UOR and UOD being T2A. I played on them for years, even staffed on them, but I've since moved on to EVE.
EVE is very akin to UO... in space. It's far more advanced in some aspects, and only slightly more limited in others, but understandably so in the context of the game.
In short, play EVE.
BlueSummers
Member
There was just something great about FFXI. I think one thing was that even at lower levels you still looked more badass than in WoW. The only two classes that have nice looking top gear are Wars and Locks. I do wish that there was SOMEWAY of not having to depend so much on a group.
TheDuce22 said:
Oh there's no disagreement that EA ruined the game. But from a sales point of view, it was quickly eclipsed by EverQuest because EQ had a shiny new engine which UO simply could not compete with. It was a lot easier to draw in the casuals with a lush 3D world than what looked like just-another-sprite-based-game, and in that respect UO's 2D engine severely limited its mainstream appeal and flattened out its subcription rates. With EverQuest's record-breaking success, it's no surprise that its gameplay model took hold of the industry thereafter.
And I have played the oldschool UO on the free servers awhile back, I had to quit because it became too addictive =)
Could you list a few? I haven't really kept track of many MMOs since WoW so I'm genuinely interested. From what I've seen, EVE Online and Second Life are the only ones I can think of that offer the same kind of open-ended experience.
TheDuce22 said:
lol raids are timesinks?
Raid encounters are typically condensed content affairs with more reward yields than any other content in the game. If anything makes it suck time it's your group (speaking generally, not you in particular). People take too long to assemble. But when you get a coordinated group it's like magic and no event in your typical MMO can ever top that experience.
Open Source said:
People are copying WoW because WoW is where the big money is at. But your complaint is still silly. Did EQ prevent DAoC from being made? Did EQ prevent EvE from being made? No. Is WoW preventing World of Darkness from being made? No. So...
Starcraft is still played by millions and its graphics are ugly and primitive compared to C&C3, but guess which one will have made more money, and guess which one will have more players in 5 years (not C&C3).
How is "the underlying concept of a dynamic player-driven ecosystem is far more mainstream than the static, mechanical, number-centric shooting gallery" if no game that features a dynamic player driven economy has captured the market quite like the games featuring the static market you oh so hate?
To clarify my position, I frankly don't care what kind of MMO you like, because that's your call and I see more people playing any MMO period as furthering the genre, but when you try and tell me that a niche market MMO is objectively better than the market leader (which has 100x the players what the niche had at its height), and that the people who play the current market leader simply don't know any better, you're going to get called out.
In before the "Britney Spears sells more CD's than underground band x, who makes better music" argument.
Xiaoki said:
Technically no, since they aren't directly charging money for people to play on them. Donations to the cause are entirely legal though, and they cover more than enough of the operational costs of the project as the team always discloses the pertinent financial information.
EA has tried numerous times through litigation to shut down these freeservers - and failed. It's never even gone to court; Ryan McAdams (the man in charge of the RunUO project) has done a fairly outstanding job of telling EA to blow him. EA has even made amendments to the EULA for the game, and still lost.
The best that EA can do is ban people from their servers who have admitted to playing on freeservers as well. Oh noes.
Ultima Online is a pay to play service so circumventing EA to play for free may not be entirely illegal but it is certainly unethical. It's the exact same thing as pirating games.JoeMartin said:
Can't believe GAF bans people for posting magazine scans but not advertising free MMO servers.
dskillzhtown
keep your strippers out of my American football
clo1_2000 said:
I remember trying FFXI. I played for about 2-3 months. I was so bored of the grinding. Walking through the desert killing crap. It pretty much turned me off on MMOs. I didn't see what the big deal was. I was playing it on PS2, so that probably had something to do with me hating it.
dskillzhtown said:
Possibly. The PC version was just easier to play/ highest resolutions and whatnot at the time.
Ulairi said:
Not really. It controlled like most MMORPGs...macros were pretty easy to set, the GUI...I dont really know what was so bad about it... as for the grind fest, if you evenly mixed exping with doing missions, quests, ballista sports stuff (later on) and other things...it worked out nicely. Plus if you found a nice spot, and used standard FF sensibility making parties, lvls came quickly. Maybe not WoW quickly, but still decently quick.
Xiaoki said:
You don't pay the monthly fee for the game, you pay it for the service. If someone else wants to give that service away for free that's their own prerogative.
You still have to buy the game to play on free servers (though not really anymore, since EA gives away older versions of the client for free).
EDIT: And as you so correctly pointed out, questionable ethics != illegality. Your comparison, however, is faulty. Pirating games and posting scans of magazines IS illegal.
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
deadatom said:
Maybe when the game was in its prime theres was a group of people that curbed PKers but when I played (this is recently mind you) all everyone seemed to do was kill new players. It wasn't fun at all.
FYI: I was playing on a Shard and not the official EA servers so I guess theres no policies in place. But when I first started out I was not only getting killed outside of town, at the graveyard near town but also in town. Any gear I had equipped was looted, it stopped any and all progression I was able to do.
BlueTsunami said:
PKs usually had the best gear so they were probably the most hunted players out there. Anyone good enough would attack them on sight. That held them in check somewhat. I dont see how it could stop you from progressing though. There were so many areas completely out of the way where you could mine or chop wood or whatever. Plus you could always hit the recall spell as soon as you see a pk, or train in hiding. The fact is they kept people on their toes and added a level of danger/excitement not present in current mmos. Of course that type of thing wouldnt even be possible in current mmos since they are all item based grind fests. No developer will make it possible to lose a weapon you spent 6 hours doing some raid to get.