Why no serious competition for WoW? Why is mmo genre so vacant?

1. Do the math;

I recall WOW breaking 10 million subscribers ? 10,000,000 x $15.00 / month thats 1,800,000,000 / year gross.

Even if it was only half that number its still an enormous amount.

2. Social Disease;

People keep playing because they fear missing out. They probably don't really like playing nor the people they play with. They keep logging in everyday for those raids because they fear that one item they need might drop. They don't like the people they play with either, just look at all the so called "uber" guilds quickly fall apart when certain members voice their disdain. Most of these people ride the coat tails to feed their greed and keep their mouths shut to maintain their gravy train of phat lewtz. Once the guild no longer provides their phat lewtz they start to whine and uber guild A falls apart, and is absorbed by uber guild B. 99% of people currently involved in the "end game" fall into this category and are in denial about it.

3. WOW provides what players want;

The original quest and content designers were avid end game EQ players. They made WOW everything EQ wasn't, or wouldn't provide that would make the game better. Easy to progress, plenty of content, quick advancement, unlike EQ where classes originally took forever to level, hell levels, loss of exp, naked corpse runs, quests that rewarded crap yet required rare drops from rare spawns, guilds arguing over end game npc's because nothing was instanced.

4. WOW came out at the right time;

EQ was slowly dying, DAOC was slowly dying, there wasn't anything else worth playing unless you were still stuck in those games at #2 which I previously mentioned. People avidly followed and looked forward to WOW. Coupled with an awesome closed / open beta and word of mouth spreading nobody really looked forward to the release of WOW more then other games. I remember my guild at the time having two pages of anticipatory threads about WOW and what was to be done when it came out. Other games that came out were merely ah ho hum big deal... SWG came and crapped out, along with a slew of others. Most of which altered their game to match that of WOW to try and become successful.

I think people are expecting too much from the Star Wars MMO

-Star Wars appeal is limited to North America

-Its being developed by Bioware

Honestly look at Bioware's weak points and see how they would apply to an MMO. For example the loot in Dragon Age is just boring. It looks bad, especially the ridiculous wizard hats, the items just feel plain, the majority of armour and weapons are low-magicand somewhat contradictory there tons of magical amulets and rings. I haven't played a Bioware game with interesting loot since Baldur's Gate II.

Compare this to Blizzard's non MMO experience in Diablo. A lot of the strengths of the game; addictive loot, grindy combat and character system that could be directly translated to an MMO.

I think people are expecting too much from the Star Wars MMO

-Star Wars appeal is limited to North America

-Its being developed by Bioware

Honestly look at Bioware's weak points and see how they would apply to an MMO. For example the loot in Dragon Age is just boring. It looks bad, especially the ridiculous wizard hats, the items just feel plain, the majority of armour and weapons are low-magicand somewhat contradictory there tons of magical amulets and rings. I haven't played a Bioware game with interesting loot since Baldur's Gate II.

Compare this to Blizzard's non MMO experience in Diablo. A lot of the strengths of the game; addictive loot, grindy combat and character system that could be directly translated to an MMO.

Nikalai_88

There isn't any stronger competition to WoW? huh? well I can mention few great MMOs such as Eve Online, Aion and Age of Connan or should I just mention the best compatitor Guild Wars, and don't worry soon Guild Wars 2 will be released ;)

the new star wars game could do it, i mean didnt SWG sell millions upon millions of units, problem was no1 subscribed cause sony killed the fun:{

I guess you'll know WOW's hurting when they announce server mergers. That seems to be the first indication for most MMO's.

eh, I had high hopes for WAR, its the mythos that spawned the warcraft universe (Blizzard actually thank Games Workshop for not suing them in the credits to one of the warcraft games) with a good 20 years of development into the world itself.

Still bothers me a little when ppl say WAR copied WOW, because...

a) Warhammer had been around longer than blizzard.

b) the developers of WAR made DaOC, and WoW took a a good amount of their game design from that (as well as every other MMO before it)

But back to the point, It was released early to try to beat the WoTLK expansion. Blizzard did their homework though, some of the things WAR was slated to have on their website before release found its war into WoW via a patch (Tome of Knowledge anyone?) It ended up being released with a few careers and zones less than originally intended and probably needed another 2 years of development anyway. Add to that its seemingly designed for a population base the size of WoW's and they opened with waaay too many servers to start with just meant they made things super hard for themselves. If they had gotten the PVE content and the socialization tools on par with the PVP, WAR could/would have been serious competition.

WoW's timing was perfect, everything since has seemed rushed.

The MMO genre isn't vacant at all though, Blizzard just now have plenty to spend on advertising so it almost seems like the only one out there. You get a free WoW trial thing with some bloody ATI drivers for gods sake. If you looked you'd probably find successful MMO's you've never heard of (having a sub base of 10k+ is pretty successful as far as an MMO goes and there are plenty going around this number.)

eh, I had high hopes for WAR, its the mythos that spawned the warcraft universe (Blizzard actually thank Games Workshop for not suing them in the credits to one of the warcraft games) with a good 20 years of development into the world itself.

Still bothers me a little when ppl say WAR copied WOW, because...

a) Warhammer had been around longer than blizzard.

b) the developers of WAR made DaOC, and WoW took a a good amount of their game design from that (as well as every other MMO before it)

But back to the point, It was released early to try to beat the WoTLK expansion. Blizzard did their homework though, some of the things WAR was slated to have on their website before release found its war into WoW via a patch (Tome of Knowledge anyone?) It ended up being released with a few careers and zones less than originally intended and probably needed another 2 years of development anyway. Add to that its seemingly designed for a population base the size of WoW's and they opened with waaay too many servers to start with just meant they made things super hard for themselves. If they had gotten the PVE content and the socialization tools on par with the PVP, WAR could/would have been serious competition.

WoW's timing was perfect, everything since has seemed rushed.

The MMO genre isn't vacant at all though, Blizzard just now have plenty to spend on advertising so it almost seems like the only one out there. You get a free WoW trial thing with some bloody ATI drivers for gods sake. If you looked you'd probably find successful MMO's you've never heard of (having a sub base of 10k+ is pretty successful as far as an MMO goes and there are plenty going around this number.)

GideonDrexlar

[QUOTE="Jermone123"]

But then why doesn't a developer with money make an MMO?

Daytona_178

*cough* The old republic *cough*

+1

Because wow ruined the genre. Rift and FFXIV are "serious" competition if you consider subscription numbers the indication of how serious" a game is competing. They both have over a million subs.

Wow is more like xbox live or an adventure game. I wouldn't even consider it an mmo anymore its so pick up and put down. Unfortunately that's how most new games are being made since they all see just how many "casual" gamers their are. They want a piece of that pie too.

Even the wow devs have said they regret what they did. Ive been saying "blizzard created a monster" for half a decade.. you can quote me on that and google cache my posts from 2008.

The genre is done until a veteran gamer from generation Y begins a kickstarter funded by veteran mmo players. Someone who cares more about the game and its target audience than he does sub numbers or income (this will be rare indeed)

If kickstarter was around when vanguard was created, that may have been the next "real" mmo.

I had hopes for EQNext when smedley said that he wanted to return to an "everquest" style of gameplay. Apparently his interpretation of an everquest style of gameplay is SOOO SOOO different than mine. That will be another cash cow for the wow kiddies too.

Id like to do a comparison real quick. I played EQ1 for over 5 years. I had ONE max level character and I did ALMOST all the raids in game. I played WOW on and off for about 6 years id say. I have TWENTY TWO max level characters and have done every raid in game a few dozen times on each character....

A true MMO isn't just a game, its a hobby, a lifestyle, an investment. A community where you build lifelong friends, not one where you turn off the entire chat channel due to the slobs and rude children that infest it. Wow disgust me.

@klepp0906: this thread is almost 4 years old.

@Kh1ndjal: I assume people just google this stuff and come up with old posts? Kind of confuses me sometimes lol.....

Theres only so many people that can fit on one server. So it really doesnt matter how popular a mmo is. If anything, with a less popular mmo you would get to know the same people more often.

WOW was an anomaly. The MMO genre is a niche market to begin with, and is in decline. There are a few games that are successful and well designed , but there will likely never be another that matches WOWs peak numbers. WOW itself has steeply declined in subscription numbers and is one of the few that ahs successfully maintained the subscription model. An MMO doesn't need to beat WOW. It needs to attract enough players to be profitable. Different people have different play styles. Not everyone likes the same thing, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you don't like WOW, play something else. There are a few alternatives that are fun, well designed, and successful.

I'll never understand why these idiots get off on bringing these threads up. Seriously are you just stupid or trolling?

Everything is connected now. Android and iphone games have tons that are online, facebook games are online, console games, handheld systems have online games, people text dozens of people constantly, everyone has cell phones just about anymore, you can do video/voice on dozens of devices, smart tvs have some social aspects to them now and so on. In other words MMO as a concept is outdated.

Back in the day of everquest, world of warcraft, ultima online and so on was when it was still exciting to be online interacting with hundreds to thousands of other people. Now everything is online and connected, the novelty of playing a video game for its social aspect has long since worn off.

Then you have the fact that you cant turn around without tripping over a dozen free to play mmos, pay to win mmos, and pay to play mmos. Even consoles like the ps4 has several mmo games on it.

Not to mention with the diminishing interest in MMO games no one wants to take a big gamble and lose out, much like what happened with the star wars MMO that took less than a year to go free to play and is barely even spoken of anymore by anyone.

This.

Although I still enjoy Eve Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, GW 1 & 2 - different from WoW but all of them are quite good IMO

Because it takes an insane amount of talent, money, time, and organization. Then on top of that you better be creative and have mass market appeal. World of Starcraft is IMO the next step.