MMORPGs - 2006 in Review - Part 4 of 4, the Ringleaders
Dec 11, 2006 18:30:30
Submitted by Brent on Dec 11, 2006 18:30:30 CST (comments: 11)
Dec 11, 2006 18:30:30
| In this final part of our 2006 review we'll examine the MMORPG titles that have held the line or improved their offerings. In the past few days we've covered the failures, the dead and dying and the living dead. Now we finally turn our gaze to slightly more cheerful scenarios. Enjoy. The Status Quo: They're not breaking or fixing The 1UP-ers: They're fixing stuff for the better Rising Star: Just kicking ass And there you have it, the state of MMORPGs at the end of 2006. It has been a slow year for our favorite genre of games, but 2007 certainly will change that. Check back tomorrow for 2007 in Preview. |
Submitted by Brent on Dec 11, 2006 18:30:30 CST (comments: 11)
Comments:
'...' by Heartless
Submitted on 2006-12-11 19:46:32 CST
Just gonna throw on devil's advocate here for a moment. WoW is #1, but all I hear from people is that it is doing everything wrong. Maybe at 10 million players people will start believing that Blizzard has done something right. There is no evidence that producing expansions every 3 to 6 months makes a better game or that it is a requirement for a successful game. Actually every game to follow that model has dwindled off over time so far. So I don't see how WoW can be criticized for being a market leader who doesn't do what everyone else does.
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I like the whole fixing stuff section you added. Poor SOE games. IMHO SOE's best game isn't even an MMORPG... it's the Pirates CSG (constructible strategy game) online.
'World of Windows?' by Wilhelm2451
Submitted on 2006-12-11 20:12:21 CST
Move that logic to Microsoft and Windows and see how well it sits. All I hear about MS is how everything they do is wrong, yet it runs 90% of the desktops worldwide.
Being #1 does not bring with it any inherent statement of quality, good or bad, but it does open you open to examination by a huge audience that will pick apart all your work. Your competition and its partisans will always assail you with how much better they are than the mass market, lowest common denominator package that the market leader always comes to represent.
That said, I am a WoW fan. It is its own game, and while there are features I would like to see added, I have fun playing it all the same.
I am with you on the expansion thing. More than one expansion a year is probably too much for me and hardly seems worth the turmoil it can cause. But I am not the type of player who runs through content at maximum speed.
'World of Opinion' by Brent
Submitted on 2006-12-11 22:24:15 CST
I hear where both of you are coming from on the WoW thing.
The main issue I have isn't so much expecting them to do what everyone else does, I'm just expecting them to do SOMETHING.
Nearly two and a half years waiting for an expansion for an MMO that has the fastest leveling curve around is just too long for me. A solid 50% of WoW toons are level 60. That speaks volumes to me.
I'm not saying they should change the leveling curve, but I will stand by my opinion that one large content expansion every 2+ years is not enough and that's why I put them in the coasting category.
I'm looking forward to the expansion as much as the next WoW player, I guess, but it is harder for me to get excited when I quit playing in January out of sheer boredom and need for content. If they'd released that last January I would have been pumped. Now I'm luke warm on it.
'...' by Heartless
Submitted on 2006-12-12 08:15:31 CST
Again I will say it. Maybe WoW has found something. Maybe what they have done is show the industry that if you build a solid game from the start you can hold a solid player base. Maybe all these other games NEED to throw out expansions because their basic game sucks!
Ask any EQ2 player and they will agree that the game didn't get decent until Kingdom of Sky and has gotten a ton better with the EoF expansion.
IMHO bring expansions when you have the chance to do something with the game not just because you think gamers are getting bored. In my experience gamers get bored regardless if there is new content expansions or not.
I understand your feeling on it, but I am looking at the broader picture and trying for once in my life to understand why a game is popular. Blizzard has been pushing quality over quantity since the days of the original Warcraft. Maybe... just maybe... that is the key to all their success?
'Blizzard Quality' by darrenl
Submitted on 2006-12-12 08:40:53 CST
Blizzard is a quality machine...no doubt. They are probably one of the one companies in the gaming business who only ship when its ready. We should applaud that.
That's probably one of the reasons why we haven't seen an expansion for 2 years. The other reason is I think Blizz got caught without the internal infrastructure to handle 7 million people playing their game. I bet they staffed up for around 300000 for the year they launched. According to MMO Chart, since 2004, they've been adding subscriptions at the rate of 270000 per month. I'm pretty sure that they've been scrambling to put in place the resources just to keep up...never mind the resources to develop a completely new expansion pack.
I think they've got at least one foot on the ground now, and I'm hoping we'll see more expansion content from them. If in the next 2 years we only see BC, then yes, there's a problem.
D out.
'Blizzard's Success' by Wilhelm2451
Submitted on 2006-12-12 13:48:33 CST
Pondering this, I think here are a lot of things that Blizzard has done with WoW that you could point to as reasons for success, but I do not think any of them are unique to WoW. I think you would find that they are all part of the traditional way that Blizzard operates. They have a history of making big hits and selling millions of copies. I cannot think of anything they have done or any changes they have made that do not have precedent in past games. Quality over quantity, reasonable machine requirements, shipping when the product is done not when a date is reached, game play that is both good and easily accessible to a wide audience, and however many more you want to come up with, they are all mirrored in past Blizzard products.
I think the first break from tradition will come if and when they do a second expansion for WoW, as one expansion per product seems to be the norm for them, and that won't be much of a break.
I would say, rather lamely I admit, that WoW is successful because Blizzard has a process for making successful games, and part of that process includes not blindly doing things just because other game makers do them.
This, of course, leaves room for competitors. Nobody will clone WoW and beat Blizzard at their own game. But companies that are willing to take more risk, to innovate, or to extend beyond the normal scope, can find a niche.
Which leaves me wondering about SOE again. I applaud their willingness to tune EQ2, but sometimes I boggle at how they go about it. Mentoring, which is one of may favorite features now that I have some WoW friends playing, started off as completely unusable and had to go through a series of iterations before it became viable. I wrote about 5 features that Blizzard should steal from EQ2, but three of them have had to go through a lot of work in front of a live audience before they became worthwhile. If there is a lesson SOE needs to take in, it isn't from WoW, but from how Blizzard works as a whole. WoW is the result of a company that knows how to create success. Blizzard is the reason WoW is successful.
'Biggest Best' by Lauren
Submitted on 2006-12-12 14:28:00 CST
WOW is the most successful MMO to date, but that doesn't mean it's the best, nor does it mean that it's perfect. Blizzard put out a high quality game, no doubt there. However, there haven't been a lot of solid games of this genre within the 2 yrs since WOW's release. IMO that is a huge factor in why the numbers stayed so strong without an xpac. It's not that the players didnt want new content or that new content is required to keep players. Some of it was that when you got tired of WOW, there wasn't anywhere else to go that was worth the effort of starting all over.
2007 will see several new titles release for MMORPGs. Individually, none of them possess the potential to topple WOW. However, they collectively will provide other opportunites and avenues of game play if you become tired of WOW. Let Blizzard try not doing another xpac for two years and see if they can sustain that player-base.
'Bleh' by Sanctified
Submitted on 2006-12-12 16:55:12 CST
So tired of reading about WoW.
'...' by Heartless
Submitted on 2006-12-12 20:11:16 CST
I am not sick of reading about WoW. IMHO it is a thorn in the side of the perception of the online MMORPG community. All their senses say... its too cartoony, its too easy, it has no content, but it still reigns supreme.
It makes great discussion :)
'Bleh' by Brent
Submitted on 2006-12-12 22:35:47 CST
I'm almost weary of it too. :)
'Heartless said: Cartoony.' by ZonMezz
Submitted on 2006-12-13 15:41:02 CST
I can explain that. Go into Ashenvale and you basically see some rivers that don't flow, don't trickle down like normal rivers do, and there aren't any water falls etc. This all considering how steep those rivers are and they look like they could jump off the banks. But it works because the world has a design style which fits.
If you were to play some of the more realistic mmporgs out there, those rivers would have to flow in a logical way, pools would have to be created, rapids, etc. not to mention realistic water effects. Possibly hundreds of hours of work just to make one stupid river make sense, not to mention the entire zone.
The cartoony way Wow was designed is perfect for being able to create content. If you look at Naxx, when they designed the bosses, the artist's designs had to be made less detailed and dumbed down so that they would fit into the world.
Wow was almost perfectly designed for creating new content.
The only question is:
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