BioWare: World of Warcraft Set MMO Standards

[exfileme]

During the DICE 2011 keynote panel, BioWare's Greg Zeschuk admitted that world of Warcraft set MMOG standards.

BioWare: World of Warcraft Set MMO Standards : Read more

 

[dwave]

What about the standards that EQ set that WoW followed?

 

[geminireaper]

He is a moron. Stop with the WoW Clones. Why would someone play a game like WoW if they could just play WoW. If everyone just copied the top dog there wouldnt be much in the way of innovation. Give people something different and it will succeed. The more I read about SWOTOR the less I want to play. They had a great IP but then throw it down the toilet as another WoW clone.

 

[nottheking]

This is hardly surprising or news. In short: WoW was the first wildly-successful MMO to make it out there, hence it's the one everyone wants to try to clone. One must remember that game development is a business, and all businesses want to be successful. In earlier times it was Everquest that was the "standard setter," and before then, Ultima Online. And later, once WoW's gone the way of its predecessors, whatever is top dog THEN will be the one all others will be held up to.

This applies to ALL genres in gaming, not just MMOs: the FPS we compare others to is whatever is most popular, so we've seen shifts from referring to FPSes as "Doom-clone" in the mid-90s, to then comparing games to Quake, then Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Halo, and most recently Call of Duty.

However, I'm not quite sure if The Old Republic will actually be truly competing with WoW: in some ways WoW's already hit its peak: that happened around two years ago, when it FIRST hit 12 million subscribers. (I notice that the Google ad right now mentions this number) Since then it's drifted downward, but has lifted back up to 12 million thanks to Cataclysm's release. A look over the history of popular MMOs show they start with a strong growth slope, followed by a peak, with some "leveling off," followed by a more gradual decline, at 1/3rd to 2/3rd of the rate they climbed. Hence, as WoW originally grew at around 3 million a year, (going from 0-12 million in about four years) it's going to start declining at around 1-2 million users a year.

TOR won't be instantly a "big player," at least if Bioware is to succeed: all MMOs that saw an initial hyper-growth period with a fraction of a million subscribers in the first month all peaked more or less instantly, which meant folding within a year. (remember, an MMO's peak comes almost always around 20-30% of its lifespan, so a peak at 1 month means a 3-5-month life) Assuming that TOR is to grow into the multi-millions range, it's going to do it gradually, taking years. If it follows WoW's pattern, even if it DOESN'T peak as high, it won't be until late 2015, by which WoW will have dropped to around 4.5 million users. (I predict WoW to shut their doors entirely between 2018-2020)

So perhaps, trying to model after WoW to make the "next big thing" might NOT be a good idea, since if it IS the next big thing, WoW won't be really around in the same commanding position. However, I'll admit the other side of the coin: a game has to START with success... And right now, we're in the year 2011, where WoW has been king for about 6 years now, ever since it bumped off Lineage. It'll be interesting to see what the future landscape of MMOs looks like in a few years from now.

 

[hoofhearted]

EQ is weak compared to WoW

 

[knightmike]

Yeah, but there are plenty of things that can be done better.
1. The auction house. Please, for the love of God, enable proxy bidding like ebay.
2. The subscription scheme. Don't charge for expansions (updates to the game.) It divides the community and makes people angry when they're already paying $15/mo. Please don't retort they're a business and they're in it to make money. There is plenty of money to be made w/o charging for expansions.

 

[hoofhearted]

I think World of Starcraft will be the sci-fi thing (not Star Wars).

 

[sliem]

I wish wow would be free to play .

 

[skit75]

Stop "Dumbing Down" the MMO genre please. I understand the balancing act that occurs to increase the player base but, by now surely it must be obvious to developers that new DLC once a year will not keep subscribers. If the gameplay is not engaging, the content does not matter. I suspect the game won't even be close to my expectations upon release. I hope I am wrong.

 

[edilee]

I believe Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot were the ones that set the standards...WoW was just a reincarnation of these games that was wildy successful and remains so.

 

[illo]

played swtor at PAX, exactly the same thing as WOW with laz0rs instead of fireballs....sad excuse for a game.

 

[dark_knight33]

When will people learn that you won't make a great MMO simply by copying what is popular *now*? Differentiation is what is required. Otherwise, you'll just have a niche game that is basically WoW in a SW skin. Why would anyone leave WoW for a copy?

 

[dark_knight33]

When will people learn that you won't make a great MMO simply by copying what is popular *now*? Differentiation is what is required. Otherwise, you'll just have a niche game that is basically WoW in a SW skin. Why would anyone leave WoW for a copy?

 

[Rodain]

"I don't know that it serves the genre very well when MMOs come out and have all sorts of problems and players leave in frustration." Anyone heard of Star Wars:Galaxies?

I love how they are coming out with a new Star Wars MMO but are doing everything in their power to not mention Star Wars:Galaxies. There was a Star Wars MMO and it got screwed up. Lets hope BioWare doesn't make the same mistakes as Star Wars:Galaxies.

 

[dark_knight33]

Sorry about the double post. Honestly, I hate his remarks regarding how detailed the crafting system of the game will be. It may not be about the "Shop Keeper" experience, but if that's what I like to do, and it's what that *other* SW game did best, than maybe you shouldn't be so pig headed about it.

 

[dark_knight33]

[citation][nom]Rodain[/nom]"I don't know that it serves the genre very well when MMOs come out and have all sorts of problems and players leave in frustration." Anyone heard of Star Wars:Galaxies?I love how they are coming out with a new Star Wars MMO but are doing everything in their power to not mention Star Wars:Galaxies. There was a Star Wars MMO and it got screwed up. Lets hope BioWare doesn't make the same mistakes as Star Wars:Galaxies.[/citation]

Rogain, did you ever play SWG? I did, and the game rocked until CURB, then they tried to fix that gunshot wound by basically setting everything on fire with NGE. The game was great for several years, it didn't have "All sorts of problems" until after it was messed with by a meddlesome publisher.

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]knightmike[/nom]There is plenty of money to be made w/o charging for expansions.[/citation]
Or to put it better, they're far more appealing business models. Some things may LOOK profitable in the short-term, but I would agree that perhaps charging a full game's price for an expansion to a subscription MMO may actually cost them subscriptions in the long run.

There's also TONS of other things that could be done as improvement. For one, all of the arguments AGAINST a housing system in WoW all demonstrate the arguers' utter lack of understanding. I'd point to UO's housing system, first implemented in the original game, (and given a massive improvement in 2001) as an example of a system done well that should be kept in many other games.

[citation][nom]skit75[/nom]Stop "Dumbing Down" the MMO genre please. I understand the balancing act that occurs to increase the player base but, by now surely it must be obvious to developers that new DLC once a year will not keep subscribers. If the gameplay is not engaging, the content does not matter. I suspect the game won't even be close to my expectations upon release. I hope I am wrong.[/citation]
I'd note that in the case of WoW's expansions, as I already said, The game has begun its death spiral. Granted, it probably won't be un-seated from its throne (frozen or not) for a couple years, and certainly won't be DEAD for perhaps almost a decade, but it's already stopped growing, and started dying. Expansions and updates are merely targeted attempts to slow down and delay the inevitable, to milk the last they can.

As far as the gameplay goes... Everquest had shown that Ultima Online had entirely overdone it: you DON'T need an exhaustive and open gameplay scheme with endless variety. You can just have a massive grindfest with tons of repetitive filler content and still rake in the dough, because the game almost becomes an unconscious "occupy the hands" thing while what they're REALLY focusing on is chatting over Ventrilo or TeamSpeak.

I have my doubts, sadly, that we'll see any shift from this trend here. It's the strategy du jour for gaming: milk the cash cow all you can, and forget making something solid that will be remembered fondly after its peak money-making days are over.

[citation][nom]dark_knight33[/nom]The game was great for several years, it didn't have "All sorts of problems" until after it was messed with by a meddlesome publisher.[/citation]
In all honesty, my opinion was that it was flawed from the start, possibly in the same way SWTOR might be. SWG was the largest MMO let-down I'd ever experienced... (since then I've always been cautiously pessimistic at best) I was hoping for, in short, one of three things. (in order of preference:

1. Star Wars: Jedi Knight done as an MMO.
2. Knights of the Old Republic done as an MMO.
3. PlanetSide with a Star Wars skin slapped on.

I'd thought that #3 would've been the most plausible, since Sony had been developing PlanetSide around the same time. Instead what do I get? Basically Everquest with a Star Wars skin slapped on it. Talk about botching it!

 

[Sabiancym]

And that says it right there. SW:TOR will suck.

 

[dark_knight33]

It's one thing to say that you didn't like SWG either pre or post CURB/NGE, because by the time NGE rolled around, it really was a different game at that point (many liked it post NGE that didn't before). It's entirely another to say that it was a let-down just because it wasn't what *you* expected it to be altogether. That doesn't mean it was filled with problems, and even though I despise the severe and drastic changes made to game, I don't think it was filled with problems even post-NGE. The game was still fun, but is not what was (or even close) when the player base bought the game. It still worked as a game, but SOE had to learn the hard way you can't just ignore your audience and expect them to keep sending money every month. FFS, they should have learned something from Revolutionary war. Any company/Gov't/Entity that thinks they will keep taking resources from somebody, then continually ignore them has a rude awakening due to them.

 

[hoofhearted]

I want to play World of Duke Nukem complete with catholic school girl NPCs

 

[XZaapryca]

Anyone who played UO in 1997 knows how much better WoW is in comparison. There are tons of MMO's out there that are different, but how many have even a million subs? If people vote with their dollars, it's clear that WoW is better for most people. Will WoW be top dog forever? Of course not, but it will be for a while yet it seems. I think some people confuse being bored with a game once played to death and the game actually sucking.

 

[hiruu]

WoW is great, but Blizard is on rinse and repeat...I've been in the game since nearly at launch, but Cata jsut didn't do it for me anymore...I NEED more than jsut more dungeons and raids, but there are millions who still love it, and that's great for them...I will see what Bioware brings with SWTOR, but it's not looking like that game is launch soon (as in the next 3 months) since they haven't even announced the beta as yet. I'm in Rift's beta, and it's the first game to actually do a decent job of cloning WoW, imho. They are probably going to gain a little success...maybe 600-700K long term subs, which is what most game have to shoot for.

 

[lifelesspoet]

I Played SWG early on and it was very flawed. That isnt to say i didnt love the game, I really did. I dont play mmo games because they dont measure up to SWG.
It had the best implementation I ever seen and content lacking in almost all modern games. Player housing/cities/economy, non-combat classes, 32 classes, skill based leveling and a wide variety of templates.
It's 3 main flaws were huge flaws however. It was buggy(with many regressions), lagged and classes were unbalanced(and some were broken since launch and never fixed). Instead of fixing these issues, they instead focused on rebuilding the combat engine twice.
SWG is as i see it the best and worst mmo ever made.

 

[bluestar2k11]

Lol, I like that idea. But then we'd have a problem, who would flash the camera for a wad of 100's?

[citation][nom]hoofhearted[/nom]I want to play World of Duke Nukem complete with catholic school girl NPCs[/citation]


Personally, I had a little interest in SWTOR up until I started to realize what they just confirmed: SWTOR is a WoW clone that uses the force instead of Magicka.

I don't like WoW, or it's crop of cloned Western MMO's. I'll stick with Eastern MMO's, like Aion, FFXIV, and up coming Tera.

In fact if any MMO has my full attention atm, it's Tera, not SWTOR. Tera looks to be amazing, sadly it likely won't win many awards here in the west, as it's not even mentioned hardly compared to Rift, and SWTOR, and most are used to the easily give stuff away style of WoW.

But for me and fans of Eastern styles, it will likely be MMO of the year.

 

[teknobug]

Well screw that, seems every single MMO game after WoW that tries to be a WoW clone failed, in exception of Lord of the Rings Online which happens to be free2play now. I too was a big fan of SWG before late 2005 but I no longer play it thanks to Smedley's crappy decisions.

I think I lost some interest in TOR now with this statement from Zeschuk.