If WoW released today for the first time in it's current state...

[ItachiZaku]

I think it would have the same fate as overwatch. I bought overwatch.

There's your problem. I've been in beta for quite a few new mmo's and only 2 of them kept my interest enough to keep playing at launch (Rift and SWTOR).

As previously stated, too many variables. Where are the other games at right now? WoW was built off Everquest, and has kept pulling something from each new game that's come out - so that when a new game comes out, it NEEDS to have everything wow has and then it's only thing. No budget is pulling that off. The ONLY property that could come close to that, would be SWTOR and it didn't. It didn't have full disney backing or else, who knows.

I think a Warcraft 4, 5, 6 etc would have had to come out to keep the property going - else it wouldn't be a WoW it'd be a World of Diablo.

[Gimlix]

No. It would die like any other MMO & Final Fantasy would be the King of MMO.

Haha are you a comedian?

[Jewsco]

Final Fantasy XI was released in 2002. I was mainly referring to that. It was a very famous MMO at the time.

I would not call it very famous it had less subs than even Everquest.
None of those were much more than niche hits.

[Deleted]

With all of the content so far? Yeah, it would be a sucess. But, things like graphics would have to be better to catch people's atention.

Though without WoW, we would all be playing something else... maybe guild wars would've been king of the hill.

[Jngizu]

This is my guess too. It's the same problem that every mmorpg that comes out these days has. Developers keep making mmorpgs with single player focus that only hold people's attention for a few months. When I look at WoW today it is the same thing. Every time I come back to the game it's in hope of experiencing the social aspect that existed up until the end of Wrath. Every time I am disappointed and quit again after a couple months.


The games that are considered iconic in the MMORPG genre are the games that had great and lasting social interaction sometime in their games history. Ultima Online, EQ1, AC1, AO, DAOC, WoW, etc.

I never understood that argument. Blizzard HAD to adapt. Most people that played during Vanilla don't have the time to play as much anymore. Vanilla WoW required insane time commitments. Them going away from that is what allowed this game to thrive and survive. And you still have the possibility to be social, most people just chose not to, which to me says a lot. Blizzard recognized it and instead of forcing people to be social, they offered the possibility to not be. And guess what? Most people chose the latter, because people in this society don't really interact with one another anymore.

If you had only one hour to play a day during Vanilla, chances were, you would not do a lot as it was on average how long it took to form a decent group for the harder dungeons and whatnot. Now, you have LFD, LFR, Pre-made groups tools, which all of them allow you to hop in and do some content. I really, can't even start to understand why that's a bad thing, and why it ruins the game.

And AFAIK, all those games you mentioned never really passed 1M subscribers, so not that successful. FFXIV, which would be the closest competitor to WoW at the moment, has even more LFD/R tools and it's doing great. I guarantee you, if WoW Vanilla were to release today, it would never take off. You would have some die hard Warcraft fans playing it and that's pretty much it. As someone else said, WoW was the right game at the right time. Not real strong competitors. Look at today though, you have MOBA's and FPS being extremely popular and they allow you to have fun without having to spend hours to play to achieve anything like it was the case during Vanilla.

Just to be clear though, I don't think WoW is perfect, there are a lot of things they should improve, but Legion will be a far better product than Vanilla or TBC ever were.

[Pickynerd]

would it have still become so popular?

Yes, because there isn't anything else out there with low system requirements that plays smooth/doesn't look like ass. Most newer games now days have beautiful graphics, but the game play is twitchy and the animation has a mechanical feel imo. Best part, it has a sub, thus you don't have to buy more bag space/character slots/in-game currency ect.. That shit drives me up a wall and down the other side.

It would probably be even more popular if it released now.

[Vineri]

With all of the content so far? Yeah, it would be a sucess. But, things like graphics would have to be better to catch people's atention.

Though without WoW, we would all be playing something else... maybe guild wars would've been king of the hill.

In the spirit of this thread, all the grand stories of WoW lore were pretty much told, fought for, and won/lost as history dictates. The content with those stories is currently incredibly easy, being from older X-pacs.

The thread indicates current state.

The new stories are disconnected and rather bland, unless you think resurrecting old Villains gives some new relevance to fans. IMO it does not. There would not be a hook for true fans, with the current lore, which is being made up on the fly as time goes on.

I think EQ or a non-WoW EQ-inspired-clone would dominate the market, in the absence of WoW

DaoC was niche for PVP'ers. GW was niche for casuals, non-RPG'ers? AC was not MMO friendly - I played in the beta and if you got more than a dozen people too close (even at a shop vendor), everyone would all get randomly ported away.. since the game could not handle it - lame - I uninstalled and went back to EQ, btw.

I think any fluid game to be released ~mid 2000's would dominate. WoW came out in the right time, the right place, and with the right story people knew or wanted to know. The competition could not compete with a strong RPG like EQ, until WoW in this timeline

[Eapoe]

As others have said, there's too many variables. Sure, there were mmo's before WoW, but WoW appealed to a broader market. Who knows if something ever would have come out to be near the success WoW has to continue the trend, or if it would have become a niche thing, like turn based RPG's are now, a long time ago. In a nutshell, yes, it could be just as popular; or, it could just be another game that people play for a little while and move on, like most FPS's.

[xStevooo]

Nope it was just the right place at the right time, the current state (actually 4.3 > is disgusting)
If the game was F2P i still don't think it would generate much more interest - the people i know that hung around in Cata done so because they were scared of losing their "characters" (time and effort/money).

Not once was i told because they were enjoying the game etc it was always to do with nostalgia/too much time invested.

I don't know anyone that still plays, even though my bnet list was full a few xpacs ago - and in today's age i wouldn't see the game doing anything should it have been released in today's day it would be laughed at.

[Lady Dragonheart]

If WoW was released for the first time, now, it would be very different than it is now since current WoW is build after build of stacking content from over a decade.

[Jewsco]

That's still a subjective opinion. Especially when we talk speculations on "what would have happen if etc."

That was my personal opinion. At the time, FFXI had a very strong community & people were left with 2-3 choices of MMO games. taking WoW out of the equation would certainly increase its popularity. Square Enix might have done things differently back then.

Isn't saying might have speculating on your part? Maybe without wow's success square Enix might have given up on MMO's all together and not put anymore money into it right? Because thier was no sign of it being a big hit genre until wow took off and gave everyone else hope they could have the next big thing. I think much saver to say without a big hit MMO's probably would of died off.

[Oaky]

Instant gratification is a trait almost everyone seems to have nowadays. Games that require you to invest a lot of time in order to be properly rewarded might have a harder time retaining players than the games that make you into some Pavlovnian slave. Not sure how I would receive the game if was released today, I had never played an MMO prior to WoW and it was mostly the wonder of my youth that attracted me to the game, the visuals and the novelty of it all. Currently, I'm all about that one-click-instant-pleasure routine, as are many others.