Killing the King: A step-by-step guide to taking out WoW. [PVP Edition]

[looopy]

WoW has ~10 million subscribers, 7 years under its belt, a community that will persevere with blizz no matter how bad it gets, an appealing lore, and so many other things that keep people continuously hooked in. Perhaps one of the most successful franchises of all time, but when does it end? Inevitably it will be bested, but who? Many have tried, but they continuously just dont get it quite right. So what does it take?

Many forums address what MMOs must do to be original and new, but I want to look at what it is Blizzard has done right that simply cannot be overlooked when shaping a new MMO

PVP
What is it about pvp in WoW that has kept people coming back for so long? IMO it comes down to three large factors.

--Balancing--
For a game to compete with the player vs. player combat in WoW the developers must fully commit to meticulously changing the classes and their mechanics around constantly. High level players will always find loop holes, unintended uses of abilities, over powered combos, and of course extremely unbalanced group compositions. Naturally certain classes get swept aside as the frost mages and dks reign supreme. Blizzard spends thousands of hours rooting out these problems and say what you will about balancing issues in WoW but they always eventually get fixed. Balancing is crucial to a game not just for gameplay but for general lore and presentation as well. How does it feel if your a badass jedi in swtor and you cant seem to kill any Imperial Agents because their snipe ability is just too overpowered. Unfairness in games can quickly take away the immersion because it just seems out of place. Additionally it doesn't feel right to enter a bg and see 9 mages because they happen to be the most ideal at that given time. Balancing simply cannot be overlooked. For SWTOR and GW2 to be successful they cannot simply worry about balancing during the beta; They must keep a close watch on it throughout the games entire life span and especially when new expansions are released(ie:tons of new abilities)

--Tightness--
One of the major issues with some mmos it the combat has never quite felt as responsive as WoW. When playing WoW the player actually feels like they are controlling there character rather than following it. Theres nothing worse than knowing what you need to be doing but you are unable because of mobility limitations due to poor game controls. So far SWTOR and GW2 are both shaping up to have very tight controls. GW2 has implemented rolling which honestly has the potential to make the game feel extremely responsive and controllable. If the devs can pull that one off it could add tons of depth to the pvp in gw2 but with lag and other unideal situations that could occur the roll system could prove to be clunky. We will have to wait and see. SWTOR on the other hand has implemented something I particularly am looking forward to which is cover based combat. Bioware of course made the mass effect games so they obviously know what they are doing when it comes to cover based combat. TBH, cover based combat would not be fitting for most MMO's (especially wow and GW) but in the case of SWTOR it looks perfect. Just from watching smugglers shooting around corners and IAs sniping from behind boulders has goten me extremely interested in how this system will pan out, especially in a pvp scenario. Both of these upcoming titles look to have extremely responsive controls.

--PVP Community--
Building a community around a game is not an easy task. First and foremost, you must drag in the expert/elite players because if the game is responsive and plays well then the elite players will quickly turn it into an e-sport. If you can severe the head of the WoW community (elite pvpers) then the body will follow. Why is this? Well we have this great website called youtube. Personally, I dont play games at an extremely high level of competition, but I sure do love to watch high level players on youtube. When these elite players go online and claim a game has good pvp, many will follow. For example, the online community quickly deemed rift and Aion pvp unplayable, had there been a huge e-sport created out of Rift pvp then the game would have had far more fans. Usually when a game is deemed unbalanced by the high end players, it is things that are extremely small that you or I may never even notice, but it doesn't matter because when youtube partners go online and trash your game, its all over. So if these upcoming MMO's can win over the best of the best then I can assure you that the mindless recreational players will follow. Take Team Fortress 2 for example (not an MMORPG i know). It is still used in competition to this day. Does the game really stand up on the modern market to games like battlefield 3? YES! hundreds of thousands continue to play it despite its shortcomings because it is still embraced by the high level players and is therefore praised on youtube.

Thats all for PVP. Tell me what you guys think!

[Tastyfish]

I think the title begs to make this a flamewar and cause a lock.
I am happy you make a point about the community and Youtube Partners, the later being like the mob.
I wouldn't call people who just come to it mindless. More like attracted to it based on it being made to look good by professional styled pvpers.

As for balance, I don't see it happening, seeing as you can long range down melee fighting melee form your team.

[Deleted]

The original Guild Wars had a great PvP that nobody played. WoW PvP is a joke compared to the depth GW had. Turns out, the system was too complicated for the average player to stomach and Arena.net finally decided to cater to the majority of players and started focusing on the game's sub-par PvE content.

[volraths]

flamewar incoming lol.. great post btw

[3clipse]

This was never going to be anything but a gigantic flame war.