Wow Vanilla servers, player mentality and GW2

[Deleted]

In any case, I took issue with your argument that WoW is and was beneficial to the MMO market. Short time in 2007 (when WoW boomed) it did, but long term wise WoW is killing innovation as is seen in any typical monopoly market. So WoW is bad for MMO business in general.

It's very difficult to tell the long term cause and effect of such things...all we can do is pick a specific point in time and look at what's happening then...

WoW did vastly increase the market...and it also increased the number of companies making MMOs wanting to jump on the bandwagon...

Although the majority were and are clones today...so it seems as if WoW has been detrimental...who's to say that the millions of players WoW brought to the genre won't start demanding something new...pushing companies to raise their game and ultimately driving on innovation...an innovation only possible because of the 8 million bored WoW players.

A wise game company would see the potential millions of players, pay very close attention to their requests and do something about it.

Without WoW, MMOs would still be seen as a niche and high risk type of game...the WoW-clone phenomenon seems like a necessary part of its evolution.

[Hellgaunt]

Say what you like but WoW brought MMO's to a different level. Proving that what was an extremely niche market could be expanded to include a much more broad range of players who till that point might not have given an MMO a second look.

In all the text you wrote I saw nothing that supported this claim. What you don't seem to get is that the gaming industry has grown much faster than the MMO market, which seems to completely contradict your claim. And WoW didn't prove anything really - in fact Ultima Online, DAoC and EQ proved that you can create a profitable MMORPG business model based on a game requiring a subscription. What WoW did was to make a product with a larger appeal than those games and achieved monopoly.

Rather you can ascribe growth in the MMO market to the inclusion of the Asian markets and the growth of the total number of people with access to high speed broadband and gaming rigs (high performing computers) - more than the ingeniousness of Blizzard.

While you are correct in that the fault for the lack of growth cannot be placed at Blizzard's feet, the fact that WoW is a monopoly still has it as the cause for the contraction of the general MMO market.


I apologise for having dragged the discussion down to a high level economics discussion rather than an emotion based discussion where we argue from a rational emotional point of view (as opposed to a rational enlightened point of view).

---------- Post added 2012-03-19 at 08:40 PM ----------

A wise game company would see the potential millions of players, pay very close attention to their requests and do something about it.

Without WoW, MMOs would still be seen as a niche and high risk type of game...the WoW-clone phenomenon seems like a necessary part of its evolution.

That's exactly what WoW didn't show actually

WoW raised the bar for other companies to gain entry to the market - which reduces the willingness to take risks, which in term reduces the amount of innovation in a market/industry because financially there isn't much room for innovation stemming from both the fact that WoW has established standards for the genre (just look at the addon discussion going on) that all games must abide to, and has a level of quality that players have come to expect from the producers. I know it's a bit difficult to grasp, but WoW both expanded the market (short term) and is now contracting it (we are entering the long term).

In order for the MMO market to expand it needs an(other) exogenous shock. GW2 might be just that

[Fencers]

I guess I don't know what you mean by watershed then, perhaps you better explain.

watershed [ˈwɔːtəˌʃɛd]
n
1. (Earth Sciences / Physical Geography) the dividing line between two adjacent river systems, such as a ridge
2. an important period or factor that serves as a dividing line

The design of World of Warcraft altered the course of how MMOs were made. It's cultural & financial impact is yet to be equaled as well. Afterward, no studio made successful games in the style of EQ or AC, with most of the design of previous MMOs being unacceptable to consumers from that point forward. WOW changed the way MMOs were designed strikingly.

In any case, I took issue with your argument that WoW is and was beneficial to the MMO market. Short time in 2007 (when WoW boomed) it did, but long term wise WoW is killing innovation as is seen in any typical monopoly market. So WoW is bad for MMO business in general.

This is not any argument I made. I simply pointed out the importance of World of Warcraft to the MMO market.

Whether you believe innovation or variance of game style has been stifled as a result is of no concern to me.

[Hellgaunt]

WOW changed the way MMOs were designed strikingly.

This is not any argument I made. I simply pointed out the importance of World of Warcraft to the MMO market.

Whether you believe innovation or variance of game style has been stifled as a result is of no concern to me.

No, you also made the claim, that without WoW MMO's would (very likely) be more marginal today than if WoW wouldn't have existed:

Classic WoW was the greatest watershed of the genre till that point in time. It is very likely MMOs would have faded to the end of the genre shelf otherwise.

And I responded that traditionally a market dominated by a monopoly power (WoW) is incapable of expansion without an exogenous shock (since a monopoly creates a high bar for entry to the market and rarely seeks to expand the market, because innovation is inherently risky). As opposed to a diverse and highly competitive market (where innovation is required to stay in business).

Aka WoW is detrimental to the MMO market and is EXACTLY doing just what you claim it didn't, making the genre fade to the end of the genre shelf.

[Fencers]

And I responded that traditionally a market dominated by a monopoly power (WoW) is incapable of expansion without an exogenous shock (since a monopoly creates a high bar for entry to the market and rarely seeks to expand the market, because innovation is inherently risky). As opposed to a diverse and highly competitive market (where innovation is required to stay in business).

Aka WoW is detrimental to the MMO market and is EXACTLY doing just what you claim it didn't, making the genre fade to the end of the genre shelf.

Yes, that is a rather true statement I made. Just before WOW released the genre was rather small comparatively and hemorrhaging users. WOW's introduction brought more users to the genre than existed in total previous. The biggest games previous were capped out around 1-2 mil at best, with even major licenses such as Star Wars Galaxies around the sub 1 mil level.

The total number of players in the genre grew after WOW as did the funding of other MMOs. That is a broadening of the market not facilitated by EQ or UO previous.

[luedieniel]

Sadly it is just nostolgia talking. Class balance in vanilla wow was a joke. While the idea of going back to the time that if you actually successfully raided it meant you were good at the game, I never want to go back to classes being pigeon holed into a single role.

I raided through all of the content on lvl 60 and while nostalgia clearly plays its part, I never had as fun in WoW as I did back in vanilla, the closest thing to it would be Ulduar but everything else has just been a proper 'meh' feeling.
That said I had such a blast back then I don't quite see why I would ever want to re-live the experience and spoil those fond memories.
I feel for the druids tho, only reason we even took them along for the raids were cause the priests wanted innervates.


The concept in GW2 is different, you still strive to enhance your gear and so forth. The thing is that your aim isn't to improve your gear to such an extent that it eventually carries you, you're doing it for purely cosmetic reasons. And ofcourse because that fancy dragon over there haven't been killed yet and you should be the one to fix that.

[DrakeWurrum]

I never had as fun in WoW as I did back in vanilla

How much fun you have in WoW has more to do with who you play with than the content you're playing.

[Alcsaar]

Here is the main, major issue with a vanilla wow server.

It would require an entirely seperate developer team be hired; OR it would require the current devs to spend their time on it. They already complain about not having enough development time, so that isn't an option. They CERTAINLY aren't going to hire a second developer team.

Or, they just add the vanilla servers and no new content is EVER ADDED. Thus, player will end up getting bored. Don't try to tell me players will be happy farming AQ for the next 5 or however many years. That alone is going to make it entirely cost ineffecient to redevelop a vanilla server.

Additionally, the game (most notably addons) have become far more complex since that time. MC, ect would be a cake walk.

It doesn't take a very high IQ to figure this stuff out. Those servers would not hold players long.


P.S., I've played this game since release and while vanilla does make me nostalgic, I'm not going to say it was a better game then. the game was in an awful place back then when it came to balance ect. Hybrids were healers not hybrids, and gear set itemization was awful.

This game has made a ton of improvements since then, and while I don't like their current direction of the game, its still in a better place.

[Lothaeryn]

Psh 10 minutes? They would have killed for that. Try 5 minutes. And seals (up until Wrath) were 2 minute buffs.

Not even 2 minutes, seals were 30 seconds until the end of TBC when wrath stats were implemented.

[toychristopher]

My first mmo was Ragnarok Online. It was so much fun! Going to one of the millions of Ragnarok Online private servers that imitate the initial release of the game and trying to play it now doesn't recapture that fun. The novelty is gone, the people I played with aren't there. The only way to recapture something like the fun of playing vanilla wow, is to time travel and get a memory wipe. It's over, let it go, and it also has nothing to do with Guild Wars 2.

[Window]

How does a argument that a private server turn to guild wars 2 isnt a Wow killer need a Jackie Chan meme, just for the record the best Wow killer out there is Wow go figure. I just like the idea of guild wars 2 beign a alternative and hoping the community is closer to what vannilas was

[kendro1200]

Most of the raid content in vanilla was a joke compared to everything that came after it. For most classes, combat amounted to at most 3 or 4 buttons. Even extremely complex fight mechanics (which were rare in vanilla) are very, very easy to work around when you can pump out max DPS while talking on the phone and watching TV.

While yes, half of your raid could be mindlessly participating in the raid after the raids had been patched, that was not how bleeding edge content was in vanilla. Raids were huge logistic and planning efforts. So many bosses required rotations of players in and out of los of the boss, and ALL of the dps switching at the right time to the right target. Fights were heavily bugged or overtuned, and to get things fixed legions of guilds had to come out with weeks worth of data to get Blizzard to even consider getting bugs fixed in encounters.

I do miss the people I raided with in Vanilla and I certainly miss Naxx, I miss the loyalty players had towards their guilds, but I don't miss anything else from Vanilla.

[DrakeWurrum]

Not even 2 minutes, seals were 30 seconds until the end of TBC when wrath stats were implemented.

Don't get me started on how long imbues, elemental shields, and totems lasted for Shaman. *shudder*

[JohnBrown1917]

It's a different game though. With WoW, there is absolutely nothing to do once you're capped in the best gear (especially if we're talking Vanilla here). Raids become trivial because you overgear them, dungeons are piss easy because you overgear them, PvP is piss easy against everyone else.

With GW2, you don't ever have this problem because gear has no stats. Dungeons never become trivial (unless you master them of course, but not by gear), and PvP never becomes trivial because you never overgear your opponents.

This is the difference.

Maybe that is true for PvE, but not for PvP.
At the higher ratings, evrybody has equel gear anyway(exluding trinkets and legandary's). And if you don't do arena/Rbg's it can take around 800+ BG's to get the full conquest set, and thats if you only do PvP on 1 char.


That aside, GW2's system is better, with everybody being on a equell level(gear-wise).

---------- Post added 2012-03-20 at 10:18 AM ----------

Not even 2 minutes, seals were 30 seconds until the end of TBC when wrath stats were implemented.

Those where dark times..

[Chrno]

I wonder, if blizzard did decide to make vanilla servers... how many people would play it? You would still pay a subscription fee just to play an outdated game... Are you seriously gonna raid MC/BWL over and over again? No, most people would probably play both MoP and vanilla, making raiding rather hard. Since putting together a raid schedule that is balanced around 40 other player's raid schedule's is kinda ridiculous. And even if you get 40 good and devoted people to raid with, what are you gonna do when you finally clear naxx? Redo a yearlong farm on an alt? Or get carried by your guild to speed it up ofcourse.

As for PvP... it requires addons to make it remotly fun tbh... stepping back down to no focus target or not even having an enemy cast bar, wow. Not to mention this system wasn't rewarding for skill at all.

I might play on the realm for a bit but I'm pretty sure I'd get sick of it before even reaching max level. Also Blizzard has more pressing matters then catering to people who still pay for the current game but whine about wanting the old version of the game back. Like figuring out how to deal with low pop servers for example.

afaik, there have always been focus target and enemy castbars in-game
i used them during vanilla allot

[vizzle]

Maybe that is true for PvE, but not for PvP.
At the higher ratings, evrybody has equel gear anyway(exluding trinkets and legandary's). And if you don't do arena/Rbg's it can take around 800+ BG's to get the full conquest set, and thats if you only do PvP on 1 char.


That aside, GW2's system is better, with everybody being on a equell level(gear-wise).

---------- Post added 2012-03-20 at 10:18 AM ----------


Those where dark times..

Vanilla servers wouldn't have arenas so this argument goes out the window.

[JohnBrown1917]

Vanilla servers wouldn't have arenas so this argument goes out the window.

Oh ye, forgot about that.

Even the gearing system in Vanilla was so different than the current system. But still, its not like you would outgear everybody if you had the best gear.

[luedieniel]

How much fun you have in WoW has more to do with who you play with than the content you're playing.

And now that I further expand and say that I played with the same people all the way. From vanilla to Cataclysm we've had the same group of people. Content still doesn't matter?

Most of the raid content in vanilla was a joke compared to everything that came after it. For most classes, combat amounted to at most 3 or 4 buttons. Even extremely complex fight mechanics (which were rare in vanilla) are very, very easy to work around when you can pump out max DPS while talking on the phone and watching TV.

Thaddius, Heigan, 4Horsemen, kelthuzad, sapphiron, maexxna, loatheb, patchwerk, gluth and razuvious would like to disagree with you here.
Ouro, viscidus, huhuran, cthun and huhuran also are abit curious as to how you reason.

[Deleted]

Seriously dude, stop necroing posts from three or four months ago.