What makes WoW better than any other MMORPG?

[Deleted]

Hey!

Before i begin i would like to say i haven't seen a thread like this in the first 5 pages so i assume there isnt one, if there is.. i will happily close this thread

For years now, new MMO's come out and most of them get hyped up with everyone saying "Rift will be the WoW Killer!" "Tera will be the WoW Killer!" "Guild wars 2 will be the WoW Killer!" and so on.. but it never happens, people try the game and within weeks they're back to WoW saying "Rift/Tera/Aion is shit so im back to WoW", Now im not saying everyone who tries a new MMO comes back to WoW but the majority do and some DO stay and really like the new MMO they discovered.

So my question is as it states in the title, What makes WoW better than any other MMORPG?, What makes so many people come back to it after trying a new MMO for the first time? Is it that they/you dont like change or they're/you're so used to the WoW feel and style that they/you simply cant adapt to a new MMORPG?

If there are any questions like mine you would like me to add into this post so new readers can reply to then i will try my best to add them in.

Thanks
Ishundra

[Puremallace]

This will not end well because people less control then me will comment. It will be locked. Sorry just how this site works. All I will say is if you want to throw money at Blizzard and not get content, then that is your choice. I am happy with Rift. Others with Tera, GW2, and TOR.

You can say Rift is dead or whatever all you want, but I just got to test out mentoring yesterday and will be testing out 3 faction pvp on Thursday. WoW fans are just weird.

[Judge Malthred]

WoW had 10ish years of story development and games before it became an MMO, IMO that kind of backing really makes a big difference in its success. It is also the most advanced MMO in terms of customize-ability and macroing. I also play SWTOR and I really miss the ease of customizing my key binds with macros and the ability to radically change my UI. And when it comes to mods there is no MMO with a database of mods like WoW has.

[Snow White]

I think one of the reasons people go back to wow is the fact that they have invested so much of their time and money in the game and it's hard to leave something like that behind. They probably have friends who play and they don't want to sever any ties to the community they might have. I don't think the game has much to do with it to be honest.

I think familiarity plays a role as well. If someone "grows up" on wow or plays it exclusively they might feel like other controls, uis, models, aesthetics, etc are bad when in reality they are just different from what they are used to.

[Deleted]

I Agree with what you're saying Puremallace and i had a feeling this would end up in a giant flamewar and soon be locked but if people can be civil about it i dont see why people cant just voice their opinions.

Personally i loved GW2 and still Play Tera WoW and Rift and i play them all equally, im just going off what i hear quite alot and have had experiance with myself with other games and keep asking myself the question "Why did i come back to this game"

[Deleted]

Let me tell you what keeps me coming back to WoW.

The lore. I am in love with the lore. I have never ever in my life, been this engaged into lore.
I also like raiding, and the free world. You have the freedom to do whatever. But thats pretty much in any other game.
I like the style of the game.

Above all, the lore...

[Adjusting]

Just so much you can do in it. I mean if I feel like just farming I do, if I feel like raiding I do....so on and so on.

[Sayier]

I think one of the reasons people go back to wow is the fact that they have invested so much of their time and money in the game and it's hard to leave something like that behind. They probably have friends who play and they don't want to sever any ties to the community they might have. I don't think the game has much to do with it to be honest.

I think familiarity plays a role as well. If someone "grows up" on wow or plays it exclusively they might feel like other controls, uis, models, aesthetics, etc are bad when in reality they are just different from what they are used to.

I think this is the best way it could be put. When it started it was essentially the only one of it's kind (yes, there was Guild Wars and Everquest and probably others I am forgetting) so it easily came out on top. Now that people have months if not years sunk into characters it's very difficult for people to abandon all that time, even if it is for a game that may be better.

And then obviously server/guild friends. I only switched to TOR due to my whole guild switching over. We are now in the process of switching back.

[Siluz]

the game has been out for to long and because of this the game is now enormous. no other game can release with the same amount of features that WoW currently has. WoW has had 7 years in operation + years developing vanilla for any game to kill wow it has to be around for 5 years+ to get close to WoWs polish and features

[Deleted]

Years of developer experience and shaping the game in response to a mountain of customer feedback, a massive population which means most active players have been able to form a solid bond with several people, through guilds and playing together (a bond which by proxy has likely made them feel sentimentally attached to the game as the catalyst for those bonds, fond memories and experiences), some of them likely friends they know in RL, so it's a good way to interact with them conveniently, the availability of great third-party software and its easy and permitted integrating with the game (also largely to do with how long WoW has existed), and finally, blood elves.

Also, for anyone who gives two coppers about story, WoW is one of the only MMOs that's universe was established long before the game's launch and the history behind it is quite vast and deep. It has also lead to continued interest with each addition of content because big bad guys that have existed for years are still there to be taken down. Sure, TOR exists in the Star Wars universe, but the Old Republic lore is actually pretty new and all of the characters in TOR are freshly created or barely linked to previous games.

[Chunkyman]

I think one of the reasons people go back to wow is the fact that they have invested so much of their time and money in the game and it's hard to leave something like that behind. They probably have friends who play and they don't want to sever any ties to the community they might have. I don't think the game has much to do with it to be honest.

I think familiarity plays a role as well. If someone "grows up" on wow or plays it exclusively they might feel like other controls, uis, models, aesthetics, etc are bad when in reality they are just different from what they are used to.

This is definitely a factor, but not a reason. It doesn't matter how much time you've invested into the game, if you're sane you won't play it if you don't like it.

[Fumu]

- Easily accessible to most PCs, one of the things that gave Vanilla a leg up in the first place.
- Big population, also very important to MMOs. Many that are improved these days are DOA/unfun simply because they don't have a population to fill the world with. A solo MMO feels like a shitty single player game.
- Consistent, quality content. (Bitch about DS/ICC all you want but the level/content they produce is still light years of most mmos in the past decade.)
- Good ideas from mmos that were otherwise clunkers.
- Major facelifts on the EQ1 foundation through phasing and updating of old content

[Deleted]

It used to be better, now, not so much.

Visuals are now falling way, way way behind.
They jumped the shark with the lore (hey aspects we'll put you in charge of azeroth until one of you turns to the darkside, then you kill him, then you can hand it over to green jesus and his people)
Rehashed instances
Players now playing their mods, not playing the game
LFR
Casualisation
homogenisation

etc etc

and yeah, not going to end well.

[Deleted]

WoW is just so much more fluid than any other MMO. - Even if the other MMO's are newer and more advanced, at the end of the day if the combat is sticky... it's a terrible game and it's annoying to play.

And the same can be said for any other games: Battlefield 3 is much more advanced than MW3.

In BF3 you can destroy houses with ordinary rockets, grenades etc, fly jet planes... but the bottom line is it's sticky to play.
In MW3 it's Gunning and Running and it's so fluid, that's what makes the gameplay better. That's why MW3 thrashes the game on playerbase / ratings.

Same with WoW, if the gameplay itself is poor... nomatter how advanced the game idea is, the one with the best gameplay will be more fun.

[Aurinax]

It's due to a combination of revolutionizing the MMO as people knew it (read: changing the MMO community from a very small band of cave dwellers to a mainstream genre that rivals that of the Multi-player FPS) and having a huge fan base and backstory.

I'm really disappointed that the fresh Star Wars MMO has all the latter (fanbase, fantastic backstory), but simply can't work as an MMO. Funny thing is, if the revolutionary MMO that came out in 2004 had been a Star Wars one, it would be just as big as WoW is now. People would have built the friendships they had in WoW, invested that time and money in SWTOR instead of WoW.

EDIT: Oh right, if BioWare had not poured millions into voice acting it might've launched with maybe half the things it should've launched with. Good story and good voices do not a good MMO make.

[Deleted]

Seven years of content.

If you get bored with the current content, you can do stuff from previous expansions or vanilla.

There is just no way any brand new game can offer as much content as WoW does.

(Transmog is great in that regard: It makes all armor sets from vanilla onwards relevant again.)

[Zdrasti]

Popular =/= best. Most people still use a QWERTY keyboard after all despite it being an inferior product.

[Mandible]

World of Warcraft isn´t really "better". They had things going for them at the start such as having a known (popular) brand/name in the gaming comunity through the Strategy games and such. After that it pretty much spread up till at least Wotlk. Next to that they have had massive campaigns advertising for the game with all the different celebrities - and ofc. with the time its been on without any real competition its well established with the people playing the game, and that also gave them time to add alot of things that other new or old games had to "improve" wow.

[Mandible]

Popular =/= best. Most people still use a QWERTY keyboard after all despite it being an inferior product.

Well if there is some type of keyboard with a better setup they better advertise better.

[Snow White]

Popular =/= best.

Oh, and this. There are games out there that I feel blow WoW out of the water.