WoW in comparison to other MMO.

[Toppy]

For the longest time WoW was a sort of undisputed king of MMO. Sure, it has people who said it was terrible, but honestly, more often than not it was just hate beamed at it for being popular. And it was like for for good reason:

• WoW had the most content
• Great raids
• Great PvP
• It may not have had the best of the two above, but it had both of them and both were very good, which no other MMO coudl say
• Anyone could play it
• It had lots of polish: nothing was notably bad
• Content was fairly regular

A new MMO would come out. It wouldn't have near as much as WoW, and then the MMO would just die or at least not make near enough money to stay relavent.

But now we have many comparable MMO: EVE, FFXIV, Tera, LotRO, RIFT and so on. MMO with a lot of content. Great PvP, great PvE, many can be played on toasters, well polished, and constant content.

On the other hand. Take WoW: content coming slower with time, PvP in one of its worst states ever, their PR is complete garbage, and everything the blizz team adds is called into question (garrisons for instance). WoW is slipping while the competition is gaining ground. Is WoW on the fall now? Will it recover? Is there still room for it?

[Lamortykins]

But now we have many comparable MMO: EVE, FFXIV, Tera, LotRO, RIFT and so on.

the subscriber base of each of these combined is still less than wow's subscriber base

[Toppy]

the subscriber base of each of these combined is still less than wow's subscriber base

Good for them. But the point is there's lot of competition and they have growing bases of players. At the same time, it seems that WoW is growing more unpopular than ever. Especially with this new patch being more Garrison stuff, which has been a rather unpopular feature.

[IxilaFA]

Good for them. But the point is there's lot of competition and they have growing bases of players. At the same time, it seems that WoW is growing more unpopular than ever. Especially with this new patch being more Garrison stuff, which has been a rather unpopular feature.

Um, are you playing a different WoW than I am? I can't speak on the popularity of garrisons, but neither can you. And from looking around the community and feedback they seem to have been accepted positively by the community. The only complaint I've heard is that there is too much focus on garrisons.

As for everything else you mentioned, content is not coming slower it is coming at the same pace, PvP has always been a roller coaster ride, their PR is what you make of it, and not everything the Blizzard team adds is called into question. Only people on this forum are so picky and desperate that they immediately criticize Blizzard for their decisions.

Seriously, spend some time outside of the forums and you'll find that WoW doesn't feel any better or worse than any other MMO on the market. It's a game, and if you enjoy it, keep playing it. Stop worrying about what other MMOs are doing and what other people are playing.

[hablix]

The problem with other MMOs that I've played is that they don't make me care enough about the world or my character to invest much time in it/them. It seems like most MMOs, I get to the level cap, poke around a bit, and quit. Rift, WildStar, GW2 I all have level capped characters but I've never spent more than a few hours past that on any of them. Preparing for raids and progressing in raids is an enormous time investment and MMO developers need to get better at making that investment compelling if they want to compete with WoW seriously.

HINT: For all you other MMO developers, WoW has a major weapon on its side: familiarity. I know wtf I'm doing when I get to level cap, cause I've been doing it for 8 years. Rift, WildStar, GW2 need to make it a lot more clear for new players what they can do when they hit level cap if they want them to stick around.

[Toppy]

Um, are you playing a different WoW than I am? I can't speak on the popularity of garrisons, but neither can you. And from looking around the community and feedback they seem to have been accepted positively by the community. The only complaint I've heard is that there is too much focus on garrisons.

As for everything else you mentioned, content is not coming slower it is coming at the same pace, PvP has always been a roller coaster ride, their PR is what you make of it, and not everything the Blizzard team adds is called into question. Only people on this forum are so picky and desperate that they immediately criticize Blizzard for their decisions.

Seriously, spend some time outside of the forums and you'll find that WoW doesn't feel any better or worse than any other MMO on the market. It's a game, and if you enjoy it, keep playing it. Stop worrying about what other MMOs are doing and what other people are playing.

I suppose I'm going from what I've been noting on forums, my guild, my friends list, and people in general: Garrisons are fun for 2-3 weeks, but bare bones and boring in the long run.

And no, content is coming slower. They held BRF back because they simply don't have anything. This long after the release of MoP, we had an entire new patch. Saying that content isn't coming slower is just blatantly dishonest. Its very notably slower. Heck, 5.3 was one of the weakest patches ever in WoW, and 5.4 lasted longer than any patch ever: at least after the ICC patch we got a little mini-patch prior to the next expansion. Content has been coming at a snails pace since 5.3. Hell, WoD itself has the least release content of any expansion: fewer dungeons, less raid content, less pvp content, even less questing, than any prior expansion at release.

The problem with other MMOs that I've played is that they don't make me care enough about the world or my character to invest much time in it/them. It seems like most MMOs, I get to the level cap, poke around a bit, and quit. Rift, WildStar, GW2 I all have level capped characters but I've never spent more than a few hours past that on any of them. Preparing for raids and progressing in raids is an enormous time investment and MMO developers need to get better at making that investment compelling if they want to compete with WoW seriously.

HINT: For all you other MMO developers, WoW has a major weapon on its side: familiarity. I know wtf I'm doing when I get to level cap, cause I've been doing it for 8 years. Rift, WildStar, GW2 need to make it a lot more clear for new players what they can do when they hit level cap if they want them to stick around.

To be fair, I didnt bring up Wildstar and GW2 because one is just plain dead, and both of them are well known for lacking content.

[SilvaAger]

No mmo that you name has a growing subscription count (unless free game like rift or 1-time pay like GW:2). And those have dwindling paying users, not growing paying users. Every mmo besides WoW right now is slowly falling.

[Kenshin]

Subscriber number doesn't exactly equal best mmo. As if wow had the best amount of content, raid, community and other side things to have fun spend your time online, I would still be playing wow as I've played it from 2005 until I quit it in 2011 for FFXIV.

It gives me better value for my subscription, faster content cycles and lot of varied stuff to do. And said they want the last patch to only be about 2 month until their expansion launches, vs wows 1 year with no new content. They keep saying they will no longer go that long, but have done it for 3 expansions now.

FFXIV is also winning many awards since its launch and has better reviews on multiple review sites.

My main reason for not giving up wow sooner was because I had a lot of time and effort invested in the game and didn't wanna start all over in a new mmo, until Cataclysm made me just get to sad to continue, specially with the poor death wing raid going to last over a year again.

FFXIV has given me a new decent content patch every 3 months, and some of those patches, specially patch 2.5 almost had as much content than the whole expansion of Cataclysm

But everyone has different tastes. Wow no longer suits me, but I love xiv and specially their Dev team for being so open with us and talking to us

- - - Updated - - -

No mmo that you name has a growing subscription count (unless free game like rift or 1-time pay like GW:2). And those have dwindling paying users, not growing paying users. Every mmo besides WoW right now is slowly falling.

FFXIV has a steady increase of new players as I keep running into them on my server.
At launch xiv had around 650.000 subs, now latest numbers I've seen has been 2.6 million, 1.5 years after launch. That's pretty darn good imo

[Acidbaron]

after returning to WoW i've come to the conclusion that subscription wise, it's the worst mmo out there for money spend to content received and their next patch doesn't seem to change much of that. Looking back it seems patches and even expansions are adding less content.

So i don't know how long i'll last but i think not that long perhaps clear BRF but after that it will be hard to find a motivation to keep paying.


Are we even paying for content in WoW anymore or just out of habit? I say the later looking at other games, perhaps those games not being at the top make them work twice as hard to get content out of the door more frequently while Blizzard seems to have grown complacent since the end of wrath.

[Mikael123]

WoW is slipping while the competition is gaining ground.

Based on what? Paying subscribers? WoW is still light years ahead of it's competitors.

Many will also disagree with you about the quality of the expansion. Myself included.

Nope, the sky is not falling.

[Toppy]

No mmo that you name has a growing subscription count (unless free game like rift or 1-time pay like GW:2). And those have dwindling paying users, not growing paying users. Every mmo besides WoW right now is slowly falling.

EVE online has actually always had a growing subscriber base. FFXIV, going from server populations, is on the rise. I can't speak much on others, but I know that the ones I mentioned all do have very steady bases.

Note, this thread isn't about how horrible and bad WoW is. Its more so about how WoW is faring in the current MMO market. Blizz held back a finished raid to coincide with the end of the first financial quarter: BRF comes out two months prior to the end of the quarter. The LFR difficulty: the one the largest percentage of the playerbase takes part in, ends the same week as the quarter: it'll be the time with the most subs of people wanting to finish the raid. That bit of information is troubling.

[Thyranne]

EVE online has actually always had a growing subscriber base. FFXIV, going from server populations, is on the rise. I can't speak much on others, but I know that the ones I mentioned all do have very steady bases.

Note, this thread isn't about how horrible and bad WoW is. Its more so about how WoW is faring in the current MMO market. Blizz held back a finished raid to coincide with the end of the first financial quarter: BRF comes out two months prior to the end of the quarter. The LFR difficulty: the one the largest percentage of the playerbase takes part in, ends the same week as the quarter: it'll be the time with the most subs of people wanting to finish the raid. That bit of information is troubling.

It's actually 1 month before the end of the quarter.

[Toppy]

It's actually 1 month before the end of the quarter.

Quarter ends at the end of March. BRF launches the start of Feb. Its technically 3 days short of two months. The last LFR wing launches the same week as the end of the quarter.

[Thyranne]

Quarter ends at the end of March. BRF launches the start of Feb. Its technically 3 days short of two months. The last LFR wing launches the same week as the end of the quarter.

Oh well we 2 are right then (Never gonna admit that I'm wrong).

[IxilaFA]

I suppose I'm going from what I've been noting on forums, my guild, my friends list, and people in general: Garrisons are fun for 2-3 weeks, but bare bones and boring in the long run.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. Haven't heard the same complaints that you have, really.

And no, content is coming slower. They held BRF back because they simply don't have anything. This long after the release of MoP, we had an entire new patch. Saying that content isn't coming slower is just blatantly dishonest. Its very notably slower. Heck, 5.3 was one of the weakest patches ever in WoW, and 5.4 lasted longer than any patch ever: at least after the ICC patch we got a little mini-patch prior to the next expansion. Content has been coming at a snails pace since 5.3. Hell, WoD itself has the least release content of any expansion: fewer dungeons, less raid content, less pvp content, even less questing, than any prior expansion at release.

Claiming they held BRF back because they had no content is ridiculous. They held it back because of the extensive number of complaints about Heart of Fear / Terrace releasing too soon after Mogu'shan Vaults. As for the less release content in WoD, it's an argument that's been argued to death and I'm absolutely tired of it; you can look around these forums for multiple points of view on how much content Warlords truly added. I'm not going to repeat it and get into this argument again.

[QUOTE=Kenshin;31904430
It gives me better value for my subscription, faster content cycles and lot of varied stuff to do. And said they want the last patch to only be about 2 month until their expansion launches, vs wows 1 year with no new content. They keep saying they will no longer go that long, but have done it for 3 expansions now. [/quote]
What's funny is you're willing to take them at their word but then don't believe anything Blizzard says. As for "faster content cycles," value of that content has to be figured into the equation as well. I'd rather do one well-done story-driven questline in WoW versus an entire zone of loosely linked quests that don't tell a coherent story.

FFXIV is also winning many awards since its launch and has better reviews on multiple review sites.

Mind linking me to some of these awards? Final Fantasy 14 was such an abysmal failure that they had to redo the entire game. As for reviews, you're really going to take full stock of those? Most people who bash World of Warcraft on review sites have a personal bias against it or are just trolls. And no I don't just mean fan-generated reviews either.

FFXIV has given me a new decent content patch every 3 months, and some of those patches, specially patch 2.5 almost had as much content than the whole expansion of Cataclysm

Really? Patch 2.5 added 5 new levels, 6 raids, 30 raid bosses, 9 dungeons, and 5 zones of content and questing? If that's true I'll have to try this game out.

You also have to remember that Final Fantasy 14 has been out for less than half the time of World of Warcraft. Back in 2008, Blizzard was pumping out content pretty frequently as well. Once you start to run out of content though, then you have to push your dev team harder and then people start expecting more. That's why so many MMOs fail at the 5 or 6 year mark and have to "relaunch" and spend more time and money to develop a brand new launch.

But everyone has different tastes. Wow no longer suits me, but I love xiv and specially their Dev team for being so open with us and talking to us

Blizzard is open with us, but people fill their twitter feed with trolls and complaints. Can't really blame them for not communicating as much as a Dev team that has far fewer fans to deal with.

FFXIV has a steady increase of new players as I keep running into them on my server.
At launch xiv had around 650.000 subs, now latest numbers I've seen has been 2.6 million, 1.5 years after launch. That's pretty darn good imo

I'd like to know how you know they are new players and not just rerolls. Also Warcraft constantly has an influx of new players as well. But since most of us have been playing for a decade we just don't notice them. I've met tons of people who just started playing in late Cataclysm / MoP, etc.


Look, we all are allowed to have our favorite games and everything, but let's just be objective here. WoW has a popular following, Final Fantasy 14 has a popular following. I don't get why people always feel the need to come in and decry how wonderful other MMOs are in a WoW forum. It's like you need to convince yourself that your game is better or something. Honestly, play the game you want to play so long as you enjoy it. I know plenty of people who have played both FF14 and WoW.

[Kenshin]

And another thing I don't like about Blizzard, is how they announce cool features etc and hype the new expansion like crazy, only to see more of those features either changed to something less fun or removed entirely making their marketing false to what you pay for and do not receive.

And lots of bugs and issues people report during the 6 months beta testing, is still not sorted when game even releases.
Makes me feel that I cannot trust them to give us what they say they will.

In xiv during a livestream Q&A, a player asked them about something that was supposed to be in game was not there. They asked themselves Is that true? We will look into this after stream, and 3 days later it was added to the game. That is just really cool way for developers to react upon

[Toppy]

Claiming they held BRF back because they had no content is ridiculous. They held it back because of the extensive number of complaints about Heart of Fear / Terrace releasing too soon after Mogu'shan Vaults. As for the less release content in WoD, it's an argument that's been argued to death and I'm absolutely tired of it; you can look around these forums for multiple points of view on how much content Warlords truly added. I'm not going to repeat it and get into this argument again.

What complaints?

Mind linking me to some of these awards? Final Fantasy 14 was such an abysmal failure that they had to redo the entire game. As for reviews, you're really going to take full stock of those? Most people who bash World of Warcraft on review sites have a personal bias against it or are just trolls. And no I don't just mean fan-generated reviews either.

Quiet a few infact:http://lmgtfy.com/?q=FFXIV+awards Also, yes, FFXIV did bomb. But they closed the game and re-released FFXIV as a whole new game.

You also have to remember that Final Fantasy 14 has been out for less than half the time of World of Warcraft. Back in 2008, Blizzard was pumping out content pretty frequently as well. Once you start to run out of content though, then you have to push your dev team harder and then people start expecting more. That's why so many MMOs fail at the 5 or 6 year mark and have to "relaunch" and spend more time and money to develop a brand new launch.

Oh, no doubt blizz used to do lots of fast content. But, as been said in this thread, that is no longer the case at all. For almost two years WoW content has been at a snails pace, with an expansion that is the smallest ever.

I'd like to know how you know they are new players and not just rerolls. Also Warcraft constantly has an influx of new players as well. But since most of us have been playing for a decade we just don't notice them. I've met tons of people who just started playing in late Cataclysm / MoP, etc.

Whose being anecdotal now?

Look, we all are allowed to have our favorite games and everything, but let's just be objective here. WoW has a popular following, Final Fantasy 14 has a popular following. I don't get why people always feel the need to come in and decry how wonderful other MMOs are in a WoW forum. It's like you need to convince yourself that your game is better or something. Honestly, play the game you want to play so long as you enjoy it. I know plenty of people who have played both FF14 and WoW.

Was hoping for a discussion on WoW in the modern MMO market. You can't do that without bringing up other MMO.

[Gimlix]

You can't compare WoW to any other MMORPG, because WoW itself is MILES ahead of any MMORPG out there.
And yes i played them, and hell yes, if you compare them to the king WoW, then they are nothing but garbage.

[zorkuus]

You can't compare WoW to any other MMORPG, because WoW itself is MILES ahead of any MMORPG out there.
And yes i played them, and hell yes, if you compare them to the king WoW, then they are nothing but garbage.

While I agree on some level but it's not as simple as that. Many people have so much time invested in WoW that it's hard to let go. When they do they still come back for the next expansion, even if it's only briefly.

[wachimingo]

gw2 is the best mmorpg if you only care about pvp.