What makes WoW better than any other MMORPG?

[schwarzkopf]

WoW has one strong thing going for it.

Immersion.

I've tried other games with better graphics, better storylines, better classes ... but each of them I walked into and felt separated from the game.

With WoW - I feel like I'm part of the game, I walk through the forest and the wolf just caught a rabbit to eat. In the cities, there are children playing. There is noise and colour and activity everywhere.

[finskee]

Players failure to accept anything else.

See there it is again. "The only reason you like wow is because you have tunnelvision." It doesn't say anything except: "I just want to make fun of everyone here for being too stupid to play other games." Or better yet... "I just want to make fun of people". It does not take into account that people love to play wow. It does not contribute to the conversation. It defines the poster as a 'hater'. He is apparently lost in the wrong thread. Possibly the wrong forums. I question why he has nothing better to do with his time. I think I figured it out. He loves wow.

[Toralin]

I was trying to work this out the other day, my two favourite MMOs are WoW and FFXI. I think the reason is the same reason why everyone says certain old films are better, etc - it's just that they saw it first.

If you took a new gamer and gave them the option of any game, with no ties (like friends playing WoW, etc), they'd probably choose Tera/Rift/SWTOR over WoW, FFXI, Everquest or whatever.

There really hasn't been anything on the market yet that's different enough or better that's actually worth switching to, personally. I'd still play FFXI now if they didn't ruin it with raising the cap from 75, but that's for another conversation...

[Goatfish]

lol... ok. It reads like, "if you still like wow its because you have tunnelvision."

Partially true, you can't say something is the best of it's class without having good knowledge and/or experience of everything in that class. It's like saying apples are the best fruit when you've never eaten a banana.

You really like cake!

I'm a chef.

Sigh... here we go.
Which is it? Did the game start out being accessible, or did it evolve to be more accessible?

You never played Everquest did you? Vanilla WoW is around 10 times more accessible than Everquest was. I enjoyed EQ even back then. Now Wow is basically a glory hole where anyone can stick there junk in it for 10 minutes and come out somewhat satisfied. It is the McDonalds of MMO's. There is a point where accessibility becomes a bad thing, though it is definitely not the only reason I left.

[finskee]

Partially true, you can't say something is the best of it's class without having good knowledge and/or experience of everything in that class. It's like saying apples are the best fruit when you've never eaten a banana.

But again, you aren't talking to a room full of reporters. You are talking to a room full of Wow players. They have no duty to go out, try every game, and come back to a wow fan site, and be fair and balanced. On the other hand you can't also tell me that I have not played other games at all, and that is the only reason I like wow. You have to be fair, talk to people, not be like... 'you're all doin it wrong thats why you like wow!' If you like a game, and you recommend it, and people don't like it... why make up reasons for why they don't like it? Just listen to what they say.

You never played Everquest did you? Vanilla WoW is around 10 times more accessible than Everquest was. I enjoyed EQ even back then. Now Wow is basically a glory hole where anyone can stick there junk in it for 10 minutes and come out somewhat satisfied. It is the McDonalds of MMO's. There is a point where accessibility becomes a bad thing, though it is definitely not the only reason I left.

You missed my point. You say that people are unhappy because of the direction wow has gone. I'm saying its the same as it always was. You even admitted that it was EQ but accessible. Why did you play it then, if you knew all along, it was accessible?

Fricken mcdonald's again. Wtf?

[Goatfish]

But again, you aren't talking to a room full of reporters. You are talking to a room full of Wow players. They have no duty to go out, try every game, and come back to a wow fan site, and be fair and balanced. On the other hand you can't also tell me that I have not played other games at all, and that is the only reason I like wow. You have to be fair, talk to people, not be like... 'you're all doin it wrong thats why you like wow!' If you like a game, and you recommend it, and people don't like it... why make up reasons for why they don't like it? Just listen to what they say.

Aye, I can listen to what people say. But when they bash other games calling them terrible just since they didn't take over WoW, or they didn't like the 1-10 tutorial zone they have no right to be talking here. I haven't played every MMO, but I'm not going to bash ones I haven't tried just because they aren't WoW, and I would never say any MMO is 'the best' without trying them all. I'm the sort of person that would say "X mmo is the best I've tried in Y section of the game". When someone says the WoW community is the most helpful and friendly of any gaming community I will call them out on their bullshit.

You missed my point. You say that people are unhappy because of the direction wow has gone. I'm saying its the same as it always was. You even admitted that it was EQ but accessible. Why did you play it then, if you knew all along, it was accessible?

Fricken mcdonald's again. Wtf?

You missed my point. I said some people are unhappy with the direction WoW has gone. Some people probably left because they had bad eggs that morning. Some people left because their game card ran out and they didn't want to buy a new one. The difference in accessibility between vanilla and cataclysm wow is light years, everyone on this thread has to admit it. WoW is the McDonalds of gaming because it is so widespread, so accessible, and so cheap. When someone thinks of MMO's they think of WoW. When someone thinks of fast food they usually think of McDonalds. Though also as of recently the quality of WoW has also gone down, much like McDonalds which used to be a small town home style restaurant before it was franchised and sold pre-cooked, frozen for months food.

[reohh]

It very simple, WoW is better because its what all my friends play. I don't like playing MMO's without knowing anyone, its gets very boring easily

[Deleted]

I keep coming back for many reasons. The most important one is I like the classes, quests, dungeons, gameplay, etc.

Another reason is that I love the way it looks. All the other games are so dark and grim and try to be realistic (and fail miserably). I like the colors, the enormous variation in spells, the gear, the mounts, etc.

I also miss the familiarity and knowledge in other games. I played SWTOR for a while and I hated that I had no idea what kind of mounts there were, where to get them, where to do dailies, what dungeons there were, etc. and I do know all that and more in WoW. When I log in to WoW, I know exactly what there is to do and I miss that in other games. There's a lot less info on the web on other games as well.

I miss the fantastic variation in addons and UI mods. I have a certain personal style and I find it hard to play when the UI looks like a mess, like in most other games.

In the end, I never found a game that is better then WoW. Just more of the same and if I am to play a game that is more of the same, I'd rather just play the original, instead of learning everything in a new game and building up a char there.

Because you are new to game that is why you do not know were things are, when you started playing wow it was the same.

No offence but sw tor UI is far more superb to wow one and it looks good so why change it, and since addons are not allowed something like gearscore and recount are not allowed so I would say it is good.

[KCguy]

I like all the features and stuff Blizzard has added over the years, not to mention that because it's been out for so long there's lots of stuff you can do. Insane title, exalted title, mounts, pets etc.

[Deleted]

My answer is class design. I've tried Perfect World, Rift and SW:TOR. I couldn't find any class that felt like playing with my druid, warlock or shaman. If WoW is 3D then others are 2D, they are kind of colorless and plain.
Other MMO-s may have good features or better graphics, but they worth nothing if you can't find a class that you enjoy.

[gnomepatrol]

I think the biggest draw is the fluidity of the gameplay and content. Content speaks for itself, as much as people complain there is really a ton of stuff to do within the game. Now to the main part, the fluidity of the gameplay. Blizzard has nailed it better than any other company out there. I have played many an MMO and none have come close in feel to the way World of Warcraft does. Nearly all of the other MMOs I have played feel clunky; the animations, casting, movement all feel forced and awkward. WoW is smooth and everything transitions in a way that is pleasing to the eye. Not to mention that the art style works incredibly well and makes the game accessible to those with mid to low range systems.

[BeepBeep]

Make makes it better? 5 years ontop of the "current" other leading MMOs
A huge fan-base from the 90's via RTS.
More lore then you can throw at the Red shirt Guy.

[finskee]

Aye, I can listen to what people say.

When someone says the WoW community is the most helpful and friendly of any gaming community I will call them out on their bullshit.

You seem to not understand what you say. You also seem to be not very nice.

The difference in accessibility between vanilla and cataclysm wow is light years, everyone on this thread has to admit it.

Jeffrey Kaplan: I think the source is the focus on fun. I think a lot of people got carried away with the concept of an MMO from a very high level of community management, or community manipulation, or an MMO as a social experiment. But what we did when we were working on WoW was focus on the fact that it was a game, and if one person played it all by themselves the game should be fun, and not to rely on traditional MMO thoughts of the time, which was forcing people to interact with each other, forcing a slow progression, and being overly punishing on the players. We just wanted to make an experience that was fun whether you wanted to play it by yourself, or with other people."

"Make a really deep game, in a really rich world, and then later, focus on, in the later stages of development, how can we make that as accessible as possible through smart user interface choices, and really sort of simple gameplay at first that introduces you to the more complex mechanics the more into the game you want to get."

That guy played EQ. He loved EQ. He was a GM and RL in EQ. He was the lead designer for vanilla wow, BC and WOTLK. He apparently thinks that the whole idea of wow all along was access. If you don't get it... maybe you just don't understand why wow IS so popular? It is not because they make a crappy cheeseburger. WOW IS NOT BAD FOR YOU. Maybe the fact that it is so accessable is EXACTLY why it is the BEST still. Maybe you should read everyone's comments on this page and realize many people still love it. Let them. Or you can keep arguing. Fine with me. It doesn't change anything does it.

Maybe the reason it seemed easier to you as you went was because you got better at it!

And one more thing. Stop it with the mcdonalds already or I'm going to get crazy.

[Kickbuttmario]

See there it is again. "The only reason you like wow is because you have tunnelvision." It doesn't say anything except: "I just want to make fun of everyone here for being too stupid to play other games." Or better yet... "I just want to make fun of people". It does not take into account that people love to play wow. It does not contribute to the conversation. It defines the poster as a 'hater'. He is apparently lost in the wrong thread. Possibly the wrong forums. I question why he has nothing better to do with his time. I think I figured it out. He loves wow.

What are you talking about? That forum poster isn't even entirely wrong.

[bromogrin]

I have tried rift and tor personally. The thing that makes me not keep playing them is basically just habit and history.

I love all my WoW toons I have spent a lot time on them raiding with them and getting achievements and just lots of history and memories in those pixels! and to go to a fresh mmo and just see this hallow "stranger" of a character i think makes it harder for me to get into it.

[Goatfish]

<snip>

It's fine, ignore mine and every other ex-wowers arguments purely since we don't enjoy to the ends of the earth a game you and others do. Keep linking random quotes from game designers spouting it as gospel from the holy book. I really couldn't give a damn how much more you want to twist words to try and pretend WoW is a diamond the size of the moon.

Keep saying it's the best though, because the argument of it being the best because there are the most players is completely dumb. Are the lower class the best since there are the most of them? Or are the upper class the best since they have the most money? Or are apples the best fruit since they sell the most? Are fast food joints the best because they get more customers than the 5-star place? The whole argument is dumb, and if nothing else proves it... the sheer fact that every expansion takes things from other games to make their game better proves that they are not the best in that aspect does. It means even the developers believe they are lacking in that area because they are not the best. Because they didn't tunnel vision WoW as you put it blindly believing it's the greatest. They play and look at other games and each aspect, and figure out what they can do better.

God forbid an actual player does that and criticizes the holy goat right?

[finskee]

It's fine, ignore mine and every other ex-wowers arguments purely since we don't enjoy to the ends of the earth a game you and others do. Keep linking random quotes from game designers spouting it as gospel from the holy book. I really couldn't give a damn how much more you want to twist words to try and pretend WoW is a diamond the size of the moon.

Keep saying it's the best though, because the argument of it being the best because there are the most players is completely dumb. Are the lower class the best since there are the most of them? Or are the upper class the best since they have the most money? Or are apples the best fruit since they sell the most? Are fast food joints the best because they get more customers than the 5-star place? The whole argument is dumb, and if nothing else proves it... the sheer fact that every expansion takes things from other games to make their game better proves that they are not the best in that aspect does. It means even the developers believe they are lacking in that area because they are not the best. Because they didn't tunnel vision WoW as you put it blindly believing it's the greatest. They play and look at other games and each aspect, and figure out what they can do better.

God forbid an actual player does that and criticizes the holy goat right?

Fine you win. Wow is not a diamond the size of the moon. You, on the other hand, are a real gem though.

All these are your words. You claim to not enjoy wow:

I aim for the top and do what I can, and then spend the other 6 days farming gold, afking in Stormwind, leveling a 7th class to 85, or carrying friends through instances to get them geared too.

I generate money just by logging in once a day on my 5 maxed alchemists, transmuting 1g.50s Volatile life into 15g Volatile Air once a day.

3 different 85's up to gear standard for DS, cleared it on normal and lfr on all 3 for 2 weeks, cleared heroic FL a couple times, soloed 80% of the BC and Wrath bosses on my DK and duoed most the rest, then finally did a couple heroic fights in DS...

I myself actually pvp'd one season basically long enough to just get gear and hit 2k my first month ever in arena.

I once solo healed Heroic 10 Anub'arak

and next thing I knew people were yelling at me in vent as I was auto-running past the boss wiping the raid, apparently 20 minutes had passed and they were waiting for me to get back from afk and I'd fallen asleep on my keyboard.

Ethereals would be nice too, and I've always been a fan of the ogres.

You show the typical signs of 'my class was ignored and im still bitter':

Anyone else get cheesed when they see a post like Ghostcrawlers most recent one.

Such as when ghostcrawler himself descended and was going to buff chain heal jump range to 10 meters from 8, when it was already 10 meters.

You mean people defending the lead developer of the game when he didn't even know the game he was changing, let alone a fact that was known by every raiding resto shaman and most other raiding healers at the time?

You seem to not understand what your problem is:

Believe it or not some people like things to be special

There are several people like myself who fit under the genius level of intelligence

I'm a Paranoid Schizophrenic with an IQ of ~155

One could argue that in order to manipulate people one has to have some level of intelligence above the norm.

In a room of 200 geniuses you are going to have at least 5 assholes with barely any social skills

By that I mean of course that most of what you post is barely worth reading, and much less replying to, but have a strange quality to them that just begs to be shit on because of how ignorant and self absorbed they appear.

get off your self-entitled high horse please.

If you really want me to go scrounge up some better examples of blind fanboyism and flag waving I definitely can.

And best of all you say you don't like wow? Out of 240 posts on mmo-champ, you have 138 posts in wow general forums, 39 in MOP forums, and 3 in the League of Legends and none in any other game forum. WTF? Admit it. You are the biggest raging drooling fanboi ever! I cannot make people like you up! I love you man! You and I are like 2 peas in a pod! I'm so excited to see what happens next my toes are tingling! <3 <3 <3

Eventually you lose the taste of the plain vanilla cake you enjoyed and you just don't care for the game as much.

Yeah yeah, I get it. Just say that next time. Or better yet go play Tera. I seriously doubt anyone in wow will miss a person like you.

P.S. ITS THE BEST!

[Deleted]

My short answer to your question (I started to play with the TBC release) is "The WoW works".

The long answer. I tried AoC, Warhammer and Aion and all of them had either technical or content or gameplay problems. AoC had lot of bugs and the gameplay was to complicated. Warhammer gameplay felt strange, the skills just felt useless and the open world RvR was boring. It had a good PvP scenarios but I couldn't enjoy them because of the gameplay. Aion was nice, the gameplay was mediocre but there was no actuall content.

What I like about WoW is. There is good PvE content, which are raids for me. The gameplay is easy to understand and the skills feel like they actually do something. The combination of skills allows to get better results without necessity to use the whole keyboard. It works on my computer without any major problem.

[Eroginous]

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

1. It's a Blizzard product.

2. For an MMO that's constantly in development, it's typically highly polished and well developed.

3. Content is unparalleled. Many people will say 'X raid only has a few bosses' or 'they haven't come out with any new pvp maps in years.' The fact of the matter is that there is a buttload of stuff to do between raiding and pvp.

4. Other games crutch on a few main features, then fail to deliver on everything else. THIS IS THE BIGGEST REASON WHY WOW IS #1.

5. Blizzard does not release content until it's ready (or any game, for that matter). While they have server issues upon releases, it's due to the overwhelming number of people trying to log in at once, causing problems for the servers (not Blizzard's fault by any means).

6. Nostalgia/establishment. Many players have great memories of things they did in Wow, along with accounts that have a lot of time invested. It's not easy to give all that up.

7. Customization/flexibility. Blizzard allows anyone to create mods for the game to enhance the experience of the players, as well as allowing players to level their characters any way they want to that is available in the game. You're not stuck to one zone or set of quests (except for Worgen/Goblins/Pandas), for the entirety of your character.

8. Character distinction. Everything about the game offers a distinct experience from other players. Each race, class, spec, ability, and talent system is different from each other, and they are all easily distinguishable. If a Warlock Fears, you know it was a warlock who did it and you know it was Fear. Gnomes are very different from Tauren. A holy paladin looks/behaves differently from a priest, shaman, or druid.


There are probably more reasons.

[Goatfish]

And best of all you say you don't like wow? Out of 240 posts on mmo-champ, you have 138 posts in wow general forums, 39 in MOP forums, and 0 in the Tera forums. WTF? Admit it. You are the biggest raging drooling fanboi ever! I cannot make people like you up! I love you man! You and I are like 2 peas in a pod! I'm so excited to see what happens next my toes are tingling! <3 <3 <3

Yeah yeah, I get it. Just say that next time. Or better yet go play Tera. I seriously doubt anyone in wow will miss a person like you.

So basically you took a good 20-ish minutes to copy paste some of my previous posts out of context to try and prove your own point. Even though everything you quoted is just about how I used to play and what kind of person I am. As for where I post, it's perfectly normal for me. In the 5-6 years I played WoW I made 0 posts on mmo-champ and maybe 10 total on the WoW forums not including bumping guild recruitment posts. Once I am done with a game and can look at things objectively is when I start to post opinions. You wouldn't write up a research paper for a public forum when you haven't even finished your research would you? Give me a few more months when MoP comes out and I know nothing about what the game has changed to and I guarantee my posts in this area will diminish to about 0.

Also I agree, I doubt really anyone not in the hardcore raiding scene would miss me. Most of those I knew in that scene are done with the game too, and the few that are left still try to get me to come back because I have some skill, but more importantly, because I work my ass off to not be worthless in everything I do.