2015 and still "World of Warcraft is responsible for killing the MMO genre".

[Jinxz]

The biggest complaint about WoD so far is the lack of compelling single player/small group activity. Try again.

what is there to do outside of your garrison?

[Deleted]

To be fair I do miss the times when being atleast socioable was pretty much necessary to succeed for most players.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

what is there to do outside of your garrison?

Raiding, Pvp, Challenge modes, rare mobs, and just general exploring.

[Ballrug]

The players have decided that the RP doesn't need to be in the MMORPG, and the more vocal players seem to think that pretty much every activity should be competitive/min-maxed in some way.

You can create all the games that work differently that you want, but they'll have 10,000 or 100,000 subscribers and WoW will still have millions.

[Deleted]

Well WoW did implement certain stuff you expect in MMOs nowadays like
LFG.

I love LFG tools. It's so much better than spamming trade with "LF Tank Mechanar HC" for hours.

But it could be said that these matchmaking tools do take away some of the importance of actually talking to other people. Instead of meeting up and chatting while waiting, you are being put into a dungeon with four silent strangers. You do the run and due to the ease of the content that is matchmaked, close to no communication is necessary. The boss dies, you part ways if you're lucky someone types "Gg" or "bb".

You know, I get you. I remember spending hours trying to find people to run hc MGT at the time, but also spending hours in trying to clear it. I think the state of heroics has been sad since WotLK, when all you do is mass pull and just AoE of course you won't need any social interaction at all. Make the heroics take group effort, CC and coordination, and there you have the social aspect back again.

[Blufossa]

Face it, wow today is a browser based dungeon grinder with no required social interaction. That is not an mmo, that is an online action game.

You mean garrisons? Something you do only like twice a day? Erm, ok.

I still interact with people on whatever faction I'm playing. Whether by character or by Gchat/trade chat/etc.

[Deleted]

Join a guild? I login to WoW to play with friends so it feels like a social game to me.

[Selah]

I don't know if this guy remembers what it was like before WoW, but it was not this vast well of MMORPGS floating everywhere that were perfect and wonderful. Reality is there were very few before Vanilla launched and they were mostly garbage. It's only because of the massive success of WoW that we even saw the MMORPG genre really take off. After people realized that there was a market for this genre of games did they start to invest in it. I'd be willing to bet that we wouldn't even see games like Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, ESO, the Final Fantasy MMO, Crowfall, SWtoR, Wildstar, and the countless others if it were not for the success of WoW. No one would have wanted to invest in the MMORPG market.

[MoanaLisa]

I don't think that making things better is terribly difficult though. Silly me. One thing I would do immediately is allow people to associate themselves with more than one guild. I would also create larger social structures like D3's communities where people could gather to accomplish certain things (group finder takes a step that direction but only a step and not in the sense of fostering community) or associate with others of their class or whatever they could think of in the way of interests.

I believe the one-guild-at-a-time requirement is a huge thing in stifling social activity. Let people move around, sign up with different sized communities at once and stop this nonsense that guild membership is like a serially monogamous marriage.

That would be a start. And encourage social communities to be cross-realm.

[Ballrug]

I don't think that making things better is terribly difficult though. Silly me. One thing I would do immediately is allow people to associate themselves with more than one guild. I would also create larger social structures like D3's communities where people could gather to accomplish certain things (group finder takes a step that direction but only a step and not in the sense of fostering community) or associate with others of their class or whatever they could think of in the way of interests.

I believe the one-guild-at-a-time requirement is a huge thing in stifling social activity. Let people move around, sign up with different sized communities at once and stop this nonsense that guild membership is like a serially monogamous marriage.

That would be a start. And encourage social communities to be cross-realm.

The lack of content (essentially, the total lack) targeted to "social" difficulty is IMO the worst aspect of WoD.

If you want to go raid with your buddies, they need to be at least halfway competent, especially because the tuning seems to be especially unfavorable for small (10-player) groups vs 25-30 player groups.

If you want to go run 5-mans with your buddies ... wait, why would you do that, aside from once to do the quests?

Maybe you want to go farm Laughing Skull rep in the Pit with your buddies. Yes, sure, this is all of your buddies looking at you and Laughing at your Skull.

[Gumboy]

The lack of content (essentially, the total lack) targeted to "social" difficulty is IMO the worst aspect of WoD.

If you want to go raid with your buddies, they need to be at least halfway competent, especially because the tuning seems to be especially unfavorable for small (10-player) groups vs 25-30 player groups.

If you want to go run 5-mans with your buddies ... wait, why would you do that, aside from once to do the quests?

Maybe you want to go farm Laughing Skull rep in the Pit with your buddies. Yes, sure, this is all of your buddies looking at you and Laughing at your Skull.

So because your friends don't have the same interests as you...you don't think anyone likes to group up?


Try challenge modes? Try PvP?

[Ballrug]

So because your friends don't have the same interests as you...you don't think anyone likes to group up?


Try challenge modes? Try PvP?

Challenge modes? What? Why?

I said "social" difficulty. I don't think sisters and moms are going to like CMs.

Likewise, I don't think sisters and moms are going to like BGs filled with rageaholic teens and bots.

[Deleted]

Another perspective speaks the truth, another article for MMO-C to rip to shreds.

The view never changes.

Back in vanilla the players weren't different, they were the same teenagers and YAs that liked to play WoW more than go to parties. Those people, in 2005, weren't the slightest bit more socially involved than anyone playing WoW right now. The incentives for social interaction, specifically socially based content, rather than focusing on social structures, do not exist anymore.

Social structures, more guilds, multi-guilds, whatever. It doesn't matter, those are dead without any reason to exist. They don't make the game any more social, they don't make the world any more lively. They are dead lacking incentive.

Of course, though, Blizzard catered to the side that most devolved the original USP of the game - the people who whined when they didn't have any way to play the game without another virtual soul in sight from level 1 to cap, and beyond. It's a fucking MMO. Multiplayer.

Yes, Blizzard is so, so overly catering, that they actually ignored the fact that this is meant to be a multiplayer game for their own whiny consumers sake. Those whiny consumers now argue that 'Multiplayer doesnt real', and complain that multiplayer doesn't technically mean socially interactive. It just means a bunch of lemmings on the same server that are meant to admire their own special snowflake status.

Oh, deary me.. Did we just go full circle? Something something, non-accessible content.. something snowflake.. something something, aspirations for an unreachable, world-enlarging goal..

[Deleted]

The lack of content (essentially, the total lack) targeted to "social" difficulty is IMO the worst aspect of WoD.

Right, i wont call the current raiding difficulties "social" at all, as it only adresses the military like raiding guilds. Organization. Yes, sir, raidleader, sir! And those who dont perform may use LFR.

[Saucerian]

Another perspective speaks the truth, another article for MMO-C to rip to shreds.

The view never changes.

Back in vanilla the players weren't different, they were the same teenagers and YAs that liked to play WoW more than go to parties. Those people, in 2005, weren't the slightest bit more socially involved than anyone playing WoW right now. The incentives for social interaction, specifically socially based content, rather than focusing on social structures, do not exist anymore.

Social structures, more guilds, multi-guilds, whatever. It doesn't matter, those are dead without any reason to exist. They don't make the game any more social, they don't make the world any more lively. They are dead lacking incentive.

Of course, though, Blizzard catered to the side that most devolved the original USP of the game - the people who whined when they didn't have any way to play the game without another virtual soul in sight from level 1 to cap, and beyond. It's a fucking MMO. Multiplayer.

Yes, Blizzard is so, so overly catering, that they actually ignored the fact that this is meant to be a multiplayer game for their own whiny consumers sake. Those whiny consumers now argue that 'Multiplayer doesnt real', and complain that multiplayer doesn't technically mean socially interactive. It just means a bunch of lemmings on the same server that are meant to admire their own special snowflake status.

Oh, deary me.. Did we just go full circle? Something something, non-accessible content.. something snowflake.. something something, aspirations for an unreachable, world-enlarging goal..

Ha. There's a big dose of perspective. It's true; we're all really good at forgetting history, aren't we? WoW became king for two reasons, one being the multiplayer part made mostly optional. The other being the Warcraft IP. 10 years later and even the multiplayer portions require but a modicum of social interaction, with automated matchmaking for everything. WoW became, and grows moreso every day, analagous to social media games where you don't interact with others so much as do stuff alone and broadcast it to everyone. "I looted a shiny, look at me."

WoW is king because it gives players of such games what they really want, because they now prioritize marketing and profit, and because it's the biggest. They keep the addicts addicted, and the addicts keep their friends in the game, refusing to play anything else. Complete and diverse? Feh. This game hasn't innovated anything since at least Cata. Other MMOs have tried only to be smothered by it. Starved into niche status, F2P, or shut down.

Someone here has a sig pointing out that WoW has made over $10B in its lifetime. Does it feel like a $10B game? Does it feel like the quality of the current content reflects that at all?

[ItachiZaku]

Even when it is social, it's usually negative, so I switch to DPS and stop paying attention to everything except the next alliance I'm about to kill.

[Deleted]

Right, i wont call the current raiding difficulties "social" at all, as it only adresses the military like raiding guilds. Organization. Yes, sir, raidleader, sir! And those who dont perform may use LFR.

Lol military raiding guilds.
You seriously love to overreact on this subject in every thread, don't you.

[A Dark Knight]

"WoW has systematically obliterated every MMORPG that came before it"
no, wow didnt do that, the companies who made those games and their fan base killed other games

[Deleted]

For me his article is allot of hogwash; if we take any MMOrpg at a time, whether it is Everquest Online, Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Star War Galaxy and so on and so forth, they all have one thing in common; they were responsible for their failure and not WoW.

And this is where ur on very dangerous ground... because not many people really understand what the MMO or MMORPG genre actually is. Too many people think they understand what 'MMORPG genre' means but they dont.

The genre can find its roots back into the birth of Dungeons & Dragons and maybe beyond. Computer technology simply extended an existing gaming culture, and this is what modern gamers dont understand. They see videogames and think its easy to put every game into a category box. The MMORPG genre is far bigger than a simple videogame category.

Computer tech was a massive step forward for RPG gaming and multi-user online server technology added a massive dimension to the whole gaming expereince. Basically speaking the early MMORPG games all held dear to the RPG gaming element, they simply wanted to create a realistic fantasy world which loads of people could share in character. And lets be honest, thats the market Wow managed to hit directly in the face and amazed us with the wonderful universe of Azeroth... awesome.

But since then Wow as a game has changed dramatically. Long gone are the original RPG gamers, they left a long time ago as Wow turned into more of a videogame than a RPG universe.

With this in mind its obvious that Wow is 100% repsonsible for changing the face of MMORPGs. Wow will always be seen as the defining MMO. Wows journey over time to what we have now is the benchmark of the MMORPG genre, and i agree with the article, Wow has ruined the whole genre.

Too many young gamers are missing out on the glory days of the world of MMORPG... if they want to experience it these days they need to get the pencil and paper out and play Dungeons and Dragons... with that experience fresh in their minds they will see exactly what the MMORPG genre should be attempting to create with all this gaming tech we currently have at our fingertips.

[Varabently]

I mean I get what he's saying somewhat, but as the OP points out, all the other MMOs could be better games, but they just aren't. I would happily move to another game that was way better than WoW, but they simply don't exist. I've been playing FFXIV a little bit on the side and it's fun, but I doubt I'll continue. Partly that's because I don't know anyone who plays it.

It seems unfair to say that WoW caused the decline in MMOs. He's jumping to a strange conclusion at the end though. So because games are "wow clones" that means they are symbiotically linked? Wow obliterated the competition because they made a better game. It was more responsive, was easier to learn and was more accessible to more players. I've argued before and I'll argue again that WoW is becoming TOO accessible, with gear/level/etc. being too easy to get and Blizz spreading themselves too thin trying to make new content types instead of focusing on the core game: quests, dungeons, raids, character customization.

I hope the future of MMOs is getting back to more realistic gameplay, not necessarily in graphics or content, but just in game systems and how the game is played. I want devs to look at a game and say "What makes sense in our world" not "What will players want to do?" It's sort of hard to explain, but I want a game that balances the realism you get in survival games (like DayZ or similar) with the total unrealism you get in most MMOs like WoW. I'm not saying you need to eat food/drink every few hours in game or you lose HP, but I'm saying I want to go to a trainer to level up my skills. I want leveling up to take a really long time. I want the size of enemies to scale with their difficulty (e.g. I don't want to be able to solo a huge monstrous dragon at level 25). That sort of "realism" is what makes immersion for me at least.

I also want there to be real consequences for dying. I don't want the UO death restrictions (you lose pretty much everything in your inventory unless you can get back to your body and recover it), but I want it to be harsher. I want leveling to be more difficult. Basically I want danger to come back into the game. Right now, if I go anywhere in Draenor, I have no expectation that I'll be under any sort of threat or danger. I can solo anything I want, fight forever without stopping, etc.

I dunno I'm on a tangent, but I really hope some MMO steps up; and in some ways I hope WoW dies in a fire in the next few years so that MMOs can start new and give us something else worth playing. It's really sort of a shame that WoW has gone on this long. I'd rather it died after a few years and another, fresh game came about to take the reigns of the genre.