The Secret to the popularity of WoW no one talks about....

[Itisamuh]

As someone that never uses addons at all, I obviously disagree with that being a factor. For me WoW is just smoother than other MMOs by far, making it more fun by default. Plenty of others are better in certain ways, but none of them simply feel as good.

[arkanon]

To correct you, WoW had OVER 12.1 Million subscribers world wide, and currently has more people on twitch than your second false number - and twitch is so skewed I can't even begin to describe it. I don't watch twitch but during big events or maybe once a month (I DO however watch youtube highlights weekly) - not to mention classic bringing a TON of new or old players back into the fold, if at least temporarily.. even big named streamers were playing classic for the first few weeks..

So yeah it's pretty popular for an almosssssst 15 year old game (Halo 2 launched with WoW.. Halo 2 was buried in 2009.. when they took the servers offline and roasted that main stream legend so...)

That's not a fair comparison though, and I see it all the time. People didn't keep playing Halo 2, because new versions were out. Just like wow. Just like cod. Just like FIFA. If you are going to snapshot a series like Halo, you need to snapshot wow, and compare players who chose not to buy wrath, but instead stay playing bc. That number would be so tiny it's not worth mentioning.

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As someone that never uses addons at all, I obviously disagree with that being a factor. For me WoW is just smoother than other MMOs by far, making it more fun by default. Plenty of others are better in certain ways, but none of them simply feel as good.

The engine is still the best on the market for handling an mmo. Gw2 had its charm, and has maintained a decent playerbase. FF is also not too bad. Swtor was terrible, and was really bad at launch. They made some improvements, but it could never really compare to wow in that respect.

When I used to try all the new MMOs, that was always the hardest thing - learning to accept a sub par engine, and trying to enjoy something so clunky after coming from the top of the hill.

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Everytime I go into threads like this hoping to find an actual new insight, a reason no one thought about, but makes sense, and every time I am disappointed. No one plays a game because of the addons. They are a bonus, nothing more. No one thinks 'meh, this game sucks, but I'll play it because the addons are stellar!'.

If we knew, other devs would know, and by now, someone would have used hat knowledge to create an equal or superior product. I have always said it's a combination of having a very strong foundation with the game engine, and doing the little things quite well. It's also familiarity, and the generic nature of the game makes it pretty easy to pick it up. Some of the things many of us list as faults, hand holding and lfr and things like that also bring in a chunk of players.

The number of players who take advantage of the more in depth systems like mythic raiding, m+, arena etc etc is such a tiny percentage, I'm not convinced it's a factor in wows success.

[blankfaced]

Rift had/has one of the best UI's in regards to customization. You can move and resize everything without addons. It was one of the best parts of that game and I wish WoW would have the same thing.

[sibut]

Yeah, this definitely needed its own thread...

[Kathranis]

I've always thought it far more the responsiveness of the game. Click a thing, you do a thing. Most other games take forever to get to the point.

That's definitely a big factor for me and something I notice in every other MMORPG I've tried, especially FFXIV, which I otherwise love. Movement feels floaty and everything has noticeable input delay.

It's the biggest thing that keeps me from fully getting invested in that game.

[Djuntas]

Hello Humans, Night Elfs, Orcs, Trolls and all the rest. This post is agree/disagree or your valued thought out opinion. I feel that what makes WoW so popular is the complete and udder (Moo) customization of the game. ADD-ONS!!! No other game I am aware of has it to the degree that Wow does.....its awesome!! No two UI's look the same (unless you use the completely boring stock one). No need to go into which ones i use, i am an add-on crack-whore (is crack-whore allowed to be said??) Please post what your thoughts are. Thanks and happy grinding.

I agree here. Other MMO's just have better UIs through (Rift had a GREAT UI), where wow's is so bad its...Well pointless.

Currently on classic, since im trying it out for now I already have 50 addons installed.