MMO Developers, please stop remaking World of Warcraft...

[AncientYoungSon]

I know that WoW's alleged 10 million players looks like a big, juicy pile of money, but there's something you need to understand...

Your target market, the MMO player or POTENTIAL MMO player, is entirely composed of two distinct types of people right now:

1. People playing World of Warcraft.

2. People who DON'T WANT TO PLAY World of Warcraft.

The people who fall into #2 could do so for any number of reasons. Maybe they quit WoW. Maybe they never played it at all. Maybe they've never found any MMO that appeals to them.

The bottom line is that you're not going to beat World of Warcraft by ripping off World of Warcraft and adding a few new elements to it.

Remember that WoW became the winner by being to Everquest what Everquest was to Ultima Online. You can't just deliver the status quo and expect players will leave WoW in droves for your MMO. These are people who left WoW because there was something about it they didn't like. Find out what that was and try delivering a different product.

I've seen too many MMOs released as of late that are carbon copies of WoW, often prettier and with some new, neat features, but they're still just WoW at the core.

The MMO that will dethrone WoW is going to do so by further shifting and advancing the entire MMO paradigm, not by being a prettier version of WoW.

 

[Radeonx]

Well, I quit WoW a long time ago, and the only game I could see dethroning it is The Old Republic, because of how nerdgasmic it is going to be.

 

[thiosk]

I want a massively multiplayer pseudo-OFFLINE wh40k game. Imagine the spore galaxy, populated by all sorts of nasties, and you roam around and do stuff. Player interactions exist, but generally the galaxy is so huge you can go find people if you want, do your own thing if thats what you are into, or sims it up and decorate your space marine armor with flowers and knick knacks if that floats your boats.

i would totally play sporehammer 40k

 

[salomdi]

APB will probbaly beat it.

 

[AncientYoungSon]

...which is impossible due to WoW balancing everything; its a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Which is where other MMO's fail; they concentrate on one thing (like Guild Wars with graphics for example) or two instead of paying attention to the whole.

Certainly not impossible. No one ever thought EQ was going to be dethroned, I'm sure.

It's all about shifting the paradigm of what constitutes an MMO.

I quit WoW because of an overarching sense of futility in everything I did. I love the PvP with a passion, but it eventually became clear that I was just grinding players for the sake of better gear so I could grind more players...to get more gear.

There was never a semblance of a sense that anything I did in the world mattered, which is true because, the same moment you quit, it's like you never played at all, except for whatever other players in game remember you.

The MMO that will kill WoW will come around one day, but it's going to be better than WoW in every way imaginable. It just won't happen any other way.

 

[Penguinness]

Well, I quit WoW a long time ago, and the only game I could see dethroning it is The Old Republic, because of how nerdgasmic it is going to be.

Yeah it prolly will.. well it'll have huge numbers to begin with at least. I know my mates will all jump on board because it's star wars. I know I'm not going to be keen on it though, the art style and animations bug me. Playin with mates will make it alright, till they get bored. It might stay popular.

 

[mariofan1000]

I found WoW boring. I think some more action elements would work.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

The thing about WoW is that its made for every style of MMO playing.

Its got a great PvP system, awesome dungeon and raid instances and the greatest part about WoW is the social interaction. The guilds, the Parties, the other players, that's what kept me coming back. So in order for an MMO to gain enough steam to power forward, one would need a huge playbase at almost all times of the day.

Something that very few MMOs can manage to do.

 

[enzilewulf]

I fit into the number two group, I quit. The only MMO game I would look forward to now is The old republic

 

[AncientYoungSon]

The thing about WoW is that its made for every style of MMO playing.

Its got a great PvP system, awesome dungeon and raid instances and the greatest part about WoW is the social interaction. The guilds, the Parties, the other players, that's what kept me coming back. So in order for an MMO to gain enough steam to power forward, one would need a huge playbase at almost all times of the day.

Something that very few MMOs can manage to do.

I actually found the social interaction to boil down to large guilds stealing players from each other as players used guilds for stepping stones in the endless and pointless quest to acquire better gear.

Then, Blizzard raises the level cap another 10 levels and the greens you pick up in the level 61 area are superior to the epics that were dropped in the 40 man raid dungeon.

This, IMHO, is the definition of futility: spending days going through boring dungeons with a large number of people only to have all of your gear instantly become crap when the level cap is raised.

Seriously, I KNOW some other developer can create a better MMO than this.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

I already know the game that will beat World Of Warcraft. In fact, there are two games that will almost certainly close the door on the WoW era of MMO gaming:

1. World of Warcraft 2

and/or

2. World of Starcraft.

 

[Dexiro]

I don't think anything will surpass WoW for a while, if anything it'll be WoW dieing down.

We could do with different types of MMO's though, like something more focused on the story and with minimum grinding. I'm thinking something along the lines of a scaled up Borderlands that's a lot better made in all aspects.

Like all MMO's WoW leaves a suprising amount badly done but instead focuses on doing particular things well. There's a lot of way's for competitors to surpass it.

 

[liquidmetal]

There's a very good chance that I'm going to quit playing WoW for FFXIV or The Old Republic. I'm much more into the hardcore mmo scene and WoW has just gone way too far into the casual end of the kiddy pool. Between that and all of the PvE nerfs and changes that happen in order to balance classes for PvP, I'm ready for something new. I fully intended to switch to Vanguard, but it was terrible. Then I fully intended to switch to Warhammer, but it was terrible. Really, I just want a new mmo that isn't terrible. Here's hoping that the developers of The Old Republic and FFXIV take the time to polish up their products before they release them to the masses.

Edit: Keep in mind that Blizzard is currently working on another MMO. As they don't want to kill WoW in the process, it'll probably be something that's aimed at picking up another chunk of the MMO player base that WoW isn't hitting.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Looking forward to Guild Wars 2 over here

But I must say I hate WoW, I have no idea why though, I played WAR for abit and enjoyed it more then WoW even though it is a blatent clone

 

[HyenaThePirate]

The thing about WoW is that its made for every style of MMO playing.

Its got a great PvP system, awesome dungeon and raid instances and the greatest part about WoW is the social interaction. The guilds, the Parties, the other players, that's what kept me coming back. So in order for an MMO to gain enough steam to power forward, one would need a huge playbase at almost all times of the day.

Something that very few MMOs can manage to do.

I actually found the social interaction to boil down to large guilds stealing players from each other as players used guilds for stepping stones in the endless and pointless quest to acquire better gear.

Then, Blizzard raises the level cap another 10 levels and the greens you pick up in the level 61 area are superior to the epics that were dropped in the 40 man raid dungeon.

This, IMHO, is the definition of futility: spending days going through boring dungeons with a large number of people only to have all of your gear instantly become crap when the level cap is raised.

Seriously, I KNOW some other developer can create a better MMO than this.

This is the reason I quit WoW shortly after Lich King released. I just couldn't do it anymore. I admit, I was caught up in the hype and allure of Northrend... until I got there and realized that all of my hard earned BC gear was just made instantly and hopeless obsolete, that I was no longer the "bad ass" hero called once again to save the world from an evil potentially greater than the last... no, instead i've been reduced back to scrub status. This would be like if in every Star Wars movie, Luke skywalker had less and less control over the force and had to learn new jedi tricks to compensate in order to become a Jedi master again.

I think thats what bothered me about WoW the most in the end... the fact that I no longer felt like an important player in any story. Part of the RPG part of MMORPG is the ROLE, the story, and people who like RPGS like to feel that quite honestly the game should revolve around THEM. Nobody wants to be a supporting character in an awesome video game tale! YOU are the hero, YOU are the one the world is depending on, it's what games MARKET themselves towards. In WOW however, I ended up feeling like some grunt soldier... an "extra" in someone ELSE'S story.

To put it another way, in an EPIC Rpg story, I didn't feel very "epic" at all.

Unfortunately the game is very limited in any other experiences... What I loved about UO was that there was SO MUCH extra to do! I mean, raising chickens, farming, mining, lumberjacking, cooking, getting meat and things from animals.. forging.. You could literally play the game without EVER once picking up a sword, which to me has more appeal if I'm going to constantly be reduced from masterful hero with fantastic legendary equipment to foot soldier with last year's "glowing helmet" fashion.

MMO's need a return to the immersive, expand the fun. As soon as a company figures out that adding raising bunnies and crops can be as appealing as slaying dragons, they'll reach a SUPER large market and will become THE dominant MMO of all time.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

The thing about WoW is that its made for every style of MMO playing.

Its got a great PvP system, awesome dungeon and raid instances and the greatest part about WoW is the social interaction. The guilds, the Parties, the other players, that's what kept me coming back. So in order for an MMO to gain enough steam to power forward, one would need a huge playbase at almost all times of the day.

Something that very few MMOs can manage to do.

I actually found the social interaction to boil down to large guilds stealing players from each other as players used guilds for stepping stones in the endless and pointless quest to acquire better gear.

Then, Blizzard raises the level cap another 10 levels and the greens you pick up in the level 61 area are superior to the epics that were dropped in the 40 man raid dungeon.

This, IMHO, is the definition of futility: spending days going through boring dungeons with a large number of people only to have all of your gear instantly become crap when the level cap is raised.

Seriously, I KNOW some other developer can create a better MMO than this.

Your complaint is because WoW is built along the guidelines of an RPG, like most MMOs. In an RPG the players goal is to become stronger and in many cases they move along to the nearest way to become stronger. You act like the gear becomes crap as soon as they raise the level cap and you need to go back to the same dungeons to get better gear and that the raised level cap is the only new thing introduced to the game.

They've only raised the cap when they release new expansion packs and among those packs have come countless additions to the players enjoyment. A new world to explore, new races, new quests, new instances, new classes and new PvP battles. WoW is not a game you can beat, no MMO is beatable, but that's the hook they use. This isn't a game you can beat in 7-10 hours and it requires a lot of dedication to reach the top. If you believe its futile, fine, then WoW isn't the game for you. But then again its a futile effort to wait for an MMO to be different from WoW.

 

[Someperson307]

APB will probbaly beat it.

That's been said of a lot of MMOs, and none of them succeeded. And I doubt The Old Republic will defeat WoW, as there are many, many Star Wars fans, but there are also many, many Warcraft fans. I just hope that when the day of WoW's death comes, it isn't replaced by a WoW clone.

 

[Helmutye]

The reason WoW will be very, very difficult to dethrone is the same reason why it's hard to make any progress in the world of particle physics. That may sound strange, but let me explain--it's an awesome analogy!

In particle physics, the new discoveries all require such a huge investment of money and equipment that only the tip top minds in the field can convince people with money to let them use the money. Back in the day, anyone could be a physicist--Galileo dropping things off buildings, Newton getting bumped on the head by an apple, etc. It was simple observation of the normal, everyday world. But physics isn't like that anymore. There's a certain amount of theoretical work that can be done just on the chalkboard, but the real juicy work requires bigger and bigger particle accelerators.

There are two relevant consequences to this: firstly, only a very, very select few will be able to conduct this research because the investment of time, money, and equipment is so extreme. Secondly, part of being in that group of select few means you can't try anything too terribly extreme or different from the mainstream view of things, because nobody is going to give you millions of dollars to do something in a completely new direction that may very well reveal nothing.

MMOs today are like this. People's expectations have been raised so high that only big companies with large staffs and lots of money can create them and keep them running. Think about it--how many of you would play a 256 color MMO? I personally don't find graphics to be that important, especially in an MMO, but bad graphics would probably turn away well over 80% of potential customers right off the bat, and the fancy graphics take a lot to create. Also, because there is such a large requirement of time, money, and staff, companies are not going to be too keen on trying completely new, completely unproven ideas. The WoW formula works and will generate a predictable amount of money. Anything else does not have that established certainty, and will be scarier to create. Think about it--if you had $5,000 in your bank account, would you be willing to pay $4,500 of it up front for a 5% chance of making $10,000 in 5 years?

Now, all this simply means I understand why companies are making WoW clones. That doesn't mean I like it anymore than the rest of you! But if you don't like how WoW-like everything is, perhaps you should try being more open to new ideas--buy games that are interesting but don't have super crazy graphics. Make it so that indie developers can start bringing their unique concepts to the market, because if they can make games without having to risk millions there will be a greater abundance of experiments and departures from the norm. But if you aren't willing to risk $40 or $50 on an unproven game, why would you expect a company to risk $40 or $50 million developing one?

 

[jeejvebe]

If a MMO is going to beat WoW at this stage, I think it has to be created by an already very established developer (like BioWare) who actually has the money to balance and support the game like Blizzard does.