WoW itself wouldn't work on a console IMO. Though there is no reason why MMORPGs couldn't be designed for those systems from the ground up.
The problem with consoles though is the lack of abillity for general socialization. The point of an MMORPG is to meet, and interact with other people. In general when it comes to consoles voice chat is the communication medium of choice, and that works fine when your dealing with a small team of people, however it's not really practical for having dozens of people communicating in a single zone at the same time, and that's really how you meet people, and a big part of the point of the game. When it comes to instances or raiding, people tend to switch over to the voice chat, but otherwise the majority of commucation atill takes place thought chatting and text. What's more parallel text-voice chat allows for a lot of the socialization within large raid groups and such that helps make it fun when your dealing with a lot of people.
You omit the mass commucation, the "chat room" aspect of the game, and it just becomes another co-op game. What's more that's going to encourage people to primarly play with specific groups of people who they probably know IRL to begin with, and that kind of defeats the purpose of a massive, persistant world.
For all the complaints, it's the ongoing discussions through mass communication channels as you play that keep people coming back, and make the game social. Whether it's people goofing off in trade, horseplay in the Barrens or Elwynn Forest, or serious business, the point is your out there with all these other people as opposed to playing in isolation, or just with you and some close friends. Without that mass communication you might as well just be playing a co-op dungeon crawler or whatever.
Generally speaking text communication isn't exactly easy over a console, and even if you happen to have a fullsized keyboard, or are good with a chatpad, it gets in the way of being able to handle your controller. The PC mouse and keyboard set up doesn't just allow for more detailed control options, it also allows the controls to pretty seamlessly intergrate with playing the game itself.
Incidently, one of the big reasons why MMORPG games that involve more player input than the relatively slow "push button, wait" combat of something like WoW keep getting clobbered by WoW despite it's age is simply that the way WoW plays allows people to communicate while their playing since it's not so active that you have to stay constantly focused on hammering out real time combos or whatever. The pace of WoW (which is fairly quick despite everything) means that it's literally possible for people to be hacking through a dungeon or outdoor area while carrying on a conversation with other people, without needing voice chat. In some cases the game does get involved enough where you need constant concentration (some high precisian boss fights for example) but you'll notice a lot of the time, even during such battles people still manage to say things in text, while keeping the voice channels clear for the raid leaders and the like.
This is incidently one of the reasons why I doubt we'll see much in the way of successful persistannt world shooters or pure action games. The point of a persistant world is the social aspect, and truthfully if your that involved in "twitching" and voice chat with a few people is the only reliable method of communication, it kind of defeats the point. Other than the 3-4 buddies you might regularly play with at any given time, your interaction with those hundreds of other players is liable to mostly be limited to shooting them in the face. Your not going to be able to really shoot the breeze through text while in the middle of that kind of a shoot-fest.
The problem with consoles though is the lack of abillity for general socialization. The point of an MMORPG is to meet, and interact with other people. In general when it comes to consoles voice chat is the communication medium of choice, and that works fine when your dealing with a small team of people, however it's not really practical for having dozens of people communicating in a single zone at the same time, and that's really how you meet people, and a big part of the point of the game. When it comes to instances or raiding, people tend to switch over to the voice chat, but otherwise the majority of commucation atill takes place thought chatting and text. What's more parallel text-voice chat allows for a lot of the socialization within large raid groups and such that helps make it fun when your dealing with a lot of people.
You omit the mass commucation, the "chat room" aspect of the game, and it just becomes another co-op game. What's more that's going to encourage people to primarly play with specific groups of people who they probably know IRL to begin with, and that kind of defeats the purpose of a massive, persistant world.
For all the complaints, it's the ongoing discussions through mass communication channels as you play that keep people coming back, and make the game social. Whether it's people goofing off in trade, horseplay in the Barrens or Elwynn Forest, or serious business, the point is your out there with all these other people as opposed to playing in isolation, or just with you and some close friends. Without that mass communication you might as well just be playing a co-op dungeon crawler or whatever.
Generally speaking text communication isn't exactly easy over a console, and even if you happen to have a fullsized keyboard, or are good with a chatpad, it gets in the way of being able to handle your controller. The PC mouse and keyboard set up doesn't just allow for more detailed control options, it also allows the controls to pretty seamlessly intergrate with playing the game itself.
Incidently, one of the big reasons why MMORPG games that involve more player input than the relatively slow "push button, wait" combat of something like WoW keep getting clobbered by WoW despite it's age is simply that the way WoW plays allows people to communicate while their playing since it's not so active that you have to stay constantly focused on hammering out real time combos or whatever. The pace of WoW (which is fairly quick despite everything) means that it's literally possible for people to be hacking through a dungeon or outdoor area while carrying on a conversation with other people, without needing voice chat. In some cases the game does get involved enough where you need constant concentration (some high precisian boss fights for example) but you'll notice a lot of the time, even during such battles people still manage to say things in text, while keeping the voice channels clear for the raid leaders and the like.
This is incidently one of the reasons why I doubt we'll see much in the way of successful persistannt world shooters or pure action games. The point of a persistant world is the social aspect, and truthfully if your that involved in "twitching" and voice chat with a few people is the only reliable method of communication, it kind of defeats the point. Other than the 3-4 buddies you might regularly play with at any given time, your interaction with those hundreds of other players is liable to mostly be limited to shooting them in the face. Your not going to be able to really shoot the breeze through text while in the middle of that kind of a shoot-fest.
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