Mental willpower? How about developers stop making crappy games, and weak wow clones then maybe people will switch?

@Ralod, sorry, i wasnt going to type on that comment......butt........ i couldnt stop laughing........ "butthurt commenter"...really? (grin)

You're both right, companies need to start bringing out games that are going to be better than WoW. This is a known fact by gamers, unfortunately companies aren't putting games out that are worth it.

I don't think the "something better than WoW" thing is the best idea. I think they have to stop trying to copy WoW hoping to have 10m subscribers, it is impossible, even if they do a better game than warcraft (wich istn't that difficult at all). Developers have to make a game "different" than usual mechanics like point-click-spam or 600 levels of uselessness 'till lvl 600 to start to have something to do.


I think Bluehole and Enmasse are doing a great job with TERA, at least the core mechanics are completely different from any other mmo untill now.

Guild Wars 2? Innovative, deep backstory, brimming with content, developers with many past successes that have shown they are primarily for gamers. Sure, its no sub, but this could prove that you don't need to have a sub to produce a top notch MMO.

(MMO)RPG's require a lot of interesting backstory, personalities, lore, and mysteries to keep people interested... i.e. plot. Blizzard had the benefit of Warcraft III exposing all these things before WoW even launched. It had a strong, lore-invested playerbase from that game to sell on the idea of living in that world. Thanks to Blizzard's storytelling, I think it was an easy sale and still is strong... look at the Cataclysm cinematic and tell me you don't want to see the world burn and see what will happen in all the stories that go with it.

You can't just invent a storyline overnight and expect to retain the kind of player that enjoys a world full of things to experience and discover. Only developers that iterate on their game's systems rather quickly have a shot to keep up with the appeal of Blizzard's constant refinement of gameplay elements, and story advancement. And more importantly, only games that build a very rich backstory... not just a few web pages of text... but immersive storytelling, will have a shot to build a dedicated playerbase.

I think TERA is starting to do a better job of that, and Guild Wars 2 has the benefit of the first game that already told a full world's story. APB had no story at all. Who even paid attention to some of these games before they were launched. There were barely any teasers or lead-ins that got people excited. I think Jumpgate and Black Prophecy have to do a much better job (and soon) of getting their intrigue out there. SW:TOR publishes stuff all the time, which is exactly what it needs to do, although in that case, it needs differentiation from all the star wars stuff that many people burnt out on since movies 1-3.

Console twitch game-lovers are not the same as RPG gamers.... lore, immersiveness are as important as gameplay, if not moreso.

You are a great example of the things these developers need to think about, i agree on your view 100%. Simple, engaging "stuff".

Hehe, the sad thing is these dev folks are like zombies....we needz brains!!

Wildfarris..........benefits...who knew?!! (grin)

Agreed.

I want to add.

People have quit wow for:
Age of Conan
Aion
Champions Online
Warhammer
and others...

They have all jumped ship to test out these games, but many of them miss the mark. Some are just shallow and released much to early. Some required way too high system requirements, and others showed a serious neglect when patching and fixing issues when players were willing to stick it out.

There are games like city of heroes, eq2, and (until recently) LotRO that have done very well with subscriptions and pleased their players. WoW is huge, but someone that is playing WoW right now that wouldn't play another good subscription game most likely wouldn't play your game anyway. As many people that are 'locked in' to WoW.. There are others like me that are sick of it and want to play something else, but game developers keep releasing pre-mature clones constantly.

It's like Marvel and DC. It has been said before by both sides that they don't directly 'compete' with each other even though fans constantly do. They have their own intellectual property and a good book is a good book no matter who makes it.. and most comic fans know this.

If you make a good game, people will pay to play it, and yes, even quit wow.

I can't believe Joker and I can agree on something, but I agree with D-bit's comment that to MAKE A GAME WORTH PAYING FOR is the ticket.

Although when WoW came out it was not awesome either, it took years to get it where it is now, so how do you release a decent game, mature it into awesome game when the market is saturated with competition?

Any ideas?

@Luk

Thanks for agreeing! ^ ^

You don't need to beat WoW like I said. LotRO came out: April 24, 2007.
WoW came out: November 23, 2004

Both games had issues at release, but unlike many games today... they both
came out with large worlds, and the bugs they had weren't game breaking.
(And at times there were game breaking bugs, but players will work with
developers that took their time making a good product, and show they are
dedicated to fixing them promptly.)

If you remember back in the EQ1 days. MMO's weren't the 'trend' they are
right now. EQ was 'Everquest'. There was no term MMO yet, just one game
that explained the genre.

WoW came out, but all the MMO's still worth their salt made before and after
WoW still did well. CoH came out a bit before and still just released an
expansion. LotRO is still around and was doing great being a subscription
based and they only went free to play when they saw it can be very
profitable. Even EQ still goes on, and after WoW's release.. it still went
a few years without loosing many people. Also Star trek online seems to be
doing alright, and on that note.. I would call EvE a success too.

Champions online failed on it's own. It's not even in the fantasy genre and
failed to pull anyone from CoH for very long... that's a hint there.

Also there are MMO's that are F2P that are better made then some
subscription based ones. Allods online and Runes of Magic are very
good games that are doing well even with WoW around. (Though that's
getting a big off topic.)

The reasons why some huge MMO releases sank were:
Age of Conan: Super high system requirements, bugs.
APB: First person shooter, Just three zones, very small advancement, cheating issues.
Aion: Felt identical to many F2P games out there, but you had to pay a sub.
Warhammer: Bugs, not as fluid in feel as WoW, based around PvP that had
issues (Plan for big awesome battles, but servers and mechanics can't take it.) Also it was very very hyped and a let down from it's own fault.. to the
point people unfairly expected too much from it.

Those are just some examples. People are willing to pay extra, or cut other things if your game is good! Also, many games try to appeal to everyone. You can't be the major RP,PVP,PVE, Social network thing like WoW is right now. WoW wasn't that at release but with time and love Blizzard made a beast of a game.

If a developer would focus and say, "Lets make the best PvE-RP game!" or says, "Lets make a hardcore PvP-Social network like game." then they wouldn't need to pre-release an incomplete 'tries to cater to everyone but sucks and caters to no one' game.

Most people just want a game they can log into, doesn't over tax their three
year old computer, has little bugs, and has a world to explore. Every game
that was a mild to big success just ran well and had a good amount of content.

MMO's do exist in a vacuum. The only time someone would compare your
game to WoW is if you tried to mimic WoW and gave it no personal style,
lore, or direction. I wouldn't have even used CO and WoW in the same
sentence until this given he just blamed a game that even register on the
radar in comparison. It's pathetic! If CO played their cards right and did
some research.. CO could have catered to role-players and made a more
immersive and up-to-date version of CoH that would have even pulled some
WoW players and done very well for itself.

Did WoW give them a small budget?
Did WoW push CO to release earlier then they wished?
Did WoW let it slip that the first major content CO was going to release was to be paid for?
Did WoW give them a poor crafting system?
Did WoW pull content from their game?

The only thing WoW does is hold up a good standard...

Blaming WoW for your game failing is like blaming a co-worker that works harder then you for your being fired.

Champions Online had itemization? That's what that was? Egad, no wonder I didn't like it.

The summary of the article is fairly obvious though...WoW is the big gorilla in the room, and the XBox subscription is the other. Most people aren't going to spend additional money on additional subscriptions unless what they are getting is better (to them) than what they are already spending money on. Duh.

The real question is what is "better" than WoW to enough people that they'll play something else? Not much, considering the hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into it over the years.

Or...how can you come up with a business model that doesn't directly compete with WoW's or the Xbox's subscription models? Say, like Global Agenda or Guild Wars did. They are successful...not at the ridiculous level of WoW, but they are fully funded games that don't have the subscription model and thus don't compete with WoW or the XBox subscriptions.

The timing had nothing to do with it. They still have 12 million subscribers.

It had to do with the fact that it was a virtually bug-free game that performed well on everything, and worked on removing the annoyances of MMOs - but most of all it's a damn fun, well-made game.

And that's why it's successful.

@Lethality

If by "virtually bug-free game that performed well on everything" you mean "completely unplayable for the first 2-3 months due to crashing, buggy quests and servers that were too full to get into" then yeah, totally.