WoW [General Discussion]

[Valmy]

Fortunately I was done with MMOs before I had kids. So don't blame me

[Berkut]

I think WoW's "problem" is that people do not realise what MMOs were like before WoW - I mean, first of all, WoW was the first MMO for a lot of people, so it is hard to compare. But stuff like hearthstones, flight paths, instances, leveling mainly through quests etc. were all introduced or perfected by WoW.

For example, people don't remember that before WoW you levelled mainly by grinding mobs, and quests (if they happened at all) were more like an occassional reward for reaching a certain level.

That is just not even remotely true.

And there was PLENTY of grinding in WoW - having a "quest" to go collect 12 items that means you have to kill 50 mobs is still grinding. Not to mention that DAOC, EverQUEST, etc., etc. all had quests as well.

WoW was not groundbreaking in much of anything, perhaps with one (critical) exception:

They embraced the idea that nothing in the game should be annoying for the sake of slowing the player down. So they were willing to just refuse to play the EQ game of travel sinks and such.

Other than that, it's incredible success was not about breaking ground, but rather about doing a lot of the same stuff a damn sight better than the competition.

[Valmy]

Actually EverQUEST did not really have quests, at least when I played it. There was no quest journal or anything. The first time I got that was in DAOC.

[crazy canuck]

Berkut,  would you agree with the proposition that WoW was the first game to put elements that could be found in earlier MMOs into one game.  I agree with your observation that much of what was in WoW could be found in other games but WoW was very effective at putting all those ideas into their game.

[Berkut]

Berkut,  would you agree with the proposition that WoW was the first game to put elements that could be found in earlier MMOs into one game.  I agree with your observation that much of what was in WoW could be found in other games but WoW was very effective at putting all those ideas into their game.

Yep, I think that is very much the case.

They didn't really do anything new, but they took a lot of ideas that had already been done, and did them better. Heck, there were a lot of things that other games had done that they did NOT do at first.

Mostly though, they just approached the entire thing in the normal Blizzard way - how do we identify the things that people really like, execute them as well as possible, and throw out the rest. And we don't care at all about how things are "supposed" to be...

[Valmy]

It seems like there were totally new ideas. Like the talent trees I think. As I said I remember thinking they did some exciting new things at the time, even as a veteran DAOC and EQ player, but it is hard to remember exactly.

They had talent trees in DAOC, sort of, but it was things you got via RvR instead of just leveling up.

[crazy canuck]

Talent trees were as old as the original Diablo.  True, a Blizzard product but it was not revolutionary by the time WoW was released.  Just another example of Blizzard incorporating an already existing idea into the game.

[Valmy]

Talent trees were as old as the original Diablo.  True, a Blizzard product but it was not revolutionary by the time WoW was released.  Just another example of Blizzard incorporating an already existing idea into the game.

Got it. I never played Diablo.

[Martinus]

Talent trees were as old as the original Diablo.  True, a Blizzard product but it was not revolutionary by the time WoW was released.  Just another example of Blizzard incorporating an already existing idea into the game.

You do realise Blizzard also made Diablo, right? The point is that they innovated MMOs. Faulting them for bringing ideas from other game genres into MMOs (especially when they actually invented those ideas in those other genres) is pretty shitty.

[Sophie Scholl]

Actually EverQUEST did not really have quests, at least when I played it. There was no quest journal or anything. The first time I got that was in DAOC.

When did you play EQ?  I started playing during the era of the first expansion, The Ruins of Kunark, in 2000 and there were quests then.

[crazy canuck]

Talent trees were as old as the original Diablo.  True, a Blizzard product but it was not revolutionary by the time WoW was released.  Just another example of Blizzard incorporating an already existing idea into the game.

You do realise Blizzard also made Diablo, right?

Marti, read my post again.

[Berkut]

Talent trees were as old as the original Diablo.  True, a Blizzard product but it was not revolutionary by the time WoW was released.  Just another example of Blizzard incorporating an already existing idea into the game.

You do realise Blizzard also made Diablo, right? The point is that they innovated MMOs. Faulting them for bringing ideas from other game genres into MMOs (especially when they actually invented those ideas in those other genres) is pretty shitty.

Nobody is faulting them for anything.

[Valmy]

Well nobody had ever combined all those elements together before and they did make for a different game experience than what had come before.

When did you play EQ?  I started playing during the era of the first expansion, The Ruins of Kunark, in 2000 and there were quests then.

1999-2001 I think. There were quests but it was different. They were all repeatable and you had to make your own notes. They also had, as a rule, pretty piss poor rewards because of that infinitely repeatable thing.

[Berkut]

OK, so just because people are saying that WoW didn't invent sliced bread doesn't mean that anyone is bashing WoW.

They didn't invent sliced bread. They did create the most successful MMO of all time, and possibly the most successful game of all time. WoW was incredible in many, many ways.

It just wasn't particularly innovative in its gameplay. But it didn't need to be in order to be as great as it was, and recognizing that was, IMO, the key to their success. The genre was not lacking innovation prior to WoW, it was lacking professional execution and paying attention to what the customers actually wanted.

[Eddie Teach]

EverQUEST

Evercamp.