Forums » Off-Topic and Casual Chatter

For those that wrongly think WoW invented the MMO.

    • 844 posts
    June 6, 2019 8:32 AM PDT

    WoW was never an MMO, just a massively instanced kiddie game. That copied everything from EQ, DaoC and AC.

     

    https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/06/everquests-long-strange-20-year-trip-still-has-no-end-in-sight/

    • 372 posts
    June 6, 2019 9:17 AM PDT

    Kids didn't give Blizzard all that money.   Also.....   I hope you're preparing youself for the  "PANTHEON IS A WOW CLONE" comments that will come.

    • 384 posts
    June 6, 2019 11:10 AM PDT
    Lol. I worry that there are people who actually believe that, Zew.
    • 8 posts
    June 6, 2019 11:38 AM PDT

    WoW was like a FPS MMO that didn't require a real commitment from the playerbase.

    • 844 posts
    June 6, 2019 2:26 PM PDT

    Tigersin said:

    Kids didn't give Blizzard all that money.   Also.....   I hope you're preparing youself for the  "PANTHEON IS A WOW CLONE" comments that will come.

    LOL. Please No!

    • 1479 posts
    June 6, 2019 2:41 PM PDT

    Interesting that you're pidgeonholing the article into something it isn't.

     

    I don't think many people here consider what you fear, it's like pissing in a violin here.

    • 372 posts
    June 6, 2019 3:40 PM PDT

    MauvaisOeil said:

    Interesting that you're pidgeonholing the article into something it isn't.

     

    I don't think many people here consider what you fear, it's like pissing in a violin here.

    Well that's something I'm going to start saying!  Haha.

    Really though, it is human nature to do this. Scientists do it all the time. It's way more annoying to see professionals do it.

     

    edit:  I mean presenting articles in a way that supports their case. Not pissing in a violin. 


    This post was edited by Tigersin at June 6, 2019 3:43 PM PDT
    • 844 posts
    June 6, 2019 7:44 PM PDT

    I never said the article stated that.

    You guys ever learn to read? Must be wow dorks.

    • 844 posts
    June 6, 2019 7:54 PM PDT

    And frankly. WOW was never an MMO. 

    WoW is a Massive Instanced Game.

    Never, ever even came close to being a massive multiplayer game.

    • 8 posts
    June 6, 2019 8:30 PM PDT

    Massive Instanced Game --- so true.

    • 238 posts
    June 7, 2019 6:13 AM PDT

    For the sake of fairness, I have to disagree that WoW was never an MMO.  I personally don't like the direction that WoW has taken over the years, but to say that it NEVER was an MMO is wrong. Now if you want to say that over time it stopped being an MMO and evolved (or devolved), into something that is more of a solo loot experience I would agree with you.

    I would argue that back in WoW's Classic and BC eras WoW was an MMO.  World elites were a lot harder to kill and required groups. Certain legendary quest chains back in Classic required players to form 40 man raid groups to take down world raid bosses. In both Classic and the Buring Crusade you had attunement processes that you had to go through to get into raids, and there was no looking for group assistance. Classic also had Aletrac Valley which was a 40 man pvp instance, but one battle could last for 12+ hours and in some cases days (before it was changed in later patches).  I will say that the BC expansion had considerably less open world grouping opportunities compared to classic WoW, but they were there.

    Wrath is what starting pushing the ability to solo to new levels. It introduced LFG which removed the need to communicate with others, it removed the attunement process for raids, world elites were easier to kill, and large scale PVP had long since been nerfed to the point that it was removed. I would say that Wrath was still a great expansion in terms of story culmination, but for grouping reliance, this is where things started going downhill. 

    The following expansions after Wrath didn't do much to fix anything. In Cataclysm the developers tried to appease the community by making everything harder, but instead of designing difficulty around the player community and class cohesion they just upped the scaling on some of the mobs and increased mana costs. MoP was much of the same. It tried to bring back an attunement like process with its Isle of Thunder patch and one of the world bosses, but this was a server attunement, not a player attunement and required no grouping from the player community. MOP was also the first step into introducing the loot pinata by adding the personal loot system. I "missed" out on the Warlords expansion, but class buffs were removed at the end during the Legion pre-patch event. Legion then upped the scale of the loot pinata, tied legendaries into this system, and balanced most of the classes around certain legendaries. BFA then went a step further and removed class tier set bonuses, and implemented an azurite armor system which further reduced class uniqueness and homogenized classes.

    I can't argue with the fact that WoW has always been heavily instanced based, and I can't argue with the fact that WoW has never required grouping to the same extent that EverQuest did. However, I would make the claim that at one point in WoW's early life it had the makings of an MMO it just slowly devolved over time into nothing more than a solo experience. 

    For the people who think that WoW was the original MMO... no... I would say they believe this because WoW has infected most modern MMOs with their philosophies and systems due to WoW's "success". WoW should be viewed as a long term experiment in how to devolve your game to the point where you start driving all you subscribers away. It should also be an example of how the player community suffers in a solo based multiplayer game.  It should be a prime example of how not to do things. 

    For anyone saying that Pantheon is another WoW clone... I would say that it's more like EverQuest. However, instead of being a clone, I would say that it is more of a reimagination of the classic foundation, elements, and classes that make up the MMO genre. Pantheon may have the same classes that EverQuest had but each is different and unique in their design. 

     

    • 372 posts
    June 7, 2019 7:09 AM PDT

    zewtastic said:

    And frankly. WOW was never an MMO. 

     

    SO THIS WAS SAID   

    The most popular mmo of all time was not in fact an MMO?  I'm enjoying the entertainment of what you're typing but I feel like some information is missing. Do you think WOW was ever like EQ?


    This post was edited by Tigersin at June 7, 2019 7:16 AM PDT
    • 500 posts
    June 7, 2019 7:20 AM PDT

    Why is this thread even here?  Honestly, we're here for PRF.  Couldn't care less about WoW, past or present. smh.

    • 372 posts
    June 7, 2019 7:46 AM PDT

    Well, Grymmlocke, this is the off topic forum.  Besides... we are learning about dnvr and zewtastic via their opinions. It's just community talk.  Passing the time while we wait. Getting to know one another.

    • 500 posts
    June 7, 2019 8:02 AM PDT

    No offence intended.  Any talk of WoW just rankles me. Simply an uncontrolable knee jerk response. :)


    This post was edited by Grymmlocke at June 7, 2019 8:02 AM PDT
    • 372 posts
    June 7, 2019 8:06 AM PDT

    Grymmlocke said:

    No offence intended.  Any talk of WoW just rankles me. Simply an uncontrolable knee jerk response. :)

    You're good! I get 'rankled' by plenty.  Wish I didn't.  My life is a WIP. 

    • 500 posts
    June 7, 2019 8:14 AM PDT

    The older I get it seems more things rankle me.  Think I'm becoming my old man lol.

    • 90 posts
    June 7, 2019 11:21 AM PDT
    Baldur is correct in that early WOW was indeed a community based MMO.
    I played up until the end of BC and yelling out to the zone you were LFG was the norm. There were even CC classes, with the Hunter being one of the best with their freeze traps.

    Yes, WOW was once an MMO. A good one too.
    But it has since devolved into something else entirely.

    I might give Classic a shot to pass the time when it releases, because Classic has all the trappings of a true MMO.
    • 3852 posts
    June 7, 2019 11:26 AM PDT

    WoW as a game had strong points and weak points. At least at release it was a normal enough MMO. What differentiated it was the exceptionally immature level of the playerbase. 

    In many ways it was better than EQ. More advanced interface with more options and less reliance on memorizing slash commands. Nice set of racial starting areas complete with backstories and quests demonstating some of the history.

    It continued the road towards simplifying and popularizing MMOs and trivializing much of them - as I suspect almost all of us will agree - but it did have plusses as well as minuses.

    • 372 posts
    June 7, 2019 11:44 AM PDT

    dorotea said:

    WoW as a game had strong points and weak points. At least at release it was a normal enough MMO. What differentiated it was the exceptionally immature level of the playerbase. 

    I remember reading posts on the EQ forums complaining that too many players were immature. Even if I believed in something like a maturity level, I would expect it to be low in mmos.

    • 233 posts
    June 7, 2019 1:06 PM PDT

    zewtastic said:

    WoW was never an MMO, just a massively instanced kiddie game. That copied everything from EQ, DaoC and AC.

     

    https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/06/everquests-long-strange-20-year-trip-still-has-no-end-in-sight/



    Don't be one of those guys who hates on wow because its the biggest MMO out there.

    I played and loved wow from vanilla to wrath, i played til legion.
    Cata onward it got worse tand worse and now its complete garbage, but no one can deny wow was amazing for the first three exspansions.
    The lore and level of detail and how easy it is to get interested in the story.
    I didnt play eq but i played eq 2 and its was boring and didnt get me interested at all.

    I have really high standards in MMOs, but wow was the only one to tick 90% of my boxes.

    Dont hate on it, because its main stream.

    • 233 posts
    June 7, 2019 1:08 PM PDT

    Alot of people here have never played wow During vanilla TBC or wrath.

    • 560 posts
    June 7, 2019 10:02 PM PDT

    If wow is not an MMO not sure what else I would call it. I played wow on release and I think into the second expansion. The list of complaints I had with the game would be long but it had some good as well. I would have overlooked a lot if the game just had more dungeons a small group could do while leveling.

    I think I counted once and from level 10-40 there was only like 25 dungeons and that is only if you did both alliance and horde. When friend tried to talk me into coming back with new expansions I always asked how many dungeons were added. It was never many and mostly if not all endgame. I guess I was just spoiled by EQ and Vanguard.


    This post was edited by Susurrus at June 7, 2019 10:03 PM PDT
    • 238 posts
    June 8, 2019 1:50 AM PDT

    Grimseethe said:

    Alot of people here have never played wow During vanilla TBC or wrath.

    And I think this shows. Hate and negativity are contagious emotions that easily infect peoples minds. I feel like most people who hate on WoW, and haven't played WoW in recent years don't even know what they are hating on anymore. These people tend to pick one aspect of the game that they don't like and blow it out of proportion. I feel like the only people who can truly say they hate WoW are the ones that experienced it in its glory days and have watched and experienced its decline first hand. 

    I will say that WoW is the perfect demonstration of what not to do, and the developers are perfect examples of what happens when a game developer disconnects from its community. 

    I will also say that not everything in WoW is bad. There are a few systems/ concepts that could be implemented in future MMOs such as Pantheon. For example, the island expeditions which were a feature in the latest expansion. These things were a horrible system and they received so much hate from WoW's player community. However, if tweaks were made a game like Pantheon could potentially implement a zone that is basically a dynamic Ocean of Tears.

    • 372 posts
    June 8, 2019 7:39 AM PDT

    Good posts!  That's all true. No sure how I feel about that last system you mentioned though! I'm so against it at the moment I'm afraid Pantheon couldn't salvage it. :)  As for this thread and negativity, this behavior is human nature.  And, just as we see fanbois hating on WOW, we will see others hating on Pantheon. It will be called the wow clone, we will see people asking for refunds, we will see complaints about monthly sub, we will see complaints about graphics..time..cost..etc.  This has all happened before and none of it is new.