Was WoW the ultimate MMO?

[queamin]

It's is what people want now a easy version of a MMO and almost all new MMO will copy WOW because of the amount of people who got accounts what is it now 10 million.
Everyone will have their fav, mine was eq1 having stopped playing at 7 years and my main toon at over 300 days i do wish i gave DAOC a better go but didn't have the time never did play SWG and from what i heard it was good at beginning but a lot of my friends came back to EQ1 after a few months.
I never tried UO because i didn't know about it back in 1999 and by then was into eq.
Now i don't play on-line i got to much time haha.

 

[Ozzie Dave]

For starters, the OP has got to be kidding when it comes to unbiased thoughts on this. Everyone is biased, some more than others, granted. But come on, even the opening post shows bias. His reasons as why it could be the ultimate is debatable at best or even totally irrelevant to some people at worst.

And yes, as others have commented on, WoW is a classic example of a dumbed down game for the masses. Which is of course awesome if you are one of the masses or a bean counter at Blizzard...it will be seen in years to come as a watershed moment in PC gaming where a good solid game design coupled with casual friendly gameplay finally won out, in spectacular fashion. A turning point in gaming history. Every man and his dog is falling over themselves trying to emulate WoW, because they have 'seemingly' hit the jackpot.

Not saying that is a bad thing, but people like me who want a more mature, involving game are ultimately dissapointed. If WoW was coming out now what would I think?....I'd give it a miss, wouldn't be excited at all because I'm sick to death of dumbed down games. Back a few years ago it was an ok diversion from the more involved games like Everquest, Eve etc. Now though, after the trend of PC games going down the drain with dumbed down everything, it is just too much to suffer

Hey look, I'm all for choice and that but when it seems every new game out there is tailored towards kids or casual adult gamers it gets depressing...

So, ultimate MMO?....Eve & Everquest would be my picks, with Ultima Online coming close too.

In my Humble (and ultimately Biased) opinion of course

 

[misterjingo]

And that says it all folks
In UO when I started out as a newbie, there were certain areas I FEARED going to because I knew I'd be PK'd and all my precious nooblet items looted. When I saw my first PK, I ran and ran fearing for my life...and then I ran into a house for protection. Sadly it was his guild house. In todays UO PK's are more or less gone, your belongings can be insured so they stay with your corpse when you die. The game was dumbed down - but the core skills/freedom remains, albiet in a vastly different world to what it once was.

My first taste of PK'ing in UO was when a friend and I were east Of Brit. We got attacked by a mob too powerful for us so were running away. Some guy saw us as he ran up and said to follow him, we'd be safe in his house...
So we ran in, then immediately he killed my friend and then started on me. I managed to ask 'why' before dying and seeing him loot my corpse ahah. It was harsh, but it made the game exciting. Seeing a red in a dungeon, and pickpocketing (when it was worth doing) sometimes had my hand's shake due to the adrenaline overload. No game since has ever come close to that.

 

[Supercow]

Why didn't you tell me this before you recommended it to me and I got addicted too!?

Difficult to see the truth when my head was stuck so far in my own @#$, or in the game for that matter

Sorry... if that's any consolation

 

[Gackt]

No, I wouldn't get it because I don't usually pay money for things I know nothing about. What's the point in trying to decide whether it's the ultimate MMO, without considering experiences of both WoW and other games? It's just pointless banter.

But no, I think it was far from the ultimate - but my opinion is rubbished because you don't want personal opinions or experiences.

 

[psychas]

no no noooooo......................

 

[dbmzk1]

SWG Precu, EVE, UO, EQ, EQ2 and DAoC (in that order) are all far superior to WoW in pretty much every way.

WoW is incredibly simple. Everything is set, your path is already defined. It's more like linear progression than freedom.

In terms of games still popular and up to date, I'd say EVE and EQ2 are the best right now. If WoW came out right now, even if it had things like modern graphics etc, I would not be interested, as it just doesn't interest me!

 

[colinuk]

** Freedom to roam
Polish
Huge open land
Easy to learn combat
Massive amounts of customization
Good PvP **

Well,

Freedom to roam, well yes you can go a lot of places, but there are places still that are near impossable to get to without trying for 20 mins... But 8/10 for that one.

Polish - your kidding right... from beta to about the 2nd year, with lag, bugs and errors in the game, it was not a polished product to what it is now. Now its a lot better, although some things still need to change yet.

Easy to learn combat - on the surface yes, took a lot of people, me included, to notice PvE is a diffenet ball game from PvP. speed and again, bugs in spells and items spoilt this. The fact you cant dodge fireballs that fly round corners to hit you or activel dodge or parry attacks. Its easy to learn as the skill in defending yourself was one or two spells where damage output is 10-15 spells...

Customization... err.... in the gear all classes looked very sameish to me, Paladins and banana's ring any bells? man in a dress??? all warriors walking around with 9/10 wepaons the same... not much to change there really... ok, i give you tailoring shirts and the 4 different colours you can have..

PvP changes so much depending on what the coders decide they want to play while taking defensive spells/talents of other classes they found hard to kill....

Yeah - great game.

What it did do, imo, was make a fully 3d game, with decent graphics and decent amount of things to do while everyone else was looking at almost wireframe or 2d type games. They put the FPS feel into a online game for the 1st time where it worked and looked even better.

But for great games, best gam eever for online gaming still has to be given to MIR, dated now, but without them Italians, no one would have pushed it forward and as for people coming together, MIR was still the biggest. Bet 7/10 large guilds in WOW have a player from MIR who learnt the way to run a guild from there too...

Depends what you want from the game. I love space games, now there is a HUGE game, makes wow seem very tiny. Freedom to do what you want, or at least have a good go at it.

Reason i quit wow is time, i no longer have mates who play it how we use to, no longer can get 40 people to do an instant for 4 bits of bloody armour. Now eve, fits me like a glove, play when i want, how i want, solo or in a grp, and the skills level without me having to spend 12 hours a day playing it...

Have to give wow one thing, it did show companies that games like mir were no longer cutting edge and with some thought, you can get rid of lag spikes and keep people interested. So thankful for that.

ColiN

 

[Durzel]

WoW is too mainstream imo, but if you're talking raw financial success then obviously WoW would be considered "the ultimate MMO", to date anyway. The original question is loaded anyway, and you can't answer it without comparison as others have already said.

Also to echo what has been said by others - personally pre-CU SWG was "the ultimate MMO" for me - 32 professions, 250 skill points - you could pick and choose whatever you wanted to be, and the best part was everything had a role to play, the symbiosis between classes was spot-on. Unlocking Jedi pre-CU and being one of the first on my server (Intrepid) to do it was an amazing feeling... of course that was back when being a Jedi meant something. SOE tried to reshape SWG to compete with WoW and in so doing killed the game for me.

 

[Edinho]

Strip all feelings back and personal experiences aside and read/contribute this discussion from a completely none biased view. Dont compare it to other games.

Considering what WoW has to offer:

Freedom to roam
Polish
Huge open land
Easy to learn combat
Massive amounts of customization
Good PvP

And many more

If WoW was being released today and you knew nothing about this game, what would be your opinion?

I would be willing to bet wow was your first mmo? It was mine, its only the best for me because it was the first I played and got into.

Freedom to roam - Really? You can roam the instances solo?
Polish - Yes after 4 years it should be.
Huge open land. No bigger than any other mmo cf. EVE
Easy to learn combat - Yes
Massive amounts of customization. Really? How?
Good PvP - Sort of, if you have good gear, good group, right class and its all instanced.


I dont understand your argument, if you're not comparing it to other games how on earth can you call it the best

In summary when it was released and before TBC it was worlds apart from all games released at that time, but im glad I dont play it anymore.

 

[Makunouchi]

I dont get this was stuff.

WoW has more players now than it did a year ago.

 

[Kainz]

I dont get this was stuff.

WoW has more players now than it did a year ago.

Mainly because there is nothing left. Back in the days MMO's were innovative, introducing new systems and features that others didn't have. Then things began to fall apart due to finance costs.

Companies realised that they just couldn't develop a MMO without spending vast amounts of money as gamers demanded greater flexibility, better visuals and a more immersive environment. There is too much to risk and Codemasters found that out fast when they worked on Dragon Empires. They say the project was cancelled due to technical difficulties but it was clear they were doing too much.

Every MMO has now been simplified down to gain more subscribers thanks to rapid progression - even Ultima Online. First came Power Hour where during the 1st hour when you logged in on any day you would gain skills quicker than normal. Then GGS came in guaranteeing that you would gain skill points if you hadn't played for a certain amount of time (iirc). It pushed away the hardcore gamers and brought in the casual gamers. In the end it just made things too easy and predictable skillwise.

Now there isn't anything left. WoW and Eve are the only big guns remaining and every MMO has a fall-off point in subscriber numbers...you can't rehash the same thing over and over again.

Before I gave up on MMO's, Lotr Online was the last game I hoped would bring something new to the table. As beautiful as it was, it was no different to Daoc. Quests, and more quests and even more quests. Running from A-B-C wasn't my idea of fun and I left.

To answer the OP's question, which I thought I did earlier. If WoW had been released today would I give it a thought. No I wouldn't, mainly because I've seen many worlds (mmo's) that have better, more immersive worlds.

 

[Teki187]

Some of the people here should check out Age of Conan. It has a lot to offer and it feels like a nice balance between hardcore and casual.

 

[Teki187]

I dont understand your argument, if you're not comparing it to other games how on earth can you call it the best

Actually i thought the question was extremely easy to answer.

If you picked it up off the shelf and you'd never heard of the game before.

How would you feel about what it had to offer? Would you buy it?

The question is really easy to answer, just people always want to compare.

 

[Teki187]

Your question is flawed. Strip all feelings back, forget personal experiences, then give me your personal feelings?

No that isn't hard to ask for, however it is impossible to answer.

Was WoW the ultimate MMO? No but I can't tell you my thoughts on why because I would have to talk about a different MMO thus forming a comparison.



No, that would be dumb and anyway how would I know it was out?

Tell me, why do you ask anyway?

Your question refers to it in the past tense, do you consider it to be dead or simply surpassed?

Seriously i really didnt know this question was hard to answer.

 

[Kainz]

It's probably the thread title that wound people up as most mmo gamers have a lot of experience with them, and it's a kind of insult thats all. I confess that I chuckled when I clicked on the thread at first.

 

[Teki187]

It's probably the thread title that wound people up as most mmo gamers have a lot of experience with them, and it's a kind of insult thats all. I confess that I chuckled when I clicked on the thread at first.

Yeah i could have worded it better, but meh.

 

[scorza]

WoW's biggest problem is that the fun level drops to almost zero once you hit top level. I just started playing again recently and got to level 70 on saturday. I had great fun levelling up but now what? Ideally I'd do some PvE raiding with my guild, oh no I can't do that because my gear sucks. So how do I get better gear? Honor grind ... zzz. Run instances with pick-up groups - yuck. PvP - I find even more frustrating that honor grinding. Even if I did go through weeks of toil and get better gear, then that gear would get replaced anyway, so in effect the toil was wasted. Don't get me started on all the stuff you have to do in between raids as well like buying/making pots and other clickies for raids. I just want to turn up and raid - like I did in EQ.

EQ was the other way around. Real pain in the ass levelling up - forced grouping, corpse runs and losing hours worth of grind if you died - even with a 96% rez in some cases. But once you got to top level, that's where the all the fun was for me.

 

[Sweetloaf]

Actually i thought the question was extremely easy to answer.

If you picked it up off the shelf and you'd never heard of the game before.

How would you feel about what it had to offer? Would you buy it?

The question is really easy to answer, just people always want to compare.

You are asking such a ridiculous question, it would be like me asking you the following question.

You pick up a chocolate bar in a supermarket that you have never tasted or heard of before, tell me if it's the ultimate chocolate bar without comparing it to any other you have ever tasted....remember, you know nothing about this chocolate bar....oh and it costs £15 and then £8 per month to subscribe to it......well anyway, you get the idea, I hope.

 

[Ian]

Actually i thought the question was extremely easy to answer.

If you picked it up off the shelf and you'd never heard of the game before.

How would you feel about what it had to offer? Would you buy it?

The question is really easy to answer, just people always want to compare.

If i knew absolutely nothing about the game and saw it for sale i wouldnt buy it. Not wasting 15 quid on something i know nothing about

Question answered