I’ve been thinking a lot about other MMOs that have come and gone in the past. All had various reasons for failing but I think the most important factor was WoW.
WoW in its day, was just so good and with it capturing 5-10million players, it left very little playerbase for other MMOs to succeed.
But now its 2018. Things have changed. Most of the old guard at Blizzard have retired and moved on and now it’s becoming more about profits then about producing good games (Mobile diablo anyone?)
As for WoW... it’s in its 14th year. It’s tired and old with many of its player base moving on to other genres. For many of those who remain, i believe they are just waiting for something better to come along.
There has been no better time then now to launch a new MMO and I think pantheon has the right stuff to really capture this market
I have always wondered was WoW really that popular or was the name recognition what brought in so many people to play it. I am grateful to WoW because I personally feel it saved the RPG genre as a whole bringing a lot of players who would of never played a RPG into the genre. I liked original WoW but I still was only able to play for a short amount of time before it became extremely boring due to lack of content, a problem I never had in Everquest. I feel that it has always been the time for Pantheon and so many people decided oh WoW type MMOs make a ton of cash when in reality I think it was a fluke due to name recognition bringing a ton of people from other blizzard games. I feel the reason it lasted so long is strictly just because its the first one of that crappy style of MMO with the most content and its so many peoples first MMO.
I recall Blizzard claiming 14 million active players worldwide before they stopped reporting their subscription numbers. The presumption was that those numbers were declining and history seems to have proven that correct.
I think Pantheon is 3 to 4 years behind in terms of optimal release times. WoW has been around for 14 years but it was a good game for around half of that. Game studios have avoided the genre completely because nobody wanted to compete with the Blizzard behemoth. Due to that we've gone without a good MMO for a very long time and I blame WoW for 100% of that.
There have been a slew of crappy MMOs released over the last 5-7 years with a couple that were playable for a short time. Aion, ArcheAge and Black Desert come to mind but each with major shortcomings. Pantheon, had it been released, say, around 2014 would have been perfectly timed to take a huge part of the MMO market. It still probably will but I can't help hating on WoW for preventing the production of WoW-alternatives for so long and depriving us gamers of a good MMO.
Akilae said:I recall Blizzard claiming 14 million active players worldwide before they stopped reporting their subscription numbers. The presumption was that those numbers were declining and history seems to have proven that correct.
I think Pantheon is 3 to 4 years behind in terms of optimal release times. WoW has been around for 14 years but it was a good game for around half of that. Game studios have avoided the genre completely because nobody wanted to compete with the Blizzard behemoth. Due to that we've gone without a good MMO for a very long time and I blame WoW for 100% of that.
There have been a slew of crappy MMOs released over the last 5-7 years with a couple that were playable for a short time. Aion, ArcheAge and Black Desert come to mind but each with major shortcomings. Pantheon, had it been released, say, around 2014 would have been perfectly timed to take a huge part of the MMO market. It still probably will but I can't help hating on WoW for preventing the production of WoW-alternatives for so long and depriving us gamers of a good MMO.
totally agree Akilae
Akilae said:
There have been a slew of crappy MMOs released over the last 5-7 years with a couple that were playable for a short time. Aion, ArcheAge and Black Desert come to mind but each with major shortcomings. Pantheon, had it been released, say, around 2014 would have been perfectly timed to take a huge part of the MMO market. It still probably will but I can't help hating on WoW for preventing the production of WoW-alternatives for so long and depriving us gamers of a good MMO.
Well WoW didn't really prevent some VERY good MMOs to be released .
Lotro for one, excellent graphics (for that time) , very good and mature player basis , interesting game play . I don't mention lore and world build which top everything I know anyway .
Elder Scrolls OL for two . It has everything one would wish for in an MMO . Actually it almost turned to a handicap because there is so much to do , to discover and to explore that a player may get lost .
FF14 would be three with a slight hesitation . Original design , best crafting system (Vanguard was not bad but FF14 is better imho) , good main quest lines . Unfortunately the life duration was low because one is level max in 4-6 months (including all crafts) and then , like in all MMOs , it becomes just a blind boring grind .
I wouldn't include SWTOR even if it was interesting and also a good MMO but suffered from the same handicap like FF14 - after 4-6 months there was nothing more to do and only boredom and grind was left .
Damacon said:
I have always wondered was WoW really that popular or was the name recognition what brought in so many people to play it.
no, swg and lotro weren't the most played, were they?
Damacon said:
I liked original WoW but I still was only able to play for a short amount of time before it became extremely boring due to lack of content, a problem I never had in Everquest.
grats on KT kill, man, and to even do it in "a short amount of time"! impressive!
Spluffen said:
Damacon said:I have always wondered was WoW really that popular or was the name recognition what brought in so many people to play it.
no, swg and lotro weren't the most played, were they?
Damacon said:
I liked original WoW but I still was only able to play for a short amount of time before it became extremely boring due to lack of content, a problem I never had in Everquest.
grats on KT kill, man, and to even do it in "a short amount of time"! impressive!
There was no prior LOTR or SW's game to bring a lot of people from unlike WoW where there was tons of people who already loved blizzard games and came for the PvP part of the game being a staple Blizzard thing. The other thing about SWG was that it was at a time when not many people even had computers it was a different time, that was another thing WoW had going for it is appeared at just the right time when everyone started owning computers.
I played WoW for about a year long enough to become one of the first Grand Marshals and beat the original raid content. I came back when Burning Crusade came out but once I hit max level thats when it dawned on me that I hate the gear tread mill idea that WoW was putting in place of oh I work my ass off to get a set of gear to only have it replaced by another set of gear with few more stats overall. Doing the same raid zones over again endlessly, and having absolutly nothing to do when you are not raiding except run in circles.
I'm sorry, if your a huge fan of the theme park tread mill MMOs and I have played a ton of them myself but I always end up in that same spot in a few months where I have nothing to do. It just seems so pointless to even get the gear because it will soon be replaced by another set of gear with 5 more stats per piece. I don't even know for certain if Pantheon is going to scratch that itch of a game that is more than just a gear treadmill in a couple months but I am hoping so.
Damacon said:I have always wondered was WoW really that popular or was the name recognition what brought in so many people to play it. I am grateful to WoW because I personally feel it saved the RPG genre as a whole bringing a lot of players who would of never played a RPG into the genre. I liked original WoW but I still was only able to play for a short amount of time before it became extremely boring due to lack of content, a problem I never had in Everquest. I feel that it has always been the time for Pantheon and so many people decided oh WoW type MMOs make a ton of cash when in reality I think it was a fluke due to name recognition bringing a ton of people from other blizzard games. I feel the reason it lasted so long is strictly just because its the first one of that crappy style of MMO with the most content and its so many peoples first MMO.
This is something I have always attributed to the major success of WoW. Their success is directly related to the fact that they had a prior fan base for not just WarCraft but the BLIZZARD name in general. Not to mention they caught the mmo genre in its infancy. They made a with a pre-existing fan base that was accessible and appealing for everyone; kids, teens, moms, dads grandmas, grandpas. On top of that was the fact that the majority of the player base had never experienced an mmorpg before WoW. They bad a perfect storm for lack of a better term.
As for the OP I think that pantheon is definitely coming at the right time. Classic WoW servers coming out signifies the sun setting of the game imo and its player base will dwindle to the dedicated few (in comparison to its former numbers). The theme park rail style game is never the direction mmorpg devs intended the genre to go. People often use the term old school with pantheon. To me that simply means it is a game that is back on track with the direction mmorpg games were supposed to be heading from the get go with AC, EQ, DAoC even SWG. Highly community based games that aren't just games, they are somewhere that feels like home. They take you out of reality and bring those worlds to life. I never felt like Azeroth was alive. Norrath always felt like an actual world to me.
I think even in the beginning, WoW was popular because there was a clear choice for people to choose from. Horde or Alliance. Right there, before you even got into the game, the story was revealed, you had to make an important choice. Then from there you were pitted against the opposite faction. You had a little roleplay in you even if you're not a roleplayer. The game gave you a clear-cut story that's not hidden outside the core parts of the game, it is the core.
Think of the other MMO's. You make your character and then if you choose to, you can figure out the story or just play the game and never know the lore. Even if you don't care about lore, WoW still gave it to you and you felt apart of the world and had a purpose.
Keep in mind: I only played the game for a month and stopped. This was in 2018. So I can't say much, but were it is today, it has longevitity and will be around for a long time to come. I for one don't like how gorupingi s handle in the game and the community is so split up with soo many servers, a lot are empty or little player base that it doesn't for good grouping because the only good way to group is there the Group Finder and there lies the problem without a healthy amount of players.
Many MMOs had clear-cut faction choices both before and after WoW.
Often the choices were significant. You couldn't group with members of the opposing faction(s). You couldn't send mail between factions even between alts You couldn't share storage space between factions even between alts. PvP if any was faction-based. Different factions had different zones and different quests.
Over time the differences evaporated in almost all of these games and the faction differences became almost irrelevant. Common mail. Common storage. Anyone could group with anyone. Faction didn't affect pvp at all. Factions shared zones and the quests were the same (saved a huge amount of developer time when new zones were added).
I am not the only one that enjoyed the differences and the feeling that choice mattered. And abandonned the games when the choice no longer did matter
Pantheon will not be one faction versus another but I do hope that choices of race and where you start and which communities you help or hurt will matter.
Question: What do you mean "failed"? What MMOs "failed"?
I see this a lot. Talk about failed MMOs. The only MMOs that "failed" are those that were not profitable.
Since WoW we have had games like FFXIV, SWTOR, ArcheAge, BDO, TERA, and a host of others. None of these games failed. They were all released and were, and still are, profitable.
So, what is your criteria for "failed"? A game does not need 10 million+ subscribers to be a success.
You could argue that the first iteration of FFXIV failed, because it did, and was completely redeveloped from the ground up. It is now one of the biggest MMOs out there.
I wouldn't call any of them failures but they don't bring that feeling of immersion or connection to your character anymore not to mention a ton of MMO's just feel like cash grabs. I have not played all of those games you are talking about but games like WoW,FFXIV, and SWTOR I think the story they put in place actually hinders any connection to the character. They feel more like single player games where you are playing a character and can play with other people but those people don't really matter in your story. WoW didn't start out that way but it went that way at least from what I have heard from friends who still play the game.
For me they don't fail as games but they fail to do what MMOs were originally intended to do which is fully immerse you in a world with a new identity with consquences much like the real world if you try to face it alone.
Damacon said:I wouldn't call any of them failures but they don't bring that feeling of immersion or connection to your character anymore not to mention of a ton of MMO's just feel like cash grabs. I have not played all of those games you are talking about but games like WoW,FFXIV, and SWTOR I think the story they put in place actually hinders any connection to the character. They feel more like single player games where you are playing a character and can play with other people but those people don't really matter in your story. WoW didn't start out that way but it went that way at least from what I have heard from friends who still play the game.
For me they don't fail as games but they fail to do what MMOs were originally intended to do which is fully immerse you in a world with a new identity with consquences much like the real world if you try to face it alone.
Now see, this is an ENTIRELY different thing. I would tend to agree with you on the points you are making. That is why I ask the question.
kellindil said:Now see, this is an ENTIRELY different thing. I would tend to agree with you on the points you are making. That is why I ask the question.
Yep the real difference is they fail at making you want to give up your life to play a video game haha, look at is a bad thing or those games were just that fun/immersive. When I was a teenager playing Everquest, I would see a hot girl who obviously in to me and I would go damnnnn she looks like she would cut into my Everquest time.
Everquest the Virgin Maker!
I 100% agree! I started becoming much more involved in these forums once i realised that too @Evade. WoW is just coming to a stagnate part of its life and there has been little to no hype about other mmo's coming out atm. I remember few years ago i quit playing wow because i was bored with it and I heard RIFT was coming out, but then right around the corner was GW2 and ESO. As of right now, alot is in development, but while WoW is in a stagnate phase the next successful MMO to arise will be big imo. Hope Pantheon can be the WoW killer.
Aayden said:I never felt like Azeroth was alive. Norrath always felt like an actual world to me.
Truer words have never been spoken.
Doubtful that Pantheon will be the WoW killer, especially with Vanilla coming out this summer. That said, I do hope the exposure many new players will have to Vanilla (including those WoW players who missed the 2004-2006 era) may turn them on to trying other "hardcore", "old school'esque" MMO's and will give Pantheon a good look.
<3
I think the only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard themselves and they are doing a pretty good job at ruining their image as of late haha. I want Pantheon to be succesful but I don't know if I even want it to be a WoW killer. Because wouldn't that mean that all those people would come to Pantheon? I don't know about now but back when WoW first released it had the worst people I have ever seen, not that I didn't expect it being a part of Battle Net game myself haha. I would much rather have a much nicer community like I experienced in the EQ games or other games after the WoW players went back to WoW after the release hype of a new game haha.
Damacon said:There was no prior LOTR or SW's game to bring a lot of people from unlike WoW where there was tons of people who already loved blizzard games and came for the PvP part of the game being a staple Blizzard thing. The other thing about SWG was that it was at a time when not many people even had computers it was a different time, that was another thing WoW had going for it is appeared at just the right time when everyone started owning computers.
I played WoW for about a year long enough to become one of the first Grand Marshals and beat the original raid content. I came back when Burning Crusade came out but once I hit max level thats when it dawned on me that I hate the gear tread mill idea that WoW was putting in place of oh I work my ass off to get a set of gear to only have it replaced by another set of gear with few more stats overall. Doing the same raid zones over again endlessly, and having absolutly nothing to do when you are not raiding except run in circles.
I'm sorry, if your a huge fan of the theme park tread mill MMOs and I have played a ton of them myself but I always end up in that same spot in a few months where I have nothing to do. It just seems so pointless to even get the gear because it will soon be replaced by another set of gear with 5 more stats per piece. I don't even know for certain if Pantheon is going to scratch that itch of a game that is more than just a gear treadmill in a couple months but I am hoping so.
Fair enough, I think it became exactly that type of treadmill with the expansion. Blizzard's philosophy on expansions seem like groundhog day. Kunark doesn't reset the game in that weird way TBC and subsequent WoW expansions did and still do (nowadays even patches during the expansions, or so I've heard).
As for original WoW, though, I really don't see how anything in the progression is disimilar to EverQuest, in fact its almost a rip-off (like Blizzard games usually were; refined rip-offs). I mean, I don't mind, I do like grinding.
Spluffen said:Fair enough, I think it became exactly that type of treadmill with the expansion. Blizzard's philosophy on expansions seem like groundhog day. Kunark doesn't reset the game in that weird way TBC and subsequent WoW expansions did and still do (nowadays even patches during the expansions, or so I've heard).
As for original WoW, though, I really don't see how anything in the progression is disimilar to EverQuest, in fact its almost a rip-off (like Blizzard games usually were; refined rip-offs). I mean, I don't mind, I do like grinding.
I would actually tend to agree that original WoW was a lot closer to EQ and why I probably stuck with it for a year instead of the 3 months or less I spend with more recent WoW clones. One of the other things I hate WoW for is bring that whole follow the yellow exclamation point road progression, I didn't mind it so much in WoW since it was the first time I ever experienced it. But it creates such a mindless boring game that no wonder people say oh the real game is in the end game, the rest of the game just sucks is why haha.
Valorous1 said:Aayden said:I never felt like Azeroth was alive. Norrath always felt like an actual world to me.
Truer words have never been spoken.
I've waited since EQ to have a game recapture that feeling of wonder and danger and all the things that make a game feel like another world and not just a game. So fingers crossed.
You're right that the timing here is looking good. With WoW on a major decline and several of the WoW clones also floundering it does leave an opportunity to capture some market share. But how many of those gamers are looking for something like Pantheon? WoW Classic is generating some serious buzz. WoW's top competitors FF14 and ESO seem to be rolling along ok. Maybe Pantheon will be a little less niche than I originally thought?
WoW was the first MMO where when I started levelling in an expansion (BC) I realised I was getting WEAKER with each level. Their scaling design meant that my gear was making me worse with each level, dodge went from 41% down to 18% by the time I reached max level. Sure the numbers I was hitting for were getting bigger but my actual power level was going down. That was a real killer for me and I quit shortly after reaching max level in BC.
I remember vanilla had a steady progression all the way to Naxx where each new area brought new challenges and new rewards. I have always felt Blizzards formula to success was take what is good and make it better and cleaner and shiny. I don't think of them as a company that does a lot of groundbreaking work, just a studio that creates a great version of an existing product.
I for one look forward to reliving my time in Classic WoW. I hope they slow down the progression to give people time to enjoy the content before they bring out the next patch after MC. BW Lair and AQ with finally Naxx should all have a good amount of playtime. If they cave and start rolling out BC again in a year or two after launching classic that will be the end for me. By then Pantheon should be in Beta!