I still play EQ and WoW both. They're both different and I like both of them. I love how in EQ it feels more lived in. I feel like I'm just a person in the world. In WoW I like to collect and do raiding. It's a bit of a chore simulator, but when I finish for the week I don't log back in until next week. It's one of the weakest parts WoW currently is facing. I'm still close friends with several people I met in Everquest and early WoW, but in any MMO after WoW I never knew anyone other than by their character. I never met them in person or even hung out with them in discord, teamspeak, mumble or whatever we were using at the time. WoW didn't kill the MMORPG genre, it just slowly removed the MMO part from it.
EQ1 was the ultimate mmo for me. Then I went into EQ2, and I was hooked. Loved it, and then one day, it just got super easy. All the mobs were no longer fun to fight, then seemed like no reason to group when I could do it alone. I shortly left Mmo's behind. I'm hoping one day to return. Pantheon may be the answer I'm looking for.
@@kalebclemons I was thinking about coming back to it. But I have to start from level 1 at this point and have no friends that no longer play it. I am afraid of what I heard as you see no one playing. I remember eq1 greatest thing was the community in it. WOW has the genre struggling and they will keep it that way for a long time. How do I even start the task of going back to eq1 and getting to the end game of the game as I did back in the day? I was time-keyed just fyi that's how far i got before leaving eq1.
you also have to consider the age of the audience and time management. Most of the people who played EQ and the older MMOs (like myself) were kids. I didn't mind spending 10 hours on the weekend and my entire evening playing because I didn't have any real responsibility. It was fun waiting for a group and just hanging out. No older, having a family and executive responsibilities I don't have time to waste like that but I still enjoy playing MMOs. From this context, all the solo-related systems (finders, fast travel, etc) are appreciated and needed. They should be optional but not full on removed. The second problem is group content. This only works if the playerbase levels consistently together. If you start a MMO after launch you run the risk of playing alone or with extremely limited options to group. In the scenario where group content is needed for lore, story, gear or progression you are effectively stuck and that doesn't feel good. It breaks up the game flow. This is another instance where solo systems are helpful as it provides somewhat of a catch up. Third, in most MMOs each expansion makes the prior useless. It makes players want to "rush" out of the early zones to get to the more populated ones. Making all zones viable to all players (high and low) level could begin to alleviate this. With all that said I prefer the complexities of Everquest, but long for some of the comfort systems of WoW to make my limited gaming time more valuable. I will continue to believe there is a workable middle ground.
@@Redbeardflynn I completely understand. Ironically, the WoWification of EQ2 is what has kept me around since I only have about an hour a day to play. Much easier to get in and accomplish something.
The real problem is that in an MMORPG having a large playerbase is a FEATURE and an atractive one at that. A lot of people only play wow because other people are playing wow but those "other people" likely are in the same situation.
I think the server size and the world being built for that size are really important. New World felt pretty barren even when servers were full due to the low server size and the size of the map. I remember being surprised at just how small servers were for EQ1 back in the day, just a few thousand. They were recently upped to 6k I believe.
Large Playerbase means safety. No matter how awesome a game is, with a small playerbase no one will invest time and money into it if there's a risk of the plug being pulled any day.
@@Redbeardflynn Vanilla EQ wasn't really built for more players tho, people forget about literally every mob in every dungeon being camped lol. EQ wasn't really that large until Kunark hit
Great video. One of the most amazing experiences i have gotten from playing on EQ tlp's are the raids. 72 people working together towards an end goal. Succeeding, and celebrating afterwards. The awe of and in that is like being part of a symphony orchestra preforming a consert. The deficulty of getting the tradegy right, the evolution of the these.
WOW also attracted a lot of players thanks to a easier financial access. Back then, you needed a credit card for all MMO subscriptions. When WOW came out, you could buy prepaid monthly fees at your LGS. It opened the population to all teenagers and unemployed young adults (students,...) which wasn't the case for EQ, DAoC, UO, etc. That really helped the numbers to climb so high a lot. It was still a well designed, advertised game with a strong story line. I won't deny.
WoW was the case of smart business decisions married to smart design decisions. Even just the computer specs alone made such a huge difference with audience size.
@@Redbeardflynn True ! And when real life took its rights back, it was a fair more casual options for the active people. It brought me some good experience for a while... until I came back to EQ :D
I do remember the long travel times in EQ while tedious at times it also added to the immersion and feeling of size of the game world. And yeah i think WoW caused a lot of issues for other games, the cost to make an MMO is likely very high then add the maintenance of the game servers/network so developers made the mistake to try to be "just another" WoW, AOC tried to make some changes with the more active combat, but still a lot of WoW in there.
Travel in EQ was tedious but remember there were classes that could port groups to different locations. EQ got so many things right. Yes it was hard or presented obstacles but it also provided different solutions in the form of different classes and then allowed players to solve those problems or obstacles which contributed to the community. It's no wonder that MMOs today have such lacking community.
@@Chris-zg7ty I still play EQ and EQ2 quit wow a long time ago it was fun and all but does not have the long lasting appeal at least to me like a game like EQ or AO has.
I agree with your final assessment in that WoW's success, and thus the rush to copy its formula (albeit badly), unfortunately turned the genre into the relative mess its been for at least a decade; yet as you opined, hope is on the horizon. Thank you for the thoughtful video! 💖
One thing you missed that I feel WOW really pushed, was that the end game, was the game. They made everyone race to the end in every game that came after it. Sure you had people that did that anyway, but in WOW its all there was, a race to the end.
Still think EQ was the better game imo. Even EQ2 (beta) was great. EQ2 just died out imo when it tried to be a WoW clone. Still have fond memories of waiting on the boat from Butcher Block and the first time trying to run my new dwarf all the way to Qeynos. Still chat with a few friends I met back then.
I am curious about EverQuest and one bit of information that I can not find anywhere online is detailed talk from players of live servers discussing how the content in the game works. What shapes your goals in the game outside of the obvious current treadmill for the current patch? For me when I log into GW2 I'm jumping on the tasks I need to do for my current legendary grind. When I log into WoW I'm looking for the next transmog to add to the collection while waiting to do grouped content. When I log into OldSchool RuneScape I play an Ironman and I am usually hunting for the next rare drop that will make me stronger. The thing about all of these examples is that each of these aspects of these games really tie everything together from new to old content with a nice neat bow and provide long-term enjoyment and variety in gameplay. What I want to know about EQ as a possible new player is.... What systems are in the game that would be interesting to dive into from expansion number whatever out of 29 and why would I be pushed to or want to check that content out 13 years after it was released. What is there to do outside of pushing my power level on the current treadmill in soon to be expansion 30? edit: I hope that anyone can make sense of this rambling mess and could provide me with some feedback. Also I did a little formatting to make it more easy to read.
I saw this comment while I was working and wanted to come back to it when I could devote some proper time to answer it. The perspective of Everquest versus GW2 and WoW are going to be quite different when it comes specifically to systems because EQ is much more "do what you want" whereas the other two are good for new players at directing them "go to A, then B, and have you tried C today?" Everquest can be summed up in a linear way like: Are you max level? No? You can level. If you are max level, you can get AA's. But interspersed with that are things like crafting and gearing up. The problem for a new player is going to be how daunting it can be. Crafting is rewarding but very expensive and time-consuming with a hard barrier to entry for example. One thing you experience in EQ, like WoW, is that sometimes systems will start and be abandoned. This is part of an MMO just being older which is why I often suggest new players try a progression server because it makes it all manageable, especially if it's early in the servers lifespan. You're dealing with a more basic "log in, find friends, kill things." or "log in, find friends, get loot" The good and bad of EQ is that in its live iteration it's not very good at looping back or re-using content which narrows your focus of the game to whatever expansion you're in. Most expansions are end-game focused over the years so each one usually just expanded upon whatever the level cap increase was. I don't know that this was particularly helpful in answering your question, I may have just ended up rambling when I could have send "EQ is about leveling up and killing challenging npcs with your friends" Let me know if I can help further elaborate!
@@Redbeardflynn "The good and bad of EQ is that in its live iteration it's not very good at looping back or re-using content which narrows your focus of the game to whatever expansion you're in. Most expansions are end-game focused over the years so each one usually just expanded upon whatever the level cap increase was." Would you say that there is no merit at all in interacting with those things from older expansions that at some point were interesting additions to the game but are now forgotten? The reason I carefully chose the examples from other MMOs that I did is because those are the things pushing me to interact with every aspect of the games I'm playing and why I'm interested in them beyond getting my current tier of progression done and logging out until the next patch. I guess for me the hold an MMO has on my attention span has less to do with "leveling up and killing challenging npcs with my friends" because that's a given for almost every MMO that I would choose to play (there are exceptions, like Albion or ARPGs if you consider those MMOs but I play them solo anyway). What pushes me into trying a new MMO and maybe even sticking a thousand hours into it are the things that make it unique and the ways the game might open my mind to unique gameplay. To get to the heart of what I'm asking, is there ever a moment for a person MOLOing through live at their own pace where they're going to happen upon a really interesting mechanic/system/unlock in zone number 174 from expansion number whatever and feel incentivized by the game and rewarded (through an achievement, collectable, rare drop, title, etc.) for interacting with that old bit of forgotten game play. For me it's those little things that bring enjoyment in trying out other MMOs than the ones I'm normally playing. Many times in other games those things were once part of a previous progression system or maybe added as an experiment in game play diversity or patch longevity through a grind/unlock and iterated upon for an expansion or two and then dropped for something else. Although it has been forgotten usually there is still some merit or carrot and stick for checking it out later on. I find it hard to believe a world so large with so many expansions that the only thing to do would be the current patch progression, but the thing is I just can't find much about the game online to figure that niche stuff out. For example I see that there is a collection system in EQ and just to pull something out of my ass, is there a collection to work on that is kind of lengthy and stupid and normally people wouldn't do it but if you do happen to see someone with "insert title here" you know their crazy broken brain made the decision to participate in some weird grind in a zone no one remembers the name of through interacting with a mechanic that was forgotten about the day it was released for really no other reason than to say they did and that it was interesting enough to them to pass the time between playing with friends/guild mates to work on the current tier of progression. I know that last bit was a terrible mouthful of a crazy runonsentence, but I hope it gets the idea across. Thank you for taking the time to reply to my first comment and hopefully I haven't bored you with this second essay.
@@zipzap8937 So with EQ by function of their expansions for the most part older expansions gear-wise are made irrelevant by later expansions. But. You will experience them as you go through the game. You will interact with different systems like the in The Broken Mirror which is a relatively newer expansion (but still a few years old) that essentially you go between two versions of the same zones using a mirror item you have to collect. EQ isn't going to seem innovative by todays standards, though. The heart of it is the friends part, the social part, and the difficulty. individual npcs providing a challenge instead of mindless culling of hordes a la WoW and Diablo (which is a fine function just pointing out a difference) The main difference of the game from a GW2 is going to be the need to group up to experience it. It's less optional, although, yes, mercenaries do make things easier to do solo. There are also of course achievements to hunt, quests become more varied and more important as you go through expansions. There are massive quests that are truly epic in scale needing solo,group, and raids to achieve.
@@Redbeardflynn I do believe I will give EQ a chance after the reported UI update. For me I don't fancy learning it when it will be changing relatively shortly. Thank you so much for your time, I appreciate the replies.
Personally, I look at the early 2010s for when MMOs started to really "die out". I look at ESO (released in 2014 and a few at the same time like Archeage and Wildstar) as one of the last "AAA" MMOs that to me signaled the dark ages of MMOs. While WoW probably was a big factor in the early demise of many, IMHO, it was also the reason a lot of games got tried--what bean counter wouldn't salivate at the money WoW brought in. And that, I think, is the key. What 2014 or so ushered in was the death of the subscription model, and the birth of the F2P or B2P model. And with that, gone was the $$$ signs in bean counters' eyes to millions of people paying $15/month... plus the initial box cost and expansions. Yes, WoW sucked all the oxygen out of that market, because you more or less had to choose one of these due to money and time, and I call it the "Facebook factor". If all your friends are on one platform, and you want to play with them, then nothing else matters all that much. There's an uptick in MMOs now, but still, the very big Western players are still sitting it out, with the exception of Amazon. Most MMOs in development are either by indies or Eastern companies, where the F2P monetization, including pay-to-win, are much more accepted. And let's face it, F2P monetization as it exists in mobile games can draw in tons of money in many markets, but that pretty much turns off old-school Western players.
Great comments, Zhiroc! Thank you. Funny you should mention monetization because next week I'm covering the Box and Sub model and how it might be done with or at least, no longer insulating against micro-transactions. I think battlepasses may be the next big monetization trend in MMOs and I dont know how to feel about it yet.
Yea that period was a real dark age for mmos. wow released cataclysm making the game too streamlined. and runescape released eoc most smaller mmos went pay2win.
@@zedorian6547 Really? I'm curious what issues you have with their monetization. I always found it to be one of the better models but granted I don't play end game so there might be stuff I don't know.
@@Redbeardflynn I somewhere agree. If you are someone who likes to craft, a sub is almost mandatory since that's the only way to have the infinite crafting material bag. Now, paying for an MMO isn't a bad thing, but a sub to me represents a significant barrier to entry, as it elevates the game to a "must play" status of you're going to get value for the sub.
One thing to add about the WoW streamlining. Keep in mind that some of these things were introduced through player made add-ons that were designed to help players get through the game an became so popular, that it only made sense for Blizzard to add them. I remember having the quest finder add on before that was added to the game and it really changed things to make levelling smoother. I also remember having an Auction house mod (can't remember which one... I think a pricing one) and the raid boss encounter mod that had timers. Wasn't there one for spell timers as well for when you buffed other during raids? Those changes helped open the door to newer players joining and the innovative approach of the dev team was well appreciated at that time.
I have said that WoW killed the MMO genre for nearly 15 years and just like you point out, it was due to its success. First everyone tried to copy WoW and if I wanted to play WoW, I would just play WoW. I used to beta test a lot of MMO, when beta was invite only and actually used for testing and saw it time and time again. They had the formula right but at the last minute would cave to the WoW Juggernaut and change the formula to WoW. SWTOR always comes to mind. During my Beta experience it was the best, most perfect, most fun MMO I ever played. The perfect mix of everything from Social play to solo play just just the right mix of grinding vs questing and two weeks before launch, a patch comes out and it was all gone, replaced by yet another version of Wow. Second, developers just decided that if a game didn't manage 2+ million subscribers, it was a failure and they stopped improving their game and/or cancelled them outright. So many great games, gone because developers couldn't bother with anything other than a WoW-Killer.
I picked up EQ2 and WoW on launch and thought EQ2 was the better game. Wow was just alot easier for people that had never played an mmo to get into. Everyone I got to play EQ2 left pretty much to play WoW. For the life of me I could not understand it at the time but I eventually joined my friends Azeroth and stayed for well over 10 years.
This completely spoke to me as I had done and thought the exact same thing as you. I was super impressed with EQ2 and had it right before WoW came out. I also remember it being so much more difficult. That's why I truly believe WoW had won. The ease of getting into it and the fact that you didn't need a great computer to play at the time, made WoW a much mor viable option at the time. But EQ2 at launch will always be way more complex.
I got into mmo's about a year after Wow came onto the scene and I loved it but I noticed with each expansion the game got easier and easier and there was no struggle and everything was handed to you on a silver platter. Group finder and dungeon finder really sucked the life of out the social aspect for me as well. I played into Cata about half way and just lost interest. I need some challenge and sense of adventure and discovery and consequences for not picking my battles wisely. A friend still plays and he was telling me that now no matter what level you are the zones scale to you so you can go anywhere at anytime and do the content. Yuck!
I think why people think it is dead is because the player count isn't WoW level, while negating the fact there are many good mmo's out there now. Warlords of Draenor's failure made people branch out and realize there were other mmo's out there. Add in the back to back shitstorm of BFA and Shadowlands, only enhanced what WoD started. The fact of the matter is you probably will never see those other WoW's numbers because there are too many good options, and people are learning it is ok to take breaks and play multiple mmo's.
I think it's dead because the genre is nothing but singleplayer games masquerading as multiplayer games. Just because they're wearing the skin of the late MMORPG genre, doesn't make them MMORPGs.
Great stuff, Red. It looks like you put alot of work into this and it shows. Ive said this before several times on this channel as well as others about WoWs success. They are the 1st MMO to give people instant gratification without the need of others while maintaining a feeling of being part of a world with other players. No more sitting around doing nothing because you cant find groups, no more sitting and regaining health/mana after every kill, no more sitting in place for hours in hope of a rare spawn and a rare drop, then hoping you win the roll to loot it, no more feeling left out because you weren't in a big guild to tackle raid mobs for loot. WoW gave us multiple buttons to press frequently to keep you doing something. They gave everyone the ability to log in, play on your own terms of what you wanted ,when you wanted, and log off feeling you have made progress. They are masters of keeping you busy chasing items that are obtainable by yourself within a reasonable amount of time. Personally I cant stand WoW, but if there is one good thing I have to say about the game is, anyone can jump into the game during any expansion and learn how to play as well as catch up and have fun with others in a very reasonable amount of time. Once you play one WoW expansion, you have learned play them all. As much as I want Pantheon to succeed, I really wonder if it will do any better than EQ is currently doing after the initial spike of players dies down a few months after launch. Are there enough people interested in these grind type MMOs anymore? I know alot of people will say yes, but subscription numbers show differently.
Thank you so much, I always appreciate your insightful commentary. I think my main issue can be boiled down to how the genre kind of stopped with WoW. It just kept doing what WoW did and trying to out-do WoW at its own game for years. I *think* but I haven't looked into it recently but I believe WoW's changed to crafting with dragonflight actually added in more social interaction than has ever been in the game before and divergences in combat styles, exp gain types (exploration exp in GW2, hell yeah!) and other developments in new MMOs gives me hope that we can actually expand from where WoW was in 2004
@@Redbeardflynn I couldn't agree with you more, Red. We are very like minded, but you always add some fresh ideas with your opinions and the way you perceive these games. You always seem to raise a lot of interesting questions and insight in your videos that explores the games in a way I may not have considered. I, as well as the committee appreciates you. Now get back to work!
I will continue to hope that Pantheon can bring the social part of MMOs back to the genre. I miss playing EQ and knowing of or being friends with all the end game or raiding Monks on my server. Comparing gear, pulling strategies, and just having fun talking. I remember knowing, although not being as friendly with all the Hunters back in WoW and getting groups pre wotlk because I was really good at using the tools I had to chain trap 2 mobs, or trap one while kiting another while the group dealt with others. That was slowly taken out of the game shortly after wotlk and obliterated from existence when they added dungeon finder and everything was just aoe and DPS fast as you can.
Struggle in many, if not most old MMOs were just because they were poorly designed or made intentionally harder in archaic design to force group play and to stretch content.
I've played wow since launch, and Ive done all the classic expansions they have released to play them again. Im really getting into EQ for the first time after being a tourist over the years. Came saw did some grouping and quit. Now im in a raid guild, going through expacks on Oakwynd, and with EQ its hard to log off at night theres still so much i want to do, and its the first thing I want to do after I get off work. I havent felt like that about an MMO in a very very long time.
Very good documentary. I would say vanilla WoW had a magic (and we saw it in Classic again) that no expansion after had. Hopefully Ashes of Creation can set a new standard!
There is one aspect of WoW that I feel you misjudged. That is how Blizzard took aspects from other MMOs and brought it into their own taking away what others did that was unique. A great example of this is Star Wars the Old Republic (SWtOR), who included a system where you could take the stats of one item and place it into another, thus keeping the look you wanted. Another game who did something similar was FF14, who had the glamour system which allowed you to place the looks of an item onto another more useful item to you. Blizzard saw how successful these systems were and used them to create the Transmog system in their game, wholesale stealing the idea and making only the most minor of changes. Then there was the housing system which they took from FF14 as well, where the player can make a base and have NPCs help run the base. Which WoW included in Warlords of Daenor. So not only did WoW push their ideas on others to force the industry standard, they stole what made others unique and would not allow innovation that they could not steal directly. This is not always a good thing, if WoW steals an idea from another game it can sometimes push that game out of the market as people will want to stick with the game they put the most time into.
The only game it hasn't outlived so far is UO but based on added content I think you could argue it has. The number of expansions they've added...it's just amazing.
I have played a lot of WoW over the years, and I am enjoying WoW classic at the moment, but I do regret what it did to the other MMOs I was playing at the the time, namely Asheron's Call and Anarchy Online. In both games my guilds died overnight pretty much and I really hated WoW for that. It's only natural that other game companies tried to copy WoW, seeing how much money it made. It reminded me that way back, first person shooter games where called Doom clones for a period of time. Great video 👍
I can't believe EQs peak player count was only 500,000.. Like I thought millions of people played back in it's peek days when I played in the early 2000s. I knew WoW had way more people but I just can't believe EQ was that low. Like I probably knew 5 or people in person friend or family that played EQ and probably 10+ WoW players including myself since people started migrating towards WoW. But I miss EQ and for me I have way more love for it over WoW even though I've actually probably technically played more WoW over the years, but EQ early days is an experience people either had or this missed out and i feel bad for them 😂
@@Redbeardflynn Yeah I didn't play SWG but my friends brother did in the heyday and I figured that had more Subscribers then it did to. I played alot of other MMOs throughout time but I am surprised just how many more people played WoW compared lol. Others I played alot: EQ, EQ2, City of Heros, Guild Wars 2, Nexus TK, FF 14, Phantasy Star Online, Everquest Online Adventures, plus alot of random F2ps through the years.
Totally agree with most of the things in the description but... the chicken or the egg? Eq2 released in the exact same year, month like wow did in 2004 nov but few weeks earlier. So still no idea who stole from whom. :D Probably it was a fierce competition and wow won the race with way better optimization, way more casual game play and incredibly childish characters, graphics and colors and prolly way better marketing strategy.
I cover this a little bit in the video about EQ2. There are "rumors" that EQ2 changed design during the development process to match WoW but I couldn't substantiate that so I mainly focused on what happened after EQ2 launched and it floundered where WoW succeeded and what it did in response.
Thank you. EQ was awesome back in the day. Not so much EQ2. I really think if EQ took a few steps back and initiated some changes that it could easily be very popular once again.
WoW started to suck for me when it changed from, "Oh crap, 3 mobs there, I better be careful. Lets plan this out, how am I going to take these 3 mobs? Which one should I focus on killing first? Do I have CDs up? Maybe ill just skip this pack and look for a mob by itself." Then it changed to, "Oh man only 3 mobs? Not even worth my time, maybe if I pull these 12 other mobs nearby I can get all 15 of them." Just watching that Demon hunter kill 3-5 mobs at once without even losing HP is just mind numbing. It went from planning and thinking to just blindly charging into mobs and pressing 2 buttons, loot, repeat.
I'm in a bit of a middle ground. I don't like worlds populated by Black Desert-style worthless NPCs that basically exist only to fulfill the shallowest form of power fantasy... but I ALSO don't like every little patrol group being a major threat that requires considerable time, intense focus, and excellent play just to get past, as those sorts of worlds are exciting to explore but tedious to deal with on subsequent runs through. I think there is ample room for both types of experience and everything in-between, even within one game - that's the beauty of open-world MMOs.
I played EQ at the time but absolutely loved Blizzard and the Warcraft IP. WoW (when the servers were up and you could play it) was such an enjoyable experience I completely forgot about playing EQ and never went back until joining P99 in my adult life. I wasn't alone either, a lot of my friends that played EQ eventually made the jump as well and I don't remember ever hearing about anyone quitting WoW to go back to EQ. Considering it was called EverCrack at the time, to see be so dominated by WoW, was telling to what a great game WoW was.
I've gone back now and played a few mmos before WoW.. And the truth is that WoW was a game made by a team that were veterans in the industry, and knew game design to a TEE. Going back and trying out the Turtle WoW vanilla + server, while there are some great additions like extra quests/small class changes/new areas.. The game is just a perfect game even by today standards, the lvling areas from 1-15 are designed really well, from the gear/skills/mobs/classes, and that continues all the way to level 60.. you have weak points and strong points.. The games that came after WoW actually did a lot of amazing things.. Warhammer Onlines systems are in every mmorpg today from Acheivments/group quests/open world events ect
One of your closing points really gets at the gist of it- the long development time. A major part of Warhammer Online's failure rests with the publisher- is it any surprise that it was EA? If any of the videos are still around, it's worth checking out the WHO developer and promotional videos- the sheer passion of that team was as tangible as it was infectious. But, after at least one longer delay the publisher basically said 'go to market'- the result was a game that was supposed to launch with 24 classes (12 per faction) and 6 capital cities (one for each race) but wound up having 18 classes (iirc) and 2 capital cities. While they did get around to implementing the remaining classes, the capital cities never really materialized. The PVP was good, after all the DAOC devs were behind WHO, but it wasn't as robust as DAOC (which it really needed to be, from a consumer engagement perspective, given the state of launch). The publisher, and I'm sure the investors/stockholders as well, were eager to see that sweet sweet "WoW money". With Blizzard announcing expansions and continuing to deliver, I can see why the interest groups in the background had a 'shit or get off the pot' moment. I mean, 12M subs at $15 a month that's nearly a $1B business each year (not including sales)- who wouldn't want a slice of that? The sad irony is that what made WoW so successful was ultimately lost on the corporations, and perhaps some of the teams, nipping at its heels. Blizzard had the privilege of being a well-regarded studio with established, popular, and beloved IPs. That also brought them the luxury of having sufficient funds to develop the game and take their time. They had the foresight to release a game that wasn't as taxing on PCs as some of its predecessors. You can also add in the extremely fortunate timing of releasing the game around the time that certain technologies (e.g., Athlon 64 and its extreme value-performance ratio) and consumer trends hit (e.g., more people assembling their own computers). The innovation speaks for itself, but the art style was a unique draw as it visually contrasted to any existing title of the time. Then, there is the passion of Blizzard developers that put the cherry on top. Anyone not previously involved in this space couldn't, or refused to, see those things and the ignorance of those factors cost their own titles, and genre, dearly as they tried to shamelessly ape the bestseller.
I'm blanking on the name of the face of Warhammer Online but he was huge. I remember how passionate and eager he was. *really* sold the game. I Was hooked and I actually liked a ton of Warhammer Online it just wasn't finished.
@@Redbeardflynn Paul Barnett, dude was like... idk... what would happen if you could turn Red Bull into a person. Edit: I LOVED Warhammer Online. Just a damn shame how it shook it out with the player base and post-launch woes.
I still play Star Wars Galaxies (Legends) and it still makes me angry how it became a casualty of WoW's success, and then later EA's hubris. The later eras of the NGE (2007 onwards) were actually legitimately good, but it never made up for ruining the game in the first place. Looking back, the pre-NGE era had almost no content, so the NGE itself in later days was a better game, but it ultimately led to the game being shut down, which was a real tragedy.
Some of my subs still lose their mind when i dare cover WoW lol. It really did kill an era of gaming. It was better imo before WoW. EQOA was peak MMORPG for me personally. Nothing has ever matched it, as simple as it was. Maybe that's why it was so special, deep, yet simple. 4 friends and a camp.
WoW was the kid's version of Everquest. WoW had short quests in the billions that got repetitive by the time you hit 60. 'Kill 'x' Many, Collect 'x' Many, turn in, wash repeat. EQ you damn near made it a second job to complete your epic and that would take months if not years to complete. EQ was DEFINITELY a job if you were in a raiding guild that rocked out 5 nights for 8 hours. WoW required no skill to be good, only gear, whereas you could make up for gear deficiency if you knew how to play your class to perfection in EQ. EQ 2 was the bastard child neither WoW or EQ players wanted.
I highly disliked the influence of WoW in skill trees upon LoTRO. And also tanking. 300-800% passive aggro generation makes for boring tanking and DPS in each game I've seen it in. 24:38 EDIT. 100% right regarding the conversion of MMO's to single-player. The anti-social element has carried over to FFXIV. No exploratory zone that requires grouping like the past 2 expansions. More and more trials and dungeons converted to single-player (with an NPC team).
Best Online game system I have played was DAOC. It had a good economy, items decayed so they were in need. Crafting allowed exceptional items to be made rarely. The PvP battles, each class that their job and specialty. All crafting systems today is 'you make the item'. In DAOC you could make a poor items of an exceptional one. Items like armor and weapo0ns decayed as you use them so they needed to be replaced. EQ2 right now, you never loss or break items; exception if you dumb enough not to repair your equipment after 10 deaths. EQ2 was a sports car, Wow was a high performance sports car that looks fun. Original EQ2, it felt challenged to kill a mob and to make level. I got back into it that past week and it seems too easy...however I am still playing. EQ2 is easy like Wow was, I can solo a Elite Goblin when in the past you need a group.
One small note on early games numbers: accessibility by average players. Number of people who can afford decent gaming computer in 1999-2001 was FAR LESS than in the following years. Internet was still on Dial Up - gameplay was plagued by disconnects, and DSL which was only tiny bit better cost a whooping $125 a month! And never forget the very idea of paying $10 a month subscription was literally unheard of by most of gaming community. All of these issues essentially disappeared by 2004.
Instant gratification is the bane of all games in my opinion. We play games because we want to overcome a challenge whether that be through story or gameplay.
IMO, the biggest issue facing MMOs is that many of the things that made them unique are done as well or better in other genres now. Combat is better in MOBAs or FPS. FPS games do pick up and play gaming better. Single player RPGs do story telling better. More PvP oriented games do PvP better. Even social media like Instagram or Discord do the social side better. The only thing I can think of that MMOs do better than other genres is large scale PvE raid type content. Which is probably some of the least popular gaming content around because it takes a level of commitment and coordination that most people don't want to put into a game. So the one thing that MMOs do better than any other genre is the one thing that the least amount of people are interested it. To me, this says MMOs still have a niche, but they somehow need to be developed for way less money. From what I saw in the internet, Elden Ring costed about $200 million to make. If we want MMO developers to take chances again, and start catering to the sandbox market again, we need to somehow get development costs down to no more than 20% of that. Developers also need to realize that the days of casting a wide net and getting everybody are over, and that having a steady sub count of 150k is more than enough if development costs are kept low.
I played a game called Shadowbane after Everquest, full PVP after starter zones. It was amazing. I never played WoW because there was no consequence to PvP when it came out.
I played Shadowbane, too. Loved it. Loved it so much I backed Crowfall. It only got bad there when guilds consolidated power and became mega powers on servers. I loved the discipline system, though.
Great video overall (again). Some really well made points. Obviously, I'm not going to 100% agree across the board, but would we really be gamers if viewpoints were 100% universal? I think a really great point that you touched on a few times and stated outright towards the end but then breezed past: The problem isn't that games like WoW or games which share design elements exist. The problem isn't even completely in the release/death cycle of games that followed, whether they wanted to dethrone WoW explicitly or not and how they thought they were going to do so. The problem is that in the wake of something dropping onto the scene like a bomb and as you did a great job pointing out... there grew to be a steady stream of displaced or dispossessed gamers who wanted something different. A new branch from the EQ tree, a new clipping off of UO, a new something-else-botanical from the original SWG formula. And lacking those options but seeing so many new games that had gone down a different path, yeah that's going to lead to a bunch of really bitter and vocal gamers. Ideally the rising tide lifts all ships, but those branches were either scuttled or put out in a dinghy someplace. The tide more or less missed them. And for those people, it doesn't matter how great the new games are for the people who enjoy them, they're always going to be that kid with their face pressed up against the glass looking in asking "Yeah, but where's mine?". And that sucks, because not only do they not get what they want with the same degree of variety and care that other MMO fans do, it just makes most of them bitter and frustrated, which is a whole feedback loop of its own. Hopefully as we crawl back to less of a mono-culture in the genre, those displaced gamers will be able to find their forever homes and the big bad specter of other games won't be quite such a painful reminder to them of what they miss and they can see the good in anything that's not P99 now that they have theirs again (that last was there just for Bountycode, and it is 100% tongue in cheek and in good fun :D ). Onward and Upward
I started my MMO journey with EQ, pre Kunark, till about a year into Planes of Power". When Luclin "shrunk the World", it started going downhill IMO. I played WoW from closed beta till just after Litch King, on a PvP server, with a top tier raiding guild, same guild the whole run. After that it was SW:ToR for the better part of a year, Warhammer for about 6 months (at least they introduced innovations adopted into mmo's to this day), Rift, because my brother asked. A few more that elude me atm. After EQ, and the 1st few years of WoW, the experience erroded really. I still join an EQ TLP server every other year or so to scratch that itch.
EQ is still the best. I've never seen another game (besides EQ2) that has EVER creates classes the way it has. You've never seen another bard enchanter shm.... etc the only classes that are similar would be ones like warrior rogue ranger. You know the base classes EVERY game has. Everquest was and still is the absolute best MMO there is. I will see my fellow EQ buddies in LDoN on March 30th (:
In EQ it was pretty easy to grasp what class does and buffs what etc. One of the things I hate most in newer games is all the short duration "buffs" that last for 4 seconds or so, there's so much shit going on but nothing of it has any notiocable effecrt on gameplay so I don't even care. I played FF14 till max level and even did Savage raiding and I had no idea what all the other classes even did exactly aside from tank/dd/heal archetype stuff lol. Just follow your CD rotation and don't stand in the hurt and you're good, it's super weird. In EQ you automatically got invested into how the other classes operate, noticing the right buffs coming at the right time etc, being able to see if you had a capable group you could push harder with bigger pulls or not. Haven't found that kind of gameplay in any other MMO
Maybe demographics are a part of it. The Millennial generation is big, and was in prime gaming years (teens-twenties) in the heyday of WoW. But I agree the fact that everyone tried to make a WoW clone stifled the genre to this day.
WoW only ever did 2 things better than EQ2. 1: Utilization of art concepts that create texture where there isn't any, thus allowing weaker computers to run the game at "full" graphics. This increased the audience. 2: Marketing. Blizzard marketed the game well, which increased their audience. Everything else, EQ2 did better. Raiding was more engaging and tactical. Housing existed at all. Questing was better and more connected to the environment and the lore. Dungeon runs were more interesting, difficult and rewarding. Crafting was initially much better, bu then became the same. Class progression and diversity was much better. Class synergy was much better.
To an extent I'll agree with you but I think one of the most underrated things WoW did was the feel of combat which actually ties into your first point. Actions were crisp and you saw them happening. Attacks and the like. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it other than just "combat feel." It's everything from sound design to animations to low latency. I am sad that EQ2 stripped out some of the things that made it unique very early, like the class synergy skills. They became useless so quickly but I really liked that you could trigger a specific skill and then another archetype could trigger the next and then the next and so-on. I wish they would have expanded on that.
I'm new to community of MMORPGs. 2 years ago my first game in this genre was Guild Wars 2 and I love it. Later i tried WoW, but it wasn't for me. Right now I'm experiencing Runescape and Ultima Online, 2 great games, one of the best imho. Now i actually understand why people still play "old" games. They are objectively better. There's no such fun and enjoyable games like those 20 y.o. classics
The change from group only mobs to solo mobs in Eq2 didn't happen until it's 3rd expac Rise of Kunark release November 13, 2007. Eq2 at it's launch was a vastly superior game compared to WoW. SOE took everything that was great about Eq1 and made them more updated. It still felt like Eq1 but it was made more friendly to people who where new the MMORPG genre. Which was the one of the biggest complaint people had back in 2004. The main reason Eq2 failed was not because of WoW even though it didn't help matters. No Eq2 failed because it split the already dwindling Eq player base.
I agree that it was WoW that finally killed the MMORPG. I believe the reason was that these games, prior to WoW, were popular, but few were getting wealthy doing it. It was a labor of love by and for people who loved gaming. When WoW took the gaming and even the mainstream public by storm, "The Suits" realized that there was SERIOUS money to be made. They started to make decisions based upon the lowest common denominator, in order to attract new players, new subscriptions...... .......and they were perfectly happy to burn down the game, if not the genre, in the process. Wall Street isn't about long term viability, it's about return on investment. When that return starts to drop (or ideally just before), you get out by dumping the stock, not caring about what happens to that company, that investment, the workers at the company, the community in which the workers live, etc., etc. WoW caused everyone to re-think and in some cases, just spaz out, throwing everything at the wall to just see what sticks. "Easy Mode" became the rule of the day and remains so to this day. It brings in the most money in the short run, which again, is all Wall Street is after or even concerned about. They took the steady, dependable profits of the MMORPG genre and its audience/player base (which skewed towards people dependently playing these games for YEARS), and turned the whole thing into a "get rich quick" scheme. Also, those that loved the game that worked on it, they felt devalued (in some cases literally having their salaries savagely chopped). They felt like their pet project of love had been violated and thus, many left that had made the game great. And as a result, they killed the Golden Goose. The Suits didn't care, they moved on to go assault/wreck something else for profit...... .
Vanguard, Warhammer Online, and AoC killed themselves by releasing when it wasn’t done. If they had spent more time on them before release they would have been amazing games. Rift was too similar to WoW that you just thought, why aren’t I just playing WoW?
The reason cloning WoW doesn't work is the first love aspect and more content is always coming. I feel with most people who fell hard into any MMO, the first one they fell into will always be their bestie. So while in other genre's gamse get stale to the user and they move on to a clone game, that doesn't happen in these online games. Reality is the novelty of MMORPG is gone and there is no mystery or adventure. Min/Max from day one is how the majority of invested gamers play MMOs and that isn't for the average player. There is no way to get that back within the internet age unless you create a game with AI that can change content without any player knowing all the time.
I remember when SWTOR launched and the Jedi melee attacks had the exact same affects and cooldowns as warriors in WoW. I was in EQ 2 and jumped to WoW, EQ 2 was definitely closer to EQ 1 than WoW until WoW released. I used to advocate cross server grouping, about a year into it ... I hate it. Kills community.
Great video, Wildstar was another spectacular failure a WoW in space. I loved it though. It's a shame that it costs so much money to make an MMO. Would love to see smaller Indy developer takes on the genre.
I never got to try Wildstar, I wish I had...or perhaps I'm happy I didn't? I have the bitter taste of Vanguard and SWGs closures still in my mind. The cost for MMOs is pretty exorbitant. I think we're going to enter into a space where single player RPGs are coming out pretty regularly but MMOs may still be very cost ineffective just due to their sheer size and scope. And thank you for the kind words! It's really appreciated
@@Redbeardflynn I never got to play Vanguard, I was on my break from MMOs at the time. One of the reasons I am so looking forward to PRotF but who knows if it will ever come out, fingers crossed. Keep doing quality content and your channel will grow brother.
EQ2 launch - lol my PC cant even handle running the launcher.... WoW launch - lol my toaster can run this... This is why I ended up playing WoW over EQ2. I had nothing to do with game difficulty. I just couldn't run EQ2. I was able to play it a little bit, I loved how challenging to was, but still a hell of a lot easier than EQ1, but the graphics were completely broken or not loading in.
Its kind of funny because my pc back then couldn't even handle wow .but back in the 2000s and late 90s game devs really wanted to push the best graphics .even if that meant bad game play or the game not working on most computers of the time. in the late 2000s the rise of minecraft showed game devs that you didn't need good graphics for success.
People constantly say Blizzard "perfected" the MMO. This isn't true in the general sense. What they perfected was the mmo formula for mass appeal, and games designed for mass appeal generally aren't that appealing to people that are invested in gaming in a wider sense. A few people I know that play have played for a large portion of the game's lifespan, have a seriously limited experience with other games. Obviously, many players exist that have a wide range of experience with many games across genres and maybe WoW is their staple game they play between other games. I'd be interested in knowing how many WoW players are of each type. In my experience, any franchise that dips into the mass appeal direction does so at the cost of some or most of what the original fan base loved about it and what set it apart from other games. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.
Warhammer was sso much fun i thinkt he huge problem with it is they made leveling super grindy if they made it faster for players to get to tier 4 pvp with the world at war theme it would've done better.
The MMO genre isn't dead. It's actually the most popular it has ever been. It's just that people no longer play 1 big MMO. There are dozens, if not hundreds of good MMOs out there now so the numbers are spread out instead of all in 1 game
Riders of icarus was straight WoW but betttthe problem was they didn't kniw what tondo after perfecting what was essentially their take on the Vanilla-BC experience
I miss early Ultima Online. It had Quality of Life features that STILL put the most modern MMO on the market to SHAME, 25 years later (See my post in the poll of this channel for a partial list). WoW was too successful, everyone cloned it, no room for anything else even for ppl that don't like wow's formula. I've not played an MMO seriously since leaving FF11 around 2009, they all feel bland and I cancel my account after a month or 2. I did play WoW in TBC, WotLK and MoP and enjoyed it each time (tho Cataclysm really effed up the game), but I don't play it anymore (except classic and about to quit too). I would love an MMO in Ultima Online's ruleset, at least as it was around "The Second Age" or maybe "Renaissance" if they un-f**k the changes made to NPC vendors and Skill rework (such as Tailoring). It was so fun taking the whole guild on a field trip on friday night, no level segregation allowed for this and it was immense fun !
I still play FFXI, and my modern MMO is ESO. I loved FFXI back in the day, but it has been washed out a lot. I might try private servers, or give EQ a try finally. I really don't like multiboxing though.
The other thing is WoW had A LOT of advertisement money to throw at it. Celebrity appearances and what not. I only heard of EQ2 because of a friend. We were both anti-social but we were anti-social together and Norrath is basically a homebrew DnD campaign in video game format. It was actually challenging and once they started dumbing it down more and more I lost interest. I played on a time-locked sever for a bit and even bought a multi-month subscription for it only to find that it was nothing at all like vanilla or even the first few expacs. EG I can can solo dungeons that are ostensibly meant for a group and they didn't even have the old Freeport or Qeynos cities in place. Big disappointment there.
I just want Wildstar back but with expansions and constant new content like ESO online .... I would ask for EQ3 but daybreak would just ruin it with pay to win and krono etc
The problem is that there's only so many hardcore MMO players around. WoW took some of them. The WoW normies aren't hardcore mmo players. They will not play any game other than WoW and they aren't very good at video games. They might level up their characters but they need a lot of help and they aren't good at the game. When you're playing WoW, you can often tell who is a veteran from EQ because they actually know how to use the game mechanics well.
and its funny how WoW is basically a clone of EQ/EQ2 yet is called the "first" mmorpg, and i've raided on both, and the mechanics are much more difficult for raids on Everquest/EQ2.
I played EQ2 and WoW when they came out and always preferred EQ2 of the two. WoW felt like a watered down kiddie version of EQ2. Mainly played WoW because so many of my friends played it but most of the time they had to beg me to get off EQ2. Although I did convert a fair number of them.
WOW didn't make MMO's "perfect", they dumbed them down for casuals which appealed to a lot of consumers. WOW was basically Everquest easy mode. It helped a lot that Blizzard had a lot of fanboys who could see no wrong with the company, thankfully those people are starting to wise up.
I have to agree WoW kiled MMO by changing the devs design philosophy when it came to making them. Early days WoW to a degree and all MMO before hand the design philosophy was to create a world for players to live in, when WoW came along it started to shift the philosophy to creating a game (instead of a world) and it kept going heavily down this path with each patch onwards. MMO were about the magic of escapism going to a new world it wasnt simply just playing a game by removing all the inconviences from MMO it made the world just feel like a game which lost the magic that MMORPG once had. Fortunately ashes of creation seems to be shifting back to the older design philosophy of creating a world formost for players to live in so this will be the first modern MMO imo that uses the old school design philosophy so i cant wait t osee how that one plays out in 7-9 months when A2 launches Why play a WoW clone even if it is slightly better when u already spent so much time in WoW itself and already have an endgame character, The only thing that will kill WoW is WoW itself or a game that is so innovative and different from WoW
I like everquest but everquest 2 made a lot of mistakes. Too many abilities that were no different from each other. Poor armor design. Poor city design like New Halas. The main cities though are quite nice. I love Qeynos and Freeport. I wish they would make a new everquest 3 and take lessons from SWTOR FFXIV and WOW.
Someone is going to figure out the right balance of solo/group activities, and how to incentivize players to cooperate instead of incentivizing them to be dicks to each other... And that game won't look *anything* like WoW.
Ok, glad to hear you're sticking around. lol Now, EQ and WoW courted 2 very different types of players: EQ appealed to the old school D&D players who were accustomed to using their imagination to fill out the world around them, while WoW went after the new breed of gamers more interested in cool graphics, phat lewt, and min/maxing character builds. EQ will always be my #1, but while it has an impressive number of expansions, it really fell apart after Planes of Power. Why? Because it lacked anything resembling a cohesive narrative, or even a recognizable storyline. You can tell the story of each new add-on is an afterthought, if that, and Quests are utterly untethered to any world building. It's an animatronic without the skin. The best example of this is the loot in the newer expansions. Gone are the class-specific weapons with unique effects and cool names, replaced with All/All items so generic they're indistinguishable from one another, despite the nostalgia bait of a cool name bestowed upon them. Now you can skip entire expansions wholesale, due to Heroic character upgrades. Whether you burned your way through an expansion or skipped it entirely, it's all the same; the next one renders all the previous ones obsolete, and the only reason to go back to them is if you're trying to do all the Accomplishments like Dr. Nachoz and his mad lads. But even they do that on the Test Server, because it's about doing the thing, not leaving a lasting legacy behind for others to admire. What made EQ so awesome was the personal touch, where even in a big world with thousands of players, you could make a name for yourself during an in-game event, perhaps even lead to a personalized item being given or introduced as a new loot drop. Ok, I'm gonna stop it there. So much more I could go on about, but modern MMOs are like modern Hollywood: creatively bankrupt, addicted to shallow tropes, and unable to grasp why what worked in the past doesn't work any more. Imagination, if it isn't dead, is certainly on life support.
Great video, Red! Super high quality stuff. Great editing, too. You're getting good at this stuff! I couldn't have said it any better myself; WoW stifled the genre because the capitalist way says 'copy successful financial models' and executives who don't know enough about the gaming scene are like 'yah make a WoW clone' and so we DO end up with stuff like Allods Online, etc. Capitalism stifles innovation, and there's no better place to see that then in the gaming sector, which includes mostly artists (and I include programmers in artists) and designers, directed by the people who have the money. The oligarchs and nepotists and human rights abusers. All screwing with our games because they want our money. That's what I'm so glad for Pantheon, and for how strict they're being in selecting their financial partners. We're getting to see a game built by passion and funded by those who have an interest in seeing the game to its intended conclusion. We could do with a whole lot less of commissioned style works and a whole lot more of letting the artist have at 'er. I was going to reference Mozart's working for the Duke of Gaines but I'm not sure how much control he exerted over the end work so instead I'll say most modern MMOs are like starbucks drinks ordered by executives, specified to the Nth degree. I want the drink the barista would make for themselves.
It's just unsustainable to do what wow did. They were the freak. No one can ever do that again. The generation that grew up with wow is grown now and the world has changed. The market just isn't big enough for MMOs
Life is complicated. It's especially complicated to navigate for manbabies who, for whatever combination of childhood trauma, social maladaptation, and plain ol' not growing up, can't hack it (Mobin couldn't hack it.) It's very easy to blame WoW for everything wrong with why someone can't recapture those magical moments in 1999 or 2003 or whatever it was, playing a game that isn't WoW. It's like blaming Dad for things that are still happening to you at the age of 46. Life is about change. Nothing stays the same... what's that old saying, nothing in life is assured but death, taxes, and insufferable Internet whiners. Anyway, the MMO space is hardly dead. Just because the industry moved in a direction that makes more people happy doesn't mean some great injustice has been done. And despite WoW being a massive influence and, assuredly, out-competing many a competitive upstart, there are still many other MMOs to play. New projects are popping up all the time. If they fail, it's not WoW's fault. The simple fact is that not everyone is going to like what "you" like, and "you're" not going to like what a lot of other people like. A game needs to reach a critical mass for it to be a well populated and actively developed success. This is hard to do, and it gets harder as technology and gaming trends advance and evolve. I'm 46 years old, and I have some manbaby traits, trust me. I'm not so much pointing the finger at the complainers, as I am pointing the finger at human nature. It is what it is. Several promising MMOs are on the horizon. Maybe find something else to do with your time while you lament how things aren't the way they were "bAcK iN tHe gOoD oLd dAyS." Or, ya know, if someone is one of these guys who is super passionate and goes around complaining loudly everywhere they go about how there are no good MMOs anymore... maybe find some like-minded, talented people and have a go at it yourself. Not that they have any technical skills, or understand the complexities of designing a large coherent system and the pitfalls that go into creating something without compromising whatever narrow preferences and concerns I see most people blathering about. (All instances of "you" in the above lame rant are the general/royal "you", not you specifically, Redbeardflynn.) 😏
I still play EQ and WoW both. They're both different and I like both of them. I love how in EQ it feels more lived in. I feel like I'm just a person in the world. In WoW I like to collect and do raiding. It's a bit of a chore simulator, but when I finish for the week I don't log back in until next week.
It's one of the weakest parts WoW currently is facing. I'm still close friends with several people I met in Everquest and early WoW, but in any MMO after WoW I never knew anyone other than by their character. I never met them in person or even hung out with them in discord, teamspeak, mumble or whatever we were using at the time. WoW didn't kill the MMORPG genre, it just slowly removed the MMO part from it.
Pinning this comment. I just like so much of what you had to say.
@@Redbeardflynn Thanks :)
this person gets it 100%
EQ1 was the ultimate mmo for me.
Then I went into EQ2, and I was hooked. Loved it, and then one day, it just got super easy. All the mobs were no longer fun to fight, then seemed like no reason to group when I could do it alone. I shortly left Mmo's behind.
I'm hoping one day to return. Pantheon may be the answer I'm looking for.
eq has new released expansions every year. we raid 3 nights a week. modern eq is tough, maybe give it a shot, revive ur old characters
@@kalebclemons I was thinking about coming back to it. But I have to start from level 1 at this point and have no friends that no longer play it. I am afraid of what I heard as you see no one playing. I remember eq1 greatest thing was the community in it. WOW has the genre struggling and they will keep it that way for a long time. How do I even start the task of going back to eq1 and getting to the end game of the game as I did back in the day? I was time-keyed just fyi that's how far i got before leaving eq1.
@@kalebclemonsmercs turn me off
Thank you everyone who watched the premiere!
you also have to consider the age of the audience and time management. Most of the people who played EQ and the older MMOs (like myself) were kids. I didn't mind spending 10 hours on the weekend and my entire evening playing because I didn't have any real responsibility. It was fun waiting for a group and just hanging out.
No older, having a family and executive responsibilities I don't have time to waste like that but I still enjoy playing MMOs. From this context, all the solo-related systems (finders, fast travel, etc) are appreciated and needed. They should be optional but not full on removed.
The second problem is group content. This only works if the playerbase levels consistently together. If you start a MMO after launch you run the risk of playing alone or with extremely limited options to group. In the scenario where group content is needed for lore, story, gear or progression you are effectively stuck and that doesn't feel good. It breaks up the game flow. This is another instance where solo systems are helpful as it provides somewhat of a catch up.
Third, in most MMOs each expansion makes the prior useless. It makes players want to "rush" out of the early zones to get to the more populated ones. Making all zones viable to all players (high and low) level could begin to alleviate this.
With all that said I prefer the complexities of Everquest, but long for some of the comfort systems of WoW to make my limited gaming time more valuable. I will continue to believe there is a workable middle ground.
Despite EQ2 being devastated by WoW, it is mercifully kept alive by us bitter EQ2 partisans.
I gave so many years to eq2. I think the last expansion I really really loved was Sentinel's fate. Something about those phase panther models...
@@Redbeardflynn I completely understand. Ironically, the WoWification of EQ2 is what has kept me around since I only have about an hour a day to play. Much easier to get in and accomplish something.
At least we were able to feel special and hate wow players so much. =)
8:55 every sports game is a clone of pong within that logic.
The real problem is that in an MMORPG having a large playerbase is a FEATURE and an atractive one at that. A lot of people only play wow because other people are playing wow but those "other people" likely are in the same situation.
I think the server size and the world being built for that size are really important. New World felt pretty barren even when servers were full due to the low server size and the size of the map.
I remember being surprised at just how small servers were for EQ1 back in the day, just a few thousand. They were recently upped to 6k I believe.
Fuck that. I refuse to play a game I don't like just because of the size lol I'm not a follower I'm a leader.
Large Playerbase means safety. No matter how awesome a game is, with a small playerbase no one will invest time and money into it if there's a risk of the plug being pulled any day.
@@Redbeardflynn Vanilla EQ wasn't really built for more players tho, people forget about literally every mob in every dungeon being camped lol. EQ wasn't really that large until Kunark hit
Great video. One of the most amazing experiences i have gotten from playing on EQ tlp's are the raids. 72 people working together towards an end goal. Succeeding, and celebrating afterwards. The awe of and in that is like being part of a symphony orchestra preforming a consert. The deficulty of getting the tradegy right, the evolution of the these.
WOW also attracted a lot of players thanks to a easier financial access. Back then, you needed a credit card for all MMO subscriptions. When WOW came out, you could buy prepaid monthly fees at your LGS. It opened the population to all teenagers and unemployed young adults (students,...) which wasn't the case for EQ, DAoC, UO, etc. That really helped the numbers to climb so high a lot. It was still a well designed, advertised game with a strong story line. I won't deny.
WoW was the case of smart business decisions married to smart design decisions. Even just the computer specs alone made such a huge difference with audience size.
@@Redbeardflynn True ! And when real life took its rights back, it was a fair more casual options for the active people. It brought me some good experience for a while... until I came back to EQ :D
I do remember the long travel times in EQ while tedious at times it also added to the immersion and feeling of size of the game world. And yeah i think WoW caused a lot of issues for other games, the cost to make an MMO is likely very high then add the maintenance of the game servers/network so developers made the mistake to try to be "just another" WoW, AOC tried to make some changes with the more active combat, but still a lot of WoW in there.
Travel in EQ was tedious but remember there were classes that could port groups to different locations. EQ got so many things right. Yes it was hard or presented obstacles but it also provided different solutions in the form of different classes and then allowed players to solve those problems or obstacles which contributed to the community. It's no wonder that MMOs today have such lacking community.
@@Chris-zg7ty I still play EQ and EQ2 quit wow a long time ago it was fun and all but does not have the long lasting appeal at least to me like a game like EQ or AO has.
I agree with your final assessment in that WoW's success, and thus the rush to copy its formula (albeit badly), unfortunately turned the genre into the relative mess its been for at least a decade; yet as you opined, hope is on the horizon. Thank you for the thoughtful video! 💖
Thank you so much, Marle. I hoped you'd enjoy it. I appreciate you coming by to watch!
@@Redbeardflynn, you earned it! 🥰
One thing you missed that I feel WOW really pushed, was that the end game, was the game. They made everyone race to the end in every game that came after it. Sure you had people that did that anyway, but in WOW its all there was, a race to the end.
My goodness this is such a good video. The TIME you put into this!! Well done man!!!
Thank you so much, Brightlife! That means a ton coming from you
McDonalds has several billions served. Does that mean McDonalds is the best restaurant ?
Still think EQ was the better game imo. Even EQ2 (beta) was great. EQ2 just died out imo when it tried to be a WoW clone. Still have fond memories of waiting on the boat from Butcher Block and the first time trying to run my new dwarf all the way to Qeynos. Still chat with a few friends I met back then.
I am curious about EverQuest and one bit of information that I can not find anywhere online is detailed talk from players of live servers discussing how the content in the game works. What shapes your goals in the game outside of the obvious current treadmill for the current patch?
For me when I log into GW2 I'm jumping on the tasks I need to do for my current legendary grind. When I log into WoW I'm looking for the next transmog to add to the collection while waiting to do grouped content. When I log into OldSchool RuneScape I play an Ironman and I am usually hunting for the next rare drop that will make me stronger.
The thing about all of these examples is that each of these aspects of these games really tie everything together from new to old content with a nice neat bow and provide long-term enjoyment and variety in gameplay. What I want to know about EQ as a possible new player is.... What systems are in the game that would be interesting to dive into from expansion number whatever out of 29 and why would I be pushed to or want to check that content out 13 years after it was released. What is there to do outside of pushing my power level on the current treadmill in soon to be expansion 30?
edit: I hope that anyone can make sense of this rambling mess and could provide me with some feedback. Also I did a little formatting to make it more easy to read.
I saw this comment while I was working and wanted to come back to it when I could devote some proper time to answer it.
The perspective of Everquest versus GW2 and WoW are going to be quite different when it comes specifically to systems because EQ is much more "do what you want" whereas the other two are good for new players at directing them "go to A, then B, and have you tried C today?"
Everquest can be summed up in a linear way like: Are you max level? No? You can level. If you are max level, you can get AA's.
But interspersed with that are things like crafting and gearing up. The problem for a new player is going to be how daunting it can be. Crafting is rewarding but very expensive and time-consuming with a hard barrier to entry for example.
One thing you experience in EQ, like WoW, is that sometimes systems will start and be abandoned. This is part of an MMO just being older which is why I often suggest new players try a progression server because it makes it all manageable, especially if it's early in the servers lifespan. You're dealing with a more basic "log in, find friends, kill things." or "log in, find friends, get loot"
The good and bad of EQ is that in its live iteration it's not very good at looping back or re-using content which narrows your focus of the game to whatever expansion you're in. Most expansions are end-game focused over the years so each one usually just expanded upon whatever the level cap increase was.
I don't know that this was particularly helpful in answering your question, I may have just ended up rambling when I could have send "EQ is about leveling up and killing challenging npcs with your friends"
Let me know if I can help further elaborate!
@@Redbeardflynn "The good and bad of EQ is that in its live iteration it's not very good at looping back or re-using content which narrows your focus of the game to whatever expansion you're in. Most expansions are end-game focused over the years so each one usually just expanded upon whatever the level cap increase was."
Would you say that there is no merit at all in interacting with those things from older expansions that at some point were interesting additions to the game but are now forgotten? The reason I carefully chose the examples from other MMOs that I did is because those are the things pushing me to interact with every aspect of the games I'm playing and why I'm interested in them beyond getting my current tier of progression done and logging out until the next patch.
I guess for me the hold an MMO has on my attention span has less to do with "leveling up and killing challenging npcs with my friends" because that's a given for almost every MMO that I would choose to play (there are exceptions, like Albion or ARPGs if you consider those MMOs but I play them solo anyway). What pushes me into trying a new MMO and maybe even sticking a thousand hours into it are the things that make it unique and the ways the game might open my mind to unique gameplay. To get to the heart of what I'm asking, is there ever a moment for a person MOLOing through live at their own pace where they're going to happen upon a really interesting mechanic/system/unlock in zone number 174 from expansion number whatever and feel incentivized by the game and rewarded (through an achievement, collectable, rare drop, title, etc.) for interacting with that old bit of forgotten game play.
For me it's those little things that bring enjoyment in trying out other MMOs than the ones I'm normally playing. Many times in other games those things were once part of a previous progression system or maybe added as an experiment in game play diversity or patch longevity through a grind/unlock and iterated upon for an expansion or two and then dropped for something else. Although it has been forgotten usually there is still some merit or carrot and stick for checking it out later on. I find it hard to believe a world so large with so many expansions that the only thing to do would be the current patch progression, but the thing is I just can't find much about the game online to figure that niche stuff out.
For example I see that there is a collection system in EQ and just to pull something out of my ass, is there a collection to work on that is kind of lengthy and stupid and normally people wouldn't do it but if you do happen to see someone with "insert title here" you know their crazy broken brain made the decision to participate in some weird grind in a zone no one remembers the name of through interacting with a mechanic that was forgotten about the day it was released for really no other reason than to say they did and that it was interesting enough to them to pass the time between playing with friends/guild mates to work on the current tier of progression.
I know that last bit was a terrible mouthful of a crazy runonsentence, but I hope it gets the idea across. Thank you for taking the time to reply to my first comment and hopefully I haven't bored you with this second essay.
@@zipzap8937 So with EQ by function of their expansions for the most part older expansions gear-wise are made irrelevant by later expansions. But. You will experience them as you go through the game.
You will interact with different systems like the in The Broken Mirror which is a relatively newer expansion (but still a few years old) that essentially you go between two versions of the same zones using a mirror item you have to collect.
EQ isn't going to seem innovative by todays standards, though. The heart of it is the friends part, the social part, and the difficulty. individual npcs providing a challenge instead of mindless culling of hordes a la WoW and Diablo (which is a fine function just pointing out a difference)
The main difference of the game from a GW2 is going to be the need to group up to experience it. It's less optional, although, yes, mercenaries do make things easier to do solo.
There are also of course achievements to hunt, quests become more varied and more important as you go through expansions. There are massive quests that are truly epic in scale needing solo,group, and raids to achieve.
@@Redbeardflynn I do believe I will give EQ a chance after the reported UI update. For me I don't fancy learning it when it will be changing relatively shortly. Thank you so much for your time, I appreciate the replies.
the trash
Personally, I look at the early 2010s for when MMOs started to really "die out". I look at ESO (released in 2014 and a few at the same time like Archeage and Wildstar) as one of the last "AAA" MMOs that to me signaled the dark ages of MMOs. While WoW probably was a big factor in the early demise of many, IMHO, it was also the reason a lot of games got tried--what bean counter wouldn't salivate at the money WoW brought in.
And that, I think, is the key. What 2014 or so ushered in was the death of the subscription model, and the birth of the F2P or B2P model. And with that, gone was the $$$ signs in bean counters' eyes to millions of people paying $15/month... plus the initial box cost and expansions. Yes, WoW sucked all the oxygen out of that market, because you more or less had to choose one of these due to money and time, and I call it the "Facebook factor". If all your friends are on one platform, and you want to play with them, then nothing else matters all that much.
There's an uptick in MMOs now, but still, the very big Western players are still sitting it out, with the exception of Amazon. Most MMOs in development are either by indies or Eastern companies, where the F2P monetization, including pay-to-win, are much more accepted. And let's face it, F2P monetization as it exists in mobile games can draw in tons of money in many markets, but that pretty much turns off old-school Western players.
Great comments, Zhiroc! Thank you.
Funny you should mention monetization because next week I'm covering the Box and Sub model and how it might be done with or at least, no longer insulating against micro-transactions.
I think battlepasses may be the next big monetization trend in MMOs and I dont know how to feel about it yet.
Yea that period was a real dark age for mmos. wow released cataclysm making the game too streamlined. and runescape released eoc most smaller mmos went pay2win.
I like ESO but I can’t stand its monetization
@@zedorian6547 Really? I'm curious what issues you have with their monetization. I always found it to be one of the better models but granted I don't play end game so there might be stuff I don't know.
@@Redbeardflynn I somewhere agree. If you are someone who likes to craft, a sub is almost mandatory since that's the only way to have the infinite crafting material bag. Now, paying for an MMO isn't a bad thing, but a sub to me represents a significant barrier to entry, as it elevates the game to a "must play" status of you're going to get value for the sub.
One thing to add about the WoW streamlining. Keep in mind that some of these things were introduced through player made add-ons that were designed to help players get through the game an became so popular, that it only made sense for Blizzard to add them. I remember having the quest finder add on before that was added to the game and it really changed things to make levelling smoother. I also remember having an Auction house mod (can't remember which one... I think a pricing one) and the raid boss encounter mod that had timers. Wasn't there one for spell timers as well for when you buffed other during raids? Those changes helped open the door to newer players joining and the innovative approach of the dev team was well appreciated at that time.
I have said that WoW killed the MMO genre for nearly 15 years and just like you point out, it was due to its success.
First everyone tried to copy WoW and if I wanted to play WoW, I would just play WoW. I used to beta test a lot of MMO, when beta was invite only and actually used for testing and saw it time and time again. They had the formula right but at the last minute would cave to the WoW Juggernaut and change the formula to WoW. SWTOR always comes to mind. During my Beta experience it was the best, most perfect, most fun MMO I ever played. The perfect mix of everything from Social play to solo play just just the right mix of grinding vs questing and two weeks before launch, a patch comes out and it was all gone, replaced by yet another version of Wow.
Second, developers just decided that if a game didn't manage 2+ million subscribers, it was a failure and they stopped improving their game and/or cancelled them outright. So many great games, gone because developers couldn't bother with anything other than a WoW-Killer.
^^^^^
I picked up EQ2 and WoW on launch and thought EQ2 was the better game. Wow was just alot easier for people that had never played an mmo to get into. Everyone I got to play EQ2 left pretty much to play WoW. For the life of me I could not understand it at the time but I eventually joined my friends Azeroth and stayed for well over 10 years.
This completely spoke to me as I had done and thought the exact same thing as you. I was super impressed with EQ2 and had it right before WoW came out. I also remember it being so much more difficult. That's why I truly believe WoW had won. The ease of getting into it and the fact that you didn't need a great computer to play at the time, made WoW a much mor viable option at the time. But EQ2 at launch will always be way more complex.
WarCraft 4 RTS...no friend, not just you. Brining up a lack of WC4, is why I love your channel.
I got into mmo's about a year after Wow came onto the scene and I loved it but I noticed with each expansion the game got easier and easier and there was no struggle and everything was handed to you on a silver platter. Group finder and dungeon finder really sucked the life of out the social aspect for me as well. I played into Cata about half way and just lost interest. I need some challenge and sense of adventure and discovery and consequences for not picking my battles wisely. A friend still plays and he was telling me that now no matter what level you are the zones scale to you so you can go anywhere at anytime and do the content. Yuck!
I think why people think it is dead is because the player count isn't WoW level, while negating the fact there are many good mmo's out there now. Warlords of Draenor's failure made people branch out and realize there were other mmo's out there. Add in the back to back shitstorm of BFA and Shadowlands, only enhanced what WoD started. The fact of the matter is you probably will never see those other WoW's numbers because there are too many good options, and people are learning it is ok to take breaks and play multiple mmo's.
I think it's dead because the genre is nothing but singleplayer games masquerading as multiplayer games.
Just because they're wearing the skin of the late MMORPG genre, doesn't make them MMORPGs.
Great stuff, Red. It looks like you put alot of work into this and it shows. Ive said this before several times on this channel as well as others about WoWs success. They are the 1st MMO to give people instant gratification without the need of others while maintaining a feeling of being part of a world with other players. No more sitting around doing nothing because you cant find groups, no more sitting and regaining health/mana after every kill, no more sitting in place for hours in hope of a rare spawn and a rare drop, then hoping you win the roll to loot it, no more feeling left out because you weren't in a big guild to tackle raid mobs for loot. WoW gave us multiple buttons to press frequently to keep you doing something. They gave everyone the ability to log in, play on your own terms of what you wanted ,when you wanted, and log off feeling you have made progress. They are masters of keeping you busy chasing items that are obtainable by yourself within a reasonable amount of time. Personally I cant stand WoW, but if there is one good thing I have to say about the game is, anyone can jump into the game during any expansion and learn how to play as well as catch up and have fun with others in a very reasonable amount of time. Once you play one WoW expansion, you have learned play them all. As much as I want Pantheon to succeed, I really wonder if it will do any better than EQ is currently doing after the initial spike of players dies down a few months after launch. Are there enough people interested in these grind type MMOs anymore? I know alot of people will say yes, but subscription numbers show differently.
Thank you so much, I always appreciate your insightful commentary. I think my main issue can be boiled down to how the genre kind of stopped with WoW. It just kept doing what WoW did and trying to out-do WoW at its own game for years. I *think* but I haven't looked into it recently but I believe WoW's changed to crafting with dragonflight actually added in more social interaction than has ever been in the game before and divergences in combat styles, exp gain types (exploration exp in GW2, hell yeah!) and other developments in new MMOs gives me hope that we can actually expand from where WoW was in 2004
@@Redbeardflynn I couldn't agree with you more, Red. We are very like minded, but you always add some fresh ideas with your opinions and the way you perceive these games. You always seem to raise a lot of interesting questions and insight in your videos that explores the games in a way I may not have considered. I, as well as the committee appreciates you. Now get back to work!
Wanna make a video on this most recent riddle released from the gms on p99 green? That sounds like some content to me.
I will continue to hope that Pantheon can bring the social part of MMOs back to the genre. I miss playing EQ and knowing of or being friends with all the end game or raiding Monks on my server. Comparing gear, pulling strategies, and just having fun talking. I remember knowing, although not being as friendly with all the Hunters back in WoW and getting groups pre wotlk because I was really good at using the tools I had to chain trap 2 mobs, or trap one while kiting another while the group dealt with others. That was slowly taken out of the game shortly after wotlk and obliterated from existence when they added dungeon finder and everything was just aoe and DPS fast as you can.
Struggle in many, if not most old MMOs were just because they were poorly designed or made intentionally harder in archaic design to force group play and to stretch content.
I've played wow since launch, and Ive done all the classic expansions they have released to play them again. Im really getting into EQ for the first time after being a tourist over the years. Came saw did some grouping and quit. Now im in a raid guild, going through expacks on Oakwynd, and with EQ its hard to log off at night theres still so much i want to do, and its the first thing I want to do after I get off work. I havent felt like that about an MMO in a very very long time.
Very good documentary. I would say vanilla WoW had a magic (and we saw it in Classic again) that no expansion after had. Hopefully Ashes of Creation can set a new standard!
There is one aspect of WoW that I feel you misjudged. That is how Blizzard took aspects from other MMOs and brought it into their own taking away what others did that was unique. A great example of this is Star Wars the Old Republic (SWtOR), who included a system where you could take the stats of one item and place it into another, thus keeping the look you wanted. Another game who did something similar was FF14, who had the glamour system which allowed you to place the looks of an item onto another more useful item to you. Blizzard saw how successful these systems were and used them to create the Transmog system in their game, wholesale stealing the idea and making only the most minor of changes. Then there was the housing system which they took from FF14 as well, where the player can make a base and have NPCs help run the base. Which WoW included in Warlords of Daenor. So not only did WoW push their ideas on others to force the industry standard, they stole what made others unique and would not allow innovation that they could not steal directly. This is not always a good thing, if WoW steals an idea from another game it can sometimes push that game out of the market as people will want to stick with the game they put the most time into.
EQ still releasing content every year and new TLP servers that folks enjoy. my guild raids 3 nights a week. Everquest will outlive them all.
The only game it hasn't outlived so far is UO but based on added content I think you could argue it has. The number of expansions they've added...it's just amazing.
I have played a lot of WoW over the years, and I am enjoying WoW classic at the moment, but I do regret what it did to the other MMOs I was playing at the the time, namely Asheron's Call and Anarchy Online. In both games my guilds died overnight pretty much and I really hated WoW for that.
It's only natural that other game companies tried to copy WoW, seeing how much money it made. It reminded me that way back, first person shooter games where called Doom clones for a period of time.
Great video 👍
As popular as EQ was, it was about 10% of WoW's?? That's absolutely insane
Puts things in perspective, right? I knew it was a big difference but I had no idea just how stark.
I can't believe EQs peak player count was only 500,000.. Like I thought millions of people played back in it's peek days when I played in the early 2000s. I knew WoW had way more people but I just can't believe EQ was that low. Like I probably knew 5 or people in person friend or family that played EQ and probably 10+ WoW players including myself since people started migrating towards WoW. But I miss EQ and for me I have way more love for it over WoW even though I've actually probably technically played more WoW over the years, but EQ early days is an experience people either had or this missed out and i feel bad for them 😂
@@jassch8 it really just changed the bar of success in mmos by so much. I remember thinking swg was super popular!
@@Redbeardflynn Yeah I didn't play SWG but my friends brother did in the heyday and I figured that had more Subscribers then it did to. I played alot of other MMOs throughout time but I am surprised just how many more people played WoW compared lol. Others I played alot: EQ, EQ2, City of Heros, Guild Wars 2, Nexus TK, FF 14, Phantasy Star Online, Everquest Online Adventures, plus alot of random F2ps through the years.
@@jassch8 Same. I thought EQ was just as popular as WoW, honestly. Haha
Totally agree with most of the things in the description but... the chicken or the egg? Eq2 released in the exact same year, month like wow did in 2004 nov but few weeks earlier. So still no idea who stole from whom. :D Probably it was a fierce competition and wow won the race with way better optimization, way more casual game play and incredibly childish characters, graphics and colors and prolly way better marketing strategy.
I cover this a little bit in the video about EQ2. There are "rumors" that EQ2 changed design during the development process to match WoW but I couldn't substantiate that so I mainly focused on what happened after EQ2 launched and it floundered where WoW succeeded and what it did in response.
@@Redbeardflynn Who and where would one submit suggestions to Daybreak / Darkpaw Games? I love EQ, particularly the original.
@@corbin_4738 I know they're fairly active on their forums over on Everquest.com
Thank you. EQ was awesome back in the day. Not so much EQ2. I really think if EQ took a few steps back and initiated some changes that it could easily be very popular once again.
WoW started to suck for me when it changed from, "Oh crap, 3 mobs there, I better be careful. Lets plan this out, how am I going to take these 3 mobs? Which one should I focus on killing first? Do I have CDs up? Maybe ill just skip this pack and look for a mob by itself." Then it changed to, "Oh man only 3 mobs? Not even worth my time, maybe if I pull these 12 other mobs nearby I can get all 15 of them." Just watching that Demon hunter kill 3-5 mobs at once without even losing HP is just mind numbing. It went from planning and thinking to just blindly charging into mobs and pressing 2 buttons, loot, repeat.
^ This. I think the "diablo-fication" of MMOs has been a turn off for me in general. I don't feel the threat of NPCs.
I'm in a bit of a middle ground. I don't like worlds populated by Black Desert-style worthless NPCs that basically exist only to fulfill the shallowest form of power fantasy... but I ALSO don't like every little patrol group being a major threat that requires considerable time, intense focus, and excellent play just to get past, as those sorts of worlds are exciting to explore but tedious to deal with on subsequent runs through. I think there is ample room for both types of experience and everything in-between, even within one game - that's the beauty of open-world MMOs.
I played EQ at the time but absolutely loved Blizzard and the Warcraft IP. WoW (when the servers were up and you could play it) was such an enjoyable experience I completely forgot about playing EQ and never went back until joining P99 in my adult life. I wasn't alone either, a lot of my friends that played EQ eventually made the jump as well and I don't remember ever hearing about anyone quitting WoW to go back to EQ. Considering it was called EverCrack at the time, to see be so dominated by WoW, was telling to what a great game WoW was.
I've gone back now and played a few mmos before WoW.. And the truth is that WoW was a game made by a team that were veterans in the industry, and knew game design to a TEE. Going back and trying out the Turtle WoW vanilla + server, while there are some great additions like extra quests/small class changes/new areas.. The game is just a perfect game even by today standards, the lvling areas from 1-15 are designed really well, from the gear/skills/mobs/classes, and that continues all the way to level 60.. you have weak points and strong points.. The games that came after WoW actually did a lot of amazing things.. Warhammer Onlines systems are in every mmorpg today from Acheivments/group quests/open world events ect
One of your closing points really gets at the gist of it- the long development time. A major part of Warhammer Online's failure rests with the publisher- is it any surprise that it was EA? If any of the videos are still around, it's worth checking out the WHO developer and promotional videos- the sheer passion of that team was as tangible as it was infectious. But, after at least one longer delay the publisher basically said 'go to market'- the result was a game that was supposed to launch with 24 classes (12 per faction) and 6 capital cities (one for each race) but wound up having 18 classes (iirc) and 2 capital cities. While they did get around to implementing the remaining classes, the capital cities never really materialized. The PVP was good, after all the DAOC devs were behind WHO, but it wasn't as robust as DAOC (which it really needed to be, from a consumer engagement perspective, given the state of launch).
The publisher, and I'm sure the investors/stockholders as well, were eager to see that sweet sweet "WoW money". With Blizzard announcing expansions and continuing to deliver, I can see why the interest groups in the background had a 'shit or get off the pot' moment. I mean, 12M subs at $15 a month that's nearly a $1B business each year (not including sales)- who wouldn't want a slice of that? The sad irony is that what made WoW so successful was ultimately lost on the corporations, and perhaps some of the teams, nipping at its heels.
Blizzard had the privilege of being a well-regarded studio with established, popular, and beloved IPs. That also brought them the luxury of having sufficient funds to develop the game and take their time. They had the foresight to release a game that wasn't as taxing on PCs as some of its predecessors. You can also add in the extremely fortunate timing of releasing the game around the time that certain technologies (e.g., Athlon 64 and its extreme value-performance ratio) and consumer trends hit (e.g., more people assembling their own computers). The innovation speaks for itself, but the art style was a unique draw as it visually contrasted to any existing title of the time. Then, there is the passion of Blizzard developers that put the cherry on top. Anyone not previously involved in this space couldn't, or refused to, see those things and the ignorance of those factors cost their own titles, and genre, dearly as they tried to shamelessly ape the bestseller.
I'm blanking on the name of the face of Warhammer Online but he was huge. I remember how passionate and eager he was. *really* sold the game. I Was hooked and I actually liked a ton of Warhammer Online it just wasn't finished.
@@Redbeardflynn Paul Barnett, dude was like... idk... what would happen if you could turn Red Bull into a person.
Edit: I LOVED Warhammer Online. Just a damn shame how it shook it out with the player base and post-launch woes.
I still play Star Wars Galaxies (Legends) and it still makes me angry how it became a casualty of WoW's success, and then later EA's hubris. The later eras of the NGE (2007 onwards) were actually legitimately good, but it never made up for ruining the game in the first place.
Looking back, the pre-NGE era had almost no content, so the NGE itself in later days was a better game, but it ultimately led to the game being shut down, which was a real tragedy.
Some of my subs still lose their mind when i dare cover WoW lol. It really did kill an era of gaming. It was better imo before WoW. EQOA was peak MMORPG for me personally. Nothing has ever matched it, as simple as it was. Maybe that's why it was so special, deep, yet simple. 4 friends and a camp.
Camping and NPC grinding for exp are one of the things I really miss as well as individual encounters all potentially being difficult.
WoW was the kid's version of Everquest. WoW had short quests in the billions that got repetitive by the time you hit 60. 'Kill 'x' Many, Collect 'x' Many, turn in, wash repeat. EQ you damn near made it a second job to complete your epic and that would take months if not years to complete. EQ was DEFINITELY a job if you were in a raiding guild that rocked out 5 nights for 8 hours. WoW required no skill to be good, only gear, whereas you could make up for gear deficiency if you knew how to play your class to perfection in EQ. EQ 2 was the bastard child neither WoW or EQ players wanted.
I highly disliked the influence of WoW in skill trees upon LoTRO. And also tanking. 300-800% passive aggro generation makes for boring tanking and DPS in each game I've seen it in.
24:38 EDIT. 100% right regarding the conversion of MMO's to single-player. The anti-social element has carried over to FFXIV. No exploratory zone that requires grouping like the past 2 expansions. More and more trials and dungeons converted to single-player (with an NPC team).
Best Online game system I have played was DAOC. It had a good economy, items decayed so they were in need. Crafting allowed exceptional items to be made rarely. The PvP battles, each class that their job and specialty. All crafting systems today is 'you make the item'. In DAOC you could make a poor items of an exceptional one. Items like armor and weapo0ns decayed as you use them so they needed to be replaced. EQ2 right now, you never loss or break items; exception if you dumb enough not to repair your equipment after 10 deaths.
EQ2 was a sports car, Wow was a high performance sports car that looks fun.
Original EQ2, it felt challenged to kill a mob and to make level. I got back into it that past week and it seems too easy...however I am still playing. EQ2 is easy like Wow was, I can solo a Elite Goblin when in the past you need a group.
One small note on early games numbers: accessibility by average players. Number of people who can afford decent gaming computer in 1999-2001 was FAR LESS than in the following years. Internet was still on Dial Up - gameplay was plagued by disconnects, and DSL which was only tiny bit better cost a whooping $125 a month! And never forget the very idea of paying $10 a month subscription was literally unheard of by most of gaming community. All of these issues essentially disappeared by 2004.
Instant gratification is the bane of all games in my opinion. We play games because we want to overcome a challenge whether that be through story or gameplay.
I’m playing UO again. The older I get, the older the games I play.. going to do a Dungeon Keeper 1 play through again sooN.
I'm working on a review for UO Outlands. It's very intriguing!
IMO, the biggest issue facing MMOs is that many of the things that made them unique are done as well or better in other genres now. Combat is better in MOBAs or FPS. FPS games do pick up and play gaming better. Single player RPGs do story telling better. More PvP oriented games do PvP better. Even social media like Instagram or Discord do the social side better. The only thing I can think of that MMOs do better than other genres is large scale PvE raid type content. Which is probably some of the least popular gaming content around because it takes a level of commitment and coordination that most people don't want to put into a game.
So the one thing that MMOs do better than any other genre is the one thing that the least amount of people are interested it. To me, this says MMOs still have a niche, but they somehow need to be developed for way less money. From what I saw in the internet, Elden Ring costed about $200 million to make. If we want MMO developers to take chances again, and start catering to the sandbox market again, we need to somehow get development costs down to no more than 20% of that. Developers also need to realize that the days of casting a wide net and getting everybody are over, and that having a steady sub count of 150k is more than enough if development costs are kept low.
I played a game called Shadowbane after Everquest, full PVP after starter zones. It was amazing. I never played WoW because there was no consequence to PvP when it came out.
I played Shadowbane, too. Loved it. Loved it so much I backed Crowfall.
It only got bad there when guilds consolidated power and became mega powers on servers. I loved the discipline system, though.
Great video overall (again). Some really well made points. Obviously, I'm not going to 100% agree across the board, but would we really be gamers if viewpoints were 100% universal?
I think a really great point that you touched on a few times and stated outright towards the end but then breezed past: The problem isn't that games like WoW or games which share design elements exist. The problem isn't even completely in the release/death cycle of games that followed, whether they wanted to dethrone WoW explicitly or not and how they thought they were going to do so.
The problem is that in the wake of something dropping onto the scene like a bomb and as you did a great job pointing out... there grew to be a steady stream of displaced or dispossessed gamers who wanted something different. A new branch from the EQ tree, a new clipping off of UO, a new something-else-botanical from the original SWG formula. And lacking those options but seeing so many new games that had gone down a different path, yeah that's going to lead to a bunch of really bitter and vocal gamers. Ideally the rising tide lifts all ships, but those branches were either scuttled or put out in a dinghy someplace. The tide more or less missed them. And for those people, it doesn't matter how great the new games are for the people who enjoy them, they're always going to be that kid with their face pressed up against the glass looking in asking "Yeah, but where's mine?". And that sucks, because not only do they not get what they want with the same degree of variety and care that other MMO fans do, it just makes most of them bitter and frustrated, which is a whole feedback loop of its own.
Hopefully as we crawl back to less of a mono-culture in the genre, those displaced gamers will be able to find their forever homes and the big bad specter of other games won't be quite such a painful reminder to them of what they miss and they can see the good in anything that's not P99 now that they have theirs again (that last was there just for Bountycode, and it is 100% tongue in cheek and in good fun :D ).
Onward and Upward
Great video bro!
Vanguard!! Our guild was so excited to move from EQ to Vanguard.
And then nothing.
I had such high hopes for Vanguard. Loved a lot of it, just not enough of it.
@@Redbeardflynn And didn't they overhaul Vanguard as well, like SWG?
I started my MMO journey with EQ, pre Kunark, till about a year into Planes of Power". When Luclin "shrunk the World", it started going downhill IMO. I played WoW from closed beta till just after Litch King, on a PvP server, with a top tier raiding guild, same guild the whole run. After that it was SW:ToR for the better part of a year, Warhammer for about 6 months (at least they introduced innovations adopted into mmo's to this day), Rift, because my brother asked. A few more that elude me atm. After EQ, and the 1st few years of WoW, the experience erroded really. I still join an EQ TLP server every other year or so to scratch that itch.
EQ is still the best. I've never seen another game (besides EQ2) that has EVER creates classes the way it has. You've never seen another bard enchanter shm.... etc the only classes that are similar would be ones like warrior rogue ranger. You know the base classes EVERY game has. Everquest was and still is the absolute best MMO there is. I will see my fellow EQ buddies in LDoN on March 30th (:
In EQ it was pretty easy to grasp what class does and buffs what etc. One of the things I hate most in newer games is all the short duration "buffs" that last for 4 seconds or so, there's so much shit going on but nothing of it has any notiocable effecrt on gameplay so I don't even care. I played FF14 till max level and even did Savage raiding and I had no idea what all the other classes even did exactly aside from tank/dd/heal archetype stuff lol. Just follow your CD rotation and don't stand in the hurt and you're good, it's super weird.
In EQ you automatically got invested into how the other classes operate, noticing the right buffs coming at the right time etc, being able to see if you had a capable group you could push harder with bigger pulls or not. Haven't found that kind of gameplay in any other MMO
Did I hear you say you're killing this channel? That'd be...very disheartening. 🤯
Tongue in cheek! I figured this video might rile some people up.
@@Redbeardflynn It'll just bring in new fans!
Maybe demographics are a part of it. The Millennial generation is big, and was in prime gaming years (teens-twenties) in the heyday of WoW. But I agree the fact that everyone tried to make a WoW clone stifled the genre to this day.
Generational shifts isn't something I'd considered before. That's a very interesting additional variable.
WoW only ever did 2 things better than EQ2. 1: Utilization of art concepts that create texture where there isn't any, thus allowing weaker computers to run the game at "full" graphics. This increased the audience. 2: Marketing. Blizzard marketed the game well, which increased their audience.
Everything else, EQ2 did better. Raiding was more engaging and tactical. Housing existed at all. Questing was better and more connected to the environment and the lore. Dungeon runs were more interesting, difficult and rewarding. Crafting was initially much better, bu then became the same. Class progression and diversity was much better. Class synergy was much better.
To an extent I'll agree with you but I think one of the most underrated things WoW did was the feel of combat which actually ties into your first point. Actions were crisp and you saw them happening. Attacks and the like. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it other than just "combat feel." It's everything from sound design to animations to low latency.
I am sad that EQ2 stripped out some of the things that made it unique very early, like the class synergy skills. They became useless so quickly but I really liked that you could trigger a specific skill and then another archetype could trigger the next and then the next and so-on. I wish they would have expanded on that.
I'm new to community of MMORPGs. 2 years ago my first game in this genre was Guild Wars 2 and I love it. Later i tried WoW, but it wasn't for me. Right now I'm experiencing Runescape and Ultima Online, 2 great games, one of the best imho. Now i actually understand why people still play "old" games. They are objectively better. There's no such fun and enjoyable games like those 20 y.o. classics
The change from group only mobs to solo mobs in Eq2 didn't happen until it's 3rd expac Rise of Kunark release November 13, 2007. Eq2 at it's launch was a vastly superior game compared to WoW. SOE took everything that was great about Eq1 and made them more updated. It still felt like Eq1 but it was made more friendly to people who where new the MMORPG genre. Which was the one of the biggest complaint people had back in 2004. The main reason Eq2 failed was not because of WoW even though it didn't help matters. No Eq2 failed because it split the already dwindling Eq player base.
I agree that it was WoW that finally killed the MMORPG. I believe the reason was that these games, prior to WoW, were popular, but few were getting wealthy doing it. It was a labor of love by and for people who loved gaming. When WoW took the gaming and even the mainstream public by storm, "The Suits" realized that there was SERIOUS money to be made. They started to make decisions based upon the lowest common denominator, in order to attract new players, new subscriptions......
.......and they were perfectly happy to burn down the game, if not the genre, in the process.
Wall Street isn't about long term viability, it's about return on investment. When that return starts to drop (or ideally just before), you get out by dumping the stock, not caring about what happens to that company, that investment, the workers at the company, the community in which the workers live, etc., etc.
WoW caused everyone to re-think and in some cases, just spaz out, throwing everything at the wall to just see what sticks. "Easy Mode" became the rule of the day and remains so to this day. It brings in the most money in the short run, which again, is all Wall Street is after or even concerned about.
They took the steady, dependable profits of the MMORPG genre and its audience/player base (which skewed towards people dependently playing these games for YEARS), and turned the whole thing into a "get rich quick" scheme.
Also, those that loved the game that worked on it, they felt devalued (in some cases literally having their salaries savagely chopped). They felt like their pet project of love had been violated and thus, many left that had made the game great.
And as a result, they killed the Golden Goose.
The Suits didn't care, they moved on to go assault/wreck something else for profit......
.
Vanguard, Warhammer Online, and AoC killed themselves by releasing when it wasn’t done. If they had spent more time on them before release they would have been amazing games.
Rift was too similar to WoW that you just thought, why aren’t I just playing WoW?
The reason cloning WoW doesn't work is the first love aspect and more content is always coming. I feel with most people who fell hard into any MMO, the first one they fell into will always be their bestie. So while in other genre's gamse get stale to the user and they move on to a clone game, that doesn't happen in these online games.
Reality is the novelty of MMORPG is gone and there is no mystery or adventure. Min/Max from day one is how the majority of invested gamers play MMOs and that isn't for the average player. There is no way to get that back within the internet age unless you create a game with AI that can change content without any player knowing all the time.
I remember when SWTOR launched and the Jedi melee attacks had the exact same affects and cooldowns as warriors in WoW. I was in EQ 2 and jumped to WoW, EQ 2 was definitely closer to EQ 1 than WoW until WoW released. I used to advocate cross server grouping, about a year into it ... I hate it. Kills community.
The endgame was what Everquest was all about too, just like the majority of games.
Suddenly after playing the new WOW you feel disconnected with people. It just doesn't matter anymore just as long as you do dailies.
Great video, Wildstar was another spectacular failure a WoW in space. I loved it though. It's a shame that it costs so much money to make an MMO. Would love to see smaller Indy developer takes on the genre.
I never got to try Wildstar, I wish I had...or perhaps I'm happy I didn't? I have the bitter taste of Vanguard and SWGs closures still in my mind.
The cost for MMOs is pretty exorbitant. I think we're going to enter into a space where single player RPGs are coming out pretty regularly but MMOs may still be very cost ineffective just due to their sheer size and scope.
And thank you for the kind words! It's really appreciated
@@Redbeardflynn I never got to play Vanguard, I was on my break from MMOs at the time. One of the reasons I am so looking forward to PRotF but who knows if it will ever come out, fingers crossed. Keep doing quality content and your channel will grow brother.
EQ2 launch - lol my PC cant even handle running the launcher....
WoW launch - lol my toaster can run this...
This is why I ended up playing WoW over EQ2. I had nothing to do with game difficulty. I just couldn't run EQ2. I was able to play it a little bit, I loved how challenging to was, but still a hell of a lot easier than EQ1, but the graphics were completely broken or not loading in.
Its kind of funny because my pc back then couldn't even handle wow .but back in the 2000s and late 90s game devs really wanted to push the best graphics .even if that meant bad game play or the game not working on most computers of the time. in the late 2000s the rise of minecraft showed game devs that you didn't need good graphics for success.
Still prefer EQ2 over WoW and original EQ despite it's WoWification.
People constantly say Blizzard "perfected" the MMO. This isn't true in the general sense. What they perfected was the mmo formula for mass appeal, and games designed for mass appeal generally aren't that appealing to people that are invested in gaming in a wider sense. A few people I know that play have played for a large portion of the game's lifespan, have a seriously limited experience with other games. Obviously, many players exist that have a wide range of experience with many games across genres and maybe WoW is their staple game they play between other games. I'd be interested in knowing how many WoW players are of each type.
In my experience, any franchise that dips into the mass appeal direction does so at the cost of some or most of what the original fan base loved about it and what set it apart from other games. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.
Warhammer was sso much fun i thinkt he huge problem with it is they made leveling super grindy if they made it faster for players to get to tier 4 pvp with the world at war theme it would've done better.
The MMO genre isn't dead. It's actually the most popular it has ever been. It's just that people no longer play 1 big MMO. There are dozens, if not hundreds of good MMOs out there now so the numbers are spread out instead of all in 1 game
Riders of icarus was straight WoW but betttthe problem was they didn't kniw what tondo after perfecting what was essentially their take on the Vanilla-BC experience
I miss early Ultima Online. It had Quality of Life features that STILL put the most modern MMO on the market to SHAME, 25 years later (See my post in the poll of this channel for a partial list).
WoW was too successful, everyone cloned it, no room for anything else even for ppl that don't like wow's formula. I've not played an MMO seriously since leaving FF11 around 2009, they all feel bland and I cancel my account after a month or 2. I did play WoW in TBC, WotLK and MoP and enjoyed it each time (tho Cataclysm really effed up the game), but I don't play it anymore (except classic and about to quit too).
I would love an MMO in Ultima Online's ruleset, at least as it was around "The Second Age" or maybe "Renaissance" if they un-f**k the changes made to NPC vendors and Skill rework (such as Tailoring). It was so fun taking the whole guild on a field trip on friday night, no level segregation allowed for this and it was immense fun !
I still play FFXI, and my modern MMO is ESO. I loved FFXI back in the day, but it has been washed out a lot. I might try private servers, or give EQ a try finally. I really don't like multiboxing though.
What are some innovative new ideas for MMO's?
giving reward for killing someone in pvp mode
EverQuest > WoW
Blizzard poached furor (Alex Afrasiabi) from an EverQuest guild to become creative director of WoW and copy intellectual property.
At least the WoW devs still care about their MMO, unlike the EQ devs.
I couldn't get into the others that came after everquest except perhaps city of heroes
WoW did actually kill the MMO, first by taking up all the space in the room, and then corrupting itself into an absolute PoS.
I have never been a fan of WoW, I wasn't into the graphics, or the theme park feel. I miss EQOA, and the classic EQ era...
The other thing is WoW had A LOT of advertisement money to throw at it. Celebrity appearances and what not. I only heard of EQ2 because of a friend. We were both anti-social but we were anti-social together and Norrath is basically a homebrew DnD campaign in video game format. It was actually challenging and once they started dumbing it down more and more I lost interest. I played on a time-locked sever for a bit and even bought a multi-month subscription for it only to find that it was nothing at all like vanilla or even the first few expacs. EG I can can solo dungeons that are ostensibly meant for a group and they didn't even have the old Freeport or Qeynos cities in place. Big disappointment there.
I just want Wildstar back but with expansions and constant new content like ESO online .... I would ask for EQ3 but daybreak would just ruin it with pay to win and krono etc
Asherons Call 1&2 we're another two mmo's that dies off because of wow's popularity
The problem is that there's only so many hardcore MMO players around. WoW took some of them. The WoW normies aren't hardcore mmo players. They will not play any game other than WoW and they aren't very good at video games. They might level up their characters but they need a lot of help and they aren't good at the game. When you're playing WoW, you can often tell who is a veteran from EQ because they actually know how to use the game mechanics well.
the same happens to aything that becomes popular, people see the money to be made an destroy by milking it to death.
and its funny how WoW is basically a clone of EQ/EQ2 yet is called the "first" mmorpg, and i've raided on both, and the mechanics are much more difficult for raids on Everquest/EQ2.
I played EQ2 and WoW when they came out and always preferred EQ2 of the two. WoW felt like a watered down kiddie version of EQ2. Mainly played WoW because so many of my friends played it but most of the time they had to beg me to get off EQ2. Although I did convert a fair number of them.
Really enjoyed the video!
Thank you!
WOW didn't make MMO's "perfect", they dumbed them down for casuals which appealed to a lot of consumers. WOW was basically Everquest easy mode. It helped a lot that Blizzard had a lot of fanboys who could see no wrong with the company, thankfully those people are starting to wise up.
Yeah it only took them 15+ years but yeah they're starting to see that Blizzard is a shit company that doesn't care about it players.
I have to agree WoW kiled MMO by changing the devs design philosophy when it came to making them. Early days WoW to a degree and all MMO before hand the design philosophy was to create a world for players to live in, when WoW came along it started to shift the philosophy to creating a game (instead of a world) and it kept going heavily down this path with each patch onwards.
MMO were about the magic of escapism going to a new world it wasnt simply just playing a game by removing all the inconviences from MMO it made the world just feel like a game which lost the magic that MMORPG once had. Fortunately ashes of creation seems to be shifting back to the older design philosophy of creating a world formost for players to live in so this will be the first modern MMO imo that uses the old school design philosophy so i cant wait t osee how that one plays out in 7-9 months when A2 launches
Why play a WoW clone even if it is slightly better when u already spent so much time in WoW itself and already have an endgame character, The only thing that will kill WoW is WoW itself or a game that is so innovative and different from WoW
FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn is estimated to have 44,591,842 total subscribers.
Excellent video!
I like everquest but everquest 2 made a lot of mistakes. Too many abilities that were no different from each other. Poor armor design. Poor city design like New Halas. The main cities though are quite nice. I love Qeynos and Freeport. I wish they would make a new everquest 3 and take lessons from SWTOR FFXIV and WOW.
Someone is going to figure out the right balance of solo/group activities, and how to incentivize players to cooperate instead of incentivizing them to be dicks to each other... And that game won't look *anything* like WoW.
Ok, glad to hear you're sticking around. lol
Now, EQ and WoW courted 2 very different types of players: EQ appealed to the old school D&D players who were accustomed to using their imagination to fill out the world around them, while WoW went after the new breed of gamers more interested in cool graphics, phat lewt, and min/maxing character builds.
EQ will always be my #1, but while it has an impressive number of expansions, it really fell apart after Planes of Power. Why? Because it lacked anything resembling a cohesive narrative, or even a recognizable storyline. You can tell the story of each new add-on is an afterthought, if that, and Quests are utterly untethered to any world building. It's an animatronic without the skin.
The best example of this is the loot in the newer expansions. Gone are the class-specific weapons with unique effects and cool names, replaced with All/All items so generic they're indistinguishable from one another, despite the nostalgia bait of a cool name bestowed upon them.
Now you can skip entire expansions wholesale, due to Heroic character upgrades. Whether you burned your way through an expansion or skipped it entirely, it's all the same; the next one renders all the previous ones obsolete, and the only reason to go back to them is if you're trying to do all the Accomplishments like Dr. Nachoz and his mad lads. But even they do that on the Test Server, because it's about doing the thing, not leaving a lasting legacy behind for others to admire.
What made EQ so awesome was the personal touch, where even in a big world with thousands of players, you could make a name for yourself during an in-game event, perhaps even lead to a personalized item being given or introduced as a new loot drop.
Ok, I'm gonna stop it there. So much more I could go on about, but modern MMOs are like modern Hollywood: creatively bankrupt, addicted to shallow tropes, and unable to grasp why what worked in the past doesn't work any more. Imagination, if it isn't dead, is certainly on life support.
Great video, Red! Super high quality stuff. Great editing, too. You're getting good at this stuff!
I couldn't have said it any better myself; WoW stifled the genre because the capitalist way says 'copy successful financial models' and executives who don't know enough about the gaming scene are like 'yah make a WoW clone' and so we DO end up with stuff like Allods Online, etc. Capitalism stifles innovation, and there's no better place to see that then in the gaming sector, which includes mostly artists (and I include programmers in artists) and designers, directed by the people who have the money. The oligarchs and nepotists and human rights abusers. All screwing with our games because they want our money.
That's what I'm so glad for Pantheon, and for how strict they're being in selecting their financial partners. We're getting to see a game built by passion and funded by those who have an interest in seeing the game to its intended conclusion. We could do with a whole lot less of commissioned style works and a whole lot more of letting the artist have at 'er. I was going to reference Mozart's working for the Duke of Gaines but I'm not sure how much control he exerted over the end work so instead I'll say most modern MMOs are like starbucks drinks ordered by executives, specified to the Nth degree.
I want the drink the barista would make for themselves.
You say you're killing this MMO channel. Like, this is your last video? :(
So sorry! It was a joke since in the video I was being pretty critical of the entire MMO genre from 2004 on for about a decade.
It's just unsustainable to do what wow did. They were the freak. No one can ever do that again. The generation that grew up with wow is grown now and the world has changed. The market just isn't big enough for MMOs
Life is complicated. It's especially complicated to navigate for manbabies who, for whatever combination of childhood trauma, social maladaptation, and plain ol' not growing up, can't hack it (Mobin couldn't hack it.) It's very easy to blame WoW for everything wrong with why someone can't recapture those magical moments in 1999 or 2003 or whatever it was, playing a game that isn't WoW. It's like blaming Dad for things that are still happening to you at the age of 46.
Life is about change. Nothing stays the same... what's that old saying, nothing in life is assured but death, taxes, and insufferable Internet whiners. Anyway, the MMO space is hardly dead. Just because the industry moved in a direction that makes more people happy doesn't mean some great injustice has been done. And despite WoW being a massive influence and, assuredly, out-competing many a competitive upstart, there are still many other MMOs to play.
New projects are popping up all the time. If they fail, it's not WoW's fault. The simple fact is that not everyone is going to like what "you" like, and "you're" not going to like what a lot of other people like. A game needs to reach a critical mass for it to be a well populated and actively developed success. This is hard to do, and it gets harder as technology and gaming trends advance and evolve.
I'm 46 years old, and I have some manbaby traits, trust me. I'm not so much pointing the finger at the complainers, as I am pointing the finger at human nature. It is what it is. Several promising MMOs are on the horizon. Maybe find something else to do with your time while you lament how things aren't the way they were "bAcK iN tHe gOoD oLd dAyS."
Or, ya know, if someone is one of these guys who is super passionate and goes around complaining loudly everywhere they go about how there are no good MMOs anymore... maybe find some like-minded, talented people and have a go at it yourself. Not that they have any technical skills, or understand the complexities of designing a large coherent system and the pitfalls that go into creating something without compromising whatever narrow preferences and concerns I see most people blathering about.
(All instances of "you" in the above lame rant are the general/royal "you", not you specifically, Redbeardflynn.) 😏
mmos where a hype like everything else.