But…

I try to play, but each time I want to do something different WoW doesn’t want me to. There is nothing else anywhere.

Phrasing, making a single player game out of WoW.

Playing is about being one with the game, being able to try different things. WoW doesn’t do this.

No.

WoW shows you. You do minor stuff, but generally the developer’s single design path for the player is completely obvious.

I agree with the first poster. Blizzard can spew crap all they want.

@Dietx

You’re joking right?

When WoW was released it was one of the friendlist MMORPGs to date. It was friendly to NORMAL people, I was a casual and I had a blast (unlike WOTLK).

Now WoW is retard friendly, meaning banging your head against the keyboard is viable.

And no, it hasn’t improved. You OBVIOUSLY never played the original… Or any other MMORPGs for that matter.

I have to say that i agree completly, no mistake in any point.

I have to that i agree completly, no mistake in any point

Let’s say you’re sitting down to dinner at my place, and I’m serving roast chicken. I put two chickens out on the table. One is roasted to perfection. The other has only been in the oven half an hour and is mostly raw in the middle.

Do you eat the perfectly roasted one? Or do you choke down the half-raw one because it’s unfair to compare it to one that has had the benefit of more time to cook?

I’m a consumer. I care about the quality of the product I’m buying. In the case of a computer game, this means I care about how much entertainment value the game will provide to me. If I can play WoW and be entertained or play some new title which is simply not as entertaining, I’ll play WoW. I don’t care whether it’s “fair” or not to compare them.

And never forget that there is a balancing factor to all this: as people have spent so many years playing one game, they become increasingly willing to buy and play ANYTHING else, even if it is objectively not as good, simply because it’s fresh. Personally I think almost all of Allods’ appeal can be attributed to that, but I’m a minority opinion on this blog, I know.

AoC and DarkFall aren’t getting significant numbers because first impressions do matter. You have to realize, there is a sea of MMOs our there to play. When one releases that is so terribly unstable for quite a while then people are going to leave it. Most of those people will never return because of the impression made on them.

No game should ever release one way, and then completely reworked down the line to be another. Especially after that game already gets a following. It almost always spells doom for the title. How would you have felt if WoW had released.. and then 6 months in they made it a first person shooter just for the hell of it? Such is the same for any game on release. When a game drops, the heart and soul of the game should already be there. Which means all of the basic functions and mechanics. Not 6 months down the road when you’ve finally figured out what you’re doing.

As for improvements to games, it’s (again) like any other industry. You only get one first impression. Screw up bad enough and you blow it.

Games such as Darkfall and AoC have improved greatly since release, yet we don’t see their subscription rates rising. It took WoW nearly two years to get a significant subscriber base.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20081223/world-warcraft_2.htm

What I’m saying is I don’t think people would give WoW the year it would need to establish itself, if released today.

Worst launches ever? LOL yeah right. Been through much worse. Its the ‘standard’ companies follow after these problems that determines how well they continue. And whether they’ll keep my money or not.

Go back the past 6 years and evaluate the games and their companies. Based on that, how many “successful businesses” do you see?

You’re saying that common sense and intelligence is a fault of the audience? If a new game comes out OF COURSE I’m going to judge it based on past and current games. Who doesn’t do that in EVERY industry?

Yes, while you’re looking at those 4 games. Remember how many weeks it took you to get those items because you were so lost from lack of it being user-friendly that you want to pull your own teeth out.

Yes, WoW had flaws. As I said. What game doesn’t have a pretty shakey launch? When you can name one for me that released perfectly then I’ll actually give merit to that argument. You’re not telling anyone anything they don’t already know. Just because it happened to WoW doesn’t mean we should all just bend over and take it for every game that releases after it with terrible launches. Just because people make excuses for them to be able to.

I think the last point is odd because every successful business does that.

The problem, as I see it, is that people don’t give MMOs the benefit of the doubt. New games have to compete with games that have been around for a few years, and are found lacking.

This says more about the audience than company’s design philosophies.