It seems this thread has gone off into WoW success reasons?

I think the most glaringly obvious one, aside from all this talk about growth of internet availability, "noob" MMORPG company, or amount of competition today.......

WoW made the MMORPG accessible to all types of gamers, particularly the solo-minded casual.

With Blizz's money, and previous game design ability backing them up, they made a game that utilized their slick, professional touch all over.

But the linchpin to the explosive success was that it made MMORPG accessible to casuals. Previous to WoW, the MMORPG was a niche market. Even with the success of EQ, the most widely know MMORPG in gamer circles pre-WoW; most casual gamers belonged on consoles only. And the idea of playing a CPU game... and online at that! was not even in their realm of consideration.

WoW changed all that. It wasn't the advertising. It wasn't the polished game. It wasn't the lore.

It was ALL of them, wrapped up in a package that a variety of gamers could play and enjoy a variety of ways.

You got cat-herdi... I mean "raiding" for the hardcore PvE types from EQ.

You got a variety of dungeons beneath raid level. 5-man sized, with variety ranging from difficult to relatively easy. Appealing to a large cross section of middle-skill level players. Giving them ability to PvE dungeon play, with smaller groups and less stringent requirements (than even some previous MMORPGs).

You got rail-easy casual XPing. No "punishing" death penalties like corpse retrieval, or losing XP. Tons of mobs, tons of quests, all soloable and quite easily. Fairly quick level progression. All of these REALLY appeal to the casual players who, in previous MMORPGs, would have been left far far behind.

Now, you can argue how this has dumbed down the gene pool in MMORPGs. You might be, and probably are, right. For better or worse, yeah?

But this attraction to casuals, while also still offering some apples for the "hardcore" types, made for a very attractive game. I didn't even mention the PvP stuffs, which also ran the gamut of variety of styles being possible.

It's easy to forget now, nearly 7 years after WoW's arrival, just how niche and difficult the MMORPG used to be.

 

-----signature-----

^^^ Not quoted for brevity, but really good post.


Over the years people try to make one line and incorrect quips that explain away WoW's success and for some reason try to detract from it.


They made the MMORPG genre their b*tch and made them like it.


For a variety of reasons, but if we want to simplify, they made a game that people wanted to play. And still do.

 

-----signature-----

fixed.

 

-----signature-----