Does the industry need to give WoW competition?
by Amanda Rivera 
May 16th 2007 at 6:57PM
Right now WoW stands as the big boy on the online gaming scene. It will take quite a bit to close the gap between it and the other -- some could argue the inferior -- titles. Mark Ward at BBC News wrote an article on the subject of competition to World of Warcraft last week, and it raises some interesting issues.
Mark interviewed Funcom game director Gaute Godoger, the man responsible for the upcoming Age of Conan MMO. Gaute believes that competition is needed for WoW because it has such a stranglehold on the market right now. Normally, I would have to agree with him, since competition breeds innovation. But in the case of Blizzard, they are competing with themselves for innovation, which is why WoW constantly comes up with new and fresh concepts and content that other games strive to copy. From where I sit, the company appears to be driven by the internal desire to put forth the best game possible, and so I see little in the market today that would have the potential to actually compete with their ethic.
We're not talking about the people that play multiple MMOs here. Rather, I focus on those that have to choose between which subscription fee to pay every month. I know in my case, when it comes down do who would get that fifteen dollars, it comes up WoW every time. That's not to say that I didn't like LOTRO, in fact I greatly enjoyed playing it in open beta. I just prefer the personality that infuses WoW.
When Tabula Rasa comes on the scene, I think that may have a better chance to pull players from WoW's player base. World of Warcraft owns the fantasy MMO genre at the moment, but I do think a science fiction title with the same personality and innovation could prove a contender. Knowing the profound effect that Richard Garriott has had on the role playing genre with the Ultima series and Ultima Online, I expect that Tabula Rasa might have enough power behind it to at least show up to the fight.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nebz May 16th 2007 7:15PM
I know I'm not the only one who has noticed the quality of WoW has decreased a lot in the last year. And I think the lack of competition. Blizzard realizes that there really isn't anything they have to compete with and so they haven't been trying as hard. I think a little competition is exactly what WoW needs.
Sean May 16th 2007 7:25PM
WoW is like Apple and the iPod.
It will be VERY hard to compete.
Choktzul May 16th 2007 7:27PM
The only game that looks like competition is Warhammer.
Rich May 16th 2007 7:29PM
There is really nothing on the horizon that will replace WoW as the juggernaut of the MMO world. AoC and Warhammer will put a dent in their numbers, but neither of them will have the general broad base appeal of WoW. If the game can make my mom interested enough to play, then that is the formula. My brother plays alot of different games and WoW was the only one she wanted to try.
Blizz set the bar pretty high and took a route that alot of other games aren't taking. WoW is stupidly simple. Its ok looking but doesn't require current gen graphic cards. It doesn't abuse the players in obvious or frustrating ways (ie no major death penalties.) The game is polished and pretty smooth. They planned ahead for stuff of people to do. There are constant updates with new content to keep people going and its a fairly regular thing.
Any MMO looking to knock off WoW needs to be simple, able to be ran on a wide variety of computers, appeal to a wide audience, be pretty much ready to go and not a work in progress at release and be fun to play.
Everything that I've seen coming out in the future is more targeted at a niche. It is difficult to know if one will break out of the pack, because I pegged WoW as a niche game when it came out.
Baluki May 16th 2007 7:29PM
I've gotta say, I think Blizz is doing a mostly great job at keeping WoW the best game on the market. They're constantly adding new content and features. It may seem like it's not very often to us gamers, but it's very often in the game development world.
Of course, there is still a lot of stuff that needs fixing, and a lot of it is stuff we've been waiting on for a long time. (I don't want to get into specifics because it seems like all I do is complain about it these days, but it involves one of the classes, which was formerly horde-only.)
NeuroMan42 May 25th 2007 8:00AM
I have to say that I am really looking forward to Tabula Rasa for an amazing Sci-Fi MMO. I have been a fan of everything Lord British has done. He looks like the man to put Sci-Fi on the map in the MMO department, and give WoW a run for it's money.
Simon May 16th 2007 8:27PM
Wow is great and all, but saying that it is innovating itself or anything is pure rubbish, it is using already well proven formulas from previous mmorpg's and polishes them, that's it.
amasen May 16th 2007 8:35PM
World of Warcraft is a great game. The gameplay is great. The worlds it takes you to are beautiful.
The problem Blizzard will face is that their important content will be only for the tiniest portion of the WoW population. Many people do not or have not the interest in large scale raids and the time constraint they impose. And Because ALL the best content is for these large scale raids, then this portion of the player base will constantly be left out.
I expect I'll be leaving WoW the second Gods and Heroes comes out. It has Epic small scale content for no more than 5 players at a time. For the vast majority of WoW players that never experience anything more than 5man content, they will finally have a game made for them.
I for one welcome competition. It will finally mean blizzard will no longer be able to ignore their long term player base that has been restricted time and again from the "end game". If they don't change then they will finally lose.
Mats May 16th 2007 8:48PM
@1
Did you play wow when it first came out? Compare that to what we have now, that game was Terrible. UI was rotten, lots of game-breaking bugs, no pvp, raiding was dead on impossible due to how combat worked, lots of areas where just empty(silithus), horde where missing a lot of quests aimed to get past level 50-53. End-game instances where almost impossible to take down unless you put them into raid-option, so end-game questing was worthless. No objective to do end-game quests due to no-money for XP. Doing 5-man runs took hours upon hours often more time then raiding does today. Gear was crappy and drops where old-fashion and made for repetitive gameplay.
Please, WoW today puts the WoW post Beta to shame.
someone May 16th 2007 8:55PM
VERY YES
WoW is a monolopy, which is why it has the worst customer service on the planet
James May 16th 2007 9:02PM
@10
Go play City of Heroes and City of Villains then let me know about customer service. At least the in game support I've encountered involved people who had a general idea of what the game was, could answer in coherent English, and didn't blow you off immediately.
Further, CoH had no problem just shutting down servers, not telling the reasons why, how long, or whether there would be rolling restarts.
There was 'Customer Support' via email as well, which involved the same canned phrases no matter if your problem was grahics glitches, lag, server disconnects, or your computer had caught on fire. It didn't matter; the same email telling you to do the same thing always showed up.
WoW's customer service is nothing short of spectacular compared to that crap.
amasen May 16th 2007 9:14PM
@11
City of heroes/villains also has no monthly fees. So it's not a viable comparisson.
WoW rakes in $100,000,000+ a month... City of Heroes takes in... $0
Mats May 16th 2007 9:19PM
@12
Hu? it's $14.99 just like WoW.
You're thinking about that other one, guild wars.
James May 16th 2007 9:46PM
@12
Man, I wish it had no monthly fees. It was 15 bucks a month. NCSoft publishes CoH/CoV, and Guild Wars--and Guild Wars doesn't have a monthly fee. I'm not sure where the CoH monthly fees are going. Probably to hookers and booze because the fees are certainly not going to customer support, or end-game development.
robot rock May 16th 2007 10:02PM
I'm only a casual player inching closer to 70 with little to no desire in running hours long raids...I don't see myself creating new characters that will only run into the same problem.
Its not really a fair comparison, but I'll probably switch to Hellgate: London when it arrives. All I really wanted out of WOW was something similar do D2 anyway.
Brian McBride May 17th 2007 1:41AM
Back in the day, no one thought Everquest could be overthrown either. At the GDC we all sat around talking about it, with Brad. Compared to what we thought a fantasy MMO would pull in subscriber base, WoW has hit the mark and passed it.
At some point something will tear down WoW. First, there is always the game engine. Eventually the graphics will just be too far behind the others. Then WoW2 will blow, because they will try to make it too much the "same". Check out other MMO sequels to see what I mean.
Chives May 17th 2007 8:05AM
Prepare yourselves, for a shocking truth is about to unveil before your eyes. I stand before you, a casual player, that has gone on RAIDS.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, it IS possible for casual players to experience endgame content. I have a girlfriend, a family, and I run Cross Country for my high school team. It took me a year to get to level 60. But I joined a small guild that was working on raid progression, proceeded to raid every friday and saturday night for about 2-3 hours each night. When the expansion hit, my druid was decked out in full tier2. The trick is to find other casual players like you to guild up with.
So stop complaining that the "vast majority" of players will not experience the end game content. I'm sick of it! In the expansion now there are various five mans with good loot, as well as the heroics. Even the "unattainable" raid instances are only 25-man now. Blizzard is working on it. So chill out, y'all
Chives May 17th 2007 8:05AM
Oh yeah, and about the whole purpose of this article.
I agree with 4.
The new games are niche games. I've been an avid warcraft fan since the strategy games, and I was actually very suprised at how universal wow became. It's just the perfect formula. Easy to play, no large penalties, requires NO innovation on the part of the player. It's the perfect monopoly device. Don't get me wrong, I love wow and will continue to play it until something better comes along. However, I don't see anything worthwhile on the horizon. Looks like it'll still be wow for me when I hit college.
drakesilver May 17th 2007 9:14AM
WoW works well because it is easy and hard. My son (who is 6) can play and have fun. He doesn't get to high level but he has a couple characters in the mid 20's. As other posters has stated WoW attracts casual gamers. Leveling is easy anyone can do it and have fun doing it. Many of the 5man instances are fun, interesting, and a reasonable amount of time (now). However as you progress in endgame the games gets harder. WoW will stay competitive for another couple of years because of Burning Crusade. New 5man content is great for making casual players stay. Reduced size for the first 2 25man also helps with making endgame progression easy. Gruul's lair isn't much bigger than onxyia and mag's lair is the same size. In 2 hours you can get 3-4 wipes on each. That makes attempts much more reasonable.
Strongmark on Arthas May 17th 2007 10:59AM
I don't think they will ever make a WoW2. Look at EQ2, what a flop. I think Blizz will take a Jim Carrey stance on this issue, no sequels. I think another 2 expansions for them, another 3 years and we will start to see some great competition, but I believe it will end up being multiple games that will eat at WoW's player base, not a single juggernaut such as WoW. I don't think we'll see anything like WoW for quite some time, I don't want to say never, because like someone posted earlier, look at EQ. We thought that was a huge game, although that was a different age of the internet, at the time, it was an amazingly huge game. Again, EQ2 was the worst idea ever. Blizz will never make that mistake, they will go down gracefully and will always retain being one of the best MMO devs ever. Only the future will tell, but currently, WoW will remain the bright star in the sky.