Studying the WoW Tribe: Gamasutra asks "Is there life after World of Warcraft?"
by Robin Torres 
Sep 12th 2007 at 2:15PM
Gamasutra has an in-depth interview with several academics asking "Is there life after World of Warcraft?" Neils Clark suggests that the majority of of MMO players don't spread themselves out over multiple MMO games, but instead migrate like a flock of birds or a "gamer tribe".
I do think that the same chunk of players went from EQ to Galaxies to WoW with some dabbling in games like AO, DAOC and CoH inbetween. Obviously, Blizzard attracted about 8 million extra people to our "tribe", however, so I wonder if our tribe just got a lot bigger or if we are now just one tribe of many.
Clark interviews 5 academics about how gamers will move from WoW to other games and what what has made WoW the powerhouse that it is. The discussions of social networks, lures of new fantasies and the ramifications of a WoW collapse are very interesting.
Clark also says that he thinks WoW is the "king of the mountain" not because it is the best game out there but because it attracted the "right people". I say the "right people" are playing because it's currently the best game out there. What do you think?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ahoni Sep 12th 2007 2:18PM
Deja Vu ... didn't I just read this on /.
Dahkeus Sep 12th 2007 2:35PM
Personally, I came from playing 2 years of Guild Wars. GW was my first MMO (although I think it's technically not considered an MMO) and I made the switch largely because I felt I did everything I wanted to do there. Even with the expansion that has came out, I just haven't had the urge to come back.
I had dabbled in trials of WoW before, but didn't really get into it until about 3 months ago. It's a bit hard being a late starter in a game where others have years of experience up on me, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I now have almost reached lvl 70 with my primary character and am happy with my choice in switch.
I wouldn't say that the people in WoW are particularly better than those I encountered in GW, but I would say that my experiences with people in MMOs in general has been better than some online games such as Halo 2 (which is sad because I love the game, even though many of the people really get on my nerves).
Coherent Sep 12th 2007 2:35PM
This guy is an idiot. He began each interview on the premise that quality is irrelevant to the success of WoW?
While there may be some truth to his assertion that gamers move in flocks, the premise that world quality is irrelevant to gamer migration is totally insane.
Robin makes a great point in the article above: WoW attracted millions of new gamers to the fold. Isn't it far more reasonable to deduce that WoW is successful because the millions of gamers THAT IT ATTRACTED TO THE GENRE are still playing it?
Look, when you begin to believe that quality is irrelevant and social spin is everything, that you have to attract the "cool kids" to your game to be a hit, you go down a horrible horrible path where marketing and cachet are EVERYTHING and the actual game is just an afterthought to the "(buzzword deleted)" experience.
This has been the way of doom for many companies.
Dave Sep 12th 2007 2:42PM
WoW definitely isn't the best. It's been outdone by several games in the past couple of years, but as the article says... they didn't attract the "right" people. It got the initial push from a strong IP that people recognize. I'd be willing to bet that if LOTRO came out before WoW, we'd all be playing LOTRO. If SWG had a good game, we'd all be playing SWG.
Instead, WoW was really the first (and maybe only) game to blend an existing and recognizeable IP, with a game that's fun to play. Other games have done one or the other, but not many have done both simultaneously. This is a really important thing.
Now, WoW has the largest amount of players, but I attribute a lot of that to the low system requirements for the game, as well as the fact that "if all my friends are playing WoW, I guess I'm better off playing WoW than picking up something new" is a big draw.
For continuing players, they want you to feel you've invested your time in your characters, gear and all that stuff so that it's harder to play another game where you don't have any stuff. You'll have to spend 2 months in some other game just getting to the level where your stuff doesn't suck. It's essentially a virtual "home" and most people heavily resist leaving the comforts of what they know and what they have to go to another situation, no matter how much better things are or could be elsewhere. Everyone knows the guy who stays at home and lives with his parents a little too long, just because it's comfortable there and they still know everyone and all that stuff. It's a natural instinct to just want things to stay the same forever.
Consequently, once you get people hooked into a game and give them enough things to feel comfortable with it, you're putting up a huge barrier to going elsewhere. For the most part things have to change fundamentally with the game, or something else has to offer a REALLY great incentive to change. LOTRO is probably a better game, it definitely has a more compelling story that people recognize... but it's essentially the same game underneath and you have less stuff. Not much incentive in playing that over WoW if you've got a L70 with epics in WoW and all your friends are on WoW and don't wanna change. It's not that WoW is still the best game, it's just that you're used to it and so are your friends so you've gotta have huge reasons to leave.
Another game could come along that's really great. Maybe it's Warhammer. Maybe it's Tabula Rasa, maybe Conan, maybe Star Trek (oh god), who knows. Blizzard I'm sure is hoping it'll ultimately be their next-gen MMO and that people wait that long to have an exodus, but it will have to be awesome and it'll have to be new and different enough to make people really want to leave. Or, a big enough change in WoW that makes people give up. (the gear reset from WoW -> BC did this for a lot of people, but not in such a quantity that it overpowered the people who had already left and decided to come back).
But seriously, saying WoW is the best game out there only says that you haven't played any other games or you just don't care what else has been done in the last 3 years worth of gaming.
Erica Olson Sep 12th 2007 2:52PM
I think it began as a great game but then did too much tweaking and pandering to a certain style of player.
We're excited about Gods and Heroes. No PvP, ability to hire minions so you aren't forced to group, random loot so no camping or farming and no futzing with classes because others QQ.
Frank Adamczyk Sep 12th 2007 3:17PM
WoW was my first MMO. I came from a totally different genre of gaming. That is FPS, counter-strike to be exact (for those that have heard of the game). I checked forums often and there was a period of time where all that was talked about was "WoW". The only reason I bought the game was because of all the buzz surrounding the game.
shrinkydinx Sep 12th 2007 4:11PM
i say its cuz they attracted the right people. i knew when it came out that i would like it... it wasnt till people in my frat told me they played it that my two roomates and i all picked it up at once...
So sorry Sep 12th 2007 4:12PM
I'm sorry Robin, but if the "right people" is what the wow playerbase is as a whole, I think just about any game that attracts the wrong people will do just fine...
Honestly, I've played nearly every game since pong and I have never seen a more rabid, immature, self-centered, complaining, rude bunch of players in my life. This game makes you relish the 10 or so players you can actually tolerate being around because 99.9% of the population are complete aholes.
Heraclea Sep 12th 2007 4:17PM
I came to WoW from City of Heroes, where the "tanker" class was a great deal of fun, relatively easy to play, quite powerful, can solo well, and is in demand in groups.
So I made the mistake of rolling a Warrior here. Unfortunately, the class here could stand major improvements. If you spec for tanking, that's all you can do; the game outside of instances and raids is insufferably tedious. The warrior's threat and aggro abilities seem like a kludgy exploit, and defy genre expectations: the warriors aren't really doing anything that would make a mob find them dangerous. We're wanted in arena PvP for a single debuff, which requires yet another talent spec. We are healer's pets, with no sustainability or staying power on our own. Or you can spec for DPS, if you want to solo all the time; you have no crowd control useful in instances. I am dissatisfied with my class, but don't want to have to go through the whole rest of the game, not only grinding to 70, but starting all the rep grinds and so forth, on another class either.
That's why I'm going to take a hard look at Warhammer when it is released. The nature of the franchise gives rise to a reasonable expectation that they will do right by melees, at least in PvP.
Then again, the franchise isn't everything. You'd expect that Dungeons and Dragons Online would do well, since they have perhaps the best known name in gaming on their shingle. But they got bad, bad word of mouth at the beginning, and so they were never a serious competitor.
Heraclea Sep 12th 2007 4:20PM
I came to WoW from City of Heroes, where the "tanker" class was a great deal of fun, relatively easy to play, quite powerful, can solo well, and is in demand in groups.
So I made the mistake of rolling a Warrior here. Unfortunately, the class here could stand major improvements. If you spec for tanking, that's all you can do; the game outside of instances and raids is insufferably tedious. The warrior's threat and aggro abilities seem like a kludgy exploit, and defy genre expectations: the warriors aren't really doing anything that would make a mob find them dangerous. We're wanted in arena PvP for a single debuff, which requires yet another talent spec. We are healer's pets, with no sustainability or staying power on our own. Or you can spec for DPS, if you want to solo all the time; you have no crowd control useful in instances. I am dissatisfied with my class, but don't want to have to go through the whole rest of the game, not only grinding to 70, but starting all the rep grinds and so forth, on another class either.
That's why I'm going to take a hard look at Warhammer when it is released. The nature of the franchise gives rise to a reasonable expectation that they will do right by melees, at least in PvP.
Then again, the franchise isn't everything. You'd expect that Dungeons and Dragons Online would do well, since they have perhaps the best known name in gaming on their shingle. But they got bad, bad word of mouth at the beginning, and so they were never a serious competitor.
Coherent Sep 12th 2007 5:40PM
WoW isn't the best? Isn't the best what? Because I believe it is actually the best overall MMO currently on the market. MMO's are a very complex endeavor, and while I'm sure World of Warcraft could stand some major improvements, I believe it offers the best overall experience.
WoW captures your imagination. When another company comes out with an MMO that offers the same grand sweep of epic adventure and lore (with richer gameplay), players will be swept away by it.
If they aren't swept away, it means that whatever it is that makes WoW great hasn't been discovered yet. All of these companies are frantically doing this or that trying to be "better" but their vision always pales alongside Blizzard's so far.
Mostly it has to do with money. When a company gets the financing to compete with blizzard, they will be able to provide the same level of detail and lore to immerse us in their world of imagination.
Paul Sep 12th 2007 8:48PM
I can't even imagine what a "next gen" MMO will entail, how could you make an MMO without the inevitable grind while still making goals for people to strive toward, that would just make it like every other MMO?
I can't imagine how any new MMO would circumvent that, but then, there are people smart than me who are getting paid to sit around all day to try to figure that out.
The one thing that really bugs me about all MMOs (because I feel like it's nearly impossible to remove from the game) is that you can never be satisfied with where you are, you're always trying to get that next level, or piece of gear, and as soon as you get that gear, you are immediately facing harder monsters that make your new gear just as good as your old gear relative to the mobs you're facing.
One small thing i can think of, which would be satisfying, at least to me, would be quests (that gave decent experience) every few levels that send you back to old lower level areas that you struggled through in the past- quests that have you tearing through dozens of those lower level mobs just to let you, at least for a minute, appreciate how far you've come and how much better your weapons and armor are.
Or maybe have difficulty "plateaus" in the game, where, after a while of monsters getting harder at the same rate as your gear getting better, you get to one or 2 levels where your gear is getting better but the mobs stay the same, so that you enjoy how badass your new gear is. At a certain point, you would embark on a new journey to a new land where the mobs would once again be harder.
Sorry to get all philosophical, this discussion just brought it up in my mind.