What if WoW never existed?

[Fey]

Since people are kind of blind when it comes to the industry and tend to focus only on their self-centered views/needs/desires, I suggest this video to everyone:

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/video-game...never-existed/

The entire video is very educational and informative, but if you want to jump straight to the point it's around 21:40


I was going to post this in the Xbox-Huge-Ascended-Gear-Argument-Thread but I decided to put it here as it's off topic from that one, yet still relevant to GW2 because people are complaining that GW2 is becoming a WoW clone.

This video is extremely informative and insightful on how WoW has changed the industry. Both the good and the bad. A lot of people don't actually realize that without WoW we probably would have never gotten GW2, or any other big "Triple-A MMO".

People always fall back on the default that "every MMO since WoW has been a WoW clone or failed or both". Which is true and false at the same time. The reality of the situation is that Blizzard showed investors how successful MMO's can be. Without WoW (or whatever would have taken the place of WoW), MMO's never really seemed that lucrative and developers were never given the necessary funds they required to introduce things like Story. Removal of "The Grind" for more meaningful content since grindy MMO's were the easiest to make. But the same argument can be made that Blizzard hurts other developers because of the hold they have on the MMO market.


Without creating a Wall-O-Text that no one will read, I'll simply leave it at this. Things will always get worse before they get better. GW2 may inevitably fail, as is the risk that all MMO's take (even before Everquest and WoW were ever a thing). But if people are going to fall back on the argument that "GW2 is turning into a WoW clone because they introduced a gear grind", then at least take the time to educate yourself on the industry and reconsider if it's worth it to you to hurt a game you love because they decided to introduce a new gear set with some higher numbers on it.

I mean that seriously. Is this one change really worth forsaking a title that most of you have played non-stop since release? Because if and when it turns into a "WoW-Clone", it will be the people that said "Yes" that helped push it down that road.

[Vayne]

I moved it to Offtopic other games, because though it applies to Guild Wars 2 in an indirect way, it's not news about Guild Wars 2.

I haven't watched this yet, but I disagree with something you said in your statement. You postulate if it weren't for WoW we wouldn't have AAA MMOs at all. I don't see how anyone can claim this, since no one knows what would happen if WoW hadn't come out.

The gaming industry is like a rainforest. It has different niches and if something becomes extinct, something moves in to fill those niches. If there's a niche, some bright spark will fill it.

If Blizzard didn't create WoW, which was heavily influenced by EQ, then someone else would have created an MMO that might or might not resemble WoW at all. And that MMO might have been successful in a different way, or in other ways. Maybe the path to today would have been a more gradual climb with more progression in the genre. We simply don't know. There is no way to know.

I'll watch this when I get a chance though.

[Fey]

It was suppose to be in GW2 General but I'm dyslexic and clicked the wrong forum. Blegh.

[Vayne]

It's still not really about Guild Wars 2, though, even though it pertains to it. Other video games if really the proper place for it.

[Fey]

but I disagree with something you said in your statement. You postulate if it weren't for WoW we wouldn't have AAA MMOs at all. I don't see how anyone can claim this, since no one knows what would happen if WoW hadn't come out.

That's not what I was saying, it's not that we wouldn't have them but more so that we wouldn't have the ones that we were given. Like Guild Wars, for example. Which tried to do something new, may have had to do something else entirely.

- - - Updated - - -

It's still not really about Guild Wars 2, though, even though it pertains to it. Other video games if really the proper place for it.

Without creating a Wall-O-Text that no one will read, I'll simply leave it at this. Things will always get worse before they get better. GW2 may inevitably fail, as is the risk that all MMO's take (even before Everquest and WoW were ever a thing). But if people are going to fall back on the argument that "GW2 is turning into a WoW clone because they introduced a gear grind", then at least take the time to educate yourself on the industry and reconsider if it's worth it to you to hurt a game you love because they decided to introduce a new gear set with some higher numbers on it.

I mean that seriously. Is this one change really worth forsaking a title that most of you have played non-stop since release? Because if and when it turns into a "WoW-Clone", it will be the people that said "Yes" that helped push it down that road.

K. lol

[Vayne]

That's not what I was saying, it's not that we wouldn't have them but more so that we wouldn't have the ones that we were given. Like Guild Wars, for example. Which tried to do something new, may have had to do something else entirely.

Guild Wars 1 came out the same time as WoW. If WoW hadn't come out at all, I wonder if Guild Wars might have had a bigger player base, and the entire genre might have evolved more slowly but differently. I mean Guild Wars was released about six months after WoW. It was obviously in production before WoW was released.

So if WoW had never been released, what would have happened? Would we have better MMOs than we do now? I think the answer is probably yes, from my point of view. Certainly they'd be different.

But since Guild Wars 2 is the first MMO I've liked to date, it's entirely possible that I'd like the MMOs better if WoW had never come out and more, it's entirely possible I wouldn't have had to wait 7 years to find one I could play.