The MMORPG industry shockwaves that still reverberate

[DapperBlondie]

A thought occurred to me the other day regarding World of Warcraft and the way that it deformed the MMO industry: People who are claiming that it’s the reason that the industry has changed so dramatically are right, but they’re not right about why or how.

If you’ve followed MMOs for long enough, you know that WoW was not, in many ways, the first of its kind in many places. It was not the first game with a soloable level experience, it wasn’t the first game to focus leveling around questing, it wasn’t the first game with instanced dungeons or the equivalent, and so forth. What it did was put all of that together into a bespoke package and experience that for many people was a heady and heretofore unseen blend of experiences that all worked together wonderfully, all at exactly the right time for it to explode around the world.

This led to a rush of new MMOs that were meant, in one way or another, to piggyback on WoW’s success. Yes, it took a little time to get there, just as it did with the rush of MOBA titles or the rush of battle royale titles or survival sandboxes or… well, you get the idea. The point was that big companies realized this could be profitable, and they rushed to blood in the water. None of this is new information.

 

[Gendo3500]

As a long time MMO player, going back to early Ultima Online days myself, you make quite a few good points. Well thought out and articulated. I have enjoyed some fun with WoW, though my MMO heart lies elsewhere.

 

[KzkksrdErroW]

Cool, I've been looking for this one for a long time

 

[fredhawkins]

If you're interested in MMOs in any depth (other than just playing them - which is enough for most of us), you could take a look at Richard Bartle's books and see how deep the roots are.

Designing Virtual Worlds

MMOs from the Outside In: The Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games of Psychology, Law, Government, and Real Life

MMOs from the Inside Out: The History, Design, Fun, and Art of Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

I have a feeling he has done another - as well as lots of papers.


Avoid anything by Raph Koster.

 

[CursiveAngel]

If you are interested in some history of an interesting time during developments - look at Everquest. I was a guide for their guide program at the time when Everquest was trying to push into their sequel, which was when WoW was in beta, and it really shows the divesting mantras of old gaming to the new gaming payoffs that now are so staple.

There are some... unanswered questions that were done by some enterprising guilds that will forever wonder if it shaped the games to come (Certain playtests of mechanics were torpedoed by guilds wanting to killl BOTH betas hoping to keep EQ as number 1 - and it may sound minor in the grand scheme but when these guilds contained thousands to the maybe 10 thousand beta tests, it does stand to wonder.