f13.net

Link (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169679)

It seems crazy to talk about this type of stuff when in the middle of preparations to release a MMO.

08/29/2008

I wonder if they will be saying the same thing in a few months?

I would assume that it's too late for a lead designer to do much to change launch at this point.  It's all down to the nuts & bolts folks to streamline and optimize things for a smooth release.  This is probably the best time to be out marketing the game so that you aren't trying to micromanage the people in the trenches  that already have overflowing in-boxes. 

Of course I'm not in the industry... so I'm just talking out my ass.

That is a little presumptuous.  The game hasn't even shipped yet and he is lumping WAR into the same tier as WoW.

The part that makes me go  :ye_gods: is that he actually came out and said they need 500k subs to be 'successful'. I sure hope for Mythic's sake that 'successful' isn't the same as 'break even' here.

Regardless of the truth of the matter, you don't say shit like that out loud.  Now if it does 450k, instead of people saying "Well that's not a WoW killer, but it's solid" they'll say it's an official Jacobs-certified failure.  And that perception wouldn't help turn things around.

You'd think the AOC developer WoW smack would give him pause

Nah; AoC's devs didn't even give themselves a chance to compete (tech reqs); at least WAR will be playable on enough machines to compete with WoW.

WAR, assuming it doesn't suffer a complete launch meltdown, will peak at well over 1 mil subs, and should sustain over 500k easy.

And yeah, if they can't sustain over 500k subs, then WAR will be a horrible flop; his saying that out loud isn't going to hurt/change anything for the worse.

500k will be a cakewalk for WAR. I'm not sure why this is a concern.

Edit: If it doesn't do 500k, it is not Mythics fault. It is EA marketing's fault.

FWIW, Jacobs I think is clever.  He knows this business.

Having heard him speak, seen him etc. I think he's setting just achievable expectations.  If they meet them they win, if they exceed, which I also believe, they'll win+.

There's only 1 way to fail, but he's creating the way for N+1 ways to win.  More goo to him either way.  Clevers.

The lead designer in question is Mark Jacobs, who in his day job runs Mythic. I'm pretty sure he could change launch if he wanted.

I'll have to disagree with you here. It is partially EA marketing's fault yes, but it is also Mythics fault. The combat system, animations and the general feel and flow of the game has been sloppy since I joined the beta, and that is May 2007. It was the main discussion on the forums constantly and Mythic didn't do anything about it until a month prior to the weekend events, which is way too late to start polishing core mechanics and fixing what is singlehandedly most important design in the game.

Now since they fixed it so late, it introduced a new series of bugs and the client / server code is not polished and causing stupid stuff like letting spells that are on cooldowns start casting, then halfway through telling you it is actually on cooldown. Did it forget to ask the server ? I think this can drive away many players if not fixed before the 18th, particulary the huge crowd swarming to WAR. AoC attracted us all cause it was fun as hell and the combat and animations were top notch, still the best out there and we forgave them for a long period for bugs and feature lacking, but a core mechanic like combat mechanics, animation system and the feel of the game being sloppy ? Hmmm.

Considering AOC had something like a million subs originally 500k for war doesn't sound to unreasonable.

Also I'm kind of creeped out at how much Ratama's name resembles mine.

What happened to ye goode olde dayz when Blizzard was expecting a subscriber base of 250k for WoW and people didn't pretend to understand how they were a runaway success.

Oh, yeah. WoW happened.  :awesome_for_real:

I have never, ever had a Warhammer product. I know nothing about the Warhammer universe. I think it's something to do with tabletop gaming miniatures and that game shop franchise that was completely useless to me as a teenager because it had no videogames or AD&D. It looked hardcore nerdy.

Warcraft was already a mainstream single-player videogame brand. I am wondering whether Warhammer really has as much market awareness as hardcore nerds think, or I'm just ignorant.

Well then, I just learned something new.  I've been in charge of many projects and they all come to a point where you just have to make them work by the deadline since the investors give you no other option.  I didn't realize that the lead developer could pull the plug at any time.   Granted, I've never been in charge of anything in the 50+ million dollar range.  That's a lot of pressure. 

The point wasn't that he's lead developer, it's that he runs the company.  The guy who runs the company usually does have the power to reschedule things, at least in my experience.

Except that we already know he can't cause EA is making them launch in September hence they had to cut out a bunch of content.

He could at his own peril, the Money Boys are calling the shots now.

It can't ask the server, that was the whole point of the responsiveness issue.  If it waits for server confirmation before doing anything, then things feel unresponsive as hell.

(Not commenting on anything else you said, just this line... it isn't as simple as what you're implying to solve the responsiveness issue, which actually supports the other stuff you're saying mostly.)

Seconded, I've gone to conventions, I've played DnD and I think I'm pretty nerdy but I'm 28 and I've never really known much about warhammer except A, I thought it was all in space and B. it was a minatures game with space marines. That said I do enjoy the lore and setting but damned if it's a mainstream product.

Um, I won't be playing WAR because it's Warhammer (TM), I'll be playing it because it's DAOC 2 with some new shiny.  And I doubt I'm alone:  The mass AOC exodus at the least should be at hand to try it out (considering both games are PvP focused dikus), and WAR should have higher retention unless if Mythic really fucks it up. 

DAOwhat? The entire past playerbase of DAOC could go to WAR and it wouldn't make a ripple.

Both of you are in the US, right?  Tabletop gaming was always a niche in the US, and fantasy (vs. historical or sci-fi) was a niche of the niche.  In Europe, it's a lot better known.

--Dave

Those of us who are about one gaming generation earlier (I'm 34) are probably a good bit more familiar with Warhammer, because back then GW actually made an attempt to get into the US RPG market with Warhammer Fantasy. The Enemy Within campaign is still bandied about as one of the best published adventure series that PnP gaming has seen, but the system just never caught on and GW has never really known what to do with it, really.

EDIT: Fixed my shitty quoting failure.

This.

Practically no-one in Europe who is even remotely into gaming culture hasn't at least dabbled with GW stuff at some point in their lives. When I worked there, the numbers that were being thrown around were something like 68% of all 11-17 year olds in the UK have bought at least one GW product. Other Euro markets too are crazy for it - especially Scandinavia, Italy, France and Spain. Nearly all of the studio painters were Scandinavian and nearly all the tournament champions came from Italy for some reason. France has probably the best miniature painting scene in the world with some crazy stuff coming from studios there - check out the Rackham studio paintjobs for example.

I know what our projections are for the EU side and we're expecting the game to be bigger over on this side of the pond than it is in the US.

Interestingly here's Jeffrey Steefel of Turbine (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=228691) on much the same topic.

I don't agree. real miniature tabletop gaming might be more popular in Europe but Wizards of the Coast just released the best 'quick and dirty' tabletop gaming system in the US. To roaring success I might add.

D&D is the single most popular RPG system in the US. And the new tabletop gaming rules for combat have been lauded by fans and the press in the US.

MahrinSkel is talking about tabletop wargaming, not PnP RPGs. At least, I think so. His comment doesn't make sense otherwise.

I only knew of Warhammer Fantasy because it was put out by the same company as Warhammer 40K.

Why the hell wasn't this a 40k game? *cry* I'd actually (gasp) give that a shot at launch.

*I quoted myself. lol*

I've still got (most of) the 40K Epic scale starter box in a cupboard somewhere.

The potential subscriber base for MMORPGs has obviously massively grown since then.  WoW has also given people an interest in Diku PvP, so if Mythic can do that better than WoW, they'll be successful.

My point wasn't that people will be playing it just because its DAOC 2, they'll be playing it because it's a new MMORPG focused around the kind of PvP they've seen in WoW.  Once again, AOC didn't have huge box sales because of Conan lore.  It's simply a result of a large amount of ex-WoW or current WoW players looking for a new fix.

Also, I'd imagine the entire past playerbase of DAOC to be at least 400k, assuming they hit 250k max subs.  That's not just a ripple, but it's also not my point, so whatever.

My take is that you have your core audience of "hardcore" (meh) MMOG gamers at about 500k-1m. These are the guys who raid and pvp and uberize. They will try AoC and WAR and whatever else comes along that is MMOG.

Then you have the other 9m who solo and socalize and really aren't so interested in a new MMOG unless it's WoW 2 or the next Maple Story or whatever the fuck tickles their online fancy. (They don't play MMOGs to MMOG)

Yeah, there is overlap. Not a few of those 9m "others" raid or pvp, and some of those 1m "hardcore" solo and dip their feet into dungeons and raiding and pvp.

Etc. I don't think any conventional MMOG is going to attract the "other" crowd, since they are all featuring gameplay that the "others" aren't really interested in.

This.

I knew the 'but it's huge in Europe' comments were enroute though. I keep hearing it's...well....huge over there. That's cool. Hopefully it's a good game that has more gaming life than Conan. My guess is it flops as in retains less than 500k. You know what else is huge in Europe? Oh yeah, that OTHER MMO.

They have some 800,000 folks signed up to Beta, so I think 500k is at the low side.  Yes I know there are many folks here who "sign up for beta's but don't buy the game" but I think it is still a relatively good gauge of the interest in the game.

By that measure, AoC will have done better...

I knew what Warhammer was growing up.  It was a miniatures game involving these little dudes in space.  It was a cool idea, but I could host a fourteen team B'Tech brawl for the same costs, if I went with actual miniatures over the paper markers which came with my game.  Only the nerdiest of nerds with more money than sense played it around here.

Warhammer Fantasy?  I didn't know it existed until the first couple of failed attempts at an MMO.  If it does well in the US, it's because of MMO players wanting a new fix, not because of a huge loyal fan base.

No, I'm European born, Australian raised, still living there.

I don't think I'm going out on a limb here when I say that MJacobs doesn't really know what he's talking about.

Warhammer 40K is certainly more popular (that I've seen) here in Australia, but the fantasy Warhammer universe isn't unknown.

But again, it's not the IP that is bringing in most players to WAR. It's the DAOC pedigree and the desire to play The Next Big Thing.

I've never done anything related to WH either (40k or otherwise) and only know about it because one of my friends in the navy played it a lot.  That said, having played the game now, I'm pretty sure the IP makes it a better game for me even without any preexisting knowledge on my part.  I don't really know how marketing and psychology work in that regard, but I suspect IPs, at least ones that fit well with the product you're making (as this one clearly does for the type of game they are making), have a positive impact beyond simply attracting a pre-existing fanbase.

In this case, the world just feels... rich to me.

I dunno, this game seems like a real winner to me.  I'm certainly recommending it to a lot of peeps I don't ordinarily recommend games to.

It's also been getting a ton of press over the years, predictably enough, in White Dwarf, which is Games Workshop's in-house monthly Warhammer magazine miniatures catalogue. There are still a ton of Warhammer players out there, and the crossover from Warhammer Players>Computer Gamers (especially stuff like WoW) is actually pretty high. I think they're banking on a lot of conversions from the actual Warhammer players as opposed to just "MMO Fans".

Oh man, it's been getting press in Game's Workshop's in-house miniatures catalog?  Look out bitches, this shit is going mainstream!

You're missing (or ignoring) my point.

Regardless of Jacob's mouthing off, there's this:

There are over 330 "Official" Games Workshop stores across the globe and over two thousand independant retailers who carry Warhammer prodcuts. There is also a Warhammer Museum in the UK...seriously

Lets say, as an average, 10 people purchase a Warhammer product per day, per store, per year. Not too crazy a number eh? That simple, modest figure of 10 people would amount to 209875000 people over 25 years across globe. That's not taking into account all the video games, word of mouth etc. That's just 10 people a day walking into a store and buying a miniature or pot of paint etc. Now chances are many of those people may be repeat buyers and chances are more than 10 people on certain days will be in the store ( sometimes maybe 50). Then there are games conventions that hold thousands of Warhammer fans all over the world, every year. My point is it's easily in the millions.

Those are the Warhammer players. Not the computer gamers. Not the pvp-hardcore-elite jumping from WoW to Conan to whateverthefuck else. Yes there is crossover, probably quite a lot between WoW and WH, but there is most likely a huge, untapped potential market of Warhammer players.

Not Star Wars movie fans.
Not LOTR movie or book fans.
Gamers, who are used to rulesets, troop types, and buying shit on a regular basis to game with. (as opposed to Star Wars figurines to put on the shelf).

Unlike Sims gamers, who were proportionally very much made up of my sister and your mum who balked at the idea of a sub fee, WH gamers are used to paying for their hobby on a regular basis. (not to mention WoW has paved that particular road pretty effectively). One blister pack costs the same as a monthly MMOG sub. This was probably parly behind Jabos' bullshit about potentially charging a higher subscription fee for WH (which they backed off of).

I'm not saying it'll be a roaring success, or WoW competitor, let alone WoW-killer (ha!) but it will get a lot of WH players trying it out. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it easily double Conan's initial box sales on this basis. As for stickyness, I'll make no predictions there.

Naked titties have more fans than Warhammer, I'm guessing, so I don't think it will compete with Age of Conan's initial box sales.

And licensed property fans are not an asset for MMOGs generally, whether it's a movie or a game that is the licensed property. Because the basic architecture of Diku-style MMOGs doesn't capture popular fictions well and it doesn't really evoke any other kind of game well. (To the point that a few of the game-studies formalists have argued that virtual worlds, including Diku-style ones, aren't really games at all. They're wrong, but I get where they're coming from.)

The very point you raise, that Warhammer devotees are gamers, is probably even worse for Warhammer the MMOG than Star Wars fans being Star Wars fans. A Star Wars fan who bought SWG and had never played a MMOG had no idea what they were getting into. If you've played tabletop games and maybe even the Warhammer RTS, you're likely to know very well how a MMOG is NOT going to be the game you love, and in fact, is likely to violate both some of the lore of the game AND the basic architecture of play that you enjoy in tabletop gaming.

To be fair, naked titties have more fans than just about anything. AoC just failed to corner the naked titty market.

So you're telling me that if we assume every single Warhammer store to have produced 3650 brand new Warhammer fans per year, every year, for the last quarter century then 3% of the planet's population are Warhammer fans.  You arrive at this conclusion by pulling some imaginary sales numbers out of your ass, and then assuming that no one in the world has ever bought more than one Warhammer product so they must all be unique customers.

Despite the fact that (in your world) two-hundred million people have all bought a Warhammer product and then decided to never buy another one ever again, you consider all of them to be relevant to the concept of a Warhammer MMO.  The guy in the shop today.  The guy who hasn't played in 15 years.  The guy who bought a figurine in 1985 because he was high as hell and thought it would look totally rad hot glued to the top of his stereo but has been dead for 8 years.  All of them.

Like Warhammer stores are the fucking Borg or something.

Three percent of the world's population.  Hell, after putting aside the billions of Third World peasants who don't play many fantasy wargames and factoring in my own demographics, not only must I be a Warhammer fan, I must be five of them.

This post of yours was wall-to-wall fanboy delusion, and while the assumption that "tabletop wargamers = MMO gamers" is one of your less blatantly insane ones, it's probably the one the falsity of which is most relevant.  Thinking that people who aren't computer gamers will play (and stick with) a Diku MMO because it's Warhammer is ridiculous.

EDIT:  Wait... 10 sales per day, times 365 days per year, times 25 years, times 330 stores...

10 x 365 x 25 x 330 = 30,112,500

So basically the worldwide fanbase for Warhammer throughout it's history is only three times the currently active WoW population, even by lunatic fanboy "Every sale in my made-up numbers is a unique yet dedicated customer" standards.

LOL WUA. Sorry, Azazel. Yes, this was my point. Nobody goes into Games Workshop shops except tabletop gaming nerds. Most people in shopping centres have no idea what those shops are. They don't wander in and "buy a pot of paint". It's a minority activity - only nerds who know nerds who know nerds are into tabletop gaming figurines.

In decades of computer gaming, and before that pen-and-paper gaming, Warhammer has only crossed my path in two ways: I wondered what the shops were for, and I saw the occasional thread on MMO guild forums about people's painted miniature collections. They always seem to assume everybody else is interested, but only get a few responses. So I'm wondering about the awareness of any Warhammer IP outside fan communities.

Besides, which has been mentioned ad nauseum, the WH that is popular with the mallrat geek set is not the WH that is coming in this game. If this was WH 40k the MMO, maybe comparisons to mall-store/miniature-painting/tabletop-gaming would make sense.

That isn't to say this game won't do well. Rather, it is to say that WAR's success is more dependent the millions of players WoW brought to this genre and are mpw bored than any new set of millions of people waiting for that very first fantasy-themed addiction-inspired low-end-PC-supporting subscription-based AAA PC CD/DVD-ROM retail box.

Because the probability that a WH player has heard of WoW is a heck of a lot higher than the other way around.

Until now, still virtually every non-nerd I know playing WoW got to the game mostly due to brand recognition the game gained pretty quickly. Once there's such a thing, anyone else will have a very hard time to catch up. A lot of people I know that don't even play games know at least heard of WoW, but no other MMO. And spending money like throwing shit against a wall and see what sticks won't make it a success.

WoW was on southpark, in tacoma commercials, and theres this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkfYHhN-j10).  You just can't compete anymore, even a better game wouldn't have this kind of name recognition for years.

This.

First, someone needs to make a 'better' game.

Christ on a crutch, you're good at missing the point. And it's not exactly a fanboy post, either.

I'm saying
I'm not saying it'll be a roaring success. I don't think it's going to challenge WoW. I'm saying:

1) There are a lot of Warhammer fans, past and present, who are all potenial customers in a sense that LOTRO, Star Wars and yes, even naked titty fans aren't.
2) White Dwarf has been pushing it pretty hard for awhile now. The people who buy that magazine are the GW "hardcore", who are likely to buy WAR and give it a go. Especially as the GW market is trained to buy new releases on a regular basis.
3) There's millions of current and former Warhammer players out there anyway. Just because you don't know any personally in bumblefuck, Indiana or whatever place Tale lives in doesn't mean they aren't out there.
4) These guys are a different bunch of people to the "Hardcore PVP" crowd this forum is always going on about with regard to Conan and so forth. Look past the end of your fucking nose.
5) I'm sure Mythic/EA/etc see these guys as an "untapped market". I agree, to an extent. But I don't think it's going to be nearly as big as they seem to do.
6) All of this is the kind of logic I believe Jacobs is using when he goes on his silly rants about how WAR is going to "challenge" WoW.

7) I think it will do well in box sales, but I can't see it challenging WoW, which is as mainstream as a computer game can hope to get these days. I think it'll be stuck when it comes to retention after 6 months.


Other shit -
Darniaq -  40k is bigger in the US. Fantasy is bigger in Europe.  You are not the centre of the universe. Sorry. Warhammer as a whole is also bigger in Europe than it is in the US. And yes, I agree that most WH players have probably heard of WoW.

Tale - They have GW branded stores in fucking shopping malls that sell nothing but GW. Pull head from arse and think about what this says for the market penetration of that shit. Just because you're in one community of nerds doesn't mean the other ones don't exist. You seem to be taking the argument "I DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WARHAMMER THEREFORE NOONE CARES ABOUT IT". Again, you are not the centre of the universe. Sorry.

WUA - I pulled the numbers from some other post on some other forum. Still, the Warhammer hobby cycles through a shitload of a lot of people. As stated before, most kids in the UK have had contact with it. You have no idea how huge it is over there. Their biggest "turnover" market is in 12-16 year olds who get interested for a few years, then discover girls and hormones a few years later and may leave gaming entirely.
Ans yes, looking at them in the daytime I can see how the numbers I posted in the last post are inherently flawed at a basic level, (they looked ok at a glance when I nicked them initially, due to the lowballing of daily customers and knowing how many teens move in and out of "the warhammer hobby") but each one of those stores does still service hundreds of customers at the very least. Otherwise they would not be able to afford their shopping mall rents.


Now please, stop being fucking obtuse. WAR will sell a lot of initial boxes. It will do better than AoC. It's not going to be a challenger to WoW.

But I started saying this because Mark Jacobs thinks he's challenging WoW :) From the original post: "Realistically, if you're going into this space for the first time, and you want to compete with 'WoW' and you want to compete with us -- because we're going into that same space -- you've got to make sure that you have at least 100 million dollars."

I don't think he was really implying that he expected to beat WoW's subscription numbers, just that he was saying they'd be in the same category.  Like, "the big MMOs" as opposed to "the wee MMOs" I guess.

I mean honestly I'd be really surprised if blizzard didn't consider these guys their most significant competition so far, so I doubt he's wrong.  There's obviously no way they're going to dethrone WoW or anything, but I'd be equally surprised if it wasn't a solid success.

Well, ok, not even close to equally surprised.  But at least a little surprised.

What's Warhammer again?

Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Sims, Dungeons & Dragons.  All of them are brands with more general public awareness and more relevance specifically to computer gaming than Warhammer.  None of them meant shit.  The handful of tabletop fantasy wargaming grognards who A) would care about a Diku MMO and B) aren't already playing WoW are fucking irrelevant.  The Warhammer Fantasy IP is fucking worthless to an MMO in and of itself.  All it has going for is that Blizzard took a lot of cues from earlier incarnations of it, so it gives you an excuse to make a game that looks a lot like WoW.

I mean fuck, we could replace the word "Warhammer" with "D&D" in your posts and it would look like any number of deluded fanboy posts that preceded the failure of DDO.  If WAR manages to be anything besides another failure bumbling along with fewer subs than EQ1 in it's prime, it'll be because it out WoW'ed WoW enough to siphon off some of the people Blizzard brought into the genre.  And nothing else.

Also, shit, double-check math before you post it.  I'm embarassed that I had to run back and edit my last post just to catch a fuckup that obvious.

I agree with your ideas in principle here, except the Warhammer setting does have value in and of itself, even to people who've never heard of it. It has enough detail and a cool enough 'look' to grab at least some people once they've tried it - we've seen some evidence of that already. Gameplay is still king, but I don't think there's any doubt that Warhammer is a much better setting for an MMO than one that's mostly defined by specific hero personalities like Star Wars or LotRO. There's a lot more room for the player hero in a setting like Warhammer that was designed as a gaming setting rather than a story setting, and there's also a lot more room for the designers to add their own stuff as well.

D&D's execution was so different than any of the other MMOs that it becomes hard to compare it in terms of how they used their license. They, alone of all the games mentioned here, actually kept the system as well as the lore and that did so much to make the game weird for people that I think it overshadows anything else. I think a D&D setting *could* have been as valuable as any, but not with the baggage of the actual D&D rules, which are great for tabletop play, or single player RPGs with a defined ending, but not so much for an MMO. MMOs need to work in smaller chunks than a d20 will allow, and they need more granularity in character advancement.

To be fair, if they are Warhammer fans, they empty their wallets at the altar of codexes, new miniatures and tiny pots of overpriced paint. Which leaves no money for a WAR subscription.  :grin:


I've seen these stores and knew people who worked in them. Never seen a female in them. They are like an XX-chromosome free zone. Also, they are like pyramid schemes for nerds - you get a few through the door, get them interested, who in turn get their friends interested so they have someone to play, and they those friends try to hook in the people they know ... 

Heh, as far as you know :smile:

What are people buying in Europe buying though vs what is actually being delivered in WAR? Oh, wait, "An immersive extension of an extremely-popular IP". Where is the gameplay this mythically huge audience is looking for in an MMO? That's always the risk of tapping a game IP for extension into a different genre.

We all agree WAR is going to sell a lot of boxes. I think there's more disagreement over how long they stay though. And that has nothing to do with the existing fanboy market (who will buy it if they exist as you say) and all to do with the gameplay (which stands unto its own regardless of at-launch IP popularity-based box sales).

Talk about damning with faint praise.  :awesome_for_real:

[quote author=Darniaq link=topic=14315.msg507606#msg507606 date=1220789079
What are people buying in Europe buying though vs what is actually being delivered in WAR? Oh, wait, "An immersive extension of an extremely-popular IP". Where is the gameplay this mythically huge audience is looking for in an MMO? That's always the risk of tapping a game IP for extension into a different genre.
[/quote]

Totally agree, and this is what I mean when I say that IP is irrelevant. (Or at least, not all it's made out to be.)

Our favorite whipping boy, SWG, proved this in spades. You just can't "Sell shit in a box marked "Star Wars" ", and get away with it for long.

I really have a hard time seeing anyone's decision to stay or to go being seriously influenced by the nuances of this particular "humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs fight in a medieval society" IP versus others.  Compared to considerations like gameplay and polish, it's a very minor factor.  I can't see anyone who likes the gameplay and basic fantasy concept leaving over the specifics of the IP, nor anyone who dislikes the gameplay staying because of it.

Really, I'm pretty much convinced that IP doesn't matter unless your company is named Blizzard.

And even for Blizzard, their IP only matters because they've been wrapped about good gameplay. People don't buy games to read stories. But they will read stories if it punctuates or involves good game play.

Warhammer IP doesn't mean jack shit. I don't know anyone who has ever heard of warhammer and yet there they are anticipating the game. A lot of people are looking to get into this type of gaming. I know about 20 people who are gamers. One of them played EQ/WoW. Another one hasn't touched an MMO since EQ. That leaves 18 people I know who are excited about darkfall, or WAR and have never played a single MMO. That is anecdotal, but WoW has brought awareness to these types of games. I think if a game were to be released today that was fun and just as polished as WoW that allows people to get in on the ground floor I think it could potentially blow the doors off WoW. I doubt that game will be WAR though.

Also and this is anecdotal too, but I know a lot of Chinese gamers also who are starting to get interested in these types of games as they all get their first computers and their first disposable income and the Chinese gamers I know are rabid for this sort of shit and they don't care about IPs or other bullshit they just get excited when I tell them they get to kill whitey over the internet. I think it will be the Chinese gamers who will really take this genre out of the stone ages. It definitely won't be Warhammer nerds though lol @ that.

Dude.

You have 18 (apparently non-WoW playing gamer) friends that haven't played MMOGs but know about Darkfall? That means one of two things:

1. You or one of your mmog-playing friends introduced them to darkfall, why they would be excited is beyond me.
2. You're lying.

The game has gotten shit for press, no big gaming sites talk about it, and it's nearly completely unknown outside of online gaming circles. Also there's absolutely nothing exciting about it whatsoever.

As such, I humbly request that you stop lying. If you aren't lying, stop getting people hyped up about Darkfall. It makes you look like a jackass and makes your friends like silly.


WoW is the single most profitable and popular game in the history of gaming.

[quote="Schild wrote"WoW is the single most profitable and popular game in the history of gaming.
[/quote]

How are these two not related?  :awesome_for_real:

Seriously though: Chinese gamers "starting" to get interested? Last I read they make up half the total MMO population worldwide themselves. You don't need a home computer to play an MMO.

Most of my friends are console gamers and they like FPS style games (like Halo). They said Darkfall seemed interesting due to the fps aspect (and I said not all of them were interested some seemed interested in WAR). I don't care if you think I am lying. I have a large network of friends who play games. I am guessing you are not a very social person and the idea of having friends is foreign to you.

Not everyone likes WoW its a fucking treadmill game and I steer people away from it whenever I can because I know my friends and I know their likes and dislikes. They don't like treadmill games. Most of them probably won't keep playing as soon as they get their shit torn apart a few times in a game like DF, but they're at least going to give it a try because the gameplay looked fun in the trailer.

As for WoW it doesn't get nearly as much revenue from Chinese gamers as you think it does. If you think WoW gets 15 dollars a month from Chinese gamers you're one dense dunce.

I always love the popularity argument. If we judge things by how popular they are then I humbly request you go eat a huge pile of shit millions of maggots do it everyday so dig in.

How are these two not related?  :awesome_for_real:

Seriously though: Chinese gamers "starting" to get interested? Last I read they make up half the total MMO population worldwide themselves. You don't need a home computer to play an MMO.
[/quote]

You must not realize how that is a small chunk of Chinese gamers and is nothing compared to the legions that will someday be playing.

The Sims was the most profitable game before WoW, and it was NOT by any means popular among GAMERS.

I submit that the most popular games among GAMERS is not always the most profitable. WoW might, in fact, be an oddity. The only ones that were massively profitable and MASSIVELY popular before it were uhhh I don't know, Tetris and SMB3.

Edit: I should've added gamers in my first response. My bad.

I agree. And I think that developers trying to be the next WoW by making diku MMORPGs are missing what makes WoW (And the Sims franchise, etc...) popular among gamers. (And note I do not put gamers in all caps to differentiate them from GAMERS)

If you are looking at franchises Mario has sold 200 million copies and those are gamer games. Pokemon is next at 180 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_game_franchises

Sure, but all i was suggesting was that he's probably overstating the effect of the great masses of Warhammer players that will flock to this. I think there will be a fair few, but challenging WoW.. um.. no.




Ingmar did a good job of replying to your points. D&D was a clusterfuck, and Star Wars and LotR aren't great MMO-gaming IPs. You can't be Legolas or Han Solo, after all. As for the maths, it was late and my wife was nagging me to turn the computer off and come to sleep. But yeah, poor form I agree.


Totally agree, and this is what I mean when I say that IP is irrelevant. (Or at least, not all it's made out to be.)
Our favorite whipping boy, SWG, proved this in spades. You just can't "Sell shit in a box marked "Star Wars" ", and get away with it for long.
[/quote]

Darniaq. I think they'll sell boxes, especially in Europe based on the IP and hard push it's getting from GW. Retention, not so much, and I've said as much in the "predict WAR" thread.
Ratman. You're aware that they're still happily selling shit in those particular boxes you're talking about?



Joking aside, that's the main reason I think it will sell a shitload of boxes. A computer game doesn't cost much when compared to the costs of playing Warhammer.
The Warhammer fanboys ON TOP of the PVP guys and the "try every new MMO" guys and the ones who are sick of WoW (and maybe Conan now, too). They've done a pretty good job of marketing it to the MMO-crowd. I think retention is where they will hurt.

The fact that I've played various forms of Warhammer for 19 years and various forms of Everquest (this includes WoW) for 9 years yet could not be bothered to log into beta most of the time says more about my opinion of the actual game than any essay I could write. But I think it'll do well in box sales. WotLK will hurt or cripple WAR though.



So you possibly live in Asia, which is great for you. You have also completely misinterpreted my posts. lol @ ur reading comprehension. also lol @ ur internet.bad.assery.  :why_so_serious:

You must not realize how that is a small chunk of Chinese gamers and is nothing compared to the legions that will someday be playing.
[/quote]
You must not realize I was effectively agreeing with you when I said they make up (implied: by themselves) half the world's MMO playerbase already.

Anyone not making games for Chinese players is either a small company that hasn't found the right domestic partners, or are entrenched in finishing their existing games for their existing markets. Everyone else knows where the real worldwide growth is going to come from and is scrambling to get there, both as a business and with games that appeal to those cultures.

We haven't tapped out the Western markets yet because we keep feeding the same playerbase the same stuff. WoW gave us a nice bump but it merely invited people to the games the niche market was already playing. It just did so with polish and IP recognition, but the underlying addictive grind has proven to have far larger appeal and retention than the EQ1-is-king days. Regardless of that though, it's easier to believe China is a "virgin" market where it becomes easier to get double and triple digit growth while over here I would be hard pressed to find anyone who would believe that. So that's where a lot of attention is going.

Sure. But it was hardly a runaway success. (Which some may think such an IP might be.)

Maybe I'm way off base here, but I keep hearing that Warhammer is HUGE, but, surely it's not got nearly the following that D&D has, and look out D&D Online sold.

Am I missing something?  I've always known about Warhammer, but I've rarely run into someone with the cash to play it.  It just doesn't seem that "huge" to me, perhaps my personal experience is way out of line with reality (like normal).

EDIT:  In addition, D&D is practically tailor made for a MMOG, the very idea revolves around a little group of adventurers going out on an adventure in a world where there are thousands of little groups of adventurers going out on adventures everyday.  Warhammer Online is in no way played like Warhammer, Warhammer Online simply takes the IP from Warhammer and tries to make it into a "you play the hero" game, which is the antithesis of Warhammer.

I consider D&D more of a system than a setting, though.  The latter makes for a much more interesting cross-medium IP, imho.

Like, what makes it a D&D game?  Having Constitution?

Warhammer is fairly huge among those who play with toy soldiers like me... which is why an MMORPG always seemed strange to me. The Warhammer RPG is not nearly as popular. Warhammer has more popularity amongst grognards than amongst the kind of people that you think of as the core MMOG audience. Probably half of the miniature wargaming guys I know laugh derisively at the idea of playing MMOG's.

Eh, I'd wager that a vast majority of the D&D players use both the system and the settings provided by TSR WotC rather than create their own.  Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Planescape.. I have at least a limited knowledge of each of those settings.  I have much less of a understanding of Eberron, as it's a bit after my time, but even then my wife and I nearly purchased D&D online (despite the reviews) simply because it was.. well.. D&D.. online.

For every 10 people I know of that played D&D regularly, I can think of maybe 1 person that played Warhammer even once.  But again, that's my personal experience and not likely the majority experience.  But my personal experience leads me to think that the number of D&D fans has to dwarf the number of Warhammer fans, simply because the barrier to entry of Warhammer is so much greater than D&D.

Wasn't really looking at franchises.

I think they suicided DDO by using the Eberron IP.  that's why i never played.  Just imagine how many subs they could have gotten if they had used Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms instead.  Hell i even bet ravenloft, grey hawk, or dark sun would have done better then hokie Eberron, which as a D&D player since 1988 seems odd to me.  (haven't played in a long time, late 90's)

They didn't do a good job of selling Eberron in DDO. I think the setting could make a fantastic RPG of some kind, but DDO does nothing to set it up at all, so it just kind of becomes Generic D&D City in the Jungle. There's no central storyline or conflict to hook anyone.

Compare this to how WAR sets you up right off the bat with shit blowing up all around you, etc., and gets you right into the war. How you use what an IP gives you is at least as important as what the IP is.

DDO was a bad game.  That's why it failed.

I disagree - if you have the right setup of people who play together all the time and you enjoy the 'going into dungeons' part of MMOs, the game is really a lot of fun. That said it is an *incredibly* niche game. The problem is it just isn't what most people want out of an MMO. There's nothing to do solo, not really, even after they allegedly patched it in. It is like the central grouping experience that all MMOs have, distilled down to the point where that's *all* there is. Then you add the fact that it has twitchy combat for some reason, despite being built on a solidly turn-based game system, and you have all the ingredients for niche.

Right, this is exactly my point.  I keep hearing "It doesn't matter if WAR sucks, the Warhammer IP is HUGE IN EUROPE."

My point is:  DDO sold like crap and I believe the D&D IP is much more popular than the Warhammer IP.

I get what your saying and i agree that the game mechanics were meh at best.  However, i still say that the facet of teh D&D IP they used was shit.  If they had gone with a familiar/better IP version they would have sold better.  Not necessarily been successful but would have done a fuckton better then they did.

Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms (D&D) ≥ Warhammer >>>>> Eberron (D&D)  type shit.  (don't take this ordering litteral, its just a shitty example of my point)

I feel like I'm talking in circles here, so this is the last time I'll say it, but at least DDO actually plays the same as D&D, even if the setting was the new world (which I bet more people have played 3rd edition D&D than have ever played Warhammer), at least the game remained fundamentally the same.

I still think they are taking what I imagine to be a much smaller (in terms of playerbase) IP and making it play nothing like the original game at all, and everyone is saying that the quality doesn't matter because the IP is huge in Europe.  When we've seen that IP, no matter how huge, has rarely pushed any mmogs out the door.

Right, and Star Wars is more popular than both. All three IPs are probably more popular than the Warcraft IP. There is no correlation between a popular IP and a popular MMO. There is a correlation between a crappy, bug ridden, incomplete came and an unsuccessful MMO though.

You're wrong about the Warcraft IP's popularity. Warcraft 3 sold millions of copies, and I would bet good money that a majority of those people never played multiplayer even once. They bought it because they like Blizzard's RTS story campaigns.

My Fucking Warforged DROWNED in DDO. I will forever hate the game because of that.


I'm more closely related to a toaster oven then DDO was to Eberron.

Except that The Sims is a franchise, as in 100 million covers both The Sims and The Sims 2.

Also, The Sims is the most profitable probably only when you average the operating profit across the entire line. WoW is most profitable when you do the same across all of the monthly fees collected since launch.

It'd be a more accurate comparison to restrict comparison to just the first edition box sales for both titles. And to compare to Mario, you'd only be allowed to count Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600 and Collecovision  :grin:

Although, if they went Forgotten Realms instead of whatever other one they did, I would have bought the game on the IP alone.  Probably played it way too long, too.  I love me some FR lore.

Drizzt loving queer

Actually, I never got into the whole Drizzt stuff (sadly, I *did* like the cleric quintet).  I could buy the latest FR campaign manual and read for days though.  Crazy campaigns we had like running thieves guilds out of Westgate and that odd gnome that had an AC of like 26 or something that was all covered in obsidian black spiked armor.  There was so much stuff that was in the game that we never used, but so much of it was cool as hell.  Never even came close to seeing Drizzt at any point.  The illithid that ran the Night Masks in Westgate, that's a different story, that bastard.

Joking aside though I played the forgotten realms campaign setting for years, loved it and yes i would have also bought DDO in a heartbeat if it was FR

Is the bolded part an argument for or against the Warcraft IP being instrumental in WoW's success?

Rather than going around in circles, can we agree that IPs might attract some attention, but it is the quality of the overall title on release that ends up drawing players in?

To use marketing speak, WoW was a brand variant for Blizzard that paid off - they spread their RTS brand into the MMO category. However, the initial recognition of Warcraft would have meant nothing if Blizzard had provided an Anarchy Online-quality launch. Also, WoW gameplay does fit relatively nicely with the 'feel' of the Warcraft RTS (fast combat, fantasy setting) whereas SWG didn't really fit the 'feel' of Star Wars (SWG had no stars and no wars on release but allowed you to be a hairdresser).

SWG could have been a lot more successful on launch if it had 'felt' like people want Star Wars to feel - 90% of people probably wanted to be Jedi and use magic the Force, or fly space ships, not wander around a desert city, crafting pistols or dancing in cantinas.

Yes, all threads about MMO failure are actually SWG threads.

EDIT: oh, right, WAR. WAR's IP means nothing to most MMO players. It might draw in some Warhammer fans to try it out, but the reality is that it gave Mythic an easy framework / existing lore to work with that fit neatly with their previous experience of RvR (Order vs Chaos Destruction). It's Mythic's reputation (and that everyone wants to play the Next Big Thing) that is doing more to get MMO players enthused about the title.

Actually, the reality is that WAR is likely to do more for the Warhammer IP than the other way around. It becomes a great advertisement for Games Workshop products, especially if they can leverage the MMO players into buying miniatures.

That they made a MMO and completely ignored the gaming legacy of the silver/gold box series, baldurs gate and neverwinter nights is what made the game fail.  It should have started as FR, introduced planescape as the first expansion and added each game setting incrementally after that.

Instead they targeted the tabletop players rather than the gamers.

War seems a mmo game first inspired by the IP, targetting mmo players and not trying to please the demographic of tabletop players least likely to purchase a mmo.

Agreed. If it were a good game instead of shite, it could have been amazing. But it's also a merchandising franchise rather than a gaming-oriented franchise. Warhammer is totally gaming-centred franchise. Star Wars fans aren't necessarily trained to buy games. Warhammer fans are. I think this will help the initial box sales a great deal, but again, not necessarily translate to ongoing subs.



As a Warhammer guy and also a general PNP roleplaying guy, I agree with you in terms of number of fans and barriers to entry. The key difference is actually related to that last point. A lot of the roleplayers I played with and have known over the years are so tight with their money, I can't figure out how they manage to take a shit. Of course, the counterpoint is always the guy we all know who has every module and expansion ever released for every system under the sun. But the Warhammer players, on the other hand. Well, buying a boxed computer game with "Warhammer" slapped on the front will cost them about the same as one plastic Dreadnought model. And they probably already have three dreads.

Unlike the D&D player, who doesn't necessarily need to spend anything to play, the Warhammer player does, and is used to the "upkeep" of new troops, more troops, new codexes and army books and boxed regiments. they're conditioned to be used to the spending.



I'm not talking about the existing MMO players. I've been talking all along about how I think the Warhammer fans will come and try it out in pretty good numbers. I'm not saying they'll stick around. I think Jacobs thinks the same thing, but his glasses are far more rose-coloured than mine are. :oh_i_see:

I think they'll try it. Not sure if they'll like it. I wasn't especially impressed.

The RvR will be exactly like Warhammer.  Basically a RTS, but without central command and communication, the same as Planetside.  Many players relate to one of the many figures on the board as they play the game.   Warhammer has many heroes built into their story.  They many not be well rounded or complete but they are a hero (special unit) to the side they fight on.  MMOs are getting away from "you play the hero" as it is difficult to do and just default to humanities haves and have not's.

Is that why every one looks the same?



 :rimshot:

For. Let me clarify my point. If you aren't buying the game for multiplayer RTS deathmatch whatever, you are buying it because you like single player RTS story campaigns. That's all about the IP.

I definitely agree that the Warhammer brand isn't going to do anything special on its own to draw in players before they try the game; my point has been that if presented well (which I think it is) the IP has significant positive value in keeping people interested once they get there. I think people in general really underrate how important the flavor of a game is to its success. It is certainly why EQ always left me flat - the game world is completely generic. It is elves and dwarves paint-by-numbers, whereas Warhammer is like one of those gruesome medieval Albrecht Dürer woodcuts by comparison.

All games have a limited look.  Spore could be the exception but it still easy to distinguish a Spore verse non-Spore look.  Character name and the player behind it provide the uniqueness.

 :oh_i_see:

If, by "exactly like Warhammer" you mean nothing at all like Warhammer Fantasy Battle and maybe possibly something more like 3rd-person Mordheim, you might be slightly on the right track. Kinda.

WAR is the Warhammer world realised for an MMO, just as Warhammer Fantasy Battle is the Warhammer world realised for a miniatures wargame or WFRP is the Warhammer world realised for a pen and paper game. All of these different things 'are Warhammer' along with the artwork, the novels, the other video games, the background books etc., the tabletop game is not the IP.

I highlighted the part where you guys made the huge glaring error that is going to kill your game.

Normally I'd charge a consulting fee, but today it's on the house.

This IP (same for ChampO) isn't meant to attract hordes of fans. It's to give the developers an existing framework - characters, setting, world, theme - to develop within. There are more people who care about 'PvP done right' or 'a new MMO world to explore' than 'blood for the blood god' that are coming to WAR.

Very few people care about lore deeply enough to worry if it is being correctly implemented. Game mechanics, on the other hand, are what keeps players.

And we come around full circle.  The discussion of the IP was started above because I keep hearing "and Warhammer is HUGE in europe!"  So the argument seems to be this weird circular "it doesn't matter if the game sucks, the IP will pull people in" followed by "it doesn't matter that they didn't really utilize the IP in any way that will be meaningful for a fan, if the game rocks it will pull people in."

Uh, yeah, I doubt that is a huge glaring error that will kill their game.

You are right, when it fails to even remotely meet expectations, it will be blamed on PvP.

Iain. I realise you worked for GW for a time. I also realise what the MMO is. I may even have more "Warhammer" experience than yourself.  :-P I'm very familiar with pretty much all aspects of the IP.

However, feel free to re-read what the guy I was quoting was talking about. Context is everything. Here, I'll even quote it for you.



He's clearly talking about WFB. RTS? Special Unit? (named or unnamed hero models).
You know as well as I do that the game is nothing like WFB, and plays nothing like WFB. WAR would be closer to a party-game version of Mordheim (which as you also know, is a part of the WH IP, but is far from WFB).



There's basically two discussions. One about the existing MMO-Players. And also one about existing Warhammer players who may or may not be MMO players or live in Europe.

My discussion in this thread has been about the latter, and a belief that a lot of them will try it out. This says nothing about retention. It'll have to be a good, finished game to do that. Based on my exposure in Beta, I won't bother playing it for several months. (I'm only picking up my CE because of the art book and miniature, since I'm a fan of GW's art.) I also think WotLK will eat WAR's lunch.

Warhammer is like Batman. 

Played Epic 1st and 2nd edition rules for years.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_(game) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_(game))

However, where Warhammer 40,000 involves small battles between forces of a few squads of troops and two or three vehicles, Epic features battles between armies consisting of dozens of tanks and hundreds of soldiers.

4-6 players sometimes on two side, 3 sides, or free for alls.

Man you people make me so  :awesome_for_real:

Seriously. We aren't selling games to 12 year olds who need to borrow mommy's credit card to pay for it. I don't think EA/Mythic/MJ are thinking "gee son, if I can only tap the market of people who are used to spending money for miniature tabletop dudez then we can show up them Blizzard bitches". It's 2008. A fuckton of people will buy this game because it isn't WoW but looks and plays not much different than WoW. These don't have to be people who are "used" to spending cash on games, largely because by now everyone is okay with dumping $50 on some shitty software every so often. If it sucks they won't resub. Which is where the real money is.

WAR will be successful if and only if, the actual gameplay is better than WoW. Otherwise, NO ONE WILL PLAY IT. Why? Because they can play WoW with their friends. Now see Aoc was NOT wow. It tried to be different, what with a new combat system and a large lack of polish. It bombed because endgame sucked, retention was terrible (you can only jack off to titties like 5x before you go back to real porn), etc.

See WAR is actually exactly like WoW, except for it provides RvR using slightly more interesting classes and with a different approach to items/gear/PvE than WoW does.

WAR will be a commercial and industry success if it's PvP is better than WoWs. WoW PvP currently sucks (I loves me some duels in a box for 2 hours each) so this should be hard to fuck up. But then again, no one has done it yet. In essence, they need to provide a better PvP MMORPG than WoW and make it substantially better so that mouthbreathing fucktards like myself, who hump druids around poles to 2400 can pay them $15 a month to hump runepriests around a keep to RR80 or whatever.

If they get that, they'll get a nice chunk of "omg pwn't harcore pvpers". If not, we'll suck it up and go buy WotLK, where we can roll a deathknight to hump druids around a box that now has spikes on it.

This thread lacks WAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

You're doing it wrong.

Hey kids, are you playing that War-Rammer game again?  Ha ha, I know all about you kids and your Star Marines and Borks!  WAAARGH!  Glad we could relate!

I think it's about time for an awesome meter WUA if you would be so kind.

Yeah. I know Epic. I knew it when it was called Adeptus Titanicus.  House-ruling multiple players per side isn't exactly a new concept in miniatures gaming, either.

I'm still not seeing it "exactly like Warhammer".  

Unless, you know, WoW is also Exactly Like Warhammer. And DAoC. And AoConan. Not to mention, oh, every team-based first person shooter as well.  :roll:





I disagree with your first assertation, and agree with your second one.

We'll see what happens in a couple of weeks, though.

...
Let's play that Star Wars prepainted miniatures game. WUA, you can be Annie and Jar Jar.

WoW has 12 (?) million subscribers because it's accessible to *everyone*. I dual-box pve wow and level chars to 70 in a week, my brother plays wow arenas constantly and my girlfriend got her first ever level 60 last month after 3 years of playing and has like 30 non-combat pets and 4 pink-haired gnomes. 3 completely different playstyles and personalities all totally supported by wow.

WAR will completely fail to compete with it on any meaningful level if it aims at any kind of niche, whether it's hardcore pvp'ers or tabletop nerds or whatever.

I think the grain of truth in Kotick's $1billion quote is that one of the reasons Blizzard is so good at supporting such a huge range of playstyles is the vast amount of resources they can dedicate to it. Their support, for instance, plays a huge part in keeping the most casual of casuals (a la my gf) happy. My experience of support by both EA and Mythic in the past has been abysmal, particularly GOA's terrible customer support with DaoC in Europe. If this hasn't vastly improved for WAR then it will do them massive harm in the non-nerdy market IMO.

Yes but these people can all pay for it themselves (making a reasonable inference here).

The average 12 year old isn't going to have the attention span to stick around long enough anyways. Nor would they be able to make the massive time and social commitments required for almost any gameplay aspect at end game (except super casual, but few kiddies want that, since epx=epeen).

I would postulate that MMOs are for people who want a [fun] second job, not for people who don't have a first one.

I've never heard of WoW supporting many different playstyles. It's fun at multiple levels levels of time committment, sure, but there's only two games seriously supported there; PvE and PvP. It's not like you can start a band or level up your social circles or become governor of Ironforge and tax the leatherworker's union.

I think the supposed argument is that WoW has a lot of different things you can do in it, collect mounts, grind rep, pvp, pve etc. But really, this whole "something for everyone" thing is, as slyfiend said garbage.

The fact is, the WoW gameplay is very rigid. Its a diku MMO. You have a lot of different GOALS, sure (mounts, crafting, etc) but they all required the use of the RPG gameplay model, either in PvE combat or in PvP combat. The difference is that they give you a lot of different stuff to grind in order to get vanity junk, but you're still grinding in much the same fashion. They don't let you switch to FPS or RPG mode. Nor do they allow an exorbitant amount of character customization.

The game is not robot jesus. It isn't the ultimate entertainment experience because it can cater to every possible playstyle. It's successful because its A. polished B. immense and C. social. Last part is key.

Is facebook actually useful or a meaningful way of communicating? No. Was/are there better ways of getting the same thing done? Yeah (it's called RL). Why is it so successful then? Because everyone else uses it, and that means so can you without being called a moron, loser or geek.

Same with WoW. It isn't so much that other MMOs aren't better (they aren't but not overwhelmingly so), it's just that everyone already knows of/plays/tolerates WoW playing, so you won't be singled out for being a no life EQstyle poopsocker, because the person you want to/are having sex with has a decent chance of playing or having played it as well.

Non-nerd appeal is exceptionally effective.

Good points, I suppose I'm just still impressed that I know so many totally different kinds of people who play it. It's the only MMO I've ever played that's brought non-gamers into it, that's actually *targetted* non-gamers with any success.

This is very, very true, but neither WoW nor Facebook started like that - they've both achieved that level of market penetration and diverse appeal by being deliberately accessible and I still don't see any other MMO launching with that attitude.

AoC made zero concessions to non-gamers or new gamers. I don't know enough about WAR to categorically say they're doing the same but the only thing I've heard anyone say about it that makes it sound more accessible from that point of view is that it has sensible system requirements.

I also think that the Penny Arcade argument is valid. There's more to competing with WoW than just game design:

You are way down some weird rabbit hole with this one. Social networking is not successful despite uselessness; it is successful because it is useful. It is the next evolution of what we're doing here on this message board. The only reason I don't use it is because I'm an old man and set in my ways.

Yeah, I never got into Facebook or any of that at first, because I thought it was a useless fad.  Then I started using it at urging from friends and found out that 1.) It's an amazing way to stay in contact (or get in contact) with the fuck ton of people I have met from around the world. 2.) Extremely useful for organizing events (it was the main tool used by all of us exchange students and even some school faculty for organzing, well, anything (trips, parties, drinking nights, etc.)

Much to my suprise, it is actually incredibly useful (and not god awfully obnoxious like MySpace (though I really wish they had kept registration limited to college students/alumni)

WoW is impressive because it draws so many different types of people to the same game. The converse has never been nearly as successful. No game designed to give something for everyone has ever done anything but find new and interesting ways to alienate everyone, usually through either lowest-common-denominator user experiences or because resources couldn't be aligned to polish any single part of the world.

WoW brought a level of polish to the core critical functions (UI, pacing, abilities spread, general functionality) that nobody else has. But that's another reason its an anomaly. They capped the side of the genre that makes this one type of game such that other companies were (again) forced down the path of messy innovation and unpredictable outcome.

And ironically, as Blizzard apparently eyes Starcraft MMO, they have no choice but to innovate as well. If it's WoW in space they won't grab nearly as many players as they got in WoW because people are already starting to be so very done with the formula. And they themselves have already grabbed such a huge chunk of players that it's hard to imagine yet another 11mil people just waiting for that one perfect sci-fi based MMO to come along so they can pay a fee for it. That would imply the IP is more important than the gameplay.

Having said that, I would be interested in hearing how many millions have quit over the years. Like, if nobody ever cancelled their WoW account, how many accounts would they have?