How did World of Warcraft get popular? I always loved the W

It was the most hardcore mmo at release, and then eventually got to the casuals.

It was peak Blizzard, WC3 is still the best RTS ever, and WoW is still neat for newcomers who just want story.

I dont know about wow pvp as I never touched it.

>>385051505
>It was the most hardcore mmo at release
LOL just fucking LOL

>How did World of Warcraft get popular?
pretty easy
>omg there are other people!
>i will be paladin like arthas
plus marketing

>>385051256
it hit the market at the right place and right time. it released the same year that broadband internet become massively adopted within common households, the warcraft brand was at its peak due to warcraft 3+mods like DOTA, and it filled a market hole which was a MMO catered to normal people and not NEETS.

>>385051505
Retard. It's always been accessible, catering to many different audiences.

>>385051256
Modern WoW is pretty garbage, can't really recomend it. It's essentially an open world Moba.

Old WoW hit it big because of WC3's success, and the sheer scope and power behind the game. You were never without something to do, the game was essentially endless, there was an entire world at your fingertips, and it followed a more user friendly gameplay model than a standard MMO. In retrospect, the game reminds me more of DnD than something like Everquest or other prior MMOs, so it easily gripped classic and modern nerd culture by the balls and squeezed hard.

It was essentially the perfect game at the perfect time. Mass mainstream and counterculture draw, in the middle of a gaming boom.

>>385051256
not everyone has autism, anon

>How did World of Warcraft get popular?
Because the competition that came before and after it was a clunky mess of shit controls, slow nonintuitive bad gameplay, and awful world presentation.

It takes 2.5s just to cast another ability in most MMOs. WoW has you performing 3 actions at once even AFTER ability pruning.

>>385051256
>How did World of Warcraft get popular?

Not rocket science bro. It was a time when games were cheap to make and there were a shit load of smaller companies pumping out mediocre games. At the time, Blizzard had a reputation of being a 10/10 developer since every single game they made thus far had been a masterpiece.
And oh boy, here comes their biggest game yet. And its also based on their biggest franchise, so people are familiar with it already.

That, and the formula was totally addicting and a new genre for the larger vidya audiences.

>>385051256
It stopped the pattern of introducing increasingly complex systems to pad out MMOs. While others were chasing needlessly obtuse systems (SWG Jedi, which wasn't a bad idea just badly done, EQ2 at launch was a mess from crafting to the fucking journal) WoW wanted to get you in.

That is why you level almost immediately. You get gear far better than starting junk within an hour. You don't go through an excessive intro. All things every game does now but nobody even tried in an MMO until WoW. I remember uninstalling Asheron's Call over the retarded vassal system. WoW gave me power and let me run with it. You can't underestimate the impact of that.

>>385051505
>It was the most hardcore mmo at release
Wanna know how I know you didn't play any MMOs in the 2000s?

>>385053256
WoW's base GCD is 1.5s, FFXIV can have a GCD of 0.5s as shown by ninja mudras but they have it at 2.5s as a design choice to simulate old school FF Active ATB combat.

>>385054345
>to simulate old school FF Active ATB combat.
Too bad it doesn't actually do this and feels like total shit.

>>385051256
It took a popular franchise, a well known developer and a largely non exploited mmo market.

There just wasn't a mmo like WoW that had as much advertising at the time. It was a perfect storm for such a ripe market and it just exploded from there. Everyone heard of WoW, even non mmo players knew what the game was.

>>385054581
this. I love final fantasy, and I love MMOs, but the combat in 14 is attrocious.

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400KB, 1920x1080px

It has replay-ability, depending on what you find fun in the game. I've been playing going on a decade and I've went from hardccore PVPer in TBC/WOTLK to casual Xmog hunter as of today.

RPers make it fun even though I really dont participate.
Also killing them is too as undead rogue

>>385051256
Cause even loser nerds could log on and have a good time with a bunch of buddies, whether they knew each other IRL or not

Wow was a social game, despite the stigma around it

>>385054581
>>385054775
You should try it at level 70, it definitely feels much better especially on controller.

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11KB, 200x200px

>>385054947
>It gets better at the end of the game
Holy shit, you XIVfags

>>385055632
literally every themepark MMO gets better later on.

did you have fun collecting boar asses for 40 levels in Vanilla WoW by mashing 2 buttons?

>>385054345
>FFXIV can have a GCD of 0.5s
Horseshit. It still takes 2.5s to inspect an object in the world. That's inexcusable.

>>385056326
ninja ten, chi, jin skills are on 0.5s recast timers. same with samurai kaiten.

if it takes you 2.5s to talk to a summoning bell, that's lag on your shitty connection.

>>385056471
Not my connection. If it's 2.5 of input lag because the servers are on the other coast, then that's just more of a reason the game is trash.

>>385051256
are you me?
WoW is a fucking pile of crap

>>385056703
It is indeed your connection if you're complaining about taking 2.5s to access a summoning bell object.

>>385056962
Accessing anything in the world takes 2.5s.
It's not my connection. Accessing an object in WoW for example even on an opposite coast server has zero input lag.

The game is trash.

>>385057509
>Accessing anything in the world takes 2.5s.
only for quest items, the same shit happens in WoW where you have to bend over and wait 5 seconds to pick up 1 fucking flower.

>>385052986
you think you're better?

>>385057653
Wowbros are just running out of things to pick at xiv about. Dont bully

>>385058672
It's a valid complaint. XIVfag insists there isn't massive hardcoded input lag when there is.
Interacting with anything in the world has both input lag and a massive gcd.

Casters have it the worst. I've counted out 4 full seconds between casts.

So glad they started banning you XIV shills from /v/.

An illusion! What are you hiding?

i'm surprised that no one has said this, but the original WoW was great because of the WORLD. the story telling was believable and interesting, the zones were distinct and memorable, and exploring the landscape actually felt interesting! that's why it killed EQ, it had way more of a soul than EQ did back in vanilla/BC days (imo, im sure EQ players will probably disagree). The music was ALSO fucking amazing and really immersed you into the zone. the game was also difficult enough that you got looped into interacting with the rest of the world for run of the mill stuff like traveling or just grouping for normal quests to be safer in numbers against the horde.

literally all of this is gone now, but of these the leveling experience has suffered most in modern WoW. i believe that's a big reason why the game is shit, they RUINED leveling and everyone thinks it's a chore, when it used to be the game.

personally, leveling was my favorite part of vanilla!

>>385051256
God i wanted Felmyst so badly.
I want to go back bros ;_:

And it got popular because at the time it was very forgiving as far as MMOs go and was built off the back of one of the largest RTS series of all time, which was incredibly popular

And also had an amazing world to discover.

>>385059127
>Interacting with anything in the world has both input lag and a massive gcd.
except there isn't unless your connection to the server is so bad because you're a east coast cuck or south american.

>>385055725
>Mage class with escape tricks that can stand on its own
>Nearly all armor changed your appearance
>Quests to streamline leveling instead of just killing the same shit for 5 levels
>Professions that anyone could take, instead of being restricted to a dedicated class
>Auction house system rather than setting up a shop and going AFK
>Mounts for every class
>Cooldowns on potions to prevent abuse
>Heavily involved developers with frequent patches and bug fixes
My prior experience to MMORPGs came from Ragnarok Online, Priston Tale and Lineage 2. WoW had me hooked right from the start.

WoW 2 WHEN?

>>385059272
This. Everything in WoW was immersive and seamless. You go from giant, unique zone filled with content to unique zone filled with content with a step. No loading screen. And in every one of these zones are players, whether on your side or not. And this content, if you wanted the good shit was difficult and encouraged co-operation. EQshitters are just buttblasted that a MMO could both be difficult and not play like complete ass.

I played until the end of TBC because of the people in my guild and how the game felt like going on an adventure with your buddies.

It was great to have 15 of us tryhards and 20 casuals including a bunch of 50+ year olds shooting the shit on vent while doing Molten Core and BWL.

Guild broke up cause a lot of people quit because of Sunwell and I never played again after my game time expired.

>>385051256
because star wars galaxies did a combat upgrade that ruined the game shortly after wow came out.

>>385061239
>Star Wars Galaxies
RIP in piece

>>385057989
at least I can talk to people without sperging out
that's why OP doesn't enjoy MMOs, he can't socialize

>>385051256
It was easy to get into it. It's UI was very straight forward and pretty much anybody could pick-up and play it.

People were calling it "Fisherprice's my first MMO" because everything was so hand-holdy.

>>385061673
i called it diablo 64 when it first came out.

>>385061735
I called it Warcraft for babies because everything was so clean and cute looking in comparison to the RTS games. Tauren weren't mean looking and humans didn't have giant jaws and huge fucking muscles. Everyone had shiny eyes and shit too.

>>385051256
WoW used to actually have some gameplay instead of the mindless easy thing it is today. You'd have to explore, read the quests, talk to NPCs, talk to other players, carefully pull mobs, group up for quests and so on. It was much better than the "durr follow quest marker" thing we have now. I feel sorry for people that missed out on it in its prime.

>>385051256
>How did World of Warcraft get popular?
WoW managed to tick all the boxes for success.

>popular license with ton of fans
>talented developers
>novel genre for lot of peoples who were just starting to get affordable internet
>optimized game, could run on crap hardware and still look and sound good
>most big competitors at the time sperged out and pissed off their userbase one way or another
>game was easy to get in for casual while still providing a decent challenge

There's so many things that allowed world of warcraft to get so big it's a fucking miracle, everything worked in its favor and this is why we're never gonna see another game like this before a long, long time.

>>385061432
OP here, thought my thread had blitzed to page 10 already.

This is possibly true, any tips?

>>385051256
It took the already successful Everquest formula and made it not shit.

i still say the biggest factor of wow ever getting traction was that it was just a DAMN good game and it was really fucking fun to play. people can say "oh the market was already there from EQ," but WoW did things that EQ didn't do (while failing things that EQ did better)

but it's stupid to discount blizzard, they did an amazing job with the original WoW

It was the most accessible MMO at the time when online gaming was starting to catch on in the mainstream. People who don't really play other games were playing WoW. I remember my dad would play it exclusively with his buddies.
It had the right balance of accessibility and depth (easy to learn hard to master was the design philosophy) by 2004's standards and any clunkyness or non casual friendly mechanics were outweighed by the novelty of being able to explore a fantasy world populated by other real players. There was also a real sense of mystery since back then not everything was documented as soon as it came out and no flying mounts meant that in order to go somewhere you had to leg it, giving Azeroth this really cool sense of scale even though it really isn't that big by modern standards.

>2004 right when we were at a point where mainstream online games were feasible and not just nerdy shit
>gameplay that anyone can really pick up and figure out (compared to say Everquest WoW vanilla was a god damn cakewalk)
>A pretty artstye that made the game look nice while not being too taxing on hardware
>holy fuck so all those other dudes running around are real people, and there's 2 entire continents we can explore?
>by design it pushed you to be social with craft skills requiring mats from other professions, group quests, dungeons, etcetera creating memorable experiences and friendships. i don't remember shit from the guild wars 2 trial i played but i remember playing on nostalrius for a bit and having a nice chit chat with this dude while we cleared a mine of kobolds because the quest was hard and we legit had to work together for it

>>385062016
>When Vanguard came out, crashed and burned
ha ha ha oh wow you could see the future of the MMORPG market ten years ago

>>385062893
wasn't vanguard the one with the obnoxious death penalties?

>>385062018
no tips, just move on with your life

>>385051505
Completely wrong.. One of the reasons WoW was so popular is because it was so much less punishing dying was just a walk back to your corpse with a 10% equipment durability loss or the res sickness penalties which were very short term. Compare that to other MMO's at the time like Everquest and FFXI where you lost XP and could actually lose levels.

It was also streamlined in many aspects (not using that in a negative way). Questing was much less obtuse, it had a much less steeper learning curve, and much more intuitive and user friendly interface compared to other MMOs. Vanilla WoW might have felt hardcore by todays standards but it was considered the casual friendly MMO of the time.

>>385059272
Agreed, leveling used to be part of the game and you did it by exploring the world. You weren't railroaded from questline to questline, a lot of it was discovered by accident or by word of mouth or thottbot/allakazham. Now you can hit 100 without really even exploring very far past a major city because of LFD/heirlooms.

like >>385051881 said, it released at the time when the internet was becoming more accessible, warcraft 3 was popular, and it filled a large casual spot.

>>385059272
My problem with FFXIV is exactly that the world has so little love put into it.
The monsters might as well not even exist, they're so pathetic and have no loot or exp. There's no world PvP, and in the expansion zones it's just a big empty copy pasted wasteland.

>>385065105
The world actually has love put into it, minor NPCs have dialogue just by walking past them. There's NPCs that constantly move around the world that you see at certain times of the day (fox lady FATE)

>>385064802

This was the biggest thing I noticed when playing WoW. I'd just jumped ship from XI and the death penalties were so minuscule that it opened up a slew of options; exploring was viable, world PvP was actually fun and caused much less stress than in other MMOs, and running dungeons/quests/grinds blind was viable.

I never played past Burning Crusade but coming from someone who played UO at launch as a kid (where you could lose your entire inventory simply because you didn't call the guards manually or died near someone) and XI as a teenager (where you could lose hours of work from a simple party wipe), WoW's casual, laid back feel was pretty welcoming.

When people say vanilla/BC WoW was hardcore outside of the top tier raids, I can only sit back and wonder what the fuck happened to the genre to make them consider that statement true.

It was literally just the name. I can guarantee you that if instead of WoW a game that was the same in every way other than not being called Warcraft and not being made by Blizzard it would never have been even remotely as successful.

Blizzard is the best studio out there.

gummy

>>385067679
Watching that implode was beautiful
I can taste the /wpsg/ tears from here

>>385068067
/wpsg/ knew better than to thrust this ginger autist with muscle-aids again, considering his track record with sciptcraft

it was hilarious watching the newfags from /elyg/ and /felmg/ get butthurt tho