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Oooh, Blizzard, I Hate You So Much! Fix Our Servers Or I’ll Update My Myspace AGAIN!
World of Warcraft has server issues, customers don’t really care that much
In any case, with no shortage of massively multiplayer online games, such as “EverQuest,” “City of Heroes,” “Ultima Online” and others, on the market, some might wonder why angry WoW players don’t just walk away.
But some say WoW has reached its 6 million subscriber threshold–no other American massively multiplayer online game has even broken a million–because its game play is easier to grasp for mainstream players. And because there are few other practical options for many such players, they feel Blizzard should take the performance problems more seriously.
“The thing is, there is no other real alternative” to WoW, [Joi] Ito said. “So they sort of have a natural monopoly, and that’s why people are so mad, I think. They can’t vote with their feet. They just have to wait. And ‘Blizz’ has to realize that they have millions of hours of people’s time hostage and should feel that responsibility.”
Amazingly, Joi Ito is responsible for a great deal of money.
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about 4 years ago
Or, perhaps, everyone who really cares knows how these damn games always have their performance problems which get more intractable the larger the game, and those who don’t are easily replaced.
about 4 years ago
\’e2\’80\’9cThe thing is, there is no other real alternative\’e2\’80\’9d to WoW, [Joi] Ito said. \’e2\’80\’9cSo they sort of have a natural monopoly, and that\’e2\’80\’99s why people are so mad, I think. They can\’e2\’80\’99t vote with their feet. They just have to wait. And \’e2\’80\’98Blizz\’e2\’80\’99 has to realize that they have millions of hours of people\’e2\’80\’99s time hostage and should feel that responsibility.\’e2\’80\’9d
The only difference this time compared to Diablo was that Blizzard didn’t have a persistant MMO for people to run to like UO. Now they have WoW and all those first timers (whohavebeenmashingbuttonzonbattlenetforyearz) have been brain-washed into thinking WoW is the only alternative. And you can’t forget that 30% + of all WoW gamers are GORGEOUS young females.
After having quit wow due to their horrendous server performance (that was still continuing over 18 months of release) I did come to the realization in my 18 months of catassing that:
a) Alot of the WoW players are first timers
b) Mentioning any of the other mmog’s were met with… “what the fuck is that?” , “Blizzard Pwns all” , and other pedantic rhetoric.
Me and my 7 year old daughters 66 laffer in Toontown, has just started all the new tasks in Donald’s dreamland and she is hardly depressed that she can’t play “the big fat cow” (tauren) in wow anymore.
about 4 years ago
I realize some servers are more boinked than others, but I really don’t mind if a server(say the Blackrock Mountain sub-server) glitches and boots everyone minutes before a MC raid, as long as its not more than once a week, and is back and running a minute later.
I’ll give you some leeway there, as a customer.
The point I’d prefer to address though, is this perception that WoW is popular because it’s “easy to play”. Criminy, its no easier than UO, DAoC, or CoH(CoH being the most ridiculously easy to play mmg I’ve ever experienced). WoW is hugely popular because it’s Blizzard and their HUGE, pre-existing fanbase. There were these games that came out in the last decade, you may have heard of them, Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo… I hear they sold a couple of boxes. The games were extremely well made, and have a fanbase that is still playing them 10 years later! WoW isn’t huge because it’s easy to play(and for the most part, it is), it’s popular because of the huge brand-recognition that Blizzard has built world-wide for well over a decade, emphasis on the “world-wide”.
This isn’t a matter of getting fans of Star Wars movies to magically convert into gamers. This is getting gamers, who are used to limited multiplayer, to move to the mmg genre. Two entirely different stories.
Cheers
about 4 years ago
It’s mindboggling to me the way Blizzard/WoW has been, more or less, given a pass on so many things that other companies/games would have been crucified for. I guess the fact that it’s brought in so many first timers makes sense, and that most players for other games are just jaded old timers like me, but still.
about 4 years ago
I suppose being angry at blizzard for shitty servers is more acceptable than my anger at blizzard for fucking the paladin class in the ass.
If they really cared about these issues, they would have stopped paying for it by now. If they need the excuse of “there’s not competitor to WoW”, then they simply have no willpower. And that is just sad.
about 4 years ago
I play on one of the old Wow servers that existed at launch, and we have never had transfers available. It has problems, sure.
But hell, I remember it taking a half hour to an hour just to walk across Britain in UO on a regular basis, not to mention the inopportune times for a total server crash, after which you would almost certainly be dead and decayed if you were in anyplace remotely dangerous, which at one time was just about anydamnplace.
The angry, vocal, and probably unwashed masses go through these complaints with every game. Sometimes it is justified, mostly, it isn’t.
I can’t find it in myself to get too irate with Wow’s server issues. We still get things done. Far more often than not, our raids are succcessful with a minimum of issues. On the occasional problem, I just give the figurative polite nod to my frenzied guildmates and find something else to do. Even with its problems, it is cheap entertainment. I certainly don’t expect perfection – I expect basic usability on a reasonable scale. And it delivers that.
By contrast, EQ2 did not perform adequately when I played it near launch; therefore I quit. I played it through beta and for a few months after launch, and simply wasn’t satisfied with the performance.
Oh yeah, and paladins are just fine. All you need to do is know how to heal, res, and DI anyway, right?
about 4 years ago
AOL still exists, Microsoft has a monopoly on wintel boxes, people drink Budweiser, and THIS shit surprises people???
Welcome to earth, don’t eat the fish, its poisoned.
about 4 years ago
Though thinking about it, the amount of leeway Blizzard gets REALLY has to stick in Raphs craw I’m thinkin. I mean there really WAS no alternative to UO (Meridian 59 people, stop, really at this point it’s just sad) and he was crucified on a daily basis for relatively trivial shit.
Course if he hadn’t been such a dick to those of us who chose to RP sociopathic murderers maybe he woulda had a better time of it, just sayin.
As for the Blizzard rep amongst gamers…. Ultima, anyone anyone…. am I THAT fucking old? Warcraft was a great game but Ultima was like one of the top 10 games, with strong sequels to boot early on, in the decade before UO. Most hard core Ultima fans fled early on because the howling horde of UO newbs shredded Raphs early storyline content like a wet tissue. Not that their loss held UO back from a million. It has to be somthing else.
Maybe the market is just maturing. Kinda sad b/c minus the raving bunch of assholes that made up the playerbase UO was a better game during the early years of yore than WOW has ever been.
about 4 years ago
Nicademus wrote:
(Meridian 59 people, stop, really at this point it\’e2\’80\’99s just sad)
Says the person defending UO when compared to WoW?
But, people always ignore all the other games that were out there at the time as well. Anyway, M59 was a really quality game held back by a inept company that had no idea how to market an online game. Such are the dangers of being a pioneer.
But, the quotes about WoW from the article show how it history simply repeats itself. When UO came out, it was the “only” game out. Then EQ became the “first”, with people ignoring games that came before it. I’ve said we’d get to a point where people would claim WoW “started it all”, and it looks like we’re pretty much there.
So, get used to people ignoring history. Again. UO will likely be remembered as “that sad game that couldn’t break even half a million worldwide” by people in a few years, just as people today are dismissive of earlier games like M59. So much for that type of gameplay ever making a comeback, eh?
Have fun,
about 4 years ago
At this point, Blizzard would probably be relieved if a couple hundred thousand people quit the game. It’d relax some stress on the servers, and they could take a break from trying to find new places to put all the money.
about 4 years ago
I will agree with what was said about WOW being pretty easy Compared to ORIGINAL EQ, DoAC AC content.
1. Your spoon fed your quests, you hardly have to think about where anything is or ask anybody question, just look around for someone with a “?” above thier heads. EQ you first talk to people and FIND the person giving the quest then ask a question with a responce that included the original bracketed word to find out more information.
2. Your given rest experience IF you log out in an Inn but can only accumulate a level and a half.
3. No death penelty which now gives people the right to do whatever they please without a real reserve, and no, AC costs are not much of a deterrent.
4. People literaly zurg to 60 in 3-4 months and then find that the game changes to almost EQ style raid content.
Its a fun game in a dumbed down way but I am looking forward to Vangaurd to fill the nitch for slower progression and more of a challenge than the spoonfeeding that WOW hands you. It litterally comes down to the fact that you dont have to think as much in WOW compared to previous released MMORPGs since there are no penelties.
As far as the CR goes, I have seen it as bad as EQ and as good as COH for the most part. (Like havint to repeat the Jailbreak part of the Ony quest line since 4 others of my party completed it and I did not yet I didnt die and was with the marshal at all times.
about 4 years ago
“This isn\’e2\’80\’99t a matter of getting fans of Star Wars movies to magically convert into gamers. This is getting gamers, who are used to limited multiplayer, to move to the mmg genre. Two entirely different stories.” -Internetjack
Dunno if I entirely agree with that. While brand recognition definitely plays a part, it doesn’t explain grandpa gamers and family guilds. That is word of mouth and accessibility. I mean, what percentage of the 6 million actually fit into a bnet stereotype? even if it’s 60%, that’s a heap of newcomers still. This isn’t just a shift of players to genre, this is generation of new players.
about 4 years ago
He says there’s no alternative, but if you do a simple google search, you can find thousands of MMORPG’s online… to name just two: Anarchy Online, and Knight Online. Are these the best supported games? No, are they better than WoW? Sometimes. Are they easy to play? Heck yeah! They’re fun alternatives, and KO is completely free. So why are people putting up with this crud from Bllizzard? I say just walk away, and show them that we won’t put up with being treated this way.