Post by Morreion on Nov 24, 2014 20:06:52 GMT -5
Perfect Ten: My World of Warcraft launch memories (Massively)
Back in November of 2004, I was a wide-eyed 28-year-old bachelor who had just met his future wife and was generally leery about MMOs to date. Now I'm a grizzled 38-year-old journalist, father of three, and veteran of more MMOs than I can count (because I cannot count past 22). A decade can contain so much history, especially when looked back all at once.
I played World of Warcraft for many years, and while most of the memories have faded and merged together in a technicolor morass, there are a few vivid recollections of the launch period that stir emotions in me even today. Ten years, 10 launch memories. I think that's appropriate.
4. It went head-to-head with EverQuest II's launch.
Even though the WoW beta was immensely popular, there still was some uncertainty with its launch since EverQuest II announced that it would be releasing a couple of weeks earlier. The sequel to the current king of the MMO throne getting the jump on the upstart competition was no laughing matter, and some players were strongly debating which would come out on top.
Sure, looking back it seems silly, but I can't underscore enough how little everyone knew -- including the developers -- that World of Warcraft would become this gaming juggernaut. People were genuinely worried it would get steamrolled by EQII, whereas the reality was the other way around.
6. My first moments were magical.
Even though I was there for the end of the beta, the launch day is what I considered my first real day in WoW -- and it was magical. I created a Dwarf Hunter named Chark and then spent an hour marveling at the level of polish and detail in this beginner zone. Look! My footsteps left prints in the snow! My breath fogs in the cold air! Ooh, that soundtrack is divine!
It didn't take long before the combination of questing and killing had me completely hooked. It would still be a while before I would get the hang of the game or join a guild or stick with a character long enough to get it to level 60, but that didn't matter. I finally felt as though an MMO was rolling out the welcome mat for me, and I gladly stepped into it.
8. It was the biggest MMO launch to date, but wasn't a multi-million subscription hit until later.
One of the myths of World of Warcraft, particularly for people who weren't following it at the time, is that it somehow sprang out of the gate with millions upon millions of players. The truth is while it had a terrific opening and sold 240,000 copies on its first day, it didn't pass the million-subscriber mark until months later (we know that it had 1.5 million by March of that year). Impressive, but nowhere near as big as it would become over the next four or five years.
Raph Koster explains how WoW changed MMOs (Massively)
Among the things left by the wayside were features that were proven. Gone were the richer pet systems that had driven so much engagement from players in earlier games. Player housing, past and future source of endless devotion (and revenue) in other games, absent. Never mind stuff like towns and politics and the like. Crafting took massive steps backwards from the heights it had been developed into in [Star Wars] Galaxies or even Sims Online, and went back to being more like that in EverQuest. Even the robust character customization that we slaved over in Galaxies, a system which today is in every RPG on earth, was gone...
The space it entered as a competitor is largely "dead" in the sense that WoW takes up all the oxygen in the room. Experiments in virtual world design began to dry up, to curtail their ambitions to being nibbles around the edge of WoW's design. Like toothpaste squeezed out of a tube, the design qualities of sandbox games ended up finding their expression elsewhere, to great success. Their children served as the basis of genres, from Facebook farming games to DayZ-style survival games to the true heir of the MUD tradition: Minecraft, a virtual world based on simulation and crafting, where users run their own worlds and script and build adventures and are basically questless.
It's just that no one calls them MMOs anymore. That title is reserved for World of Warcraft, and those largely similar games that strive to topple it from its seat. Its influence is such that it now defines the genre it refined. It is the best Diku ever made; the best combat MMO ever made; the thing to which everything like it will ever after be compared. World of Warcraft effectively made MMOs perfect, and in the process, it killed them.
WoW subs back over 10 million, WoD sells 3.3 million (Massively)
World of Warcraft's global subscriber base now numbers over 10 million, and several of those subscribers can even log in and play!
In all seriousness, Blizzard did announce that its MMO is experiencing "growth across all major regions," not to mention that it sold 3.3 million copies of the Warlords of Draenor expansion in its first 24 hours.
Celebrate World of Warcraft's 10th Anniversary With a Return to Molten Core (The Escapist)
World of Warcraft is now 10-years old, and certainly shows no signs of slowing down. It's not unusual for Blizzard to have some kind of anniversary event around the MMO's birthday, but this time, it is pulling out all the stops by giving us a return to the game's original raid and PVP scenarios: Molten Core and Tarren Mill vs. Southshore.
The event runs from November 21 to January 6, so you've got plenty of time to reach max level and get your Core Hound mount.
~~~
I went to WoW from DAoC. I had played DAoC for 3.5 years and loved that game for its community. But it was time to move on. Truth be told, grouping was getting a bit old with all of the time and effort it took.
I remember being there at WoW's launch. I played for 14 months after release, leveling a Paladin up as part of a duo to max level, which took 6-7 months. That's what it should take to level up in my opinion. I enjoyed the leveling up, the zones, the perilous run from Darnassus to Ironforge, the harvesting, I even crafted to max level there, the fishing, but wasn't a big raider so I rolled up an alt after hitting level cap. Not everything was good about the game- the death penalty was too trivial. But it was a solid and professional MMO, the PvE and zones were excellent.
At the time, compared to coming from DAoC, WoW's community was not very good. One could solo one's way to max level easily. No grouping required- as a matter of fact, grouping cut your experience with each additional group member you added on. There was no group experience like in DAoC, no server-wide community like in DAoC. I was disappointed in that aspect of things. So be careful what you wish for. I'd like to see more games incentivizing grouping these days. Perhaps that helps create a community.
Lots of non-MMO players were attracted to WoW, which meant the end of that cult fanbase that created server-wide communities. I bitterly regretted that at the time; I still do.
Funny enough, there was a pretty good RP scene within guilds in classic WoW. I'd take that community in a heartbeat now, compared to what you see today.
How times have changed.
Back in November of 2004, I was a wide-eyed 28-year-old bachelor who had just met his future wife and was generally leery about MMOs to date. Now I'm a grizzled 38-year-old journalist, father of three, and veteran of more MMOs than I can count (because I cannot count past 22). A decade can contain so much history, especially when looked back all at once.
I played World of Warcraft for many years, and while most of the memories have faded and merged together in a technicolor morass, there are a few vivid recollections of the launch period that stir emotions in me even today. Ten years, 10 launch memories. I think that's appropriate.
4. It went head-to-head with EverQuest II's launch.
Even though the WoW beta was immensely popular, there still was some uncertainty with its launch since EverQuest II announced that it would be releasing a couple of weeks earlier. The sequel to the current king of the MMO throne getting the jump on the upstart competition was no laughing matter, and some players were strongly debating which would come out on top.
Sure, looking back it seems silly, but I can't underscore enough how little everyone knew -- including the developers -- that World of Warcraft would become this gaming juggernaut. People were genuinely worried it would get steamrolled by EQII, whereas the reality was the other way around.
6. My first moments were magical.
Even though I was there for the end of the beta, the launch day is what I considered my first real day in WoW -- and it was magical. I created a Dwarf Hunter named Chark and then spent an hour marveling at the level of polish and detail in this beginner zone. Look! My footsteps left prints in the snow! My breath fogs in the cold air! Ooh, that soundtrack is divine!
It didn't take long before the combination of questing and killing had me completely hooked. It would still be a while before I would get the hang of the game or join a guild or stick with a character long enough to get it to level 60, but that didn't matter. I finally felt as though an MMO was rolling out the welcome mat for me, and I gladly stepped into it.
8. It was the biggest MMO launch to date, but wasn't a multi-million subscription hit until later.
One of the myths of World of Warcraft, particularly for people who weren't following it at the time, is that it somehow sprang out of the gate with millions upon millions of players. The truth is while it had a terrific opening and sold 240,000 copies on its first day, it didn't pass the million-subscriber mark until months later (we know that it had 1.5 million by March of that year). Impressive, but nowhere near as big as it would become over the next four or five years.
Raph Koster explains how WoW changed MMOs (Massively)
Among the things left by the wayside were features that were proven. Gone were the richer pet systems that had driven so much engagement from players in earlier games. Player housing, past and future source of endless devotion (and revenue) in other games, absent. Never mind stuff like towns and politics and the like. Crafting took massive steps backwards from the heights it had been developed into in [Star Wars] Galaxies or even Sims Online, and went back to being more like that in EverQuest. Even the robust character customization that we slaved over in Galaxies, a system which today is in every RPG on earth, was gone...
The space it entered as a competitor is largely "dead" in the sense that WoW takes up all the oxygen in the room. Experiments in virtual world design began to dry up, to curtail their ambitions to being nibbles around the edge of WoW's design. Like toothpaste squeezed out of a tube, the design qualities of sandbox games ended up finding their expression elsewhere, to great success. Their children served as the basis of genres, from Facebook farming games to DayZ-style survival games to the true heir of the MUD tradition: Minecraft, a virtual world based on simulation and crafting, where users run their own worlds and script and build adventures and are basically questless.
It's just that no one calls them MMOs anymore. That title is reserved for World of Warcraft, and those largely similar games that strive to topple it from its seat. Its influence is such that it now defines the genre it refined. It is the best Diku ever made; the best combat MMO ever made; the thing to which everything like it will ever after be compared. World of Warcraft effectively made MMOs perfect, and in the process, it killed them.
WoW subs back over 10 million, WoD sells 3.3 million (Massively)
World of Warcraft's global subscriber base now numbers over 10 million, and several of those subscribers can even log in and play!
In all seriousness, Blizzard did announce that its MMO is experiencing "growth across all major regions," not to mention that it sold 3.3 million copies of the Warlords of Draenor expansion in its first 24 hours.
Celebrate World of Warcraft's 10th Anniversary With a Return to Molten Core (The Escapist)
World of Warcraft is now 10-years old, and certainly shows no signs of slowing down. It's not unusual for Blizzard to have some kind of anniversary event around the MMO's birthday, but this time, it is pulling out all the stops by giving us a return to the game's original raid and PVP scenarios: Molten Core and Tarren Mill vs. Southshore.
The event runs from November 21 to January 6, so you've got plenty of time to reach max level and get your Core Hound mount.
~~~
I went to WoW from DAoC. I had played DAoC for 3.5 years and loved that game for its community. But it was time to move on. Truth be told, grouping was getting a bit old with all of the time and effort it took.
I remember being there at WoW's launch. I played for 14 months after release, leveling a Paladin up as part of a duo to max level, which took 6-7 months. That's what it should take to level up in my opinion. I enjoyed the leveling up, the zones, the perilous run from Darnassus to Ironforge, the harvesting, I even crafted to max level there, the fishing, but wasn't a big raider so I rolled up an alt after hitting level cap. Not everything was good about the game- the death penalty was too trivial. But it was a solid and professional MMO, the PvE and zones were excellent.
At the time, compared to coming from DAoC, WoW's community was not very good. One could solo one's way to max level easily. No grouping required- as a matter of fact, grouping cut your experience with each additional group member you added on. There was no group experience like in DAoC, no server-wide community like in DAoC. I was disappointed in that aspect of things. So be careful what you wish for. I'd like to see more games incentivizing grouping these days. Perhaps that helps create a community.
Lots of non-MMO players were attracted to WoW, which meant the end of that cult fanbase that created server-wide communities. I bitterly regretted that at the time; I still do.
Funny enough, there was a pretty good RP scene within guilds in classic WoW. I'd take that community in a heartbeat now, compared to what you see today.
How times have changed.
