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Amaya wrote:You don't achieve 10 million subscribers (5 to 10x the amount of your closest competitor) and draw in people who have never played an MMO or RPG without doing something right.

Marketing.

The quality of a game is only tangential to its ability to sell.

Melissia wrote:

Karon wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:Needs a "Feth WoW" option.

Most people aren't children and don't hold an irrational hate towards something like a videogame.

No, I will not be playing WoW. It has tired itself out

Well yes, but it's been what, half a decade since it tired itself out? More than that?

Then again, seeing as it was already tired out on release...

Vanilla WoW was excellent I've been told, before any expansions.

Vanilla Warcraft was passable.

Its launch was a buggy, godforsaken mess which makes the Diablo 3 and TOR launches look positively flawless.
You had entire server clusters going down every 15-20 minutes, there was very little endgame content, no instanced PvP, etc.

It got better, but the only real reason it had time to flourish is that it was a Blizzard property and the built-in fanbase that brings with it.
If TOR or WAR had the same unquestioning loyalty, we likely would have actually seen WoW having some serious competition.

Karon wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Karon wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:Needs a "Feth WoW" option.

Most people aren't children and don't hold an irrational hate towards something like a videogame.

No, I will not be playing WoW. It has tired itself out

Well yes, but it's been what, half a decade since it tired itself out? More than that?

Then again, seeing as it was already tired out on release...

Vanilla WoW was excellent I've been told, before any expansions.

It wasn't. It was basically as generic as an MMO got, even on release there was really very little to distinguish it from its competitors.

The main thing WoW had/has going for it was polish and accessibility. Once the got the horrible, horrible (horrible) launch out of the way, it was a fairly smooth and extremely... clean, I guess, game. The animation and sound were top notch and while the graphics aren't exactly super-duper-high-rez-bumpmap-what-the-hell-ever, the art direction is quite good.

As for accessibility, you could easily solo your way to the level cap, most of the content wasn't all that difficult, and while it didn't show you where your quests were on the map, having all your quests in a log with at least some sort of description where they were was nice, the fact that you levelled primarily by doing quests instead of mindlessly grinding mobs....

Most of WoW's attractive features existed in other games... in parts. The UI and to a lesser extent talent trees were in Asheron's Call 2 (Though Diablo II is probably more what they were thinking of with Talent Trees). The PvE game is less-hardcore EverQuest. The Factional PvP/Instanced Battlegrounds existed in Dark Age of Camelot. The PvE Instances are an evolution of content from Anarchy Online. Absolutely nothing WoW did was at all innovative per se. They're basically Apple: Take a lot of good ideas from other people, throw them together, and polish the ever-loving gak out of them.

Also, the "Blizzard" tag certainly helped. I quite seriously believe that, if the game was made by anyone but Blizzard, but was otherwise completely identical, it wouldn't be anywhere near as popular as it is. It would still be an extremely successful MMO, but wouldn't boast 9 million players. Nowhere near it. Even now after all its updates and expansions.

With that said, I, personally, am bored to death of it. I find the levelling quests dreadfully boring. The endgame is actually quite a lot of fun... for a couple weeks, and then starts to wear thin.

I decided to stop playing right before my last deployment. Cataclysm was released during it, and I got excited for it and picked it back up when I got home. After two months I found out that the game was just no longer any fun for me and haven't touched it since then. This "expansion" just affirms that decision for me. I won't touch it. The game has finally jumped the shark in my eyes.

I hate to be one of "those people", but Cataclysm killed WoW for me. I absolutely loved Burning Crusade and Lich King, quite honestly, I was excited for Cataclysm and played it a bunch when it first came out, got to 85, did a bunch of 85 things... Quit. Cataclysm just felt extremely dull to me, and after quitting for six months, coming back for about two and quitting again, it's not there for me. Oh, yeah, I played the Mists beta as well. Still feels like Cataclysm to me. Sorry, WoW, but I'll keep my fond memories of you as how you were in the past, not to rip on it, but it's not there for me anymore.

I quit with Cata and picked up 40K instead. Seems a lot of other people quit Cata. I 85d a couple toons, didnt like the dungeon progression, quit and never came back.

I mostly want to play it for the pet battle stuff.

EDIT:

I stopped playing at Cata as well. The changes were too much for me. I couldn't handle all the areas and gameplay being revamped. It was neat and all but I wish they had done it into a separate game so as to retain the old world content.

No i wont re-sub to wow, here is why:

1, New raids difficulty: DS content was barely a challenge with guilds beating deathwing on the day it came out. Thats not to say i want stuff like classic naxx or aq, that was a nightmare.
2, Palladins in PvP, PvE and basically everywhere else
3, Pandaria Content: Pandas and Pokemon in wow, really blizz? IMO the game is being aimed at younger people in asian countries,
just look at how many MMOs come out there and how many people play games. Also i personally prefer to fight against daemons/undead/dragons rather than oversized bunnies, vegetables and pandas
4, Palladins (Counts twice!)
5, Patch rate: At the start of Cata blizz promised us updates atleast every 2 months but the last patch that came out 7 monts ago! (or so i heard)
6, Grind (speaks for itself)
7, Leveling (read above)
And last but not least, it will be 4th expantion! meaning people have to spend money first on vanilla, then TBC, WotLK, Cata and finally MoP + the sub. How much cash is that in total?

For now im fairly happy playing on a WotLK private server, because well blizzard.

Sort of on the fence. The pet battles interest me and friends are trying to drag me back into it. But, I just don't know, to me I think the gimmicks will last maybe a month or so before it becomes the same old WoW. It just feels so static to me.

I have never played any version of WoW, nor do I intend to, so no.