
Ten Years of World of Warcraft - magoghm
http://www.raphkoster.com/2014/11/21/ten-years-of-world-of-warcraft/
======
debaserab2
WoW flattened MMORPG gameplay into a linear experience that bored me right out
of the genre.

Ultima Online, on the other hand, was such an expansive and interactive world.
You didn't choose your interactions based on personal preference. There was
always the threat of another real life player coming to kill you, which
created a sort of camaraderie in hunting grounds. You may not know someone,
but suddenly he'd come to your rush if a murderer approached, and if you were
lucky you both ended up outnumbering the murderer and you'd walk away with his
loot. You wouldn't even know the person but you'd end up sharing an intense
experience together where the stakes were high (if you died, you lost
EVERYTHING). So many friendships were made that way.

It was a different experience that was about more than levels and raiding
groups and elite loot. It was a true social space where your actions affected
other players experiences, for better or worse. To me, this is the soul of the
MMO, and exactly what WoW lacks.

~~~
broodbucket
EVE Online has just about everything you just mentioned, and is doing just
fine. I prefer the WoW model, and so do the majority based on the numbers, but
there is still a lively community for that type of gameplay.

~~~
NovaS1X
I played WoW for a good 4-6 years. Had a lot of fun but eventually it became
easy, grindy, and just lost it' luster.

I've been playing EVE since about 2007 now and it's the only thing keeping me
playing MMOs let alone video games.

Then again EVE isn't really a game it's just a strange branch of real life.

~~~
RickHull
> _Then again EVE isn 't really a game it's just a strange branch of real
> life._

True, in that it's very complex, and it does reward an analytical approach,
which may or may not accord with one's own real life. Eve is a fantastic
hobby, in that it is intellectually demanding, time consuming, skill
rewarding, and an emotional investment. I can't recommend it but I'd certainly
suggest it for whatever it is that ails ya.

------
powdahound
A bit off topic, but it'd be interesting to have a guild for the startup/HN
crowd. I've been discussing returning to the game with a few tech friends and
joining a like-minded group would probably make it a lot more fun.

~~~
jhgg
That'd be really fun actually. But I'm still having mixed feelings about how
dumbed down the game got over the years. The complexity of it during vanilla +
the first two expansions really made the game fun for me. But with the
homogenization of stats, and removal of lots of skills, the game just isn't
fun for me anymore. Then again, I haven't played Warlords. I stopped playing
when patch 6.0.2 came out.

~~~
dsl
The Blizzcon panel on why they removed/simplified a lot of stuff was great. It
is well worth watching if you can find a copy.

Basically they had a lot of abilities that weren't fun, and a bunch of stats
that made the game suck. Most people were going to Ask Mr Robot to figure out
which piece of gear to put on, and Icy Veins to figure out what button to
press when.

They needed to carve out all the old cruft before they can add the new and
exciting back in. I was equally cynical when the shattering happened, but
after a few content patches was quite happy with the change.

------
jonshariat
Say what you want about MMO's but its most kids first taste of leadership hard
work, and economics.

~~~
PakG1
Met a maid of honour at a friend's wedding. She told me that she dropped out
of university because she spent too much time on WoW. When her clan was on
some sort of quest, they'd call her up and she'd run out of class to get
online. She was one of their captains, and put hours and hours into the game,
organizing players, planning things, etc. Never graduated and not doing much
else, although she's surviving fine.

So the question I have is whether there's any way to take that type of hard
work ethic and get people to apply it to something more productive. Heck, I
just gave a presentation at a barcamp style thing at a school on how Starcraft
is actually a really intellectual game. But one thing I couldn't answer was
whether it was possible to take the complex thinking that happens in a high-
level Starcraft 2 game and see it blossom in everyday life for everyday tasks.
:(

~~~
cdr
It's interesting that pro-level Magic: the Gathering players seem to almost
all go on to have pretty successful professional lives. Maybe just being a
physical game draws more well balanced people. Or that it's a solo game,
despite teams being important for knowledge sharing at the pro level. Or that
there's "down time" between Pro Tours - the number of weekly Grand Prix that
are counted towards a season's score are even capped so that pros don't feel
obligated to grind points week in and week out. You frequently read about
"older" players skipping Pro Tours for exams or work or personal obligations.

~~~
emiliobumachar
Maybe prior wealth is a factor. As a collectible cards game, MtG taken
seriously is a significant money sink. I don't know anything about the pro
scene, but I assume it's composed almost exclusively of people who spent
several thousands in that one game, e.g. they either already have another
profession going on or are wealthy enough to have the deck stacked in their
favor (sorry, couldn't resist). Was that a wrong assumption?

By contrast, WoW requires ample access to a computer and the internet, which
may not be yours or not primarily bought for the game, plus subscription fees.
Not for the poor, but does not scale with dedication to the game.

~~~
cdr
The reputation as a "money sink" is somewhat undeserved. It can require a
several hundred to several thousand dollar up-front investment, depending on
how you play, but it's the only hobby I've ever seen where that investment can
not just maintain but grow in value. I'm probably up $10,000 lifetime from
Magic, though I got in early and invested heavily in older cards, so I'm
something of an outlier. Absolutely anyone with the time to devote to learning
the market can at minimum take very few losses.

At the pro level, not that many players actually own the cards they play with.
They're borrowed from collectors or loaned from shops. The cost of a deck is
basically not an issue at the pro level. At the grinder level, yeah, the up-
front cost can be.

Most pro players probably do come from a reasonably privileged background,
because you need to be able to spend the spare time to get good and have the
resources to get to higher-level events to get good and qualify for the Pro
Tour (the Online version mitigates travel costs somewhat, but it itself comes
with costs). But I doubt most people trying to get to the Pro Tour are not any
more wealthy than an average WoW player. Most grinders are college-age guys
living on the cheap.

Money is not the differentiating factor. IMO not being all-consuming is a
factor (you think about it all the time, but you can't play it all the time
short of spending $10/hour Online). If you're a pro performing well enough to
be invited for an entire season, you technically only have to play four one-
week events per year. Being physical and physically social is a factor. Being
more analytical is a factor; notable numbers of pros have gone on to careers
in stock trading, gambling odds-making, etc.

~~~
lgieron
> If you're a pro performing well enough to be invited for an entire season,
> you technically only have to play four one-week events per year. Being
> physical and physically social is a factor.

Yeah, but only technically - in practice, intense preparation before each pro
tour greatly increases your chances, so that's what most pros end up doing
(esp. since the introduction of magic online, where they can practice, test
out ideas etc. 24/7).

~~~
cdr
There are post-college PT players with jobs and other responsibilities that
really do only play for 1-1.5 weeks before and during each PT, and maybe a
couple GPs. Especially Hall of Famers who don't need to worry about
qualifying.

------
incision
Wow, it has probably been 15 years since I read something from Raph Koster. So
long that I had to think for a bit to recall why that name didn't quite feel
right - until Designer Dragon popped into my head.

I can't disagree with a single thing said here.

I tend to think of WoW as the Buy-N-Large generation ship of gaming.

It created an entire word that was in some sense a paradise, but at the
exclusion of all the awesome, frustrating, exciting, tedious richness that
came before it.

------
powdahound
Blizzard recently released a documentary in celebration of the anniversary:
[http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/16668523/world-of-
warcraft%...](http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/16668523/world-of-
warcraft%C2%AE-looking-for-group-watch-now-11-8-2014). It shows some of their
design and development methods as well as the impact that the game has had on
many players' lives.

------
shiftpgdn
If anyone is curious Raph Koster worked on the original MMO: Ultima Online. If
anyone has the authority to speak about MMOs it would be him.

~~~
whyenot
Not to take away from Raph Koster's pioneering work, but CompuServe's Island
of Kesmai predates Ultima Online by more than 10 years. The single world was
shared by all players on CompuServe who pay $6 an hour to play. Some players
wold rack up monthly bills in the hundreds of dollars.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Kesmai](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_Kesmai)

~~~
jghn
Agreed, plus this also forgets games like M59.

I would, however, say that UO was the first mainstream MMO and the game which
brought the genre into people's minds.

I always felt that the largest problem of UO was that it was too successful.
IMO if the target audience had been the primary player pool it'd have been a
lot better. I remember in the months before the beta release I started seeing
it hyped to FPS type players as a place where you could go kill people and I
knew it wasn't going to be quite what they intended.

------
craigching
I started playing EverQuest (EQ) in about December of 1999. At the time I was
completely mesmerised by the experience, it was immersive, it almost felt
_real_. And it sated by desire to live in a fantasy world.

I did the EQ thing until the betas of World of Warcraft (WoW) arrived. I had
enjoyed my time in EQ, but it was getting tedious to do anything, especially
leveling. I was in a good guild (Dragon Army of Tribunal /represent!), but you
pretty much had to devote 100% of your time to advance, especially in a
raiding guild.

Along came WoW. It was a perfect out for me. I no longer wanted to commit
myself to serious raiding and rely on a guild to simply level. I wanted an
experience that was fun (i.e. non-tedious) that I could advance in (i.e.
Quests were much more structured and fun) and I didn't _have_ to rely on a
group to advance. Life was good.

Until raiding began at the highest levels. Raiding was _fun_ , but in some
ways was worse than EQ. You had to have the perfect raid compensation (mostly
to accommodate weaker players, but sometimes not) to finish a raid. So guild
recruitment became hard core, if you didn't represent a class of need for the
current expansion, it could be hard to participate. Luckily, starting over and
leveling up wasn't so hard, so if a guild's live was for you, you could change
your class pretty easily (compared to EQ).

And WoW raiding became the game. You had to level to the max (as fast as you
could usually) so you could get into the good raiding guilds, bypassing all
the good story line that was there for you. It became the same competition
that EQ had become. And it was _not fun_.

I was lucky, my last forays in WoW were with a group of people mostly made up
of competent friends from EQ and their friends. We were able to start fresh,
ramp up and take on Karazhan in the Burning Crusade while BC was the current
expansion. Yes, we weren't the top guild, but raiding Karazhan with a good
group of friends was probably my best experience in an MMORPG.

That said, though, once my daughter was born, I was done with MMORPGs. They
were fun, but too time consuming for the dedicated parent. I have since played
here and there on Skyrum, but my duties as a parent take precedence.

That all said, though, Raph has a screenshot of Minecraft as the ultimate
sandbox. My kids (now 6 and 3) _love_ interacting together through Minecraft.
Even the soundtrack is a staple of our lives.

I don't know what I intended with this post, but MMORPGs have been a good
experience for me and I'm carrying that on, I hope, via Minecraft and a more
sandboxed experience. WoW and EQ were fun, but as I've grown and have had
kids, something like Minecraft makes much more sense to me.

~~~
jghn
For me no game can approach closed beta UO. It was that perfect time of
advanced for its time game and naive for its time player base. By the time
open beta showed up the writing was already on the wall.

The promise of UO was limitless - a complete sandbox where anything could
happen, but in a world where the Ahole didn't exist. Within a month it was
obvious that wasn't going to be the case.

I still had tons of fun in the 2.5 years I played UO because I embraced the
aholes - while I wasn't _one_ of them I definitely played their game in an
attempt to combat them continuously. For the UO players I was 99.9% red
because often the biggest turds were blue, but really I didn't care - I only
fought turds regardless of the situation.

It was still an amazing game, I have friends to this day that I met there, and
many of them had specialized stories - e.g. the person who was an "interior
decorator". That's what she did, she took in game gold to design the decor of
your in game building. I haven't seen a game since where that was really a
viable occupation.

~~~
Kiro
I was a looter and a griefer. Would you have killed me?

~~~
Kiro
Not sure if I'm getting downvoted because I was a looter/griefer or because of
my blunt question. If the former I want to point out that looting/griefing was
a big part of the game and not a destructive element. Stealing from other
players was a skill where you advanced just like in swordsmanship or magic. It
would flag you as a criminal but still a valid profession. Good looters and
griefers gained world-wide recognition and stardom. Just check out the Galad
the Looter and Belan the Looter comics.

~~~
teddyh
A looter and griefer is a valid profession in the game just like in the real
world there exists professional hitmen. It _is_ an actual occupation which
puts food on the table, yes, but…

~~~
Kiro
Exactly and that's what made UO so awesome - you could actually roleplay for
real. Subsequent MMOs lacking the option to be evil and "harm" other players
are missing such a vital part that I feel they belong to a completely
different genre. I hope I will experience another game with the same dynamic
interactions one day.

~~~
mattmanser
Whoosh, that went over your head.

The implication of his post is that aholes, to use jghn's term, like you ruin
MMO games for everyone else. So the 5% like you, who are impossible to manage,
are the ones who cause heavy restrictions on what exactly you can do to grief
or PVP.

Because it's not that you sometimes grief other players, it's that you
constantly grief other players. And there's almost always no consequence,
unlike real life where even the most violent societies acting like that
there'd be a good chance you'd end up hanging from a tree, "game over", so you
wouldn't act like that. In an MMO you just respawn.

Your fun is to make other people miserable.

~~~
Kiro
I don't know why you presume all these things but no, that's not how it was or
how I feel.

~~~
teddyh
He presumed those things because the terms you used, “looter and griefer”,
actually mean exactly those things.

~~~
Kiro
I don't agree.

~~~
jghn
IMO "griefer" has a pretty defined meaning and implies a player who is going
out of their way to be a jerk and, well, cause grief.

I'll agree that "looter" could be understood to be a scavenger and not an
inherently anti-social player.

So if you just said looter I'd agree with you. When you say griefer I don't -
IMO a griefer is inherently a jerk (player, not character)

------
grayfox
Recently returned to WoW.

Agree completely with the closing statement - WoW will be the king until a
different medium replaces the current one.

The game has given me the feeling that... now that I've grown older, it is the
game that I can drop my weekly hours into and gain happy, lasting reward.

~~~
sjtrny
> it is the game that I can drop my weekly hours into and gain happy, lasting
> reward.

What reward do you get from WoW exactly? I used to play 8 years ago and quit
because of the fact that the experience wasn't rewarding to me. My time in
game was mostly spent doing repetitive tasks. I realised that I wasn't gaining
any skill or ability that I would otherwise when playing a strategy or FPS
game. The skill ceiling was just way too low.

~~~
bovermyer
For me, at least, it's not so much the Skill Bar of the Week or Dungeon
Achievement of the Month that drew me in. It was the community. And by that I
don't mean the infamous Barrens Chat community that hates all life on earth, I
mean the guild and subniche communities that like playing together and enjoy
some great shenanigans together.

To be fair, though, that's the draw of any MMORPG I try.

------
cm2012
WoW is a totally different experience if you play through it with your SO -
would recommend!

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adnzzzzZ
Here's a video that shares similar sentiments to the ones the author has:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvK8fua6O64](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvK8fua6O64)

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agibsonccc
Significant part of my childhood. 3.5 years. Did 16 hours a day for warlord in
classic. Leading 40 man raids and pvp groups was fun. I like the revamped
graphics. No time for games anymore though =/.

~~~
ivanca
There is going to be so much people expending their retirement years playing
video games (yeah, I know some already do, but it's still rare)

~~~
msabalau
At an MIT Game Lab conference, Christopher Weaver, the founder of Bethesda,
mentioned that they received a ton of registration cards for Morrowind from
elders, and it turned out that seniors with limited physical mobility were
using it to have an environment they could virtually navigate.

~~~
Blackthorn
Is this talk recorded? Morrowind is my favorite video game of all time and I
would love to watch this.

------
JosephHatfield
Been playing since the Beta, and still haven't found a game to take its place.

------
mbesto
WoW to me is like the movie Avatar. An age old story (EverQuest == Last of
Mohicans) rehashed in a polished (3D/visuals) experience that anyone can
enjoy.

~~~
reality_czech
They're similar in that they're both terrible things that are way too popular,
yes. But only one of them is "the Smurfs in space."

------
hartror
Site is down, anyone got it cached?

~~~
niravshah
Try this:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.raphkoster.com/2014/11/21/ten-
years-of-world-of-warcraft/&es_sm=119&strip=1)

