Theodoric wrote:
The Blizzard fanboi gaming media IMO have always been ridiculous in their coverage of this game. I honestly feel all the major gaming media outlets are owed a serious debt by Blizzard for helping estalish their fortunes.
I do agree that there is more to the success of WoW then the quality of the game, its kind of a phenomenon. I'm sure if Blizzard cancelled it and tried to relaunch it again it would never be the same sort of success even if the game was twice as good.
Saying that though I think from playing it the strength of the game are in
1) Its well designed storyline (or at least its great to play in the world), or at least it used to have one...
2) Having PVP integrated everywhere (battlegrounds are fun) even if the PvP is pretty badly implemented in comparison to other games.
3) The graphical style which looks comparatively good for the age of the game whereas other games that tried to be realistic at the same time tended to look artificial, being deliberately cartoonish I think was a strength for Blizzard at the start. This could also be the draw for younger players, I guess it does help even if it dooms a lot of the population to being awful to group with :P Now though its five years later and games can run looking realistic and give a credible world, Blizzard are catering to the 8-12 market hard so I think they realise this.
I think now #3 though is starting to act against it and I think Blizzard know it, they are slowly upgrading things but I wonder if someone can take their crown away, they are also running out of #1 too since they have been killing off major characters in the story they built up over warcraft #1 to #3. For me #1 is the most important part of a MMO.
