From a comment on Tobold’s excellent post about the tank shortage in the World of Warcraft (or more accurately, the Protection-spec’d Warrior shortage):
I’ve been playing WOW for 2+ years now and everytime I see pvp hurt pve, it makes me wish there was a viable pve alternative to WOW.
I happen to think there are plenty of viable PvE alternatives to WoW. Not least among them EQ2, but also LotRO (the breakout MMO of 2007, by anyone’s definition viable), Pirates of the Burning Sea, FFXI Online and literally hundreds of smaller MMOs, most of them free to play, most of them with very dedicated and helpful player bases. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Vanguard these days.
It’s not that there aren’t viable alternatives to WoW. It’s that WoW has become a game so unusual and disconnected from normal gameplay that the MMOs that have proceeded among more normal paths seem bizarre to those who have played no other games.
Reading Tobold’s blog is like glimpsing an alien world (and I have played WoW). Grinding badges? Vending-machine epics? Honor as a currency? Doing highly repetitive activities for vague reasons? In essence and as far as I can see, removing the entire adventure component of the game?
WoW started as a very normal game — like EQ and DAoC with all the boring bits removed, and lots of help, no choices to make, very easy and casual and cartoony and really, nothing but fun. I really, really enjoyed my time in WoW, and I met a lot of really good people and a few jerks. So don’t call me a WoW-hater because I am not.
But somehow, somewhere, it got twisted. The fun bits were replaced with a race to the grind. Maybe because I haven’t played since before BC came out (I left when AQ was opening), that I just am not hearing about the fun, but I have several WoW blogs in my feed and am just distressed at what I read. People do this — voluntarily? The only ones who seem to be having fun are the ones that are going counter to the current direction of the game — the ones who are leveling slowly and hitting all the old content, as outdated as it may be.
What will they do when they finally hit the level cap?
It was these cries from WoW players for a viable alternative in the face of MANY real, viable alternatives that they blithely dismiss that was the basis for the post I made wondering if WAR would finally be the game that could wean people from their unhealthy obsession with WoW — a game that was supposed to be a haven for casual players who just wanted to have some quick fun, but has become exactly the sort of behemoth for which it was once the best alternative.
If there’s any overriding purpose to my blog, it’s to show that the other alternatives are damn fun in their own rights.
You CAN leave WoW. But you can’t go blindly into a game, kill ten rats and declare it boring. That won’t work. You can’t do any MMO truly alone. Seek out the community, join a guild and ask questions and get an idea of what the game means to those who love it. Then you’ll get a real sense for it. And then, maybe, you’ll find there are viable alternatives to WoW.
Filter or no filter… we shall see.
Great post Tipa, especially the ‘WoW is an alien world’ bit. So very true. The things WoW-only players accept (badges, honor, rep) is truly crazy. I’m actually very much looking forward to returning to LoTRO once my gf and I hit the cap in WoW and see the 5 mans once or twice. Going back to LoTRO and finishing that game to the cap will seem so fresh.
And then of course the god of all MMOs will be out and I can finally get back to non e-sport PvP 🙂
It was because of blogs like this one and all the great podcasts out there that I recently renewed my station pass subscription. I played EQ2 at launch and it just didnt do it for me. Not only did the game run at roughly 3 FPS in cities, but I just hated how the adventuring areas were semi-instanced. Just knowing that there were 7 copies of the area I was in, all with players running around in them broke the illusion for me. I left, got WoW, played for a couple years and now I am back into EQ2. I cannot believe what a tremendous job they have done in fixing this game. I love it.
However, for now my heart lies with vanguard. I know that there is so much wrong with it, but I adore the game. I truly want vanguard to succeed. In the past couple months I have played both EQ2 and vanguard side by side. I am a level 29 Fury, going on 30 in EQ2 and I am a level 16 ranger ( level 15 weaponsmith too ) in vanguard. Its a tough call, but I think vanguard is just more interesting right now. Maybe its like getting to play around in a train wreck and knowing that this world might not be around forever.
Either way, if you are wanting something different from WoW, its criminal to not give these two games a go. I’m sure that warhammer will be great, but I just don’t see it providing gamers like me with anything that WoW doesn’t already provide. If I wanted to play WoW, Id play WoW. I could be wrong though. I don’t exactly follow every little bit of news that comes out about warhammer.
Hi there, long time reader first time commenter. I gotta say the grind in WoW has always been there. Looking at pre-tbc here, once you hit 60 the game completely changed. Rep farming, instance farming, mat farming, honor grinding, all heavilly emphasized in wow’s end game. Technically doing raid content is a job in repetition as well, it can take weeks to months for a guild to conquer a raid dungeon, which means they go in constantly fighting the same mobs and bosses.
WoW is synonymous with repetition, and for some strange reason it keeps 10 million of us playing.
@ Rob,
You are both right and wrong. EQ2 and Vanguard absolutely do offer viable alternatives to WoW, and Tarkheena and I are both examples of finding a happier home back in EQ2 after leaving WoW. I can’t personally play Vanguard mostly because I was probably too close to the train wreck on that one and it’s frankly too heartbreaking for me to commit any time to it. I did a write up about a month or two ago on my blog about trying it out again, and for me the spark just isn’t there.
As far as the WoW/WAR comparison goes. I know the art styles are similar, but those two games couldn’t be much more different. Now as to whether or not it’s going to offer you, personally, a viable alternative is something you will have to find out for yourself. My suggestion is to do just that. Don’t discount it because they look similar. MMO beauty is definitely much more than skin deep.
@ Tipa-
Great post. You know I don’t always agree with you, but I think that WoW is particularly in danger of becoming a shadow of itself, game wise, with the next expansion. More grinding, more odd mechanics, more racing to the cap to languish in instances. Great stuff, thanks.
Despite some moaning and whining in my blog, I’m having a blast in WoW.
What am I going to do at the level cap? good question.
I’m sure I’ll start doing more PvP Battlegrounds. I’ll solo instances that I wasn’t able to do because I couldn’t find a PuG.
I’ll probably explore everywhere I haven’t been, or blew through too fast.
And, it would be nice to raid. I hope I can do that.
I’m not sure if any game can have an endgame that is compelling to 100% of the playerbase… but I’m pretty happy with WoW so far. And if level 70 sucks? I’ve got 8 more classes to play and learn. I’m already itching to play a healer.
Lots of people I really respect are enjoying Vanguard. It definitely has a unique feel. I’m glad you’re giving it a shot. It had such potential, and the only way for it to reach that potential is for players like yourself to keep guiding it to greatness.
I think many WoW players are too quick to dismiss EQ2 and more recent games based on misinformation on how the games currently are. I understand that it’s not possible to try EVERY MMO out there, and if you’re having fun in WoW, maybe there’s no reason to. But someone who says they can’t leave WoW because there are ‘no viable alternatives’ isn’t even giving the other games a chance.
Maybe what they’re really saying is, all my friends play WoW, and I can’t leave them. Since playing with friends is pretty much the best reason to play any MMO, it’s hard to say they’re wrong to want to stay with them, but that’s no reason not to acknowledge that other games may well be as fun as WoW to the people who play them — and maybe they’d have fun too.
I’m playing WoW because of my friends.
I played Guild Wars because it was ‘free’, was PvP oriented, and my friends. I felt that I’d play it forever, but the Guild Wars community is two-tone… ultra serious, ultra competitive PvP guilds that are in to win at all costs, and a bunch of random jerks that make every mission or arena a nightmare. I’m ok with the ultra-competitve, I simply couldn’t put in enough time to qualify. Which left me with the jerks. Once my friends stopped playing, I never played GW again.
When I started playing WoW, my only reason to play was to hang out with friends… that’s why I’m on a West Coast PvE server playing Alliance. If I had chosen to play WoW for the sake of playing WoW, I’d be Horde on a PvP server, with an alt on a RPPvP server. I’ve actually made alts on PvP and RPPvP servers, but with no friends on them, and so much to do on my main, I never play them, so my Orc Rogue and Blood Elf Paladin languish, while my Human Warlock quests, grinds, and chats in /guild all night.
Warhammer will tempt me, with its world pvp focus… but I’m not sure i’ll do more than play the trial, as unless I’ve got a community there with me, WoW will trump it.
The problem isn’t so much that there are no alternatives to WoW, but it’s that there are no games that feel like WoW. I’ve talked about the quick, visceral feel of WoW’s combat a number of times, and I really don’t feel like there’s any game where my characters move as smoothly or have the same flow in a fight as WoW. That’s just my personal opinion, based on the various games I’ve played, but there it is. WoW is fun for me because it just feels good to play it when fighting, jumping, and moving.
Plus they have the whole addictive inventory management stuff down pat.
I joined a guild 8 years ago (omg!) on Tarew Marr on EQ1 – based on knowing the mother of one of the players in the newly formed guild. Really, it was a case of not having a reason to say no.
I’m still in that guild – which is now a few hundred members but only 50-100 actually active at any time. We are currently split across EQ1, EQ2, WoW and LotRO (no one left on Vanguard) and it is such a part of my gaming that when I read about your search for a guild, I honestly felt at a loss, it’s just something I have zero experience with. I suspect that this colours my gaming experience to a huge degree – I’ve never joined a new MMORPG and been alone. We’re not (currently) raidworthy on EQ2 but we have been before and I’m happy that if the game lasts, we will be again. If not, well, then it’s on to the next one.
My EQ1 guild tried to diversify but it was too late. For years they refused to acknowledge other games existed, and chose to shut out anyone who went elsewhere — not only WoW, but DAoC, LotRO, Vanguard and EQ2. Because they wanted to be a viable raid guild in EQ1 for as long as possible, and in doing so, they destroyed their own community. When they in the end decided to restart the guild in WoW, the EQ1 contingent left for other guilds and in the end, WoW wasn’t EQ enough for a lot of people and as a result, a community has been destroyed.
Spreading your community over several games — and this is important, valuing the PLAYER above the CHARACTER — keeps it alive and lets people explore and find their own favorite game without feeling that by doing so they will lose all their friends.
I miss Crimson Eternity and its members terribly, but since CE couldn’t lose its EQ1 focus in time, when I decided to play here full time, I had to say goodbye to all of them.
WoW was fun until I hit the level cap and then I became bored almost instantly. EQ2 held my interest for months after hitting the cap (quest whoring I guess) but now it’s time for a break again. I fired up a 10 day WoW trial the other day just to see if I wanted to play it again, but it barely held my interest for an hour. If only I could still cram in 4+ hour gaming sessions I’d go back to EQ1, it’s still the king in my mind, but with a wife/kid/self employed, gaming is a luxory now instead of a way of life. WoW is really just a minor distraction on the gaming highway.
There is a “winner takes all” factor at play here. The massive subscription base of WOW means that Blizzard have more money than anyone else to produce high quality content. It also means that WOW has the biggest richest and most diverse community of any mmorpg with fansites / blogs / online resources and so on. These factors help to further strengthen WOWs position and it becomes a vicious (or virtuous depending on your viewpoint) cycle. I am still playing Lotro and for me its a bonus that the community is smaller ( and to my mind more mature) but it can be difficult to find information because the number of fan resources is quite small.
By the way Tipa – What has this post got to do with it’s title?
Second to last paragraph is the exciting answer to that question!
Ooops…apologies I missed that on my first read through.
Seriously Tipa is that true? Is there some kind of WOW issue going on behind the scenes that is “the overriding purpose” to your blog?
Wow these comments have been going in every which way. I guess its refreshing considering there are like 10 million wow zombies shambling across the MMO countryside right now.
I played warcraft for 2 years. I have 3 level 70s, tank, healer and dps. But I haven’t played in 3 months now, and my account has been canceled for 3 weeks or so.
I was an EQ fanboy and I wanted to hate wow when it came out. I started playing EQ2 along with wife and about half a dozen real life friends, but that game just didn’t do it for me. It was just too hard, you couldn’t do anything on your own, wandering mobs in the desert would be linked in groups of 2 or 3 that would promise death if you happened to agro one. The houses were gimmicky, and that whole find-me-in-my-house auction system got old quick.
I stopped playing MMOs altogether for about 5-6 months. I had heard from a couple friends that world of warcraft was shaping up to be a pretty good game. My friend let me borrow his wow account for a few days. I made a dwarf paladin and was instantly hooked. The world looked good, my character looked cool and had cool abilities and spells, and I was quickly roped into the point A to point B quest grinding mechanic–all done while soloing! It was a breath of fresh air just to able to wander around loch modan without being forced to group to advance. I soon got my wife sucked into it too (who incidentally had gone back to her raiding cleric on EQ1 at the time).
So fast forward to couple months ago, I have three level 70s, did the pre-tbc raiding gauntlet up thru BWL, the TBC grind and starting to make progress into TBC raiding when I decided I had just had enough. I suddenly started wondering why I was still playing when I didn’t enjoy it anymore. For epic items? As soon as the next expansion hit we’ll be finding level 72 greens better than BT gear. For friends? Most of them just seemed to want more to fill a group slot with solid skills than because they liked me.
Then they started up with the “Dailies.” Daily quests. Seriously. They expect us to pay money every month to do the same quests day in and day out, for weeks at a time to grind out some achievement. It boggled my mind. I thought who, besides the ultra hardcore lifeless 38-still-live-with-mom crowd would possibly embrace this? Then everybody I knew, including wifey, just started tearing into them like a starving wolf into a steak. I was literally disgusted. I thought, for what? A netherdrake mount? The same one that everybody has? Including that guy “Simonpeter” who was like the biggest retard in our old guild but apparently has the patience to repeat the same quests every day for 6 weeks to get what you want?
It was ludicrous! I felt like I was in some twilight zone episode and I was surrounded by pod people. I had to get out. I tried playing EQ2 again, couldn’t bear it, just too boring. I’m playing Vanguard right now, but even that is only a temporary home. The wife started playing LOTRO on non-raid nights but still can’t stop suckling the wow teat just yet. Every time she bitches about guild drama or something stupid like that I just ask “Why you still playing it if you don’t like it?”
I guess on the horizon I am looking forward to Conan, just because I’ve always wanted to see a diablo like dark fantasy MMO and I think thats as close as we’re going to get for awhile. Until then I’m playing through all the awesome non-MMO games of the last 2 years that I missed because I was stuck in Azeroth, and poking around Vanguard at my own comfortable pace.
Well, I was a WoW player when I started the blog. The early bits are all about my adventures in the World of Warcraft. So I suppose you could think of this as the blog of a reformed WoW player. But as I mentioned in the post, the purpose of my blog is to show that MMOs are actually fun games, in which you can have fun, meet new friends, and in general, aren’t a complete, joyless waste of your life.
I wouldn’t call my blog a reaction against WoW so much as a reaction against the feeling that there are no other worthwhile games aside from WoW. I very, very much disagree with the feelings of the commenter I highlighted at the start of the post.
PS: I’d love to hop on LOTRO and try it out with my wife, but she won’t let me. We’ve been playing MMOs together since EQ1 in 1999 but she says I’m too much of a slave-driver during the level grind, and wants to play 1 game by herself for once. Sheesh!
@Captain Angry — if I renamed my blog “Pissed Off Gamer”, would I get on your blogroll?
No need, I added you today 🙂 What do I have to do to get on yours, say that EQ2 is not “too brown?”
lol… that works 🙂
I usually add blogs that link to mine, are fun to read, and have been around at least a couple of months. So yours was headed to the blog roll anyway. In fact I need to go through my feeds and start adding more to the blog roll.
My friends are all hooked on the cartoony character models of World of Warcraft. They like the exaggerated and dangerous looking weapons and the unique feel the artwork has when compared to other fantasy MMOs. I’ve gotten them to try LOTR and EQ2 but both times nothing stood out enough from other MMOs we’ve played to make them want to switch. I think I would have had more luck getting them into EQ2 if they got a trial for the new Kunark expansion instead of the Play the Fae one.
I know for sure they will all switch to Warhammer because of it being PvP oriented and having the same type of models. Champions Online with its cell shaded art also might pick up their interest.
You should make them try Dungeon Runners 🙂
They’re pretty much not moving until Warhammer comes out now. I’m playing Tabula Rasa with one of them but we’re afraid the servers might go the way of Auto Assault soon.
Also why no blogroll love? Think I’ve had you listed since you sold me on trying the ruins of kunark expansion.
An oversight! Feel free to poke me if I forget anyone. I have everyone’s blogs in my feed and I forget to put the ones I like in my blogroll.
Tip/Relmstein: Forget dungeon runners, I’ve tried that, Mythos is 10 times better.
I have both installed, and DR looks way more like WoW 🙂
Both games are a little too casual for me.
Talk about coming late to this conversation……ouch…
This has probably been the most comments in one post since I have been coming here…Guess talking about WoW or WAR or AoC (all heavily commented) brings them in for sure…
What is odd is I have tried to go back to many games…Guild Wars, WoW, LOTRO…but, they just never feel right anymore..
My background story all revolves around almost quitting MMO’s after being such an addict…I could easily get 6-12 hours of my day into a game..Guild Wars and then WoW..
LOTRO finally became my last straw. I know it is a hit and all that, but this game is beyond repetitive and boring.
But…myself and my wife had just had it…it all felt the same..and LOTRO drove that home..
So, I switched to console, and single player games…yet, I did not feel committed to these…and just left gaming…
I watched TV…became a zombie…
Then one day I looked at my very expensive computer…gathering dust…then saw that Guild Wars icon…
Hey “It’s Free” I thought…won’t hurt to load it up..
Ooo..yea, I still got it I thought…having fun just killing stuff…
But, I got the been there done that feel..
I got a free trial for WoW TBC in email form…so, lets do this..
After hours of downloads and patches, I logged in…5 minutes after collecting 5 of this…I gave up…
WoW was still the same…
So…maybe I need new…so, I started many trials…and even went back to LOTRO to see all the changes…changes that still did not fix a less than satisfactory game..
Then there it was…EQ2…A free trial. I always remembered trying this game, and knowing how it sucked the life from my system…slow and clunky…bringing my old PC to it’s knee’s…
But, my new PC just ate it up…
I hate that clay look I thought…but, whats this…SOGA? Looks like Final Fantasy X style…which I liked (hated the MMO…lost 3 bucks on that trial)
So much to do, alts are worth a darn…guilds actually mean something here than just a big personal chat room…quests are interesting…and what is that? Voice overs? Unbelievable..Crafting that is cool to do…AA’s, HQ’s, Deities…
It has all the MMO conventions and mechanics…but has a little polish over those items…and additional little goodies you normally do not see…
And I can be casual, as I really want to keep my life….no major raids if I don’t want them…
I know this is wordy…but, it all boils down to what I saw with LOTRO, and what I see for future MMO’s…WoW has killed all creative thought in the MMO world…and everyone wants to be WoW..
Until one of these new MMO’s tries something new, I think this market will stagnate..
Hopefully someone will come up with the next big thing, that will make people feel that they will not have to use “leet” speak to describe what they are doing in the game…and can adventure once more…
Later
Well, they could make the Chuck Norris MMO. Everyone could be Chuck Norris, and round kick stuff to the Moon. Or round kick the Moon into STUFF.
That would empty WoW in a heartbeat.
After 18 mths of EQ2 I decided to put it to bed and try some other stuff. Tabula Rasa was disappointing, Pirates of the Burning Sea was boring. I picked up Vanguard nice and cheap and I have to say I’m having a ball. Great world, great classes, great community. Lots of grouping opportunities. Still plenty of crashes but nothing game breaking. Definately worth a try IMO.