SWTOR Vs. WoW: Is It Really A Rivalry?
At a cursory glance, it would appear that Star Wars: The Old Republic and World of WarCraft were made to butt heads, just as Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, Lord of the Rings and so on did before them. What do these latter names all have in common? All came out of the gate looking pretty, all came out riding a large wave of hype (anyone familiar with the WoW forums has heard the phrase 'WoW killer' enough times in the past few years) and ALL of them failed to achieve the success that World of WarCraft has generated. Why?
The primary reason is simple: an incomplete product was pushed up against a complete one. For whatever reason, each of these games, in some manner or another, found itself positioned as a rival of WoW, either through their own marketing or through fans or both. Each of these games on paper should have no problem achieving a large audience. Conan is a name most people are familiar with, whether they've read the stories or not. Warhammer is a massive franchise that like Star Wars, spans multiple merchandising outlets. As for Lord of the Rings, the $3 billion dollar gross the film trilogy alone made worldwide speaks plainly. And what were they stacked up against? WarCraft, a franchise that a demonstratively lower amount of people are even familiar with, let alone a fan of. When looked at from this perspective, it's amazing WoW achieved even moderate success, in terms of brand recognition.
But World of WarCraft had an advantage that none of these rivals did: it was given the time to grow into a game that could become as enormously successful as it is. Any person who was around for the WoW beta will tell you that it was a drastically different game than the one that became a household name. Buggy, wildly unbalanced, graphically benign at best. But the potential was there: the interface was streamlined and completely intuitive, interface mods were made incredibly easy to manage and use, the quest system utilized a now standard exclamation point/question mark information system, and once you played it a little while, those cartoony graphics that seemed initially a little underwhelming became charming in their own way. And far more importantly, this style has allowed them to make a game that never looks dated and can run on even modestly powered computers, making their potential reachable audience much larger than any previous MMO had endeavored to touch. Here was an easy game to learn, that eased you into each aspect of the game, rather than dumping everything or even an overwhelming amount of information on you at once. World of WarCraft is a game a non-gamer can play. And since it was given the time to grow into this, the design achieved an audience Blizzard couldn't possibly have fathomed.
Fast forward in time to the launch date of any of the aforementioned MMOs. Every single one of them was not only expected to run great, be perfectly balanced, and look prettier than WoW, but to beat WoW at a genre it redefined. And is it any wonder this has not yet happened? While none of these games was truly a flash in the pan, all of them failed to achieve something that a little-known franchise did so perfectly. So how do you compete? What does that spell out for Star Wars: The Old Republic?
The picture is not grim if one looks at it from the proper perspective. This is not a rivalry in the same way that Warhammer Online or Conan was. Consider for a moment another MMO, one that has achieved giant success in the same market as WoW - EVE Online. And why, unlike the aforementioned, has EVE never been pressured to be a WoW killer? Because although it is technically a massively multiplayer online RPG, it is not competing with WoW to give you the same experience. Anyone who has played EVE can tell you this within five minutes of making a character, or rather, five minutes after the hour they spent making their character. The experience EVE presents is something entirely different, and for this reason, it can encapsulate an enormous audience and still thrive in a common market, as overlap, rather than competition, occurs between the two. A WoW player can also be an EVE player, with no stigma attached, something the other competition doesn't have the benefit of, and in the end this stigma truly marginalized the relevance of brand recognition WoW's rivals.
SWTOR's relationship to WoW looks to be similar. While it is also technically an MMORPG, it, like EVE, is not offering a competing experience. While WarCraft does have a story, no one in their right mind would call WoW a story-driven game. The game is focused on delivering two experiences: epic boss fights and epic PVP. While the events in game are occasionally interesting and the writing of WoW is certainly not poor, there are few if any players who seriously play the game for the story. On the other hand, look at Bioware. Their games are giant, critically acclaimed, and highly anticipated not because they deliver epic boss fights and epic PVP. This is their first foray even into this genre. Bioware games are huge because the writing, story arcs, and characters put most of the market to shame in terms of quality and memorability. People fell in love with Knights of the Old Republic because the characters were fleshed out and real, the story was intricate and well-delivered, and the experience as a whole brought more respect to the Star Wars universe. Bioware has always been a master of intellectually superior games that are still approachable. KOTOR was an engrossing drama that anyone could find themselves mesmerized by.
SWTOR seeks deliver that same experience on a massive scale. If Bioware's goal is realized to its full potential, this could be a view into Star Wars that no series of books or games or even films could rival, a true to the franchise, living, breathing depiction of a fictional universe, driven entirely by the stories and experiences of the individual player. SWTOR aims to be the approachable gap between WoW and EVE Online: it offers a fun, entertaining play experience, but will not fall prey to the "kill this, get gear to be able to kill this" formula that WoW has at its core and continually needs to distract from. It offers an intellectually stimulating story full of characters and won't require an encyclopedia of knowledge and an infinite amount of patience as EVE does. And since it offers a unique experience that neither game puts forth, it will be able to coexist with them in a market space, and have time to breathe and grow. It will offer a compelling reason for the subscribers of both games to give it a shot, something Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, and Warhammer Online did not have the advantage of and had to fight against from day one, and furthermore, it won't suffer from the same cultural stigma those previous games faced. People who bragged about moving over to Conan for example found themselves ridiculed and in some extreme cases, ostracized from guilds for announcing their intent and prematurely touting the game. SWTOR draws from a universe that has literally masses of fans worldwide, and Bioware is not positioning the game as a "WoW killer." This means that the brand recognition that Star Wars has will not go to waste, will not fall prey to the cultural nuances that its predecessors faced. In time, Bioware might find itself ironically as a hand in WoW's eventual, inevitable fall from the top, just as CCP Games will. As with the Roman Empire, it's going to be a variety of factors, and not one big rival, that is going to eventually topple the current king of the genre.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 12/17/2011 8:07:04 AMNice article. I will be sticking to wow in fact it's the only mmo I see mysel playing. Star wars for me I'm not a fan of the franchise and the fan like te ones before will fail after the initial few months. Wow got where it is with time and work I for one don't really wanna go though all that again with star wars lol the hacks, the glitches, the bots, the server lag, the lack of updates etc. I predict star wars will be free this time next year and behind wow. For me yes I see wow can become boring but I think for most if your bored of wow you will also soon become bored of star wars a lot sooner in fact it's such a similar concept.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 8/17/2011 3:15:04 PMA lot of us play WoW because we have been used to playing WoW for years now. It's the inherent familiarity with the game. It's almost like a second nature to log on to the game, run some dailies, run some instances and log of. We are so used to it, that playing WoW has almost become akin to watching TV.
The challenges of a new MMO is that it needs to force people away from this routine. It should be interesting and different enough to drag people away from their daily WoW routine. At the same time it should be easy to get into-- the casual player market is very important. The hardcore players will give the new MMO a fair chance. It's the casual who leave first and quickly go back to their known formula -- run dailies in WoW.
Why is a game like Cityville so successful? Simply because -- it's very easy to play. Nothing to learn, extremely social and everyone is a winner. So should SWTOR be as braindead as Cityville? No, it should not. An ideal MMO is one which is easy to get into but difficult to master. That's what they need to deliver. Anyone should be able to pick up the game and get immersed in it.
For the hardcore gamers, the difficult to master part will become important. That's where min-maxing will come in. And that's a whole different story.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 7/18/2011 12:37:55 AMIt's certainly been deliberately toted as the "WoW Killer" now. Leave it to EA to bite themselves in the butt! Though I must say, their confidence is invigorating considering they've got no swimming, sitting, or eating and have given no word yet on Cantinas having Pazaak or even barrels stocked to capacity with Blue Milk by launch. ;D You've got a lot of Moxie, Bioware. A lot of moxie... See you at Launch!
Get Smug or Die!
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 6/20/2011 2:55:41 AMWill it be challenging and fun enough to hold onto both the hardcore gamers & casual crowd? Gamers today have zero patience, the endgame must be complete(at least the first raid zone) at release or the bad press starts from there on out if the ADD types get bored.
'Story' The story will end eventually and for those who do not choose to have 4-5 alts....what's to do? PvP? What's there available to solo? Like it or not, a very large portion of people today choose not to group unless they magically get zoned into somewhere and have no choice.
In order to keep these types of gamers happy constant stories are required(i.e. updates) and they must come fast. A daunting task since the entire game is voiced...
FYI, this is one heck of a game.
It remains to be seen if this is going to be a good MMO.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 12/31/2009 4:29:14 PMIf SWTOR can evoke this kind of page truing experience in it’s players it will be a huge success, imagine how compelling it would be to be driven by story like this in a MMO.
What I imagine story to be like in SWTOR is much like in a book it will take you on a ride of many mini climaxes every few level where the last several choices you made will determine the outcome and rewards your character will receive.
If done correctly I think like WoW did a few years ago SWTOR will bring a new crowd of players to the character building MMO space.
The one problem I see happening is that Bioware doesn’t move the target far enough from the WoW format and sticks in a old school gear grinding end game, personally I think that would ruin the ride.
The only end game that makes sense to me for SWTOR would be something closer to LOTRO philosophy that there simply isn’t one. The LOTRO team pumps out expansions every 4 to 6 months.
I think if the core of your MMO is built on story then you got to keep pumping it out or the game in the end will have nothing that sets it apart. I realize the commitment they will have to make to keep fully VO’ed game updates coming on a regular bases but I think they got to do it if SWTOR is to have long term success.
Bioware has always excelled in evoking emotion in players through their story telling and in my opinion they have gotten better at it with each game Mass Effect was much better at doing this then KOTOR just with the addition of player VO’ed responses. I hope they take it to the next level in SWTOR.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 11/3/2009 1:05:31 AMAnd I don't think your 72 in WoW will be 72 forever. Soon you'll hit 80, and then get bored, and TOR will be waiting for you when that happens. :)
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 10/1/2009 11:27:59 PMLotRO is story-focused, with much more attention to the plot than WoW. Random quest chains have better narrative than WoW's most epic quest lines. TOR's focus on story will hardly be unique. TOR will have nothing but class-specific quests, but it won't be the first to focus on story.
Not to mention, I like LotRO's roleplayer friendliness and more mature community compared to WoW.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 10/1/2009 11:49:31 PMWoW is by no means a fluke; it's steadily gained ground in size and popularity since it was presented, and makes Blizzard millions of dollars every month. It has done so now for years. So I don't see how it qualifies as a fluke.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 10/2/2009 1:50:15 AMWoW is definitely a fluke. It's a single game that has 10 million players, all the non-WoW games in the market are still in the lower hundred thousands range. When one game alone has an absurdly high amount of players, that's a fluke in the MMO industry. If you wanna play the synonym game, try "the exception" of "a fluke".
Either way, it's far more realistic to talk about a successful game having 200,000 players than having 20 million. WoW is the only (monthly fee-based)MMO out there with numbers beyond a few hundred thousand, so it doesn't even count in realistic discussions of MMO numbers(otherwise you have to constantly preface every MMO population conversation with "...besides WoW"). In non-WoW terms, LotRO is doing quite well. When you only compare to WoW, you get all the people who never shut up about every MMO being the next WoW killer, because they see WoW as the only MMO in the market, when it's far from true.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 10/2/2009 2:06:35 AMTo say WoW is a fluke in this case I feel is foolish; it's clear from its subscriber base that this genre and this type of gaming has moved to another level. Just other games currently and historically are smaller by comparison does not mean that this is a flash in the pan; what it means (to me at least) is that gaming is becoming a lot more accepted by the mainstream. In the days of EQ, gamers were looked at as a subset of the population. That was the stereotype. And while it still exists, it's become clear in the past four years that there are a lot more gamers than just the kids who have high-end computers.
WoW is proof that there is a massive market to tap and that so far, for a variety of reasons, Blizz has a monopoly on that market. To say WoW doesn't count because it's such a runaway hit is, in my opinion, close-minded of what this genre can accomplish. Do I think SWTOR is going to hit subs in the millions right out of the gate? Certainly not. But it's pessimistic and I feel unrealistic to assume that such a feat is impossible. 20 million is a large number, and it's disingenuous to assume that if WoW went away tomorrow, all of those people would vanish from the marketplace with it. And there is no secret recipe that WoW has that no other MMO doesn't have, there's no trick Blizzard is doing that can't be replicated.
I suppose this boils down to two different visions of what the marketplace is like. Your take from what I understand of it is that the majority of WoW players are just playing WoW, meaning that Blizzard created a group that lives and dies with them. What I'm saying in essence is that Blizzard is the forerunner of a new era of gaming in society. And all those people that have shown up in this market are ripe for the taking. LOTRO failed to take a substantial chunk of them, or more accurately speaking, LOTRO has shown that at best it will be a component in WoW's sub dismantling and not a frontrunner.
There is a disconnect between what you and I consider successful, which is something I think I've clarified but maybe I haven't. I'm not talking about money. In terms of money, every single one of these games has been a success, even the ones that are about to fall off the map. They've made their money back and more so, absolutely undeniable, and LOTRO specifically is a powerhouse of cashflow. But WoW is the only game thusfar since EQ to be culturally successful as well, and the only difference between WoW and EQ is that the audience for this form of entertainment has vastly expanded, as computer technology has improved and normalized. The 20 million in my eyes is not a fluke, it's just the next step in a social gaming revolution. And that's why WoW is always going to be talked about, even after it is topped, because it's a history maker, too. Comparisons to it in its prime are inevitable, and no one will remember this era of MMO gaming for any other title more consistently.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 10/2/2009 3:13:43 AM- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 10/2/2009 3:11:19 AMOf course I'm bad at analogies, so you can probably easily tear that analogy apart.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 10/1/2009 2:31:00 PMIt's far to early to pass any sort of judgment on the degree of TORs future success (and there will be success), the potential is all sitting there, but so far TOR has not showed much to personally keep me subbed after I play though it. Story driven and fully voiced are getting old, I really hope Bioware aren't expecting to ride these points all the way to release to give them their edge, more things like space flight/combat/pvp might do the trick.
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 10/1/2009 12:38:51 AMAny ways so far swtor looks like it could take a big chunk of WoW players.. which I don't really care if it does or not as long as it's going to be an awesome game.. which it is!
- View User Profile
- View Posts
- Send Message
Posted 9/30/2009 3:51:25 PM