Massively

True. You are absolutely correct, but I think that the 800lb. gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about is the idea that maybe MMO's simply CAN'T be better than WoW. Think about it...with all the time that passed since WoW's release, all the money that is there to be made, why haven't we seen something come out that was as good or better put together than what World of Warcraft is right now?

Are budget PC's holding us back? Is it the capacity of game servers? Is it just technology in general that keeps us from seeing a truly epic game that eclipses the popularity of the original Everquest and WoW or are the ideas just so poorly executed and budgets so tight? All of them? I mean, it flies in the face of conventional wisdom that after such a groundbreaking release you almost see a decline in the overall quality of products in the industry.

I'm sorry, but there's a story here and someone needs to write it. The idea that one company can rake in the money, and that after seeing their success everyone else either puts out a sub-par product that limps along or it crashes and burns horrifically is bordering on ludicrous. I really can't think of another industry where everyone and their brother are knocking themselves out to get a product to market only to fall victim to the same cycle of, "Meh, it's decent."

L2? Fun. Could have used a lot more time.

AoC? Fun. Could have used a lot more time.

SWG? Pretty cool. Could have used a lot more time.

You'd think that with all these people spending the better part of a decade and either tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in development we'd have waaaaay more to show for it than a dinosaur graveyard of titles, some grey areas, and WoW. It just doesn't make any sense considering how fast the rest of the gaming industry is to top the competition in regard to non-MMO titles.

I would agree with pretty much everything there. The problem is that MMO's are pretty much the most difficult, time consuming and money consuming games you can imagine, and they are an extremely daunting task to undertake. Most developers don't have the neigh endless amounts of resources at their disposal like Blizzard does, and they are under constant pressure to release a product that is engaging and different.

I would probably slate Star Wars Galaxies as the best example of this, especially since it had the benefit of being released in a pre-WoW, pre-high standards market. The game was an ENORMOUSLY grand undertaking and it fell short in a lot of areas. The crafting system shined and only got better with time, while combat was almost punishing due to "flavor of the month" builds every time a new patch came out. Once Jedi were released everyone and their dog got their hands on it, then the combat revamp...then there went the game.

Age of Conan now, coming out post-WoW, had extremely high expectations as well...too high. They shot for the moon and shot for a deadline at the same time and that methodology just doesn't work. When WoW was released it had very little high end content, but leveling for the most part was engaging and end game dungeons were slowly patched in over time. That is something that SHOULD have been done with AoC, as opposed to trying to jam everything, just to say they had it. The result was of course...most things didn't work. This causes a worse reaction then launching without content in the first place, as players can see it, even engage in it, but finding it to be incredibly lacking.

I commend Funcom on rigorously trying to fix all of AoC's issues, but it's a slow process and is something that really isn't suited to being done after launch, considering the scale of the problems. Couple this with the fact that they (whether intentionally or not) shot for the WoW crowd...mainly because WoW is almost synonymous with MMO, and the game had MUCH MUCH higher system requirements than most players were used to. It's a different style so that was required, but it's a hard thing to soak up when you're psyched to jump in and you get a product with intense graphics and intense memory leaks.

At the end of the day thought, all the games you mentioned and more are still around, so who's to say they aren't successful in some light?

Oh? Then please tell us what MMO is SO much better as to make Araciba's post laughable? WoW may have SOME features that other MMO's do better, but there has yet to be one that blends everything with as much success. I would say that WoW is pretty close to being the best any MMO can get because most MMO's don't live long enough to see the same breadth of content added in.

Seriously

Just because WoW's been around and people find it easy to hate the big guy doesn't detract from the fact that WoW is the best right now, plain and simple.

I'd love something to definitively stand up to the polish that WoW has (and even had at release) - but nothing really has. Eve is an awesome game, and even that (while rewarding and engaging in very different ways) is nowhere near as fun to sit down and play as WoW is, years later (time which they've both had, at this point)

...and while your point about timing partially accurate, you're not giving Blizzard the credit they deserve for MAKING the timing. MAKING an MMO a mainstream game. It did this by being far beyond "middle of the road" as you say, WoW borrwed from, and refined a lot of ideas from previous MMOs, as well as work from their own library of Blizzard games (all of which had been great successes, and games in their own right: The Diablo and Warcraft series)

...and don't be shocked, with the experience and bankroll that they've gained from it, to see Blizzard's next MMO to keep the current cycle going - unless somebody can come up with at least an equal amount of polish AND some serious innovation.

To call it middle of the road is insulting to every development team that's worked on an MMO in the past 4 years that -would have- been far more successful in a world without WoW. The fact is it earned the title of the best, and is continuing to just ride that out.