WoW killed MMO? Thread

I read this article from Gameindustry.biz and I just wanted to share it:

It's about Mark Kern, a former team lead at Blizzard who talked about that Blizzard might have destroyed the MMO genre with making the game really easy, having the game holding the players hand through out the whole game and making levelling really easy and fast.

I'm sad WoW became what it's today, lets learn from this =)

article gamesindustry.biz/ articles/2013-07-01-red-5-studios-ceo-i-think-wow-killed-a-genre

I'd say that gaming in general is getting easier and easier as new games are released. The problem is that the current generation of gamers are lazy and will generally not play anything that requires much thought. I haven't played WoW so I'm not familiar with how much easier it has gotten. However being a console gamer I can say that most games there are getting ridiculous to some extent on how easy they are.

Halo 4 on Legendary, that's the hardest difficulty without any modifiers, was a walk in the park compared to Halo CE and Halo 2. The side mission co-op mode called Spartan Ops is pretty much for the blind. Most missions there give you unlimited lives so you could essentially just equip an automatic weapon, rubberband the trigger and go do something else and at some point you'll have completed the mission.

Games are getting easier and easier. The last thing that made me facepalm was CoD: Ghosts and their "auto jump" system implemented. If you run straight at a low wall your character will automatically jump over it. Another game that comes to mind is the Elder Scrolls series, I started with Morrowind, and I found that game incredibly difficult at times, but Oblivion was not in the same caliber, neither is Skyrim.

Same as above, gaming is too easy now. It's all QTE and tutorials and if you're still stuck then there are hints telling you what to do and where to go. MMOs are no different and WOW can't really be blamed.

WoW killed MMO's is a bad expression.
Bad game designers killed WoW is something I can agree on though.
I understand that they wanted to make money by making more of the content available to the casual players. Unfortunatly this lead to many hardcore, devout players leaving the game. I myself left it after killing Lich King 25man with my guild (this after 4+ years of experience with end-game raiding and high-ranked arenas/PVP). The game simply became way too easy and broken and it felt more like a job than an entertainment in the end.

The genre is far from dead but I think that the big glory days of MMO's have passed - but maybe there will be a second renaissance some day?

Edited by: Nightshade

I played around 2008-2011 and the reason why i played was because it was an EPIC touch added to the cinematics and the gameplay, it was fun to play back then.

But today i would never spend money on leveling a character and leaving it there waiting to be deleted.

I agree that the games becomes easier and easier, I'm looking at SC2 and expansion Heart of the Swarm, I played for the campaign and did it on Normal on both games, SC2 was good and I had problems time to time, but playing normal in Heart of the Swarm was just way to easy, not needing to think.

I totally agree regarding Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, it's such a different gaming experience, I loved playing Morrowind and they way the gameplay was. Skyrim is for me pretty close to what I want from Oblivion, still missing some things, thank you all modders for adding great item and making the game harder to play.

WoW killed MMO's is a bad expression.