Honorable mention to the soundtrack. Post your own here...10 is definitely too little for what this game brought to the table. Thanks for watching. Become a member for various perks, such as early access to videos: th-cam.com/channels/Ovz3kkYZtCTeXKdiuMG8eg.htmljoin
My top 10: 1. Continuing what WC3 started (I played WC2 and 1 first, but little of those made it into WoW, other than WC2 in WoD, there’s not even that much WC2 in TBC, especially for horde). 2. Best combination of veritical and horizontal progression for its time (IE you can progress to harder and harder difficulties -vertical- but there’s so much to explore at your leisure too! -horizontal-). 3. The social nature of it, teamspeak, vent, and discord brought a lot to it. 4. It’s cultural influence, eapecially at the time. It broke into the mainstream.
First time hearing stormwind's music : "Shit, that's fucking lit" 1000th's time hearing it : Colicere Salutare! Coa Praesto Matuere! Foriceno Ventu Safe! Fenlere Relari, Toli Celi Oa! Volare! [Deci Evare, Deci Evare! Deci Eleva, Deci Qutare Ma! Deci Evare, Deci Evare! Deci Eleva, Deci Qutare Ma! Oa, Oa Vera! Safa Irece Fere Fuco Hera Baci Cela Fara! Odessa Coiro Falecere Endico Odessa Acila! Falere Elsora, Fata Ma!
On the lore piece, Warcraft 3 was very successful and had a fantastic story. Having WoW continue where WC 3 left off attracted many players. The other things I would add are (1) sound design for literally everything from spell / ability noises, to crafting and gathering, to monsters (who can ever forget the murlock sound after hearing it once?); (2) loot taking effort to acquire and the best items being bind on equip except for a few exceptions; and (3) little incidental things like art design of icons for example. I don’t know why but even though all icons for everything in the game are exactly the same size and shape there is something very charming and attractive about them. They’re almost subliminal. It’s weird.
Fully agree. Seeing as I was really into the lore (played Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 a lot), the idea of walking around in that world, meeting the characters from prior games was and actually going through those areas was something I was really looking forward to!
This does it for me too, especially now. When I go through Dun Morogh or Ashenvale I always get that deep feeling of nostalgia and wanting to go back to childhood in order to experience it all again
I only heard it for the first time a couple of years ago but every time I hear it for some reason it brings me back to the 2000's playing WoW with my boys when that was all that mattered in life.
I am not even remotely ashamed to say that I was addicted to World of Warcraft between 2005-2007. The game was as close as you can get to digital heroin. It truly was an entirely new "world" to delve into, especially for socially disinclined teenagers such as myself at the time. The 2000s gaming experience was something different. One might say it was an age of gaming, before gaming broke through to the mainstream, and World of Warcraft was definetely a big part of that push.
I had lots of friends IRL in highschool and college, so Friday-Sunday, I would hang out with them, but Mon-Thurs I would hop onto WoW to play with my IG friends!
For sure. I literally had “jocks” from high school come join me on WoW because they heard of how fun of a game it was and thus began their own addiction lol
It wasn't called Warcrack back in the day without good reason. Hopelessly addicted from og Wrath to the end of WoD. And now I find myself once again addicted. This time to SoDcrack :)
@@AmongRevenants Haha, you and me both. Havent played for several expansions, but find myself loving SoD and getting back with the old gang for some raiding and ganking :)
Another thing to mention is that WoW released 1 year after the Lord of the Rings trilogy had wrapped up, so the fantasy genre was definitely on the public's radar in a big way at that time.
This is the true secret to WoW's success that 99% of "WoW killers" failed to grasp. Warcraft already had a huge existing playerbase of excited fans that'd been built up from three previous successful RTS games. Not to mention overlap with their other series like Diablo. This is how WoW had so much hype and hit the ground running with a dedicated playerbase. All the copy-cats just jumped right into releasing an MMO without finding a playerbase yet, so they inevitably died. It's no coincidence that the other big MMO today, Final Fantasy 14, also happens to be part of a long and venerated series.
Wow is the one game I’ve never been able to fully “quit”. Even when I stop playing for years at a time, I still watch content videos of it on TH-cam and Twitch. I don’t think it’s an addiction. I just accepted that it really is just that good. It’s objectively the greatest MMO of all time.
Same dude, quitted nearly 1,5 year ago but after seeing this video and hearing the nostalgic music and seeing the all-too familiar graphics im tempted to buy game time and go back again even though i feel it will get boring quickly
I think one major thing wow has over EVERY other mmo and one that constantly goes unnoticed/overlooked is movement, no other mmo comes close to how good wow feels with just moving your character around and the responiveness of it to the point that I'll play other mmo's move my character around and go "na this aint it brah" and log off.
FF14 has an extremely customizable set up and handles like a dream to me. I never struggled with movement in WoW either but I wouldn't say it was the best. It was exactly what I expected. No more, no less. It's something you don't really pay attention to unless it's not working like it should and then it becomes extremely irritating. WoW never made me think about it, which means it was good. FF14 had me struggle for a little while at the beginning but once I had everything set up how I wanted it, I never thought about it again. WoW was more intuitive, but FF14 was more personalized. Hard to say which is better, but both had me going through the game with everything set up exactly how I like it and I never had to give it another thought and that's all I can ask from any game, MMO or otherwise.
WoW has the best controls of any video game ever, not just MMOs. No other game compares. In WoW, you can always make your character do what you want them to do, controls never get in your way. No other game can say that
30 year old boomer here. I just want to emphasis how unique it was back then to have the ability to play together with your friends, without having to go to their place or vice versa. While ease of access and good game play surely are necessary to create a popular game, the Social component is what supercharged WOW in my opinion. *sips Monster energy zero ultra* Vanila and TBC were truly the best.
I think WoW was less social than the other popular MMORPGs because you weren’t forced to play with a party at all times. The social component was really important but it was actually making it less central to the gameplay that made WoW work.
Something that I always think about that really is WHY I got hooked when I was younger was how well designed the starting zones were. They're all so memorable. Between the music and simplicity of quests it's no wonder it immediately hooked me. And just immediately being able to explore what I thought was such a huge area was nuts. To this day the music sends me into a nostalgic, gut-wrenching spiral lol.
I remember being drawn in by the box art as a 14 year old nerd. I had played games with my dad and older brother, but never anything like WoW. 20 years later I can still remember that feeling of first entering Ironforge, or crossing the bridge into Stormwind. Thanks for the fine video, MadSeason!
Also, do not underestimate the fact that WoW came out in the wake of Lord of the Rings, which was and still is one of the largest fantasy franchises ever. LOTR undoubtedly helped heighten interest in the MMORPG genre at the time. People were hungry for fantasy adventures, and World of Warcraft provided an almost perfect outlet for these urges. I certainly know that this was the case for myself and loads of my friends.
It was so different at the time, even with the cartoony graphics. I came from SWG to WoW on release day, and gawd that was a nightmare in the UK, and was just so epic.
I didn't know it then but the years 2004-2011 were the best years of my life. I remember owning my own home going into the backyard with my iPod listening to the instance.
Hey, bro. You are a valuable member of this community and your content is among the top. Don’t leave us for a long time - there are tons of content waiting for you and your expertise. Give us more wow content, more Cata content
Luckiecharms here, took me 3 lockouts but I finally got ST cleared, thx for the group. :p Also great vid, big fan of your SW Galaxy vid too despite never playing
The music really is what gave the world its character imo. I was late to the party - joining shortly after Wrath launch, but I spent my first 2 days just... running around (often as a Wisp lol) through all of the zones - their size was insane to me, and the music is the perfect backdrop for running around exploring. It was the best thing ever. I envy those who witnessed those early days. True vanilla and its community must have been amazing (compared to today's community). Nostalrius was great, but I'll never know how different even that was in comparison.
The combat system is unparalleled still. A 20yr old engine is still superior to mmos in the last 5 years. No other mmo feels as responsive and has pvp that feels as clean even if PvP in retail hasn’t been great in a decade it still feels good to play at the end of the day
I remember one of the big reasons for me was being able to do a quest during a school lunch break. Prior to WoW, I played FF11, and in that game, it took literal hours to do anything. Heck, even using an airship from one city to another was a 15-20 minute ordeal. And you couldn't level up without finding a party. So back when I was in high school, I couldn't really do much in the game with an hour lunch break. Nor could I do anything in the morning. But WoW's single player-esq questing changed everything for me
Just wanna say thank you for the many years of quality content about WoW. Your content honestly enhanced my love for the game in ways that just made it feel great to be a WoW fan and learn more about the world through your videos. Even in the future with videos not about WoW, your quality and dedication is seriously admirable and appreciate what you do for the WoW and the TH-cam community as a whole. Thanks for another great one man 👍
You nailed it Madseason. I have tried a few times to explain to my friends what was happening to me between 2005 and 2007. I can get some of my thoughts out, but this video sums everything up so completely. Good content.
I hated WoW for so long. I was an EQ1 player from the beginning of the game, and when WoW was being developed my friends and I were shitting all over it. This game is gonna be for babies! Nothing can touch Everquest! Then WoW launched and most of them jumped ship to WoW, and I spent years aimlessly roaming from WoW killer to WoW killer. Just pissed that it killed my baby. Then I played it during Wrath leading up to Cata and realized "Oh, this game is actually pretty fucking great!" I then came to the realization that Everquest didn't die because of WoW. Everquest died because SOE fucking sucked, and was being lead by a guy who had no idea wtf he was doing. *cough* Dave Georgeson *cough* Terrible expacs had destroyed most of what made EQ great before WoW had even launched. LDoN for example. Now I can enjoy both retail and classic WoW, and fully appreciate it and its history. While EQ continues to exist in a stagnant limbo state that will never end, but will never get better.
Great memories of my time in WoW from 2004 to 2010, made great friends, had epic raid moments like the last remaining member of a 40person raid managing to stay alive and downing Ragnaros, taking to the skies for the first time with a flying mount. WoW I believe came at just the right time - fast internet (for those days) was just becoming available to consumers, and players who grew up playing Warcraft and already immersed in the world and lore.
For me, it was a friend showing me the vanilla wow cinematic. I was hooked. I had zero idea what I was doing. Did it matter? No. I was just happy to be part of "something" fun fact: for me the first viral wow video was the wow MacGyver one. Yes yes I am that old.
I just wanted to add that even now, two decades along if we look at the number of active subscribers it is STILL sitting at around 7mil. For a game that's this old that is a very rare setting.
i think that world design is right. There is something about wow and dark souls for instance where it's just totally striking contrasting areas that are just totally unexpected, idk why but it's super cool. I get the same experience while hiking and it's just something I love in video games. That for sure is one of the main reasons I love wow and dark souls and hiking. I wish I knew what this phenomenon was called, but it's something not many games are successful in achieving the fact there aren't load screens in both of them may play a key as well idk though.
Whenever I see a mad season production pop up it's an automatic like and engagement. Love you sir, thank you for the hours of bliss! Always got engagement for your videos!
Honestly, the social media point had never even occurred to me, and now that you pointed out, that is absolutely part of what made the original release lightning in a bottle. It truly was the perfect storm! The exact same game in the modern era (2019 classic) wouldn't and doesn't have the same effect, because that's not a novel concept anymore and we are all chronically online already
Loved this one as always man. I got into classic wow as a new player in TBC. I love it so much... You giving me history lessons on what it all used to be like is always great
A huge factor was that right before the release and during the release all of us were exposed to the popularity of fantasy entertainment like the Lord of the Rings Movies, Harry Potter, etc. This time was so enriched with fantasy that it was the perfect timing for all that fantasy to be played in an MMO that captured all of that perfectly
I started right before TBC came out, I started a night elf Druid and running around Teldrassil with the amazing music killing monsters and waving and chatting with random players had me hooked. I spent about 3 years playing on average about 10 hours a day. My record was actually 37 straight hours playing with my buddy trying to get better pvp gear. Ahhh the good ole days
I remember being on my rogue in 2004 and getting my first green item, a +1 agi dagger, that feeling of excitement in that moment made me know I’d be playing a lot of this game
Probably the biggest is the way people played games back in the 2000s. People did things for minimal reward because it was there and the experience itself was worth it. WoW was one giant experience with usually minimal rewards that was still above and beyond the norm at the time. Exploring the world and seeing the dungeons was super fucking cool for the time.
2008. I was fresh from the uni, got my first serious job. I was curious about WoW before, but didn’t want to play it as I felt that I might get addicted to the game. I downloaded the free trial version and started playing as a Night Elf Druid. The experience was horrible as I had no idea what I was doing, but I got hooked. With a bunch of other guys I met online I made it up to Zul’Farak and then we lost all contact, perhaps they quit. Just three days into trial I already bought the Battlechest and started reading the guide from Brady Games that came with it. Looking back, it was a piece of crap, but I didn’t know better at the time. By the time Wrath released, I already had some idea what I was doing in the game as I leveled a second character, Shadow Priest. I was a laughing stock pre-Wrath patch and even got invited to a single Kara raid as a battery. Even in dungeons people were telling me that I should stick to healing and leave DPS to actual DD classes. Fast forward to ICC and I parse top-40 in the world without even trying to get into rankings. That was my high-point as I lost interest in the game right when Cata released. In almost 2.5 years that I have spent in WoW I had 1 year /played. I had no other life, lost my job, missed some crazy opportunities, lost my girlfriend (not because of WoW though), but I still felt that my life had a lot of meaningful things going in it. I don’t want to go back, but still feel nostalgic about WoW from time to time. It was a great experience, I met some nice people and had fun along the way, even though that fun eventually turned into a full-time job.
When they came out, MMO games used to be the social media that we used. I remember logging into Lineage 2 around lunch time just so I can chat with clannies. Then in WOW we were sharing stories from school before going questing or to dungeons.
I don’t remember how long it lasted, but I loved the days when the game was so difficult that people mostly only had one character, I actually recognized people in the cities and in the world that I had played with and interacted with before. Everyone didn’t have a dozen alts
@@madseasonshow My man! I literally was just playing through Chrono Trigger a few weeks ago for the millionth time haha! Timeless classic. Great games.
• I came from lineage 1 with a group of people. The fact that we could all play together doing the same thing at the same time was very helpful. Instances made the game playable. In lineage if you were not in the one Korean pledge (guild), you simply got killed if you tried to fight bosses or they were way too hard to even fight. XP loss on death & an insane grind were gone as well. • The reasons I play classic WoW instead of retail WoW are the same reasons that I played WoW in the first place. Non scripted, open world, different level monsters than me and mostly the ability to play an MMO as single player with other people around if needed or I feel like it. Gameplay mechanics (targetting, movement with mouse, ui, etc) were a big reason as well.
Been playing wow for 20 years now, since I was 7. Fishing for my dad, pet taming for him, taking over healing strat dead for my mom during supper prep. I've loved wow since it came out. I'm now one of those sweaty top 0.1% on retail, but watching this made me kind of emotional just looking back on the journey of it all. Thanks Madseason!
I really liked the video. I very much agree on your points of why WoW became so popular, but I don't know how I would rank them. I guess in no specific order. And I am very happy to hear that you are so motivated to make more content on the channel this year! Looking forward to it :)
My best friend kept bugging me to try WoW when TBC launched because he figured I'd like the game. So he sent me a 7 day trial link and I gave it a shot. Can't tell you how many days of sleep I lost or how many times I called off work because I got hooked. Still playing to this day and this video brought back so many great memories I've had over the years playing with random people I've met and made friends with in game. Crazy to think back on everything and all those old school videos brought back a lot of good laughs too. Awesome video man.
What i dont like about Retail is it looks so Barby Doll Plastic !! It doesnt have the Ruffness the Dirty Dark Vibe to it, its way to Flashy and Girly like it has to much Effects.. Way to much Lights and Lazer Beams and Mobs and Pets running around. you dont see your Character anymore in 3v3 Arena its so overflowen with useless Stuff.. Btw i miss old Recklessnes they went from Recklessnes giving you 70% Crit to 50% Crit and then to 20% Crit and took away the Red Effect it gave you wich looked unbelievable. I think its one of the best designed Dps Cooldown they ever made for Warriors and in the Game overall it looked so dope when you poped it and then Charged in and did insane Dmg for the Duration then in Legion they changed the Effect like they did with tons of Abilities and all it did was give you a Vrykul Symbol over your Head :D.. I mean come on Man what is that and the Rotations went from Wotlk-Mop awesome!!! To Legion being boring everything on a 1 Second Global Cooldown wich makes it realy slow and boring the Dmg overall became realy balanced you have no real Crits and you dont feel it when you Hit a Target like you felt it back in Cata,Mop etc.. You realy felt a Cimerashot hitting or a Mortalstrike or Overpower. you felt a Deepfrezze into Icelance Shatter its all gone its just stationary Dmg its just damage,damage,damge without any feeling. You dont realize why something is dying you just spamm Buttons until something is dead there is no real Setup atleast for most Classes its just going in throw out 1-2 CCs and hope something dies ..
I played Asheron's call for ~14 years. I loved the lore, the community, ease of access and it rolled out so many features that I still miss even after playing WoW. Asheron's call had a monthly patch that added new content, had two expansions and near the end, they had several patches that could have easily been their own expansion. It would have been around longer had Warner Brothers not bought the studio (Turbine Entertainment) for the LotR MMO IP rights. They shut down all of Turbine's other games after the acquisition. But to be fair, the subscription numbers dropped after WoW's release.
Honestly, this video feels sort of badly researched and like it's overreaching a bit. The bits about complicated stat point systems, etc., don't apply to some of your examples of early MMOs, for example, and neither does the "super complex systems" bit. The bit about community/social stuff is also interesting, because WoW was one of the notable MMOs to limit social interaction and the importance of it. You allude to this in your bit about sandbox vs. theme park, but I think the point could be connected much clearer: WoW has designed systems and limitations for things that would actually require social interaction in previous MMOs. They've gone much, much deeper into that where you don't even have to ask people things either because you can just scroll through a dungeon guide, etc., so they didn't really stop at limiting interaction between factions, not requiring social interaction for trading and so on. The social aspect is one of WoW's weakest, IMO, and I think you can tell if you're being honest with yourself while, for example, leveling in the game. People in WoW are almost afraid of talking to each other and helping each other out or just shooting the shit. That's not to even mention the lack/limitation of negative social interaction; you can't actually just fight people in the game, they have to either be on "the other side" and you're in a PvP zone or you have to duel. There is no sense outside of lore to have 2 factions so that half of the game is supposedly your allies (it's also not hard to see how they could expand into several factions lorewise). It's an incredibly boring and unimaginative way to structure a world, communities and conflict. Dividing the world based on lore takes away even more of the social aspect because legends in earlier MMOs were actual people who played the game, not trademarked lore characters representing the factions, handed down by the developers. You could talk to these legends, trade with them, get killed by them or better yet, kill them and become a legend. Real players building their own legend in their own community. The closest thing we have in WoW are Twitch streamers. It's notable that none of their legend was ever actually transmitted by players in the game, but rather by PvP leaderboards and Twitch streams. Guilds in Ultima Online were based entirely on who you wanted to be in a guild with. Just as you weren't ever "good" or "evil" (forced into one of two factions, or any faction at all), your guild could kill everyone if that's what you guys wanted to do, or you could declare war on a specific other guild if you want. If you want housing you can buy a house that exists in the open world. Maybe you make that your guild HQ and you put gargoyle statues outside, or maybe you have a beautiful garden. Maybe you all wear uniforms or all call yourselves "Apple" so as to make it a mystery who the members are. The amount of expression that is lacking in WoW when it comes to personal and guild identity can only really be understood if you realize that we had all of these ways of expressing identity in a social MMO setting in 98 or thereabouts (I don't know w. A good measure of how well social aspects are utilized in a MMO is this: Are the relationships you form with people based on general things or system-specific things? Someone is your raid leader because they lead the raids you go on. These are hyper-specific systems made by the developers. They are your leader if they lead you and the rest of your party across Azeroth in open-world PvP. This is not a specific system so much as it is a completely open and unguided adventure you go on. WoW overwhelmingly has the former in spades, but lacks general relationships being formed because it is a very bad vehicle for general social interaction. As an example of much more fluid relationships: In Ultima Online I once got scammed by a guy. I wanted to buy a house and this guy had come up with a way of making it seem like I was buying a house deed but I actually wasn't. Tough. I got to talking to the guy because I was fascinated. He taught me how to do several types of scams and then started mentoring me in how to kill other players. After some time we had a bit of a falling out so we started killing each other on sight. This guy was, in order: - Someone who scammed me - My mentor - My enemy The game never told us how to do any of these things and none of these relationships existed within some designed system, because it never had to. The fact that Ultima Online was a very good vehicle for social interaction is what motivated these types of relationships and the fluid motion between the states. Personally I see the most important reason my friends started playing WoW: It was the first MMO to be released after they got access to broadband/persistent connections, we all used to play WC3 and marketing was done well. It never occurred at all to any of my WoW playing friends that social aspects were done better in other games because they literally had never played any of them, exactly like 99% of WoW's player base. This comparison to other MMOs doesn't really make much sense because the players by and large weren't comparing anything. They were playing literally the only MMO they've ever known and what got them to the game was in most cases not some iteration on a previous concept, more quality-of-life improvements or anything of the sort. Having already played several MMOs by the time WoW was released I can say there was basically nothing particularly special about it except the world itself being what I had imagined from WC3, which was interesting enough for a playthrough of 0-57 at release. I think a lot of people who look back in videos like this either never actually played most/any of the other games they talk about and/or they post-construct a lot of seemingly good arguments for why WoW succeeded. The overview/chapters of videos like this look more like "Things I think are good about WoW" more than any serious look into why it succeeded. It might just be that you have to build a game franchise for 10 years with a generation-spanning fan base before you can actually build a popular MMO. Maybe you also have to make the entire market oblivious to already existing, better and more innovative MMOs too, I don't know. It certainly seemed a lot like that when WoW was released.
Always producing the best videos! You got some real talent that should not go unnoticed. Your video alone create nostalgia. Always a pleasure to watch another MadSeasonShow
I have so many fond memories of WoW back in the day. Never forget them. But as companies get bigger and suits come in it’s about shareholders and stock not the game and community as we’re reduced to retention numbers and stats. I’ve moved on to smaller companies to support and fund them with my money and hope the next awesome experience comes from there. Great video!
Madseason, you said before that some criticized you for your lack of music...well you really took it to em. Love your organization and well thought out edits. Also...the song at 10:00??? So familiar.
I've been trying to sum up these points myself over the last few months (while resisting the urge to dive back into these worlds). You couldn't have done a better job. Plus your Pandora's Box videos of WoW and SWG immortalize the heyday of these games so well. There will be nothing like these games ever again, and I'm glad I can go back to these videos and relive the feeling.
The main thing for me was W-pvp drama. Every day logging in was who ganked who? who killed whos e-gf while she was doing herbalism? Who tried to make an alt and rob the guild bank? Wow players are obnoxious and very bully-able, and the drama and ego death of losing a 3v1 because you are bad at pvp makes for so much content. I spent years dueling people and shit talking and causing drama for entertainment and it was the best time in WOW
I think you missed one big thing, and that's the horde vs alliance aspect. Warcraft put half of its players against the other half, indefinitely until mista of panda, and I think the fact that you were locked out of half of the content/experience and had a consistent pvp aspect that had many players choosing one side of the other in a die hard way. As a horde, there were days I would just love sneaking into stormwind and causing havoc. I hated the alliance. Next to the thrill of the arena, messing with the alliance was the best part of the game for me, and the "us vs them" aspect that having horde and alliance created was a one of a kind first in mmorpgs. They probably took/loved the red vs blue idea in halo, an aspect of halo that helped make it what it was. Bliz wasn't dumb lol, they used anything that was working for any games back then and made it work in Warcraft. Just my thought, I feel like that was huge and this video skipped it.
Back before WoW released, I had to stay in the hospital for over a year, almost died multiple times. My body was so broken, I couldn't do much. I discovered WoW in the worst time of my life and the game really saved me. Instead of living in total isolation, it made me feel like I belonged somewhere and had people to talk to. I don't play the game much anymore but I'll always be thankful.
classic wow is probably the best overall game i ever played its one of the few games where i remember so much from music to in-game items and just random stuff in 20 years i will still remember raid weapon names etc
Honorable mention to the soundtrack. Post your own here...10 is definitely too little for what this game brought to the table. Thanks for watching.
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I love you MadSeason❤❤❤
Some of the soundtrack has been decent. Grizzly Hills soundtrack encouraged me to permanently disable background music in the game.
I loved the WoD soundtrack.
My top 10:
1. Continuing what WC3 started (I played WC2 and 1 first, but little of those made it into WoW, other than WC2 in WoD, there’s not even that much WC2 in TBC, especially for horde).
2. Best combination of veritical and horizontal progression for its time (IE you can progress to harder and harder difficulties -vertical- but there’s so much to explore at your leisure too! -horizontal-).
3. The social nature of it, teamspeak, vent, and discord brought a lot to it.
4. It’s cultural influence, eapecially at the time. It broke into the mainstream.
Two things I would add: The music was incredible, and the existing lore with years of development.
First time hearing stormwind's music : "Shit, that's fucking lit"
1000th's time hearing it : Colicere Salutare! Coa Praesto Matuere! Foriceno Ventu Safe! Fenlere Relari, Toli Celi Oa! Volare! [Deci Evare, Deci Evare! Deci Eleva, Deci Qutare Ma! Deci Evare, Deci Evare! Deci Eleva, Deci Qutare Ma! Oa, Oa Vera! Safa Irece Fere Fuco Hera Baci Cela Fara! Odessa Coiro Falecere Endico Odessa Acila! Falere Elsora, Fata Ma!
With music in WoW, the standard is amazing and the heights are legendary!
I love the lore too! shoutout to Nobbel87
On the lore piece, Warcraft 3 was very successful and had a fantastic story. Having WoW continue where WC 3 left off attracted many players.
The other things I would add are (1) sound design for literally everything from spell / ability noises, to crafting and gathering, to monsters (who can ever forget the murlock sound after hearing it once?); (2) loot taking effort to acquire and the best items being bind on equip except for a few exceptions; and (3) little incidental things like art design of icons for example. I don’t know why but even though all icons for everything in the game are exactly the same size and shape there is something very charming and attractive about them. They’re almost subliminal. It’s weird.
The lore had less then 0.0001 percent of an effect. 99% of the playerbase cannot answer basic questions on it
Fully agree. Seeing as I was really into the lore (played Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 a lot), the idea of walking around in that world, meeting the characters from prior games was and actually going through those areas was something I was really looking forward to!
The music for me did something special. Especially the music surrounding the Lich King, and the nostalgia of Stormwind/Elwynn.
Westfall unlocks core nostalgiac memories for me
Grizzly Hills music just slaps. Fav zone in wotlk.
The music is one of the most important things for me when it comes to wow classic. I really liked TBC and WOTLK aswell. After that it went downhill.
This does it for me too, especially now. When I go through Dun Morogh or Ashenvale I always get that deep feeling of nostalgia and wanting to go back to childhood in order to experience it all again
For me it was Wailing Caves. That music can be found in various locations, great music.
That madseason intro is one of the greatest sounds one can experience in life
Seriously that will never fail to get me excited
I only heard it for the first time a couple of years ago but every time I hear it for some reason it brings me back to the 2000's playing WoW with my boys when that was all that mattered in life.
especially when it triggers the excitement of wow classic release :)
Bro Idk why but that intro feels soooo nostalgic and I can never get tired of it, such a masterpiece
I hit like as soon as the intro plays.
I am not even remotely ashamed to say that I was addicted to World of Warcraft between 2005-2007. The game was as close as you can get to digital heroin. It truly was an entirely new "world" to delve into, especially for socially disinclined teenagers such as myself at the time. The 2000s gaming experience was something different. One might say it was an age of gaming, before gaming broke through to the mainstream, and World of Warcraft was definetely a big part of that push.
100 percent. I still have contact with friends I made during those years. Man it was good times
I had lots of friends IRL in highschool and college, so Friday-Sunday, I would hang out with them, but Mon-Thurs I would hop onto WoW to play with my IG friends!
For sure. I literally had “jocks” from high school come join me on WoW because they heard of how fun of a game it was and thus began their own addiction lol
It wasn't called Warcrack back in the day without good reason. Hopelessly addicted from og Wrath to the end of WoD.
And now I find myself once again addicted. This time to SoDcrack :)
@@AmongRevenants Haha, you and me both. Havent played for several expansions, but find myself loving SoD and getting back with the old gang for some raiding and ganking :)
Another thing to mention is that WoW released 1 year after the Lord of the Rings trilogy had wrapped up, so the fantasy genre was definitely on the public's radar in a big way at that time.
It really was a perfect strom.
warcraft 3 was such a good game I feel that games reputation is a major reason why wow started off so well.
especially for wrath of the lich king
This is the true secret to WoW's success that 99% of "WoW killers" failed to grasp. Warcraft already had a huge existing playerbase of excited fans that'd been built up from three previous successful RTS games. Not to mention overlap with their other series like Diablo. This is how WoW had so much hype and hit the ground running with a dedicated playerbase.
All the copy-cats just jumped right into releasing an MMO without finding a playerbase yet, so they inevitably died.
It's no coincidence that the other big MMO today, Final Fantasy 14, also happens to be part of a long and venerated series.
Still is
I used to joke that WoW wasn't a game you played, it was a place you went to live. Great video! This is a good day now
It was a game that played you
@@t2d748 fr tho... when it first came out, my grades plummeted 😂
Wow is the one game I’ve never been able to fully “quit”. Even when I stop playing for years at a time, I still watch content videos of it on TH-cam and Twitch. I don’t think it’s an addiction. I just accepted that it really is just that good. It’s objectively the greatest MMO of all time.
I feel you, I've quit / came back like 50 times in the past 15-20 years. It's just that damn good
100% agree. Watching this video makes me want to play. I have too many responsibilities to have the time. But, I have the urge to play
Same dude, quitted nearly 1,5 year ago but after seeing this video and hearing the nostalgic music and seeing the all-too familiar graphics im tempted to buy game time and go back again even though i feel it will get boring quickly
Haha, same boat as u dudes. Even though i am not playing I am still consuming wow content bc its the best
Its exactly the same for me. Havent played for real since 2015 and I still watch and enjoy these videos 😁
I think one major thing wow has over EVERY other mmo and one that constantly goes unnoticed/overlooked is movement, no other mmo comes close to how good wow feels with just moving your character around and the responiveness of it to the point that I'll play other mmo's move my character around and go "na this aint it brah" and log off.
I don't like this specific game but black desert has great/better movement right?
@@MrDutchmarshal BDO has some of the worst movement imo it's like trying to control a tank
FF14 has an extremely customizable set up and handles like a dream to me. I never struggled with movement in WoW either but I wouldn't say it was the best. It was exactly what I expected. No more, no less. It's something you don't really pay attention to unless it's not working like it should and then it becomes extremely irritating. WoW never made me think about it, which means it was good. FF14 had me struggle for a little while at the beginning but once I had everything set up how I wanted it, I never thought about it again.
WoW was more intuitive, but FF14 was more personalized. Hard to say which is better, but both had me going through the game with everything set up exactly how I like it and I never had to give it another thought and that's all I can ask from any game, MMO or otherwise.
WoW has the best controls of any video game ever, not just MMOs. No other game compares. In WoW, you can always make your character do what you want them to do, controls never get in your way. No other game can say that
30 year old boomer here.
I just want to emphasis how unique it was back then to have the ability to play together with your friends, without having to go to their place or vice versa. While ease of access and good game play surely are necessary to create a popular game, the Social component is what supercharged WOW in my opinion.
*sips Monster energy zero ultra* Vanila and TBC were truly the best.
The social component is what made it so special! It was brand new having an open world like that to connect and interact
30 year olds aren't boomers :p
@@Shruikin yeah lol, I was born in 2001, and he is only 9 years older than me.
I think WoW was less social than the other popular MMORPGs because you weren’t forced to play with a party at all times. The social component was really important but it was actually making it less central to the gameplay that made WoW work.
Lmao, why is the white monster such a boomer symbol?
Something that I always think about that really is WHY I got hooked when I was younger was how well designed the starting zones were. They're all so memorable. Between the music and simplicity of quests it's no wonder it immediately hooked me. And just immediately being able to explore what I thought was such a huge area was nuts. To this day the music sends me into a nostalgic, gut-wrenching spiral lol.
Another video idea: top 10 reasons why WoW lost its popularity
CHAD SEASON GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
That 8 bit Rammstein holy shit man, nice choice!
I remember being drawn in by the box art as a 14 year old nerd. I had played games with my dad and older brother, but never anything like WoW. 20 years later I can still remember that feeling of first entering Ironforge, or crossing the bridge into Stormwind. Thanks for the fine video, MadSeason!
Also, do not underestimate the fact that WoW came out in the wake of Lord of the Rings, which was and still is one of the largest fantasy franchises ever. LOTR undoubtedly helped heighten interest in the MMORPG genre at the time. People were hungry for fantasy adventures, and World of Warcraft provided an almost perfect outlet for these urges. I certainly know that this was the case for myself and loads of my friends.
I always thought a lot of the music benefited from that as well
It was so different at the time, even with the cartoony graphics. I came from SWG to WoW on release day, and gawd that was a nightmare in the UK, and was just so epic.
I didn't know it then but the years 2004-2011 were the best years of my life. I remember owning my own home going into the backyard with my iPod listening to the instance.
Mad season intro has a special place in my heart. Along with warcraft soundtrack...
The chorus from 16 bit version of Sonne hitting right as #9 showed up : 10/10
We love you MadSeason!
I met my wife back in 2007 on world of warcraft. 17 years later, stronger than ever together.
Hey, bro. You are a valuable member of this community and your content is among the top. Don’t leave us for a long time - there are tons of content waiting for you and your expertise.
Give us more wow content, more Cata content
all these years later and i will never get sick of WoW content about the old world
What an incredible way to kick off my morning. Thanks for doing what you do, Mad.
Luckiecharms here, took me 3 lockouts but I finally got ST cleared, thx for the group. :p
Also great vid, big fan of your SW Galaxy vid too despite never playing
Nice dude! Thanks, that video is actually my favorite on the channel
The music really is what gave the world its character imo. I was late to the party - joining shortly after Wrath launch, but I spent my first 2 days just... running around (often as a Wisp lol) through all of the zones - their size was insane to me, and the music is the perfect backdrop for running around exploring. It was the best thing ever. I envy those who witnessed those early days. True vanilla and its community must have been amazing (compared to today's community). Nostalrius was great, but I'll never know how different even that was in comparison.
One thing that attracted me to WoW was the fact that monster races weren't necessarily evil. That's still pretty rare even today in the fantasy genre.
The sound track , i still get chills when i hear elwyn forrest
Something important you missed in the gameplay section: WoW's snappy instant movement is the best feeling in the genre to this day, 20 years later.
100% agree with this, modern mmos still feel so clunky compared to wow. Its very off putting
The combat system is unparalleled still. A 20yr old engine is still superior to mmos in the last 5 years. No other mmo feels as responsive and has pvp that feels as clean even if PvP in retail hasn’t been great in a decade it still feels good to play at the end of the day
I remember one of the big reasons for me was being able to do a quest during a school lunch break.
Prior to WoW, I played FF11, and in that game, it took literal hours to do anything. Heck, even using an airship from one city to another was a 15-20 minute ordeal. And you couldn't level up without finding a party.
So back when I was in high school, I couldn't really do much in the game with an hour lunch break. Nor could I do anything in the morning.
But WoW's single player-esq questing changed everything for me
Cannot be emphasised enough how bad soloing in FF11 was
I'm so happy madseason is back. That intro music is so relaxing.
Still upset Everquest Has been all but forgotten, WoW would not exist without it.
You clicked the video for the intro, don’t lie.
I dont think anything goes harder than a madseason wow vid
Just wanna say thank you for the many years of quality content about WoW. Your content honestly enhanced my love for the game in ways that just made it feel great to be a WoW fan and learn more about the world through your videos. Even in the future with videos not about WoW, your quality and dedication is seriously admirable and appreciate what you do for the WoW and the TH-cam community as a whole.
Thanks for another great one man 👍
Surprised the MUSIC was not in there because holy shit when I was 13 and first entered Stormwind I nearly came in my pre-pubecent pants.
same
You nailed it Madseason. I have tried a few times to explain to my friends what was happening to me between 2005 and 2007. I can get some of my thoughts out, but this video sums everything up so completely. Good content.
as always, great video!
dont forget the music, remember the first time you entered stormwind and that epic music made you breathless
I hated WoW for so long. I was an EQ1 player from the beginning of the game, and when WoW was being developed my friends and I were shitting all over it. This game is gonna be for babies! Nothing can touch Everquest! Then WoW launched and most of them jumped ship to WoW, and I spent years aimlessly roaming from WoW killer to WoW killer. Just pissed that it killed my baby.
Then I played it during Wrath leading up to Cata and realized "Oh, this game is actually pretty fucking great!" I then came to the realization that Everquest didn't die because of WoW. Everquest died because SOE fucking sucked, and was being lead by a guy who had no idea wtf he was doing. *cough* Dave Georgeson *cough* Terrible expacs had destroyed most of what made EQ great before WoW had even launched. LDoN for example.
Now I can enjoy both retail and classic WoW, and fully appreciate it and its history. While EQ continues to exist in a stagnant limbo state that will never end, but will never get better.
Great memories of my time in WoW from 2004 to 2010, made great friends, had epic raid moments like the last remaining member of a 40person raid managing to stay alive and downing Ragnaros, taking to the skies for the first time with a flying mount. WoW I believe came at just the right time - fast internet (for those days) was just becoming available to consumers, and players who grew up playing Warcraft and already immersed in the world and lore.
For me, it was a friend showing me the vanilla wow cinematic. I was hooked. I had zero idea what I was doing. Did it matter? No. I was just happy to be part of "something" fun fact: for me the first viral wow video was the wow MacGyver one. Yes yes I am that old.
I just wanted to add that even now, two decades along if we look at the number of active subscribers it is STILL sitting at around 7mil. For a game that's this old that is a very rare setting.
i think that world design is right. There is something about wow and dark souls for instance where it's just totally striking contrasting areas that are just totally unexpected, idk why but it's super cool. I get the same experience while hiking and it's just something I love in video games. That for sure is one of the main reasons I love wow and dark souls and hiking. I wish I knew what this phenomenon was called, but it's something not many games are successful in achieving the fact there aren't load screens in both of them may play a key as well idk though.
MadSeason just keep recycling same video footage, just doing another narraition.
Don't watch it then, u have a choice, the rest of us will listen to his soft, gentle voice n snooze a little.
Totally dope, that you've used the factorio music. So calmly, just perfect
Damn…I miss 2005-07 so much. My life is still good and in some ways better but man, I’d love to spend just one month back in those times again.
I swear this is a re upload or something.
The Log in screen combined with the log in music during vanilla felt incredible.
mad season intro gives me serotonin
Whenever I see a mad season production pop up it's an automatic like and engagement.
Love you sir, thank you for the hours of bliss! Always got engagement for your videos!
World of Warcraft brought us MadseasonShow :)
Honestly, the social media point had never even occurred to me, and now that you pointed out, that is absolutely part of what made the original release lightning in a bottle. It truly was the perfect storm!
The exact same game in the modern era (2019 classic) wouldn't and doesn't have the same effect, because that's not a novel concept anymore and we are all chronically online already
Loved this one as always man. I got into classic wow as a new player in TBC. I love it so much... You giving me history lessons on what it all used to be like is always great
A huge factor was that right before the release and during the release all of us were exposed to the popularity of fantasy entertainment like the Lord of the Rings Movies, Harry Potter, etc. This time was so enriched with fantasy that it was the perfect timing for all that fantasy to be played in an MMO that captured all of that perfectly
South park was very very influential. I'm surprised you didn't mention it
great vid. as always... really enjoyed watching it
I started right before TBC came out, I started a night elf Druid and running around Teldrassil with the amazing music killing monsters and waving and chatting with random players had me hooked. I spent about 3 years playing on average about 10 hours a day. My record was actually 37 straight hours playing with my buddy trying to get better pvp gear. Ahhh the good ole days
i remember i played WoW because people would talk about it in Diablo 2 chat all the time.
Hey Madseason, not been able to catch you on Twitch for quite a while. Hope all is going well and you're enjoying SoD o/
Anyone else remember "How to Flame Leviathan"?
th-cam.com/video/s3lOr2AI5v4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=UkT7ISNmP4sjVlqB
Wow, great video and editing as usual. The nr 9 Addiction overlap with 8-bit sonne music with the news reporter, made me feel overwhelmed somehow ❤
LMAO you're still talking about WoW? Some people never move on lol
I remember being on my rogue in 2004 and getting my first green item, a +1 agi dagger, that feeling of excitement in that moment made me know I’d be playing a lot of this game
That midi version of Rammstein's Sonne at 3:18 was great, who does those?!
Good job including the EQ stuff. Enjoy your week,
It's funny a lot of people mention the music, I never played with the music always had my Linkin Park and metal music on
in my view , you should play all the zones at least once with the game music on, for about 30 minutes. I don;t want to hear that all day every day.
Thank you @madseasonshow for the new video. Keep them coming. Its awesome.
Now the World is addicted to a small screen in the palm of their hands.
Note how its became not is, I weep for what happened to this game.
Probably the biggest is the way people played games back in the 2000s. People did things for minimal reward because it was there and the experience itself was worth it. WoW was one giant experience with usually minimal rewards that was still above and beyond the norm at the time. Exploring the world and seeing the dungeons was super fucking cool for the time.
2008. I was fresh from the uni, got my first serious job. I was curious about WoW before, but didn’t want to play it as I felt that I might get addicted to the game.
I downloaded the free trial version and started playing as a Night Elf Druid. The experience was horrible as I had no idea what I was doing, but I got hooked. With a bunch of other guys I met online I made it up to Zul’Farak and then we lost all contact, perhaps they quit.
Just three days into trial I already bought the Battlechest and started reading the guide from Brady Games that came with it. Looking back, it was a piece of crap, but I didn’t know better at the time.
By the time Wrath released, I already had some idea what I was doing in the game as I leveled a second character, Shadow Priest. I was a laughing stock pre-Wrath patch and even got invited to a single Kara raid as a battery. Even in dungeons people were telling me that I should stick to healing and leave DPS to actual DD classes.
Fast forward to ICC and I parse top-40 in the world without even trying to get into rankings. That was my high-point as I lost interest in the game right when Cata released.
In almost 2.5 years that I have spent in WoW I had 1 year /played. I had no other life, lost my job, missed some crazy opportunities, lost my girlfriend (not because of WoW though), but I still felt that my life had a lot of meaningful things going in it.
I don’t want to go back, but still feel nostalgic about WoW from time to time. It was a great experience, I met some nice people and had fun along the way, even though that fun eventually turned into a full-time job.
this helps me contextualize not only why but also how wow succeeded so well
When they came out, MMO games used to be the social media that we used. I remember logging into Lineage 2 around lunch time just so I can chat with clannies. Then in WOW we were sharing stories from school before going questing or to dungeons.
The version of Rammstein’s Sonne is great :D
I don’t remember how long it lasted, but I loved the days when the game was so difficult that people mostly only had one character, I actually recognized people in the cities and in the world that I had played with and interacted with before. Everyone didn’t have a dozen alts
I love and listen to WoW music even today, long after I stopped playing. Mostly while working on some tasks I just love having it in the background.
3:45 FF6 and then Secret of Mana? I had no idea Madseason was so cultured and refined with such exquisite taste for RPGs.
RPGs were a big part of my childhood. I also loved Lufia 1/2, chrono trigger, all the FFs ofc, dark cloud, and then obviously WoW eventually lol
@@madseasonshow My man! I literally was just playing through Chrono Trigger a few weeks ago for the millionth time haha! Timeless classic. Great games.
• I came from lineage 1 with a group of people. The fact that we could all play together doing the same thing at the same time was very helpful. Instances made the game playable. In lineage if you were not in the one Korean pledge (guild), you simply got killed if you tried to fight bosses or they were way too hard to even fight. XP loss on death & an insane grind were gone as well.
• The reasons I play classic WoW instead of retail WoW are the same reasons that I played WoW in the first place. Non scripted, open world, different level monsters than me and mostly the ability to play an MMO as single player with other people around if needed or I feel like it. Gameplay mechanics (targetting, movement with mouse, ui, etc) were a big reason as well.
Been playing wow for 20 years now, since I was 7. Fishing for my dad, pet taming for him, taking over healing strat dead for my mom during supper prep. I've loved wow since it came out. I'm now one of those sweaty top 0.1% on retail, but watching this made me kind of emotional just looking back on the journey of it all. Thanks Madseason!
I really liked the video. I very much agree on your points of why WoW became so popular, but I don't know how I would rank them. I guess in no specific order. And I am very happy to hear that you are so motivated to make more content on the channel this year! Looking forward to it :)
My best friend kept bugging me to try WoW when TBC launched because he figured I'd like the game. So he sent me a 7 day trial link and I gave it a shot. Can't tell you how many days of sleep I lost or how many times I called off work because I got hooked. Still playing to this day and this video brought back so many great memories I've had over the years playing with random people I've met and made friends with in game. Crazy to think back on everything and all those old school videos brought back a lot of good laughs too. Awesome video man.
Voice is deeper holy shit, love the videos brother hope your doing well
What i dont like about Retail is it looks so Barby Doll Plastic !! It doesnt have the Ruffness the Dirty Dark Vibe to it, its way to Flashy and Girly like it has to much Effects.. Way to much Lights and Lazer Beams and Mobs and Pets running around. you dont see your Character anymore in 3v3 Arena its so overflowen with useless Stuff.. Btw i miss old Recklessnes they went from Recklessnes giving you 70% Crit to 50% Crit and then to 20% Crit and took away the Red Effect it gave you wich looked unbelievable. I think its one of the best designed Dps Cooldown they ever made for Warriors and in the Game overall it looked so dope when you poped it and then Charged in and did insane Dmg for the Duration then in Legion they changed the Effect like they did with tons of Abilities and all it did was give you a Vrykul Symbol over your Head :D.. I mean come on Man what is that and the Rotations went from Wotlk-Mop awesome!!! To Legion being boring everything on a 1 Second Global Cooldown wich makes it realy slow and boring the Dmg overall became realy balanced you have no real Crits and you dont feel it when you Hit a Target like you felt it back in Cata,Mop etc.. You realy felt a Cimerashot hitting or a Mortalstrike or Overpower. you felt a Deepfrezze into Icelance Shatter its all gone its just stationary Dmg its just damage,damage,damge without any feeling. You dont realize why something is dying you just spamm Buttons until something is dead there is no real Setup atleast for most Classes its just going in throw out 1-2 CCs and hope something dies ..
I was a big everquest enjoyer, its always cool watching your videos and your explanations on Wow since i never really played it.
I played Asheron's call for ~14 years. I loved the lore, the community, ease of access and it rolled out so many features that I still miss even after playing WoW. Asheron's call had a monthly patch that added new content, had two expansions and near the end, they had several patches that could have easily been their own expansion.
It would have been around longer had Warner Brothers not bought the studio (Turbine Entertainment) for the LotR MMO IP rights. They shut down all of Turbine's other games after the acquisition. But to be fair, the subscription numbers dropped after WoW's release.
Honestly, this video feels sort of badly researched and like it's overreaching a bit. The bits about complicated stat point systems, etc., don't apply to some of your examples of early MMOs, for example, and neither does the "super complex systems" bit.
The bit about community/social stuff is also interesting, because WoW was one of the notable MMOs to limit social interaction and the importance of it. You allude to this in your bit about sandbox vs. theme park, but I think the point could be connected much clearer: WoW has designed systems and limitations for things that would actually require social interaction in previous MMOs. They've gone much, much deeper into that where you don't even have to ask people things either because you can just scroll through a dungeon guide, etc., so they didn't really stop at limiting interaction between factions, not requiring social interaction for trading and so on.
The social aspect is one of WoW's weakest, IMO, and I think you can tell if you're being honest with yourself while, for example, leveling in the game. People in WoW are almost afraid of talking to each other and helping each other out or just shooting the shit. That's not to even mention the lack/limitation of negative social interaction; you can't actually just fight people in the game, they have to either be on "the other side" and you're in a PvP zone or you have to duel. There is no sense outside of lore to have 2 factions so that half of the game is supposedly your allies (it's also not hard to see how they could expand into several factions lorewise). It's an incredibly boring and unimaginative way to structure a world, communities and conflict.
Dividing the world based on lore takes away even more of the social aspect because legends in earlier MMOs were actual people who played the game, not trademarked lore characters representing the factions, handed down by the developers. You could talk to these legends, trade with them, get killed by them or better yet, kill them and become a legend. Real players building their own legend in their own community. The closest thing we have in WoW are Twitch streamers. It's notable that none of their legend was ever actually transmitted by players in the game, but rather by PvP leaderboards and Twitch streams.
Guilds in Ultima Online were based entirely on who you wanted to be in a guild with. Just as you weren't ever "good" or "evil" (forced into one of two factions, or any faction at all), your guild could kill everyone if that's what you guys wanted to do, or you could declare war on a specific other guild if you want. If you want housing you can buy a house that exists in the open world. Maybe you make that your guild HQ and you put gargoyle statues outside, or maybe you have a beautiful garden. Maybe you all wear uniforms or all call yourselves "Apple" so as to make it a mystery who the members are. The amount of expression that is lacking in WoW when it comes to personal and guild identity can only really be understood if you realize that we had all of these ways of expressing identity in a social MMO setting in 98 or thereabouts (I don't know w.
A good measure of how well social aspects are utilized in a MMO is this: Are the relationships you form with people based on general things or system-specific things? Someone is your raid leader because they lead the raids you go on. These are hyper-specific systems made by the developers. They are your leader if they lead you and the rest of your party across Azeroth in open-world PvP. This is not a specific system so much as it is a completely open and unguided adventure you go on. WoW overwhelmingly has the former in spades, but lacks general relationships being formed because it is a very bad vehicle for general social interaction.
As an example of much more fluid relationships:
In Ultima Online I once got scammed by a guy. I wanted to buy a house and this guy had come up with a way of making it seem like I was buying a house deed but I actually wasn't. Tough. I got to talking to the guy because I was fascinated. He taught me how to do several types of scams and then started mentoring me in how to kill other players. After some time we had a bit of a falling out so we started killing each other on sight. This guy was, in order:
- Someone who scammed me
- My mentor
- My enemy
The game never told us how to do any of these things and none of these relationships existed within some designed system, because it never had to. The fact that Ultima Online was a very good vehicle for social interaction is what motivated these types of relationships and the fluid motion between the states.
Personally I see the most important reason my friends started playing WoW: It was the first MMO to be released after they got access to broadband/persistent connections, we all used to play WC3 and marketing was done well. It never occurred at all to any of my WoW playing friends that social aspects were done better in other games because they literally had never played any of them, exactly like 99% of WoW's player base. This comparison to other MMOs doesn't really make much sense because the players by and large weren't comparing anything. They were playing literally the only MMO they've ever known and what got them to the game was in most cases not some iteration on a previous concept, more quality-of-life improvements or anything of the sort.
Having already played several MMOs by the time WoW was released I can say there was basically nothing particularly special about it except the world itself being what I had imagined from WC3, which was interesting enough for a playthrough of 0-57 at release.
I think a lot of people who look back in videos like this either never actually played most/any of the other games they talk about and/or they post-construct a lot of seemingly good arguments for why WoW succeeded. The overview/chapters of videos like this look more like "Things I think are good about WoW" more than any serious look into why it succeeded.
It might just be that you have to build a game franchise for 10 years with a generation-spanning fan base before you can actually build a popular MMO. Maybe you also have to make the entire market oblivious to already existing, better and more innovative MMOs too, I don't know. It certainly seemed a lot like that when WoW was released.
Cool video man. Views wise I know it'll do well, it's wow and it's a list, but I encourage to keep up variety, I love your other videos too!
Always producing the best videos! You got some real talent that should not go unnoticed. Your video alone create nostalgia. Always a pleasure to watch another MadSeasonShow
I have so many fond memories of WoW back in the day. Never forget them. But as companies get bigger and suits come in it’s about shareholders and stock not the game and community as we’re reduced to retention numbers and stats. I’ve moved on to smaller companies to support and fund them with my money and hope the next awesome experience comes from there. Great video!
Thanks for answering the question on what WoW did differently from other games. I've been looking for that for a long time.
Why don’t they do world of StarCraft
They thought about it but chose not to. I would have loved it. It was the complexities of having 3 factions and not just two.
Madseason, you said before that some criticized you for your lack of music...well you really took it to em. Love your organization and well thought out edits.
Also...the song at 10:00??? So familiar.
Look hero - Entropic Rhapsody :D
@@madseasonshow thanks bud, keep up the great work :)
I loved your intros man, all these years.. love them. I play on whitemane private server now here and there.
I’m watching madseason when I’m having lunch . But when it’s a new video , I open a beer aswell. Cheers mate
I've been trying to sum up these points myself over the last few months (while resisting the urge to dive back into these worlds). You couldn't have done a better job. Plus your Pandora's Box videos of WoW and SWG immortalize the heyday of these games so well. There will be nothing like these games ever again, and I'm glad I can go back to these videos and relive the feeling.
The main thing for me was W-pvp drama. Every day logging in was who ganked who? who killed whos e-gf while she was doing herbalism? Who tried to make an alt and rob the guild bank?
Wow players are obnoxious and very bully-able, and the drama and ego death of losing a 3v1 because you are bad at pvp makes for so much content. I spent years dueling people and shit talking and causing drama for entertainment and it was the best time in WOW
I think you missed one big thing, and that's the horde vs alliance aspect. Warcraft put half of its players against the other half, indefinitely until mista of panda, and I think the fact that you were locked out of half of the content/experience and had a consistent pvp aspect that had many players choosing one side of the other in a die hard way. As a horde, there were days I would just love sneaking into stormwind and causing havoc. I hated the alliance. Next to the thrill of the arena, messing with the alliance was the best part of the game for me, and the "us vs them" aspect that having horde and alliance created was a one of a kind first in mmorpgs. They probably took/loved the red vs blue idea in halo, an aspect of halo that helped make it what it was. Bliz wasn't dumb lol, they used anything that was working for any games back then and made it work in Warcraft.
Just my thought, I feel like that was huge and this video skipped it.
Back before WoW released, I had to stay in the hospital for over a year, almost died multiple times. My body was so broken, I couldn't do much. I discovered WoW in the worst time of my life and the game really saved me.
Instead of living in total isolation, it made me feel like I belonged somewhere and had people to talk to.
I don't play the game much anymore but I'll always be thankful.
classic wow is probably the best overall game i ever played
its one of the few games where i remember so much from music to in-game items and just random stuff
in 20 years i will still remember raid weapon names etc