WoW has alot of things beside gameplay that makes people still buy it and play it and never really losing thier customer base.

first off, its Blizzard, and on top of that, Warcraft has had a HUGE fanbase for a very long time now. they can also get alot more players because its an easy game to pick up and play, you dont really have to know what your doing in this game, alot of just pressing buttons and jumping back and forth through characters, unlike FFXI where if you didnt know what you were doing, you could get killed and everyone else in the zone (mass trains).

and also the fact that its both PC and Mac compatible helps. and the requirements arent as processor intensive as FFXI. Low rez poly characters, shitty UV layouts but great textures in WoW. FFXI was really detailed.

and if you know a bit about computer graphics, blizzard didnt use a smooth IK/FK rig bind, they used a rigid and mainly animated using clusters, which makes it shitty(er) animation but less to code, thus less system requirements.

i could go on all day on the differences, but i dont feel like it.

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FFXI - Yurichan: 75THF(Ret) / SC2 - Lawncare / XBOX - Zombie Sharks / PS3 - Zombie_Sharks

WoW is popular because it's ultra polished and has a ton of money behind it. It makes it the most fun to play, most accessible and therefore most popular. It deserves its popularity.

But to say that it was successful because it had the warcraft franchise behind it is partially true but the Final Fantasy franchise is far bigger and the game hasn't done 1/5 of WoW's business even at its peak.

FF is a console game franchise and FFXI is the first of its kind to be online. Most people I know bristled at the thought of an online FF game.

Blizzard already had a history with online games so its audience is more accepting of online gaming in general. WoW is popular because it has a less noticeable grind than other MMOs due to quests giving xp, graphics that can run on a wide range of PCs, and the Warcraft universe. If WoW had EQ2s system hog of a graphics engine, Lineage II's xp grind and Vanguard's shitty generic universe it would fail miserably. The quests and story of WoW are not up to par with the stories utilized in Blizzards previous games, and that is not saying a whole lot. The lore is interesting and they have plenty of it, quantity doesn't mean quality. WoW just lies to you about its timesinks and makes you think you won't be wasting away days of time to accomplish things, while that is the furthest thing from the truth. Blizzard can polish a turd all they want, but it is an MMO so its still a turd.

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Eternus Ifrit Server Atariii LS member
75 BRD with a bunch of subjobs

i really loved diablo & diablo 2, and i was really excited about world of warcraft before it came out, but once i got to see the graphics and gameplay and hear peoples' stories, it just doesn't seem very good. i like blizzard and i'm glad they're reaping massive rewards. but i have my fingers crossed that future rpgs, mmorpgs, orpgs, don't build off world of warcraft as an example of what the genre should be like.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Have you played whisp?

i play wow, but honestly.. i think its really boring.. i only still play it because of the fact that i have alot of IRL friends that play.. if not i would have quit a while ago... it doesnt that that.. eh, cant think of a good word.. but it doesnt have the same effect FFXI did on me..

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FFXI - Yurichan: 75THF(Ret) / SC2 - Lawncare / XBOX - Zombie Sharks / PS3 - Zombie_Sharks

yea i played at my step sister's

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya