It's difficult to really express what a vast impact WoW had on the MMO scene, but within a year or two of it's launch almost every MMO would completely restructure how they worked to be more like Warcraft. It didn't just set a precedent it erased entire approaches to the medium.
So what made WoW stand out? Mainly how independent you could be. Many MMO's were reliant on you being in parties and class design was structured so each class provided something another lacked, it was only in big groups that you could all level efficiently. WoW meanwhile made sure every class had only a couple of gaps and ensured the gaps only mattered in dungeons against 'elite' enemies. The main world, it's quests, and the enemies in it were largely soloable so it didn't matter if you had friends, you could always log in and play right off the bat.
Of course by the time you hit dungeons and elite mobs you're encouraged to form groups, even temporarily, and there's always people recruiting for guilds in the major cities so it's easy to find yourself swept into teamwork and reaping the benefits of other players. It was this approach which would result in a wave of homogenisation across the MMO landscape as companies restructured their games to work more like WoW, removing class dependency and lessening the need for teamwork.
It doesn't hurt that wow also has a timeless cartoonish visual aesthetic, a beautiful orchestral score, memorable quests, characters, and locations, and a very satisfying core gameplay loop. No matter which class you play the quantised heartbeat of wow's 1.5 second global cooldown keeps you in a steady rhythm of triggering abilities and slowly growing your rotation. And of course wow sustains 60 levels of content using only 3 world interactions - casting a spell on a target, interacting with an object, or triggering an area effect, very simple but effective and occasionally very cleverly implemented.
WoW isn't without it's problems however, it's a huge game and the quality is spread thin. Combat is your main way to interact with the world so almost every problem is solved by kill x quests, collect x quests (usually by killing things), and the occasional go to x place, or talk to y person. Locations can be huge but feel empty, the world and locations can be contrived in design, and the patchwork of mobs gets structurally repetitive. Some early features like learning spells from purchased books and a general lack of quality of life features may have you running to the add on's store also as basic UI and Map features can make gameplay more tedious than it needs to be.
It's a game that was perfect for one or two playthroughs as despite the quantity you'll get to through the quality content fairly quickly. At end game you can either jump into the PvP scene or guild up and get into Raiding, epic dungeons with higher difficulty bosses that require a large group of players to carefully coordinate, pushing player skill to a new level. The rewards are some of the best gear in the game but each boss only drops a couple of items with no formal way to fairly distribute them so expect a lot of guild politics and player run currency systems.
Overall WoW's impact is undeniable, we can still feel its influence 20 years later. It's slow methodical gameplay still holds up however. Its low commitment has a universal appeal and it doesn't pressure you to party while providing solo opportunities. If you can get into the repetitive questing, rotation based gameplay, and bureaucratic end game there's nuggets of gold to be found on the way to 60. Just be sure to try a few race/class combos before lv.10 as your mileage may vary!
So what made WoW stand out? Mainly how independent you could be. Many MMO's were reliant on you being in parties and class design was structured so each class provided something another lacked, it was only in big groups that you could all level efficiently. WoW meanwhile made sure every class had only a couple of gaps and ensured the gaps only mattered in dungeons against 'elite' enemies. The main world, it's quests, and the enemies in it were largely soloable so it didn't matter if you had friends, you could always log in and play right off the bat.
Of course by the time you hit dungeons and elite mobs you're encouraged to form groups, even temporarily, and there's always people recruiting for guilds in the major cities so it's easy to find yourself swept into teamwork and reaping the benefits of other players. It was this approach which would result in a wave of homogenisation across the MMO landscape as companies restructured their games to work more like WoW, removing class dependency and lessening the need for teamwork.
It doesn't hurt that wow also has a timeless cartoonish visual aesthetic, a beautiful orchestral score, memorable quests, characters, and locations, and a very satisfying core gameplay loop. No matter which class you play the quantised heartbeat of wow's 1.5 second global cooldown keeps you in a steady rhythm of triggering abilities and slowly growing your rotation. And of course wow sustains 60 levels of content using only 3 world interactions - casting a spell on a target, interacting with an object, or triggering an area effect, very simple but effective and occasionally very cleverly implemented.
WoW isn't without it's problems however, it's a huge game and the quality is spread thin. Combat is your main way to interact with the world so almost every problem is solved by kill x quests, collect x quests (usually by killing things), and the occasional go to x place, or talk to y person. Locations can be huge but feel empty, the world and locations can be contrived in design, and the patchwork of mobs gets structurally repetitive. Some early features like learning spells from purchased books and a general lack of quality of life features may have you running to the add on's store also as basic UI and Map features can make gameplay more tedious than it needs to be.
It's a game that was perfect for one or two playthroughs as despite the quantity you'll get to through the quality content fairly quickly. At end game you can either jump into the PvP scene or guild up and get into Raiding, epic dungeons with higher difficulty bosses that require a large group of players to carefully coordinate, pushing player skill to a new level. The rewards are some of the best gear in the game but each boss only drops a couple of items with no formal way to fairly distribute them so expect a lot of guild politics and player run currency systems.
Overall WoW's impact is undeniable, we can still feel its influence 20 years later. It's slow methodical gameplay still holds up however. Its low commitment has a universal appeal and it doesn't pressure you to party while providing solo opportunities. If you can get into the repetitive questing, rotation based gameplay, and bureaucratic end game there's nuggets of gold to be found on the way to 60. Just be sure to try a few race/class combos before lv.10 as your mileage may vary!