Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Is WoW in trouble?
Alchemist322
Member Posts: 51
Contentious rehashing old ground thread number 2.8million...
However I'm curious. Cataclysm seems to be polarising WoW's playerbase heavily. Having played the game myself from 04 to 10 I'm certainly used to the massive tidal waves of WoW Killer speculation, forum rage and so forth, but we've entered what can only be described as month three or so of some seriously sustained forum rage on Cataclysm. On the official Blizz forums, here and other sites there's been quite a massive amount of flaming, heavy even by WoW's community standards.
This isn't an ideal place for the juggernaut to be in 2011.
Rift, Tera, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, Archeage, The Secret World
These are all games on the varyingly distant horizon, from Rift's eminent arrival, to Archeage's distant one. But they are all starting to roll in as WoW continues to stagger a little.
None of these games will kill WoW, but has Cataclysm wounded it? And will some or all of these games finish it off?
2011 will be an interesting year for WoW.
While this is probably a futile effort I will now add, please don't flame WoW or any of the other mentioned games. This is a thread purely for some rational discussion on whether WoW will start to decline this year. Not die, the game itself may well run for decades in a reduced form.
Comments
blizzard's wow wil be just fine.....they lose a fiew players, so f****** what?
To sum it up realy short for ya.
NO, wow will be fine.
Most of these games will come out late 2011 or early 2012. I think that Blizzard has enough time and money to compensate against any considerable competitor thread. I think they consider as threat only SW:TOR, thus the way they have copied the story driven questing one epic quest line found in the 80-85 zones.
It's like I always said, the only game that is ever going to 'kill' WOW will be WOW. Cataclysm has some great new content. It does fall short of the 'World' changing event. The zones that did get re-done are done very well. The rest of the world(s) is limping along, pretty much forgotten. People are still madly queing for dungeouns to avoid the outlands, and are doing so even more in northrend.
Blizzard talked an amazing show, and then only half delivered, and unless they have some huge content expansions coming up in the near future for the crowd who have reached cap, and are now poppng on only to do their daily runs and then logging out, i fear that the wound cataclysm dealt will only continue to fester and grow.
WoW will be fine, even if it loses some of it's player base it's still got 10+ millions left.
Thing with the majority of the WoW community (the ones using their mouths at least) is they whine, flame and talk shit about the game all the time, but keep playing without knowing why because class X is imbalanced etc etc. I've been there too. Most keep playing because they are either bored of other things or there's "nothing better out there". Not speaking on behalf of the WoW community, it's just what I've gathered from my 5-6ish years playing the overly populated game everyone hates.
Not that I've seen. Cata is a huge step in the RIGHT direction for a lot of people. Thing is that if something is going right, you don't go to the forums and post 'Hey! Great job!'
It is like your IT department, when was the last time you phoned/msg your IT guys and say 'Hey! My IT stuff is working fine today!'? (If you work in IT then you know what I'm talking about. ^_^)
You can list millions of MMOs coming out but here's the problem. Many WoW players (the so-called 'casual') have not even heard of them.
Some might have heard of SWTOR (because of Bioware or star wars) and some might know Guild Wars (I really don't see this competing as it is a completely different 'game' from WoW due to the B2P) but the rest? Not really.
When Warhammer came out, not many (WoW players anyway) knew about it and "80% came back" (Blizz CEO quote).
The big thing with Cata is to retain the new players. "Only 30% go beyond level 10" Blizz CEO quote
That means there are 24 million ex-WoW players out there but they don't stay in the MMO genre. I don't think non-WoW MMOs have 24 million players all up.
The big move by Blizzard with Cata is to get that 30% up, which is why the leveling was revamped.
Will it work? Wall St thinks so and I'm with them. Purely cause if I'm a betting man, I'm betting the guy with a lot of $$$ to lose is going to get it right.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Lets be honest here. There's only two games on that list --despite Rift's polish and general good design -- that can really threaten WoW. Those are TOR and GW2. Is it going to kill WoW? No. It is a different genre than it was when WoW was released, but there are some similarities that shouldn't be ignored. The same things are being said about TOR that were being said about WoW 6 years ago: long development time, Blizzard won't fail, nothing new in the game, Too simplified, and others. The old Blizzard and Bioware are very similar in that we, the players have come to expect quality, and despite a game's individual flaws, a game can be expected to be great when one of those companies release a game.
Should Blizzard be scarred? I don't think so. 12 million players won't jump ship overnight, but to ignore the fact that two bohemoth games are on the way from (and this is the key here) proven, reputable companies that brought us GW and Balder's Gate would be a very poor reaction on BLizzard's part. It's a fine line. I think right now the playerbase is split. Some love Cata, some hate it. This has happened before in MMOs, and historically, it hasn't ended well. The next expansion will tell for Blizzard though.
Actually I guess I was overly wordy. Im not suggesting WoW will die. I specifically stated that in the opening post, what I'm asking is, is WoW declining?
As to so what? It matters quite a deal, not to any of us per se, but the industry as a whole. For the last 6 years WoW has been the undisputed champ. Is that title starting to sag?
Let's assume that because of the foretold reasons WoW looses 50% of his active subs. 50% is a huge number yes? Guess what... it will still be the most successful MMO subscription wise, light years ahead from the #2. So, no WoW isn't and won't be in trouble.
And in case someone draws the "fanboy" card, i wrote "..most sccussful MMO subscription wise". I didn't mention anything about quality or features. Although i am an active subscriber since 2005.
I think Tera and GW2 are seriously going to hurt WoW.
Rift is in the minor leagues, it doesn't seem to offer much WoW doesn't offer.
GW2 is F2P (b2p) and WoW isn't. I think that's a really important factor that will help GW2.
You're quite right of course. WoW's playerbase is ridiculous. There is also no doubt however, that WoW losing half its subscriptions numbers would also see a shift in the psychology of the genre as a whole.
I really want to hear the logic of how GW2 will have a large effect on any MMO sub numbers.
Last I checked, GW2 is a B2P so most people will treat it like a B2P game (ie A non-MMO game like Fallout3/COD4:BO/FIFA)
I can't see Dragon Age2 being released in 2 months affecting WoW numbers even though they have their elves/dwarves/orcs like WoW.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
85 happened entirely too fast - faster than 70 to 80 which was faster than 60 to 70.
My first 85 is bugged and cannot enter battlegrounds - it is server side, may be resolved during the next server restart or weekly maintenance. I did not bother waiting - canceled and uninstalled. I tried to level another toon from 80 to 85 (have five total), but the 80-85 content is boring and tedious. I have four 70s that I was tempted to level through 80, because the LK content is not that bad in the least - but when I thought about it, I had to wonder why bother - I could not stand to go through the 80-85 content again.
Between Blizzard ignoring the bot issues, the win trading they allowed with TB, and the overall lack of a clue as to what is going on in the game based on the updates to the PTR notes... I just cannot be bothered with WoW at this point.
I was disappointed with how quickly the BC leveling content took - but it was still fun. I was disappointed with how quickly the LK leveling content took - but yet again, it was still fun. Cata just seems so pointless.
It is funny, considering in hindsight, that I would have subscribed longer if 4.0 and Cata never came to be. I would have continued making alts and gearing them.
I'm not excited in the least about SWTOR nor GW2. RIFT is very tempting - cannot quite put my finger on it - but my experiences in the betas so far have made it a very tempting game. It is not exactly new by any means - in a sense, it is more like WoW that way than any other way. It is an evolution of what came before. Unlike WoW though, which has taken the Fisher-Price Grandmothers and Toddlers approach - RIFT appeals more to me. Will have to see how that plays out... it is definitely promising at this point.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
It seems I am contrary to popular opinion, but I do agree with part of what one of the previous posters said, "The only thing that will kill WoW is WoW". Where I differ from everyone else is that I played through the most recent Rift beta event and see a game that is WoW's younger sibling, but with much better genetics. In other words, Rift is almost an exact twin to WoW but with a much better art style, power animations, and graphics. I was actually amazed by how similar the games are, right down to the basically identical UI's.
The problem I see for WoW is that they have not taken advantage of the increasing average technology levels and now Rift is the "standard level" an MMO should be coming out as. Meanwhile WoW did not have enough respect for their player base and only put money into expanding the game, but almost nothing into improving it. Hey good to go, adding level 80 - 85 content is all well and good, but amazingly enough it still looks like you are playing a smurf in a cartoon for the 1980's instead of what games like Rift are doing.
Do not get me wrong, I do not see WoW being killed overnight, but I do see it starting to do some serious dwindling very soon. We will probably still see this game in another 5 years, but it will no longer be the leader, but instead a lumbering giant that pulls in just enough money to keep it profitable . . . if barely.
I base my opinion on the fact that out of the 23 people (including myself) that play this game whom I know personally, six do not pay for it and only play by piggybacking on friends accounts. Of the remaining 17, 11 of them are just waiting for their subscriptions to run out this month and have no plans to renew. Of the remaining 6, 5 they plan on renewing one more time and then quitting. The last guy a newer player and is only playing until he gets his current character to level 85, then quitting. The biggest reason they are leaving has nothing to do with the types of missions they have to do, it's the art style and animations, th basic graphics that can so easily be run on even basic computers today that WoW has not upgraded too. ALL of these people however still plan on playing MMO's and most are just waiting on Rift and Star Wars: The Old Republic to go live. Pretty much an even split on who is going to which game.
So my opinion is that WoW will slowly kill itself off because of the lack of respec they have shown to their player base by now actually improving the game and only expanding the same lame game over and over.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I don't think people realize how many new players have started WoW over the past year or two. I, myself, have played for 6 years and I am ready to find a new game. However, a considerable portion of my guild, who are actively raiding, didn't start WoW until Wrath of the Lich King or very late Burning Crusade. They are quite happy with the game, and will continue to play for the forseeable future. We even have a number of brand new players, who are friends of guildmates who are brand new to WoW.
SWTOR, GW2, Tera and Rift will all draw some players from WoW to their game, no doubt. However, when AoC, WAR and Aion all released, there was multiple posts about how each game would kill WoW and all paled in comparison.
SWTOR is a sci-fi game, and while KoTOR is easily the most popular Star Wars series of games ever, I feel they are going to attract their own audience, and not cannibalize WoW as much as many seem to think.
Rift will get those who want WoW, but with a twist, and are sick of WoW, but it's not going to have a serious impact on WoW.
Tera, again, I feel like that game is going to attract a specific audience that doesn't consist of many WoW players. I see Aion being more affected by Tera than WoW.
GW2 is Buy 2 Play with no monthly sub. I feel that many who play are going to keep their active sub, if they have one, for social aspects. Leaving behind good friends is hard to do.
Time will harm WoW more than anything. As each year passes, so will a number of players, but eventually the game will be truly old and not fully supported by Blizzard. By the time that happens, Blizzard's Titan Project will most likely be near release or released and the Blizzard fans will flock to that game.
Don't get me wrong. I want nothing more than every single well made mmo to be successful, as it promotes competition. However, to expect any one mmo, or a group of mmos to take down WoW, just isn't reasonable anymore.
The only true problem with your example, GMan, is that 23 people is not even representative of anything resembling a sample of the WoW total population. Neither are the 30 or so people in my guild. Your 23 friends are all quitting at some near point in the future, and the majority of the 30 people in my guild, all plan on staying through this entire expansion pack.
There really isn't a good way to gauge the overall pulse of the WoW community, because of how large it is. There are more people playing WoW than there are the total number of people in some small countries. WoW hit what, the 13 million mark recently? Think about how many people that truly is.
I don't disagree with you that WoW will eventually fade, but I don't think we'll see that until Blizzard's next mmo launches and Blizzard stops supporting WoW through expansion packs.
Oh yes, it looks like WoW is going to lose it...again. Every game that comes out is the WoW killer and one thing is certain, WoW is going to be in serious trouble this time because....why?
I think mostly because GW2 is buy & play, WoW is pay & pay.
Don't know about tera yet.
Cataclysm.
It is not a case that any single game is going to steal WoW subs or players, but rather it is a case that Cataclysm is so bad that it is going to cause WoW to lose subs and players. Whether those people gravitate to another MMORPG, play console games, or take up underwater basketweaving is irrelevant.
We've known for a long time that the true WoW-killer would be WoW itself, and Cataclysm may just be fulfilling that prophecy.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
WoW will be fine I think. Besides, they even got rid of the Off-topic section on their forums, so ppl can talk only about wow.. lol.
Eat me!
I've wondered about this myself . Cataclysm has been seen by lots of players as pretty lackluster and the worse expansion to date . It has failed to adress most of the issues people hoped it would . I still play WoW(well I returned last autumn after a break) but after being in the RIFT beta I've recently cancelled my subscription. I know a lot of people that are doing the same or they plan to play RIFT for a couple of months in conjunction with WoW to see how it goes . Rumour has it RIFT had surpassed the million pre-order mark several weeks ago so if true that could be even higher upon release . It may even equal the number of players WoW had when it was first released . The thing is other mmos don't really have to hurt WoW to be successful because there isn't only 12 million potential customers . Having several mmos with a million + players isn't impossible after all theres billions of us human beings . I do however think the mmos this year look like a quality crop and if WoW had released a quality expansion then things may have been different . As it stands I think they could potentially lose a lot of players but you have to remember some people are so institutionalised by WoW they will never leave as its become part of thier life and also it does cater for young children as well in terms of ease of play so they wont leave for a more challenging game . I think it ll be ok there won't be a WoW killer but possibly several nails in its coffin this year . Which paradoxically may be good for WoW players because it may make Blizzard sit up and take notice and reassess the direction they have taken it .
Is WoW in trouble?
Yes, since Burning Crusade release.
Cataclysm wont kill wow, but what it has done is create a lot of apathy amongst players. One question that bugs me about blizzards numbers is this They claim 12 million active accounts and yet, how many copies of Cata have sold? Surely no one playing wow in the areas where Cata is released would be without it?
I think what blizzard have done with Cata is create a technically brilliant game, but, technically brilliant doesnt equal fun or great its very much like playing a spreadsheet now, there are no decisions to be made, the content is spoonfed to you, the difficulty artificially inflated with unavoidable damage sources to tax your healers resources and then a nerf to the longevity of those resources. The hope for Cata was a return to early TBC levels of challenge, the reality is they just made healing harder. and more things one shot you. Either you play the encounters exactly as Blizzard want or you fail, there is no room for the vast amount of tactical differences between guilds that TBC raiding had.
They have removed the welfare epic syndrome by replacing low level epics with high level blues tagged as "heroic" the gear system hasnt changed just the colour of the text on your starting gear. Overall Cataclysm is a well presented leveling experience, once, or maybe twice, and then the same soulless endgame experience.
The guild leveling system is another failure, all it does rather than fostering the community feelings that TBC had is tie people into guilds they dont enjoy. If you really want to make wow back into a community driven experience, turn off xrealm dungeon finder as a feature. Yeah its convenient but it alone has ruined the community of wow beyond where it was before, the game is now populated by a large number of people who thanks to this tool can act like dicks, and the worst consiquence they will face is a short queue for the next group of mugs to put up with them. Guild rep is not a deterrant to this, it is simply a means of ensuring the nicer people are more likely to put up with the dicks.
All in all wow under its new management has hit a low point in terms of fun, who seem to have no idea what direction they want the game to go and little clue how to balance the classes around it, as evidenced by the fact that every patch in the last two years sees atleast one class having to relearn its self from scratch.
If wow were a new game, it would go under the "This will suck" pile.
WoW will be fine. The smugness of the developers have turned a lot of people off, some turned off by the lack of expansion, but the mental addiction to the game is still there for a LOT of people.
90% of our guild cancelled our accounts, but i guarantee that there were people to step up and take our place.
A good example is EQ, king of MMO at the time.
It didn't die in one fight and it's still limping on one leg barely alive.
What brought it down wasn't just WoW, it was GW+WoW+Aion+LoTRO+thousands of F2P games.
An MMO never seems to just die in 1 fight. It needs a few good wacks from big MMO and then it start to die. I think those MMO could be Tera / GW2 and SWTOR.
Those 3 aren't small MMO, they are huge IP and very advanced MMO with a lot of very good designers behind them with experience. The people behind Tera are the same people behind Lineage, they precede WoW.
I wouldn't say that it is in trouble but the game is over 6 years old and ageing, sooner or later will new games take over.
If Wow is in trouble you would say the same thing for any MMO over 5 years old, computer games don't last forever.
Wow will still be the largest game for another year, after than anything can happen but believing that a single computer game can be biggest for 15 or 20 years is very naive, even 10 is highly unlikely.
It is true however that I wouldn't thought a game could be on top for over 6 years either before Wow but computergames just don't age well. Sooner or later will the new generation recognize the game as something their parents like and you can't get more uncool than that, new times demands new games.
If the new games will be similar to Wow or even a sequel to Wow is anybodys guess.
Wow had an amazing journey and it isn't ended yet but there are limits for everything.