I agree with you and here is why Sony did the same thing and treated there customer base pretty much the same was blizzard does people now.And they will fall just like Sony did after Everquests hay dau/
Let me give you a perfect example of how blizzard treats its long term customers.I have played wow since first day of retail I have 5 lvl 70 characters.Not once in 3.5 years has my account been in any trouble had any warnings nothing.The other week my teenage son who is legally allowed to play a character on my account was in his email clicked a link thinking he had gotten us a invite to beta for Wrath of the Lich king well I don't have to tell you obviously it wasn't but it looked real enough to a 13 year old he didn't think like most kids filled out all the info and hit submit.Needless to say it was a hacker and they tried to change the account info which I called blizzard got it all fixed.
Skip forward to around feb 17th around 2 weeks after I get the account fixed I get a email from them informing me they had locked both of my accounts for safety and requested I fax in my id etc etc no problem I send it all in on the 22nd they verified it and reopened my accounts Last sunday I was playing that morning log off for dinner come back account is locked again another email blizzard asking me for the same information they had gotten and verified from me not even 1.5 weeks ago. Call them does no good email account admin I get the same generic robot replies.Send the info back in again or no account.
I hope fhis never happens to anyone else I have been treated like a liar and a thief even after I gave thenm ALL my information 2 times now and they still want it again 1.5 weeks after the last time.Needless to say I replied b ack to there robot spam told them to take my accounts and shove em and they would not get another dime from me to which I got the same robot reply lol Blizzard don't give a crap about there customers no more than Sony did in Eq's big ride.Hope you enjoy the fall blizzard for me I will go back and play Eq2 or Lord of the Rings online and support companies who actually do try to solve things.
blizzard grosses about $150,000,000 a month in subscription fees
Nah, it's considerably less. More than half of their subscribers are sitting in Asia, where they have a play-per-time model, and it's a lot cheaper too.
why WOW can not coexist with all the new MMO games are about to arrive ?
is there any strong reason to belive WOW will be killed by any other MMO?
i mean there is over 6.65 billion people atm, i am sure there is enough "share" for everyone .
I think , a much better approche about "nex gen wow killer" would be "what kind of cataclysm would kill wow player base" ?
as my fav cataclysm, i would point out
A Earth is conquer by a nasty and hungry alien race, so, not more time to play, not even wow
B Earth is conquer by a nasty and political right wind faction lead by future Chicago School sadists, mind you, maybe is actually happening, so, hurry up wow days are almost over i am afraid
C China in an alliance with almost everysingle asian country impost a major revision about MMO games, sadly, wow, not been grinder enough,is cancelled, and just a few outsiders keep playing it, eventually they all get arrested and forced to play "the" approved MMO game, "click click clik dont think " also know as "click click click i forgot what to do next"
D a comet strikes the earth, sending us all, even wow players into oblivion, and i mind you, oblivion is not a game.
blizzard grosses about $150,000,000 a month in subscription fees, at this point the game could die off and blizzard wouldn't care they are all rich beyond there dreams. besides which when did all these newbs start thinking that what makes a game good is being able to play it for 20 years? You play it you love it you master it and you move on to the next game. I persoanly dont want to play just 1 game for the rest of my life I like mixing up the genres etc. I do not choose to play second life / sims where I am apart of some lame RP world thats ever developing. Its a bloody video game that we play for fun just start having fun with it if your not having fun change games.
Good post all and all but if you think an mmo is JUST a VIDEO GAME that ya master then im afraid ya in the wrong genra of game these games are meant to interact within a gameworld and play your character out.Then again most ya people who think the way you do probly either very young and dont understand what the online gaming means.And then again maybe im just gettin more mature i started online gamin back in 94-95 in the old text based games back then thats what gamin online was interactin and playin ya character out. If all you do is lvl and grind then well waste of time.
why WOW can not coexist with all the new MMO games are about to arrive ? is there any strong reason to belive WOW will be killed by any other MMO?
No other game need kill WoW. Given enough time, Blizzard will do the job themselves, by not staying current AND/OR releasing WOW2... which will be a program built on the faltering ground of pride and arrogance.
Dude, credibility out the door when you claim to "thoroughly enjoy WoW".... Innovation? There is very little innovation in WoW to begin with. It's the typical level/class jargon that we are growing pathetically accustomed to with game developers, Blizzard just put out a very polished product that was easy to play and appealed to a large mass of people. Their only innovation was quality AND quantity.
So, if its a typical level/class MMO, why is it pretty much the only one with millions of subs? Why dont we have several of games with several millions of subs? Maybe its because something is very wrong with those other games and something is very right with WoW?
WoW is a beginner MMO. When 8 year old kids can play and be competitive then the game is not for me. I prefer something that requires skill, intelligence, and has depth. WoW offers none of these things, and no other MMO offers all of them.
WoW has no skills? You mean, i just turn on autoattack and wait till I kill or die? The sheer amount of skills that your character has opens up a whole new dimension to tactics in MMOs. Its not about mashing buttons, you gotta play smart to be good. If you think WoW has no skills, you probably just used auto-attack. The more character skills you have, the more options you get to play and the more personal skills it takes to beat an opponent with similar number of skills.
I believe in about 5 years we won't be discussing this as MMO capabilities and market readiness will have met some sort of balance, and we will be playing MMO games with depth and innovation. For now it seems we are stuck with the cookie-cutter mold that WoW has thrust upon us. By the way, AS LONG AS PEOPLE LIKE YOU PAY TO PLAY WOW, YOU HAVE LITTLE MERIT COMPLAINING ABOUT THE GAME. Subscriptions are the bottom line and few major developers are going to break the cycle as long as WoW has such large subscription numbers.
I agree with this statement, as long as WoW makes profit, other companies will try to simulate it. However, as those companies do try to simulate WoW, they will try to make it better. Next thing you know, they make a product that has more depth, more content, more fun and perhaps even more innovative. But please, dont try to throw the "WoW has no skills" argument. If it had no skills it wouldnt have millions of players. Who likes to play games that doesnt take any skills to play? I mean, you try to play any game with god mode on. it may be fun for a bit, but then it becomes boring.
People like to talk about how a MMORPG is going to die. Heck, people have been saying Ultima Online will end for 10 years, and it's still alive as ever. ...
Very good point here... I should know, since I have been playing UO for 8 years now.
But while UO is still quite a lively game, it is not nearly the power house it once was. And tho WoW will not "die" for a long time... it will fall from its current MMO dominance status long before it does, and that quite likely will happen a lot faster then most people think. Possibly in the next couple years.
I'll say up front that I have played, and do not like WoW... but Im not a WoW hater. In my opinion the developers looked at what worked in past MMO's, crammed it all in one game that was easy and user friendly and BAM.... instant success. You have to admire the developers for this. Over the last two years it has seemed inconcievable that WoW would fall from dominance anytime in the next 5-6 years... so why do I feel WoW will make the fall long before then? Several reason...
First of all, what makes WoW such a success will ultimatly be its un-doing. Content and feature wise, wow has almost NO inovation at all. It borrowed almost everything about the game from past games, and presented it in a more user friendly way. But at the end of the day, WoW is still just every MMO from that past. So in the next couple years, if a few high profile MMo's come out and are able to present something new and entertaining to the MMO scene... they will draw alot of veteran MMO players with the promis of something diffrent.
Secondly, along the lines of the first point... WoW's popularity is not becuase its such a great game that it blowing away a ton of other very good, high popularity MMO's. Its becuase the MMO market is very weak right now, and most other big name MMO's are getting pretty old, or are very complicated to play. Also on this point... WoW has had considerable fan fair the last 3 years. This fan fair has drawn ALOT of players to WoW and is likely responsible for a conderable portion of its player base. Think, if your new to the MMO scene, your probly going to pick the game with the most press (especially since alot of WoWs press said it was a great starter MMO). But this press has died off alot in the last few months... and will continue to do so. As a new generation of MMO's come out, more and more players will leave WoW for something new, and new MMO players will not be as drawn to WoW as they once were.
Another issue that not many people think about that will have a serious effect on WoW (and all MMO's for that matter) is the economy. The economy is down, cost of living and gas are up and games are the first to go for many when money is tight. I know 3 people who recently canceled WoW accounts because they simply cannot afford it right now. Of course this should effect all games... but I feel WoW, and all older MMO's will feel it more. Wow has such a huge fan base, its will see by far the most players quit from such problems. And at least a decent percentage of thoes that do quit will move on to new games when they come back. Now this only applys to North America (which has 2.5 million WoW players) as Im not really sure of the status of the econmy in the rest of the WoW gaming world.
Next, WoW is over 3 years old now. Blizzard says it has 10 millon subs (5.5 million of which are in Asia, a market not many MMO's target, especially China), which is a great number for a 3 year old MMO. But thoes numbers will start to fall in the near future, and WoW will naturaly start loseing players and the amount joining will drop with age. Of course expansions can slow this down, or even stop it for a bit if the expansions are of good quality and add alot to the game. But becuase of the problems mentioned by the OP, I doubt this will happen for WoW. Blizzard could probly survive a drop of 90% in its player base, and still have the game be very profitable. So it dosn't have to constantly develop alot of new content and try hard to please as many people as it can for fear the game will stop being profitable.........yet.
Lastly... Another MMO from Blizzard will also be bad for WoW (not neccisarily bad for Blizzard tho). Alot of people will quit to play it, and if its the same thing as WoW bundled into another game, its going to fail, at least to people who are tierd of WoW. Its going to be a test for Blizzard... they are actually gonna have to do more then use things from old games, and make a new entertaining game from scratch. If its the same old same old... thoes who quit WoW to play it will likely jump ship. Some will go back, other won't.
I don't mean to single WoW out here, and Im by no means saying anything bad about WoWers... all MMO's rise and fall over time. As I said, Ive been a UO player since its hay day... Ive seen it rise to the top, and then slowly fall over the last few years years or so. All games will deal with alot of these problems, but WoW's size and popularity cause it other uniqe problems. And while none of these issues will drain a large enough amount of players to really hurt the player base, together they can put a serious dent in it over a fairly short period of time. Even still... WoW will be a formitable MMO for a long time to come. Just how long will WoW maintain its dominace tho? Thats the real question. I personally feel in 2-3 years we will be talking about how some other MMO has over taken WoW as the dominant game. Or.... the more likely scenario, we will be talking about how several games have risen and leveled the playing field with WoW.... which would in fact be the best thing for the MMO world.
In a way I kind of agree with the OP from a business stand point and here is why. Blizzard announced they have 10mil subs to their game. Since WOW has been inexistance it has been the most popular and most successful MMO to date even though Lineage 1&2 is right up there with WOW as being a successful MMO. Now recently Blizzard has announced they are working on a NEW Next-Gen MMO. So can someone tell me why on earth would you even consider making a new kind of MMO when clearly WOW is the biggest money maker for Blizzard ? Why shake the money tree down ? Do they feel they will keep those 10mil subs and get new subs to their new MMO ? Unless people have way too much time on their hands that will not be the case. Making a brand new ip next-gen mmo will compete with WOW. Why would they even flirt with that idea ? Just food for thought here.
In a way I kind of agree with the OP from a business stand point and here is why. Blizzard announced they have 10mil subs to their game. Since WOW has been inexistance it has been the most popular and most successful MMO to date even though Lineage 1&2 is right up there with WOW as being a successful MMO. Now recently Blizzard has announced they are working on a NEW Next-Gen MMO. So can someone tell me why on earth would you even consider making a new kind of MMO when clearly WOW is the biggest money maker for Blizzard ? Why shake the money tree down ? Do they feel they will keep those 10mil subs and get new subs to their new MMO ? Unless people have way too much time on their hands that will not be the case. Making a brand new ip next-gen mmo will compete with WOW. Why would they even flirt with that idea ? Just food for thought here.
Well, Blizzard could prove me wrong. And, frankly, I'd be happy as a peach to be wrong. The release of their "Next-gen" MMO will tell the tale. Will it be an EQ 2? Born of pride and arrogance? (not trying to start an EQ vs. WoW thing here... but just look at the sub numbers for EQ2 vs EQ... it was a sad sequel and as a huge EQ fan, I was hugely disappointed in EQ2)
Or will Blizzards "next-gen" MMO be innovative, creative & genuinely fun? Will it be new and fresh? Or will it be stale and yet another sad regurgitation of the same old MMO gameplay we've seen for years?
Time will tell. But the outcome will determine the fall of WoW and Blizzards MMO rule.
LOL .. i think it probably has more to do with the fact that a MMORPG takes YEARS to compleate.
So Blizzard announced they are working on a new gen game. So? Why are people running around like the sky is falling ... its a damm good stratagy as far as i can see. If they start *now* .. as in *RIGHT NOW* .. they *may* have it ready for release in what? 3?4? maby 5 years! You talk about Bliz's new MMORPG as if its being released next month .. sheesh!
Why is it gonna be a WoW killer lol. They are looking ahead and seeing that WoW is, guess what, *Not* going to last forever. If they start now rather than when WoW bottoms out .. they'll have a nice head-start on thier next Online game. Seems prudent to start making *WoW2 The Return!* when profits are high and you can afford that outlay .. investors are happy with thier fat pockets and looking foward to the next *cashpot* when WoW2 (tm) hits.
Now if they were sitting there saying *yer when WoW hits 10K subs we'll think about a new game* ... then i'd be concerned ... Car companys dont wait till thier old models are all being taken to scrapyards to start designing a new model .. why the hell would a game developer?
BTW. Yer i played WOW .. no I dont anymore. Game got old .. but people who think Bliz has a crappy Biz plan .. need to look at the facts and think a little harder .. theres no way they are losing money to the MMORPG's of the future (Those hitting in the next 2-4 years) .. and trust me .. they aint gonna try to compeate against those future games with WoW ...
Blizzard has already built a huge success. They are getting incredible amounts of profits and still getting more customers who pay them a monthly fee. As the aim is to make money, the have beaten and are continously beating every other large and professional development studio there is by huge margin.
And then some random guy from the forums comes to claim that Blizzard is developing WoW badly. It's ridiculous.
AGREE, AGREE, AGREE. I find it so comical to read people post about how Blizzard is lazy, WoW sucks, and they are "catering to a minority". Sorry, that is just idiotic.
They created an MMO so much superior to any other thing on the market in this genre that it is not even fair to compare other games to it. That being said, I quit years ago, because what game in the world can be expected to keep your attention for 2 years plus? I played it, loved it, got bored and quit. That doesn't mean the game sucked. Give me a freakin break......
Blizzard has already built a huge success. They are getting incredible amounts of profits and still getting more customers who pay them a monthly fee. As the aim is to make money, the have beaten and are continously beating every other large and professional development studio there is by huge margin.
And then some random guy from the forums comes to claim that Blizzard is developing WoW badly. It's ridiculous.
Wow is a huge susces , but that does not mean everyone likes the developing of wow, i find it bad aswell, thay focus way to much on raid content , instead of other stuff beside raiding and dungoens. just my 2 cents, trough i think there starting to wake up a bid now.
Playing:World of Warcraft. Played:Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies. Tried:Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
Blizzard has already built a huge success. They are getting incredible amounts of profits and still getting more customers who pay them a monthly fee. As the aim is to make money, the have beaten and are continously beating every other large and professional development studio there is by huge margin.
And then some random guy from the forums comes to claim that Blizzard is developing WoW badly. It's ridiculous.
AGREE, AGREE, AGREE. I find it so comical to read people post about how Blizzard is lazy, WoW sucks, and they are "catering to a minority". Sorry, that is just idiotic.
They created an MMO so much superior to any other thing on the market in this genre that it is not even fair to compare other games to it. That being said, I quit years ago, because what game in the world can be expected to keep your attention for 2 years plus? I played it, loved it, got bored and quit. That doesn't mean the game sucked. Give me a freakin break......
Not sure if Vrika was referring to the OP as the "some random guy"... OP would be me. I don't mind the minor flame, no sweat off my back, but the OP was not about WOW or how it was being developed... it was about what would the wow killer would be... and that is Blizzard. I base my opinion and prediction on how Blizzard represented itself at GDC '08, which came off very arrogant and king-of-the-hillish. Fine if they are for now, but the lack of humility seemed to be the same type demonstrated by SOE prior to the release of EQ2 which SOE was absolutely sure would be king of all MMO's... so... SOE killed EQ (even though the game is still running...) and made a huge opening that Blizzard came and gladly filled with an amazing game ... what we play today, World of Warcraft.
Based on the arrogance demonstrated by Blizzard at GDC '08, I would say there is a strong possibility that they are walking down the same path that SOE did with EQ2.
WoW is a smash hit. Great business model. Blizzard has a great deal to be proud of and I celebrate their success with them. I am concerned that said success is going to their corporate head. It's the signs that speak for themselves. What remains to be seen is whether or not that success will yield more innovation and quality in their "Next-Gen" MMO or whether it will stimey production and yield a second rate product- the death of WoW.
One post on this thread provided a great counter argument to my position. Blizzard has a demonstrable history of producing sequels that are better than the original releases. That, frankly, gets me excited for what may be on the horizon for us!
It just remains to be seen... but the signs aren't good.
I wouldn't think Blizzard was so stupid and greedy as $$$OE, but they are indeed starting to destroy WOW nerfing the quests, boosting experience and showing quests in the mini map.
What will be next...maybe an improved hearthstone that will let you teleport to ten different places. Or a gnomish Elite-Abolishing-Rod, that will turn the few Elite mobs left into normal ones.
I really tend to laugh whenever people state that Blizzard is rich beyond your boots and such. People must not realize how much it costs to maintain the servers, and pay the developers and GMs. Not the mention, it is not SOLELY them who collects the revenue. Their publisher, Vivendi Universal, gets a good bit of the dough as well. This isn't a lemonade stand business model, folks.
Unless someone succeeds in tending to the casuals in a greater way then WoW, I don't see it going down for a long time. AoC is niche market . They've stated that. Warhammer has a good following, due to Dark Age of Camelot, but nothing is going to "kill" WoW.
A "WoW Killer" is not needed, nor is there any reason to hope that Blizzard fails.
Wow makes 100's of times more money than it needs to in order to be profitable. I don't need WoW to fail, I only need other innovative games to be made. That can happen, and WoW can still do well, even with less, much less, subscriptions than they have now.
Blizzard has a bunch of money, and I want them to use some of it to make more MMORPGs. I never played WoW after a trial because I absolutely hated it, but that doesn't mean the Blizzard team doesn't have the experience and resources to make another solid game. Maybe l'll like the next one they make.
Sure Blizzard are complete Industry noobs and get Lazy because of the WoW success. Dude just because they don't show everything to the public, doesn't mean they got nothing up they're sleeves.
I really tend to laugh whenever people state that Blizzard is rich beyond your boots and such. People must not realize how much it costs to maintain the servers, and pay the developers and GMs. Not the mention, it is not SOLELY them who collects the revenue. Their publisher, Vivendi Universal, gets a good bit of the dough as well. This isn't a lemonade stand business model, folks.
Unless someone succeeds in tending to the casuals in a greater way then WoW, I don't see it going down for a long time. AoC is niche market . They've stated that. Warhammer has a good following, due to Dark Age of Camelot, but nothing is going to "kill" WoW.
Yes there are support costs but they're a drop in the bucket compared the profits. I don't have the expense/revenue charts in front of me but I know its RELATIVELY cheap to maintain server clusters. Its not like the old days where there were probably 5-6 servers runnging a single game instance. All bets are they have several instances of the game world running on some crazy SAN cluster. so yes expensive but like everything else they do its probably built smart and efficient.
Don't get me wrong their server farm is probably maddening but they are making money hand over fist no doubt.
The real costs in MMO land is the development of the MMOs. once they are online and have critical mass the costs flatline and its just a matter of keeping the lights on.
Blizzard/Vivendi probably make more money off wow tshirts than SOE does off 3 of their mmos.
As if killing WoW is a goal for anyone but pouty people who can't accept that others find continuous enjoyment in something they themselves couldn't...
Just to give you an idea of the scope their servers have to deal with, they have said that they will never increase the players backpack size. Its not a game issue, or a balance issue.
In order to give every character (alts included) 2 more slots in their backpack it would take up so much physical space that it is not feasable at this time.
The WoW servers are the largest server operation ever. The problems they have to deal with nobody has dealt with. There is no PHD guy who they can bring in to solve the problem. There is no guy with 30 years experience doing this.
To the comment about them being industry newbs. Blizzard has been around a LONG time. Rock and Roll racer is probably one of the oldest games they made people would remember or possibly Lost Vikings. They know what they are doing.
As for them killing themselves. No. I hate to break it to you but WoW is on a CONSTANT, STEADY upward climb and showing almost no sign of stopping. They can afford the best and brightest and of all the gaming companies had arguably the best track record for their games.
5 years ago if you had ask me what game company would be able to pull off an mmorpg the best i would have said Blizzard. If you ask me now I will say the same thing. They have the money, the track record, the fan base, the marketing, and the ability to pull it off. And they do.
Every year people say "blizzard is stupid" "WoW will die soon its a fad" "its got no depth and no ambition, its a market mashup"
Some of the most visionary designers (arguably) like David Allen, Brad McQuaid, Lord British(Richard Garriott), have been unable to parallel the sucess of WoW. Infact 2 of the 3 failed miserably.
You might have some personal vendetta againsed WoW, I understand its the cool thing to do and you just gota fit in. But looking at it objectivly WoW is a screaming success. There is lots of things to do in the game, its generally well balanced. Issues are fixed and new content is added in a timely manner. WoW is still one of the most sucessful at preventing gold farming. 1000g (which isnt really that much) sells for as much as 60 dollars US. Where as in other games, some ludicrous amount of money is often available for 10-15 bucks.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
Comments
I agree with you and here is why Sony did the same thing and treated there customer base pretty much the same was blizzard does people now.And they will fall just like Sony did after Everquests hay dau/
Let me give you a perfect example of how blizzard treats its long term customers.I have played wow since first day of retail I have 5 lvl 70 characters.Not once in 3.5 years has my account been in any trouble had any warnings nothing.The other week my teenage son who is legally allowed to play a character on my account was in his email clicked a link thinking he had gotten us a invite to beta for Wrath of the Lich king well I don't have to tell you obviously it wasn't but it looked real enough to a 13 year old he didn't think like most kids filled out all the info and hit submit.Needless to say it was a hacker and they tried to change the account info which I called blizzard got it all fixed.
Skip forward to around feb 17th around 2 weeks after I get the account fixed I get a email from them informing me they had locked both of my accounts for safety and requested I fax in my id etc etc no problem I send it all in on the 22nd they verified it and reopened my accounts Last sunday I was playing that morning log off for dinner come back account is locked again another email blizzard asking me for the same information they had gotten and verified from me not even 1.5 weeks ago. Call them does no good email account admin I get the same generic robot replies.Send the info back in again or no account.
I hope fhis never happens to anyone else I have been treated like a liar and a thief even after I gave thenm ALL my information 2 times now and they still want it again 1.5 weeks after the last time.Needless to say I replied b ack to there robot spam told them to take my accounts and shove em and they would not get another dime from me to which I got the same robot reply lol Blizzard don't give a crap about there customers no more than Sony did in Eq's big ride.Hope you enjoy the fall blizzard for me I will go back and play Eq2 or Lord of the Rings online and support companies who actually do try to solve things.
Nah, it's considerably less. More than half of their subscribers are sitting in Asia, where they have a play-per-time model, and it's a lot cheaper too.
why WOW can not coexist with all the new MMO games are about to arrive ?
is there any strong reason to belive WOW will be killed by any other MMO?
i mean there is over 6.65 billion people atm, i am sure there is enough "share" for everyone .
I think , a much better approche about "nex gen wow killer" would be "what kind of cataclysm would kill wow player base" ?
as my fav cataclysm, i would point out
A Earth is conquer by a nasty and hungry alien race, so, not more time to play, not even wow
B Earth is conquer by a nasty and political right wind faction lead by future Chicago School sadists, mind you, maybe is actually happening, so, hurry up wow days are almost over i am afraid
C China in an alliance with almost everysingle asian country impost a major revision about MMO games, sadly, wow, not been grinder enough,is cancelled, and just a few outsiders keep playing it, eventually they all get arrested and forced to play "the" approved MMO game, "click click clik dont think " also know as "click click click i forgot what to do next"
D a comet strikes the earth, sending us all, even wow players into oblivion, and i mind you, oblivion is not a game.
and last but not least
E WOW2 is launched
Good post all and all but if you think an mmo is JUST a VIDEO GAME that ya master then im afraid ya in the wrong genra of game these games are meant to interact within a gameworld and play your character out.Then again most ya people who think the way you do probly either very young and dont understand what the online gaming means.And then again maybe im just gettin more mature i started online gamin back in 94-95 in the old text based games back then thats what gamin online was interactin and playin ya character out. If all you do is lvl and grind then well waste of time.
No other game need kill WoW. Given enough time, Blizzard will do the job themselves, by not staying current AND/OR releasing WOW2... which will be a program built on the faltering ground of pride and arrogance.
So, if its a typical level/class MMO, why is it pretty much the only one with millions of subs? Why dont we have several of games with several millions of subs? Maybe its because something is very wrong with those other games and something is very right with WoW?
WoW has no skills? You mean, i just turn on autoattack and wait till I kill or die? The sheer amount of skills that your character has opens up a whole new dimension to tactics in MMOs. Its not about mashing buttons, you gotta play smart to be good. If you think WoW has no skills, you probably just used auto-attack. The more character skills you have, the more options you get to play and the more personal skills it takes to beat an opponent with similar number of skills.
I agree with this statement, as long as WoW makes profit, other companies will try to simulate it. However, as those companies do try to simulate WoW, they will try to make it better. Next thing you know, they make a product that has more depth, more content, more fun and perhaps even more innovative. But please, dont try to throw the "WoW has no skills" argument. If it had no skills it wouldnt have millions of players. Who likes to play games that doesnt take any skills to play? I mean, you try to play any game with god mode on. it may be fun for a bit, but then it becomes boring.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
Very good point here... I should know, since I have been playing UO for 8 years now.
But while UO is still quite a lively game, it is not nearly the power house it once was. And tho WoW will not "die" for a long time... it will fall from its current MMO dominance status long before it does, and that quite likely will happen a lot faster then most people think. Possibly in the next couple years.
I'll say up front that I have played, and do not like WoW... but Im not a WoW hater. In my opinion the developers looked at what worked in past MMO's, crammed it all in one game that was easy and user friendly and BAM.... instant success. You have to admire the developers for this. Over the last two years it has seemed inconcievable that WoW would fall from dominance anytime in the next 5-6 years... so why do I feel WoW will make the fall long before then? Several reason...
First of all, what makes WoW such a success will ultimatly be its un-doing. Content and feature wise, wow has almost NO inovation at all. It borrowed almost everything about the game from past games, and presented it in a more user friendly way. But at the end of the day, WoW is still just every MMO from that past. So in the next couple years, if a few high profile MMo's come out and are able to present something new and entertaining to the MMO scene... they will draw alot of veteran MMO players with the promis of something diffrent.
Secondly, along the lines of the first point... WoW's popularity is not becuase its such a great game that it blowing away a ton of other very good, high popularity MMO's. Its becuase the MMO market is very weak right now, and most other big name MMO's are getting pretty old, or are very complicated to play. Also on this point... WoW has had considerable fan fair the last 3 years. This fan fair has drawn ALOT of players to WoW and is likely responsible for a conderable portion of its player base. Think, if your new to the MMO scene, your probly going to pick the game with the most press (especially since alot of WoWs press said it was a great starter MMO). But this press has died off alot in the last few months... and will continue to do so. As a new generation of MMO's come out, more and more players will leave WoW for something new, and new MMO players will not be as drawn to WoW as they once were.
Another issue that not many people think about that will have a serious effect on WoW (and all MMO's for that matter) is the economy. The economy is down, cost of living and gas are up and games are the first to go for many when money is tight. I know 3 people who recently canceled WoW accounts because they simply cannot afford it right now. Of course this should effect all games... but I feel WoW, and all older MMO's will feel it more. Wow has such a huge fan base, its will see by far the most players quit from such problems. And at least a decent percentage of thoes that do quit will move on to new games when they come back. Now this only applys to North America (which has 2.5 million WoW players) as Im not really sure of the status of the econmy in the rest of the WoW gaming world.
Next, WoW is over 3 years old now. Blizzard says it has 10 millon subs (5.5 million of which are in Asia, a market not many MMO's target, especially China), which is a great number for a 3 year old MMO. But thoes numbers will start to fall in the near future, and WoW will naturaly start loseing players and the amount joining will drop with age. Of course expansions can slow this down, or even stop it for a bit if the expansions are of good quality and add alot to the game. But becuase of the problems mentioned by the OP, I doubt this will happen for WoW. Blizzard could probly survive a drop of 90% in its player base, and still have the game be very profitable. So it dosn't have to constantly develop alot of new content and try hard to please as many people as it can for fear the game will stop being profitable.........yet.
Lastly... Another MMO from Blizzard will also be bad for WoW (not neccisarily bad for Blizzard tho). Alot of people will quit to play it, and if its the same thing as WoW bundled into another game, its going to fail, at least to people who are tierd of WoW. Its going to be a test for Blizzard... they are actually gonna have to do more then use things from old games, and make a new entertaining game from scratch. If its the same old same old... thoes who quit WoW to play it will likely jump ship. Some will go back, other won't.
I don't mean to single WoW out here, and Im by no means saying anything bad about WoWers... all MMO's rise and fall over time. As I said, Ive been a UO player since its hay day... Ive seen it rise to the top, and then slowly fall over the last few years years or so. All games will deal with alot of these problems, but WoW's size and popularity cause it other uniqe problems. And while none of these issues will drain a large enough amount of players to really hurt the player base, together they can put a serious dent in it over a fairly short period of time. Even still... WoW will be a formitable MMO for a long time to come. Just how long will WoW maintain its dominace tho? Thats the real question. I personally feel in 2-3 years we will be talking about how some other MMO has over taken WoW as the dominant game. Or.... the more likely scenario, we will be talking about how several games have risen and leveled the playing field with WoW.... which would in fact be the best thing for the MMO world.
Thanks to anyone that actually read all that...
In a way I kind of agree with the OP from a business stand point and here is why. Blizzard announced they have 10mil subs to their game. Since WOW has been inexistance it has been the most popular and most successful MMO to date even though Lineage 1&2 is right up there with WOW as being a successful MMO. Now recently Blizzard has announced they are working on a NEW Next-Gen MMO. So can someone tell me why on earth would you even consider making a new kind of MMO when clearly WOW is the biggest money maker for Blizzard ? Why shake the money tree down ? Do they feel they will keep those 10mil subs and get new subs to their new MMO ? Unless people have way too much time on their hands that will not be the case. Making a brand new ip next-gen mmo will compete with WOW. Why would they even flirt with that idea ? Just food for thought here.
Well, Blizzard could prove me wrong. And, frankly, I'd be happy as a peach to be wrong. The release of their "Next-gen" MMO will tell the tale. Will it be an EQ 2? Born of pride and arrogance? (not trying to start an EQ vs. WoW thing here... but just look at the sub numbers for EQ2 vs EQ... it was a sad sequel and as a huge EQ fan, I was hugely disappointed in EQ2)
Or will Blizzards "next-gen" MMO be innovative, creative & genuinely fun? Will it be new and fresh? Or will it be stale and yet another sad regurgitation of the same old MMO gameplay we've seen for years?
Time will tell. But the outcome will determine the fall of WoW and Blizzards MMO rule.
LOL .. i think it probably has more to do with the fact that a MMORPG takes YEARS to compleate.
So Blizzard announced they are working on a new gen game. So? Why are people running around like the sky is falling ... its a damm good stratagy as far as i can see. If they start *now* .. as in *RIGHT NOW* .. they *may* have it ready for release in what? 3?4? maby 5 years! You talk about Bliz's new MMORPG as if its being released next month .. sheesh!
Why is it gonna be a WoW killer lol. They are looking ahead and seeing that WoW is, guess what, *Not* going to last forever. If they start now rather than when WoW bottoms out .. they'll have a nice head-start on thier next Online game. Seems prudent to start making *WoW2 The Return!* when profits are high and you can afford that outlay .. investors are happy with thier fat pockets and looking foward to the next *cashpot* when WoW2 (tm) hits.
Now if they were sitting there saying *yer when WoW hits 10K subs we'll think about a new game* ... then i'd be concerned ... Car companys dont wait till thier old models are all being taken to scrapyards to start designing a new model .. why the hell would a game developer?
BTW. Yer i played WOW .. no I dont anymore. Game got old .. but people who think Bliz has a crappy Biz plan .. need to look at the facts and think a little harder .. theres no way they are losing money to the MMORPG's of the future (Those hitting in the next 2-4 years) .. and trust me .. they aint gonna try to compeate against those future games with WoW ...
Their obvious basis for saying this is the idea of 10 mil accts times 15 bucks a month to play...:*)
Galen
AGREE, AGREE, AGREE. I find it so comical to read people post about how Blizzard is lazy, WoW sucks, and they are "catering to a minority". Sorry, that is just idiotic.
They created an MMO so much superior to any other thing on the market in this genre that it is not even fair to compare other games to it. That being said, I quit years ago, because what game in the world can be expected to keep your attention for 2 years plus? I played it, loved it, got bored and quit. That doesn't mean the game sucked. Give me a freakin break......
Wow is a huge susces , but that does not mean everyone likes the developing of wow, i find it bad aswell, thay focus way to much on raid content , instead of other stuff beside raiding and dungoens. just my 2 cents, trough i think there starting to wake up a bid now.
Playing: World of Warcraft.
Played: Lord of the Rings Online, Starwars Galaxies.
Tried: Starwars the Old Republic, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Aion.
AGREE, AGREE, AGREE. I find it so comical to read people post about how Blizzard is lazy, WoW sucks, and they are "catering to a minority". Sorry, that is just idiotic.
They created an MMO so much superior to any other thing on the market in this genre that it is not even fair to compare other games to it. That being said, I quit years ago, because what game in the world can be expected to keep your attention for 2 years plus? I played it, loved it, got bored and quit. That doesn't mean the game sucked. Give me a freakin break......
Not sure if Vrika was referring to the OP as the "some random guy"... OP would be me. I don't mind the minor flame, no sweat off my back, but the OP was not about WOW or how it was being developed... it was about what would the wow killer would be... and that is Blizzard. I base my opinion and prediction on how Blizzard represented itself at GDC '08, which came off very arrogant and king-of-the-hillish. Fine if they are for now, but the lack of humility seemed to be the same type demonstrated by SOE prior to the release of EQ2 which SOE was absolutely sure would be king of all MMO's... so... SOE killed EQ (even though the game is still running...) and made a huge opening that Blizzard came and gladly filled with an amazing game ... what we play today, World of Warcraft.
Based on the arrogance demonstrated by Blizzard at GDC '08, I would say there is a strong possibility that they are walking down the same path that SOE did with EQ2.
WoW is a smash hit. Great business model. Blizzard has a great deal to be proud of and I celebrate their success with them. I am concerned that said success is going to their corporate head. It's the signs that speak for themselves. What remains to be seen is whether or not that success will yield more innovation and quality in their "Next-Gen" MMO or whether it will stimey production and yield a second rate product- the death of WoW.
One post on this thread provided a great counter argument to my position. Blizzard has a demonstrable history of producing sequels that are better than the original releases. That, frankly, gets me excited for what may be on the horizon for us!
It just remains to be seen... but the signs aren't good.
: P
Really though, doing nothing but leveling and grinding is a legitimate character goal in both roleplay and personal wants out of a game....
Take goku for example, from dragon ball z, all he did was "grind" and grind some more!
wow: the Mcdonalds of mmo
http://www.soesucks.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=10
I wouldn't think Blizzard was so stupid and greedy as $$$OE, but they are indeed starting to destroy WOW nerfing the quests, boosting experience and showing quests in the mini map.
What will be next...maybe an improved hearthstone that will let you teleport to ten different places. Or a gnomish Elite-Abolishing-Rod, that will turn the few Elite mobs left into normal ones.
I really tend to laugh whenever people state that Blizzard is rich beyond your boots and such. People must not realize how much it costs to maintain the servers, and pay the developers and GMs. Not the mention, it is not SOLELY them who collects the revenue. Their publisher, Vivendi Universal, gets a good bit of the dough as well. This isn't a lemonade stand business model, folks.
Unless someone succeeds in tending to the casuals in a greater way then WoW, I don't see it going down for a long time. AoC is niche market . They've stated that. Warhammer has a good following, due to Dark Age of Camelot, but nothing is going to "kill" WoW.
A "WoW Killer" is not needed, nor is there any reason to hope that Blizzard fails.
Wow makes 100's of times more money than it needs to in order to be profitable. I don't need WoW to fail, I only need other innovative games to be made. That can happen, and WoW can still do well, even with less, much less, subscriptions than they have now.
Blizzard has a bunch of money, and I want them to use some of it to make more MMORPGs. I never played WoW after a trial because I absolutely hated it, but that doesn't mean the Blizzard team doesn't have the experience and resources to make another solid game. Maybe l'll like the next one they make.
Sure Blizzard are complete Industry noobs and get Lazy because of the WoW success. Dude just because they don't show everything to the public, doesn't mean they got nothing up they're sleeves.
Yes there are support costs but they're a drop in the bucket compared the profits. I don't have the expense/revenue charts in front of me but I know its RELATIVELY cheap to maintain server clusters. Its not like the old days where there were probably 5-6 servers runnging a single game instance. All bets are they have several instances of the game world running on some crazy SAN cluster. so yes expensive but like everything else they do its probably built smart and efficient.
Don't get me wrong their server farm is probably maddening but they are making money hand over fist no doubt.
The real costs in MMO land is the development of the MMOs. once they are online and have critical mass the costs flatline and its just a matter of keeping the lights on.
Blizzard/Vivendi probably make more money off wow tshirts than SOE does off 3 of their mmos.
What a constructive comment.
As if killing WoW is a goal for anyone but pouty people who can't accept that others find continuous enjoyment in something they themselves couldn't...
Just to give you an idea of the scope their servers have to deal with, they have said that they will never increase the players backpack size. Its not a game issue, or a balance issue.
In order to give every character (alts included) 2 more slots in their backpack it would take up so much physical space that it is not feasable at this time.
The WoW servers are the largest server operation ever. The problems they have to deal with nobody has dealt with. There is no PHD guy who they can bring in to solve the problem. There is no guy with 30 years experience doing this.
To the comment about them being industry newbs. Blizzard has been around a LONG time. Rock and Roll racer is probably one of the oldest games they made people would remember or possibly Lost Vikings. They know what they are doing.
As for them killing themselves. No. I hate to break it to you but WoW is on a CONSTANT, STEADY upward climb and showing almost no sign of stopping. They can afford the best and brightest and of all the gaming companies had arguably the best track record for their games.
5 years ago if you had ask me what game company would be able to pull off an mmorpg the best i would have said Blizzard. If you ask me now I will say the same thing. They have the money, the track record, the fan base, the marketing, and the ability to pull it off. And they do.
Every year people say "blizzard is stupid" "WoW will die soon its a fad" "its got no depth and no ambition, its a market mashup"
Some of the most visionary designers (arguably) like David Allen, Brad McQuaid, Lord British(Richard Garriott), have been unable to parallel the sucess of WoW. Infact 2 of the 3 failed miserably.
You might have some personal vendetta againsed WoW, I understand its the cool thing to do and you just gota fit in. But looking at it objectivly WoW is a screaming success. There is lots of things to do in the game, its generally well balanced. Issues are fixed and new content is added in a timely manner. WoW is still one of the most sucessful at preventing gold farming. 1000g (which isnt really that much) sells for as much as 60 dollars US. Where as in other games, some ludicrous amount of money is often available for 10-15 bucks.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...