No single game will kill WoW. However, you will see multiple mmos chip away at the subscriber base. WoW's subs have stagnated for over 2 years.
The "big" announcement that they broke 12 million only came since Wrath was finally released in China. Now you have a country with 1 billion people, the largest online gaming market in the world and you gain less than 0.1% growth there? Not exactly encouraging numbers.
There will always be a core group of players that will never leave WoW. Mostly these will be people that WoW was their 1st mmo. I know that EQ1, my 1st mmo, was the hardest to leave. They don't want to give up all their accomplishments, friends and familiarity for a new mmo. Probably the game that takes the biggest chunk out of WoW will be The Old Republic. Unless Bioware Epic Fails, that game has the potential to be a multi-million subscription game as well.
Actually sony had "the right idea" but Vanguard failed to deliver. The whole idea they had for vanguard was being their everquest 3 such that they would not have to make a new everquest in the near future.
If sony pulls a windows 7 with their everquest next release then they have a chance to take a big chunk. It took vista to get Win7.
As for WoW itself, they have taken a pretty unique stance. Unlike say everquest where they kept coming out with new games and expanding the worlds of their old games, WoW has decided to fundimentally alter their world and their system to keep with the times graphically/gameplaywise and to bring it back to smaller trees instead of expanding out of all proportion.
If they continue with this route they could essentially have a seamless WoW 2 transition without actually calling anything WoW 2. Isnt that really what cataclysm is the beginning of? I mean the old world has been modified to the point of being a completely new game. The tree simplifications bring everything back to vanilla wow as far as complexity goes enabling the next 2 expansions to add to the tree without it being unwieldy.
Actually that the world is changing harkens back to one of the best features of asheron's call -- the world changed. In WoWs case it is actually quite the risk as some people will be turned off by it -- miss areas that go away, long for the old system -- but if they transition it will ultimately allow WoW to continue collecting subscriber dollars through the whole decade.
Guildwars2 - This is Free 2 Play MMO, that we know little about. We dont even know if the world PvP is any good. So far the hype on this game is going down the drain. This game seems like it will be a filler game to the rest of us like Guild Wars 1 was.
SWTOR - This game seems like its a pile of hyped crap. Bioware likes doing the story>Gameplay concept, but that doesnt work in this genre of gaming. sorry bioware. as long as gameplay remains second nature to story telling, this game will remain a crap fest.
TERA - this game seems like a gimmick. It has Aiming. Which is a very very small percentage of the MMORPG game market. The combat looks like a dull fest. Likely the world will be instanced or something.
RIFT- problem with rift,,, um,, not sure right now. but I think of something.
Blade&Soul - isnt this that kung fu game by NCsoft or something?
Lol, i love it when fanboys go ''analytical'' with ''arguments'' which they pull out of their biased behinds. What's next ? A graph where you scientifically proove that Babyface is an authority in music ? Stop it, please. You've shown who you are on the ''Blizzard seal of approval'' thread.
WoW's end game was the killer for me.. I didn't stop playing WoW because of another game, I quit because I hated WoW's end game mechanics with a passion.. The ID system killed it, and having raids be private 10/25 man instances killed it.. It's just that simple.. In my opinion playing WoW's end game is like playing tic tac toe in Kindergarten.. It was repetively boring with the same classmates.. No wonder we all outgrew it by 1st grade.. I moved up to checkers, then chess by middle school..
MMO's today seem to be a reflextion of society.. Honestly, how many kids today actually go outside and FIND ways to play socially.. I hardly see kids at the parks anymore playing as a group.. When was the last time you saw kids playing in forts they made from cardboard boxes, or tree houses? It appears to me that creative play that kids once enjoyed has been replaced with the electronic "follow the breadcrumbs" console games.. Why cant' the devs make a mmo like a playground and give us tools to create our own fun.. Just make sure you have the proper rules in place to avoid problems..
WoW's end game was the killer for me.. I didn't stop playing WoW because of another game, I quit because I hated WoW's end game mechanics with a passion.. The ID system killed it, and having raids be private 10/25 man instances killed it.. It's just that simple.. In my opinion playing WoW's end game is like playing tic tac toe in Kindergarten.. It was repetively boring with the same classmates.. No wonder we all outgrew it by 1st grade.. I moved up to checkers, then chess by middle school..
MMO's today seem to be a reflextion of society.. Honestly, how many kids today actually go outside and FIND ways to play socially.. I hardly see kids at the parks anymore playing as a group.. When was the last time you saw kids playing in forts they made from cardboard boxes, or tree houses? It appears to me that creative play that kids once enjoyed has been replaced with the electronic "follow the breadcrumbs" console games.. Why cant' the devs make a mmo like a playground and give us tools to create our own fun.. Just make sure you have the proper rules in place to avoid problems..
Because those type of games do not sustain a substantial number of subscriptions and in the 2010 MMO world, money means everything. Besides there is a game like that already, it's called Minecraft. I can think of some others too, like Eve or Darkfall. I don't think there's anything wrong with designing a sandbox type game, but you need to accept ahead of time that your game is going to be 'niche' right out of the box and that it's not going have a huge sub base compared to something like WoW.
Eventually something will surpass WoW, such is life. I doubt it will be something as hardcore or as original as a sandbox mmorpg however. WoW's strength is in its accessibility and also for the fact that in many places it was the first MMORPG you could get your hands on without having to steal a parents credit card (what with game time cards etc). I believe that nothing has come along that's really bettered WoW at what WoW does. All the recent titles such as AoC or WaR are really like slightly rushed and unimaginative clones. When someone gets the formula right we'll see WoW beaten, I just happen to think Blizzard will be the first to do so.
Literally "Killing" would mean: Draining wow of it's subscriberbase to a degree that Blizzard has to shut down the game.
That will never happen.
What WILL happen however is one of the following:
1. Developers at last start to do their homework and start to release compelling, fun and polished games with their OWN indentity because they have learned that doing otherwise means loosing massive amounts of money or
2. The industry keeps pumping out half-assed attempts to milk some money out of burned out WoW-Players.
If the latter keeps going on (this is the situation right now, 95% of the products are nowhere near the same league as WoW while trying to appeal to it's audience) there won't be a WoW-Killer, on the contrary: WoW will kill all others like it did with WQarhammer, AoC, LOTRO, Aion and so on.
Does anybody really care? It's just a game, why are these threads always popping up like anyones opinion really matters. WoW may have the most subs but it is NOT the best game. Keep WoW on your own pedestal and stop talking like it's a God.
2nd of all, you cannot compare some of those games because they have a different game-play. For those who only know WoW and nothing else (Most WoW Players) may only like that type of play style. WoW is out dated compared to those games anyhow, most likely anything different in mechanics that's not like WoW in any of those games are it's down fall.
My vote goes to Cataclysm being the WoW killer, honestly BLizzard is the only company that will ever kill that game and they have been slowly doing it for years...
The WoW killer will be time and boredom and a series of other newer games . The process of decline has already begun in Europe and most players that are playing and hav'nt left due to the constant streamlining of the game (dumbing down) are holding out hope that cataclysm will bring back some of the challenge to the game . In a sence Cataclysm is WoWs last chance for many players . Should Blizzard get it wrong it in itself could be the WoWkiller . I only now find the pvp any fun in WoW these days the rest of it is so easy its dull so I would count myself as one of those just waiting to see what Cata has to offer before I finally quit even so there are many mmos released next year that look good I could see myself going to one of several .I'm not sure any subsequent Blizzard mmo will be as popular as WoW . For a lot of people Blizzard have lost credibility .
Does anybody really care? It's just a game, why are these threads always popping up like anyones opinion really matters. WoW may have the most subs but it is NOT the best game. Keep WoW on your own pedestal and stop talking like it's a God.
WoW has the most subs because it's the best at what it does, for those playing it. The gameplay in WoW may not appeal to you. Don't play it. Saying WoW is not the best game is pretty arrogant. It may not be the best game to you, but to 12million other people it's the best game for their subscription dollars/euros. You can try and pretend that the elephant in the room with you really isn't there, but in the end you'll only be disappointed. And sat upon.
2nd of all, you cannot compare some of those games because they have a different game-play. For those who only know WoW and nothing else (Most WoW Players) may only like that type of play style. WoW is out dated compared to those games anyhow, most likely anything different in mechanics that's not like WoW in any of those games are it's down fall.
I have been playing MMORPGs since the mid-90s; my first was Legends of Kesmai (a 2-d game). From there I went on to Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, etc., etc. In all, I've probably played and subscribed to dozens of different MMORPGs over the past 16 or so years. I believe I have had experience with many types of gameplay. This hasn't made me an expert in anything, with one exception: I know what I like, and why I like it.
I don't play WoW because it's the only game I know. I play WoW because it meets all of the requirements that *I* expect from an MMORPG. YMMV
WoW is in the process of imploding right now. Vivendi-Activision and WoW's latest development team make make up the real WoW killer.
I'd look for a big surge with Cataclysm, then a gradual hemorrhaging of accounts, followed by a more robust cash shop. Acti-Blizzard's going to milk this cow until she's a rotting corpse.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
so this is basicly my taughts on the called wow killer.
Lately I've read a bunch of threads about the famous wow killer title and wihich game it's gonna be, so I thought a lot about it and here is what I think.
next year will be a good year for the mmo player community, we'll (most likely) gonna get our hands on games we've been waiting for a long time, Guildwars2, SWTOR, TERA, RIFT, Blade&Soul, etc...
but will one of these games be the wow killer? thats the million dollar question, isnt it?:P
I, for one, say no, neither of these games will be the one who kills WoW, they seem to be VERY good games, they really do, but I really do not think that one of them will be titled the WoW killer.
BUT, here is what I think might kill wow (eventually). If you think of World of warcraft like a dot in the middle of a paper, then we draw a big circle around the dot, which represents the community (subscribers). Then we add 5 dots around the circle which represents the games listed above. these games will also, most likely, get a big community, and the circles around these games will then overlap the circle around WoW... damn, I suck at axplaining this:P
here I made an illustration to show you what I mean;
(the circles around the different logoes is random size btw, I dont know anything about how big each game's community is going to be)
but anyways, as you see the circles around each logo overlaps the circle around the WoW logo, in other words, the community or subscriber base of each game is going to "snatch" more or less people from the wow community, and I think thats how the end of WoW is going to start, newer game's community feed out of wow's community and eventually all these mmo'scommunity will grow, and by this, the subscriber base of WoW will slowly get smaller.
But will this alone be able to kill WoW? I dont think so... As many have said before me,WoW will eventually kill itself. I think this might be the beginning, but in the end, Blizzard themself will get the "killing blow", maybe they'll panic and release a so called "miracle" patch in hope to get the players back, that will change WoW so much that it's no longer the game people love now, and the remaining subscribers will slowly drain away to try something new. But as I said, I dont know, this is just a speculation... but this is what I think will kill WoW.
And thank you if you actually read through all this, I appologies for all the typo's, Im a Norwegian who had a bit too little english in highschool:P but I just wanted to share my thoughts about this
feel free to comment or tell me what you think might kill WoW or why WoW will never die
I posted ths on off-topic allready, but as soon as I was done i thought hey wait! this is about mmorpg so I "re posted" it here:P sorry for spamming the same thread all over the place -_-
There will never be a game that kills WoW. Only GW2 and SW: TOR have a shot have having a million or so active players/subs but that will never really affect WoW.
Comments
No single game will kill WoW. However, you will see multiple mmos chip away at the subscriber base. WoW's subs have stagnated for over 2 years.
The "big" announcement that they broke 12 million only came since Wrath was finally released in China. Now you have a country with 1 billion people, the largest online gaming market in the world and you gain less than 0.1% growth there? Not exactly encouraging numbers.
There will always be a core group of players that will never leave WoW. Mostly these will be people that WoW was their 1st mmo. I know that EQ1, my 1st mmo, was the hardest to leave. They don't want to give up all their accomplishments, friends and familiarity for a new mmo. Probably the game that takes the biggest chunk out of WoW will be The Old Republic. Unless Bioware Epic Fails, that game has the potential to be a multi-million subscription game as well.
No. In the grim darkness of the far MMO industry future, there is only WoW...
Previously...
Warhammer is the next Wow-killer!
Aion will kill WoW!
Surely, Age of Conan can topple the giant!
LOTRO will kill WoW!
FFXIV is going to destory WoW!
Presently...
GW2 is sure to kill WoW!
WoW can't hope to be king with TOR coming out.
TERA is going to demolish WoW!
Rift may give WoW a run for its money!
Herp. Derp.
Actually sony had "the right idea" but Vanguard failed to deliver. The whole idea they had for vanguard was being their everquest 3 such that they would not have to make a new everquest in the near future.
If sony pulls a windows 7 with their everquest next release then they have a chance to take a big chunk. It took vista to get Win7.
As for WoW itself, they have taken a pretty unique stance. Unlike say everquest where they kept coming out with new games and expanding the worlds of their old games, WoW has decided to fundimentally alter their world and their system to keep with the times graphically/gameplaywise and to bring it back to smaller trees instead of expanding out of all proportion.
If they continue with this route they could essentially have a seamless WoW 2 transition without actually calling anything WoW 2. Isnt that really what cataclysm is the beginning of? I mean the old world has been modified to the point of being a completely new game. The tree simplifications bring everything back to vanilla wow as far as complexity goes enabling the next 2 expansions to add to the tree without it being unwieldy.
Actually that the world is changing harkens back to one of the best features of asheron's call -- the world changed. In WoWs case it is actually quite the risk as some people will be turned off by it -- miss areas that go away, long for the old system -- but if they transition it will ultimately allow WoW to continue collecting subscriber dollars through the whole decade.
Lol, i love it when fanboys go ''analytical'' with ''arguments'' which they pull out of their biased behinds. What's next ? A graph where you scientifically proove that Babyface is an authority in music ? Stop it, please. You've shown who you are on the ''Blizzard seal of approval'' thread.
WoW's end game was the killer for me.. I didn't stop playing WoW because of another game, I quit because I hated WoW's end game mechanics with a passion.. The ID system killed it, and having raids be private 10/25 man instances killed it.. It's just that simple.. In my opinion playing WoW's end game is like playing tic tac toe in Kindergarten.. It was repetively boring with the same classmates.. No wonder we all outgrew it by 1st grade.. I moved up to checkers, then chess by middle school..
MMO's today seem to be a reflextion of society.. Honestly, how many kids today actually go outside and FIND ways to play socially.. I hardly see kids at the parks anymore playing as a group.. When was the last time you saw kids playing in forts they made from cardboard boxes, or tree houses? It appears to me that creative play that kids once enjoyed has been replaced with the electronic "follow the breadcrumbs" console games.. Why cant' the devs make a mmo like a playground and give us tools to create our own fun.. Just make sure you have the proper rules in place to avoid problems..
Because those type of games do not sustain a substantial number of subscriptions and in the 2010 MMO world, money means everything. Besides there is a game like that already, it's called Minecraft. I can think of some others too, like Eve or Darkfall. I don't think there's anything wrong with designing a sandbox type game, but you need to accept ahead of time that your game is going to be 'niche' right out of the box and that it's not going have a huge sub base compared to something like WoW.
Eventually something will surpass WoW, such is life. I doubt it will be something as hardcore or as original as a sandbox mmorpg however. WoW's strength is in its accessibility and also for the fact that in many places it was the first MMORPG you could get your hands on without having to steal a parents credit card (what with game time cards etc). I believe that nothing has come along that's really bettered WoW at what WoW does. All the recent titles such as AoC or WaR are really like slightly rushed and unimaginative clones. When someone gets the formula right we'll see WoW beaten, I just happen to think Blizzard will be the first to do so.
WoW will never be killed... it will die of old age ...
I am waiting for the MMORPG genre to enter 'The Game' we will see if there really can 'only be one!'
Literally "Killing" would mean: Draining wow of it's subscriberbase to a degree that Blizzard has to shut down the game.
That will never happen.
What WILL happen however is one of the following:
1. Developers at last start to do their homework and start to release compelling, fun and polished games with their OWN indentity because they have learned that doing otherwise means loosing massive amounts of money or
2. The industry keeps pumping out half-assed attempts to milk some money out of burned out WoW-Players.
If the latter keeps going on (this is the situation right now, 95% of the products are nowhere near the same league as WoW while trying to appeal to it's audience) there won't be a WoW-Killer, on the contrary: WoW will kill all others like it did with WQarhammer, AoC, LOTRO, Aion and so on.
My bet is on Blizzards new MMO.
Only.
Please do not hype any gam.. oh wait, nevermind... forgot what forum I was on.
the only thing that will " kill " WOW is blizzard and not by making a new mmo but by failng to keep WOW going at the rate it is currently.
Already is. Farmville. :P
Playing: AC2
Played: UO, DaoC, Horizons, Ryzom, WAR, LotRO, Eve, VG...
Does anybody really care? It's just a game, why are these threads always popping up like anyones opinion really matters. WoW may have the most subs but it is NOT the best game. Keep WoW on your own pedestal and stop talking like it's a God.
2nd of all, you cannot compare some of those games because they have a different game-play. For those who only know WoW and nothing else (Most WoW Players) may only like that type of play style. WoW is out dated compared to those games anyhow, most likely anything different in mechanics that's not like WoW in any of those games are it's down fall.
My vote goes to Cataclysm being the WoW killer, honestly BLizzard is the only company that will ever kill that game and they have been slowly doing it for years...
Yup of course there will be .......... WoW 2 !!
.......... or something else made by Blizzard ...
Nope, no game has been killed by another game let alone WoW.
The WoW killer will be time and boredom and a series of other newer games . The process of decline has already begun in Europe and most players that are playing and hav'nt left due to the constant streamlining of the game (dumbing down) are holding out hope that cataclysm will bring back some of the challenge to the game . In a sence Cataclysm is WoWs last chance for many players . Should Blizzard get it wrong it in itself could be the WoWkiller . I only now find the pvp any fun in WoW these days the rest of it is so easy its dull so I would count myself as one of those just waiting to see what Cata has to offer before I finally quit even so there are many mmos released next year that look good I could see myself going to one of several .I'm not sure any subsequent Blizzard mmo will be as popular as WoW . For a lot of people Blizzard have lost credibility .
WoW is in the process of imploding right now. Vivendi-Activision and WoW's latest development team make make up the real WoW killer.
I'd look for a big surge with Cataclysm, then a gradual hemorrhaging of accounts, followed by a more robust cash shop. Acti-Blizzard's going to milk this cow until she's a rotting corpse.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
games don't die. quit asking
Tell that to the people who bought Tabula Rasa.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Time will kill WoW, nothing else.
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
There will never be a game that kills WoW. Only GW2 and SW: TOR have a shot have having a million or so active players/subs but that will never really affect WoW.