Originally posted by tochicool (IMO) SW:ToR will ultimatley be the last blow for WoW. After that, it's not going to get any better. WoW is dying. Blizzard could try changing the model to free-to-play but it won't do them much good at all. If Blizzard where wise they would start up a new game and call it WoWII or, even better, World of Starcraft. They have the resources thanks to their dummy subscribers. ¬_¬
Even if WoW lost half their playerbase, the game would still have more subscribers than any other mmorpg out there. It would also generate more money every month than pretty much any other game out there. It's going to be 'forever' before WoW dies, and if it did it wouldn't matter anyway because Blizzard has made so much money off of that one game.
Blizzard has started up a new game, code named "Titan". It will probably release in 20 years or so given Blizzard's usual development cycle.
According to Blizzard, there will be no World of Starcraft. There is an independent developer out there using the mod tools for SCII making an MMO out of the game though.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It's also why their now working on TITAN, and have said in public that they themselves with Titan want to be the game/developer to beat wow inot a pulp and take all its players
Blizzard never said that - here's a link to what they said
As to our new unannounced game, we believe that it will be more complementary than competitive.
And while people do have a limited amount of free time that they can devote to these types of games, we do think that people will want to check out the new and the old. We think the new one is very compelling and is going to capture a lot of hearts and minds and will be very successful for us. But we also believe that many people will continue playing World of Warcraft because they have such a huge collection of friends and community.
We all know just how much time a game like WoW can consume, and one would be enclined to worry about whether or not we’d be forced to choose between one and the other? As a former WoWhead myself, I know there wouldn’t be time to play both WoW and an additional MMO.
and its been announced that Titan will be a casual mmo
(IMO) SW:ToR will ultimatley be the last blow for WoW. After that, it's not going to get any better. WoW is dying.
Blizzard could try changing the model to free-to-play but it won't do them much good at all. If Blizzard where wise they would start up a new game and call it WoWII or, even better, World of Starcraft. They have the resources thanks to their dummy subscribers. ¬_¬
Even if WoW lost half their playerbase, the game would still have more subscribers than any other mmorpg out there. It would also generate more money every month than pretty much any other game out there. It's going to be 'forever' before WoW dies, and if it did it wouldn't matter anyway because Blizzard has made so much money off of that one game.
Blizzard has started up a new game, code named "Titan". It will probably release in 20 years or so given Blizzard's usual development cycle.
According to Blizzard, there will be no World of Starcraft. There is an independent developer out there using the mod tools for SCII making an MMO out of the game though.
Lost half ? No sorry but that is alot of exaggerating there.
WoW will only be dead once it's servers are shut down.
Until that happens, there will always be a great deal of people playing it, no matter how old and tired it gets. This has been true for less successful titles that have come before it.
But WoW has more or less passed its glory days, even now before the next batch of MMOs come out.
The game has become rather stagnant. The community is made up mostly of people who seem to get off on complaining. The new content feels like it's being reused over and over. Blah blah blah.
And because WoW's engine can only do so much, be a bit over the hill at this point, there's really not much more they can do in terms of spicing the game up as a whole.
WoW certainly isn't dead, and not even really that desperate to be honest. The amount of money Blizz gets from subscribers is still ludicrous. But WoW is staggering, just a bit, and once these new titles hit the shelves, you'll probably see a massive exodus from WoW. In the end, WoW is just getting old. People just aren't that interested anymore.
I have been reading on various websites all the recent updates and changes to WoW, the latest being removing the threat issue for Tanks, which I read on the "TenTonHammer" gaming website. It seems ever since SWTOR went pre-order there has been a flood of updates, content, changes etc etc from WoW. I guess it makes sense to pull out the stops with the sales numbers SWTOR is showing and of course its Star Wars.
I am beginning to feel that even though WoW is fantasy and SWTOR is Sci-Fi, that the old age debate of Fantasy Players not leavign WoW for a Sci-Fi MMO is a mute point.
What do you think?
Many people often leave a game to try out something new, some will stick with the new, some will go back to that they have invested allot of time in and still feel it's a fun game.
Also this flood of updates: Last was Patch 4.2. on 06/28/2011, the patch before Patch 4.1: on 4/26/2011 and before that one Patch 4.0: 10/10/2010
And ofcourse there are many players that just play anything with the MMO tag on it.
So I am not sure why people think that WoW is getting desperate or some even seem to think it's dying. Cause all I see is a logical course of action that happens to any MMORPG, but for some reason people can't stand the fact that WoW has such high sub numbers, so they try to make topics like this which actually shows us nothing.
Lets just hope that what ever games is released or still is being played that our fellow gamers enjoy themselfs.
There are no "my game is better," there are just games that some like and some might dislike.
I'm contrarian on this one. I believe that SW:TORs release will *IMPROVE* WoW's community.
$%^& flows down-hill. The more problems that leave WoW for SW:TOR the fewer problems WoW will have. Dedicated WoW players (adults) aren't going to leave their home because of a new game. They haven't yet, and if Cata didn't drive them off then certainly nothing is going to.
Frankly this could be very good for WoW.
Now if we could just convince them to stop nerfing the stuffins out of our PVE toons, we'd be all set.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
Agree with this entire thread as long as our definitions are:
Dying means having more subscribers 10 years from now than half the MMORPGs on the market at that time. (Like EQ1, but better)
Desperate means another 10 long years of updates to slow subscriber bleed (when most games would die off completely and stop updating.)
WOW has peaked; it's best designers moved on; but you have to be completely blind to how these games work -- specifically how EQ1 has worked -- to think any "death" or "desperation" is at work here.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm contrarian on this one. I believe that SW:TORs release will *IMPROVE* WoW's community.
$%^& flows down-hill. The more problems that leave WoW for SW:TOR the fewer problems WoW will have. Dedicated WoW players (adults) aren't going to leave their home because of a new game. They haven't yet, and if Cata didn't drive them off then certainly nothing is going to.
Frankly this could be very good for WoW.
Now if we could just convince them to stop nerfing the stuffins out of our PVE toons, we'd be all set.
The problem with your theory is that SWTor is a true RPG, with decisions that change the world and the way the story folds to your character. It has loads of conversations that require answers since they shape your reputations. It would be much much more complex to play than WoW, especially to players wich are not native english speakers, this representes a great ammount of wow players.
In my point of view, the "kids", the elitist and most of the morons who only see "EPIC LOOTZ" and "RAIDZZZ TONIGHTZZ" wont have the patience to invest on SWTor, and this are the ones who will remain on WoW, not the adult, casual, RPG gamer. Unfortunately from where I see it, the "shi*" is whats gonna remain mainly in wow, with exceptions ofc.
WoW as indeed peaked, and I dont expect anything new to come from that side, and neither does Blizzard im afraid, their best writers/programmers are already working on the Titan project, and I think that shows alot...
Not to mention that Brazil, being a third world country, and I dont mean no disrespect to Brazil, im Portuguese, we speak the same language =P, doesnt have money to maintain the same profits that the other zones maintain. The monthly fee there is around 13 Reais, wich is something like 3 or 4 Euros month, roughly the same in dollars, so, the ammount of profit Blizz makes there is much less that the one they make in US and here in Europe. Around 33% of the value.
So while they loose 300k subs in US/EU they must make almost a million to meet the same profit, or else there will be a loss. And Brazil is very known for their private pirated servers, and not to pay for games
They have taken away the threat generating issue from tanks because they want to give them more to do in future updates. Not only a order in which the should spam there skills. That is something i am realy looking forward to.
I would love to say Archeage is the game to kill off the themepark casual crap that wow now is but sadly due to its graphics quality a vast number of people wont be able to run it,
I've taken a look at Archeage, it is basically promising all the things Horizons did with a bunch of stuff from Darkfall. I'm glad to see that there are still enough nieve youthful people out there that believe a game with that type of feature list is actually possible with modern technology.
Hey, don't knock Horizons...I think it was one of the most under appreciated games back in its day. I played the crap out of that game during beta, loved every minute of it. Unfortuantly was unable to buy ot at the time due to joining the Military. After i was able to hook my computer up again several months later, the game just kinda vanished. Lack of advertising imo.
Id have to say that Since Swtor is prob. putting the heat on every game out atm, whith this being said i dont think WOW is getting desprate, but rather doing what Blizzard thinks are smart moves, and we aslo know that blizzard always makes changes after major patches, with all the qq out there, and it takes time to get all the patches in order. So long answer short desprate i think not, dumb i think so.
(IMO) SW:ToR will ultimatley be the last blow for WoW. After that, it's not going to get any better. WoW is dying.
Blizzard could try changing the model to free-to-play but it won't do them much good at all. If Blizzard where wise they would start up a new game and call it WoWII or, even better, World of Starcraft.
(mod edit)
WoW has 11 million subs,The next closest game was Aion with 3.5 subs at one point.Nothing can touch WoW the only thing beat WoW is Time.No single game is to beat WoW.
WoW will die by 1000 cuts and Time meaning Rifts will take a couple thousands,SWTOR might take a Million,Warhammer 40k might take couple thousand,EQ next might take a million,Wildstar might take a couple thousands,38 studios Amalur mmo might take a million,People will just leave because they are tired or graphic feel old.No one thing will take down WoW like Facebook did to myspace or Google did Yahoo.
I imagine, sitting on that pile of money, there's a sort of desperation.
"How the hell do I get off this mountain of cash without killing myself?"
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I have been reading on various websites all the recent updates and changes to WoW, the latest being removing the threat issue for Tanks, which I read on the "TenTonHammer" gaming website. It seems ever since SWTOR went pre-order there has been a flood of updates, content, changes etc etc from WoW. I guess it makes sense to pull out the stops with the sales numbers SWTOR is showing and of course its Star Wars.
I am beginning to feel that even though WoW is fantasy and SWTOR is Sci-Fi, that the old age debate of Fantasy Players not leavign WoW for a Sci-Fi MMO is a mute point.
What do you think?
Well I agree that Activision / Blizzard is propably under more pressure than ever before.
Just think. WoW ages, there is no denying it. Even though because WoW was / is playable even on older PC's - there is no denying that that it is starting to look old.
Average user PC's is getting more powerful bit by bit and 2012 is gonna be year with massive prices drop in SSD drives , which believe me they do have impact on mmorpg's performance especially in population packed areas and in places with alot of NPC's , becasue in those situatuons most mmorpg's are putting high load by reading alot of small files with various textures.
Beside that in 2012 there are going to be AMD CPU's based on whole new architecture, Intel also is releasing new cpu's , Amd/Ati and Nvidia both are going to change technical processes to smaller nm. All this will lead to prices drop in current hardware , etc - well in result average Joe will be able to afford better PC more easy. End of 2011 and 2012 is packed with alot of "heavy weight" PC Single player and mmorpg games so guess many folks might see that as incetive to uppgrade / change their PC.
All of this will relatively make WoW 'performance' advantage smaller.
Next games.
Swtor is coming and it propably hit WoW playerbase hard with it's big hype already build and with already crazy numberrss of pre-orders
Then GW 2 is coming later on as well - noone is doubting that many WoW players will buy & try GW2.
Tera has already build preety strong 'communuty' that awaits it's release and with western open beta beign in the end of 2011 , release cannot be far.
TSW already has a release date in Arpil 2012 and while it is not such 'heavy weight' as Swtor/GW2 it is still kinda big production with some unique ideas , and Funcom is talking all the time how they are polishing their product to avoid bugs ,etc on release like with AoC.
Finally ArcheAge - game is drawing more and more attention lately and this will increase with time. Big open world , open world housing , sailing and many more activities than just grinding instances with still having alot of themepark activities, enough quests for causal players(as it is developed with west markets in mind as well) and other things to avoid beign korean grinder might also attract quite a bit of players hopefully. Not to mention stunning graphics. There is CBT4 planned sometime soon and Korean OB in 2011 propably as well. So with a bit of luck it might be possilble to be 2012 in west
All of those 5 games have something that is a bit unique in them so they might be attractive to many player types
So imho 2012 will be preety big test for WoW with that many mmorpg releases
Not to mention Rift is not sinking much as some people have been predicting , as Trion is pumping updates at really good pace and it does not look like they are planning to stop doing that.
So yeah Blizzard will have to really work hard to slow down bleeding down.
Recent WoW expansion to Brazil is one of signs that they are aware of that, faster pace of patches is second, next one is already announcing another expansion so fast after Cata.
WoW is providing most of Blizzard revenue and it also preety big position in Activision revenue , so Blizz won't give up withut a fight for sure imho.
Will they be able to maintain 11 mln of players? Don't think so.
Will they be able to slow down their player loss. Maybe but it will be very hard.
Well anyway competition is good , it is also good that all of 5 upcoming big titles they are diffrent a bit of each other , providing a bit diffrent features / playstyles so hopefully next 12-18 months will be good for mmorpg !
I stopped playing WoW and I will definately not play SWTOR. That beeing said: I don't think that anyone having created a game as successful as WoW must ever be desperate about anything. In case of doubt, they just shrug and buy a dozen private jets less that week.
That SWTOR will be successful was never out of doubt. It's star wars. They can create something horribly bland and boring, and people would still buy it if it got a lightsabre painted on it.
And like it or not: SWTOR aims at exactly the same age group as WoW.
What he siad ^^
But better.
I agree with all of the above. I wouldn't touch SWTOR with a barge pole because it's going to be packed with characters called Luke SssKyWaLkEr and xXBoba FettXx and a end up with a community that makes rational players want to headbutt a brick wall. I will also await all the whimpering and whining when the game inevitably proves to be just as boring and lacking in innovation as every other game released in the last several years. I have every expectation that it'll be full of fresh, interesting quests such as "gather 10 Whomp rat Tails" and multitides of FedEx quests. Anyone expecting any MMO to be "The Next Big Thing" is naive, based on past expereince.
I hope they don't leave WoW for SWTOR. I'd like for SWTOR's community to NOT be a cesspool.
Dark times are ahead for SWToR. Great disturbance in the qq I do sense. Begun the qq wars
Going by the official SWTOR forums, I think it's too late for that, Goatgod.
So I have heard. Guess I'll just cancel my pre-order and wait a few months and see what happens after release. Seems EVERY community is getting tarnished. Sigh.....
So I have heard. Guess I'll just cancel my pre-order and wait a few months and see what happens after release. Seems EVERY community is getting tarnished. Sigh.....
offtopic
but if you have any interest in TOR at all, play it during launch
I hope they don't leave WoW for SWTOR. I'd like for SWTOR's community to NOT be a cesspool.
Dark times are ahead for SWToR. Great disturbance in the qq I do sense. Begun the qq wars
Going by the official SWTOR forums, I think it's too late for that, Goatgod.
So I have heard. Guess I'll just cancel my pre-order and wait a few months and see what happens after release. Seems EVERY community is getting tarnished. Sigh.....
Yup there is a lot of 'hardcore guild x' lookning for player threads starting to appear. Hardcore means rush through content and try to get server firsts where the guilds have came from certain other mmorgs.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Comments
Even if WoW lost half their playerbase, the game would still have more subscribers than any other mmorpg out there. It would also generate more money every month than pretty much any other game out there. It's going to be 'forever' before WoW dies, and if it did it wouldn't matter anyway because Blizzard has made so much money off of that one game.
Blizzard has started up a new game, code named "Titan". It will probably release in 20 years or so given Blizzard's usual development cycle.
According to Blizzard, there will be no World of Starcraft. There is an independent developer out there using the mod tools for SCII making an MMO out of the game though.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Blizzard never said that - here's a link to what they said
http://www.titanguru.com/page/index/_/articles/titan-will-not-compete-with-wow-r10
As to our new unannounced game, we believe that it will be more complementary than competitive.
And while people do have a limited amount of free time that they can devote to these types of games, we do think that people will want to check out the new and the old. We think the new one is very compelling and is going to capture a lot of hearts and minds and will be very successful for us. But we also believe that many people will continue playing World of Warcraft because they have such a huge collection of friends and community.
We all know just how much time a game like WoW can consume, and one would be enclined to worry about whether or not we’d be forced to choose between one and the other? As a former WoWhead myself, I know there wouldn’t be time to play both WoW and an additional MMO.
and its been announced that Titan will be a casual mmo
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/06/blizzards-secret-titan-project-labeled-a-new-casual-mmo/
EQ2 fan sites
Lost half ? No sorry but that is alot of exaggerating there.
WoW will only be dead once it's servers are shut down.
Until that happens, there will always be a great deal of people playing it, no matter how old and tired it gets. This has been true for less successful titles that have come before it.
But WoW has more or less passed its glory days, even now before the next batch of MMOs come out.
The game has become rather stagnant. The community is made up mostly of people who seem to get off on complaining. The new content feels like it's being reused over and over. Blah blah blah.
And because WoW's engine can only do so much, be a bit over the hill at this point, there's really not much more they can do in terms of spicing the game up as a whole.
WoW certainly isn't dead, and not even really that desperate to be honest. The amount of money Blizz gets from subscribers is still ludicrous. But WoW is staggering, just a bit, and once these new titles hit the shelves, you'll probably see a massive exodus from WoW. In the end, WoW is just getting old. People just aren't that interested anymore.
Many people often leave a game to try out something new, some will stick with the new, some will go back to that they have invested allot of time in and still feel it's a fun game.
Also this flood of updates: Last was Patch 4.2. on 06/28/2011, the patch before Patch 4.1: on 4/26/2011 and before that one Patch 4.0: 10/10/2010
And ofcourse there are many players that just play anything with the MMO tag on it.
So I am not sure why people think that WoW is getting desperate or some even seem to think it's dying. Cause all I see is a logical course of action that happens to any MMORPG, but for some reason people can't stand the fact that WoW has such high sub numbers, so they try to make topics like this which actually shows us nothing.
Lets just hope that what ever games is released or still is being played that our fellow gamers enjoy themselfs.
There are no "my game is better," there are just games that some like and some might dislike.
This kind of threads have been going on for like 6 or 7 years now.
I guess they will just keep making them till eventually wow dies, and then they will pretend they guessed it right on the first try.
Sigh
Rawr.
I'm contrarian on this one. I believe that SW:TORs release will *IMPROVE* WoW's community.
$%^& flows down-hill. The more problems that leave WoW for SW:TOR the fewer problems WoW will have. Dedicated WoW players (adults) aren't going to leave their home because of a new game. They haven't yet, and if Cata didn't drive them off then certainly nothing is going to.
Frankly this could be very good for WoW.
Now if we could just convince them to stop nerfing the stuffins out of our PVE toons, we'd be all set.
Agree with this entire thread as long as our definitions are:
Dying means having more subscribers 10 years from now than half the MMORPGs on the market at that time. (Like EQ1, but better)
Desperate means another 10 long years of updates to slow subscriber bleed (when most games would die off completely and stop updating.)
WOW has peaked; it's best designers moved on; but you have to be completely blind to how these games work -- specifically how EQ1 has worked -- to think any "death" or "desperation" is at work here.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The problem with your theory is that SWTor is a true RPG, with decisions that change the world and the way the story folds to your character. It has loads of conversations that require answers since they shape your reputations. It would be much much more complex to play than WoW, especially to players wich are not native english speakers, this representes a great ammount of wow players.
In my point of view, the "kids", the elitist and most of the morons who only see "EPIC LOOTZ" and "RAIDZZZ TONIGHTZZ" wont have the patience to invest on SWTor, and this are the ones who will remain on WoW, not the adult, casual, RPG gamer. Unfortunately from where I see it, the "shi*" is whats gonna remain mainly in wow, with exceptions ofc.
WoW as indeed peaked, and I dont expect anything new to come from that side, and neither does Blizzard im afraid, their best writers/programmers are already working on the Titan project, and I think that shows alot...
im not fully convinced
yes WOW is seeing losses but they are also still expanding internationally
WOW launched locally in brazil last month
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/22/fully-localized-wow-launching-in-brazil/
EQ2 fan sites
High pop servers in Brazil do nothing for North American low pop servers.
I agree but sub counts are world wide -- not just NA / EU
WOW is still expanding is all im saying
EQ2 fan sites
Not to mention that Brazil, being a third world country, and I dont mean no disrespect to Brazil, im Portuguese, we speak the same language =P, doesnt have money to maintain the same profits that the other zones maintain. The monthly fee there is around 13 Reais, wich is something like 3 or 4 Euros month, roughly the same in dollars, so, the ammount of profit Blizz makes there is much less that the one they make in US and here in Europe. Around 33% of the value.
So while they loose 300k subs in US/EU they must make almost a million to meet the same profit, or else there will be a loss. And Brazil is very known for their private pirated servers, and not to pay for games
I can assure you, Star Wars will not kill WoW.
They have taken away the threat generating issue from tanks because they want to give them more to do in future updates. Not only a order in which the should spam there skills. That is something i am realy looking forward to.
Hey, don't knock Horizons...I think it was one of the most under appreciated games back in its day. I played the crap out of that game during beta, loved every minute of it. Unfortuantly was unable to buy ot at the time due to joining the Military. After i was able to hook my computer up again several months later, the game just kinda vanished. Lack of advertising imo.
Id have to say that Since Swtor is prob. putting the heat on every game out atm, whith this being said i dont think WOW is getting desprate, but rather doing what Blizzard thinks are smart moves, and we aslo know that blizzard always makes changes after major patches, with all the qq out there, and it takes time to get all the patches in order. So long answer short desprate i think not, dumb i think so.
WoW has 11 million subs,The next closest game was Aion with 3.5 subs at one point.Nothing can touch WoW the only thing beat WoW is Time.No single game is to beat WoW.
WoW will die by 1000 cuts and Time meaning Rifts will take a couple thousands,SWTOR might take a Million,Warhammer 40k might take couple thousand,EQ next might take a million,Wildstar might take a couple thousands,38 studios Amalur mmo might take a million,People will just leave because they are tired or graphic feel old.No one thing will take down WoW like Facebook did to myspace or Google did Yahoo.
I imagine, sitting on that pile of money, there's a sort of desperation.
"How the hell do I get off this mountain of cash without killing myself?"
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Well I agree that Activision / Blizzard is propably under more pressure than ever before.
Just think. WoW ages, there is no denying it. Even though because WoW was / is playable even on older PC's - there is no denying that that it is starting to look old.
Average user PC's is getting more powerful bit by bit and 2012 is gonna be year with massive prices drop in SSD drives , which believe me they do have impact on mmorpg's performance especially in population packed areas and in places with alot of NPC's , becasue in those situatuons most mmorpg's are putting high load by reading alot of small files with various textures.
Beside that in 2012 there are going to be AMD CPU's based on whole new architecture, Intel also is releasing new cpu's , Amd/Ati and Nvidia both are going to change technical processes to smaller nm. All this will lead to prices drop in current hardware , etc - well in result average Joe will be able to afford better PC more easy. End of 2011 and 2012 is packed with alot of "heavy weight" PC Single player and mmorpg games so guess many folks might see that as incetive to uppgrade / change their PC.
All of this will relatively make WoW 'performance' advantage smaller.
Next games.
Swtor is coming and it propably hit WoW playerbase hard with it's big hype already build and with already crazy numberrss of pre-orders
Then GW 2 is coming later on as well - noone is doubting that many WoW players will buy & try GW2.
Tera has already build preety strong 'communuty' that awaits it's release and with western open beta beign in the end of 2011 , release cannot be far.
TSW already has a release date in Arpil 2012 and while it is not such 'heavy weight' as Swtor/GW2 it is still kinda big production with some unique ideas , and Funcom is talking all the time how they are polishing their product to avoid bugs ,etc on release like with AoC.
Finally ArcheAge - game is drawing more and more attention lately and this will increase with time. Big open world , open world housing , sailing and many more activities than just grinding instances with still having alot of themepark activities, enough quests for causal players(as it is developed with west markets in mind as well) and other things to avoid beign korean grinder might also attract quite a bit of players hopefully. Not to mention stunning graphics. There is CBT4 planned sometime soon and Korean OB in 2011 propably as well. So with a bit of luck it might be possilble to be 2012 in west
All of those 5 games have something that is a bit unique in them so they might be attractive to many player types
So imho 2012 will be preety big test for WoW with that many mmorpg releases
Not to mention Rift is not sinking much as some people have been predicting , as Trion is pumping updates at really good pace and it does not look like they are planning to stop doing that.
So yeah Blizzard will have to really work hard to slow down bleeding down.
Recent WoW expansion to Brazil is one of signs that they are aware of that, faster pace of patches is second, next one is already announcing another expansion so fast after Cata.
WoW is providing most of Blizzard revenue and it also preety big position in Activision revenue , so Blizz won't give up withut a fight for sure imho.
Will they be able to maintain 11 mln of players? Don't think so.
Will they be able to slow down their player loss. Maybe but it will be very hard.
Well anyway competition is good , it is also good that all of 5 upcoming big titles they are diffrent a bit of each other , providing a bit diffrent features / playstyles so hopefully next 12-18 months will be good for mmorpg !
Going by the official SWTOR forums, I think it's too late for that, Goatgod.
I agree with all of the above. I wouldn't touch SWTOR with a barge pole because it's going to be packed with characters called Luke SssKyWaLkEr and xXBoba FettXx and a end up with a community that makes rational players want to headbutt a brick wall. I will also await all the whimpering and whining when the game inevitably proves to be just as boring and lacking in innovation as every other game released in the last several years. I have every expectation that it'll be full of fresh, interesting quests such as "gather 10 Whomp rat Tails" and multitides of FedEx quests. Anyone expecting any MMO to be "The Next Big Thing" is naive, based on past expereince.
So I have heard. Guess I'll just cancel my pre-order and wait a few months and see what happens after release. Seems EVERY community is getting tarnished. Sigh.....
offtopic
but if you have any interest in TOR at all, play it during launch
thats some of the best times -- in any mmo
EQ2 fan sites
Yup there is a lot of 'hardcore guild x' lookning for player threads starting to appear. Hardcore means rush through content and try to get server firsts where the guilds have came from certain other mmorgs.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D