Originally posted by DuraheLL People in majority cannot stand playing advanced games. Advanced games can never have the same numbers playing it due to their low learning strenght. Sad as that. And most upcoming MMORPG's are advanced.
I think this is a good thing. I'd rather play with a niche of satisfied and dedicated customers, than a few million whiners and fanboys.
--------------------------------------------- I live to fight, and fight to live.
Originally posted by DuraheLL People in majority cannot stand playing advanced games. Advanced games can never have the same numbers playing it due to their low learning strenght. Sad as that. And most upcoming MMORPG's are advanced.
lol that's the funniest thing I have ever read. You mean people in WOW are noobs? lol...maybe...since most of them are kids and those kids get so angry when I tell them they're kids.
All this is of course my opinion, but it is what I see. I loved WOW from 1-59 (mostly), but I just could'nt stand the fact that Tigole views non-raiders as second class citizens (this truly is his point of view, and anyone that knew him from the EQ days would agree), so I left WOW, and I will not be going back, nor will I be purchasing anymore Blizzard products.
maybe I'm weird, but I think people should be rewarded for the time they put into games compared to other people. If raiding non-stop and getting epic items is the reward then that's fine. I just couldn't imagine a game where there wasn't much that would differentiate players.
If someone spends months raiding then I think they deserve the best items, they deserve something for their time. I'm not saying this is the best system, but I would absolutely hate a game in which the time a person put into the game wasn't a huge factor. I don't want it to be the only factor, skill is important as well, but the time should be an issue.
An RPG has always been based on time and level whereas an FPS is purely based on skill.
To turn another page, I wonder what is the average subscription list for MMORPG games, if for any game the average a person subscribes is 3 months and let's say WoW has an average subscriborship that is longer or shorter, it could give you an incentive on the staying power of a game in relation to its peers.
Cryomatrix
Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Originally posted by DuraheLL People in majority cannot stand playing advanced games. Advanced games can never have the same numbers playing it due to their low learning strenght. Sad as that. And most upcoming MMORPG's are advanced.
What would you attribute to an 'advanced' game, and can you provide an example of such an upcoming game?
I'm not stating this as an assumption of what you mean Durahell, but I believe most players somehow equate leveling time to difficulty. I've yet to actually experience an mmo I would consider 'difficult' or 'hard'.
Ico Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
What would you attribute to an 'advanced' game, and can you provide an example of such an upcoming game? I'm not stating this as an assumption of what you mean Durahell, but I believe most players somehow equate leveling time to difficulty. I've yet to actually experience an mmo I would consider 'difficult' or 'hard'.
Comparing WoW to other games, WoW is easily the easier one of most. You hardly need a manual to start with WoW, everything comes to you so easily, if you are somewhat experienced with MMORPG's. Not like EVE where there is a hour long tutorial. Everything goes fast and you can solo, every class can solo and so on. You don't need a group to level. Like in other games. Crafting is also easy and it's almost impossible to fail at it. Gather components, assemble, voila, an item. And it's not even that profitable to have a big part in the game for those who enjoy in-deep and variating crafting systems.
There are so many things that makes WoW the "easier" game and I dont feel like going through it all again, it's been done everywhere millions of times. Personally I think it is because death hardly feels (like in EVE where you lose your entire ship, or EQ2 where you loot items and cash from the opponent). You respawn as a ghost and run to your corpse.
WoW was MADE to reach a wider audience, it encourages you to adventure alone and experience stuff. Leveling goes fast (if you compare to others once again). Of course you can chose yourself how fast you want to level but if you would put hard core players on it it would not take long at all.
WoW starts out soft and as a "WOW!", but ends up in another stereotypic hardcore raidfeast. Where you farm the same instances over and over again just to get the items you need so you can sit with the PvP which for that part is mostly instanced battleground battles ...
Anyway, your question, on "hard" mmorpg's that are on the way. Vanguard, Dark And Light, Darkfall, are some of them. At least what's been told and so far it sounds promising.
You can definitly call mmorpg's hard and easy. How long does it take to learn how to play FLYFF? How long does it take to learn how to play Guild Wars? Completely different learning curves in these. And if I can add SWG on the list, even though it's gone, it had an enourmous variety of different things to do. The crafting was a game itself due to it's complicity. You could play the game full time and only craft and get your part out of the game by just doing so. I played as a Ranger which gathered hides, bones and meat. And that alone was even more complicated than leveling to level 60 in WoW.
You had to have contacts to sell it to, awareness upon how the qualities on the meats hides and bones had, you had to have it all well sorted out so your could easily store and withdraw it whenever needed.
Let's say Guild Wars, that game is easy to start playing but takes a lifetime to master. That's why it has World Tournaments and no other game out there has. Since the game is about so much skills. You can't just run in and grab the master title. It requires alot of planning and thinking.
This is what categorizes MMORPG's form eachother when you are comparing them in difficulty.
$OE lies list http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0 " And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
I wouldn't equate having a tutorial to difficulty. Although Eve's tutorial was an hour long, I thought it was fairly straight forward. The only reason I went through it at all was I wanted to make sure I somehow didn't miss anything. You could argue that the first few levels of WoW are a tutorial.
I'm not aware of too many games that require you to group to level. Grouping is advantageous, even in WoW, but it's not a requisite for playing. Vanguard claims to be unfriendly towards those that don't want to group, but I'll wager that'll change.
You're correct about crafting. WoW's crafting is defficient with respect to games like SWG.
I 'suppose' a death penalty may force players to consider what they're doing. However, what happens in EQ2 when you die in PvE. I'd be interested to read the affect looting has had with PvP in EQ2.
Who knows though, like I said, I haven't really considered any mmo I've played to be difficult. After the first few hours, I've been able to navigate my way through a game and figure out what I need to excel.
Now, if you want to make the statement that other games offer a greater variety of 'things' to do, I'll agree.
Ico Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
being rewarded for the time people put into the game....great concept, too bad WOW doesnt follow that concept. In WOW you only get rewarded for raiding and as many, many, many, many raiders have stated, raiding does not require lots of time, 8-12 hours/week is enough. Besides, you can put in 100 hours/week playing WOW but will not get the good rewards if you don't raid. As a matter of fact there are many, many hard core non-raiders (I was one) that put in way more time than your average raider. If time is a factor then why can't they have access to good rewards?
What about BG's? you have to put in insane amounts of time, I mean really insane amounts of time and consistently without a vacations for 4-6 months just to be able to acquire rewards that are sub-par compared to MC rewards?
World of Warcraft isnt the greatest online rpg out.... the reason why its so big is because of the company behind it and the marketing... Blizzard is a well known and respected company just like the people who made the Elder Scrolls games are respected and therefore people play there games alot...
For the moment, WoW stays on the top, but wait a little bit more... You'll see a greatly decreased ammount of MMORPG players including the word "WoW" in their posts. Well, you never know. Maybe WoW will keep on releasing expansion that they will delay all the time, increasing the level cap continuously, and they might even add something REALLY impressive that will drag the attention from everyone. It's a matter of time.
This is the best signature ever. Well, it is really up to you to decide. :x
WoW is the most successfull MMO from a Business perspective, no doubts about it.
However it is far less innovative than was promised before launch. Matter of fact the raidheavy endgame and gear based PvP where all things that were tested and tried in Everquest and Dark Ages of Camelet already, and failed.
In a sense WoW is, essentially still a first generation MMO, the most polished most detailed most shiny one but without any true innovations where gameplay is concerned.
This being the case as is, WoW doesn t have much appeal to people that already played other first generation MMOs like EQ in the past and got tired of the required grind. It did however manage to win an incredible amount of new MMO players, be it Blizzard/Warcraft fans or people completely new to gaming, by offering an incredibly easy and intuitive early game.
Originally posted by damian7 with the people running the show currently -- not a chance in hell.
nice graphics.
nice that they slowly fix problems with a class each successive patch.
nice that they took 9+ months to implement a pvp system that the BOX i pre-ordered stated was already a functioning part of the game, and then they implemented the ranking system as poorly as you possibly can. rank = i played more than you. not skill, not anything. 10 minute deserter time out when the queues are 45+ minutes = a total joke and doesn't even slow down the worthless honor farmers who abuse the very apparent flaws in the system.
any game that forces me to join a group of 40 people for half a day in order to maybe get one *good* item is a joke. after having been in a few mega guilds and listening to the *people* on vent/ts talk for hours on end, i just don't have the patience to deal with little kids and egomaniacs who think that cuz they have the 'uber sword of golem smashing and toenail clipping' that the world revolves around them. wow promotes this joke by making the vast majority of *good* equipment unavailable to the casual player or the player that wants to be in a guild with a few (say 1-2 dozen) friends tops.
you can get things off faction vendors by mindlessly grind killing for a few weeks/months. i've killed so many mobs in winterspring that i can only pray some angry god nukes the place.
before any fanboi starts on his soapbox. keep in mind... i, and a lot of people, do not find a mindless grind to be any type of fun. it's boring. it's stupid. it's anathema to fun in every possible way.
wow could be a great game if they'd
1 - make instanced dungeons have mobs/difficulty based upon number of party members (like how cox does missions)
2 - have someone with opposable digits work on the pvp ranking systems and battlegrounds themselves
3 - fire every forum mod currently employed and hire people that don't praise the posts of the butt smoochers who smooch mod booties.
4 - hire ingame help staff that speaks english (or whatever language for the server's location), and doesn't immediately put up an away message, after pasting an answer that has NOTHING to do with the problem at hand.
5 - institute electro shock therapy to the devs so that whenever they read a fanboi post, they get a jolt to the mommy/daddy button as negative reinforcement that fanboi ideas are ALWAYS bad.
and then, it could be the greatest game out there.
i played beta and have played a great deal of the time (on and off) that it's been in retail. i've got a few 60s and other high levels on several servers. so this isn't someone that hasn't given the game a lot of chances and is someone who is a tad more mature than the 13 yr olds who seem to both work and play in the wow universe.
EXCELLENT POST! I agree with you 100%. I DO NOT find an endless grind appealing. It kills the fun. excellent post, I could not agree with you more. You find a few great gems out there and this is one of them
-------------------------------------------
Steelarm, Doctor of MMO gaming, ethics, and ideas.
Originally posted by Steelarm011 Originally posted by damian7 with the people running the show currently -- not a chance in hell.
nice graphics.
nice that they slowly fix problems with a class each successive patch.
......
EXCELLENT POST! I agree with you 100%. I DO NOT find an endless grind appealing. It kills the fun. excellent post, I could not agree with you more. You find a few great gems out there and this is one of them I second that!
With 6 million player are playing WOW now, i think WOW is the best MMORPG now. I dont know what to say about WOW, but i play it everytime i can. I am trying to play all class and get all to lev 60. The end game instance is so kool required leadership, cooperation of all raid members... This feature is one of the most exciting things in this MMORPG.
why does everyone who says WOW is the greatest game have to use the fact that it has 6 million subscribers? Using that logic Windows is the best operating system out there, by far.
Why not take a look at the ratings on the home page of this site, there are 4 games rated better than WOW.
Oh and it seems you missed the reason why wow was able to get 6 million subscribers in the first place, because they advertised themselves as anti-EQ, which meant anti-raid and anti-grind. You may love raiding but according to the last stats Blizzard put out, %92 of the player base disagree with you.
Originally posted by Hronin Will wow be the greatest mmorpg ?
Never.
Everquest 1 and Dark Age of Camelot were much better games.
Absolutely correct! Both games had many more mature players since both required a little more skill to level. I, for one, am waiting for Vanguard. I'm sick of the Bnet crowd ruining my experience. Flame away!
I think the numbers speak for them selves. It is hands down the most popular MMO sales and subscriptions wise to date.
The game is what you make of it. You can choose to log in to run a hand full of quest each night, get into a raiding guild and spend countless hours learning the raid encounters, or wait around in a BG queue and get in on tha action if you are lucky.
If they ever get the server queues fixed, I will be truly pleased with the game. Yes there are many things I dont like, but it has been the most fun game I have played to date.
Originally posted by Hronin Will wow be the greatest mmorpg ?
Never.
Everquest 1 and Dark Age of Camelot were much better games.
I agree. As far as content, stuff to do, originality, and fun, both of those games leave WoW in the dust.
I think EQ2 leaves it behind as well. But then you've got the "I hate SOE" crowd. I wonder if they'll ever hate Blizzard as much. Especially after they release this lame expansion that took them so long to make. They are just now adding weather to WoW!!! For christ's sake people. How can you begin to say it's the best? Best at selling maybe, but that means nothing.
============================= It all seems so stupid It makes me want to give up But why should I give up When it all seems so stupid
Its good better than most but like I said before the best game will be one that con appeal to everyone casuals hardcore players and keep everything relatively even.
heh, thats like saying any video game will be the final great one, 20 years from now WoW will look like pong, over the next 5 years everyone will be playing something far better.
its just the way it goes, even as i type this theres at least a dozen companies working on a game thats an improvement on wow.
Wow is a great game, but Blizzard didn't really understand what made it successful and I'm not sure they have even figured it out now. The world and the quests are great. The instances are a nice distraction as well. The end game works for some, but I find it the worst part of the game. It also totally ignores the compelling style of game play that leads up to level 60.
Considering the vast mounds of money Blizzard has had to work with, I find it unexcusable that the much needed expansion is still at least six months away. They should have been working on the first expansion before the game even launched, with production seriously ramped up once the financial success was clear.
SOE made some very serious design flubs with EQII, even worse than the flaws with SWG. However, they knew how to devote proper resources and advanced planning to the expansions, which for people who do enjoy the game style has kept things fresh and alive, while WoW has been stagnant. (If EQII had been a good game, the logistical advantages would have allowed SOE to squash WoW).
I think the game that will replace WoW as the best MMORPG will be the first to combine all the things that WoW does right, with a company able to provide continuous expansion and replay value after launch. If Blizzard could have offered two new races, two new classes, a level cap increase to 75 and a 50% increase to the 1-60 content along with the 61 to 75 content AND done so in time for the one year anniversary, WoW would have been untouchable.
Instead, we have an expansion that doesn't offer all that is needed and can't even offer what it does until the two year mark.
If Blizzard already has the third and forth expansions in full development, with 9 month cascading release targets, it's possible they could regain the potential they once possessed to guarantee continuing growth and success. If not, then conditions are ripe for someone to come in and steal WoWs success right from Blizzard's hands.
At this point, a really good WoW clone could be a great success, because it would offer a fresh world and content, with established great game play. The key improvements to be made to Blizzards model aren't to reinvent the core game, but to provide more content and a solid expansion strategy.
It can be. It will take time for game critics to reach that consensus, but it couldn't hurt to occupy the top MMORPG spot commercially for consecutive months.
You also have to accept the inevitable possibility that another company will come up with something better. Video games are easily outdone by subsequent competitors. Blizzard supplanted some established games, and the same thing could easily happen to them. Once you hit the top, you have nowhere to go but down.
Still, the fact that lots of people hate WoW doesn't take from it's greatness. For example, many people hate Kobe Bryant, but he's an easy top 10 Hall of Famer and everyone knows it. However, LeBron James could ecllipse him - that's a very definite possibility. Kobe himself could possibly outdo Michael Jordan, as he's not even 30 yet. It's entirely in Kobe's hands. It's also entirely in Blizzard's hands as to where they want WoW to go.
I don't think it's the best game I've ever played, but I respect and acknowledge the impact it has made on the MMORPG community. It certainly has the makings of a landmark game and doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon. I couldn't really disagree if someone stated that WoW was the best MMORPG right now.
Comments
I think this is a good thing. I'd rather play with a niche of satisfied and dedicated customers, than a few million whiners and fanboys.
---------------------------------------------
I live to fight, and fight to live.
If someone spends months raiding then I think they deserve the best items, they deserve something for their time. I'm not saying this is the best system, but I would absolutely hate a game in which the time a person put into the game wasn't a huge factor. I don't want it to be the only factor, skill is important as well, but the time should be an issue.
An RPG has always been based on time and level whereas an FPS is purely based on skill.
To turn another page, I wonder what is the average subscription list for MMORPG games, if for any game the average a person subscribes is 3 months and let's say WoW has an average subscriborship that is longer or shorter, it could give you an incentive on the staying power of a game in relation to its peers.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
What would you attribute to an 'advanced' game, and can you provide an example of such an upcoming game?
I'm not stating this as an assumption of what you mean Durahell, but I believe most players somehow equate leveling time to difficulty. I've yet to actually experience an mmo I would consider 'difficult' or 'hard'.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
Comparing WoW to other games, WoW is easily the easier one of most. You hardly need a manual to start with WoW, everything comes to you so easily, if you are somewhat experienced with MMORPG's. Not like EVE where there is a hour long tutorial. Everything goes fast and you can solo, every class can solo and so on. You don't need a group to level. Like in other games. Crafting is also easy and it's almost impossible to fail at it. Gather components, assemble, voila, an item. And it's not even that profitable to have a big part in the game for those who enjoy in-deep and variating crafting systems.
There are so many things that makes WoW the "easier" game and I dont feel like going through it all again, it's been done everywhere millions of times. Personally I think it is because death hardly feels (like in EVE where you lose your entire ship, or EQ2 where you loot items and cash from the opponent). You respawn as a ghost and run to your corpse.
WoW was MADE to reach a wider audience, it encourages you to adventure alone and experience stuff. Leveling goes fast (if you compare to others once again). Of course you can chose yourself how fast you want to level but if you would put hard core players on it it would not take long at all.
WoW starts out soft and as a "WOW!", but ends up in another stereotypic hardcore raidfeast. Where you farm the same instances over and over again just to get the items you need so you can sit with the PvP which for that part is mostly instanced battleground battles ...
Anyway, your question, on "hard" mmorpg's that are on the way. Vanguard, Dark And Light, Darkfall, are some of them. At least what's been told and so far it sounds promising.
You can definitly call mmorpg's hard and easy. How long does it take to learn how to play FLYFF? How long does it take to learn how to play Guild Wars? Completely different learning curves in these. And if I can add SWG on the list, even though it's gone, it had an enourmous variety of different things to do. The crafting was a game itself due to it's complicity. You could play the game full time and only craft and get your part out of the game by just doing so. I played as a Ranger which gathered hides, bones and meat. And that alone was even more complicated than leveling to level 60 in WoW.
You had to have contacts to sell it to, awareness upon how the qualities on the meats hides and bones had, you had to have it all well sorted out so your could easily store and withdraw it whenever needed.
Let's say Guild Wars, that game is easy to start playing but takes a lifetime to master. That's why it has World Tournaments and no other game out there has. Since the game is about so much skills. You can't just run in and grab the master title. It requires alot of planning and thinking.
This is what categorizes MMORPG's form eachother when you are comparing them in difficulty.
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
I wouldn't equate having a tutorial to difficulty. Although Eve's tutorial was an hour long, I thought it was fairly straight forward. The only reason I went through it at all was I wanted to make sure I somehow didn't miss anything. You could argue that the first few levels of WoW are a tutorial.
I'm not aware of too many games that require you to group to level. Grouping is advantageous, even in WoW, but it's not a requisite for playing. Vanguard claims to be unfriendly towards those that don't want to group, but I'll wager that'll change.
You're correct about crafting. WoW's crafting is defficient with respect to games like SWG.
I 'suppose' a death penalty may force players to consider what they're doing. However, what happens in EQ2 when you die in PvE. I'd be interested to read the affect looting has had with PvP in EQ2.
Who knows though, like I said, I haven't really considered any mmo I've played to be difficult. After the first few hours, I've been able to navigate my way through a game and figure out what I need to excel.
Now, if you want to make the statement that other games offer a greater variety of 'things' to do, I'll agree.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
------------------------------
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Game On!
being rewarded for the time people put into the game....great concept, too bad WOW doesnt follow that concept. In WOW you only get rewarded for raiding and as many, many, many, many raiders have stated, raiding does not require lots of time, 8-12 hours/week is enough. Besides, you can put in 100 hours/week playing WOW but will not get the good rewards if you don't raid. As a matter of fact there are many, many hard core non-raiders (I was one) that put in way more time than your average raider. If time is a factor then why can't they have access to good rewards?
What about BG's? you have to put in insane amounts of time, I mean really insane amounts of time and consistently without a vacations for 4-6 months just to be able to acquire rewards that are sub-par compared to MC rewards?
This is the best signature ever. Well, it is really up to you to decide. :x
However it is far less innovative than was promised before launch.
Matter of fact the raidheavy endgame and gear based PvP where all things that were tested and tried in Everquest and Dark Ages of Camelet already, and failed.
In a sense WoW is, essentially still a first generation MMO, the most polished most detailed most shiny one but without any true innovations where gameplay is concerned.
This being the case as is, WoW doesn t have much appeal to people that already played other first generation MMOs like EQ in the past and got tired of the required grind. It did however manage to win an incredible amount of new MMO players, be it Blizzard/Warcraft fans or people completely new to gaming, by offering an incredibly easy and intuitive early game.
-------------------------------------------
Steelarm, Doctor of MMO gaming, ethics, and ideas.
I second that!
-virtual tourist
want your game back?
I dont know what to say about WOW, but i play it everytime i can.
I am trying to play all class and get all to lev 60.
The end game instance is so kool required leadership, cooperation of all raid members...
This feature is one of the most exciting things in this MMORPG.
Why not take a look at the ratings on the home page of this site, there are 4 games rated better than WOW.
Oh and it seems you missed the reason why wow was able to get 6 million subscribers in the first place, because they advertised themselves as anti-EQ, which meant anti-raid and anti-grind. You may love raiding but according to the last stats Blizzard put out, %92 of the player base disagree with you.
Never.
Everquest 1 and Dark Age of Camelot were much better games.
Absolutely correct! Both games had many more mature players since both required a little more skill to level. I, for one, am waiting for Vanguard. I'm sick of the Bnet crowd ruining my experience. Flame away!
I think the numbers speak for them selves. It is hands down the most popular MMO sales and subscriptions wise to date.
The game is what you make of it. You can choose to log in to run a hand full of quest each night, get into a raiding guild and spend countless hours learning the raid encounters, or wait around in a BG queue and get in on tha action if you are lucky.
If they ever get the server queues fixed, I will be truly pleased with the game. Yes there are many things I dont like, but it has been the most fun game I have played to date.
Never.
Everquest 1 and Dark Age of Camelot were much better games.
I agree. As far as content, stuff to do, originality, and fun, both of those games leave WoW in the dust.
I think EQ2 leaves it behind as well. But then you've got the "I hate SOE" crowd. I wonder if they'll ever hate Blizzard as much. Especially after they release this lame expansion that took them so long to make. They are just now adding weather to WoW!!! For christ's sake people. How can you begin to say it's the best? Best at selling maybe, but that means nothing.
=============================
It all seems so stupid
It makes me want to give up
But why should I give up
When it all seems so stupid
heh, thats like saying any video game will be the final great one,
20 years from now WoW will look like pong, over the next 5 years everyone will be playing something far better.
its just the way it goes, even as i type this theres at least a dozen companies working on a game thats an improvement on wow.
Considering the vast mounds of money Blizzard has had to work with, I find it unexcusable that the much needed expansion is still at least six months away. They should have been working on the first expansion before the game even launched, with production seriously ramped up once the financial success was clear.
SOE made some very serious design flubs with EQII, even worse than the flaws with SWG. However, they knew how to devote proper resources and advanced planning to the expansions, which for people who do enjoy the game style has kept things fresh and alive, while WoW has been stagnant. (If EQII had been a good game, the logistical advantages would have allowed SOE to squash WoW).
I think the game that will replace WoW as the best MMORPG will be the first to combine all the things that WoW does right, with a company able to provide continuous expansion and replay value after launch. If Blizzard could have offered two new races, two new classes, a level cap increase to 75 and a 50% increase to the 1-60 content along with the 61 to 75 content AND done so in time for the one year anniversary, WoW would have been untouchable.
Instead, we have an expansion that doesn't offer all that is needed and can't even offer what it does until the two year mark.
If Blizzard already has the third and forth expansions in full development, with 9 month cascading release targets, it's possible they could regain the potential they once possessed to guarantee continuing growth and success. If not, then conditions are ripe for someone to come in and steal WoWs success right from Blizzard's hands.
At this point, a really good WoW clone could be a great success, because it would offer a fresh world and content, with established great game play. The key improvements to be made to Blizzards model aren't to reinvent the core game, but to provide more content and a solid expansion strategy.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
It can be. It will take time for game critics to reach that consensus, but it couldn't hurt to occupy the top MMORPG spot commercially for consecutive months.
You also have to accept the inevitable possibility that another company will come up with something better. Video games are easily outdone by subsequent competitors. Blizzard supplanted some established games, and the same thing could easily happen to them. Once you hit the top, you have nowhere to go but down.
Still, the fact that lots of people hate WoW doesn't take from it's greatness. For example, many people hate Kobe Bryant, but he's an easy top 10 Hall of Famer and everyone knows it. However, LeBron James could ecllipse him - that's a very definite possibility. Kobe himself could possibly outdo Michael Jordan, as he's not even 30 yet. It's entirely in Kobe's hands. It's also entirely in Blizzard's hands as to where they want WoW to go.
I don't think it's the best game I've ever played, but I respect and acknowledge the impact it has made on the MMORPG community. It certainly has the makings of a landmark game and doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon. I couldn't really disagree if someone stated that WoW was the best MMORPG right now.