Do you think that WoW might be here to stay?

[erikistired]

Eventually it will get too bloated, buggy and it will be "rewritten" or "reloaded" They will release the game with a new engine, new graphics, etc, and it will be but a shell of its former self. People will then complain (like they did with new coke), that its really not the same game anymore, and slowly they will migrate towards other games, other things, and WoW will implode on itself. I give it another 4 years. It won't fully die, but it wont have the subscriber base that it has now.

that's already happened. the game didn't go away, it just got even more popular. it isn't the same game it was, not even close. they have adapted and continued to build steam. it's kinda scary how dominant blizzard is in the MMO genre of gaming.

 

[Ross Ridge]

As several people have stated, given that Everquest and Ultima Online haven't died, it hard to see World of Warcraft dying in the forseeable future. The economics of MMORPGs means that a game only needs a few tens of thousands of subscribers to make money. On the other hand World of Warcraft is already in declining phase of existance where it's slowly losing revenue. The game may still be growing in China, but it's in North America and Europe, where Blizzard runs it's own servers and charges $15 per month to play, where they make the vast majority of their income. (In Asia players pay signifcantly less and don't need to buy expansions.) It's been years since one of Blizzard's press releases mentioned North American and European subscriber numbers, so it's safe to assume these numbers have peaked.

I can tell you one thing for sure, World of Warcraft will never move off of PCs on to tablets and mobile phones. Even a console port is very unlikely. They'd have to redesign the entire game. They'd be better off making an entirely new game, one targeted for mobile devices from the start.

 

[Seero]

It would have died long ago if there are no new content. The main town in BC used to be very populated, now it is a ghost town. Dalaran is very populated, it will change once cata comes out.

Cata technically rework the whole old world, so the old goldshire, Ironforge, Stormwind, our belove it Dead Mine, and other good old dungeon will become history. WoW is still here, but that is because it has been changing.

WoW has become a chatroom, like facebook, except you have to pay for it. The work of each release is like releasing a new game, but at least 2 million people will buy it as soon as it releases on top of those who are still chatting inside.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Eventually it will get too bloated, buggy and it will be "rewritten" or "reloaded" They will release the game with a new engine, new graphics, etc, and it will be but a shell of its former self. People will then complain (like they did with new coke), that its really not the same game anymore, and slowly they will migrate towards other games, other things, and WoW will implode on itself. I give it another 4 years. It won't fully die, but it wont have the subscriber base that it has now.

While this is always a possibility, I think it is more likely that Blizzard will stay on their course of making change slow and constant so that if anything 'breaks' the fun of the game it is not too hard to change back.
If you watch the progression of the game you will notice that every few months a major patch comes out that makes substantial changes to the gameplay; changing rules, tweeking graphics, adding content, adding new playstyles. When they change or add something that players complain enough about they quickly re-patch to remove or fix it.
So, overall I think that in 10 years we will probably still have a game called World of Warcraft that a day 1 player's warlock could still be wandering around in, but it will look and feel completly diffrent, yet somehow familiar, to the game they started playing years ago.

And yes, I'm sure they will eventually make a WoW 2 and I'm sure some people will state that it is "too different" and choose to stay in WoW 1 as a result. I expect that their WoW 2 is many, many years off though.

I don't think they will ever make a WoW2. I don't think there is any need to. They will slowly replace every scrap of code in WoW, and keep overhauling it, and upgrading it, and maybe completely replace it in one go to start over with a new code base in some expansion (probably with out even telling their players), but they will still call it World of Warcraft, it will still allow everyone to keep playing their old characters with most of their old equipment (which they will encourage you to replace by making the new equipment necessary to be successful at the new content) and it will at least feel like the WoW that we know already.
I think that only two things can kill WoW. One is if a new MMORPG that comes out and is incredibly fun to play, and that fun can last for the months it takes for the word to get out to the rest of the community. Then WoW will see a slow leaching off of its player base to this new game as players give the new game a try and find it fun, so more and more of their time is spent there, they fall behind the WoW equipment curve and find that catching up feels like work, while the new game is all shiny and new. At this point Blizzard has a chance to pull players back by making changes that help players come back and is fun, if they fail that they will slowly die, but that death will take years and might be put on life support if that new shiny game makes a mistake and upsets its players. We have already seen this start to happen with Age of Conan and Warhammer, both games were fun to play at first and started to leach players off of WoW, but unfortunately both games were not fun when you closed into endgame, and so players returned to WoW.
The second thing that can kill WoW is player attrition. As time goes on players will fall off simply because life moves on and you don’t have 20 hours a week to devote to a video game. As that happens WoW needs to be able to replace those players with a new crop of younger players. Right now Blizzard is making the game more about maintaining the old guard player base, and rushing new players to endgame. Eventually Blizzard will need to refocus on the new player experience to draw the next generation of players into the game. But, that is something I think Blizzard will be able to do when the time comes.

 

[Sureshot324]

If you change the question from die to losing it's spot as the #1 MMO, I think for that to happen it would have to be beat by a game that's significantly different. Wow will not be beat by a Wow clone.

They regularly update the graphics and release new content, so imo there's no point in quitting wow to play something like Aion, when that's really just the same game with new areas and rehashed versions of the same abilities.

 

[fatpat268]

The only problem is that there aren't many (any?) companies trying to reinvent the wheel these days. They're just trying to stay alive by copy/pasting what WoW has done. That secures WoW's position for the time being, but when innovation finally does occur, it will be the beginning of it's decline.

I disagree. If anything, too many companies are trying to reinvent the wheel.

And that's fine, but the problem is, is that none of these new MMOs are as polished or user friendly as WoW is. Not only that, you have to overcome the huge obstacle that WoW has TON of content.

Too many game developers half ass it and try to cash in on an MMO, but most fail because the game simply isn't good. If anything, the MMOs that DO succeed are games that follow WoW's structure closely.

 

[MagickMan]

My forecast is WoW will be around for at least another 15 years, maybe more.

 

[Wyndru]

I feel bad for new players having to install WoW now. My WoW folder is about 30 gigs, and I have 2 copies installed, so 60gb just for this game. (Granted 5-10 gigs is probably old updates that can be deleted). I bought the BC battle chest when I started playing, and it took 4 hours to install, I can't imagine going from nothing to cataclysm now, it would take all day. If I install on new computers now I just copy the folder to and from my 32gb thumb drive.

At least they offer the full client download from the account management page now, so I assume the installations are more streamlined now.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I feel bad for new players having to install WoW now. My WoW folder is about 30 gigs, and I have 2 copies installed, so 60gb just for this game. (Granted 5-10 gigs is probably old updates that can be deleted). I bought the BC battle chest when I started playing, and it took 4 hours to install, I can't imagine going from nothing to cataclysm now, it would take all day. If I install on new computers now I just copy the folder to and from my 32gb thumb drive.

At least they offer the full client download from the account management page now, so I assume the installations are more streamlined now.

Nope its pretty fast if you use the client download. I did it when I got my new laptop. Its like 15 gigs straight to patch 4.0.

 

[Ross Ridge]

I feel bad for new players having to install WoW now. ...

I feel bad for how much they have to pay. Going by current Best Buy prices, it's $40 for the BattleChest, $40 for Wrath of the Lich King and $40 for Cataclysm. While you can defer buying the expansions until you reach the level caps or what not, that ends up being a total of $120 just to play the same game as your friends.

 

[cixx79]

WOW will stay around for another decade or so. The next revolutionary game will come out and dig the grave for WOW. I mean, the WOW fire won't be extinguished for some time but if Blizzard somehow reincarnates the WOW universe to adapt to changing times then no, WOW will be with us for some time. The only thing I really see changing from WOW.......the level cap will eventually reach 9000.....><

 

[coreyb]

Of course it's here to stay. Just like all the other great Blizzard games (starcraft and diablo)

 

[fatpat268]

I feel bad for how much they have to pay. Going by current Best Buy prices, it's $40 for the BattleChest, $40 for Wrath of the Lich King and $40 for Cataclysm. While you can defer buying the expansions until you reach the level caps or what not, that ends up being a total of $120 just to play the same game as your friends.

I gotta imagine that they'll start discounting WotLK soon.... at least they did with BC.

 

[paperfist]

I dont think WoW is going anywhere anytime soon. I played it for 3yrs. To me the game is old and theres really no point in me going back since they seem to not be adding anything new, its just the same formula over and over. The whole game revolves around running instances. New expansion just means new instances.

That being said it seems plenty of people like that formula. As long as people are into that style of game I dont see why it would die. If it continues to make money theres no reason for its owners to end it.

The game was old when it launched. It's simplicity and low cost of ownership is perfect for today's consumer. It won't die.

 

[Dumac]

Considering EQ is still around, I don't see why WoW would disappear any time soon.

 

[shortylickens]

Nope, it will die when they release galaxy of Starcraft.

 

[slag]

Did you just say "I cant check right meow"?

Do I look like a cat to you, boy? Am I jumpin' around all nimbly-bimbly from tree to tree? Am I drinking milk from a saucer? DO YOU SEE ME EATING MICE?

Not so funny meow, is it?

 

[Naeeldar]

Considering EQ is still around, I don't see why WoW would disappear any time soon.

I kind of wonder about this. EQ fills a specific niche of being the only hardcore/time consuming game out there still. There isn't any similar game out there for those customers to go to.

I'm not saying WoW is going to die anytime soon but it's likely the user decline will be far faster because it's designed to be so easy and attract the average gamer. those types of customers are far more likely to jump to a new game than the EQ gamer.

Just a thought anyway. I think by EQ refusing to change - it may have made itself a niche market that could last far longer then people would expect.

 

[CurseTheSky]

IMO, WoW will probably be turned into some browser-based game (ala Runescape / Farmville) in the next 2-3 years, perhaps 4-5 tops. It'll continue to exist, but will be a shadow of its former self compared to newer games available. So, it'll probably be close to 7-10 more years before it truly "dies," though we're already at the beginning of a very, very slow end IMO. Blizzard hasn't innovated anything truly new and impressive in WoW since BC and flying mounts, and even the novelty of that wore off within a week of having one (and let's face it - arenas are just another grindfest). Everything else has just been new land, new raids, new levels, new quests, new dungeons, new spells, new items, new races, new classes, new professions, and new monsters - all concepts that were available in the original game.

I stopped playing about 6-12 months after WotLK came out, simply because I realized I was being spoon-fed the same junk over and over (and yet people are lining up to have THE BEST purples each patch, even though they'll all mean nothing in a year or so, or the latest pet, or the latest mount, etc.). The original WoW was gold, IMO, but now that I see Blizzard isn't planning on doing anything to make the game feel new and innovative again, I'd rather save my money each month.

 

[skace]

I kind of wonder about this. EQ fills a specific niche of being the only hardcore/time consuming game out there still. There isn't any similar game out there for those customers to go to.

I'm not saying WoW is going to die anytime soon but it's likely the user decline will be far faster because it's designed to be so easy and attract the average gamer. those types of customers are far more likely to jump to a new game than the EQ gamer.

Just a thought anyway. I think by EQ refusing to change - it may have made itself a niche market that could last far longer then people would expect.

However, on the flip side, a lot of the casual gamers that play WoW are not constantly looking at "whats new" and "whats hot". They are casual, they have a game where their friends are and they are satisfied.

To get a casual gamer to switch, the game would have to be significantly better, unlike a hardcore gamer that might switch try your game simply because it is new and refreshing.

 

[JD50]

Do I look like a cat to you, boy? Am I jumpin' around all nimbly-bimbly from tree to tree? Am I drinking milk from a saucer? DO YOU SEE ME EATING MICE?

Not so funny meow, is it?

:thumbsup:

 

[JeffNY35]

It will be here for a long time.

It is the bread and butter of treadmill theme park MMOs and nothing can compare for raiding. If this is your thing no other MMO can compare and nothing else that comes out will.

The only thing that would be competitve in the market would be a truely successful sandbox mmo that would apeal to the masses. I think a Star Wars theme would be the ticket but The Old Republic I think while will attract some fans long term wont be much more than a temporary diversion for some of the WoW players.

 

[Malladine]

Do I look like a cat to you, boy? Am I jumpin' around all nimbly-bimbly from tree to tree? Am I drinking milk from a saucer? DO YOU SEE ME EATING MICE?

Not so funny meow, is it?

*backs away slowly*

 

[lord_emperor]

Blizzard is making money hand-over-fist from WoW and, honestly, they're not investing much of it back in to improving the game in either content, infrastructure or customer service.

Honestly one raid instance per year, laggy gameplay, 7+ days for a resolution to an in-game ticket.

Blizzard would rather build Orc statues in their parking lot.

I'd be interested to know just how many subscritions are required to "break even" with development costs (at the current underwhelming rate), bandwidth and server maintenance. I bet it's nowhere near 11 million.

WoW will live until it's more profitable to move the development team to another project, and it won't die until enough of the players who stick around with no new content quit to make hosting it unprofitable.

 

[mizzou]

I

Consider that Everquest is still around...same for Ultima Online. Now consider how much more popular WoW is than either of those ever were.

Pretty much my opinion also


I am having a hard time thinking of any succesful mmorpg that has "failed"

If uo and eq are still doing fine, why wont wow just be as fine?


If world war two online can still exist and thrive ( meaning improve its experience while maintaining a profitable uservase) the only way a mmorpg will fail is if a new or diff industry replaces its userbase , a'la death of the PC.....which could theoretically happen at some point.