Blizzard: You Can't Beat WoW Out the Gate

[Corohan]

Blizz took ten years to make Starcraft II. OH SNAP!!!!!!!!

No they didn't, they started after they finished development on the Frozen Throne and even then WoW delayed it a lot.

 

[John Funk]

Apparently they're not going to announce it is for years, but they are bound and determined to let us constantly know about that MMO that they're keeping secret.

In all fairness, that's probably because we members of the press keep asking them about it.

 

[Catalyst6]

Apparently they're not going to announce it is for years, but they are bound and determined to let us constantly know about that MMO that they're keeping secret.

In all fairness, that's probably because we members of the press keep asking them about it.

I suppose that is fair. Thus, we blame YOU, Press! Fetch the torches!

 

[Calamity]

Considering every AAA MMO after WoW has tripped in the gate, and had it's rider shoot it in the foot after one lap, we still have a ways to go before anything even challenges WoWs 20 lap lead.
Not to say I don't hope it happens.
/end silly horse race metaphor

 

[tehroc]

A little self-fellatio there huh Blizzard? Your game might be popular but it's the exact same shit as Diku Mud 20 years prior.

 

[Aulleas123]

To me it doesn't matter if it's going to beat WoW. For example, I'm going to pick up 'The Old Republic' when it comes out. It's never going to beat the following that WoW has, but I like the universe of Star Wars a little more than the World of... Warcraft. Sure, the game might not do as well but considering my personal gaming habits of playing for a bit then moving to another game, it's not like I will really suffer if the game world crashes and dies. I'll play it until I get bored then deactivate my account.

 

[Blood Countess]

well Blizzard is well on it's way to let maybe another MMO take it's place on the top with these updates to World of Warcraft and their idea to ruin the game as a whole.Me and my friends were devout players but are now quiting cause of the new direction they are going.KInd of fine by me though, that extra 15 bucks can go to help buy better games in the end

 

[Kiju]

I think the thing I've been wondering about is what exactly they're trying to out-do WoW on.

Money? Players? Monthly fees?

Seems to me like they need a more finite goal in mind before they try to 'unseat' WoW and put it in it's place. To me, WoW already has been outdone by a lot of different games, but not in an over-all way. World of Warcraft did nothing new...at all, really. Everything it's done has been done before, but less polished. But the big draw of the game is that it's able to do just about everything there is to do in online MMO gaming, and that's what makes it so successful. It can do all of that, and still come out relatively well made and polished (if needing some bug-patches now and then).

WoW isn't even in my top five for MMO's I've played that absolutely blew my socks off; but it is the second most played MMO I've dedicated my time to simply because there's just so much content.

I think what the game companies who want to out do WoW need to think about is what exactly they need to out sell Blizzard, making a blockbuster MMO that everyone and anyone will want to play, even if they have a current WoW account with end-content characters. That...is a really high bar to attain, but it's possible if they try at it. Sadly though, Blizzard is right: you can't beat them with a game that's just out of the gate. It's going to take time, effort, dedication, and several DLCs and/or expansions in order to tie or beat that monster.

 

[Alexander Pierre]

The problem with his logic is that a lot of MMO gamers these day expect MMOs to have everything WoW has else its a bad game. You hear it a lot on forums, outcries of features missing in a game and players wondering why this new game doesn't have it when WoW does.

 

[chaosd1]

I say this to guild mates in WoW quite often, only because I hear it SO DAMNED MUCH.

When another "promising MMO" appears on the horizon, I can guarantee that at least one guild member will state the following:

"I'm only playing this until (New MMO) launches, then it's goodbye forever to WoW."

to which I ALWAYS reply, "See you in three weeks."

Seriously, be it Guild Wars, Vanguard, Warhammer, City of Villains, LOTRO, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, Aion... hell, my entire GUILD once "quit" WoW for Age of Conan. (You can imagine how well THAT turned out.)

Now with Star Wars: The Old Republic on the horizon, it begins all over again.

It may sound arrogant, but Blizzard is ABSOLUTELY correct. They've had half a decade to refine a game that was fairly bare-bones, but user-friendly out of the box, and companies expecting to usurp their throne have another thing coming.

 

[Vrach]

The problem is that so many people have invested so much into one game, and networked so much in that one game, that switching to another one would most likely pale in comparison on lack of familiarity alone. Any new MMOs are based off of WoW because so many people use it. I don't see anything knocking it off its high horse any times soon

Nah not necessarily. Fact is, WoW's been up and running for so long most of the people there aren't the ones playing since the launch. Sure, there's a number of them, but they're nowhere near being one of the main groups of people playing WoW atm.

A lot of those who go through WoW eventually start looking for a clean slate. Look for those who've played a couple of years and you'll see a considerate number of them with faction/server changes. Trust me, I've seen a lot of people leave for other games as well from WoW, problem is, no other game has actually so far offered a worthwhile experience.

It's not (just) WoW's age that's keeping competition away. Most of the ones that failed just jumped at the idea of being a "WoW-killer" that they forgot to actually offer something significantly different. More importantly, out of all the things they ripped off from WoW, most of them didn't rip off the one thing that still keeps and will keep WoW alive for a long time to come - constant content updates that had a lot of effort put in.

You ever wonder why TF2 sits as one of the most awesome and popular FPSs? Why whenever someone asks "should I get TF2 on my PC or my Xbox" there's a 100% literally unanimous clamour of "PC all the way"?

The MMO doesn't need to beat WoW from the get-go and Greg's right - there's a VERY slim chance any MMO will. What he said there isn't a really great mystery or some super-secret business tactic, it's what I (among about a million other people) have been saying for years now, it just needs to offer something exceptional in some way, delivered in top notch quality and then keep that going. Don't get me wrong, by top notch quality I don't mean a 100% perfect game, just one that isn't rushed, that had work put into it and one that's immediately followed up by patches fixing whatever issues players have with it (there'll always be some, but still need to make an effort for that all important first impression).

 

[Atmos Duality]

MMOs are honeypots.

Once you get stuck, you're stuck for good.

 

[Verlander]

I play other games, but WoW is still going and still absorbing. Haters gonna hate, but maybe other games companies shouldn't try and compete with WoW and just set out to do the best they can. Not everything in this world should be a popularity contest, there should be some pride left in making games.

 

[technoted]

Normally I would say that's being cocky, but they're actually right.

 

[Enigmers]

I think if they make a simpler and more action-y MMO (a la the fabled Torchlight MMO), they'd have much greater success. The combat system is generally what sets one RPG apart from another - if you can distinguish yourself drastically from WoW, you don't have to try to crush WoW to get a big playerbase.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

A little self-fellatio there huh Blizzard? Your game might be popular but it's the exact same shit as Diku Mud 20 years prior.

You can't really believe this. If you do, you're a fool.

well Blizzard is well on it's way to let maybe another MMO take it's place on the top with these updates to World of Warcraft and their idea to ruin the game as a whole.Me and my friends were devout players but are now quiting cause of the new direction they are going.KInd of fine by me though, that extra 15 bucks can go to help buy better games in the end

Yes, how dare they want to make their game better. Oh, Classic grognards, never change

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

wows numbers (which are the basis of it being the elephant in the room) are misleading

to equal in the markets that actually count you need to hit around 2-2.5 million subs

thats how much they have in the US and EU

China and the rest of Asia is where the majority of their 12 million is and its not the biggest MMO there coming in 3rd or 4th to MMOs most people have never heard of (neither do the Asians subscribe so the "subscriber figures" are intentionally misleading any which way you want to slice them)

the world rebuilding in Cata is about player retention and attracting new players EOD they have said so multiple times.
why ?
because they have had near flatline growth since 2008.

Incorrect, it's about 6-7 million in US/EU, 6 million in Asia. And they don't say subscribers, they say active accounts. everybody just reads "subscribers" into that.

I think they said somewhere (may have been on this site?) that they had about 20-30 million players total over time, that's just the number of active accounts they have right now.

 

[SentryGun]

it's not that no one can beat wow as an MMO it's just that everyone is trying to mucle in on wow's MMORPG subgenre and are failing abysmaly, for more info check out the future of mmos in extra credits

 

[Kel_Sumo]

It's not (just) WoW's age that's keeping competition away. Most of the ones that failed just jumped at the idea of being a "WoW-killer" that they forgot to actually offer something significantly different. More importantly, out of all the things they ripped off from WoW, most of them didn't rip off the one thing that still keeps and will keep WoW alive for a long time to come - constant content updates that had a lot of effort put in.

This makes me think of LOTRO. Not very original (just port WoW into a money spinning IP off the back of some successful films) but very polished, some interesting content, some original extras and above all i found it a damn sight more immersive than WoW, which if im to spend time playing an MMO i very much look for.

The grumbling started after 18 months of quest line upgrades but no real endgame. First expansion just about breathed some life into the game and it was a proper, well considered expansion. A lot of mechanics reworked, new content, everything people needed? Well no, cos a lot of it was superficial or bugged up to the nines. Everything that had made the game enjoyable to begin with; the polish, the immersion, was lost.

AoC, Warhammer, were all so borked to begin with that they just pissed a lot of people off at launch and never really got going. LOTRO looked to be rumbling along quite nicely until they thought they could make people play a pretty little polished lord of the rings sim with no content.

TOR looks like it will be very well thought through, very polished, not necessarily ground breaking gameplay, but doing what it needs to do well. My only hope is that the people behind it are prepared to sink both time and money into it for the first couple of years to maintain that level of polish whilst churning out content to give people a reason to stay.

i should also add that LOTROs dev team's stubborn deafness to community issues didnt do them any favours. credit to them for "making the game they wanted to make" but if no one wants to play your game then they kinda missed the point

 

[B.U.C.K]

Well that isn't true now isn't it?
They thought about SC 2 a little bit after WC III The Frozen Throne. It was only in concept. Real development began around 2007 after launching the first expansion for WoW "The Burning Crusade" and Drooping the whole "Star craft Ghost" bullshit. The SC 2 project went to full throttle at mid 2007- so 3 years....Snap