Blizzard: You Can't Beat WoW Out the Gate

[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

 

[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

 

[Master10K]

Well Guild Wars 2 may not beat WoW but all signs [http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/show/all/sCol/rankHype/sOrder/desc] point towards it being a huge success. Heck, even this crappy cam vid [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01N-1_KcRbM] shows the awesome potential this (non-monthly fee) MMO has. And yet everyone here seems to talk about Star Wars: TOR. Not a bad looking game, but it doesn't look groundbreaking.

 

[Plurralbles]

thre's a penis in that picture... the spire behind the thing's head... : D

Only reason I"m commenting.

 

[Antari]

Half the problem is pinhead accoutants screaming for the release of a game WELL before it is finished so they can balance out a piece of paper. Then the lawyers screw the rest of it up.

 

[stormcrow5]

True noone can take the throne away from WoW like that, but that wont stop the games from being good, im looking forward to GW2 and the new star wars one.

 

[Skizle]

I honestly think the only thing that will dent WoW is Diablo III. A good deal of WoW Players were D2/WCIII Players, so when the next best thing comes out in Blizzard's arsenal,that's mwhere a good deal of people will go to. :3

Idk there is Cataclysm and if they are going to do the same thing as they did with Lich King, then it will take almost a year to fully have all end game content for the expansion and by that time another expansion will be in the works and around that exact same time Diablo 3 will be out and possibly an expansion for Starcraft 2. So who knows how this will all work out.

 

[Jodah]

Good to see Blizz, at least, knows whats up. No single game is going to kill, or even hurt WoW, in any meaningful way. Several MMOs might have the combined power to put a dent in WoW's titanium armor but even that is unlikely. The only thing that is going to kill WoW is WoW2 (or whatever their next secret MMO is.)

 

[Stevepinto3]

It's definitely the friend aspect that drew me into WoW, and I'll bet that's what did it for a lot of people. You're talking to your friend one day, maybe discussing games, and he tells you about how his level 80 Warlock got some awesome new staff in last night's raid. He talks about how cool the game is, and suggests you give it a try, he even agrees to make a new character to level with you. BAM. You're now hooked.

It's not a matter of which MMO has the best gameplay or is the least grindy or whatever. Most MMO's are equally addictive. It can just be a matter of whichever one you get sucked into, and with WoW's numbers it's hard to compete with.

A lot of MMO players end up playing in cycles as well, and after a while they may just drop off completely. Heck, I think I'm at the end of mine. I played from early BC all the way through Wrath, but I'm probably not going to get Cataclysm. Not because "Oh, it sucks now", just because I don't feel the compulsion to play like I used to. I know at least one person is going to want to kill me for this, but I even stopped playing on the Beta (I was in the first wave of invites anyway). And Cataclysm is looking AWESOME. But I just don't seem to care anymore. Eh.

 

[Aurgelmir]

Whether it's fair or not, an MMO just launching will inevitably be compared, not to WoW at launch but to WoW as it is now, with six years of polish and development. So if any MMO is looking to dethrone it, according to Greg Street the developers better be preparing for a long haul.

Sure they have to compete with WoW today, but hell there is so much they can borrow from WoW in terms of systems.

I use this argument a lot though; "You can't make a game and say, 'wow didn't have it at launch', because wow has it today!"

Point is, most developers should be able to analyze what systems work well in wow, and what systems that doesn't work so well, then steal the good systems and improve the bad.

But that doesn't mean they can ever beat Blizzard. for one simple reason; Money.

Blizzard is cashing in ~$12 from each subscriber each month (I lowered the number to account for 6 monthers and such).
12*12= 144 MILLION DOLLARS A MONTH!

And thats just from subscriptions to wow, then you have the game sales, and micro transactions... hell its a lot of money to put into making a few good games...

How can anyone compete with that?
At least when publishers is throwing their money into 10 games at the same times, if not more?

 

[Vrach]

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.

That's my hope as well. Now, I love BioWare to the core and really, really hope they come through with their promises, but I'll admit, while it's not necessarily far fetched, it is an optimistic view.

I'm holding on to one thing they said and that was - "you'll never be forced to reroll and there will always be stuff for your main character to do". With the announced 200+ hours of gameplay per character sounding like something they tried out, I'm really hoping they come through with it. They also did say that they're implementing some sort of raiding system for the end game, so that's a major plus as yes, LOTR was one of the closest things to a decent WoW competitor to date due to immersion and graphics.

I'm also not bothered about the WoW killer thing... as long as the game is good and constantly updated, I don't give two shits who makes the most money. I'm just hoping BioWare gets enough people interested to be able to support the game full on and that's about it. It looks like it will start with a decent million or so subscriptions, so if they can deliver the promised experience, I think they'll be just fine and will grow nicely from there.

 

[Vyce]

Maybe if MMO makers would stop doing things like "here's the basic game, we'll add everything else in later" or terrible launches,

Some MMO devs realize that they shouldn't be trying to compete with WoW, they should be trying to make their own unique games that stand out by themselves. It also doesn't help WoW takes the basic MMO formula and then runs with it, while everyone else are making clones to the point where most MMOs, paid or free just feel the same. I have a friend who tells me all these MMOs are 'better' when I sit there and go "Oh, this is like this MMO" or "I've done this a hundred times before". I mean, most of the MMOs you can go "Like WoW but.." or "Like MMO X but..."

And also just because a MMO 'isn't as popular as WoW' doesn't make it not successful. Players come and go for MMOs, even for WoW. And Blizzard is pulling a big move by recreating their MMO world where how it is now will never be the same again after Cataclysm hits.

 

[Vortigar]

We already knew this, didn't we?

The Warhammer Online/Age of Recknoning/WAR guys said it themselves in a promo vid somewhere. "WoW is like the Beatles, you don't beat the Beatles." Instead you try to play a different type of tune (they wanted to be like Led Zeppelin IIRC). Ironic that they ended up being largely a cover band. But the fact remains that they knew what they were getting themselves into.

Why does EVE still run?
Why does DAoC still run?
LotRO?
EQ?
etc.

Because they are expressly NOT in the market to beat WoW. You find your own slice of the pie and pray you can edge into WoW's territory from there. Beating them outright is madder than Sparta.