Blizzard: You Can't Beat WoW Out the Gate

[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.

 

[Nikokvaj]

What in the world happened to Darkfall?

 

[Aeshi]

Given that just about any MMO that has tried to take WoW on has failed miserably I would agree with them on that, even moreso with Cataclysm on the horizon.

 

[Eatbrainz]

No other MMO can topple Warcraft from it's mighty golden throne. Sure as night follows day, sure as Christopher Lee is cool, sure as the Twilight franchise is shit.

Not that other MMOs aren't good, i personally will always have a love for Runescape.

 

[Exort]

wows numbers (which are the basis of it being considered 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.

incidentally SW:TOR apparently has a launch target of 1 million subs. if it succeeds (which could happen) it could easily be the equal of WoW in the US and EU markets within 1-2 years...but even more interesting is the reception the a Star Wars MMO could get in Asia (especially Japan a market WoW has never dented)

Sorry if this offend you but do you have numbers to back your statement up? Without those little numbers your statement, is just a option.

So let's go and check some numbers, shall we?

China: 363 servers. (http://www.warcraftchina.com/services/realm-status/)
EU: 263 servers. (http://www.wow-europe.com/realmstatus/index.html?locale=en_gb)
USA: 244 servers. (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/realmstatus/)
Taiwan: 45 servers. (http://www.wowtaiwan.com.tw/index/realmstatus.asp)
Korea: 34 servers. (http://www.worldofwarcraft.co.kr/news/server/index.do)

Total of 949 servers.

12,000,000 / 949 = 12645 players per realm. That seem pretty reasonable to me, out of all MMO I play WoW seems to have the highest player density, at least far higher than Warhammer online, and as you can you a lot of server are labelled as crowded.
One thing for certian that is what you said are all false. How can 2.5 million player be spead throughout 500+ realms. 5000 players per realm is way too low.

 

[Tron-tonian]

It's interesting that people are saying WoW is unstoppable. People said the same thing about EQ - you remember EQ, don't you?

WoW will eventually slide - it could be for a number of reasons: something newer, company mistakes (see also: EQ & EQ2), you name it.

That being said, a new MMO should be looking for a distinct market and targetting it, SWG used to have (and UO still does) have an openness that WoW simply can't match.

And I swear to the FSM - can we get something more than standard fantasy fare for our MMOs? I'm looking forward to the Fallout MMO for just htis reason - how many times do we need to see "Elves good, Orcs bad"?

 

[Exort]

/sigh

read the post again

i said "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"

approx 2.5 million in the EU and US

this is backed up by this press release: https://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/press/pressreleases.html?080122 from which you can extrapolate the basic cut.

to use your own figures and the US as an example 244 servers severs devided between 2.5-3 million (adjusted to predictable split from 12 million) would give 10246-12295 per server

You said "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"

That sound like EU and USA add up to 2.5 million. Not EU and USA have about 2.5 million each, that is a difference by 2 times.

Anyways that adds up, each server in every regien have about 12600 player per realm.

So it is about 12 million players.

 

[WittyInfidel]

Honestly, I just hope something can come along and compete with WoW because I'd like to play something other than WoW. I'd like there to be another big, fun game with a big budget and a lot of players, something I can enjoy getting sucked into. I'm hoping TOR can do that, but it can be something else too, if it's good. I like WoW. I enjoyed my time with it. I may even pick it back up for a bit to check out Cataclysm. But still, it'd be nice to see something new.

I came across a good MMO a little while back. It was called Allods Online.
A Russian group came up with it, and sank about $10 million into it. Graphically, it's as good if not a bit better than WoW. Gameplay and the UI arevery similar to Wow, as well.

It's free-2-play, and honestly worth a bit of time. I don't play it anymore (started playing WoW again) but it certainly kept me entertained. I certainly like how their "undead" had an Ancient Egyptian-meets-Necrons(Warhammer 40K) look to them.

http://allods.gpotato.com/

 

[Exort]

@mikozero
"12 million on Oct 7 2010 TWO YEARS LATER"

Actually I was excepting a decrease in player base (over last 2 year) because China, the largest Player base of WoW, was still in TBC not even two month ago. Chinese players was killing the same Boss(Illidan) for two years... I think the rest of regien was growing but China was decreasing in population. That is also why if you look at the China realm almost all realms are crowded or full, because massive amount of player starting to return in a burst.