Five Reasons Why The Old Republic Can?t Touch WoW

[John Funk]

May I point out that this was also said of EverQuest when WoW came out?

"What, so now Blizzard thinks that just because they did Diablo they can dethrone the undisputed MMO king? Think again."

All those five reasons applied to EverQuest, as well, by the way. Big established fanbase and brand recognition, check; strong support from Sony, a massive multinational behemoth, check; expansions full of endgame content and polish, check again; almost impossible quality and content bar to surpass by a newcomer, yep, that too.

But WoW did all of it, against all odds, and despite the usual launch hiccups.

Whether or not TOR is the game to do that this time is up in the air at this point, but it will happen sooner or later, like it happened not just to Everquest, but to Ultima Online before that.

Also, betting for Wow in an article is... kind of dishonest. It's like betting a rock will fall down instead of up. Of course, nobody remembers all the boring guys who predicted the rock would fall down, but if one ever falls up the analyst who saw that coming has a very legitimate claim to fame. Just saying.

Yes, I'm well aware. But you have to understand that what WoW did to EQ wasn't just "Oh, it took all of it's players," but it created millions of NEW MMOG players. TOR would have to expand the market even further, and while I'm certain it's possible it's very, very hard to do given that the total WoW subscription count is 25+ million (not current, total). EverQuest was still very much a 'fringe' game, because MMOGs were a 'fringe' genre. WoW is as mainstream as they get.

Also, you and ...

I agree, EA's got to do some major polish if they want TOR to sell well against World of Warcraft, but I also don't think Blizzard is the stalwart titan you paint them to be. Their player base is full of people, like me, who have gotten bored with the same old encounters (giving old abilities and "tricks" from past instances to the new raid bosses). A fair amount may be tired of being "ignored" by the developers when certain imbalances and exploits remain unresolved for months (or worse, you finally see a development message on the subject to the effect of "Yeah, it's broken. But we're just going to design the game around it being broken.").

...should read last week's column, where I talked about the things that TOR has in its favor while taking on WoW I'm trying to be as even-handed as possible.

 

[Adamsusskind]

Very good points all around. I appreciate your insight and clarity. The only thing I think you missed was that two games can coexist. Guild Wars, which is far less popular than WoW, is still around and thriving. I think ToR will likely follow in GW's footsteps.

 

[Taco of flames]

John Funk wants to know why he can't just play a Night Elf Jedi.

Because everyone will say that Night Elves banned the use of the Force 10,000 years ago, and got on quite well, why should they start using it again?

 

[mr-fix_it]

anyone rember Warhammer Online? wasen't the situation pretty mutch the same then whit WAR and WOW as it is now whit TOR and WOW?

 

[ninjajoeman]

TOR is gonna win I can sense it in the.... OH you should have seen your face!

 

[ninjajoeman]

John Funk wants to know why he can't just play a Night Elf Jedi.

Because everyone will say that Night Elves banned the use of the Force 10,000 years ago, and got on quite well, why should they start using it again?

isn't cataclysm changing that...

 

[Logan Westbrook]

John Funk wants to know why he can't just play a Night Elf Jedi.

Really? Huh, I had you down as a Sullustan Warlock...

 

[John Funk]

Fair enough. Although it's worth pointing out that Gran Turismo and Modern Warfare 2 have sold over 10 million copies each, and New Super Mario Bros DS and Wii Fit have sold more than 20 million each.

My point being that those 25 million total accounts (which I'm sure include every single two week trial that didn't get extended, as these kinds of stats generally do) are by no means the hard cap of the MMO genre and that WoW is known to bleed players whenever another big MMO opens, meaning the hard part is keeping the ex-WoWers, not getting them to try your game. Keep the ex-WoWers and their friends will come following because, as you said, we're talking about a very, very old MMO at this point.

So while you have a point, I do think both things are possible. New players can be brought to the MMO camp and WoW can lose a significant chunk of the more hardcore players, who are willing to experiment with other MMOs and might drive a casual flow if they decide to stick with something different rather than return to their old guilds. Again, it's not a question of "if" rather than of "when".

Absolutely correct - I don't think WoW has reached a theoretical maximum at all; just look at the number of people playing Mafia Wars and Fishville on Facebook. I just think that to do so you're going to have to have a broad mass market appeal that we can't even conceive of. (And I believe the 'total' number of 24-36 million was subscriptions, not including trials, but I could be wrong (to quote, "2 to 3 times the current subscription base").

The trick is to keep them, you're correct there, too. But even a game with a million subscribers is merely a fraction of WoW's playerbase - is it a success? Absolutely. Is that the 'critical mass' that will keep them from going back to WoW? I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, sure. But you still go for the very obvious, very safe middle ground there at the end. "The Old Republic will not fail, but it will not be a WoW killer". With all due respect, that barely qualifies as an actual opinion. A well argumented statement of obvious facts, sure, but I would have been more interested in a more committed view. For instance, what do you think would have happened if the strong first weeks of Age of Conan, which was seeing WoW-like numbers early on, had not met with absolutely boring mid-game content and bad level and quest design? What if a game, TOS or not, manages to hold on to that kind of starting spike? Do you think that would draw the casuals away to follow the hardcores? More to the point, do you think TOS is in a position to do that? And if not, is it just because of the foreseeable early-MMO lack of polish and content or do you think there will be design reasons for that?

I'm sorry, that IS an actual opinion because that's what I absolutely think will happen barring a sudden shift. I think TOR has the potential to outperform every game from WAR and Conan onward to be a very solid second place, but I personally can't see it toppling WoW at all. It's interesting to speculate (hence these two pieces) but when my actual educated guess lies in the middle it's difficult to say "Well, I think THIS will happen" when I ... don't :/

I think TOR already has a potential casual base well beyond that of, say, WAR, yes. It may even appeal to casuals *more* than hardcore, considering that Blizzard does PvE very, very well, and BioWare is going to have to up their game to provide the same kind of endgame that WoW has (just because the vast majority of WoWers who might try TOR never got the "you just go here and chill in a virtual world" endgame like SWG or EQ, so they're expecting it).

 

[theSovietConnection]

I just think that to do so you're going to have to have a broad mass market appeal that we can't even conceive of.

And really, if anything would have that, wouldn't it be a Star Wars MMO? You have 3 groups The Old Republic is more or less targeted at. First off, you have the obvious Star Wars fanbase, one that in and of itself could blow the fanbase for Warcraft clean out of the water. Secondly, you have Bioware's existing fanbase, who likely will be willing to give TOR a try, and if they are already fans of Bioware's work, they will in all likelihood stick with it. And thirdly, as Noelveiga indicated in his posts above, you have the existing WoW base that may be tiring of the fantasy setting and looking for a fresh start in a new world.

In short, can TOR knock WoW off it's golden pedestal? Maybe. Is it wise to discount it? Hardly.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

To be honest, I'm not particularly interested in WoW vs TOR. WoW will be dethroned sooner or later, but the way things are looking now, it'll be later, not sooner. The thing with WoW is that it's become pretty much an entire segment of the market on it's own. There's WoW players, and there's people who play other MMOs. The WoW players won't move away from their Warcrack en masse anytime soon, so it's those other people who determine which games become 'best of the rest'.

Because of that, I'm far more interested in The Old Republic vs Star Trek Online. Two promising-looking new sci-fi MMOs, both based on world-famous fan-favourite franchises, it'd seem that they're going to be fighting over pretty much the same group of players.

Just don't tell any Trekkies or Warsies that I just lumped them together in one group. They might not approve.

 

[FaceFaceFace]

I agree with his opinon in the article, that it will do well but not as good as WOW, which is all I care about anyway. It could have the bare minimum players to survive or have everyone in the word playing for all I care, as long its still around for me to play.

 

[clairedelune]

We can't make the comparison of WoW to EQ next to TOR with WoW. EQ, at its height, had a fraction of the playerbase that WoW has now. WoW introduced millions to the MMORPG experience. If WoW is what you are used to, then you are used to a relatively relaxed/casual game with very few glitches and a consistently populated world. I think that when ex-WoW players (where WoW was their first MMO) who try out other games often quit within a couple of months either because of difficulty or because of polish. If you are expecting a game to be as polished as WoW in the beginning, you are going to be disappointed. Let's face it: playing a brand new game that constantly bugs or crashes with too-small servers is just not fun. You can tell yourself that it is not fair to the company to expect the game to be as well made as WoW quite yet, but it all comes down to whether or not you are having fun. Fair is not really an issue.

Also, while there is a huge market out there for Star Wars related games, a lot of people feel comfortable with the fantasy/magic of the majority of the MMO market. If you are used to the rogue/caster DPS, the warrior tank, and the priest/cleric/druid healer, then you may not want to get into the whole new system of which class does what. I know this seems like a minor point, but the basic fantasy class role stuff has been around a lot longer than WoW and EQ. People like to play what they know. Yes, we all say we are looking for new ideas, but I don't personally think that the failure of the new MMO's of the past few years is due entirely to lack of innovation. It's more attributed to an unfinished game with not enough content.

Basically, I hope that TOR only comes out when it is truly finished. Even if it has minimal bugs in its release, lack of content (IE not enough quests/tasks to do while leveling up) is a serious issue in new games. I have played a long list of MMO's, and I am so bored of WoW. I trust Bioware to make me proud, though. I will probably try TOR upon release.

 

[JaredXE]

I'm still waiting for the real WoW killer: The World.

I would so start up the Crimson Knights.

 

[Jodah]

No single game is going to topple WoW. Two or three combined might, key word being might, be able to. TOR will hurt WoW for awhile, just as AoC and WAR did. The impressive thing will be if TOR can last longer. That will give hope for future MMOs.

 

[Grampy_bone]

It won't be a traditional MMO that defeats WoW, it will be something else, a browser game like Farmville or something.

Go ahead, laugh, but mark my words...

 

[Azure-Supernova]

There's too much to weigh into it right now, but WoW can't last forever right? Some developer out there is taking notes on every MMORPG to fail to dethrone WoW, and one day that develope will use those notes to create WoW's ultimate opponent.

Except less sinister.

 

[Fearzone]

The fault with MMOs released since WoW is that they needed to be more like WoW. Maybe they offered interesting improvements over WoW in some particular narrow area--maybe they addressed a focal problem in a way that was different and better--but the overall experience suffered majorly when you compare it to WoW in ways that were easily identifiable.

The only game that will have any chance against it is the one where you say: "this needs to be less like WoW."