Age of Conan

Originally posted by Talemire

Put it this way... the LEAST AoC will do is fairly cripple the WoW subscriptions. At its best, it could kill wow. TBVH, between AoC and WAR, WoW is set for a TKO.

WoW is going nowhere. Sorry, but AoC is a different game. My 65-year-old mom, 62-year-old uncle, 15-year-old nephew all play WoW -- tons!!!  My mom and nephew have tried LOTRO, Vanguard, Everquest, Everquest II, and other MMOs, but just don't like them compared to WoW. They aren't impressed by AoC at all, due to the interface. I'm sure that a vast majority of WoW customers are in the same boat. In my mom's case, WoW was her first MMO. She is a fairly casual gamer, though she takes WoW seriously.

I think that many WoW customers will end up buying AoC and be disappointed. While I like AoC, I still think WoW is a much more polished game, with much better support.

WAR has a better chance, because of the team behind it and the similarities it is expected to share with WoW -- which may help draw away from WoW's rapid base.

Lastly, WoW has an expansion due out, that will outsell AoC -- I'm guessing by at least a 2-1 margin.

WoW developers have the funding and the skill to include in their game pretty much everything the competition has to offer. Unfortunately they have been doing it in a very slow pace, especially considering the amount of money the are generating. In that sense, the release of a competitive MMO will only improve and accelerate what WoW has to offer. For example, things that have been promised on WoW's release but never made it up to now, are now promised to be on the new expansion, just because WAR will have them as well.

In this sense, competition will improve the features offered for all games on the market. Unfortunately, WoW will not address two issues that have an impact on my perception of fun:

1. The equivalent of a character wipe with every expansion announced.
2. The severely outdated graphics that even the artistic style can't cover at this point.

Looking back at AoC, the trick will not be the initial sales (although these will determine the momentum the game will achieve over the years), but the sustainability and growth over time. We will know for certain a couple months after the initial release.

Deep down I hope they generate enough money to complete the graphic revamp of AO (if that makes sense). I'm so tired of fantasy games at this point ... Oh, well ...

Originally posted by Rob_dc84

lol your funny. for one u cant kill wow due to the fact is has no life.

2nd  AOC will do nothing to wow. better graphic oh wow yeah high end machine which people dont have so wow will still be played more due to less need for high end machines.

As Vanguard proved, better graphics, don't make for  a better game.

In fact, Will Wright proved that long, long, long ago with SimCity, than with The Sims -- which were pretty, but fairly low-end graphics. Graphics are moot, without a good game. Graphics are moot, if you can't play the game due to performance issues.

Originally posted by boomerangx

 

The market is going to get split up a bit and you know what..? WoW will be the one to ultimately suffer and it will eventually die...why do you think blizzard has plans on making their big new MMO?

The domination is gonna die look around AoC is friggn huge atm , if you think bliz ain't scared you are crazy.... I have logged into my server a few times this week in WoW and my guild said there are tons of big raiding guilds breaking up/looking for more, so i assume it is having a big impact already and just from this game.  

 

This is what the guys down in the head office at blizz have been doing for the last 2 months

and it will only get worse as the time ticks and all the games release....

 

  Meh, I don't really think I agree with you at all.  I think that WoW burnout is going to affect this industry in an almost negative way.  Blizzard set a massive precedent in both game delivery AND genuine respect for its consumer.  The players which encompass this new and massive market (quite a bit of which are completely unreachable asian markets that even WoW was amazed to dominate) now have expectations that no game is likely to soon fill.  Even if these games deliver on content, they must also deliver on UI and ease of access AND play to be able to even get a second glance.

  AoC received such a massive "look" because its the new thing on the block.  GW had a massive player glance as well...but it didn't even put a dent in either Blizzards player base or its ability to continue to grow.  The same has held true for almost every other MMO on the market.  The big difference here is that none of those games have the hype either AoC or WAR have right now...and ALL of that is due to massive marketing pushes paid for by their respective teams.

  I think that each game could easily break into 200K subs...but the fact remains that WoW can afford to lose 50 games worth of such before even beginning to dip into an area which might force them to drop employees or close down.  Considering how many games have, thus far, attempted to do so and, not only FAILED, but also gave even more strength to the Blizzard war machine...I would say that its highly likely on a very small handful of games WILL achieve those numbers regardless of beta hype and interest.

  Remember, beta is free.  The money isn't IN box sales, its in being such a great game that you get multi-year long subscribers.  It doesn't matter one iota whether or not an actual 600,000 players show up to AoC.  All that matters is how many of those STAY.  I can tell you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that there isn't nearly as large a market for this as we'd like to think.  I could be wrong, and I'm sure SOME game will prove me so.  I just don't think this game, with its massive requirements and tendency to replicate game elements that the WoW crew are ALREADY tired of, will even come close.  Even WAR will be lucky to get near the 400K marks.  I say this, and I LOVE the ideal of WAR.  Its not that these games aren't good enough...or that they even deserve it.  Its that this market has evolved a TON, and its players have evolved with it.

  We aren't talking baby steps...with the advent of WoW the vast majority of market standards grew leaps and bounds.  That kind of "boom" change in the trend gives the impression that it can happen again...and the player tendency reflects it.  Those moving from WoW need more...literally NEED something amazingly different to steal them away from what is already a perfected system.  Why jump into another Raid grind when you have the cream of the crop already?  Some of you may find WoW raids to be...crap...but I personally think that most players can agree that WoW advanced that area of the MMO exactly as it needed to be advanced. 

  All of this rant really just to say "Nah man...you got high hopes and they will never see fruition.  Nothing against any of these games...but thats just how it is"

This game can't evern kill wow by itself, reason? Asia.

Originally posted by mrskippy

 

Originally posted by boomerangx

 The domination is gonna die look around AoC is friggn huge atm , if you think bliz ain't scared you are crazy.... I have logged into my server a few times this week in WoW and my guild said there are tons of big raiding guilds breaking up/looking for more, so i assume it is having a big impact already and just from this game.  

 

This is what the guys down in the head office at blizz have been doing for the last 2 months

and it will only get worse as the time ticks and all the games release....

 

 

-- Performance Issues (FPS and such)

-- The awkward combat system (the casual WoW customers who buy AoC are going to be turned off, simple as that -- WoW's graces for most of its customer base are the interface, which IS NOT present in AoC)

-- Potentially offensive content

 

~ The combat system is what you call "awkward" and what i call intuitive. real time active blocking along with directional attacking to adjust is something the genre has needed and it is finally getting it.. People have been wanting something like this for a while ..it increases the replay value HIGHLY bc of the skill involved..

~What you call "offensive",and  i call mature content is a reason WHY most adults will be playing this game and not WoW. If you think more children play MMO's than adults you are sadly mistaken...The recent official AoC poll for age shows the vast majority is 20-30 for this game atm. Wait till WoW loses that market share ... this content will hurt WoW more than help it...

All 3 things you say hurt AoC i say help it.......

Box sales are one thing, customer churn is another. Many people buy the MMOs, play it out a month or two, than cancel. Two million boxes sold does not equal two million customers. Even WoW has its fair share of churn, if  you look at month box sales numbers -vs- monthly churn.

The vast majority of MMOs are under a million subs, with 500K being an often used figure.

No one game will top WoW. Vanguard didn't. LOTRO didn't. Guild Wars (not subscription based, but still). EQ2 came out roughly the same time, with a recognized name and HUGE fanbase, but has failed to capture the market like WoW has. I think AoC and WAR do well, but they won't kill WoW. Not even close.

The reality is that even with 250K, 500K, or 600K subs, you can still post a profit and have fairly busy servers. In the end, from a business perspective, that is respectable.

WoW's 10 million plus subs, in many ways, is just amazing and a record that will be hard to top. It's quite possible that even WoW 2 or World of Starcraft or World of Diablo wouldn't be able to top that.  In fact, having 10 million subs is quite an amazing number. How many other forms of entertainment subs or online subscription services of any kind boast those numbers?

AoC isn't a WOW killer, it will take a big chunk out of Wows playerbase but it won't take everyone, for one thing a lot of WOW players are under 18. An quite a few of them have too old computers to even play Aoc. And Blizzards have many loyal fans who loves the world they spent years in.

What might get AoC more players than WOW however is the console version, as someone pointed out earlier, console games sell a lot and there is clearly room for an MMO there. Another thing is that the world of Conan is very well made and most of us know it already from books, comics and movies. WOWs world is more chaotic.

Aoc together with other upcoming games like WAR and GW2 will eventually dwindle WOW playerbase to about the same as EQ and UO have today but that is a few years away, and it might take even longer if Blizzard totaly renews it graphicsengine but eventually everything dies.

The WOW killer will be Time...