The perpetual search for the "World of Warcraft Killer" is a constant theme in these forums as well as many others, but I think I may have hit upon the secret to making it happen:  allow players to migrate their existing World of Warcraft characters to the new MMO.

Of all the reasons millions of players stick with WoW, I think the most important may simply be that they have already invested so much time into the game that they are reluctant to let that "investment" go.  Yes, anybody who has taken an economics class has learned about the sunk costs fallacy, but I am going to go out on a limb and guess that a significant number of players have never taken an economics class, or not taken its lessons to heart.

So make it easy for them:  let them migrate over the characters they have worked so hard on, and not even have to face the possibility that they have wasted the last six years of their lives on a character in a game that is not going to be around forever.

(I was going to close this out with some smilies, but the more I think about it, the more I think it is not a joke . . . I have heard WoW players say that they would not even consider a World of Warcraft 2 unless they could migrate over their existing characters, which really says something about the psychology of it all.)

Edit:  Yes, I realize this can't really be done, which is why I don't think it is going to happen, which is why I think there will be people lying on their deathbeds in fifty years worried about getting T57 armor on their lvl 785 Paladin.

Originally posted by Swollen_Beef
Wat

We know you have driven your Ford truck for 6 years, but if you pay GMC for a new truck, we will let you keep your old truck. We will just take the Ford logo off your truck and put ours on it! That way you can keep your truck you had for 6 years but are now driving a GMC truck!

More like somebody not wanting to give up his truck because he's spent so much money in repairs on it.  Yes, it's totally irrational - and it's easy to convince somebody that, in the case of a truck, no matter how much they have driven it and how much money they have dumped into it for repairs, it's only worth what the dealer says it's worth, and that they are better off with a new one.

But people just don't think that way when it comes to MMOs.  Start talking about switching to a new one, and it's "but I've played [insert old MMO here] for years, and my character is maximum level and I'm so close to completing the highest level gear set!"  It doesn't matter that the MMO in question is dated, that there are better options available, etc., etc. . . . it's all about what they have invested into it in the past.

The only thing you have to do to become THE WoW killer is make a game and release it 31 days after Blizzard puts pandas into WoW. Thats it, instant winner!

Originally posted by Gudrunix

Originally posted by Swollen_Beef
Wat

We know you have driven your Ford truck for 6 years, but if you pay GMC for a new truck, we will let you keep your old truck. We will just take the Ford logo off your truck and put ours on it! That way you can keep your truck you had for 6 years but are now driving a GMC truck!

More like somebody not wanting to give up his truck because he's spent so much money in repairs on it.  Yes, it's totally irrational - and it's easy to convince somebody that, in the case of a truck, no matter how much they have driven it and how much money they have dumped into it for repairs, it's only worth what the dealer says it's worth, and that they are better off with a new one.

But people just don't think that way when it comes to MMOs.  Start talking about switching to a new one, and it's "but I've played [insert old MMO here] for years, and my character is maximum level and I'm so close to completing the highest level gear set!"  It doesn't matter that the MMO in question is dated, that there are better options available, etc., etc. . . . it's all about what they have invested into it in the past.

And how are you planning to import a WoW character into a different game........................ are you going to make a "new" game with exactly the same stats, same game mechanics, same equipment.. I .. I must....must resist the urge to troll you badly.

Rule number 1 to making the "WoW" killer:

DO NOT MAKE IT LOOK LIKE OR PLAY LIKE WoW!!!

It would be extremely difficult, even if you could duplicate all the art from scratch, to create a database of items/attributes/achievements that was recognizable as an export of the character yet did not run afoul of copyright.

Also, you risk publishers invoking the clause in the EULA that says that technically the rights to everything players does/creates in the game is the publisher's property, not the user's.  I wouldn't mind seeing this clause challenged and invalidated (since I already do recreate my favourite characters in each game I play and, in my own imagination, see them as hopping from universe to universe, not really native to any one game's IP)

Originally posted by Kaocan

The only thing you have to do to become THE WoW killer is make a game and release it 31 days after Blizzard puts pandas into WoW. Thats it, instant winner!

noooo, BC was for wimps, The Lich King was childish, Cataclysm was pointless, Pandas are the thing everyone wants Kung Fu Panda is teh winzorz!

Kung Fu Panda world will bring in millions more subs, mostly from gamers in the 30-50 yr old range. Enough dark sinister death, dark power and great cinimatic story, roll out the Pandas already!

Rainbows all round"!"

"How do you kill that which has no life"

No, that's not the secret, importing characters doesn't even make sense,  if you're building a wow killer, you want to kill wow, not to pass on  it's legacy, and besides if you have a wow killer, it's a different game... different everything, why would you have same things in another mmo? it would be another wow... The lack of imagination in this threat is killing me.

you want an idea of how wow is popular outside us.check athenelive past 4 pm eastern ,at the peak last night 4200 people (that i could see on the screen cause they stream via different way also)were watching wow content,and a wow bug made him lose his char so he had to reroll,he went back to eu where he used to play dam should have seen the server fill up ,they had to call blizzard.ya wow lost about what 1 million player mostly in us would be my guess!so that wow killer isnt swtor ,does it mean it is fail!hell no in us it is a huge success!already close to 2 million player in there.and i bet most of them never played or havent played wow in years!

Time machine is pretty much what's needed to make a WoW-killer.

WoW was a one time event.  Right time, right place, right organization.  

I don't think the gaming world will ever see a single MMO with such a pronounced lead over the rest of the field.  The quest for the WoW-killer is a chimera, a mirage, a pipe dream.

Blizzard will continue to port WoW to untapped regions, and probably at some point to Pads and Smart phones, to keep the profits rolling in, but I doubt even they can replicate it's initial power in any of their upcoming releases.

Originally posted by Gudrunix

The perpetual search for the "World of Warcraft Killer" is a constant theme in these forums as well as many others, but I think I may have hit upon the secret to making it happen:  allow players to migrate their existing World of Warcraft characters to the new MMO.

Of all the reasons millions of players stick with WoW, I think the most important may simply be that they have already invested so much time into the game that they are reluctant to let that "investment" go.  Yes, anybody who has taken an economics class has learned about the sunk costs fallacy, but I am going to go out on a limb and guess that a significant number of players have never taken an economics class, or not taken its lessons to heart.

So make it easy for them:  let them migrate over the characters they have worked so hard on, and not even have to face the possibility that they have wasted the last six years of their lives on a character in a game that is not going to be around forever.

(I was going to close this out with some smilies, but the more I think about it, the more I think it is not a joke . . . I have heard WoW players say that they would not even consider a World of Warcraft 2 unless they could migrate over their existing characters, which really says something about the psychology of it all.)

So you want a completely different company to bend and mold their game so that players in WoW can take their high level, multi year "uber" characters and hit the end game in their newly released game which  probably only has "so much" end game created in order to accomodate all the new players coming in?

I have a different idea. WoW players might just have to learn to "let go".

In any case people also need to let go of this "WoW killer idea".

games don't need to kill WoW to be successful. And WoW doesn't need to be killed.

I know how to make a WoW killer... don't think about or look at WoW at any point during development, because you're going to fall into the same trap that Rift and TOR fell into... which is mimicing WoW.

the next wow killer wil be on g+,surprised?dont be!a lot dont believe this but i tell you the next big game will be linked with g+why ?hangout and social aspect!(i wouldnt be surprised that wow and g+ found a way to work together.some dismiss handgout but has athene (athenelive.com)have shown being live is the futur.last night 4200 were viewing him while playing wow!

The way to make a WoW killer is to make a Stuxnet-style virus that targets Blizzard's servers.  Because nothing else except Blizzard itself can kill WoW in the near future.  < \sarcasm>

More seriously, games don't kill other games.

Originally posted by kroz318

"How do you kill that which has no life"

OMG!! Are you saying MMORPG game player are immortal in real life?

The beauty of Warcraft is in its marketing.   They lose 2 million players but then claim the majority of that was in Asia where it doesn't matter, but then they boast 10 million subs in which 70% are in  Asia (where the game is a free download) and now suddenly those accounts matter.

Good marketing will win the hype contest every time.  Not sure of any company that can compete with that.

I've said this before many times and I'll say it again. The only thing that will kill WOW is time. WOW will die of old age eventually it's only a matter of when. No other game is going to 'Kill WOW', not even another game produced by Blizzard like so many believe. WOW will live out it's lifespan and someday like all things it will wither and die. Some other game will take up the 800lb gorilla title at that point but it won't be because it 'killed WOW'. It will be because WOW will leave the title vacant for some other game to fill.

Bren

i wish tho that blizzard would lower the total server number tho cause it spread player to thin!