i would say a star wars based mmo if done in the right way would have a very good chance of doing some real damage to warcraft . also the other game the o.p. does nt mention that appears like it may have as good a chance is aion . warcrafts days may not be numbered but the days when it attacts the numbers we see now subscribing could well be .

it cant happen soon enough imo . blizzard have really run wow into the ground . it used to offer some challenge but now everything is too easy to obtain . its aimed more at the short term very young player nowdays that wants to get to level 80 as quickly as possible and gear his character out with all epics . class imbalances and lag isssues have made the pvp side of the game virtually broken .

if your just coming into warcraft theres proberbly about 6 months decent play before you realise how boring the game has become . i wish any game that can challenge warcraft and cut blizzards prophet margine all the best .

The WoW killer is nothing more than a mythological Bigfoot. Sure there are people that believe it exists, but when ever someone claims to have proof, it turns out to be nothing more than a frozen Gorilla suit stuff with deer intestines, .ie AoC, WAR, all show and no substance.

SW:TOR will not kill WoW, but who cares since Bioware is not trying to kill WoW. TOR will not even be considered a MMO by the majority closed minded MMO players since Bioware is not restricting themselves to the MMO paradigms that are so deeply coveted by the zealots of today.

World of Warcraft will not be killed, it will gradually loose subscriptions over the coming years due to multiple factors, not just the release of a single game.
 

I tend to agree with hades302 that the WoW Killer is just a mythological Bigfoot. But, then again, I always rooted for Bigfoot.

I thought this was a funny take on the notion, though. The guys at Global Agenda (another futuristic, sci-fi themed MMO) put together a "No Elves" trailer that pretty much sums up my feelings on the Fantasy genre at the moment.

http://e3.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/696255/Exclusive-Global-Agenda-No-Elves-E3-2009-Trailer.html

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by Shannia

Originally posted by jimmy123

I havn't seen a game on the market which would ever challenge WoW's population, that was untill now.

I belive that SWTOR will be the next big game 2010.  To be honest it's about time somethik epic should be  developed.

Iv'e been let down with AoC , WaR & TR let's hope that SWTOR won't go down the same road.

 

I'm sorry, you are wrong.  The ONLY game on the horizon that has even a remote chance to dethrone WoW is Blizzard's new MMORPG.  To beat Blizzard, you have to understand Blizzard, and even the folks making GuildWars (who came from Blizzard)  have not been able to repeat the magic.  Hopefully at BlizzCon in August we'll find out more of their new MMOG.  Unfortunately, SW:TOR will always have SW:G baggage to deal with because after all, LucasArts is involved in both.

 

To beat Blizzard you have to understand Blizzard. That's a good one. And I thought it was their multimilion marketing campaign, but obviously not.

I guess you are still peddling that same worn out theory that other developers are just not smart enough to spend money on advertising, because after all it guarantees absolute 100% success. 

Games don't need to be good, all they need is marketing and it is undeniable that they will get millions of players to subscriber for years and years.  Look how awesome that turned out for Age of Conan and Warhammer. 

 

It is just a shame that so many mmo companies don't have the braintrust that is your special insight fueling their development efforts.  If they only knew the key to success was marketing... 

As the guiness guys say "BRILLIANT!"

 

 

 

Yes, because everyone has 80 milion for developmet and 40 milion for marketing right? Name me one other company with 40 milion marketing budget.

Everything is about adv and marketing these days, from new theatrical films, movies, music,... The AD is first then is the popularity. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. That's why the sums for any kind of ad in a TV or newspaper or internet went up so high lately.

Marketing IS all, if you want the casual market, like wow does. 99% in there is casual, like parents with their children. They arent interested in the best game ever, they play the game they know of (for the best game, they would have to inform themselves, something a casual wouldnt do). Maybe in the past there were some informed people in wow, but today only marketing hold it that strong in numbers.

But marketing is expensive, even EA with Warhammer could have so much more players, but they're not willing to spent the money for it. The "wow killer" will have TV ads from beginning on, in every country.

When I try to explain someone, what EQ2 is: "Its a RPG, you play online with thousands of other people" - "..." -  "*sigh* Its like wow" - "Oh, ok I understand"

Oh look, a new kid with new, insightful ideas..yawn. You could at least try to explain why you think this piece of s... software is any different than all the other Wow killers of the past.  Note that while it might make you feel funny in your pants as you dream yourself swinging that ubar lightsaber in the game, it's not enough of a reason to declare this one a winner. Also, majority of WoWites are from Far East, there Warcraft is the hottest of hots and Starwars is not.

My crystallball says this one will land somewhere near Lotro, as both are questgrinders (storydriven is another name for that).

Originally posted by Thillian 

Yes, because everyone has 80 milion for developmet and 40 milion for marketing right? Name me one other company with 40 milion marketing budget.

How about you starting by naming one company that had a $40 million dollar marketing budget to launch with?  You keep saying wow had that type of money, but you have never once linked a source for that figure.  Not to mention you are the only person who seems to believe that figure and spouts it religiously as if we should all just take your word for it. 

So how about linking something factual to back up your claim?

What company spends $120 million dollars marketing and creating a game and only anticipates demand for at 500,000 copies during release?  According to your figures it cost blizzard $240 to produce each copy of warcraft that they anticipated selling. 

SW:TOR won't be a wow killer.  At MOST if it DOES hit WoW-Like numbers it will be a game that people play along-side WOW / in addition to WOW because it's SCI-FI not fantasy.  In short the two games are too different for one to kill the other.  It'll be like EQ1/SWG

Parrallel success stories that complement rather than compete with one another. 

SW:TOR won't kill WOW because it's not a fantasy MMORPG.  It's a SCI FI RPG which means that in all likelihood people who play it AND play WoW will just continue to play both.

So could it be as BIG as WoW?  Sure, in theory it could... but it's unlikely because the market for Sci Fi MMORPG's is about 1/10th that of Fantasy RPG's.  Don't believe me?  Just go dig through past polls on the matter from this site.  Almost every poll they've done on the subject shows about 80-90% of MMORPG players prefer Fantasy MMORPG titles over any Sci-Fi title.  There's just not as big a market for Sci-Fi MMO's as there is for fantasy ones.  

That said, TOR will be a smash hit.  Even if it's not as good as people hope it's still "Star Wars" so even in a worst case scenario  it'll probably still get a rotating player base in the hundreds of thousands much like SWG had before SOE & LEC shot themselves in the face with the NGE.

Anyone notice Jimmy has not been back to his own post??

Fail just like ___ well I will leave that up to everyone else I won't even waste my money.

Originally posted by Kilmar

Marketing IS all, if you want the casual market, like wow does. 99% in there is casual, like parents with their children. They arent interested in the best game ever, they play the game they know of (for the best game, they would have to inform themselves, something a casual wouldnt do). Maybe in the past there were some informed people in wow, but today only marketing hold it that strong in numbers.

But marketing is expensive, even EA with Warhammer could have so much more players, but they're not willing to spent the money for it. The "wow killer" will have TV ads from beginning on, in every country.

When I try to explain someone, what EQ2 is: "Its a RPG, you play online with thousands of other people" - "..." -  "*sigh* Its like wow" - "Oh, ok I understand"

Marketing will only get people to try your game.  You cannot advertise away bad gameplay and cannot buy good word of mouth advertising from satisfied customers.  Nor can you hide "the best game ever" from millions of people as if they are all incapable of looking at the EQ2 box right next to world of warcraft box on the shelf of best buy.  At some point the people who get bored with warcraft, but enjoy mmos are going to look for another one to play and that is a very sizable population.  The simple truth is that if there were so many other great mmos, more people would play them.  

For the record, Warhammer already had "so many more players", even with lots of advertising.  The fact is they lost those players despite your claims that marketing would swell their ranks.  All the marketing in the world would not make those people stay.  You work so hard to blame everything on marketing that you miss the obvious aspects of how things actually happened.  It is like one big lie you tell yourself to keep from seeing what is happening.  If only EA would market the game so that people knew about warhammer.... Uhh... didn't warhammer break sales records for an mmo release?  Didn't it sell 1.2 million copies? Can you tell us how more marketing will help?

Do you really think that warhammer, conan, soe or anyone else couldn't muster a few million dollars of their budget for marketing if it is the absolute guaranteed success factor that you claim it is?  

Originally posted by Joppari

Originally posted by ishist

Unfortunately, I know exactly what is going to kill WoW.

 

A meteor, or nuclear exchange, or a polar shift, or the second coming (or third or seventh) of someone's messiah.

 

I would have added alien invasion but I have a sneaking suspicion that the invading aliens would become horribly addicted to WoW. I'm not especially certain said messiah wouldn't.

 

WoW is like rabies, it'll never just....go away. But maybe if we trapped and humanely euthanized enough WoW addicts, we could bring the scourge to a managable level.

 

You missed one. Blizzard's next MMO.

I don't see SWToR dethroning anyone yet..  What solid intel that has been confirmed has not impressed me at all.. I'm actually a lil worried that many of the SWG devs went to go work for Bioware..  Leopards have a hard time changing their spots.. The other thing that scares me is a company trying to change the recipe of success or reinvent the wheel..  As much as many forum posters will bash Blizzard, they have fine tuned the recipe and improved the wheel..  For any company that REFUSES to accept a winning formula can be suicide..

Blizzard sells 11 million meatloafs a month, every month..  Their recipe must be good..  I don't know about you, but maybe when a new company comes in and tries to sell meatloaf, they may want to stay with using beef as the main meat and not go with seafoof loaf..  The last few years has everyone scampering around screeming "wow clone, wow clone".. So now new games want to avoid being tagged as a wow clone, however now they back themselves into a corner with an unproven recipe..  

Honestly.. I don't see SWToR getting anywhere close to 1 million subs.. I suspect they'll hover around 250K like most new games for a few years, then start to slide..

OH PS..  My gut tells me that the next big game will be Blizzards NEW mmo (sci-fi or not? )

I always love how people think the so called dethroning of WoW as the top MMO will mean anything.

I mean omg! if this game can't dethrone WoW i just know i won't be able to enjoy it!!!!

Seriously, why do people care so much about reaching WOW numbers? Just worry about the game being good and having a reliable subscription base of 500,000-a million. Anything else is just gravy.

I will say that this game will be the final nail in the coffin of SWG. Not like that's saying much since that game is on its last leg. The few people left there are only staying because it's the only Star Wars game. Once this comes out it's game over for them.

Martie for PRES 09 

This game is already doing things that no other game has done yet, or done very well. Some info you have heard, some will come in the next few months. Think, a game that emerses you so much that you think you are playing a KOTOR single player game, yet the world is huge and full of other players. Walking out of an instanced quest in this game is no different then stepping out your front door every morning to go to work. You see lots of people, doing things. It's kinda like 3 games in one.

Another one of these threads haha.  See you in Blizzards next MMO after I'm bored with other Blizzard games.

This is a pointless discusion.

SW:ToR wont come out til late 2011 imo... By that time WoW will already have lost about 2/3 of its player base & the rest will just be Blizzard fanboiz waiting for the next Blizzard MMO that should be just around the corner by then.

Aion is gonna hurt WoW subs a lot in the next couple years. Add to that a bunch of new "next gen" tittles like Terra, B&S, & others that will really start to make WoW feel like stone age & voilà.

In short, WoW downfall as already been set in motion & nothing will stop it now. The game is very old, as it was already old when it came out, its been dumb down way to much & a new nicely polished game as finally shown the tip of his nose.

 edit: Oh! Don't forget FFXIV too! lol     <3  FF.   :D

SW:ToR wont come out til late 2011 if not 2012! Aion will not hurt WoW subs like its low on pve content and WoW is mostly a pve content game it may hurt darkfall and warhammer however!

Originally posted by tillamook

This game is already doing things that no other game has done yet, or done very well. Some info you have heard, some will come in the next few months. Think, a game that emerses you so much that you think you are playing a KOTOR single player game, yet the world is huge and full of other players. Walking out of an instanced quest in this game is no different then stepping out your front door every morning to go to work. You see lots of people, doing things. It's kinda like 3 games in one.

Really?  I have yet to see anything solid that Bioware is doing that hasn't been done already besed on ones own point of view..  I read how the smuggler class concentrates on "stunning" their target and getting the first shot in..... ummmm OK.. Original?  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.... HELLO.. I can think of one right off the bat.. the WoW rogue that makes his living "stun locking" everything, especially in PvP.. lol   Some of the other stuff I've seen on screenshots or video are nothing more then retooled stunts or skills from other classes and games..  Really now.. is sword in a fantasy mmo any different then a lightsaber in star wars?  lol   Blasters?  umm ok.. range weapon just like other mmo games.. NO surprise there..  Storyline arc..... cough  cough.. I doubt that ToR is going to outdo WoW or LoTRO's storyline ability..

One thing that concerned me is why people in ToR are going to have a companion npc character?  Did I read that wrong somewhere in the FAQ's?   I can understand a pet class in most games.. Sounds like something crazy EQ would do, like having henchment that will pick up the slack when you cant' find enough real players to make up a group..  ( shrug ) 

IMO.. SWToR is starting to sound like KoToR in an online enviroment..  My KoToR toon can beat up your KoToR toon, lets fight!!..  I guess we'll have to wait and see what REAL gameplay footage looks likes..   Especially since their won't be any "kill x" to get experience quest..  This will be interesting to see what Bioware has planned to get around the "KILL X = exp" formula..