Quake was followed by a string of so-called "quake killers", which were always evolutionary clones trying to duplicate the original's success by duplicating it's foundations.

Quake's success was never duplicated by something that came along which was not simply a better version of quake, but also very new and different compared with what the original offered. 

WoW will ultimately be killed only when some MMO publishers have the courage to not only push the genre into new territory, but is willing to put enough resources behind it to get it done in a polished way.

Yes but you can kill counter strike source with combat arms.

Lotro will eventually kill WoW as time passes by.. well.. not kill.. but take a majority of subs

I agree with the OP. I have been saying the same thing for a while now.

WoW is bound to run out of steam eventually and another game will take over as top dog. Right now though, it looks like WoW will not be killed by innovation but will rather die of old age. After which the shiniest WoW-clone will take over.

You can't kill the WoW killer threads by cloning them either. :)

You cannot kill that that does not bleed.

Originally posted by Trenchgun

Quake was followed by a string of so-called "quake killers", which were always evolutionary clones trying to duplicate the original's success by duplicating it's foundations.

Quake's success was never duplicated by something that came along which was not simply a better version of quake, but also very new and different compared with what the original offered. 

WoW will ultimately be killed only when some MMO publishers have the courage to not only push the genre into new territory, but is willing to put enough resources behind it to get it done in a polished way.

This thread is funny. Coffee is the only person so far who has actually typed anything even vaguely original and sensible. Everyone else in this copy-cat thread is simply retyping old borrowed thoughts which they have seen everyone else typing for years in the billion other rehashed versions of this tired old attempt at a debate. Its a prime example of how most of the so-called discussions on these forums are in fact the result of nothing more than mindless zombies basicly copy & pasting the words of other posters. Heartless cant even tie his borrowed thoughts together as he blatantly contradicts himself by first agreeing with the OP by stating that he has been saying the same thing for years and then saying as his last sentence that a WoW clone will eventually take over. If you're going to pretend to have an original thought at least make it look like you have thought about it. This thread is the perfect example of a bunch of bored human/sheep hybrids emulating each other.

 World Of Warcraft is not the first game out there.

I am in my 30 and have played many games.

In that case i say Wow is a Lineage 2 Clone.

All mmo has the same basic,

Collect , grind, kill , group, well you get where im going.

Eaven Lineage 2 is not the first one, i played my first MMO 1998 with Ultima Online.

There was a life before you i i have to say.

 Also quake was not the first one.

ID Software created the first wich was 

Wolfenstein 3D followed by Doom, Doom 2 , Heretic 1 and 2 

Man se if you can se those titels in the forum the last couple of days =)

IDDQD , IDCLIP, IDKFA

Originally posted by luckypotato

Yes but you can kill counter strike source with combat arms.

Lotro will eventually kill WoW as time passes by.. well.. not kill.. but take a majority of subs

Lotro taking maj of wow's subs.  I'd like to have what you're smoking. :) 

Actually the combination of strong marketing with solid gameplay reinforces the position. At the moment there are plenty of games with good gameplay but very little exposure to media and new players. Bottom line, your formula is flawed in our case, because the players are not equal.

Regardless, us players need a strong P2P quality game on top with massive appeal, else the market will deteriorate into the low quality F2P games offered today. Whether this game is WoW or some other title is of little importance, as long as quality is promoted and reinforced.

Being bored with the game is a pretty powerful element for MMOs and something not to be readily dismissed. After all, P2P is all about retention of players over long periods of time.

AoC and WAR had their chance to cut a very big slice out of WoW when they launched. Were those games complete at launch and with all the gameplay elements in tact, the MMO chart would be radically different right now. The downside of these early failures has unfortunately an negative aftershock on all future games produced later on (see the mistrust towards Aion, SW:TOR and Champions online. Also look at how differently these games are advertised, compared to AoC and WAR, ie varying from very little info to complete silence.)

WoW nearly perfected the quest/raid based mmo's franchise

Other games can try, but they will never overcome their master.

Originally posted by luckypotato

Yes but you can kill counter strike source with combat arms.

Lotro will eventually kill WoW as time passes by.. well.. not kill.. but take a majority of subs

I play LOTRO and though a fantastic  MMO it will never meet or surpass that Blizzard has achieved with WOW. However silly the PVP is in WOW or games like Warhammer at least they have PVP far superior to the monster PVP in LOTRO. The hardcore MMO genre of players like myself who have seen and done all in most games are moving on to greater pastures meaning we don't play like we used to. We've gone from marathon play to a few hours a day or every once in awhile now.

WoW was nothing special in my book. It took the missing parts of alot of other MMO and put them in theres. WoW in effect was an easy mode clone of every game that came before it.

Originally posted by coffee

 

You cannot kill that that does not bleed.

yes your right, we must drive a stake made of pure sandbox through its server heart before the next full moon

Originally posted by coffee

 

You cannot kill that that does not bleed.

so you can't kill a robot?

Well, the three games I mentioned have different gameplay elements than WoW, just not radically different. Of course, the gameplay execution is yet to be witnessed.

• Aion, a natural progression from Lineage 2 and Everquest 2, tackles world PvP and meaningful castle sieging. The overall package seem complete and fresh, for now.
•  Champions online offers a one shard world of superheroes. I'll know more when I get into the beta.
• Star Wars: The old republic, very little is know beyond the strong storytelling element and the choreographic battles. This is the game we know the least about, but also the farthest from release.

I mentioned these games, not because they have the potential to be WoW killers (or x-game killers), but because they have the potential to fill a gap similar to what EVE is doing, something different and something fresh. And in the end, something enjoyable for a while.

In all these threads on all the various fora I visit, where the subject of "WoW killing" is brought up, every one of them fails to mention a core reason for the sucess of WoW. The setting has existed for going on 15 years now. The World of Warcraft (that is, the Warcraftverse, not the game) is familiar to many PC gamers who got their start in the early to mid 90's. It dominated RTSes until Starcraft, another Blizzard IP, came along. Even though the lore behind the Warcraftverse was added to, retconned, and molded around new interpretations of old in-game events, by the time WoW opened for business, there was already an established fanbase of millions waiting to get in on the action. Millions of players who were already familiar with the world of Azeroth; who already knew who the major players were; who experienced a form of active gameplay within the setting; and who now eagerly awaited the chance to get into the world as opposed to looking down on it from the bird's eye view of a real time strategy game.

That was a head start that no other MMO could possibly replicate, unless a company takes the time to start their IP small, nurture it, develop a fanbase, and then hand that world over to the fanbase to become a part of. LOTRO enjoys a similar success, but the main difference is that for every Tolkien fan that actively plays computer games, there's probably 1000 more who are literature buffs that have zero interest in gaming. Warcraft got its start in gaming, so there's no disparity in the fanbase.

The only other game I can think of that has this going for it would be SW:TOR. It's got the two KOTORs before it, and the fans that were created by those games. You can bet that at least 50% of the people who enjoyed and have multiple playthroughs of the KOTORs under their belt will be guaranteed sales and subscriptions within the first few months. And then there will be the disgruntled SWG players looking to grab ahold of another SW based MMO. Needless to say, TOR's release will be interesting to observe. Whether or not it enjoys the runaway success of WoW remains to be seen.

I can say, however, that it's going to take something REALLY special to be developed as an MMO with no prior gaming establishment to reach the kinds of numbers as WoW.

Well, Aion brings world wide PvP with no/little framerate loss and modern graphics. Last game to do that was DAoC or L2, take your pick.

Champions online bring a one shard world, similar to what EVE has. I don't recall any other non-space game that has this feature. Remains to be seen if the world is seamless as well.

In comparison to the two games above, we know very little regarding gameplay as far as SW:TOR is concerned. We do know that the storytelling element will be strong, but that's it. Most of the optimism stems from Bioware as a company, not the game features themselves.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

This is my favorite :

(Xn,...Sn) = Wow. Where X are the number of MMO's playing and S the same mechanics and strategy used....

---->

It comes directly from the famous Nash equilibrium. And is mathematically proven even with a Nobel price on top (that's heavy for a game theory isn't it ) :))

A Nash equilibrium is a solution concept of a game involving two or more players, in which each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no player has anything to gain by changing only his or her own strategy unilaterally. If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.

Stated simply, Amy and Bill are in Nash equilibrium if Amy is making the best decision she can, taking into account Bill's decision, and Bill is making the best decision he can, taking into account Amy's decision. Likewise, many players are in Nash equilibrium if each one is making the best decision that he or she can, taking into account the decisions of the others. However, Nash equilibrium does not necessarily mean the best cumulative payoff for all the players involved; in many cases all the players might improve their payoffs if they could somehow agree on strategies different from the Nash equilibrium (e.g. competing businessmen forming a cartel in order to increase their profits).
 

As to the playfield for mmorpg's today, we are in a rather "new" cycle of computer graphics that don't change much. A few hairs more and a few rimples on a face don't "age" the graphics mechanics as it used to be.

So with the aging aspect of computer graphics going even trivial (compared to gameplay), the ONLY way to break the dominance of WOW is to break away from the used strategy within mmorpg's. Or else .... you just support the current game situation.

To put it bluntly: each new mmorpg reinforces the position of WOW if playing within the same game situation.

The man got a Nobel price for it (see: a beautiful mind).

 Now is that thought for food or food for thought ... :))) ? Neonwire :)))

 

That's a good way of putting it: Each new game like WOW only reinforces it's position at the top. Nobody can out-WoW WoW. They've got the resources to keep up and have had more time.
 

The only way to break the cycle is to change the paradigm, to introduce a new set of circumstances by doing something completely different.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Jon it is a theory of how we came to this present day situation. and interesting. Although a lot of people who didn't came in with the WC2 or WC3 door. (Myself included).

But you could be right.

However the discussion was now, how to breach the equilibrium.

A simple fantasy Lore change doesn't break it. Together KOTOR will need to change core game mechanics of traditonnal fantasy mmorpg's.

An example? Fleet fights, space combat. conquering planets, assault on Death stars, building up your space ship AND avatar skills. Planets that change overtime. Populations growth. Politics included within each planet.

You could be a hero in one planet system and a newbie "non event" in another planet.

Just breaking out of the "kill 6 pigs with the light sabre" mentality here.

The 5 million (subs) question here: who wants to take the risk ???????

 

Sorry... hehe... that's just a point I've been wanting to bring up, and this thread seemed as good a place as any vis a vis WoW.

Your point about not having come in via the other Warcraft games is valid, but I have a theory about that, too. The game comes out and becomes a blockbuster thanks to the established Warcraft fanbase. Blizzard starts raking in the money, which goes into marketing. Their marketing people, obviously good at what that do as we can see, get the game out everywhere. Product placement, celebrity commercials, billboards--- EVERYwhere. Meanwhile, the "Hey, check out this cool game I'm playing" effect is going on. Back before I became jaded, I loved the game. It was easy to pick up and dive right in. This, coupled with the marketing, coupled again with the friend 2 friend spread and before you know it, 11 million+ subscriptions.

But anyway, that's a topic for another thread. I'm quite enjoying the current direction of this thread. :)

Originally posted by luckypotato

Yes but you can kill counter strike source with combat arms.

Lotro will eventually kill WoW as time passes by.. well.. not kill.. but take a majority of subs

"combat arms" Kill counter strike LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks for the laugh

If MMO-market would be a co-operative game, then your game-theoretic approach likely would shed some light to it, but even in that case we could not trust the co-operativeness of others and would still end up with the collectively worse payoff than in ideal situation in order to guarantee an acceptable payoff on a personal level. Therefore many of the equilibriums aren't rational and thus won't be reached. But as the markets aren't co-operative and we are missing information from the moves of others it leads people to fluctuate between different games in search for a higher payoff, which explains why new games have their hype. If the strategy chosen by these players actually is long lasting enough, also other will try to get the same payoff which might change the balance of the game and its winning strategy.

In sum, players don't choose the game that would likely have the highest personal payoff as that would not be found amidst the genre but rather stick to games that offer the highest collective payoff with still acceptable personal payoff. That's why PvP games will not be the big dogs in the park for as long as majority of MMO-players aren't also PvP players. The problem with PvP is that you get a better payoff from FPS games if you are competitive as there the balance is always ideal and only player skill will affect to the outcome. A situation like this is actually the polar opposition of MMORPG because would all character development lead to uniform character there would be no purpose to develop your character. Thus, the PvP power in MMO game is not a function of skill but that of skill and time spent which weights the balance to good old grinding, which then again leads to the source of PvE MMO which then again is what PvP MMO players state they hate. A dilemma of a sort we see. 

Originally posted by Zorndorf 

AoC and War didn't make the cut as Wow killers. The reason was very simple: they played within the same bracket with exactly the same strategies. It is a myth they failed because of lack of polish. They just reinforced the existent equilibrium. They reinforced the position of Wow as the market leader. Lotro was 10 times more polished, it helped to built up the market situation.

And the others you mention will face the same faith IF they play within the same playing field (as were LOTRO, TR, Spellborn, AD&D, etc...).  

And this is where i disagree

First,AoC and WAR were marketed as PvP games,opposed to WoW and its PvE focus

Second, both AoC and WAR quickly sold 1m boxes in west,and we all know quite a few of those were WoW players. That tells us that there is a decent amount of people that are willing to drop WoW

Third and last, AoC and WAR fell flat on their faces because of their own mistakes. Had they presented finished products not filled with bugs,that lived up to expectatives, they would have grown instead of shrink

I dont know why are you outright lying in this point, and I wonder if you played AoC or WAR.

I played both,and i can tell you how it went from experience. You could see daily people complaining about this or that problem/bug/mechanic, well founded problems indeed. They all wanted that games to succeed, they all gave the devs one and even two attempts to turn the situation before eventually losing their faith and dropping the game. And both games failed to deliver at a divine scale.

But any of them all of a sudden missed the good times raiding in WoW, or the arena, and decided that even if the game was performing adecuately (which wasnt) they would still get back to WoW.

They were dissapointed because they felt almost forced to play WoW again

I can agree that at the moment WoW is the best option. It is. But not because of its merits, but because of other's de-merits. Many people already stated with their wallets (see second point) that they are willing to change game if the other game is well worth it. Until now, any game was.

Which if we think about it for a second, its even unfair. People will only drop WoW for a game that is better than WoW. that is,they want at release a game that surpasses anoter game that have had almost 5 years of constant development and polish.

Lets imagine for a second that we lived in a paralel universe where WoW never existed prior to now, instead there was another game called Z that had the exact same progression as WoW

and tomorrow, WoW were released the way it was back in 2004

I bet my life that WoW would fail. fail hard, harder than AoC or WAR. epic fail. It would never be given the time to improve to today's standards.

Until a few months ago i tot that,based on that premises, WoW would never be killed by other game that wasnt Blizzard's second MMO. then i found out Aion, and i think it will kill WoW...kill meaning getting more subs than WoW eventually,and being the main cause of said shrinking in WoW numbers. my reasons:

1) Its a game almost exactly like WoW, but newer, better looking, with an appealing PvP system,and excellent performance in large scale warfare,something that WoW cant handle

Its ambitious because it isnt cattering only to the RvR crowd, its pputting almost as many focus in the PvE content as in the PvP

2) Its an asian game,targetted mainly for asians, and we all know that in MMOs, the asian market is the one that matters

3) Its good enough to not become a dissapointment for the initial playerbase.

4) Following 3), once you have guaranteed retaining your subs,  I think Aion will experience a similar "social phenomenon" like WoW experienced.

Its a good game,it doesnt fail to deliver,its growing in popularity. Thats what made WoW what it is today.

Sooner or later, people that at first were hesitant will give it a try, wondering why others say good things about it. And thats when the game hooks them. And thats when others follow their example

Its a slow but steady process

But your reasoning is against all logic. You seem to imply that people can step into much better products yet ignore them, and that better products only make publicity to the already stablished one.

Reality is far from that. The Consumism is based exactly on the contrary. We are taugh since we are born that we have to consume, that we always have to go after the "next thing"

The TV industry, the film industry, the music industry, all of them follow this premise. If one thing proves to be successful, you have to find another product that oneups the previous. One you get it, the first product will fall into oblivion, the new product will hoard the limelights.

Thats why the term "bandwagon" was coined. Because its in the human nature

WoW has never faced a product that oneup-ed it, thats why it has hold the market with iron fist, not because dozens of better products were released yet WoW was too big of a mammoth to be taken away

Until Aion. Aion oneups WoW.

Let's put this falacy to rest right now: WoW's level of success has virtually nothing to do with it's IP. Several MMORPGs with far, far, stronger IPs could never dream of reaching a tenth of WoW's 10 million subs. Conversely, several brand new IPs have had just as much initial success as WoW did, but then failed to grow or rapidly shrank for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with IP.