Originally posted by dojiwayo

Doom had no subscription whatsoever....

 

Also what hes trying to say with that is that no game stays on top forever.

Somewhat off-topic, but if you get Doom Legacy and plug in your original DOOM WAD file, it actually looks really good.  And plays really good.  Kind of scary to think how little first person shooters have evolved when you go back and play the granddaddy of them all on a modern engine and it's not that much different than what's coming out today.

its already happening. me and lots of guildmates/RL friends have already quit :D

Originally posted by dojiwayo

Originally posted by Gameloading

Originally posted by cybertrucker

My flame proofing holds intact... I read every response, and I honestly dont think some of the responders even read my post.

I never said ONE game will take WOW down. I said in the next year to 2 years a collective of games will knock it down to a spot where one game has a VERY GOOD chance of actually having more subscriptions.. The Vanguard, AoC,  WAR era of  MMOs has passed. The newer upcoming releases that are on the very near horizon seemed to have learned from the mistakes of the last generation of self acclaimed WOW killers.

I also stated I think WOW will be around for years to come. I just think like EQ1 it has had its time at the top, and all good things come to an end. I take DOOM for example it reigned supreme for so long as an FPS... However its time came and went. And well WOW has alot of competition out there and the competition is getting better not worse. Even after reading so many responses I still believe the decline of WOW is imminent, and it will happen SOONER not LATER.

One last thing Alot of people state ohh none of the games coming out has the recognizable IP that warcraft had.. or has. However. WOW did do something. IT brought ALOT of people into the MMO world. And once a person is in that world they hear the goings on of other games in the same genre. Word of mouth is a big thing. When a new game launches that is very smooth running and very polished.. People playing MMOs are most likely going to hear about it and might decide to try it for themselves.

Last few years there was alot of hype of upcoming games that launched to early with to many bugs. That is why they couldnt compete with WOW.

 

You don't seem to realise that you're using the exact same arguments we have been hearing for 5 years now. "They learned from their mistakes" yeah well so did the mmorpgs before that. You pretend as if no new mmorpg has been launched since the release of WoW besides Vanguard, WAR and Age of Conan.

Besides who says that these new unreleased games will be any different? Because they look good pre-release? So did WAR and Age of Conan. Champions certainly isn't going to pull away any noticable numbers, thats for sure.

Doom is a poor example. Doom isn't a game that is constantly evolving like an MMORPG such as WoW does. I'm also pretty sure Doom did not have 11 million subscribers.

 

Doom had no subscription whatsoever....

 

Also what hes trying to say with that is that no game stays on top forever.

Doom had no subscribtions? oh, really sherlock?

Yes it's very clear what he is trying to say and it's pretty obvious no game is going to stay on top forever. But there is nothing even suggesting that WoW is going to decline anytime soon.

 

Silverthorn8:

Actually I did a search of all the realmstats on wow a few months after tbc was launched and they were down considerably from tbc launch...people were leaving in droves.

I think we'll see something similar for the new expansion, a hell of a lot more QQ'ing going on about the radical new changes they are gonna implement.

Personally I think although it could well be an awesome expansion, they will lose a lot of the long term players.

Having zero competition has made blizzard a lazy, bloated, beast of a firm, it's caused massive stagnation of the market. In essence it really needs a major threat to it's supremacy.

 

It's very doubtful people were leaving in droves because after the release of the Burning Crusade, subscribtion numbers continued to increase, not decline.

If history is a marker, EQ laster about 5 years as top dog with games coming and going and not making a dent in the overall top dogs position.  Bearing in mind EQ had about 500,000 subs at its peak but other games counted their subs in the 10,000s at the time, this was back in the day though when the internet itself wasn't as prevalent.

Then along came WoW and totally killed EQ.

Problem is when you looked at EQ 5 years on, it looked dated, it looked old, graphically speaking.  WoW doesn't look old, in fact you compare it with games coming out today and its graphics easily hold up.  You see games released today that have the same graphics as WoW, there has been no leap forward.

Until there comes a game that actually takes that extra step forward, I can't see WoW being killed off, even in the long run with dribs and drabs as the OP suggested.  It just isn't going to happen until something better steps up with as much mass appeal.

Problem for other games now is they can only just manage to steal away a small section of the WoW gaming fraternity.  Champions will take some, but not many, Aion will take some, but not many...too reliant on PvP etc etc etc and you list the games and the small parts of the community they can appeal to.  People will always return to WoW because of its size and if Aion takes 10% of the players, that means that out of every 10 friends, only one of them will be playing Aion, the other 9 will still be playing WoW and people like to play with friends and within a few months will return to WoW.

The reason EQ died was that entire guilds left EQ and went to WoW as guilds.....not only did a few players go, but all their friends went too.  People that left EQ never went back to EQ.   People that leave WoW invariably go back to WoW.

Originally posted by Dafong

If history is a marker, EQ laster about 5 years as top dog with games coming and going and not making a dent in the overall top dogs position.  Bearing in mind EQ had about 500,000 subs at its peak but other games counted their subs in the 10,000s at the time, this was back in the day though when the internet itself wasn't as prevalent.

Then along came WoW and totally killed EQ.

Problem is when you looked at EQ 5 years on, it looked dated, it looked old, graphically speaking.  WoW doesn't look old, in fact you compare it with games coming out today and its graphics easily hold up.  You see games released today that have the same graphics as WoW, there has been no leap forward.

 

Until there comes a game that actually takes that extra step forward, I can't see WoW being killed off, even in the long run with dribs and drabs as the OP suggested.  It just isn't going to happen until something better steps up with as much mass appeal.

 

Problem for other games now is they can only just manage to steal away a small section of the WoW gaming fraternity.  Champions will take some, but not many, Aion will take some, but not many...too reliant on PvP etc etc etc and you list the games and the small parts of the community they can appeal to.  People will always return to WoW because of its size and if Aion takes 10% of the players, that means that out of every 10 friends, only one of them will be playing Aion, the other 9 will still be playing WoW and people like to play with friends and within a few months will return to WoW.

The reason EQ died was that entire guilds left EQ and went to WoW as guilds.....not only did a few players go, but all their friends went too.  People that left EQ never went back to EQ.   People that leave WoW invariably go back to WoW.

No they didn't. Everquest reached its peak of 550k subscribers somewhere in 2004. Final Fantasy XI was also around the 500k subscribers mark. Dark Age of Camelot had around 250k subscribribers, City of Heroes had around 170k subscribers and Ultima Online still had over 200k subscribers.

Lineage 2 had over a million and Lineage 1 had over 3 million. Ragnarok Online probably also reached over a million subscribers by then.

Originally posted by Dafong

The reason EQ died was that entire guilds left EQ and went to WoW as guilds.....not only did a few players go, but all their friends went too.  People that left EQ never went back to EQ.   People that leave WoW invariably go back to WoW.

People that left EQ went on to make WoW too. So does that mean in 10 years time we will see an MMO greater than WoW from the players of WoW. Still no news on what Blizzards next-gen MMO is, so maybe?!

I dont think WoW subs gonna decline. Because for the first time they made really good expansion so i think blizzard realize they need to invest more money in that game instead of just letting em go. WoW is a MMO, i don't like it but i played it a lot of time. But WoW still today have a lot of potential

Lmao ... after almost 5 years ...the doomsayers haven't learned anything.    Just go back to your cave cause wow ain't going anywhere.Aion will be like all other cookie cutter mmos launched these past years.  The only real game to take a noticeable chunk of wow players will be Blizzard's unanounced mmorg.             

Originally posted by Mobidik

I dont think WoW subs gonna decline. Because for the first time they made really good expansion so i think blizzard realize they need to invest more money in that game instead of just letting em go. WoW is a MMO, i don't like it but i played it a lot of time. But WoW still today have a lot of potential

WoW's potential is, at this point in its lifecycle, pretty limited. They're going to have larger and larger liberties with the Warcraft canon and do some crazy stuff to truly keep it that interesting.

But no, for the forseeable future, WoW's numbers won't decline. Its not because of WoW's success though -- It's that there's no meaningful competition anywhere at this point.

It took a LOT of above-average MMOs a long time to decrease the status of Everquest until the time WoW was released. By then you had not just EQ to play, but EQ2, FFXI, Lineage and L2, FFXI, SWG was still strong, EVE was upcoming, City of Heroes was surviving... there were a good deal of notable alternatives.

Today, what do you have other than WoW? EQ2's decent but very obscure, but then there's... LOTRO, EVE, uh... AoC and WAR, which WoW people fled TO, then fled FROM when they were disappointed. Darkf-- er, nevermind that one.

Oh yeah, there's FreeRealms! :>

There's a distinct lack of alternatives, and no one game is going to suck a large chunk of subscribers away from WoW. Aion, if it defies the odds and does very well, will still only serve as another alternative. Champions Online and Mortal Online are both set to fail if you believe the chatter. CitiesXL is an MMO but not in the same breath as your typical other MMOs, and will also be very niche.

I'd say WoW's got nothing to worry about at least for the next three years -- or however long it takes to come out with its next MMO.

Originally posted by Gameloading

Originally posted by Dafong

If history is a marker, EQ laster about 5 years as top dog with games coming and going and not making a dent in the overall top dogs position.  Bearing in mind EQ had about 500,000 subs at its peak but other games counted their subs in the 10,000s at the time, this was back in the day though when the internet itself wasn't as prevalent.

Then along came WoW and totally killed EQ.

Problem is when you looked at EQ 5 years on, it looked dated, it looked old, graphically speaking.  WoW doesn't look old, in fact you compare it with games coming out today and its graphics easily hold up.  You see games released today that have the same graphics as WoW, there has been no leap forward.

 

Until there comes a game that actually takes that extra step forward, I can't see WoW being killed off, even in the long run with dribs and drabs as the OP suggested.  It just isn't going to happen until something better steps up with as much mass appeal.

 

Problem for other games now is they can only just manage to steal away a small section of the WoW gaming fraternity.  Champions will take some, but not many, Aion will take some, but not many...too reliant on PvP etc etc etc and you list the games and the small parts of the community they can appeal to.  People will always return to WoW because of its size and if Aion takes 10% of the players, that means that out of every 10 friends, only one of them will be playing Aion, the other 9 will still be playing WoW and people like to play with friends and within a few months will return to WoW.

The reason EQ died was that entire guilds left EQ and went to WoW as guilds.....not only did a few players go, but all their friends went too.  People that left EQ never went back to EQ.   People that leave WoW invariably go back to WoW.

 

No they didn't. Everquest reached its peak of 550k subscribers somewhere in 2004. Final Fantasy XI was also around the 500k subscribers mark. Dark Age of Camelot had around 250k subscribribers, City of Heroes had around 170k subscribers and Ultima Online still had over 200k subscribers.

Lineage 2 had over a million and Lineage 1 had over 3 million. Ragnarok Online probably also reached over a million subscribers by then.

I see no evidence in the subscriber numbers of Everquest or any of the other mmorpgs you mention apart from people pulling numbers outta their head. Everquest might have nevr had 500k subs as far as we know cause SOE don't give out numbers. For every mmorpg I seem to hear the same figure of 200-300k and yet I see no evidence of any of the mmorpgs having these numbers. Just a guy running a website called mmochart where he pulled numbers outta his arse which made these numbers stick.

Who cares whether WoW lives or dies, thrives or turns turtle?

If studios build a good, well balanced, focused MMO, people will play it and it will be a success. The idea of "stealing" or "inheriting" wow's sub base is largely illusory IMO. Most of those people were'nt MMO players before WoW and most of them wont be after WoW is gone.

If WoW is dying and loosing subscribers, why is there over a dozen instances of Altrec on my server?   A dozen!   And the server I play on is not even in the top 25!   I can't imagine how many are on some of the other PvP servers.

This game will die that game will die! I'm sure they do not mean they will pack thier bags and shut down the servers, it just means it going to head downwards in subs.

Are people forgetting WoW is currently not running in china at the moment so the sudden jump from around 5/6 million subs and up to 10/11 million subs effectively is back down at 5/6 million subs again, lets not forget perfect world has over 50 million players so wow is not the world leader never has been.

They also say server merging is a sign of decline, Blizzard are very crafty they wont close severs but they will start pulling the wool over untrained eye by announcing "5 man cross server PUGs" ohhh thats a good way to begin to merge servers without announcing mergers.

WoW has been a great game, a fantastic game, but she is tired and she is old, people no longer want to play the same instance over and over again, so oh great lets release another expansion, 'cut n paste' + 5 levels to the mobs +12 dungeons put the farmhouse on the other side of the road and change the lighting, 'cut n paste' 2 classes roll the random class and skill rename dice and extort another $30.

The part that makes me laugh is that it was posted during BlizzCon - just when WoW is all the buzz.. All the info coming out seems to be nothing more than adding fuel to the fire storm of interest.

Rather naive post by the OP.  If there was an upcoming game that was decent there could be a chance, but there isn't.  About the only chance is the Star Wars game from Bioware and you won't see that until 2011.  Personally until we get some more details on some of these unannounced games, Wow will continue to dominate for some time to come.

I see no evidence in the subscriber numbers of Everquest or any of the other mmorpgs you mention apart from people pulling numbers outta their head. Everquest might have nevr had 500k subs as far as we know cause SOE don't give out numbers. For every mmorpg I seem to hear the same figure of 200-300k and yet I see no evidence of any of the mmorpgs having these numbers. Just a guy running a website called mmochart where he pulled numbers outta his arse which made these numbers stick.

The last SOE published number for Everquest subscribers was 430K

championsofnorrath.station.sony.com/headset.jsp

Makes the 500K number within reason.