As a former WoW Player myself i look at WoW and think what else can they pull out of the bag .

Do you think that WoW could be coming to an end or do you think they will keep on getting players?

Well, for the first time WoW has had a truly significant drop in players. I think it has reached it's peak and it's dominance is starting to show cracks.

Do you think they will attempt to regain the lost players?

WoW will outlast most, if not all, MMO's that are out atm. It's not coming to an end soon.

Originally posted by Alot

Well, for the first time WoW has had a truly significant drop in players. I think it has reached it's peak and it's dominance is starting to show cracks.

I think you need to rethink your flawed analysis.

And Alot is making things up with his only source the 5% drop, which Blizzard gets every year due to timeframe.

As for storylines they can pull out, there are still a ton, unfortunately. They're going to be making two more expansions according to a planning calandar that leaked a while back which so far has been 100% accurate, and I know there is a lot of completely unused lore. I'm sure we'll have to kill Sargaras eventually. Unless they want a WoW2 or a Warcraft4, I see at least another 4 years in WoW's lifespan. People will play it even if they hate it.

I want it to die, too, but I just don't see it happening.

Edit: They don't have to regain the lost players. The lost players regain themselves every time a content patch comes out.

Originally posted by Youngg

As a former WoW Player myself i look at WoW and think what else can they pull out of the bag .

Do you think that WoW could be coming to an end or do you think they will keep on getting players?

Not until a quality mmo hits the Chinese market.

The end of warcraft is near. If you consider 10 years from now near. 

You can look at the 600,000 subs lost number all day long, but so long as devs keep chasing that WoW money, WoW will always be around. 

also 600,000 is nothing really (in WoW numbers that is). every MMO when this old sees a population bump after an Xpack release then an exodus of several players a few months later. 

and im sure that once numbers dwindle low enough for some servers, they will implement some form of instancing across the whole server the way dungeons act now.

I think WoW has finally peaked, and is now in a long slow decline. It will still be profitable for years to come, but players are going to keep dwindling.

I don't think it's near but they will start losing subs for sure. Big games are coming and bigger ones after that. But the fact of the matter is: WoW still wins. Even on the last day of the servers being live they will be able to look any other MMO devs in the eye and go "We f'N ruleZ you!" :p  And no one will be able to take that from them for a good couple of years I think. Hell, maybe never if their next bug mmo hits before any...

Yes, TOR and GW2 will most likely do well but they'll never reach WoW's number <-- My opinion.

Am just ganna say one thing some mmo's have been running for over 10 years and dont even have 5% of WOW population and are still running so even if wow looses 10 millions players it not going anywhere .

Blizzard will probably go F2P if the game ever drop too much in terms of playerbase.. With a game that old, that would be the next move to do in my opinion...

I don't think Word of Warcraft will die because it is such a massive game .......... for all we know they could have a Graphics update in the works i mean its possible cause EvE did it so why can't any other games.

Yeah, it's coming to an end - until the next expansion comes out.

  Yay for a topic that comes up weekly!  Even IF Warcraft lost 600K subs per quarter...it would be 5 years - and that's barring new people joining (which there still are)

  Warcraft will end when Blizzard decides it will end.  GW2 and ToR have a good chance to take some of their market share, but neither of them will 'beat'' WoW.  AoC didn't, WAR didn't and RIFT sure didn't ( sorry fans...but it's pretty obvious from the rapidly emptying friends lists :( )

  I'd guess a definition of 'near' would be needed then.  I really doubt it will be within the next 5 years. 

Dont think Wow will go down anytime soon, they just implement whatever is the best from other mmo, and vola! whatever other game have, they have...

WoW is fine.  Of course they will slowly lose players over time, as with every other MMORPG.  We will all be 20 years older when WoW "ends".

Originally posted by Kebeck

Blizzard will probably go F2P if the game ever drop too much in terms of playerbase.. With a game that old, that would be the next move to do in my opinion...

Aye, when they've exhausted all else and are down under 2 million subs (lol) they'll probably merge a bunch of servers and do a LOTRO-esque F2P system. They already have a cash shop, TCG, and premium features anyway...

Originally posted by Youngg

As a former WoW Player myself i look at WoW and think what else can they pull out of the bag .

 Ragnaros...oh wait

But that's another thread. I think both GW2 and SWtor will be succesful, but reaching WoW numbers will not be possible. WoW servers do feel a little bit less active these days, but that doesnt really mean much since for a while now WoW has been playable with a single nice guild. All you need is that one guild to keep playing, there is no interaction with randoms needed at all.

On a sidenote I cant believe the amount of hate for f2p on this forum and at the same time WoW is subscription based WITH store items and services on the side that cost extra and with even more premium services inbound yet this has no impact on their subscription numbers. Weird.

At most, I would say that Warcraft has 3 million (real) subscribers worldwide.  Not too shabby for an old game.   As long as people still find it fun to sit in SW/Org and not actually play a game but pay $15 a month for a chat program, it should do fine.