I agree that there will be an MMO, msot likely sandbox, that bests WoWs subscriber base.

WoW was a phenomenon in that, first and foremost, bradband had just hit the masses around 2004. Here in MO outside of STL and NC we had just gotten 1/5/10 DSL and out cable company had nothing in 2004.

Add to that the fact that you didnt need to be on the hpone now to be online and you had a huge crowd of people that paid $40 a month and wanted to explore the intarwebs!

EQ2 was coming but EQ had a then terrible reputation for being hardcore and grindy. WoW was less so, but still had much grind and need for grouping. Todays MMO crowd would balk at Classic WoW, as "accessible" as it was, it was still pretty hardcore.

Add to that EQs very dated graphics compared to WoWs not only better but stylized graphics and there is only one choice... or was there?

EQ2 released early Nov IIRC and WoW two weeks later on the 23. EQ2 was more of the same despite their better graphics. But one could argue that their graphics are more detailed but more pixeleated as well. It is an odd combo even tho it looks better than WoW inho. But that immersion is broken easily by the pixelation, whereas WoW is stylized.

So there you go, right place right time right IP right competitor.

I guarantee you that had WoW not come out when it did, just before christmas with EQ2, then we would have all played EQ2 and it would have been the one to garner millions of players.

I also have to agree, that WoW at its release was bigger than they expectd it to become. It had 14-15 million at its peak, now its more like 9mill but still dwarfs the others with that.

I would say it will be beaten eventually, but maybe not for a couple more years at least or (more than likely with todays designers) the next decade or so. I have read some things about ESO (Elder Scrolls Online), and they have said some things that has put me off completly. The design of which had been used in past games that did not even last a year (some not even 6mths). If that is what they are going to do then its a big risk and if I was an invester for a game that had put 300 million to it i would be expecting alot better. Not just another failure as that is where i see that one heading for right now (unless they change it).

Personally i dont think there will ever be anything close to WoW and i look to another medium TV.

The most watched television broadcast of all time was the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983. Since then TV has fragmented into so many shows to accomodate the niches societies are made up of now.

MMO's are the same. There are more games to play than a person will ever have time. With so many offerings people find their niche that they like whether its sci-fi, fantasy or even a game about tanks.

The only way i see a game beating WoW is if there is a massive leap forward in technology that changes the medium and how we play games. Some sort of virtual reality maybe, but if that happens would we even compare it to WoW?

Originally posted by Quizzical

We see this sort of claim in baseball all the time.  There will never be another 300 game winner.  There will never be another player who bats .400.  And so forth.  Until some transcendently talented player comes along and does exactly what we were assured could never happen again.  Just this year, we saw a triple crown winner, a rookie nearly win the MVP award, and a knuckleball pitcher with more career losses than wins entering the season win a Cy Young in a landslide.  If you could combine CC Sabathia's career up to age 31 with Jaime Moyer's starting at age 33 (taking a year off at age 32, even), you'd have a 400 game winner.

In my life time I doubt I'll see anyone break Nolan Ryan's career strike out record (5714). 

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Iselin

What I hear you saying is that its possible to have more than 13 million people actively engaged in the same online game and this is true... but we're talking about the type of game that demands a lot more time and commitment than the average farmville player is willing to devote to gaming...unless you go with a revisionist definition of MMORPG that contemplates people playing a very dumbed-down version, alone, in 15 minute spurts ... oh wait, those already exist and have their own forum here... never mind

MMO does not have to demand a lot more time or commitment. In fact, you can see the trend is to have LESS TIME commitment. Hence LFD/LFR so you don't have to commit to a raid schedule.

Definition changes all the time. There is nothing mysterious about it.

Why am I not surprised that you're willing to broaden the definition of MMORPG to be almost all encompassing? Here I'll go one better:

Massive = bigger than a breadbox

Multiplayer = both of us

Online = this one is obvious

Role Playing = well that little bundle of pixels ain't really me, so yeah...I'm playing a role

Game = Hot diggity! Ain't this fun?

 

OK... Farmville is officially an MMORPG... happy?

You are confused. I am not broadening the definition of MMOs. The industry is. To me, it is just a convenient label. There is nothign sacred about it.

If all the gaming press is calling WOW a MMO, i will use that label too.

Farmville, fortunately for you, is called a social game by the industry. And i probably wouldn't care much if it is label as MMO too. I don't like MMO, or FPS, or RTS. I like specific games for their gameplay. Genre means little to me.

I'd just point out that, adjusted for inflation, no movie has ever outgrossed Gone with the WInd.

"Never" is an  unreasonably long time frame to bet against.  So yah, that's a really safe crystal ball. One of those easy statistical questions: 1000000:1 odds means that if you play 1000000 times, you might:

1) Win exactly once.  2) Win none at all 3) win multiple times 4) Any of the above?  (4, of course)

But having established that betting against infinity is a fool's game, what conclusion would you like to try and draw from it?

Because THIS

Originally posted by Quizzical

Sooner or later, MMORPGs are going to see another runaway hit like that.  And sooner or later, there's going to be one that bests WoW in its heyday.

Conclusion is actually not supported either.  Listing the possible outcomes, the outcome "the mmo market may cease to exist before another game 'scores' more subs" is non-zero probability.  Making your assertion a less-than-sure bet.

Originally posted by Icewhite

"Never" is an  unreasonably long time frame to bet against.  So yah, that's a really safe crystal ball. One of those easy statistical questions: 1000000:1 odds means that if you play 1000000 times, you might:

1) Win exactly once.  2) Win none at all 3) win multiple times 4) Any of the above?  (4, of course)

But having established that betting against infinity is a fool's game, what conclusion would you like to try and draw from it?

 

That the house always wins in the long run?

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Iselin

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Iselin

What I hear you saying is that its possible to have more than 13 million people actively engaged in the same online game and this is true... but we're talking about the type of game that demands a lot more time and commitment than the average farmville player is willing to devote to gaming...unless you go with a revisionist definition of MMORPG that contemplates people playing a very dumbed-down version, alone, in 15 minute spurts ... oh wait, those already exist and have their own forum here... never mind

MMO does not have to demand a lot more time or commitment. In fact, you can see the trend is to have LESS TIME commitment. Hence LFD/LFR so you don't have to commit to a raid schedule.

Definition changes all the time. There is nothing mysterious about it.

Why am I not surprised that you're willing to broaden the definition of MMORPG to be almost all encompassing? Here I'll go one better:

Massive = bigger than a breadbox

Multiplayer = both of us

Online = this one is obvious

Role Playing = well that little bundle of pixels ain't really me, so yeah...I'm playing a role

Game = Hot diggity! Ain't this fun?

 

OK... Farmville is officially an MMORPG... happy?

You are confused. I am not broadening the definition of MMOs. The industry is. To me, it is just a convenient label. There is nothign sacred about it.

If all the gaming press is calling WOW a MMO, i will use that label too.

Farmville, fortunately for you, is called a social game by the industry. And i probably wouldn't care much if it is label as MMO too. I don't like MMO, or FPS, or RTS. I like specific games for their gameplay. Genre means little to me.

But considering the OP chose the MMORPG label in his title, it'd be really tough to stay focussed on the topic if we can't have some common understanding of just what the hell we're talking about. Labels are not evil. They're just a convenient shorthand that hopefully, means a similar thing to all of us. 

A discussion of Farmville vs. WOW might be appropriate in a thread about computer games or online activities in general, but I don't know how anyone can think that it has anything to do with a discussion about the possibility of an MMORPG matching or surpassing WOW.

Originally posted by RandomDown

That the house always wins in the long run?

Assuming the house is smarter than bad mathematicians, yes indeed.

The next big thing is portable computing be it IOS or something new to come. The reason why no "PC" will be the next big thing is because the player base needed to expand into is far more mobile these days and won't sit for 5-10+ hours at a computer to play a game everyday. By mobile I mean work flow integration and not just one particular device for all occastions although it WILL still need to be fully accessable on one device as many will choose only one device. It must work across PC, IOS and possibly even portable style console devices which are starting to become more like PC/IOS anyway.

The next big MMO will be the perfect storm of being the right game, on the right universal mobile platform when wireless communication and hardware is powerful enough to meet gamer's needs. There will never be a PC only MMO exploding into WOW numbers because the traditional PC market is not only stagnant but likely declining. A redefinition of the term PC perhaps is needed but until the player base can truly be expanded across multiple platforms into more cloud gaming we are likely seeing the last of the big "sit at a desk to play" PC MMO dominance. Gaming only exists on the pc because everyone had one for work reasons. Work is now being done on far more mobile devices and games will have to follow those devices.

Console manufacturers would laugh hysterically over the idea of trying to market a console worth $600-$3000. It would NEVER happen. Companies hedging their bets on high end gaming PC's are companies asking to go bankrupt. Of course combine this with the fact developers have been completely clueless about what real MMORPG players want and you have the complete history of the MMO genre since WOW launched. Wow's current success is also mostly based on it being able to run on old pc's owned by non-hardcore gamers or not even gamers at all and is published and viewed by Activision and Blizzard as the mmo equivalent to Angry Birds. It isn't made for hardcore gamers and they don't want it to be.

Originally posted by Onomas
Problem is the developers arent making any new mmorpg's that are worthy. They simply just dont live up to anything. They are the basics of rpg's even new console rpgs offer more. As long as they are going that route, there will be no change. But i see a few games on the horizon that may help change some of that.

As a developer (not a game developer) I have to say that it is not 100% their fault that the games come out as they are.

The bigest problem is the greed the companies have; they sacrifice the quality for the sake of profits and this ie encountered in all areas of entertainment. Products are made to glitter and hide the rotten core, the outsourcing of the code and the fact that all the good developers that made them great are long gone (fired or left).

Problem really is that WoW's success has to do heavily with the limited amount of MMos at the time. The fact there is extremely little competition at the time made it easy for a game like WoW succeed in which it would of likely been considered a flop today. It would of NEVER flied to have a game like wow having such a buggy state as it began. When it was released is key to what helped to let the game grow, adding in content (that, lets face it, was taking ideas from other guys) and other features that unfortunately most other games just don't ever get a chance to do.

Unless the MMo market crashes, I just can't see this happening again. Even if it did crash, its unlikely our expectations would of faultered all that much and we still would keep our rediculous standards. The only possible way I see a 'fluke' as you might want to call it like wow would be if a game came out that vastly changed the ways mmos worked. That game would not nessisarily be what would be the game to flare up (such as Everquest which was very successful but never got to wow's position) but its likely a chance that a new game could form in that genre that might be able to take the game to a place that more people enjoy and could help focus in all the players onto that one game, giving it a chance to grow in the new style it presents.

Honestly, unless a virutal reality comes to the MMO world, I just don't see much chance for such a thing to even happen.

Originally posted by ZigZags
Im hoping for The Elder Scrolls Online having a shot. TES has a pretty big following and skyrim was a huge success. But i wont hold my breathe.

zero chance.  And putting hopes like that on the game are unfair anyway,

It's going to have to be something completely new and different.  No fantasy or sci fi MMO is likely to do it unless they have a ridiculously huge budget and crazy good design.

2004 when WoW was released they had very little competition.

The MMO market is now saturated with even more to come. I find it hard to believe another MMO can have the same amount of growth or effect that WoW had.

Originally posted by Lonzo
But is there still no game beating WOW? It still has the best PVE gameplay from all others.

Many people on this site most likely knows how long it takes to cast bubble again.

Thats why WoWs combat is so great,in combat you know exactly what is going on and what your opponent just did, and also their engine is great,your avatar knows what player wants.

Compared to Rift for example,Rift is just chaos or to SWTOR,my avatar is still asking what i want,even if i told him so 3 times allready.

Yes WoW is still king of the hill and quite hard to beat.

I dont like WoW ,but Their combat is great.