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World of Borecraft: 5 Reasons Why the World of Warcraft Will Implode

ThomasN7ThomasN7 87.18.7.148Member CommonPosts: 6,690
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  • TardcoreTardcore Member Posts: 2,325

    Originally posted by SaintViktor

    Interesting read. Can it actually happen ?

     

    Link: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/world_borecraft_5_reasons_why_world_warcraft_will_implode

    Eventually? Probably. Anytime soon? Doubtful.

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  • xZeRGzxZeRGz Member Posts: 118

    Originally posted by parrotpholk

    Well thank god he wrote and article pointing out the same things people in every forum on the internet has been bringing up for months.  Glad that was brought out in the open.  In all seriousness though WOW is done.  It will be several years before flatlining but the days of growth are over and a steady decline  will be noticed now.  THere is nothing short of releasing vanilla servers they could do to reverse the trend.  Great run but its time for it to come to an end.

     

    At this point, I doubt that releasing vanilla servers could stop the bleed.

  • MadimorgaMadimorga Member UncommonPosts: 1,920

    WoW has served its purpose.  It has made Blizzard and Activision and various investors and advertisers rich beyond reason.  It has made MMOs a household name to the point that every Dr. Phil wannabe on the planet is pontificating on the addiction potential of computer games.  Even frat boys and cheerleaders know what WoW is, and some of them even play it (although torture-sorry, I meant enhanced interrogation-might be required to get them to admit to it).

     

    WoW can't fail, can't implode, it can't do anything except slide gracefully into its sunset years and an indefinate semi-retirement with a much smaller playerbase.  Just because it's not really my cup o gaming tea (it bores me silly, too) doesn't mean I can't acknowledge facts.

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  • MetentsoMetentso Member UncommonPosts: 1,437

    We had wow-killers and since this is not happening now it's wow imploding? Some people are obsessed with WoW.

  • MMOtoGOMMOtoGO Member Posts: 630

    WoW is like a solar powered flashlight trying to power itself with it's own light...and it's quickly running out of energy.   They really need to let go of their past success and do something amazing...soon!

  • IhmoteppIhmotepp Member Posts: 14,495

    "But just as you can’t beat an endgame boss without tweaked-out gear and strategy, Blizzard can’t expect its followers to just play blindly, forever, without offering them the latest and greatest incentives to continue.  And right now, I don’t see strategy in Blizzard’s methods; I see content shoveling."

     

    That's the conclusion of the article.

    The flaw I see, is the point of view that Blizzard only caters to jaded players that have been playing WoW for years.

    New players try WoW all the time. They've never even played an MMORPG before, so WoW is not some old worn out game to them.

    Long time veteran players seem to think everyone is a long time vet bored with WoW. This simply isn't true.

    It's not like there was a certain amount of gamers born, and they started playing WoW,  and there will never be any new gamers to replace them.

    WoW will only be old and worn out when everything else looks new and shiny by comparison, and right now I don't see a ton of games that make WoW look dated.

    As games like GW2 and TOR arrive on the scene, this may begin to occur, IF those games are any good, but this remains to be seen.

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  • IhmoteppIhmotepp Member Posts: 14,495

    Originally posted by MMOtoGO

    WoW is like a solar powered flashlight trying to power itself with it's own light...and it's quickly running out of energy.   They really need to let go of their past success and do something amazing...soon!

     

    On the one hand, WoW has the biggest player base in the world playing a P2P game, paying subscriptions.

    They rake in literally billions of dollars on those subs, and the model is the envy of game devs nad publishers everywhere.

    So why would they compete with themselves?

     

    On the other hand, what the hell are they doing with those billions of dollars? You have to invest in your company to stay viable for the long term.

    You would hope they are developing another MMORPG with the budget they have at their disposal, and not just planning to release WoW expansions forever.

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  • korent1991korent1991 Member UncommonPosts: 1,364

    As a former wow veteran I can say that old players are gradually leaving because they got bored of the game (the main reason why I stopped as well). New players joined after the cataclysm so it fills the gap of ppl who left but still... You can't just run the game forever and expect ppl will play it without making some improvements or bringing something new to the game. Yea it is new when whole azeroth falls apart and every spell makes those shiny effects all around you or your bullet bla bla... but at the end of the day you really are playing this same dungeon you've passed millions of times but only now it has a new boss/mobs inside and it looks a bit different... I know people will still play the game because they have good ingame friends and the atmosphere is friendly and good in guild (some ppl even made RL friends trough the game) and they always enjoy raiding together... 

    But eventually... The game will come to an end, it probably aint happening any time soon but eventually... it will

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  • korent1991korent1991 Member UncommonPosts: 1,364

    Originally posted by Ihmotepp

    Originally posted by MMOtoGO

    WoW is like a solar powered flashlight trying to power itself with it's own light...and it's quickly running out of energy.   They really need to let go of their past success and do something amazing...soon!

     

    On the one hand, WoW has the biggest player base in the world playing a P2P game, paying subscriptions.

    They rake in literally billions of dollars on those subs, and the model is the envy of game devs nad publishers everywhere.

    So why would they compete with themselves?

     

    On the other hand, what the hell are they doing with those billions of dollars? You have to invest in your company to stay viable for the long term.

    You would hope they are developing another MMORPG with the budget they have at their disposal, and not just planning to release WoW expansions forever.

    They are doing a new MMORPG - for now it's called TITAN but as far as I know it's a codename...  I hope it'll be awesome because this wow saga thing with expansions which are mostly all the same is getting really really old... :)

    "Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
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  • ThaneUlfgarThaneUlfgar Member Posts: 283

    World of Warcraft is seven years old, I just don't see the point of "articles" like this anymore, other than to start flamewars.

  • MMOtoGOMMOtoGO Member Posts: 630

    Originally posted by korent1991

    Originally posted by Ihmotepp


    Originally posted by MMOtoGO

    WoW is like a solar powered flashlight trying to power itself with it's own light...and it's quickly running out of energy.   They really need to let go of their past success and do something amazing...soon!

     

    On the one hand, WoW has the biggest player base in the world playing a P2P game, paying subscriptions.

    They rake in literally billions of dollars on those subs, and the model is the envy of game devs nad publishers everywhere.

    So why would they compete with themselves?

     

    On the other hand, what the hell are they doing with those billions of dollars? You have to invest in your company to stay viable for the long term.

    You would hope they are developing another MMORPG with the budget they have at their disposal, and not just planning to release WoW expansions forever.

    They are doing a new MMORPG - for now it's called TITAN but as far as I know it's a codename...  I hope it'll be awesome because this wow saga thing with expansions which are mostly all the same is getting really really old... :)

    I guess I'd like an expansion that's something other than "Attention heroes! _______________ has returned and is threatening the very survival of Azeroth!" Everything seems to threaten Azeroth "once again".

  • KendaneKendane Member UncommonPosts: 225

    The game is getting old, and it will slowly bleed off more and more accounts, eventually being a game where you can still find plenty of players at the top, but few anywhere else outside of alts(Like EQ1 is right now)  Still, I can see the game still existing for the next 5 or more years, unless Activision/Blizzard/Investors tell them to pull the plug when it drops under (insert number here)  However, if you're looking for the insane response than....

    (/lamecrazymode)These heretical games will be SMITTEN by the HOLY LIGHT OF WoW! Blasphemers who wish to return to WoW must sacrafice the heretifcal device that is a TOR or GW2 account(A Blizzard customer service representative will get back to you in 5-280 buisness days) and when all see its true glory, we shall ascend unto UTOPIA!(/endlamecrazymode)

    So yeah, whether its the game slowly bleeds off accounts and some other developer makes the next big thing which quickens the bleeding, if Titan does it, or if people disperese to multiple MMOs/quit MMOs, it will eventually lose its number one spot.  Though I doubt it will be just one thing.

  • jeremyjodesjeremyjodes Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 679

    Poeple on these forums and others have been listing various reasons it's failing. In a way it's cool it is. It's a natural progression for it to slowly die as all things in life.A few games coming soon will i think, finally put the old beast almost down. GW2 and TOR are going to be that sword. But the question is really...Is blizzard listening?...do they care?.. have they gotten so large and rich it matters not to them if it dies?.

    it's go's back to my orginal theory that they need it to die a little so they can make room for titan. Strange they would sack their own MMO to make way for Titan. But like SWG had to die so TOR could be in command so will Wow for Titan.

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  • waynejr2waynejr2 Member EpicPosts: 7,769


    Originally posted by parrotpholk
    Well thank god he wrote and article pointing out the same things people in every forum on the internet has been bringing up for months.  Glad that was brought out in the open.  In all seriousness though WOW is done.  It will be several years before flatlining but the days of growth are over and a steady decline  will be noticed now.  THere is nothing short of releasing vanilla servers they could do to reverse the trend.  Great run but its time for it to come to an end.

    How about going f2p before the next expansion comes out?
    http://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2010/QBlog190810A.html  

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  • HaegemonHaegemon Member UncommonPosts: 267

    There's still a MASSIVE gap between #1 and #2 in subscribers.

    ~8 Million Monthly paying users difference.

     

    I doubt WoW will be imploding that far that fast in the near future. Even with SW:TOR, if that game can't provide enough justification for people to drop their characters with X time invested, or if they can't convince their in-game social circles to want to make the move, it'll keep on keeping on.

     

    WoW has the nice luxury of population. So they're at 11.4mill vs 12mil, okay, they can hemmorage nearly DOUBLE the EVE playerbase in a single fiscal quarter and still have what... 32x more paying customers than EVE(~350k), just short of 4x more paying customers than Aion, etc etc.

    Hell, I'd even bet that more people quit with new people taking their place each month than most other sub-based games. MO+DFO+FE cummulative subs is prob = to the number of people who quit but were replaced. Could probably even add a few more in.

     

    It's like all the people thinking Facebook is doomed because Google+ exists.

    You don't just have to release a high-quality product that is capable of competing with the standing juggernaught, you need to release a product that will effectively convince those people to leave one service for another.

    Even with SW:TOR, I'll wager over 50% of the supposed "WoW-Refugees" that may check it out won't cancel their WoW-sub for even a day. Realisticly, 30/mo is dirt cheap to anyone with a job and some work-ethic, and unless you're working in law-enforcement, fire dept or any other civil-service job where you put your life on the line for the good of society, well, you don't deserve anything for free.

    Note, I'm not in the civil-service group myself, but IMHO, they're the only people who truly deserve a Free game to play. If they'll risk their life to make mine better, they deserve free entertainment. Everyone else's deservedness gets measured from their efforts.

     

    Now, if WoW had bucked 2mil+ people from the 12mil announce to current, sure, the article may have some weight. But it didn't, it returned to its holding-pattern from pre-expansion levels.

    Besides, in the short term, I'd put more money on Bill Clinton and GW running/winning presidency on the Green Party ticket than I would on WoW imploding by the 2016 elections.

     

    As the old-since-'05ish addage goes... the only thing that could kill WoW is a new MMO from Blizzard.

    Lets Push Things Forward

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    Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.

  • GeowashGeowash Member Posts: 372

    What we must ask is why is Rift (The one who made a tiny dent in WoWs sub base) so successful? Is it because they copied World Of Warcraft? Or is it because they copied the old World Of Warcraft? Ill let you answer that one but I think the last question was right. 

  • jadedlevirjadedlevir Member Posts: 628

    The game is not going to implode and thats just silly to think. People really need to get over the whole doom to wow thing. It has what like 11m+ players? And some people think it will flatline in 5 years?  Just get over it people.

    As for what WoW could do to sustain a sizable amount of subs in the years to come? Well they probably won't keep the insane numbers they have now after all these upcoming mmos+ titan is released, but even if they dropped in the 100k- 1 m sub range(which I don't think it will anytime soon) thats still a very profitable game. And they could easily just make the game free2 play or release classic servers and I guarentee it will have a lot of activity for years to come.

  • KendaneKendane Member UncommonPosts: 225

    Originally posted by Geowash

    What we must ask is why is Rift (The one who made a tiny dent in WoWs sub base) so successful? Is it because they copied World Of Warcraft? Or is it because they copied the old World Of Warcraft? Ill let you answer that one but I think the last question was right. 

     I kind of think it has less to do with that and more to do with it having such a stable launch.  Say what you will, but once you got in a server(which yes could take hours if you're picky) you were pretty much safe.  There might be a bug here or there, but for the most part the game was bug free and I don't recall that many crashes.  But perhaps you're right, maybe that's what players wanted.

  • FionFion Member UncommonPosts: 2,348

    You log online to your level 85 character.  You’re on the Horde, because “Da Horde Rulez #1.”  You load up in the capital city of Orgrimmar, immediately queue yourself up for your daily random instance, and start to think of things to do while you wait.  You could check the auction house, but the goods you need to level your latest secondary skill are obscenely expensive.  You could do some normal quests, but you’re already outgeared for any of the rewards.  You’re not really in the mood to grind reputation since the time/payoff ratio is scant, and your guild chat is full of people looking for 5 more offline members to finish out their newbie raid.  Your primary raid group is one you’ll never see because, though you feel like you’re at the top of your WoW game, you aren’t anywhere near the item levels you need to play “real Warcraft.”

    Your instance pops up.  You run the same dungeon you’ve been running the last 3 months. You alt-tab out during the boring parts or you run WoW in a window so you can just kind of half-ass your way through the dungeon while concentrating on your latest Reddit posts (or Maximum PC reviews).  The loot that drops throughout the dungeon is nothing you need, but the simple act of finishing it brings you 1/65 closer to a slightly better piece of gear that might, someday, help you raid with the big boys.



    This, oh so much this. This here ie 'exactly' why I left WoW. I hated logging in to my daily quests, daily instance, work on stupid archeology. I've left before for myriad reasons but it alwasy boiled down to this. My friends (almost all of them play WoW, though we don't always play together) ask me why I left and when I tell them this they cannot possibly fathom why I would leave the game over such a thing. Mind, almost every single one of them have only every played WoW or a week out of their free month to play Rift or Aion and came back quick as shit, so they had/have zero idea of how much better an MMOG can be, especially end game, than WoW is. They think that the boring grindfest where you eventually only log on to do your dailies to get your gear so you can get your better gear is the way they all work. That WoW is the most popular because it must be the standard and the best.

    They tell me I don't understand how WoW's end game is (pff, I only played it for 5 years, I was only in one of the most hardcore raiding guilds on my original server in Vanilla and Wraith. They tell me they've just invested to much time, energy and money into their WoW characters, they cant leave them now, no matter how shitty the actual gameplay might be.

    Today however, the most hardcore and staunchest of those friends have quite WoW, after Cataclysm hit, when I left it for the last time. They've taken breaks but now they are done. They sold their accounts so that they won't be going back. They are one of the .5 million people who have left in the last six months.

    THese same friends have sworn off MMOGs but they just don't understand that an MMOG can be a crazy amount of fun without sucking the life out of you like WoW does, and shoveling the grind down your throat so hard you think your enjoying it.

    My hope is that this game is Guild Wars 2. I hope it has the polish and production values that WoW does but also refreshes the genre, gets it out of the severe rut it is in. As a long time MMOG player who knows that WoW is only the standard because of it's popularity, and that there are a great many aspects it just gets dead wrong (though are especially addictive, such as the end game). I can open my friends eyes and tell them 'See? An MMOG can give be a great past time and a lot of fun without sucking the life out of you like WoW does. This game, GW2, is what MMOGs were always meant to be!'

    It is for that reason I really do believe that WoW is beginning it's slow death. It'll be around for a long time to come but it won't be the standard anymore, and the genre will grow by leaps and bounds to surpass it's greatest achievements. GW2 may be the first of many to do this.

    One can only hope. :)

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  • AIMonsterAIMonster Member UncommonPosts: 2,059

    Guild Wars 2, SW:TOR, TSW, Archeage, and especially Blizzard's new MMO are going to start bleeding out subscribers slowly.  A lot of veteran WoW players are already starting to burn out (a few friends of mine stopping playing after 7 years recently).  I don't think WoW is close to be "killed" yet, as it's going to maintain very good (probably even still on top) subscriber numbers for several more years, but I think starting next year you'll see a very steady and rapid decline in subscription numbers till it eventually stabilizes (give it a year or two) at far less subscription numbers (2-3 million?) than they had previous.  Don't expect it to fully die/implode, just like Everquest it will survive off lower subscription numbers for at least another decade.

  • AIMonsterAIMonster Member UncommonPosts: 2,059

    Originally posted by Geowash

    What we must ask is why is Rift (The one who made a tiny dent in WoWs sub base) so successful? Is it because they copied World Of Warcraft? Or is it because they copied the old World Of Warcraft? Ill let you answer that one but I think the last question was right. 

    Rift has way more in common with WoW TBC+, than Vanilla WoW.  I honestly don't see how anyone can claim Vanilla WoW was better than TBC either, considering TBC did nothing but add features/content/etc.  Any difference in gameplay were improvements.  People only remember Vanilla so fondly because at the time for them it was new and fresh.

    Rift has daily quest grinds (did not exist in Vanilla WoW), plaque gear for raiding and expert running (again, TBC+ WoW), Expert mode (like WoW's heroics in TBC+), etc.  Much more in common with WoW's TBC era than Vanilla.

    The reason Rift put a dent into WoW's subscriber base isn't because they copied WoW's mechanics (in my opinion anyway) it's because it's the first MMO that's been released since WoW that had a certain level and polish and quality.  The game generally works and there are very few bugs (some exist in the raid zones in particular) compared to other MMOs in their release and early stages.  Constant patch updates that fix a multitude of problems and add huge free content patches helps too.

    Let's also not forget that Rift spent a lot of money on advertising.  They advertised on cable TV and probably picked up quite a few people who aren't normally MMO gamers as a result.  Previous WoW competitor's like AoC, Warhammer, Aion, etc.  didn't cast nearly as much as an advertising net and generally stuck mostly to gaming sites and magazines for their adverts.

  • LidaneLidane Member CommonPosts: 2,300

    Originally posted by Tardcore

    Eventually? Probably. Anytime soon? Doubtful.

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  • GoknubGoknub Member Posts: 19

    Predicting WOW imploding makes as much sense as predicting the end of religion. Ain't gonna happen.

    As has already been pointed out, for every jaded vet getting out there is a new player just starting in. This is a quote from 2009 "..and a total subscriber count "easily more than double - maybe closer to triple" the current base.." That gives roughly 24 million ex-WOW players then, by now the number of ex-WOW players is anyones quess.

    With that kind of churn and take-up Blizzard will really have to screw the pooch to make WOW implode. TOR is too different to compete directly with WOW and given the absolute crap that were the last 3 movies I doubt they will be able to suck in too many non-Star Wars fans (ie the majority of the population). In the same way a Command & Conquer MMO would have worked if they hadn't made so many bad sequals.

    GW2 will be an outlet for ex-WOW players but it'll be merging servers before WOW does

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504

    The only things which will cause WOW to do anything but slowly (gradually) decline are:

    1. ToR or similar MMORPG comes out and blows away everyone's expectations.

    2. Blizzard releases a new game.

    3. Blizzard makes a critical patch failure with WOW. (this one is unlikely, but with many senior staff working on the new game it's a possibility.)

    Otherwise, expect WOW to stay around virtually forever.  Notice how EQ1 is around still, 12 years later?  Well WOW is way more successful than EQ1 was.

    The article is a typical angry forum post, and not a particularly well-informed opinion piece.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • almalexiusalmalexius Member UncommonPosts: 180

    I'm not sure why people always have to be so obsessed with the decline of wow or with number of subscriptions in general. To me it's much more interesting to see what new games come out and if they are any fun .

    If you are done with wow, just move on.

    WOW,eq2,Vanguard,WAR,LOTRO,AOC,Rift Aion, SWTOR, TERA.

    Currently playing GW2.

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