Is World of Warcraft doomed?

by James Ransom-Wiley { Apr 4th 2005 at 4:25PM }

Grimwell Online has posted a bold prediction from Geldonyetich: "I can see WoW's success as being a very temporary thing". In a nutshell, Geldon believes that WoW lacks a long-term socialization component. Without this WoW's novelty will wear off and players will have little incentive to stay with it. Will WoW subscribers call it quits as soon as the next best MMOG hits the scene? Geldonyetich sure thinks so, but do you?

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

LINES @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

To be honest, i don't think WoW is doomed, so to speak. They will lose players, obviously. But, it will not be a death blow. EQ and DAoC both took 1 (1 1/2 years to be safe) years to get the respect it deserved. Of course, WoW could just be a hype thing, like CoH was.

Wuddel @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

Well, the man has a point since I find myself wandering around one my own in Wow, much more than in Dark Age of Camelot. On the other hand heavily enforcing group play can be extremely annoing. Often I spend the evening trying to find a group and chat, because it was very hard to grind without a perfect group. Questing was not very rewarding, not to speak of crafting. Questing of course envorces soloplay, since everyone is doing different quests (the Quest sharing function in Wow helps though). But: The quality of the mechanics and the amount of content accessible to casual players is tremendous. Therefore I think a lot of these casual players will be motivated to level to the cap and look at some of the raid bosses. This will give Blizzard time to figure something out, since they have a very good reputation in making awesome games even better through expansion packs and patches.

Blizzards four aces are really: Raid bosses, instancing, crafting (is actually something worthwhile, imagine that in DAoC) and accessiblity.

Abalieno @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

Argh, my screenshot + Geldon commentary. You killed me.

Edward Ho @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

I would add that the other hook that Blizzard has is their focus on the depth of PvP. At the current level cap, players are constantly finding new ways to gain an edge over different classes by re-specing their characters and trying new strategies. This is one area that Blizzard has nearly always done well in their RTS games. The build a deep combat system where many strategies are possible and then revise, revise, revise until the balance is as good as possible. For an idea of what I'm talking about, hop in and watch some level 60s duel for a while and you'll begin to see how important character builds and player skill are to winning.

Drop off is normal in a MMO, a lot of player just move on or go back to their lives, but WoW's longevity is tied to Player vs. Player combat. After the Honor System is released combat will be even more addictive since scores/rank will be kept.

Christopher7xii @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

I think it's a trend honestly. Just like CoH, it's more of a 'hey, this is really easy to get into!'. Brings in a lot more casual players, but casual gamers generally leave for new games anyways. I always thought though that WoW would catch people's eye, but not keep them for the long run. I can't say EQ2 is any different though. I think EQ1 was an enigma, and the results won't be reproduced on that scale ever again. It had the power of being the first base MMO(honestly, every MMO that comes out is instantly compared to EQ, like it's the standard or something). EQ had the perfect combonation of difficulty, ease, social, solo, raid, group, collecting, and leveling. It's gonna be hard matched to ever find a new game that delivers the same high... Especially since a lot of people that played it are burned on the MMO experience, realizing how much it eats your life(which is why it did so well).

Honestly though, I think there's hope for dungeons and dragons online. The idea of action based MMORPG is yummy. Watching the videos, seeing players dodge NPC thrown fireballs, and everything i read about it(such as small server caps, in the few hundreds... And certain ammount of spell casts per dungeon, mana free!)

Metal @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

Me and my boyfriend have played almost all of the mmorpgs on the market today, except for Everquest II since we can't afford a high end machine that would run it. Since playing all these games, we've come back to World of Warcraft for the fact that they have fun quests, a beautiful fantasy world, great classes and an unbeatable PVP system, as well as awesome personal mounts of various kinds, and you can have pets. Blizzard states that player housing will be implemented in a future live update and or patch or an expansion, really, that is all the game is missing, it just keeps getting better and better. They add higher level content so the higher level users don't get bored, and now they added a nice PVP reward program, for epic mount armor as well as epic weapons, items and armor as well. The battlegrounds, well that looks like a blast :) And the new Hero Class they are going to implement is only another reason to get your character high and to have more fun while you are topped leveled. The community does suck, because there are so many childish perverted people playing World of Warcraft, but hopefully those people tend to move to new upcoming mmorpgs so the rest of us can enjoy our WoW experience without that nonsense. I guess that's why there's an ignore list, and yes I will be using it, but tonight, I will reactivate my old World of Warcraft account after playing all the mmorpgs out there on the market, including those in beta testing right now. Why? Cause WoW druids rock :) And I miss my druid, but then again, the Undead warlock is fun to play ...wait, so is the rogue with devastating power attacks, oh...and the.... (I could go on and on...really, it can only get better)

K @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

OMFG
Can you get a life with MMO's?
Do you ppl think about marrying in game? Having some nooblets maybe?
You guys should watch the 6th purepwnage episode.
I have a cuestion regarding WOW, if you can have drink and food in the game do you also can go to the loo to poo some? Any cases of diarrhea?
roflol.

LINES @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

www.dictionary.com

Chris Norman @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

Blizzard seems to understand that most of the players of their game are casual players, and the bonuses for rest states are nothing short of genius on their part, as it gives players a reason to return often.

Also, like any community, your dedicated users will basically become a second-level of community leadership. Once they have invested personal time in the game, they will want to help newer players learn the ropes, and keep the realm "clean". This is particularly relevant in the smaller realms. The way to keep these players active is to feed them rewards for their actions (enhancing the game world by providing goals for lower-level players, etc.), such as epic quests and special mounts/armor/weapons/etc.

The honor and ranking system are also a great way to increse longevity beyond the level/questing grind.

That's not to mention the fact that this is one of the few MMOGs with a huge installed base of Mac players, who can not easily jump ship to another game.

MeatFarley @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

MMOGs are not games. They're timesinks. Games have a clearly defined conclusion. You can win/beat a game. You can't win a MMOWTFLOL. MMORPGROFLBBQs only exsist to seperate you from your lunch money and what little social life you have left.

Stop calling MMOSTFUA/S/Ls games.

Iambic @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

Thanks for clearing that up, MeatFarley. I can now throw away my copies of Simcity, Tetris, Dance Dance Revolution, and hundreds of other titles, secure in the knowledge that these are not games, but rather Futility-Simulators which exist solely to vex me.

Jestor Rodo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

If WoW is Doomed then lets just say that anything SOE has on the marketplace right now is DEAD!, Why? Because SOE does not respect its own customer base .
Case in point Last weeks Tuesdays patch for WoW , a few servers had some additional problems and were offline for another 24 hours over and above the normal 6 hours for Weekly Scheduled Maintenance. Wow not only credit back 1 full day to everyone but also credit a full 24 hours rest ingame ( giving 200% Experience against Mobs). SOE would NEVER, EVER do that,they would shrug their shoulders and say "SO what - reread the EULA"

Jason @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

Wow.. Almost been out for a year now and half of us are getting bored of it..

The expansion will probably give us 1 more month of gameplay satisfaction but after you get all the tier 2 epic sets and shit.. It just gets really boring pwning noobs all day.

They need to cap levels to about 100 before people can really enjoy it for a big ammout of time.

The reason people are getting sick of it is because it takes 5 days gameplay to get level 60 (Avid players that is) and it just doesn't seem like you get enough rewards for getting the highest level in the game.. With a lvl 100 cap it will be more rewarding reaching 100 as there is more time put into it and you will be more unique.