Can Anyone Beat WoW?

Next Generation is running an article penned by DFC Intelligence Analyst David Cole, exploring the overwhelming popularity of World of Warcraft. Coles asks Is It Possible to Surpass World of Warcraft? He explores the reasons behind WoW's success, and what it means for the market as a whole. From the article: "All of these factors point towards one conclusion: World of Warcraft's success, admirable as it may be, will be extremely difficult to duplicate. This will be bad news for all the frothy investors who are suddenly discovering the MMOG business model. In the new DFC Intelligence Online Game Market report we forecast revenue in the MMOG market to grow over 150% from 2006 to 2011. However, this doesn't account for all the investment money that is likely to be lost chasing after that revenue growth."

Comments

Blizzard can.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found that the only ones that can truly destroy an MMO are the designers of the actual game.

I played City of Heroes for well over a year. I enjoyed it. I loved beating up supervillians, and flying around in a city, and discovering all the backstory to the world. But the near constant tweakings to the powersets were annoying, especially since I played one of the most debated (Regen Scrapper, if that means anything to you). The lack of anything else to do besides combat was a factor as well.

I stopped playing due to those factors, and that I replaced my PC with a Mac. I eventually picked up WoW and I can see the seeds brewing of WoW's potential failure. Raids, especially 40 man raids, are boring and often a waste of time. PvP is a joke, since it's mostly farming a battleground instead of an instance, along with rank decay. The differences between races are mostly aesthetic, barring the races with actual useful racial abilities (Forsaken, Humans, Gnomes, Tauren).

From what I've seen of the expansion though, they might actually be listening to the player base. Raids will be smaller, thus easier to form, and have more destinations, making the endgame more than a repeated slog through MC. Racial class abilities akin to the Priest spells for all classes will help with the diversiveness of builds, along with the extra talent points and tiers. PvP system getting tweaks, mainly that your rank won't go down once a week. And of course, lots of new content.

If you want to surpass WoW, first you need to do everything right that they did, and then do what they did wrong correctly. That relies on there being more wrongs than rights though.

Re:Is it possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all I think it's a very narrow view to call WoW the MMO leader. Lineage 2 has far more players / revenue / you name it. WoW is the most popular MMO here in America (one might say in the English speaking market)... but to place it in some high regard and label it "unbeatable" by other games is a little short sighted.

http://www.mmogchart.com/

WoW: Over 6.5 Million subscribers worldwide
Lineage and Lineage 2: Less than 3 Million subscribers combined

Re:Just like there will never be another Doom

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that it was Ultima Online that defined MMORPGs ;-)

um no

[crabpeople]

"Then there were a couple of graphical MUD's, then EQ, which was the bee's knees. EQ ruled. Ultima Online and Asheron's Call broke after, and developed major followings"

UO - Released on September 30, 1997, by Origin Systems.

EQ - EverQuest (EQ) is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that was released on March 16, 1999

I will not have your revisionist history. UO pioneered the genre.

I've got your L][ cure...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit official and play on private L2 servers. Full C4, multiple rates, no farmers, unique stacking skills systems, (e.g. SR/SWS at the same time), far more balanced, and it's free. It's a lot more fun than retail. Plus the quick trip to end game will make you get bored of the game a lot faster.