Quote:
Originally Posted by WittyUserName
This makes no sense to me.....Blizzard is ruining the game, I will never go back. Time for them to start from scratch. I will however play me some Diablo and SC when I get back to the states. Cannot wait.
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Unfortunately they can't really start from scratch. WoW is reaching it's effective end of life in my opinion. All MMO's, no matter how well built, have a certain lifespan. There are only so many level caps and new content expansions that can keep casual players interested.
I'm not saying WoW is going anywhere, in fact I don't think they will for a very very long time. Ultima Online and EverQuest are still active and running, releasing new expansions, and have been for over a decade now. The only difference is the only people playing those games are hardcore fans of the game that have played for years.
By end of life I mean this. Casual MMO gamers crave new content and don't want to have to play hours upon hours a week to stay current with the game. When an MMO is first released that's easy to do for quite awhile. You have a level cap, a new world to explore, new stories and quests, and new dungeons to raid. If the company plays it right, that starts to get boring to anybody but the hardcore raiders and players just about the time they announce the new expansion. The new expansion will raise the level cap, add a significant amount of new storyline, quests, and world content, and keep everybody interested for a little while longer. Rinse and repeat a few more times and the entire game gets old to anybody but those few (million in this case) people who are all about high end content and being at the top of the game.
That's the perfect time when a new MMO release can come along with a slightly new formula, an entirely new world, and dominate the MMO user base. Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Vanguard, and even most recently Rift...they all tried to do that, but WoW had a stranglehold on the market and all these games fell short simply for the fact that people weren't bored with WoW yet. I think the only game that has had any chance to take a chunk of players and stay relevant for longer than 4-6 months is Star Wars: The Old Republic. WoW is reaching end of life, the Star Wars franchise has a HUGE pull, and the company creating the game has a pretty good idea of what they're doing.
I might be completely wrong and the market might not be quite ready for a new MMO, but this is the best chance/timing I think any MMO has had since WoW was released in '04.