Word is all around that Shadowlands will mark the long-awaited end to WoW. Gosh I hope so. Not because I dislike the game. Nor because I think that it will be a total financial failure and will go belly up like some other Jordan Belforts in the forums seem to suggest. I hope it marks the end because the franchise needs something else. What exactly do I mean? Take a look:
1994, we get the RTS Warcraft: Orcs and Humans
1995-96, we have a sequel, Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness and its expansion campaign.
2002-03, Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and its expansion The Frozen Throne come out. This is the final RTS in the series and sets the stage for…
2004: WoW, an MMO based on the world and characters set by Warcraft 3 and introduces new stuff at the same time. WoW wrapped up old stories and introduced new ones, it set up a huge world, but…
Since its 8 (so far) expansions are, well… expansions to the base game, they don’t really count as new games to the series, as hard as this is to accept. mind-boggling as this is, this 2004 title is the latest game in the franchise. The year now is 2020. The latest entries are the very recent and upcoming expansions, but they are not new games. People say that WoW will keep on going as long as there are subs and Blizzard will lose money if they stop, but I assure you that if a cross-platform open world RDR2 or Witcher 3-style game were to be released based on the world of Azeroth, it would be a massive best-seller.
Because keeping WoW going on forever is as if Rockstar never dropped GTA: San Andreas because it’s still selling (apparently) and released nothing further. Oh wait they’re doing it now with GTA Online and look where it ended up.
Blizzard, or rather, Activision, this game sold well. For almost 20 YEARS. Let go. Learn to let go. Learn when to let go. Right now, focus on closing the story fittingly. A good story has a start, a middle, and an end. Right now we’re not sure where the middle even is. If SL is an ending, it’s an ending. We’ll take it. Finally. Because you’ll find out that people lose interest in a story where they know they will probably never see the end to.
(Plus the engine is older than the Geneva Convention).
WoW will end whenever the subscription numbers drop low enough. The numbers have been dropping expansion after expansion. SL would have to be terrible for it to be the last expansion as there are still a good amount of people playing. What Blizzard does is wait for the 3rd/4th season of an expansion and then use their algorithm from their past expansion to calculate how many players they can lure back with “new expansion” hype like they are doing currently. When they realize that they’re not going to be getting a big re-subs anymore they will go full out, remove the faction restrictions and sell out with one last expansion to cash in as hard as possible before announcing that there won’t be a last expansion.
This game is still around because of its aging playerbase, currently the average age is 28 and it is going up as kids today don’t want to play MMORPGs anymore. The older we get the less likely we are going to be playing this. People are getting kids every day and starting busier jobs. More people are quitting WoW than they are starting it so I suspect we still have 3 expansions because it will be very apparent that the game is dying.
Generally I think we will be in the Shadowlands for 2 years, then we will fight the Light in the expansion afterwards and then we will hop into a spaceship and fight the void in the last one. 6 years.
Eh, maybe. Though I don’t reckon I’ll be playing WoW for more than 1-2 years max anymore at this point. I’ve already been playing less and less due to losing interest and I’m confident that a huge chunk of the playerbase feels the same way. If Blizzard manages to keep this raft afloat for 6 more years then they’ll obviously be lucky.
This time around though it’s mainly being said to its subject matter and its thematology. I don’t remember anyone saying that WoD or Legion were going to be the last ones.
They are expansions to the same game. They’re not sequels. MMOs in general shouldn’t get sequels, that model doesn’t work.
And? Red Dead Online exists (and it is awesome, easily the best online experience) and it didn’t kill WoW. Black Desert Online is very close to a “witcher-like” experience, there’s people who play it like it is The Witcher Online, but it didn’t kill WoW.
What. I never said that such a game would kill WoW, this isn’t even the post’s subject lmao. This is way off topic. I’m saying that if Blizzard were to release such a game, it would be a big success.
I’m not sure, though. The Witcher’s saving grace is the story. In fact, all of the games are actually bad games, saved only by their plot and presentation. Red Dead Online, as awesome as it is, is nowhere near as successful as the cancer that is GTA Online.
What makes MMOs successful is a really weird topic. Most successful MMOs have very unengaging gameplay, focusing more on the meta things - progression, character building, investment and return on investment, trading.
I’m not sure the return on investment on such a game would be good for Blizz. Because it would be expensive as hell to make. That said, I do want a World of StarCraft, in fact it is the ONE game I want Blizz to make.
And have World of StarCraft be to MMOs like what StarCraft was to strategy games. Introduce completely asymmetrical progression and classes, but manage to make it balanced. Like, imagine you’re playing a terran and you’re upgrading your gear over time, leveling up, getting new weapons and armor… but as a zerg, you don’t level up at all. All of your upgrades come from evolution. Zero gear. Or a protoss, where you level up much slower, but each level gives you way more power. So at the end you have Terrans at level 60, Protoss at level 20 and Zerg at level 0, all ready for endgame and it works… it would be so awesome.
Think I would be happy if there was new lore, new races, new stories than having to have stories that don’t bring back already killed off characters and rehashing things over and over again.
If current story writers haven’t got it in them anymore, bring in fresh lot that can move things forwards than always looking back to try and bring back the good old days.
At this rate, we’re going to see a rehash of BFA again at one point.
I’ve been a WoW:er since -05, never taken a break or gotten tired of it. Every xpac has its ups and downs, I just roll with it =) and Im gonna keep rollin as long as I can.
But some things mentioned are good points, its been around for 16 years! Thats a loooong time for a game! and true, they need to upgrade some hardware if they gonna keep up. My personal wish is that they make WoW into VR!
Running into SW or Org in VR would be freakin awesome! And I think that would bring back many old players and prolly some new aswell.
I have no idea how they can convert into VR, Im not that into game development… but I just keep hoping and Im gonna keep playing!
