Even if someone makes a better game. WoW transcended from just being a computer game. It’s a part of the culture, well established in the history and society. Almost everyone knows what it is, even old people that never played it. You simply can’t ‘kill’ it by making a better MMO. Arguably this already happened a few times.
It’s like saying you can ‘kill’ Pokemon by making a better trading card game, because it started as one in late 90s. No, it doesn’t work that way, Pokemon is so much more than just a TCG nowadays.
Frankly the biggest damage to the IP is the release of Classic last year. It’s splitting the playerbase between multiple versions of it. And from what we can see, over time there will be more Classic versions. Classic TBC is confirmed, propably classic WOTLK will follow too. Not sure about later expansions though. But even with TBC you already have 3 versions of the game - retail, vanilla and TBC. Idk if this is a good idea. Runescape sticks to one Classic version, not a classic for every expansion or patch they released.
I hear you, OP, but I think you are vastly overestimating the popularity of the Warcraft universe. “Everyone knows what WoW is” - not at all. Ask people 15-17 years old and nobody will know it. Go older and maybe you will get some hits. But only some. Vastly more people know what MOBAs are and what battle royales are. Pokemon is like 20x bigger than WoW, there’s just no comparison. Minecraft is bigger. WoW is complete peanuts on global scale and its time is already over. It’s not an interesting or a particularly big phenomenon.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Classic people and retail people many times want different versions of the game. Stuff like no flying, slower levelling, removal of QoL usually came from classic players. Now they can have their slower experience in classic and retail can remain a more modern game.
It’s probably one of the few things that keep the game alive, some people who quit retail continue classic instead so they’re still invested in the IP rather then just quitting all together and never looking back
Retail and classic have their own seperate crowds, there’s overlap with people who play both but it’s in small numbers
And the people who now play on classic exclusively and don’t touch retail anymore; they wouldn’t have stuck around anyway
Classic also has some stuff that makes it better than retail, like pvp servers, engaging open world, gearing lasting trough multiple phases and presence of a server community.
Tbh it really depends what you’re after. If you’re in it for the arcade keyboard face roll lobbied content, you play retail. If you want more of a social experience paired with a video game, you play Classic.
Can you all stop with the doomsaying? This game is predicted to die for 10 years now and still alive and kicking.
Just for a good perspective: if a game like SWTOR (much less successful than WoW) is not even close to dying, WoW will never die. Get this into your head.
Nobody means stopping all servers when saying “dying”. It’s just that the game will decrease to like 100k players per region, will have very thin content patches with tons of things likely related to shop options, etc.
SWTOR has vastly less players than WoW (only 5 servers total), still gets new content, updates, good technical and user support.
WoW has such a dedicated playerbase that the idea the game will ever be in such a sorry state is a doomsayers’ fantasy.
As long as Blizzard treats the game as one of its core franchises (and there’s no indication that will change), WoW will keep getting steady stream of content via expansions every 2 years for god knows how long in the future.
This is a thing for a long time. Most of those players don’t want to commit seriously to the game. They come on expansion and patch launches, play a bit then unsubscribe and wait for next content drop.
There cant be a WoWKiller as long as other developers only make crappy ActionRPGs like New World etc. for the low attentionspancrowd. There is no new mmo coming from any direction. Activision can do with us what they want. We dont have any alternatives, other than to quit our hobby.
There will never be a wow killer. Even if other games come out there will always be people still playing wow. I imagine the only “wow killer” will be the last expansion whenever that may be. And even then they probably still keep the game open for everyone.
I mean… Never say never honestly. WoW rides on us, the old and loyal to the game. Young people today aren’t as attracted to WoW or find it as much a new experience like we did back in the day.
Imagine coming into WoW now? You level your character you want to play the end game… And your met with… Us. Yeah… Enough said. (Lets not get into that) I wouldn’t stick around either to be honest unless I had especiall interest or motivation to do so. Comparing a game to a cartoon show is impossible in this case, It’s not just about fandom. But the experience being a part of it also. Keeping up with us old veterans and our toxcity that comes along with, I can’t imagine that being very attractive to new players. And eventually
We will all be done with WoW before long.
