Breakfast Topic: Doom! ... DOOOOOM!
by David Bowers 
Sep 6th 2007 at 8:01AM
A wizened old man stands here on the street corner with a cardboard sign held over his body, shouting at everyone who will (or will not) listen. He cries out: "The end is nigh! Prepare yourselves, for soon we shall witness with very our own eyes the end of the world!... of Warcraft!"Well... no. In all honestly that's very likely the last thing that will happen. When WoW is no more it will go out with a whimper, not a bang. Its players will have long since moved on to Universe of Warcraft, or Galaxy of Starcraft, or Unending Megaverse of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Online, or whatever is the next great games are. The shutting down of WoW servers will probably make some mention on the various gaming blogs before passing on into history at last.
Some people have already been burned out for a long time now, while some people are only now wondering if maybe another expansion just isn't enough, while still others will never be burned out on WoW anymore than they could get bored of good old classics Uno, Chess, or Checkers.
But it stands to reason that eventually the WoW that we play today will be no more, right? So now I put it to all you who have your fingers on the pulse of WoW. How many years has it got left? How many more years will you keep playing? Or is it actually still so young and vibrant that there's really no way to tell how long it's got? Perhaps we bloggers should stop being so negative? Tell us what you think.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Expansions, Humor
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Anthony Sep 6th 2007 8:18AM
It just seems odd to me that people on here seem threatened when this sort of topic or comment comes up. WoW will end, and it will end much as the above. The only thing I want to add is that when it does end it will be at its best not its worse stage of development.
Take Dark Age of Camelot for instance, it si a game that is very much in decline, but at the stage it is now, it is MUCH MUCH better than it was even 1 or two years ago. Even so it has the least amount of people playing it. Such is the tragedy of MMOs and their life span.
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oh and to answer the question. 4.5 years exactly.
Urofseron Sep 6th 2007 8:24AM
I agree that it's a long way off, but all things come to an end, as will this game.
I get tired at times, so I tend to take breaks. I had a lvl 60 of each class at the time the expansion hit. I was re-energized by the new content and loved the leveling to 70. I started my next character and it wasn't as much fun. By the time I finished that one, I was through and have just abandoned my other chars.
The way the game progesses it simply isn't much fun once the majority of the players have "moved on" from areas. Go level a char from 1 - 70 and see how difficult it is to get groups to go to pre-BC instances now (hell for that matter, try to go to Ramparts or Blood Furnace). I feel bad for the newer players that will never, ever experience the thrill of Scholomance, or Dire Maul or MC. There simply isn't enough intrest in those any longer and they aren't profitable.
What was so fun about the week WoW went live is the huge rush of players, constant flow of people running around, talking and figuring out quests, grouping to kill mobs...etc. That's the way BC was when it went live, and that's what made it fun for me.
Vestras Sep 6th 2007 8:14AM
I would ballpark that WoW has at least 3 more years of good life in it, assuming they do at least 1 graphics upgrade (as Eve Online has) and continue good expansion support. Maybe longer if they keep the content fresh and no one puts out a new killer-Ap MMO.
In a related note, I remember when my first MMO went under, Earth and Beyond..such a great game, but EA decided to put all their efforts towards Ultima Online, and left that rare jewel of space MMOs in the dust. A sad day for us all...
kabes Sep 6th 2007 8:19AM
WoW has many years left. The engine is quite scalable and they will be able to upgrade the graphics as time goes on. I highly doubt there will be a WoW2 any time soon. It would make more sense to simply scale up the graphics, and release high-res texture packs and models in future expansions (that also cover old world stuff, the original texture files are likely very high res already). I also think they'll continue to do what they are doing in preparation for WOTLK by making levels 20-60 much quicker so people can catch up. When the expansion after WOTLK comes out, I am sure they will change it to levels 20-70 with increased levelling speed.
One thing is for certain, Blizzard will absolutely not release another MMO while WoW is going strong. The market is held by Blizzard right now. If they introduced a new MMO tomorrow, they would not gain many new subscribers as a whole. They subscriber base would just be split between two games instead of one. So it makes a lot more sense for them to just milk WoW for all its worth. if they expansions keep coming at a rate of 2 years (so much for 1 year like Blizzard was aiming for), then maybe they'll stop at level 100 or so and then bring out world of starcraft, world of diablo or maybe even WoW2 and keep SC and Diablo as they are.
Some other things I see happening in the future is possibly "classic" servers where maybe you can only level to 60 or 70. I also wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard went the way of SOE and made servers where you can legitimately purchase money and gear from Blizzard.
As for burning out on WoW, it happens to everybody. The key is to take breaks i.e. play for 4 months, take 4 months off, play for 4 months, take 4 months off, and repeat. After all there are other games out there to play, both on PC and consoles and every time you come back to WoW there will be a new major content patch or expansion to enjoy. I've been doing this and I enjoy it...mostly because it keeps me from getting burned out and it also lets me play other games because we all know when you play WoW, you don't have time to play anything else.
Exanimo Sep 6th 2007 8:24AM
I'm afraid WoW will see its end sooner or later, probably will last for a year of 4 more.
Thinking of that makes me sad actually as kind of makes me feel everything i'm doing now is for nothing.
Ofcourse thats not true as i'm having fun while playing but i'm expanding my knowledge and character aswell.. a poor investment actually as that what i've gained will be useless sooner or later anyway :(
Exa @ fulltimewow.blogspot.com
jrb Sep 6th 2007 8:25AM
i've been playing wow on and off (mainly off) since the beta. I keep coming back to the game, so it would be wrong for me to claim there isn't something special that attracts me back, as there obviously is. each time i come back it's because i've heard about new features, or new instances, or new expansions that peak my interest enough to warrant me digging out my installation discs, and sitting through hours upon hours of patching. Each time, i ponder over making a new character, even going so far as picking out class, race, look and name, before the prospect of having to complete the same old quests gets the better of me, and quit out and re-log in to one of my older characters.
I think that's where the issue is. WoW really doesn't have enough new content to keep people who re-roll new characters interested. grinding through the 10's, 30's and 50's was a bitch 2 years ago, and it still is now because the content is all pretty much exactly the same. In a mmo universe it needs to be everything that evolves and changes, not just the super-high-end content that only 10% of the pople will see. why can't aspects of the low-end game change as well?
The realm i originally started on was seeing daily queues in to the hundreds 6 months after the game was released, but now the server is literally deserted.. with free migration offered to it. Obviously something is wrong, and i'd be surprised if wow ever reached 10 or 11million users, because the interest has, or is in the process of levelling out (excuse the pun).
Krianna Sep 6th 2007 8:31AM
I still get a kick out of the folks insisting the End is Ni because.... Bliz is offering an updated version of something that's been around for ages? (the Refer a Friend thing, but updated to Bring A Friend Back)
I'll believe WoW is nearly dead when I *don't* read about Blizcon in the main stream media.
Wintermute Sep 6th 2007 8:34AM
WoW will end when Unending Megaverse of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Online comes out. I would totally play that.
On a more serious note, it's got to have at least another two expansions left in it.
Vestras Sep 6th 2007 8:37AM
Well I have quit WoW twice now. Once early on since my guild collapsed and some family emergencies just made it not fun. I came back and played more when my friends got back into it and with the anouncement of BC, we all wanted to be ready. But then once I hade a nicely decked out 60, I took another break and played EVE for a few months until BC hit live, and I have not stopped since.
I never uninstall a game unless I really need the drive space since you never know when you will want to revisit an old friend. That's the sadest thing about MMOs though, is that when the company stops supporting them, you can't come back...
SuperSnagg Sep 6th 2007 8:42AM
I'm going to make the prediction that this game is going to be online for a lot longer than anyone expects. The game may have ended for YOU, but there will still be enough folks still playing even without new content for Blizzard to keep some realms up indefinitely.
You don't go from 9 million subscribers to 0 in 3 years. Even if it's just a million in 5 or more years, it's still profitable. I could see coming back many years from now and rerolling a character just for kicks. They'd probably have reduced the subscription fee by that time as well.
Damien Benoit Sep 6th 2007 8:48AM
I feel that WoW has atleast 8 more years left if anything. Look at Diablo 2 (even though its not truley MMO like WoW is), its still alive and kicking on battlenet so why would WoW not be in a small 8 years? Well if anything they will cut back to very few servers towards the end but I see it living atleast that long.
fittiziofittizio Sep 6th 2007 8:51AM
I'd say 2 years or so. Something new and cool will come soon and it will take the place of WoW. Maybe it will not be great as WoW but at least it will be new.
Nowadays I hear a lot of people exited about the new esp pack, but a lot more a bit pissed:
- What a new expansion? I just started Krazhan with my guild!
- New expansion: more dead content. Massive flow of players from Outland to Northrend, and Outland will become dead as dead is the "old" end game content.
- Levelling faster maybe is a good idea: now its a pain to level, if you dont have friend is hard to find people to do things and instances in Azeroth at least on low population realms.
Bah. Anyway SuperSnagg is right, "You don't go from 9 million subscribers to 0 in 3 years".
Raspberry Sep 6th 2007 9:01AM
A lot of people are being very negative about the life left in WoW, but the internet is full of pessimism. There's a wealth of life left in the game, but we all seem to assume that Blizzard is going to rinse and repeat the first two expansions until we hit lvl 120 and the old content has never been updated again.
They know that the early game is becoming less and less viable with every expansion or new content patch. My money is on a decision from Blizzard to relaunch an updated World of Warcraft that is fully compatible with the old. Perhaps the next expansion won't up the level cap, but focus entirely on new content for levels 1-80....Who knows? That would bring drives of people back to the game while at the same time introducing many new ones.
The game was not designed to be static, so don't assume it will be like this forever.
Gryzor Sep 6th 2007 9:01AM
First up the whole 9 million subs is over the top. They are not saying that a hell of a lot of them are gold farmers.
WoW is getting old and getting old fast. I give it 2 more expansions after Wrath, when people level to 100 I think many will call it a day. And personaly i think we will be seing earily screen shots at next years Blizz con of their next MMO, which I think will be WoW 2, Blizz will want to milk the Warcraft franchies for all they can, with the movie, coming out in the next year or so also.
Raogrimm Sep 6th 2007 9:07AM
LOL
The game has been out for two years now, and has nearly 10 million people playing. Even if it losted half its player base tomorrow it would still be larger then all of the other MMORPG out there. Looking at FFXI they don't even have half a million players and its about to introduce its 4th expansion. I believe WoW will be around for at least 10-15 years, as long as there is a core player ground of 200,000 even they would at least keep the servers up. So for those say "oh no the sky is falling" wake up and look at any of the other games out there. Even Utima Online is still up and running, so to say a WoW can't do the same is just a waste of time.
My belief is this, that WoW like any game sometimes does get boring if you've played it to much (like the person mentioned in the blog before this playing 2000 hours). So people will take breaks for a month or more, I've even taken fives months off.
ThorinII Sep 6th 2007 9:10AM
They can expand it all they want, but if it takes too long and is too boring to get to whatever the lvl cap may be, people will stop playing. Then it's game over.
I've already burned out. I'm trying out Guild Wars. Much more "casual player" friendly so far.
My WoW account expires on 9/17. I probably won't do anything to stop it.
bwest0526 Sep 6th 2007 9:27AM
True and sad as it may be, WoW will eventually go to the wayside formost, but every generation breeds more and more "geeks" that will play. I started playing EQ in '99 I played it up until last year and it is STILL going..not as strong as it once was. so for me to play 7 years on a single MMO, and WoW has only been out for 2 years now..at least another 5 years to be going decent and then slowly dwindle. EQ went real strong until WoW came out, so my personal opinion is #1 WoW won't go away, and #2 it will be strong until an actual better game comes out.
Expansions have nothing to do with it, SoE pumps out expansions for EQ like every 6-12 months, and the population is still falling. Content is content, once a person is bored with THE GAME they move on, additional expansions won't keep them from moving.
Lizardking63 Sep 6th 2007 9:35AM
I think that Warhammer will have a large effect on the future of WoW. If it is popular and offers new challenges that grab people away, then WoW will suffer from that popularity.
Artsi Sep 6th 2007 9:44AM
It all depends on how the game is kept updated. The current vertical expansion (raising level cap, adding new content to higher levels) can only go so far, and eventually grows old or too tedious or meaningless.
Horizontal growth, ie. adding more quests, zones, professions, instances, gear, events, etc to existing world has a lot more room for improvement/addition. However, even that has some limits as it makes the world so large and "limitless" or complex, that it gets too easy to loose focus, and the game factor disapperas.
On the other hand, WoW could become a well-themed Second Life type world, that could possibly live a very long time, if people adopt it as a way to communicate and interact with each other, so the game aspect would be reduced (or changed) and the community/environment part of it increased.
So far, Blizzard has done just the typical thing of adding more of the same. They are still pioneering this genre, and my guess is that if they can not break the pattern of TBC and WoTLK, then it is just a matter of time (few years) before "it has all been seen".
If they can improve the existing world in the ways that the community wants, and manage to find ways to increase the community aspects (and eventually server population sizes by merging realms), then it could go on for years and years as a truly open-ended virtual environment. Then it becomes a matter of what larger masses want from such environments (if anything at all), and who provides the best match to those needs.
Imagine WoW expanding so, that some parts of the world are modern sci-fi themes, and others maintain the lore/fantasy of "original" Warcarft, when yet others go back in time and/or into parallel universes. They certainly have enough room in the story to go wherever they want, and thus cater to all sorts of needs, in a way that allows people to freely stay in one type of a game environment, or move from one to another! ;-)
potatowedge Sep 6th 2007 9:50AM
Can we stop all this talk about the death of WoW? I've been seeing it everywhere, and frankly, I don't want to hear about it.
And if EQ isn't dead then I have my doubts about the death of WoW. Talk to me again in five years after I've finally dinged 100 and have become a PvP goddess.