Breakfast Topic: What will kill WoW?

by Elizabeth Harper Dec 22nd 2007 at 8:00AM

If you're a regular reader of the official World of Warcraft forums, you're familiar with this idea. For every patch, every tweak, every proposed change, there are ten threads (at least!) suggesting this will be the one change that will kill the game. While the forum speculation is usually a bit over the top, they're inspired by a legitimate fear: with the many changes Blizzard makes to the game, there's always the chance that one of them may spoil your particular style of gameplay. So this morning I ask: what change (by Blizzard or otherwise) do you think will really kill WoW?

Tags: forums, kill-wow, official-forums, world-of-warcraft, wow, wow-killer

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Breakfast Topics

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

Liitz Dec 22nd 2007 8:04AM

A nerf to Locks!

Pex Dec 22nd 2007 8:08AM

Or the introduction of a new class. *hint* *hint*

oshin Dec 22nd 2007 8:09AM

Hang on, i thought we were talking about something that would kill the game here, not improve it.

Shalmaneser Dec 22nd 2007 8:07AM

Time. Time will kill WoW as given enough time the ideas which once seemed new and fresh will start to seem old and stale and more and more games will take what is good about WoW and redo it.

jumb Dec 22nd 2007 8:11AM

The second coming of Jesus!

Nanteen Dec 22nd 2007 8:20AM

The death of WoW is easy to predict.

FIRST there has to be a alternative to it, (idk what game) but a MMO that is decent, hard, and full of new content.

Second if Blizzard slows new content even further then it already has done. People finished the game in June people.

I would say that a decent amount of end game raiders have already left. Now they are probably playing console games atm but if something came out they may not come back to WoW for Sunwell or WotLK.

And yes yes I know "END GAME RAIDING IS ONLY 1% OF THE PEOPLE PLAYING" Blah blah blah. But when most of the end game raiders left EQ what happened?

If Blizzard wants to stay on top they have to keep the new content flowing a little faster than they have.

Green Armadillo Dec 22nd 2007 8:36AM

I agree that content is king, though Blizzard's slow pace isn't much worse than the other games I've tried, and the stuff they have added is better. If someone else is going to beat WoW, they're going to need a lot of money, and a lot of investor wrangling so they don't launch half-baked and discover that most of their customers have quit before they finished polishing the stuff that needed to be done for launch. It doesn't matter how slow Blizzard is as long as there's no viable contender - people will just do what I did and take a brief vacation to LOTRO or whatever the new game is, play all their content, and come back to WoW a few months later.

Oblitherax Dec 22nd 2007 11:09PM

1. EQ didn't have the player base of Wow.

2. EQ didn't allow the endgame progression outside of raiding that Wow allows. It was not very casual friendly.

3. EQ was boring, frustrating and unnecessarily complicated.

Shadowisp Dec 22nd 2007 8:27AM

WoW II

Rashi Dec 22nd 2007 8:38AM

You mean Burning Crusade?

Chris Anthony Dec 22nd 2007 10:20AM

No more than Ruins of Kunark was Everquest II, Rashi.

Green Armadillo Dec 22nd 2007 8:32AM

This expansion will, unless there's something I've forgotten, mark players killing off the last major threats posed by characters who actually existed in the WC III in-game lore. One imagines that there is still material for a third expansion about the Maelstrom and the Goblin hometown of Undermine. But what happens when it's time for expansion four? Five? Ten? Fourteen (EQ1's current mark IIRC)?

Speaking of expansion 4, how will we balance level 100, along with 81 point talents, players soloing major level 60 lore encounters (wouldn't be surprised to see Pallies start tackling level 60 raids solo next expansion)? Remember that every single one of these needs to come with a level cap increase and gear reset to avoid leaving behind everyone who doesn't raid. And how would new players join the game if you told them they need to clear 100 levels before they can even start grouping with their friends? (Hero classes might be one answer, but then a large proportion of the population would be playing those, and we already don't know how the first one will impact existing classes it competes with.)

The correct thing to do is what Guild Wars is doing - declare WoW 1 over, move the Starcraft 2 team over to Warcraft 4 once SC ships, and launch WC4 to set the stage for WoW 2 set sometime in the future, when all the characters people have killed in raids are actually dead instead of hanging around the Stormwind King's room, mocking level 50 adventurers. This will not happen as long as WoW is making anywhere near the amount of money it's currently making. So one of these days, the tower of stuff of content will just be too big, they will release one more expansion, and it will suck.

But it won't be a single line in a patch note, and it won't be this expansion. And hey, maybe they'll break down and add Pandas before then. ;)

Liel Dec 22nd 2007 9:09AM

Sony EQ developers have said numerous times that the one thing they regret was making EQ2 a seperate game instead of upgrading/improving EQ1.

kr3wman Dec 22nd 2007 11:21AM

Xpac don't have to raise the level cap...

Green Armadillo Dec 22nd 2007 10:44PM

@Liel: I'm not saying there aren't disadvantages to sequelling the game, I'm just saying that the Devs are greatly penned in by having to have the low level content remain in place, which means that Van Cleef will always be menacing Stormwind with his army of level 18 mobs, etc. And that's before you get to the thorny issue of balancing stuff. As of next expansion, it will be possible for characters to obtain two 31 point talents, and we're almost certainly going to see Pallies soloing level 60 raids (if they don't manage it before then). Balancing the game is going to get harder and harder the more levels/abilities/talents/etc players get, and it will be much easier to avoid breaking the game if you could just get everyone to start over at level 1 in WoW 2.

@kr3wman: Technically speaking, you're correct, there is no obligation to raise the level cap. Not doing so would introduce more problems than it would solve. WoW is, quite intentionally, primarily a solo game (80+% of the game content), because having enough solo content to make solo players want play your MMO is the difference between WoW's 8 million players and everyone else's 400K players. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but an expansion that adds more level 80 raids and maybe a new race/class or two just isn't going to fly. You need to provide solo players a way to advance their mains, or they won't buy your expansion. Once you're adding new content, it's much much easier to balance level 81 content then it is to balance level 80 content when some of your 80's are freshly dinged, some are geared, and some are geared plus whatever alternate advancement you come up with (which, incidentally, WoW already has in its talent system).

SHADOW RENEGADE Dec 22nd 2007 8:35AM

If they remove the ability to jump

Krishan Dec 22nd 2007 8:42AM

Increasing the level cap would defin- wait...

me me pick me Dec 22nd 2007 9:06AM

I was around for EQ's demise which was more about the upcoming release of EQ2 and piss poor customer service. Unscheduled downtimes, and poor communication with the player base is what killed EQ. Blizzard has done many things right. I just hope they don't forget the lessons SOE learned with EQ and SWG (which was killed by changes to the game people didn't like.)

Liel Dec 22nd 2007 9:14AM

I am playing EQ2 now after cancelling my wow account after 3 years of play, great game now but a bit more complex than WoW is. The amount of content in the game is pretty amazing but I feel like WoW is the short bus now when I log in.

Alysandir Dec 22nd 2007 8:57AM

Failure to evolve.

While there will always be nostalgic qualities to playing older, dated games, at some point in every game's lifecycle there comes a time where it just cannot provide the entertainment value of new games, with better graphics and innovative gameplay. WoW has hung on so long because it still provides a compelling gaming experience and because its community is large enough to provide variety in social interaction. The question is whether Blizzard can continue to evolve the WoW universe so that it becomes a self-sustaining virtual world, that is, people stay for more than just gaming aspects, but purely social aspects as well.

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