Agreed. The only thing that will beat WoW is Blizzard's next MMO. Personally, I can't wait. I didn't start WoW till after BC came out so I've always felt "behind". I'd love a chance to start fresh at zero with everyone else.

Although, I wonder how even Blizzard can beat WoW. If even half the WoW players were like, "screw that new MMO, I have too much invested in this one to switch" Then Blizz would be stuck supporting 2 MMO's but still only making the same amount of money. Unless the new MMO is somehow able to tap an entire new audience that WoW hasn't been able to, which honestly, I don't see how that could be possible either. WoW has become about as noob friendly as possible (and i don't mean that in a bad way). Blizz would pretty much have to give people a reason to switch from WoW to the new one, and eventually stop supporting WoW for it to ever be as good as WoW. And the only reason it would be worth it for them to do that would be the thought that people will eventually get tried of WoW and quit it anyway, and by having something new for them to switch to they'll be able to maintain their large number of subscribers.

"If even half the WoW players were like, "screw that new MMO, I have too much invested in this one to switch" Then Blizz would be stuck supporting 2 MMO's but still only making the same amount of money."

Very interesting thoughts. You're right, I believe. By releasing a new MMO while still supporting their current one, they would almost certainly just be splitting the players and resources across two projects. They would almost be forced to stop genuinely supporting WoW in order to push more people over to the new game (i.e. to get rid of that thought that people have anything invested in WoW).

That's probably the best argument I've seen against a new Blizzard MMO coming out anytime soon...at least not as long as the current one still maintains such popularity.

Yeah, the only new MMO I can see Bliz making would be World of Starcraft. Or Galaxy of Starcraft, or whatever. Using everything they've learned from WoW, but with some twists for a sci-fi space game. That would probably cannibalize some WoW players, but also draw enough new players (eg, hardcore Korean Starcraft players) to make it worth supporting two MMOs.

Also EVE Online is relatively small by WoW standards - around 300,000 total active subscriptions. Space flight sim's appeal may be limited, but it's at least unique enough, and polished enough, to include in that list with Aion and SW:tOR.

I completely agree.

There was no RTS that could beat Warcraft II until.... Starcraft.
There was no RTS that could beat Starcraft until Warcraft III and thats debatable.
There was no ARPG that could beat Diablo until.... Diablo II.
And IMO nothing (and I've tried them all) can beat Diablo II until.... (hopefully) Diablo III.

Diablo II was my default game until I started WoW. I played it almost exclusively to all other games for about 6 years. I took breaks for a game here and there, an FF or Bioware game would come out and I'd drop DII for a month or two but then I'd come right back. If Blizzard would have kept making expansions I probably never would have left.

WoW is now my default game. I'll take breaks and play other games from time to time. Dragon Age and Torchlight will be my next two breaks. As soon as I get tired of themone it will be back to WoW until the next game distracts me for a month or two.

I think there are only 2 things that can kill WoW.

1. Blizzard stops making expansions.
2. Blizzard comes out with something better.

Although I believe that 2nd one will be extremely hard to do.

They will get people to switch by offering a penguin pet.

I think Blizzard will make you pay for a "battle.net" account and you can play any of their games that are Battle.net aware for "free" after initial product purchase. Since your account is tied to a single license and single use you can't loan out your account so one person can play MMO 1 and the other MMO2.

This would let WoW players try a new MMO while not paying for a full new monthly fee. In addition, if they design their games correctly on the backend WoW and whatever other MMO could share resources making the only difference art direction.

Blizzard has already released WoW 2… and 3… and has announced 4. In a manner of speaking, anyway. Unlike regular PC or console games, an MMO like WoW can add content and update the old stuff without ever releasing a "replacement".

Of course, my first sentence assumes that the amount of content in each expansion justifies calling it a "sequel," and you might disagree that BC and WotLK really count. However, I think Cataclysm has every right to be considered a sequel in a literal sense, even though all players are automatically absorbed along with a majority of the gameplay mechanics. There are two things that make it a sequel: a complete retooling of the original world, and the progression of time -- that is, all events in Cataclysm clearly and necessarily take place after the events of the original WoW, meaning that they must REPLACE the old events, not just supplement them.

Anyway, now that I'm done harping on the obvious, my point is that WoW could very well be here to stay as long as there are PC games because, unlike other game companies, Blizzard doesn't even need to compete with themselves.