Blizzard - Mike Morhaime on The Edge

Some WoW players left for AoC but 40% have already returned to WoW's 10.9 million.

Morhaime said that players that leave WoW are often drawn back because of the content and service that Blizzard provides.
"Any massively multiplayer online game that launches today isn't just competing with the amount and breadth of content that we launched with back in 2004," Morhaime stated.
He said that other MMO companies entering the market are also competing with the service and content that Blizzard has been honing within World of Warcraft for nearly four years.
Morhaime expects that when the next WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King launches later this year, more players will be compelled to return to WoW, which currently boasts 10.9 million subscribers.

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I mean, that's it right there. WoW at launch was a VERY big budget, impressive, polished game, but WoW 4 years later? It's been being played constantly (understatement) and refined and polished and tweaked in it's LIVE state for longer than the entire development timelines of any contenders.

Considering how important things like stability, balance, and content (three very different facets, but WoW has them all in spades) are to an MMORPG, is it any wonder that no new title that comes along can measure up? The only place new games can school WoW is in graphics, and in the end, pretty graphics isn't a deciding factor in this genre.

I don't think there's a WoW-like game that can topple WoW. I just don't think it can happen, because WoW keeps raising the bar, and new games just can't compete. Don't get me wrong, it makes sense for people to just plain get tired of playing WoW, but with a new expansion every 1-2 years, they'll keep coming back. Because no new game can boast the stability, balance, and content of WoW.

I'm not saying this is a good thing. It's just the way I see it.

You are right. And I don't even play WoW. I've tried the free trial but never subscribed.

All new MMOs and most games for that matter suffer from "Feature Delusion."

Six hundred kilometers to explore
Choose from over 100 professions
Customize your character from hairstyle to hover bike
Fully destructible environments
Build cities, towns, houses, shops and monuments

It took me less than 1 minute to type that feature list and all MMOs promise this and more but they never actually deliver.

People will eventually get bored of the world. Many are desperate to find something theyll be happy to overlook some flaws. This will only get worse as time goes on.

So I believe WOW will lose customers quickly if warhammer for example turns out to be half decent. (AoC was very crappy)

WoW is an industry standard. Every new player who comes to the genre is most likely to be recommended to play WoW first. The game will outlive us all unless blizzards pulls up WoW2.

Most important thing in mmog is "fun". If there is no "fun" nothing else matters. Unlike mainstream players I didnt find it from WoW though. Ive lost my interest to diku's. The game must have somthing more like story based missions or guild based pvp to gain my interest.

still a horde of gamers out there just waiting for a better pvp mmorpg. WoW doesn't do it for them.

What I don't understand is those 10.9 millions is it new players all the time or the same who keep playing over and over.
I was a hardcore WoW player myself. But that "only" lasted a year. At some point I was playing up to 50 hours a week and stopped approximately when they announced WotLK and (arena) season 4 was about to start. That's when I realized it was always going to be more of the same. Raise the level cap. Add new spell levels to scale them. Create new dungeons who take into account the increase in players stats gained from 10 more levels. Introduce a new arena season with gear that's a few more points better than the previous set.
Just move the carrot a bit further every once and while for as long as players keep running after that carrot.

What I don't understand is how come those 10.9 don't eventually get bored of WoW. Are they actually all like me and those 10.9 playing now aren't the same from 2 years ago or am I an exception and they all keep playing over and over?

Originally Posted by Yates1968
still a horde of gamers out there just waiting for a better pvp mmorpg. WoW doesn't do it for them.

Have you tried Guild Wars? Great/extremely competitive MORPG (can't really call it a MMORPG though).