11.13.08

[Chesspiece_face]

IMO, this will be the last expansion pack done this way for WoW. Wrath will tidy up all the story lines from WC3 which makes it possible to setup WC4 and then WoW2. They still haven't announce their 4th project and that's either going to be something along the revitalization of Ghost or it's going to be WC4. While they may throw a bone later on that will open level 90 and maybe 100, I don't think that expansion will be sold like tBC and Wrath. WoW is coming on to the typical end of life cycle that MMOs go through (about 5 to 6 years).

What will probably happen is that after this expansion development for future WoW releases will be passed to another developer or group. This will not be the last WoW expansion. Will NOT. There has already been rumblings from the developers in random interviews about a graphical update in post wrath updates or expansions.

There is just too much money in WoW for them not to run it till it's dry. Everquest 1 (one!) is about to release a new expansion 10+ years later. in fact, the 5-6 year cycle you mention is illusory. MMO's follow a pattern, either they die in about 2 years ala AC2 or they keep milking the subscriptions for as long as possible. The two oldest MMO's are still going "strong" (everquest and ultima online). Subsequent releases are still out there finding their own niche like SW Galaxies and Anarchy Online (with AO switching to a free play model.)

[Taelas]

Wrath doesn't tidy up all the storylines from WC3.

Nazjatar is still coming.

Emerald Dream has been planned for an expansion since release.

Don't worry about Blizzard not having enough content. They'll make up new stuff (or steal it from somewhere else, but anyway).

[Crusader]

Wrath doesn't tidy up all the storylines from WC3.

Nazjatar is still coming.

Emerald Dream has been planned for an expansion since release.

Don't worry about Blizzard not having enough content. They'll make up new stuff (or steal it from somewhere else, but anyway).

Agreed, at level 220 we'll be fighting the burning legion in an alternative reality Draenor where sheeps are carnivorous!

[NiteFox]

Agreed, at level 220 we'll be fighting the burning legion in an alternative reality Draenor where sheeps are carnivorous!

...

Despite everything telling me otherwise, I still think that's awesome.

[Mordekhuul]

Yep, those sales figures really show that WoW is in a major decline.

:P

What surprised me this time around is that Blizzard is so willing to throw the pre-expansion patch out there. Before TBC, this didn't have the impact it will now - completely thrashing arena balance and making Season 4 a joke. I guarantee there are going to be some ubercombos the moment the patch comes out that just can't be countered, because this many massive changes all at once can't be balanced at all yet. If you're playing one of those ubercombos, you're in luck. If not...oh well...

I have no idea if Priests will be part of an ubercombo. I'm betting not though since the core issues of Priest survivability in arenas aren't changing. Priests will gain armor and other defensive abilities, but still no ability to escape forces them to be reliant on their specific-class arena partners to peel. It'll be a wacky few weeks though as arena balance is completely turned on its head.

-Bolty

One of our mages (Higler) was playing on the PTR in some PUG arena groups. He said it was pretty amusing. Basically, the fight starts, folks get in range, people just blow up - no real time to consider getting heals off. We'll have to see how it is when live with organized teams, of course.

[Lissa]

What will probably happen is that after this expansion development for future WoW releases will be passed to another developer or group. This will not be the last WoW expansion. Will NOT. There has already been rumblings from the developers in random interviews about a graphical update in post wrath updates or expansions.

You misunderstand, this is the last expansion that they're going to sell in stores. Any further expansions will probably either be free for those that have bought the expansions up to this point or they will be purchased through Blizzard for a nominal fee for download (say $10 to $15 since there will be no need for packaging and middle men).

There is just too much money in WoW for them not to run it till it's dry. Everquest 1 (one!) is about to release a new expansion 10+ years later. in fact, the 5-6 year cycle you mention is illusory. MMO's follow a pattern, either they die in about 2 years ala AC2 or they keep milking the subscriptions for as long as possible. The two oldest MMO's are still going "strong" (everquest and ultima online). Subsequent releases are still out there finding their own niche like SW Galaxies and Anarchy Online (with AO switching to a free play model.)

5 to 6 years is when the technology of a MMO really starts to show how long in the teeth it is. It also tends to be the time when you start to see a slow decline in subscribers as newer MMOs with better technology come out. Right now, there isn't much competition against WoW because no one has quite figured out Blizzard's formula. Likewise, SOE has proven that you can run multiple MMOs at once and still make a good amount of money.

[Lissa]

Wrath doesn't tidy up all the storylines from WC3.

Nazjatar is still coming.

Emerald Dream has been planned for an expansion since release.

Don't worry about Blizzard not having enough content. They'll make up new stuff (or steal it from somewhere else, but anyway).

Yes, the story lines have been tidied up. The story lines involved Illidan, Arthas, Kael, Vashj, and Kil'Jaedan, all of those characters will be dead and buried when Wrath closes, thus all the story lines from WC3 are closed.

The Emerald Dream had no role in WC3. Nazjatar had no role in WC3 outside of being the home of the Naga. The Undermine had no role in WC3 outside of being the home of the Goblins.

All the antagonists for WC3 will be dead and there is enough new antagonists introduced in WoW to build on for WC4 and then a WoW2.

[Lissa]

Yep, those sales figures really show that WoW is in a major decline.

:P

-Bolty

The decline is never sudden, it's slow as other MMOs bring new technology to the table. If you look at games like EQ and UO, their subscriber base is no where near what it was in their technological hay day. As new MMOs come out with better technology and have figured out Blizzard's formula, you'll see players start to dwindle away from WoW. Will WAR start to cut into Blizzard's subscriber base, I don't know, I don't think it will, but it could happen becaues WAR is using newer technology (remember, WoW is based on MMO technology started in 2001 and 2002 with updates here and there).

[Quark]

I guarantee there are going to be some ubercombos the moment the patch comes out that just can't be countered, because this many massive changes all at once can't be balanced at all yet.

More to the point, they're not really going to attempt to balance it at 70. Balance at 80 is the goal, and as pre-TBC showed being level 70 with talents for level 80 throws things off a bunch.

[Bun-Bun]

The decline is never sudden, it's slow as other MMOs bring new technology to the table. If you look at games like EQ and UO, their subscriber base is no where near what it was in their technological hay day. As new MMOs come out with better technology and have figured out Blizzard's formula, you'll see players start to dwindle away from WoW. Will WAR start to cut into Blizzard's subscriber base, I don't know, I don't think it will, but it could happen becaues WAR is using newer technology (remember, WoW is based on MMO technology started in 2001 and 2002 with updates here and there).

Let's assume a large 50% attrition rate per year. How many years does it take to cut the numbers from 10 million or so to where it's not economical to do an expansion? 6? 7? 8?

The conclusions you draw are based on extrapolating a very few data points to predict the course of a very-far-outlying data point. The course of WoW history is as likely emulate the Microsoft model as that of prior MMOs.

[Delc]

Isn't WoW still gaining subscriptions at this point? Talking about it coming to an end seems a bit far off still.

Also, they still release patches for D2 and starcraft, and neither of those has made them any money in years. They will keep releasing patches and new content for WoW as long as they can make money at it.

[Crusader]

You run a game for around five years, you can't expect it to be cheap. You've got to run servers, pay customer service reps, pay for marketing, etc etc. World of Warcraft's been running for four years now, so how much has the upkeep cost Blizzard?

$200 million. Or, at least that's what Blizzard disclosed during yesterday's analyst conference call.

That's it. Staff payroll, hardware support, customer service (which, interestingly, they say is their largest department), the lot. Well, mostly - we think they're just talking the upkeep costs, not the original development costs. Sure, in isolation $200 million is a lot of clams, but when you put $200 million in the "expenditures" column then put $300 gazillion in the "revenue" column, you're not just laughing all the way to the bank, you're cackling.

200 million? that's about a million subscribers. considering they're well over 10 million at the moment, it will be a long while before WoW becomes unprofitable.

If someone is good at financials, calculate it from this:
http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.c...104659-07-80748

[Lissa]

Let's assume a large 50% attrition rate per year. How many years does it take to cut the numbers from 10 million or so to where it's not economical to do an expansion? 6? 7? 8?

At 2 years per expansion, figure 4 to 5 expansions max as at that point WoW will be 10 years old (since release, getting close to 15 years since inception, even Microsoft doesn't plan to have an O/S around that long with XP being the exception).

The conclusions you draw are based on extrapolating a very few data points to predict the course of a very-far-outlying data point. The course of WoW history is as likely emulate the Microsoft model as that of prior MMOs.

We also haven't had a great deal of MMOs until the last 5 years. Right now we have UO, EQ 1, AC 1, and Lineage 1. Now, look at their subscribers at their heights compared to 5 to 6 years from release. All of said MMOs have dropped to about half the number of subscribers at the 5 to 6 year mark (remember, at one time Lineage 1 *was* the 800 pound Gorilla for world wide MMOs). If someone can produce a MMO with the winning formula WoW has with newer technology, I can see Blizzard losing market share. They'll lose it slower than the above listed MMOs, but they will lose it if someone can make a more compelling MMO.

WoW is right now at the 4 year mark, we'll see in the next 2 years how things pan out.

[RTM]

We'll see how things pan out with Warhammer Online, but my guess is that WoW won't lose a significant number of subscribers until Diablo 3 or another Blizzard MMO comes out. I haven't heard of anything on the horizon other than Warhammer that is supposed to pose a significant threat to WoW. Age of Conan was supposed to, and look how that turned out.

The "problem" is that you have millions of MMO players who have gotten used to the WoW way of doing things. For anything to come out and win over that crowd, it's going to have to basically copy & paste the WoW formula with fancier graphics. At which point a two things will probably happen:

1. It will be written off as a WoW clone (for good or bad)
2. Blizzard will upgrade the graphics engine of WoW

Even the successor to WoW will have this problem unless they do something completely different. World of Starcraft, maybe?

[Kevin]

We'll see how things pan out with Warhammer Online, but my guess is that WoW won't lose a significant number of subscribers until Diablo 3 or another Blizzard MMO comes out. I haven't heard of anything on the horizon other than Warhammer that is supposed to pose a significant threat to WoW. Age of Conan was supposed to, and look how that turned out.

The "problem" is that you have millions of MMO players who have gotten used to the WoW way of doing things. For anything to come out and win over that crowd, it's going to have to basically copy & paste the WoW formula with fancier graphics. At which point a two things will probably happen:

1. It will be written off as a WoW clone (for good or bad)
2. Blizzard will upgrade the graphics engine of WoW

Even the successor to WoW will have this problem unless they do something completely different. World of Starcraft, maybe?

There is a 3rd problem.

WoW has so many players because someone with a 3 year old comp (Athlon 64 3200, 6600GT video, 2 GB of ram) can play WoW just fine (which makes sense since WoW is a 4 year old game now). But that improved graphics engine that Warhammer has does not perform well at all on that system. And actually I'm not sure that processor is actually 3 years old and the video might not be either, though they are getting close enough.

If you don't have an 8800 + and something a few notches above that processor you won't really enjoy the Warhammer experience. And there are some features of it that I'm waiting to see how Blizzard steals because they are good.

It would have had a good chance of pulling me if it didn't perform as poorly as it does and most of of the graphics are wasted since I have to turn them off anyway. And WoW actually does a better job with keeping things feeling better as you turn off options. When you turn off options in Warhammer you'll see toons do animations that no longer make any sense because of the other effects you turned off and it actually caused some issues with play for me because I couldn't figure out what was going on.

But game play had some advantages over WoW. Though I have no clue about end game. Early PvP was more fun, even though it still had some issues that I would have liked to have seen addressed and some of the early PvE stuff was quite interesting. Public Quests were pretty fun. And it was obvious that Warhammer came out about 3/4 baked. They rushed it out, it needs around 6 - 12 months in my not so expert opinion but I can see how they couldn't afford that, and it plays at least as well as WoW did on launch. At least it didn't seem to have the database issues that WoW was plagued with.

If WoW launched today with the issues it had on initial launch it would have died. I wouldn't put up with the way it performed then. But it was the first MMO that I did anything other than beta test on too.

[Taelas]

Yes, the story lines have been tidied up.

No, they haven't.

The presence of the naga have not been properly explained; they are simply "there". They appear in WC3.

The biggest protagonist during WC3 has made exactly one appearance in WoW; Malfurion Stormrage. He is the direct link to the Emerald Dream.

[Lissa]

No, they haven't.

The presence of the naga have not been properly explained; they are simply "there". They appear in WC3.

The biggest protagonist during WC3 has made exactly one appearance in WoW; Malfurion Stormrage. He is the direct link to the Emerald Dream.

Again, all of the bad guys have been dealt with, thus closure for WC3. Queen Azshara was never amongst the antagonists, thus the only Naga that were being dealt with were those under Vashj's command. Vashj is dead, thus the storyline of the Naga is tied up.

The Emerald Dream was nothing more than waking the druids to help in the confrontation against the Legion. Again, there isn't anything in the dream that needs to be tied up. The things coming out of what happened to the dream *since* WC3 and WoW would make for a WC4 storyline.

The silithid, the corruption of the dream, the old gods, and the elemental lords present a number of potential antagonists for WC4.

[Mavfin]

If WoW launched today with the issues it had on initial launch it would have died. I wouldn't put up with the way it performed then. But it was the first MMO that I did anything other than beta test on too.

Well, a lot of WoW's issues on launch were directly tied to its popularity. How many game companies have sold their first year's estimated copies in a month or two? They played catchup with servers for most of the first year.

[Jester]

You misunderstand, this is the last expansion that they're going to sell in stores. Any further expansions will probably either be free for those that have bought the expansions up to this point or they will be purchased through Blizzard for a nominal fee for download (say $10 to $15 since there will be no need for packaging and middle men).
5 to 6 years is when the technology of a MMO really starts to show how long in the teeth it is. It also tends to be the time when you start to see a slow decline in subscribers as newer MMOs with better technology come out. Right now, there isn't much competition against WoW because no one has quite figured out Blizzard's formula. Likewise, SOE has proven that you can run multiple MMOs at once and still make a good amount of money.

You're talking in MMO generalities about a game that is ten times as successful as its nearest competitor. Whatever may be generally true about MMOs, you can be pretty sure WoW isn't typical.

-Jester

[Concillian]

You're talking in MMO generalities about a game that is ten times as successful as its nearest competitor. Whatever may be generally true about MMOs, you can be pretty sure WoW isn't typical.

-Jester

Yeah, charts like these kind of put things into perspective:
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart7.html
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart1.html

This is not your father's Oldsmobile.