World of Warcraft®

I keep hearing people talking about these two games saying they will take over WoW as the top MMO in the world. People keep saying things like "I'm only playing WoW till Guild Wars 2/SwtoR comes out". I'm really confused by this.

Why do people think these games are going to be so good? The Public Quest system looks cool in Guild Wars 2, and it brings a lot of nice graphics and things, but 5 abilities on an action bar is going to get VERY boring VERY fast. Also it looks like each zone has an instance and loading screen.. so not very open world which is a game killer for me. Also, the Graphics are too amazing. Most people don't have computers that can run this on high quality, forcing them to play on low quality or will make them unable to play it all.

SwtoR looks pretty cool and all, but from what I can see there is very limited PvP and PvE. It looks like a game catered to casuals and RPers which will be interesting, but from one of the interviews with the developers it seems like its going to be extremely linear.

TL:DR These games will probably fail, and you will all be back to WoW in no time.

I keep hearing people talking about these two games saying they will take over WoW as the top MMO in the world. People keep saying things like "I'm only playing WoW till Guild Wars 2/SwtoR comes out". I'm really confused by this.

It means they either are tired of the game but have nothing else to do currently(and this still confuses me), or they like WoW but anticipate GW 2 or Old Republic as something they want to try, and don't like playing more than one MMO at the same time.

05/23/2011 11:26 AMPosted by Kurkzern

SwtoR looks pretty cool and all, but from what I can see there is very limited PvP and PvE. It looks like a game catered to casuals and RPers which will be interesting, but from one of the interviews with the developers it seems like its going to be extremely linear.

I intend on playing it almost purely as a sequel to Knights of the Old Republic. Maybe the end-game will be good enough to stay with Old Republic in the long run, maybe not. I hope it will do well, but time will tell.

05/23/2011 11:26 AMPosted by Kurkzern

TL:DR These games will probably fail, and you will all be back to WoW in no time.

I think either game will be successful. Keep in mind having less subs than WoW does not mean it's a failure, so long as it makes a profit and keeps subscribers it's a success. Whether I or anyone else will be back to WoW can't be answered till the games actually come out.

I really like what Guild Wars 2 looks like it's trying to do. It's making a game more action-life, instead of slower paced. Also, I don't mind 5 buttons on a bar - while I have seriously slimmed down my UI via custom addons for tanking (so I can only see 7 buttons for cooldowns and just use hotkeys for the rest), some of the people I see have literally 60+ buttons on their bars. It's really unbelievable.

Also, Guild Wars 2 will be sub-free, which is nice. Means I can purchase it like any other game and play it when I want.

Seriously though, back to GW2's gameplay, it looks really really exciting. To me, it will be the "Team Fortress 2" of MMORPGs - quick, visceral combat that requires twitch movement and lots of skill. Also, with no tank-healer-dps setup, it means that my success is based purely on my own skill (or those I choose to play with), instead of relying on random baddies.


This is not to say that I think GW will be "better" than WoW. I think it will be different and different is enough for me to play a game.

heres a fact

no game will take wow on a large scale, they'll take chunks but they won't take the entire package.

05/23/2011 11:26 AMPosted by Kurkzern

5 abilities on an action bar is going to get VERY boring VERY fast

You will have 5 abilities tied to what you have in each hand, and can switch what you're holding in each hand between two sets previously defined by the player at any time. You'll have 5 more abilities that you can set up outside of combat.

I dislike having scores of buttons all over my screen in WoW. Giving players fifteen different abilities to use in combat - and being able to swap what those abilities are outside of combat - makes sense to me. It's a direction that other game developers are going in as well (FunCom's The Secret World will have 7 passives and 7 actives you can swap outside of combat)

05/23/2011 11:26 AMPosted by Kurkzern

Also it looks like each zone has an instance and loading screen.. so not very open world which is a game killer for me

I'm not too pleased about it either, but ultimately it doesn't seem like a big deal to me. (Not sure what you mean by 'open world' - it's still a persistent world that everybody shares.)

05/23/2011 11:26 AMPosted by Kurkzern

Also, the Graphics are too amazing. Most people don't have computers that can run this on high quality, forcing them to play on low quality or will make them unable to play it all.

ArenaNet has said that they're even trying to collect low-end computers to make sure they can run Guild Wars 2. Just because it looks nice doesn't necessarily mean it'll be prohibitive.

05/23/2011 11:26 AMPosted by Kurkzern

SwtoR looks pretty cool and all, but from what I can see there is very limited PvP and PvE.

Not sure what gave you that impression. Limited how?

heres a fact

no game will take wow on a large scale, they'll take chunks but they won't take the entire package.

That's certainly a prediction, but it's far from a fact.

Seriously though, back to GW2's gameplay, it looks really really exciting. To me, it will be the "Team Fortress 2" of MMORPGs - quick, visceral combat that requires twitch movement and lots of skill.

That does sound more appealing than much of the mmo pvp I'm familiar with so far. I have to wonder though whether it will actually be more fun than TF2.

05/23/2011 11:26 AMPosted by Kurkzern

TL:DR These games will probably fail, and you will all be back to WoW in no time.

I'm not sure how you define "fail", but as long as I'm having fun (in my case, it will be GW2), the game will be a success for me.

The open world events sound very interesting. Warhammer had public quests, and they were a lot of fun. GW2 seems to be expanding on them with world events having an effect on the persistent aspects of the world. I like that. Warhammer's public quests were bubble events ... they had no effect on anything outside of the bubble.

GW's crafting sounds a lot more engaging to me than what WoW offers now. Blizzard's professions seem, by design, to be a 2nd rate activity. I look forward to seeing GW2's crafting professions in action.

Maybe I'm just ready for a change, maybe Blizzard's healing/healer changes in Cata have bugged me more than I realize. But with each new class profession they post, the more interested I am. Warhammer's Engineer was a fun class to play, but GW2's Engineer looks that much more fun.

The old republic will sell a lot of copies initially just because it's star wars and it's bioware. Bioware has a great (deservedly) rep and gamers love the star wars universe. That's why everyone's so excited for it.

Wow's not going to drop more than half their subs though, and even at 5 million subs wow will be the biggest mmo for a long time.

That's certainly a prediction, but it's far from a fact.

its been a fact so far. taking a large playerbase from one game to another is similar to a cultural shift. many people in this game are to attached to what wow appears like. even i have a bit of attachments.

The old republic will sell a lot of copies initially just because it's star wars and it's bioware. Bioware has a great (deservedly) rep and gamers love the star wars universe. That's why everyone's so excited for it.

Wow's not going to drop more than half their subs though, and even at 5 million subs wow will be the biggest mmo for a long time.

ME2/DA2 quality says hi

The old republic will sell a lot of copies initially just because it's star wars and it's bioware. Bioware has a great (deservedly) rep and gamers love the star wars universe. That's why everyone's so excited for it.

Wow's not going to drop more than half their subs though, and even at 5 million subs wow will be the biggest mmo for a long time.

To put things into perspective, WoW currently has 5-6 million subs in the western market. The rest is in the Asian market, notably China. Personally, I don't care what goes on in the Asian market. I'm only interested in the European/American market. 5-6 million makes it look much less intimidating to take on than saying 11-12 million.

05/23/2011 12:59 PMPosted by Zasus

That's certainly a prediction, but it's far from a fact.

its been a fact so far. taking a large playerbase from one game to another is similar to a cultural shift. many people in this game are to attached to what wow appears like. even i have a bit of attachments.

Maybe you need to re-read what you wrote. You stated it in the future tense, not in the past tense. We don't know what will bring down WoW's subs by the time it relinquishes its seat as top western MMORPG.

Maybe you need to re-read what you wrote. You stated it in the future tense, not in the past tense. We don't know what will bring down WoW's subs by the time it relinquishes its seat as top western MMORPG.

i don't see how you read it as a future tense. anyway MMORPGs are never predictable, some even surprise you. as for "killers" i haven't seen any.

Maybe you need to re-read what you wrote. You stated it in the future tense, not in the past tense. We don't know what will bring down WoW's subs by the time it relinquishes its seat as top western MMORPG.

i don't see how you read it as a future tense. anyway MMORPGs are never predictable, some even surprise you. as for "killers" i haven't seen any.

no game will take wow on a large scale

Grammatically, 'will' designates a simple future action. http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/simplefuture.html

Maybe you need to re-read what you wrote. You stated it in the future tense, not in the past tense. We don't know what will bring down WoW's subs by the time it relinquishes its seat as top western MMORPG.

i don't see how you read it as a future tense. anyway MMORPGs are never predictable, some even surprise you. as for "killers" i haven't seen any.

"will take" = future tense

So are you saying you're not going to stand by your prediction now?

If by "killer" you mean a game that may take WoW's spot as the highest population MMORPG in the western market, then I think Guild Wars 2 is the strongest contender we've ever seen. If by "killer" you mean a game that would cause WoW to shut down completely, then I'd have to calmly point out how unreasonable a criteria that is.

"will take" = future tense

So are you saying you're not going to stand by your prediction now?

If by "killer" you mean a game that may take WoW's spot as the highest population MMORPG in the western market, then I think Guild Wars 2 is the strongest contender we've ever seen. If by "killer" you mean a game that would cause WoW to shut down completely, then I'd have to calmly point out how unreasonable a criteria that is.

firstly, i never made a prediction. secondly i made a mistake by typing "will". and as i interpretative it "killer" would mean to take the number one spot in "this" industry. after watching the pvp segment of the video about guild wars 2, i really wonder if pvp and pve separation will be similar to guild wars 1. if its so then i highly doubt that(and thats my prediction).

guild wars 1 had a great system, it wasn't balanced but it was hella fun. the separation between pve and pvp however made it a catastrophic(in my opinion). you praise guild wars 2 and you have too much hype for a game yet released.

"will take" = future tense

So are you saying you're not going to stand by your prediction now?

If by "killer" you mean a game that may take WoW's spot as the highest population MMORPG in the western market, then I think Guild Wars 2 is the strongest contender we've ever seen. If by "killer" you mean a game that would cause WoW to shut down completely, then I'd have to calmly point out how unreasonable a criteria that is.

firstly, i never made a prediction. secondly i made a mistake by typing "will". and as i interpretative it "killer" would mean to take the number one spot in "this" industry. after watching the pvp segment of the video about guild wars 2, i really wonder if pvp and pve separation will be similar to guild wars 1. if its so then i highly doubt that(and thats my prediction).

guild wars 1 had a great system, it wasn't balanced but it was hella fun. the separation between pve and pvp however made it a catastrophic(in my opinion). you praise guild wars 2 and you have too much hype for a game yet released.

I'm pretty incredulous that you wrote that line in the future tense on accident. You "mistakenly" typed "will" three times (once in the contraction "they'll," and once in the contraction "won't"). In the past tense, your statement reads: "No game has taken WoW on a large scale. They've taken chunks but they haven't taken the entire package." This is something no one is disputing, and is something very random and unrelated to add to the current discussion.

Can you clarify what you mean by "this industry"?

I don't know what kind of PvE and PvP separation GW1 has. I do know that there won't be anything like resilience to distinguish PvP gear from PvE gear. Do you think separating the two is a good or a bad thing? If you think it's a bad thing, I'm curious as to why you think that.

Whether or not my expectations for GW2 are too high has yet to be determined. (So, just so we're keeping track, your saying my hype is too high is another prediction.) I'm by nature a rather skeptical individual, but I have rather specific and significant differences between GW2 and WoW that I can point to as justification for my expectations.

I plan on trying SWTOR. I'm a big fan of Bioware games and Star Wars. Even if the end-game is lacking, then I will get my money's worth through the adventure alone. The adventure of working on your character and leveling up will most likely be like their other Bioware RPG's, except i'll be able to play with my friends. Being able to have group dialogue and group experiences in a Bioware game is enough to warrant an initial purchase. If the end-game is a flop then I can very easily leave, but I have faith the initial cost will be worth it.

I plan on trying SWTOR. I'm a big fan of Bioware games and Star Wars. Even if the end-game is lacking, then I will get my money's worth through the adventure alone. The adventure of working on your character and leveling up will most likely be like their other RPG's, except i'll be able to play with my friends. Being able to have group dialogue and group experiences in a Bioware game is enough to warrant an initial purchase. If the end-game is a flop then I can very easily leave, but I have faith the initial cost will be worth it.

I've heard that SW:TOR's idea of "endgame" will basically be "reroll a new character." However, that could just be a rumor I picked up. Does anyone have any info regarding Bioware's endgame philosophy?

"We're looking at classic [endgame] systems, but we're also doing something brand new that hasn't been done in an MMO before."

http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/flashpoints

Can you clarify what you mean by "this industry"?

I don't know what kind of PvE and PvP separation GW1 has. I do know that there won't be anything like resilience to distinguish PvP gear from PvE gear. Do you think separating the two is a good or a bad thing? If you think it's a bad thing, I'm curious as to why you think that.

MMO gaming market.

Guild Wars 1 had separations between the PVE players and the PVP players. i could make a PvP character just to pvp, but i couldn't pve with that character. and i couldn't make a PvE character to PvP on the same level as my PvP character(i could participate in battlegrounds like a pvp character though, but it was only with the other pve player-base). in short "I" didnt like it the fact that i wanted to pvp and pve(competitive and non) on one character was restricted really irritated me and if they continue that in GW2 then i wouldn't take a consideration. take in mind that i only played guild wars 1 for about 2 months and thats how i justified it, i liked it's gameplay but it that barrier stood in the way.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/874061-SWTOR-information-gathered-thus-far-from-various-sources

This is a pretty good place to start if you're interested in SWTOR. Lots of compiled information, quotes, etc..

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=188836

Here is another good resource.