Way to make a story out of nothing. Anyone who's actually followed WOW over the years knows Blizz says this all the time, about EVERYTHING. Nothing has changed, but feel free to read into this and freak out.
If your old enough or even not and recall the release of Diablo 2 .. it was very very late compared to when they said it would be releaased.. ie 2 years later.
Blizzard are a fantastic company and one I've been with for over 7 years now.. but its still a market .. Blizzard might be very sure of Cata but if they can postpone release to vs EA / Bioware they will.
If, by some coincidence (yeah, sure!), Cataclysm releases around the same time as SWTOR or Guild Wars 2, I may just buy my Collector's Edition and sit on it until I get tired of playing one of the other two. I've seen Blizzard's methods before and I'm pretty sure I don't like them.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Way to make a story out of nothing. Anyone who's actually followed WOW over the years knows Blizz says this all the time, about EVERYTHING. Nothing has changed, but feel free to read into this and freak out.
If your old enough or even not and recall the release of Diablo 2 .. it was very very late compared to when they said it would be releaased.. ie 2 years later.
Blizzard are a fantastic company and one I've been with for over 7 years now.. but its still a market .. Blizzard might be very sure of Cata but if they can postpone release to vs EA / Bioware they will.
Don't forget, though, when Blizzard was developing WoW, the Friends and Family testers acted like they had all the time in the world, going so far as to start saying on forums that they wished the game would never release so they could keep it to themselves. Vivendi gave Blizzard a lot of leeway, but then, one day out of the blue, they announce a release date. Even the pre-order pack was a hastily slopped-together piece of crap. I'm convinced that Vivendi kicked Bliz in the arse and demanded that they release. The attitude from Blizzard was not one of joy. They would have delayed release indefinitely if Vivendi had not crimped off the money pipeline.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
It would make sense for them to release around Christmas '10 or wait until right before or right after Star Wars comes out. It is a business after all.
It would make sense for them to release around Christmas '10 or wait until right before or right after Star Wars comes out. It is a business after all.
Lol computer freaked out and posted last comment blank.
There is no way in hell Blizzard will wait to release CATA for ToR.
First off, ToR is not coming out for a while despite what people think. Spring 2011 at the very earliest. You honestly think people can handle ICC for that long? Everyone I know is already sick of it big time. Oh and I am sure that prequel dragon raid they are adding in will be loads of fun for about 2 days.
Second, they would get crushed in sales if they released right before ToR. As much as the WoW fanboys want to think the game still dominates. I hate to break it to you. A lot of people are just waiting for the next big game. Not more of the same steadily declining content blizzard is pumping out.
I think there is more to this. I'm thinking they're trying to set it up to release a month or two before the other big titles releasing next year. Or waiting for betas so they can 'borrow' some ideas. Don't really matter, nothing to look forward to other then a new leveling experience that is still mindless the first time, fighting Rag again, Ony for a 3rd time, Nef again, doing more of the same instances, cash shop expands, etc, all for 40 bucks. But hey, at least the water effects look nice. If you haven't figured it out, I'm not picking up cataclysm, WOTLK was bad enough. I'm having more fun playing Hitman:BM and Fallout 3 again.
WoW will be coming to the end of its course shortly.
With the release of Final Fantasy 14 Fall/Holidays 2010 on top of GW2 and ToR sometime in 2011. They will not be able to compete with these big name companies coming out with brand new games with possiblilties of many innovations to the MMO genre.
These three big titles will suck up a large portion of players and a lot of them will be WoW players in addition to the many others searching for the next big MMO.
WoW will be coming to the end of its course shortly.
With the release of Final Fantasy 14 Fall/Holidays 2010 on top of GW2 and ToR sometime on 2011. They will not be able to compete with these big name companies coming out with brand new games with possiblilties of many innovations to the MMO genre.
These three big titles will suck up a large portion of players and a lot of them will be WoW players in addition to the many others searching for the next big MMO.
And where have we heard this before?... Several times in fact? Age of Conan was supposed to be a "WoW killer"... Warhammer on line was supposed to be a "WoW killer"... Notice what happened to both? GW2 does look like fun, but I seriously doubt its going to be a "WoW killer:. FFXIV? Oh please... If its anything like FFXI its fan base will have only a little over lap with WoW's.
The closest I can think of would be Rift, but thats at least a year and a half away(if not two years). Trion Worlds has major megcorp backing, which is why I give it any chance at all of pulling a good chunk of WoW's player base(that and both are fantasy). TOR also has major backing, but its space science fiction, which has some over lap with the WoW crowd, but not the direct appeal that Rift may have. Like it or not, at this point the only real threat to WoW is Blizzard itself.
WoW will be coming to the end of its course shortly.
With the release of Final Fantasy 14 Fall/Holidays 2010 on top of GW2 and ToR sometime on 2011. They will not be able to compete with these big name companies coming out with brand new games with possiblilties of many innovations to the MMO genre.
These three big titles will suck up a large portion of players and a lot of them will be WoW players in addition to the many others searching for the next big MMO.
And where have we heard this before?... Several times in fact? Age of Conan was supposed to be a "WoW killer"... Warhammer on line was supposed to be a "WoW killer"... Notice what happened to both? GW2 does look like fun, but I seriously doubt its going to be a "WoW killer:. FFXIV? Oh please... If its anything like FFXI its fan base will have only a little over lap with WoW's.
The closest I can think of would be Rift, but thats at least a year and a half away(if not two years). Trion Worlds has major megcorp backing, which is why I give it any chance at all of pulling a good chunk of WoW's player base(that and both are fantasy). TOR also has major backing, but its space science fiction, which has some over lap with the WoW crowd, but not the direct appeal that Rift may have. Like it or not, at this point the only real threat to WoW is Blizzard itself.
Lol your post made me laugh. Final fantasy 14 and GW2 are sequels/second games from companies that made successful MMOs already. ToR is putting how much money into the Star Wars IP?
Funcom has not made anything good for a long long time. And I never expected Warhammer to kill WoW what so ever.
The combination of these three big titles and the more than likely probabilty of their success will bring WoW down big time. I also do not believe I ever said "WoW killer" so refrain from quoting me as saying that.
Plus just a side note. WoW looks like garbage now a days. It has for years. Give me something that does not look out dated beyond belief.
WoW will be coming to the end of its course shortly.
With the release of Final Fantasy 14 Fall/Holidays 2010 on top of GW2 and ToR sometime on 2011. They will not be able to compete with these big name companies coming out with brand new games with possiblilties of many innovations to the MMO genre.
These three big titles will suck up a large portion of players and a lot of them will be WoW players in addition to the many others searching for the next big MMO.
And where have we heard this before?... Several times in fact? Age of Conan was supposed to be a "WoW killer"... Warhammer on line was supposed to be a "WoW killer"... Notice what happened to both? GW2 does look like fun, but I seriously doubt its going to be a "WoW killer:. FFXIV? Oh please... If its anything like FFXI its fan base will have only a little over lap with WoW's.
The closest I can think of would be Rift, but thats at least a year and a half away(if not two years). Trion Worlds has major megcorp backing, which is why I give it any chance at all of pulling a good chunk of WoW's player base(that and both are fantasy). TOR also has major backing, but its space science fiction, which has some over lap with the WoW crowd, but not the direct appeal that Rift may have. Like it or not, at this point the only real threat to WoW is Blizzard itself.
Lol your post made me laugh. Final fantasy 14 and GW2 are sequels/second games from companies that made successful MMOs already. ToR is putting how much money into the Star Wars IP?
Funcom has not made anything good for a long long time. And I never expected Warhammer to kill WoW what so ever.
The combination of these three big titles and the more than likely probabilty of their success will bring WoW down big time. I also do not believe I ever said "WoW killer" so refrain from quoting me as saying that.
Plus just a side note. WoW looks like garbage now a days. It has for years. Give me something that does not look out dated beyond belief.
Your response made me laugh as well. ^^ I didn't say that they wouldn't be successful(especially GW2 and TOR). What I did say is that I seriously doubt that they will be WoW killers. As for the phrase "WoW killer" thats typically used by those who expect some game or another to bring an end to WoW's reign of error. I didn't attribute it to you, its normal usage. Sorry for any misunderstanding.
The issue of WoW's graphics has been debated to death. Blizzard chose that style because it allows the game to run on a WIDE selection of existing hardware. They have never tried for any of the high end photo realistic looks that some of the current games use. I personally like WoW's art style, and prefer it over that of EQ2 or GW's... Simply personal taste <shrug> From what I understand there will be some graphics updates in Cat when it launches, but nothing that would move it into the high end hardware area.
Blizzard can launch whenever they want. Even a delay of another 10 months would hardly have an impact.
Look at China: no expansion in 3 years, players are still playing TBC and the company that operates WoW for them just made a new financial record.
Quote:
"William Ding, Chief Executive Officer and Director of NetEase, stated, "For the first quarter of 2010, total revenues from online games increased by approximately 50% year-over-year, primarily due to revenues generated from new games and the operation of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft(R)."
The longer the wait, the longer the queuing lines at the midnight launch.
Why? You tell me and we would all be very rich.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
After playing LOTRO on max settings casually for awhile, I logged into WoW for the first time in over a year to finish the whole battle.net merge process.
I was rubbing my eyes and squinting thought i was going blind the games graphics look so washed out.
The issue of WoW's graphics has been debated to death. Blizzard chose that style because it allows the game to run on a WIDE selection of existing hardware. They have never tried for any of the high end photo realistic looks that some of the current games use. I personally like WoW's art style, and prefer it over that of EQ2 or GW's.
I think WOW is still the best looking MMO out. The art style is unmatched IMO, and it's remained pleasing to my eyes for 5 years. Photo-realistic hyper detailed polys don't do anything for me.
I've been in every beta of WoW (original, tbc, and wotlk). I didn't do anything special. I'd say you have a good chance of getting in if you have opted in on the battlenet account.
You guys don't think, with the amount of money being spent on SWTOR, and GW2 coming out, that Blizzard would suddenly become dumb and not release cata as close to the release of either or both of those as they can?
They sure did with the xpac after WAR, what 3? or 4 weeks later? And the people that might have stuck around in war to wait for patches vanished back to the xpac of wow, crushing war for good.
Blizzard isn't stupid.
This is what I have been anticipating.... they have the next content patch on ptr right now so that will probably release in the next month then thats it. They will watch the trade show season really close to see what ideas they can pilfer and squeeze in and wait til the launch window. It could go either way as to whether they release cat a couple weeks before TOR or if they wait til launch.... knowing BioWare's track record with the quality of their releases I wouldn't count on waiting til after TOR releases. Are there issues with their games? Sure, as there are with every game released. BioWare however does have a track record of having their games in a far better shape than just about anyone else so if blizz waited they might shoot themselves in the foot, so I suspect they will try to steal some of the launch thunder by releasing a couple two or three weeks before TOR's launch.
I think the reason for the delay or possible delay is the guys over at Blizzard want to pack Cataclysm with as many of the features other games are promising as possible. Blizzard aren't stupid, hell they took features already in MMO's and perfected them. They now have the time, finance and expertise to take story or meaningful choices or all the many great things GW2 is promising and add them to WoW.
They must know they are looking at some serious competetion from The Old Republic, bioware have come out and said they aren't looking to re-invent the MMO but rather add story. So Blizzard have a well respected games company looking to produce a high quality MMO with Story and VO thats going to take what WoW does well and try and polish it and do it better. They aren't going to be offering some new advancement system or combat system that seemed good on paper but doesn't work when you play it. Or simply too complicated for more gamers to understand. And so Blizzard are likewise going to take the extra time to try and ensure that their game stands out and looks better than ToR or GW2. So rather than it being a choice between a dated WoW or GW2 or ToR, it will be a new reinvented WoW probably offering many of the options these games are releasing to the media.
At the same time this has to be a worry for EA, as others have mentioned they saw WAR destroyed by the WotLK expansion and it looks like Blizzard are going to do it to them again. We have to accept this is Biowares first move into the MMO market and its probably it wil have some balancing or MMO issues. I think the game will be as polished as an MMO out there, but I think if its your first shot you will over look details that will need fixing and patching in the first few weeks and months. After all all the beta testing in the world seldom tells you how paying customers are going to react. And by launching round the ToR launch date Blizzard may cause players to jump ship back to the tried and tested WoW. Rather than wait on the spawn timers to be reset cause people are queing for hours to get a quest complete or for mounts to be brought in cause people are just spending too long running across the landscape. Or all the other small things that can be over looked when its someones first MMO.
So I think Blizzard know exactly what they are doing, and in all probablity we will see ToR pushed back where EA just aren't willing to take the chance again. As for GW2 that has the advantage its free to play and so while it may suffer a little appeals to a different sort of gamer and not so threaterned by a subscription based behemoth.
I soo agree. WoW expansions are fun for a moment then BAMB; reality sets in and it is the same ol but different look more abilities and BAMB more nerfs. Example, Wotlk death knight (frost especially) was soo fun! At level 55 I got a port to Outland and sole elites in the furnance 1v1. At level 56 me and several dks (no higher than 59) ran the citadel and burning furnance with NO healer! Shortly after a few youtube vids and BAMB! Frost Nerf then Bamb dk nerf all around (especially the dk pets). In fairness the DK pets needed a Nerf just like Hunter pets.
Sounds more like a tease rather than a ploy to delay the expansion nearer another games release.
People who are happy to run the same crap over and over for Purple coloured things won't leave wow for any new game. Its what they enjoy. I personnally would like a MMO i could sit down and play after work and take my time to enjoy it, whether its the story, lore or gameplay.
I don't play wow and i haven't for years. Its boring and full of not so fun people. I would hate for a new game to be released and have all these not so fun, single minded people ruin it. I will keep my eye on SW:TOR for the time being and see how it progresses. Wow players can have their lava expansion "when it's ready" :P
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
As a poster above said, Blizzard will time this to co-incide with the release of either GW 2 or The old republic (Which ever is deemed the bigger threat). Its called clever marketing, if they were to try and be even more clever they would be timing it for 3 months after ToR.
The problem blizzard will face with this expansion is convincing people to come back, I have no doubt they will make it a fun leveling experience as they have with previous expansions and the vanilla game, BUT and heres the big thing. People will expect it to make wow new again, and it wont do this, wow is still a good game but it got old, atleast for me, they cant make it new again, that magic and sense of adventure is gone.
Just to add, to a debate that is spawning, "wow killer" will never happen, the only thing that will kill wow is wow its self, or wow 2.
What GW2, FF XIV, DCUO, and Most of all TOR will do however is diversify the market. I doubt we will ever again see the sort of sub numbers wow achieved at its peak, what we will see is more mmo players spread over more games and a market where 1million + is considered a raging success. The market will divide into 2 or 3 super mmos (wow as one and possibly ToR as another) and then under them will be lots of MMos that dont attract quite so huge numbers but still bring in enough people to survive.
Something from the left field here, Since EA and Activision are the two big Western houses entering the MMO Market, does anyone care to venture a guess or a thought as to who will be the next big developer/publisher partnership to enter the scene will be?
Ever since Blizzard announced the summer release date for SC 2 in the summer I have always though that the money men would put the WoW expansion launch at end of 2010 or start of 2011. Whichever one probably doesn't matter to them, but they would want about 6 months of sales for just SC 2, before risking sales to another product. This is Blizzard business model now, 2 releases a year at least 6 months separating them. Realistically, if people are sensible about WoW finally there is probably about a couple of months of fun to be had from Cataclysm, then I would hope most players would head to something new, and FF XIV would be one of those I'd bet.
Comments
If your old enough or even not and recall the release of Diablo 2 .. it was very very late compared to when they said it would be releaased.. ie 2 years later.
Blizzard are a fantastic company and one I've been with for over 7 years now.. but its still a market .. Blizzard might be very sure of Cata but if they can postpone release to vs EA / Bioware they will.
If, by some coincidence (yeah, sure!), Cataclysm releases around the same time as SWTOR or Guild Wars 2, I may just buy my Collector's Edition and sit on it until I get tired of playing one of the other two. I've seen Blizzard's methods before and I'm pretty sure I don't like them.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Don't forget, though, when Blizzard was developing WoW, the Friends and Family testers acted like they had all the time in the world, going so far as to start saying on forums that they wished the game would never release so they could keep it to themselves. Vivendi gave Blizzard a lot of leeway, but then, one day out of the blue, they announce a release date. Even the pre-order pack was a hastily slopped-together piece of crap. I'm convinced that Vivendi kicked Bliz in the arse and demanded that they release. The attitude from Blizzard was not one of joy. They would have delayed release indefinitely if Vivendi had not crimped off the money pipeline.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
Um, little off there. Blizz had "soon" long before NCSoft: http://www.wowwiki.com/Soon
NEWS FLASH! PAYING THE SUB IN F2P = NO DIFFERENCE THAN P2P GAMES!
Why the hell can't the whiners comprehend this?
Lol computer freaked out and posted last comment blank.
There is no way in hell Blizzard will wait to release CATA for ToR.
First off, ToR is not coming out for a while despite what people think. Spring 2011 at the very earliest. You honestly think people can handle ICC for that long? Everyone I know is already sick of it big time. Oh and I am sure that prequel dragon raid they are adding in will be loads of fun for about 2 days.
Second, they would get crushed in sales if they released right before ToR. As much as the WoW fanboys want to think the game still dominates. I hate to break it to you. A lot of people are just waiting for the next big game. Not more of the same steadily declining content blizzard is pumping out.
I think there is more to this. I'm thinking they're trying to set it up to release a month or two before the other big titles releasing next year. Or waiting for betas so they can 'borrow' some ideas. Don't really matter, nothing to look forward to other then a new leveling experience that is still mindless the first time, fighting Rag again, Ony for a 3rd time, Nef again, doing more of the same instances, cash shop expands, etc, all for 40 bucks. But hey, at least the water effects look nice. If you haven't figured it out, I'm not picking up cataclysm, WOTLK was bad enough. I'm having more fun playing Hitman:BM and Fallout 3 again.
WoW will be coming to the end of its course shortly.
With the release of Final Fantasy 14 Fall/Holidays 2010 on top of GW2 and ToR sometime in 2011. They will not be able to compete with these big name companies coming out with brand new games with possiblilties of many innovations to the MMO genre.
These three big titles will suck up a large portion of players and a lot of them will be WoW players in addition to the many others searching for the next big MMO.
And where have we heard this before?... Several times in fact? Age of Conan was supposed to be a "WoW killer"... Warhammer on line was supposed to be a "WoW killer"... Notice what happened to both? GW2 does look like fun, but I seriously doubt its going to be a "WoW killer:. FFXIV? Oh please... If its anything like FFXI its fan base will have only a little over lap with WoW's.
The closest I can think of would be Rift, but thats at least a year and a half away(if not two years). Trion Worlds has major megcorp backing, which is why I give it any chance at all of pulling a good chunk of WoW's player base(that and both are fantasy). TOR also has major backing, but its space science fiction, which has some over lap with the WoW crowd, but not the direct appeal that Rift may have. Like it or not, at this point the only real threat to WoW is Blizzard itself.
Lol your post made me laugh. Final fantasy 14 and GW2 are sequels/second games from companies that made successful MMOs already. ToR is putting how much money into the Star Wars IP?
Funcom has not made anything good for a long long time. And I never expected Warhammer to kill WoW what so ever.
The combination of these three big titles and the more than likely probabilty of their success will bring WoW down big time. I also do not believe I ever said "WoW killer" so refrain from quoting me as saying that.
Plus just a side note. WoW looks like garbage now a days. It has for years. Give me something that does not look out dated beyond belief.
to all the people leaving:
Don't let the door hit ya on the ass on your way out. Oh, and can I haz your stuff?
It sucks being a hardcore player at heart but a casual player in availability. ~NightCloak
Your response made me laugh as well. ^^ I didn't say that they wouldn't be successful(especially GW2 and TOR). What I did say is that I seriously doubt that they will be WoW killers. As for the phrase "WoW killer" thats typically used by those who expect some game or another to bring an end to WoW's reign of error. I didn't attribute it to you, its normal usage. Sorry for any misunderstanding.
The issue of WoW's graphics has been debated to death. Blizzard chose that style because it allows the game to run on a WIDE selection of existing hardware. They have never tried for any of the high end photo realistic looks that some of the current games use. I personally like WoW's art style, and prefer it over that of EQ2 or GW's... Simply personal taste <shrug> From what I understand there will be some graphics updates in Cat when it launches, but nothing that would move it into the high end hardware area.
Blizzard can launch whenever they want. Even a delay of another 10 months would hardly have an impact.
Look at China: no expansion in 3 years, players are still playing TBC and the company that operates WoW for them just made a new financial record.
Quote:
"William Ding, Chief Executive Officer and Director of NetEase, stated, "For the first quarter of 2010, total revenues from online games increased by approximately 50% year-over-year, primarily due to revenues generated from new games and the operation of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft(R)."
The longer the wait, the longer the queuing lines at the midnight launch.
Why? You tell me and we would all be very rich.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
Aion, Warhammer, etc etc already killed WOW. But apparently SW:TOR, GW2, and FF14 are gonna kill it even more!
Yeah, back to reality... I'll wait till those games are actually out and see how they are. I've learned my lesson, I don't buy into hype.
After playing LOTRO on max settings casually for awhile, I logged into WoW for the first time in over a year to finish the whole battle.net merge process.
I was rubbing my eyes and squinting thought i was going blind the games graphics look so washed out.
I think WOW is still the best looking MMO out. The art style is unmatched IMO, and it's remained pleasing to my eyes for 5 years. Photo-realistic hyper detailed polys don't do anything for me.
I bought those 2 games myself, and played them for a brief period of time, as I'd say they lack substance (Aion and Warhammer)
My feelings towards Cataclysm are somewhat mixed. Seeing as they intend to do very little improvements graphics wise is a big letdown for me.
I hope I get a shot to enter beta, though I prolly stand better chances at winning the lottery.
For the time being, I have a controversial MMO to play, but Id's say in some time it will only serve me as my secondary one.
In the end, I believe everyone expects a polished product and a pleasant come back from WoW
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
I've been in every beta of WoW (original, tbc, and wotlk). I didn't do anything special. I'd say you have a good chance of getting in if you have opted in on the battlenet account.
This is what I have been anticipating.... they have the next content patch on ptr right now so that will probably release in the next month then thats it. They will watch the trade show season really close to see what ideas they can pilfer and squeeze in and wait til the launch window. It could go either way as to whether they release cat a couple weeks before TOR or if they wait til launch.... knowing BioWare's track record with the quality of their releases I wouldn't count on waiting til after TOR releases. Are there issues with their games? Sure, as there are with every game released. BioWare however does have a track record of having their games in a far better shape than just about anyone else so if blizz waited they might shoot themselves in the foot, so I suspect they will try to steal some of the launch thunder by releasing a couple two or three weeks before TOR's launch.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
I think the reason for the delay or possible delay is the guys over at Blizzard want to pack Cataclysm with as many of the features other games are promising as possible. Blizzard aren't stupid, hell they took features already in MMO's and perfected them. They now have the time, finance and expertise to take story or meaningful choices or all the many great things GW2 is promising and add them to WoW.
They must know they are looking at some serious competetion from The Old Republic, bioware have come out and said they aren't looking to re-invent the MMO but rather add story. So Blizzard have a well respected games company looking to produce a high quality MMO with Story and VO thats going to take what WoW does well and try and polish it and do it better. They aren't going to be offering some new advancement system or combat system that seemed good on paper but doesn't work when you play it. Or simply too complicated for more gamers to understand. And so Blizzard are likewise going to take the extra time to try and ensure that their game stands out and looks better than ToR or GW2. So rather than it being a choice between a dated WoW or GW2 or ToR, it will be a new reinvented WoW probably offering many of the options these games are releasing to the media.
At the same time this has to be a worry for EA, as others have mentioned they saw WAR destroyed by the WotLK expansion and it looks like Blizzard are going to do it to them again. We have to accept this is Biowares first move into the MMO market and its probably it wil have some balancing or MMO issues. I think the game will be as polished as an MMO out there, but I think if its your first shot you will over look details that will need fixing and patching in the first few weeks and months. After all all the beta testing in the world seldom tells you how paying customers are going to react. And by launching round the ToR launch date Blizzard may cause players to jump ship back to the tried and tested WoW. Rather than wait on the spawn timers to be reset cause people are queing for hours to get a quest complete or for mounts to be brought in cause people are just spending too long running across the landscape. Or all the other small things that can be over looked when its someones first MMO.
So I think Blizzard know exactly what they are doing, and in all probablity we will see ToR pushed back where EA just aren't willing to take the chance again. As for GW2 that has the advantage its free to play and so while it may suffer a little appeals to a different sort of gamer and not so threaterned by a subscription based behemoth.
I soo agree. WoW expansions are fun for a moment then BAMB; reality sets in and it is the same ol but different look more abilities and BAMB more nerfs. Example, Wotlk death knight (frost especially) was soo fun! At level 55 I got a port to Outland and sole elites in the furnance 1v1. At level 56 me and several dks (no higher than 59) ran the citadel and burning furnance with NO healer! Shortly after a few youtube vids and BAMB! Frost Nerf then Bamb dk nerf all around (especially the dk pets). In fairness the DK pets needed a Nerf just like Hunter pets.
Bring back Vanilla WoW pvp
Sounds more like a tease rather than a ploy to delay the expansion nearer another games release.
People who are happy to run the same crap over and over for Purple coloured things won't leave wow for any new game. Its what they enjoy. I personnally would like a MMO i could sit down and play after work and take my time to enjoy it, whether its the story, lore or gameplay.
I don't play wow and i haven't for years. Its boring and full of not so fun people. I would hate for a new game to be released and have all these not so fun, single minded people ruin it. I will keep my eye on SW:TOR for the time being and see how it progresses. Wow players can have their lava expansion "when it's ready" :P
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As a poster above said, Blizzard will time this to co-incide with the release of either GW 2 or The old republic (Which ever is deemed the bigger threat). Its called clever marketing, if they were to try and be even more clever they would be timing it for 3 months after ToR.
The problem blizzard will face with this expansion is convincing people to come back, I have no doubt they will make it a fun leveling experience as they have with previous expansions and the vanilla game, BUT and heres the big thing. People will expect it to make wow new again, and it wont do this, wow is still a good game but it got old, atleast for me, they cant make it new again, that magic and sense of adventure is gone.
Just to add, to a debate that is spawning, "wow killer" will never happen, the only thing that will kill wow is wow its self, or wow 2.
What GW2, FF XIV, DCUO, and Most of all TOR will do however is diversify the market. I doubt we will ever again see the sort of sub numbers wow achieved at its peak, what we will see is more mmo players spread over more games and a market where 1million + is considered a raging success. The market will divide into 2 or 3 super mmos (wow as one and possibly ToR as another) and then under them will be lots of MMos that dont attract quite so huge numbers but still bring in enough people to survive.
Something from the left field here, Since EA and Activision are the two big Western houses entering the MMO Market, does anyone care to venture a guess or a thought as to who will be the next big developer/publisher partnership to enter the scene will be?
Ever since Blizzard announced the summer release date for SC 2 in the summer I have always though that the money men would put the WoW expansion launch at end of 2010 or start of 2011. Whichever one probably doesn't matter to them, but they would want about 6 months of sales for just SC 2, before risking sales to another product. This is Blizzard business model now, 2 releases a year at least 6 months separating them. Realistically, if people are sensible about WoW finally there is probably about a couple of months of fun to be had from Cataclysm, then I would hope most players would head to something new, and FF XIV would be one of those I'd bet.