The WOW vs. Guild Wars 2 Debate

[ILCDI]

Guild wars 2 is coming out in a few days and all I hear is, wow is dead or i'm quitting wow once guild wars 2 comes out. I think if you play either wow or will be playing guild wars 2, you will find this video to be quite informational and inspirational.

[Fetzie]

Every time a new games comes out people say that "WoW is officially dead". Care to guess which game is still going strong after half a dozen attempts to dethrone it and which games have floundered?

[Theotherone]

Every time this happens, a couple months later Mark Twain's words come to life: "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

[captanmurdoc]

lol i never made that connection theotherone, that fits so nicely

[Leucifer]

I'll be playing GW2, I'll freely admit.

But this idea of WoW being "dead"? lol
GW2 isn't going to kill WoW. The only thing that can kill WoW is Blizzard (though, they've been putting forth some effort at this over the past 9-10 months).

What GW2 will hopefully bring to the table is a true competitor. Blizzard has been resting on its laurels a bit and sitting fat and happy at the top of a heap of skeletons of its "opponents". With any luck, hopefully GW2 will spur Blizzard/Activision into realizing their cash cow (us) isn't untouchable, and that they need to step up their game.

If not.... then I fear the erosion will continue.

[Gregasaurous]

Saying Gw2 will kill wow is like saying Minecraft will kill WoW. IMO, GW2 is going to be a great way to kill some time between raid lockouts, but unless it's 100% amazing + a bag of skittles and maybe a prized pony to boot, it's not gonna have much fo an effect on WoW's subscriprion base.... unless MoP flops even worse than cata... which i don't think it will.
And I don't think that applies to raiders only either.

[Itrytotank]

GW2 = no endgame

[Leucifer]

GW2 = no endgame

..... because the "endgame" of WoW has been clearly awesome, right?

Btw, "endgame" is kind of "bullshit" when you have a new expansion coming out that.... extends game. Can you even DEFINE what is meant by "endgame"? I'm guessing not, as this term is commonly flung about to simply translate to "no WoW-style raids".

This guy gives a fair explanation, in my opinion: http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/krew...ock-mmo-world/

So.... all this QQ about "waaaaaah.... GW2 has no "endgame"..... please understand that there are other models and methods to doing things. Blizzard's way isn't the only way. It's just been the most successful to date, and the most copied..... largely because companies like EA are too f**kin' lazy to do anything inventive (Madden anyone?). And, amazingly enough, different people will want different things! *gasp*

I know. Tough concept. Apple itself, for all of its collective brilliance, continues to struggle with this concept.

It's not "better".... it's just something different. Frankly, WoW could use a little competition to make Blizzard step up its game.



(Another blog I read that I liked was this one http://www.darkademic.co.uk/blog?id=202)

[Bovinity]

What I meant to say was, I have vast and detailed opinions that I think are highly relevant to this topic, but I do not think that the topic itself warrants such in-depth discussion as would be required to fully express the breadth of what I would have to say. Yep.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

[Quinafoi]

Discussing the death of World of Warcraft is about as constructive as an autopsy on someone that dies at 115 years old. Even if you determine the cause of death is something like a heart attack, does it really matter when you basically outlived everyone else anyway?

None of World of Warcraft's competitors will see the amount of success of World of Warcraft in games and expansions sold, subscriber numbers, sales of game cards, sales of in game services and items, and overall life expectancy of the game. The genre as a whole has changed over its lifetime, and as a result future MMORPGs aren't very likely to see the same success simply because of the changes to the genre (naturally games going free to play aren't going to see billions in revenue from just subscriptions alone).

The game is about 8 years old and still the most successful. Even if something came along that surpassed it, it wouldn't reach the same peaks in success nor would it maintain that sucess for as long.

[Slyvar]

Every time a new games comes out people say that "WoW is officially dead". Care to guess which game is still going strong after half a dozen attempts to dethrone it and which games have floundered?

I think you make a mistake in assuming the intention of those games was to dethrone WoW. ArenaNet has clearly stated that they don't even consider themselves as competition to WoW and fully expect people to play both or stick with WoW. Yes, some of those other MMO's (Rift in particular) tried hard to steal some of WoW's thunder, but I don't think it was an attempt to dethrone WoW. It's the community that labels games as WoW-killers, not the developers themselves.

Will WoW die? No. Will I still enjoy GW2? Yes.

To each their own. Some people prefer one, some people prefer the other. Nothing wrong with that. Why does it even need to be a debate?

[Diridin]

The only thing likely to kill WoW is WoW, just take a look at Cataclysm. Thankfully MoP Beta has been very promising so far. Either way I will be playing both GW2 and WoW.

[Valaras]

Discussing the death of World of Warcraft is about as constructive as an autopsy on someone that dies at 115 years old. Even if you determine the cause of death is something like a heart attack, does it really matter when you basically outlived everyone else anyway?

Bad analogy, you'd actually be even more curious to see what actually managed to kill him at the end. :P

[Airowird]

Better analogy:

Discussing the death of World of Warcraft is about as constructive as predicting how a 115 year would die. Even if you determine the most likely cause of death is something like a heart attack, does it really matter as long as he's around for his/her family to enjoy in the mean time?

[Fetzie]

I think you make a mistake in assuming the intention of those games was to dethrone WoW. ArenaNet has clearly stated that they don't even consider themselves as competition to WoW and fully expect people to play both or stick with WoW. Yes, some of those other MMO's (Rift in particular) tried hard to steal some of WoW's thunder, but I don't think it was an attempt to dethrone WoW. It's the community that labels games as WoW-killers, not the developers themselves.

Will WoW die? No. Will I still enjoy GW2? Yes.

To each their own. Some people prefer one, some people prefer the other. Nothing wrong with that. Why does it even need to be a debate?

Was the "Come join the REAL Horde" advertising not explicit enough? RIFT was marketed as "the next WoW".

[Aggathon]

"You're not in Azeroth any more"

Edit: Rift aside, I agree 100% with everything else Slyvar said, btw.