Originally posted by Zorndorf

My reasoning is proven even mathematically and acccepted as a law within the economic markets. Just reread the theories behind it.

I'll say it one more time in human language: if you copy the market leader and play along the same lines the same game, you actually promote the market leader and fix his position.

Aion is not changing anything. It may even use better mechanics (which I doubt because a lot of now standard mechanics are simply not even present), but it will only confirm the present day market positions.

A few simple examples of the dozens of features Aion lacks? Blizzcon hype and marketing, Lore, Cult. the fact of being the best sold PC game of 2004,2005,2006,2007, 2008. The built up through years of record sales and fan base.

Lotro, Warhammer and AOC sold MORE extra copies of WotLK than Blizzard could promote.

Your mathematical arguments are grounded on baseless assumptions. You are mixing and twisting lots of concepts to fit your theory,while disregading many others events that happened to prove you wrong

the market laws reserve a 95% to the publicity impact. You can ill-copy the market leader and if your campaing is better you will come out on top with a worse product.

Features that Aion lacks?

same or even more can be said about NCSoft products in asia, and even in west by the hand of GW.

Maybe you should take a step backwards and realize we arent talking about Mythic nor Funcom here, we'r talking about NCSoft, a behemoth of Blizzard's size, with as many loyal followers, and as many resources.

Aion is based on a really highly successful asian anime saga, so the marketing and lore part are moot.To put it into perspective,imagine Aion is the "asian SW:ToR"

Remember that Blizzard built up their lore with WoW,while NCSoft dont need to,that process is already done to perfection.

Btw, what standard mechanic isnt present in Aion? honest question, with this one you got me really confused

Lotro, Warhammer and AOC sold MORE extra copies of WotLK than Blizzard could promote.

That is a baseless assumption that is shot down by the reality.

Lotro, Warhammer and AOC are western products. Their lifespawn was primordialy based in west.

WoW is stagnated in west, and has been since January 2008. 2m in EU, 2.5m in NA, take or give a couple 100k  for the standard deviation. All the growth that WoW has experienced lately came solely from asia, plenty of articles support this claim

Warhammer and AOC represented (admited by Blizzard) a small initial impact on WoW sales and subs. WAR even caused WotLK to come out less successfully than expected at first.

When those games failed by their own screwups, WoW raised back to normal ranges again.Had they not...who knows?

I think its unavoidable thinking that they would have represented a small blow to WoW, yet anyway they would stagnate in low numbers, 1-2m at best is my guess, maybe taking 500k subs each to WoW's share of the market.

One thing is true,what those games did for WoW is perpetuating the idea that WoW is the best product and its unkillable.

We should not understimate this,business, like everything in life, are strongly based in customer loyality,and faith in being getting the best for their money.

While that alone is a lot,no, they didnt represent an increase in WoW's sales, because that increase has not happened (in west, remember)

And had not happened that the 2 mainsteam MMOs direct competitors to WoW absolutly sucked, the current situation would be far different.

Its very easy talking about past events as if you predicted them and they fit in your theories,when:

a) you didnt

b) they dont

Blizzard admitted that WAR and AoC represented a small inital damage to WoW. Both games should have stayed in the oven at least 1 more year, in which case its safe to assume their retention rate would have been significantly bigger,and their potential growth respectable. Their producters took the wrong decition, and the sky fell over their heads.

1+1=2, but 1 apple + 1 orange =/= 2 apples. dont mix things that arent related at all, any of those games meant an increase to WoW but a decrease,this is a hard fact, and had they done as expected that decrease would be more significant by now.
 

And last but not least, we are forgetting about what i consider to be the most important factor here.

the spending power

1) Aion and WoW cost exactly the same. Everybody knows that Aion is, if not better,at least equal and more modern than WoW.

do you seriously think that people will pay exactly the same for an old-fashioned product when they all know there is a newer one in the market? really?

2) The most important. Asia

The spending power in asia is significantly lower than in west.The vast majority of players there cant (and wont) pay for several games, cybercafes wont double their pc stock or purchase double of accounts for very similar products.

Sooner or later they will start taking decitions. asia represents well over 60% of WoW's worldwide subscribtions and profits

and in asia....honestly...which one do you think the Audience will favour?

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Originally posted by Trenchgun
Quake was followed by a string of so-called "quake killers", which were always evolutionary clones trying to duplicate the original's success by duplicating it's foundations.
Quake's success was never duplicated by something that came along which was not simply a better version of quake, but also very new and different compared with what the original offered.

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So, that is why Unreal & Half-Life cloned Quake and succeeded....

Wrong, Unreal's single player was NOT a "quake killer", and Half-Life WAS the much awaited "quake killer" BECAUSE it did something totally new and different that no other FPS had really done well before - Cinematic real time storytelling, immersion, interactivity, clever game design that moved away from strait shooting towards puzzle elements and varied encounters with smart AI, etc. They took the FPS experience to an entirely new level that nobody else was willing to attempt. Some of the first publishers they shopped the game to actually laughed at their ambitious proposals.

Originally posted by Trenchgun

Quake was followed by a string of so-called "quake killers", which were always evolutionary clones trying to duplicate the original's success by duplicating it's foundations.

Quake's success was never duplicated by something that came along which was not simply a better version of quake, but also very new and different compared with what the original offered. 

WoW will ultimately be killed only when some MMO publishers have the courage to not only push the genre into new territory, but is willing to put enough resources behind it to get it done in a polished way.

No one MMO is going to "kill" wow.  Just like Everquest, it will probably go on for years and years.  However, over the next 2 years I believe it will no longer be the leader, as a large amount of people will spread out over the enormous amount of big name MMOS coming out such as Aion, SWTOR, Final Fantasy XIV, Heroes of Telara, Guild Wars 2, etc.

EQ has been dead for a long time.

Merely existing is not the same as being alive.

Originally posted by luckypotato

Lotro will eventually kill WoW as time passes by.. well.. not kill.. but take a majority of subs

Delusional much? If this will happen in the next three years, send me a PM and I will personally reward you $500.

You simply have to breach the equilibrium by NOT copying the same game.

 

 

 

And how was WOW new in everything they did?

They copied all the good parts from all mmo's back then, they even copied the whole ip from Workshop and see how that turned out for Blizzard,

Also the true real strenght of WOW is that it runs on every pile of poo with a keyboard stuck in it. Where as AOC and WAR requirements are way to steep to rake in millions and millions of subs

WOTLK made me buy WAR btw so it also works the other way round

WoW killed EQ by cloning it.

Every new game is being called a WoW clone before it's even made. This is getting ridiculous.

A few pre alpha shot of swtor on youtube got digged. And everyone on youtube and digg called swtor a WoW clone. Before we even know anything about the game. You can't blame the developer if something is a WoW clone before its even developed.

Everyone call WAR a WoW clone.  Yet I was able to level in WAR doing nothing but scenarios.  No quests at all.  Sorry - but that's not a WoW clone.  That's nothing like WoW.  You people need to lay off the WoW clone crack. 

Originally posted by GreenChaos

Every new game is being called a WoW clone before it's even made. This is getting ridiculous.

A few pre alpha shot of swtor on youtube got digged. And everyone on youtube and digg called swtor a WoW clone. Before we even know anything about the game. You can't blame the developer if something is a WoW clone before its even developed.

Everyone call WAR a WoW clone.  Yet I was able to level in WAR doing nothing but scenarios.  No quests at all.  Sorry - but that's not a WoW clone.  That's nothing like WoW.  You people need to lay off the WoW clone crack. 

 

 

While I think you are right that to many people are calling to many games a wow clones  It is getting out of hand as you said.  To go one step further many should just be classified as diku based mmos and not wow clones.  Not that there are no wow clones, but not as many as people often make out.

What I do disagree with you about is warhammer not being a wow clone.  So you can gain leveling experience in scenarios, that isn't enough to distinguish the game from wow.  It is strange that you bring up scenarios as a point of how warhammer isn't a clone when it is obvious that they are mutated copies of warcrafts battlegrounds in almost every aspect. 

There are a few innovations and twists on some concepts, but for the most part warhammer tries to play like some angry twin brother of warcraft with keeps slapped on top of it.  That is part of the reason is was received so poorly. 

When will people realize you can't kill games. The only person or entity that ruins a game is the game itself. There is no WoW killer because it just won't happen and can't. WoW is a global game for a reason, its easily accessible. The day you realize this, is the day you may start to enjoy games.

I completly agree that World of Warcraft was not the first MMO ever made by man. It has "perfected" raids and maybe crafting that's about as far as I will go with a game like that. The only reason I'm not going to go all out and make a list of why I don't really like World of Warcraft is because I play only Free MMORPG's...Except Guild Wars (I'm not saying it's a MMO, but that it's not free) I do find it amusing though when every time there is a game out everyone states that it is a "WoW Clone LolerSkates!11!!1!eleven1!!1" because honestly it shows fear that a free to play might have the ability to crush their idea of a perfect MMO in their mind. I will say that most people in fact don't act like that who play WoW (I know some people who are pretty mature about it) but it's just the population of bandwagoners that see's the ads and thinks it's the greatest game "evar" and supposedly has the right to dominate both pay to play and free to play, when in fact it is not. I honestly played it the first few months it was out and thouroughly enjoyed my experience but I will always give MMO's a chance and see that in fact, all MMO's are different in some way shape or form. Though World of Warcraft may have perfected the "raid" system, there will always be flaws in every game...like how WoW kinda dies after you beat the game. I mean unless you want to raid for about two years until the put some famous actor or singer to advertise and open the floodgates for more bandwagoners. Choose a game that fits you best and just play it! I mean the only reason everyone plays a MMO is to connect with other people or do what they love doing...not flame every game that's out and act like "One MMO Reighns And Pwns Joo All". I know me sitting here for five minutes will end up in the long last pages of this article or be food for some troll who thinks the internet is for drama since they had issues in Middle School and never let it go. I just feel relieved that I could post my opinion and someone actually read through this book. I might've left WarCraft, but I'll always be a Tauren on 'teh inside. xD

Tl;Dr : o_O I don't blame you. At all. xD

You say that Quake clones were effectively Quake but a little better.  In reality with the disasterous MMORPG market, companies are making WoW clones that are far worse than WoW.  The industry is devolving and I fear that the next decent MMORPG will be a game made by Blizzard.

Originally posted by Ephimero

WoW killed EQ by cloning it.

WoW was ultimately a completely different game to EQ because it was targeted at the casual gamer; it took everything people liked at the time about MMOs and filtered out anything that wasn't directly considered fun.  That was WoW's lasting contribution and every game since seeks that market with the method WoW pioneered.

I'm thinking WoW will kill the MMO genre actually. Alot of the WoW players are gaming nubs and only play WoW, and they have this stupid attraction to it. So when it finally goes out, they will probably stop gaming.....but thats just my contorted take on it. After all those brats that are all cool and started playing Guitar Hero cause they think its cool don't play anything else, usually. Poor comparison but still, I'm weird.

Originally posted by battleaxe22

Originally posted by luckypotato

Yes but you can kill counter strike source with combat arms.

Lotro will eventually kill WoW as time passes by.. well.. not kill.. but take a majority of subs

 

Lotro taking maj of wow's subs.  I'd like to have what you're smoking. :) 

Seconded. What the hell, Combat Arms is like the Big Rigs of the online shooters.

I guess I look at it this way. WoW was the first game really aimed at causal gamers. So it will always be big but it wont kill all MMOs. Think of it like this:

Blockbuster movies like The Dark Knight and Harry Potter and Spiderman are great movies and will appeal to the masses bringing in tons of money and hype. But they don't ususally win many awards or acclaim like The Hours, Crash, American Beauty, or Closer. And when you ask someone what their all time favorite movie is, it's usually, but not always, a non blockbuster film.

Nothing is going to kill WoW... eventually the hype will go down but it'll take a long time. Still there are many great MMOs that could be considered "award winning" depending on who you ask. As long as a game can keep themselves afloat and make a little profit then it's a success.

MMOs, like movies, could be put into two different categories.

Silly post yet again. Developers don't sit around saying to themselves how can we put Blizzard out of business. They sit around saying how can they make money at the same level as Blizzard does. So yeah games that are comparable at many levels are bound to come to the market the same way that a popular television series spawns similar ones and even spin offs.

How well they succeed or don't is purely up to them and the amount of work that they put into it to make the game fun for the people playing it. Simple copy cat products seldom thrive as what made the original fun tends to be require a fair amount of work and effort to achieve.

WoW will die when the people playing it get tired of it and when Blizzard no longer provides suffiecent new toys to keep the players happy and this is bound to happen at some point but considering that games such as EQ, DAoC and others continue to survive shows that they don't really need to keep everyone happy to the same level. Even if Blizzard stopped all development and just put the servers on maintenance to keep them up and running they would continue to have subscribers in large numbers for another year or two and still have significant numbers of players in 5 years.

Originally posted by luckypotato

Yes but you can kill counter strike source with combat arms.

Lotro will eventually kill WoW as time passes by.. well.. not kill.. but take a majority of subs

LOTRO is shit. Yea I said the S word and will probably be banned for it but thats the only word that I could find that can exactly describe what LOTRO is. LOTRO is not WoWs clone, its WoWs mini me.

fools you cant kill WoW EVER!!! its grown to much for human beings to handle its out of control, COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL

"Barbie's Super Slumber Party" will be the death of WoW.

No one game will ever kill wow.... it will die of old age and people will slowly start switching to other newer games thats what will most likely happen to wow. People expect a game to come along and steal 10 mil of wow subs not gonna happen.....

You're all kinda preaching to the choir, here.

You should take your incredibly useful ideas to some developer houses; you know, let them buy you dinner, propose your amazing project over some table-talk, and then give you a contract with your name printed at the bottom.

Originally posted by Electro057

I'm thinking WoW will kill the MMO genre actually. Alot of the WoW players are gaming nubs and only play WoW, and they have this stupid attraction to it. So when it finally goes out, they will probably stop gaming.....but thats just my contorted take on it. After all those brats that are all cool and started playing Guitar Hero cause they think its cool don't play anything else, usually. Poor comparison but still, I'm weird.

Yeah, because the mmo market has seen so many great releases over the last five years.  One has to wonder why people are not leaving in droves to go play those games...