The NEXT expansion

[Desparil]

Mate, FF14 has already been confirmed to have a larger number of subscribers at present than WoW, and BDO is currently soaring in popularity, WoW's "time" has passed, and at most, is likley going to have one final flicker before it withers and dies.
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Lol no such thing was confirmed ff14 had 5 mil subs overall and wow had 100 mil + of those after wrath.
Lets go wow is dead blahblahblah.

[oqtopus]

Snip

1. ffxiv doesnt have more active subs dont confuse accounts numbers with active subs

2. BDO isnt " soaring " anymore ,its actually going down already , initial hype is over people leaving for other games already ( big chance it will grow again but its no where near the initial launch hype )

if you really think that wow isnt number one even at one of its lowest points ( right now ) you are mistaken , and if you think it will die anytime soon you are even more wrong.

[CaptainV]

Theres a reason that Blizzard has stopped revealing its current number of active subscribers, because they know its bad publicity to admit they are loosing numbers, of course no doubt in my mind that once Warcrafts movie booms the populace back up they'll happily start counting an obligatory 11-15 million subs or something silly in order to make the game sound popular again plus Legions launch combining with that.

Now regarding FF14:

Ill admit my bad regarding the accounts vs subscribers point but it does however proove that other mmo's "are" growing to equal WoW's level when it comes to content, if you were to account most of the big name MMO's today, GW2, FF14, SWTOR, Wildstar, ESO and the Korean ones including BDO/BNS you would find the numbers are about on even if not more than WoW's current number of active players.

Ill admit that alone FF14 isnt the titan of industry, but together with the other proxy MMO's it does certainly give WoW something to be worried about. Also, regarding WoW dying:

WoW has already taken a massive blow of trust with its player base, the communtiy is fed up of being lied to and screwed over by Blizzards half-arsed promises and under-delivery which we can only see if Legion fixes that. As it stands from Legion feedback the reaction was "initally" positive but now people have been playing the alpha/beta for a while it seems their general opinion is "same as same as" which is worrying.

Legion feels like a bandaid just like MoP was to Cataclysm and that means it may stem the bleeding but it isnt going to necessarily "stop" it.

"If" Legion fails to do aswell as MoP and potentially does even more poorly than WoD, then Blizzard may just abbandon wow as a franchise because theres little point trying to continue making a product that isnt making the best profits or result for them.

Its also worth remembering WoW is a tired old dog, it is not the glory day alpha wolf that stomped on the competition it once was and as a result, its signs of age are starting to show even to the most dedicated players.

May once loved youtubers, machinema creators and general players who practically helped advertise for the game because of its popualrity and their love for it have moved on, the sign of the times is there and ignoring it is pointless.

Im not saying WoW will die a horrible death screaming in its bed, but it is dying, a slow death, the kind that a poisoned arrow afflicts you with over years of torment, leaving you an infected wound that over time festers and kills you.

Legion can at most, act as a strong anti-toxin hopefully taking most of that poison out and keeping WoW from suffering too heavily, but even that wont entirley stop the inevitable at this point, the "longevity" of the game is its greatest enemy now, not the launch.

Even if Legion has a successful launch, if it sucks post launch like WoD did, then its going to be a rapid collapse just like its predacessor, and that would genuinley be "the" end of blizzards interest in the franchise, at least on the level of care and productivity they are trying to maintain for it.

Given the Nova Ops DLC for Starcraft 2 is clearly an experiment in microsizing content for players, we can likley expect them to do something similar for WoW as a means of keeping players updated with new but smaller content.

Ive said it before and ill say it again, the "Next" expansion after Legion is more likley going to be a DLC, they have confirmed they are making content after Legion and have implied its going to be an expansion, but that "will" depend on Legions success rate and if it fails, then I suspect they will rethink their plans (dont forget, Overwatch was called Titan once, and Nova was going to get her own video game before she became a DLC campaign in starcraft 2, even HOTS was going to be part of SC2 at one point).

"Never" say blizzard doesnt change their minds because they are argueably one of "The" guiltiest companies for doing it.

Im not saying theres no hope, im saying, it depends STRONGLY on Legion's success or failure.

[Sentynel]

Seems like a 4 fork road to me.

1. Legion home world. Finally take the fight to them deal.

2. New Lich King goes nuts. Legion does something to him while they here again.

3. Old gods. Finally discover and kill the last few we know about. Planet is happy.

4. Titans for everyone. Everyone gets a Titan pet and builds a solo world in a MMO with bis gear delivered at purchase.

Gimme #4 !!!!! I'd play the crap out of it.

On topic: There is literally no safe bet as of now. Blizz can pull anything out of their asses. One thing is sure tho: the game will not go F2P for years.

[Kuja]

Old Gods expansion for WoW as well would be sweet. Though that would also be an apocalypse for Azeroth, so perhaps it would be too soon. Needs more fluffy things after a Legion invasion, like Pandas after Cataclysm.

[Dadukester]

"If" Legion fails to do aswell as MoP and potentially does even more poorly than WoD, then Blizzard may just abbandon wow as a franchise because theres little point trying to continue making a product that isnt making the best profits or result for them.

No..... I mean review wise, WoD wasn't the best, but from the sales of the expansion alone, lets say that at the peak of the 10.5 Million subscribers only 50% of them bought WoD (which is probably undercutting the actual number) and I think the game was $60, or was it $50? anyways, if it was $50 and only 5 mil bought it, thats still a quarter of a billion dollar from sales alone, not even counting the subscription fees they have been collecting from 5-10 mil subs over the past 2 years every single month. PLUS they get $20 bucks per wow token, so if people are using those to sub they make even MORE money. I mean, sure console games sell more copies, but WoW is still a money maker. With 5 mil subs they make 75 million a month, they aren't giving it up anytime soon. So, to you sir I say no.