timeline for wow. How long can it go on for? 2015? 2020?

[ozreece]

How much more is there to be done in terms of Lore and exploration.

Obviously Cataclysm will use up 2 years so that makes it 2012. What comes after that? Southrend? Emerald Dream?
Do the Naaru take the fight to Sargeras? More Old Gods making an appearance from somewhere?
Will players crack level 100? Will there be a wow killer soon? No one else seems to have the resources to compete on the scale of WOW, it seems.
Will Blizzards new but yet to be announced game cause a mass exodus that will deplete numbers? Or will it be an entirely separate genre?
In terms of a market cycle, WOW is still a cash cow but that can only go on for so long. They will need a new game to excite people. Or will they? Is the only Blizzard competition Blizzard itself?

[xebtria]

wow will end when some fricking meteor crashes the earth. like back in the days with the dinosaurs.

[Deleted]

Wow won´t die untill the market is gone. As long as there is enough players they will keep on giving more content in patches or expanisions. So to make wow go away we need a new better mmorpg which can take over wow.

[sleekit]

to be totally honest i see SW:TOR as the first really serious contender.

i dont actually think Blizzard have the stomach for taking WoW as far as say Everquest went (and still goes)

i had the idea the other night they may make Battle.net subscription based and just leave WoW behind as free to play (within the Battle.net subscription) at some point.

[whiskyus]

believe me, 5 years later we will go to the Mars... ;D in WOW

[Herecius]

Eventually we'll be left to only minor patches, as they'll stop making expansions. But WoW will remain active as long as the playerbase is active, I couldn't imagine them shutting down all the servers as long as people kept playing. Merging servers as the playerbase begins to decline? Yes, but not shutting them down.

[FrOsTSh0cK]

to be totally honest i see SW:TOR as the first really serious contender.

i dont actually think Blizzard have the stomach for taking WoW as far as say Everquest went (and still goes)

i had the idea the other night they may make Battle.net subscription based and just leave WoW behind as free to play (within the Battle.net subscription) at some point.

Every game was a serious contenter :. And i think WoW will easily overtake Everquest. The thing im most worried about it how far are they going to carry the story out for? Im guessing when WoW has lost lots of subs, they recycle alot of the content as to not screw with the lore. But that could just be wishful thinking xD. I like your idea within WoW eventualy becoming free to play although i doubt Battle.Net will ever require a sub, its there own mini-steam.

And to the OP, Ultima Online is still going, so i expect WoW to be out there for a very (comicly large amount of very's) long time.

[mackmustard]

WoW will be around for a long time still. It's at it's peak atm customer wise, so no reason to shut off the cash cow anytime soon.

I'd say we have at LEAST 3-4 expansions to go. Wouldn't be surprised if it ended up to be 6+ more though. Look at games like Ultima Online, which after 12 years still are getting new content every year or so.

[cubby]

to be totally honest i see SW:TOR as the first really serious contender.

i dont actually think Blizzard have the stomach for taking WoW as far as say Everquest went (and still goes)

i had the idea the other night they may make Battle.net subscription based and just leave WoW behind as free to play (within the Battle.net subscription) at some point.

The problem with is that Blizz can take it as far as it will generate a profit for them - even if it's far beyond what they initially expected.

Imo WoW will go till the lvl cap of 100 then stop. By that time Blizz's next gen mmo will be out, and it will pick up where WoW leaves off.

[Eldara]

I think , that when Diablo 3 hits the market WoW will be something minor and many of us will play it . You may say its not true , but i see it before .

[Phenetix]

WoW is a roach. Even if we think it's going to die, it won't :-\

[sleekit]

its true Eldara that Blizzard may chip away at WoW via its own products yes (my best mate in game came to WoW through Diablo II for example and will probably be off come Diablo III) in addition to that i also believe its true that you can't seriously play two MMOs at the same time so their next gen MMO may also chip away but understand this: they will only ever be chips.

the reason WoW is the behemoth that it is is not because it connected to 'MMO players', or 'Classic' Warcraft fans or even 'Gamers' but because it went beyond that and became a 'breakthrough' game attacting in 'the everyman' who previously was not part of the aforementioned groups.

i am well aware FrOsTSh0cK that other people have labelled other games as 'serious contenders' but the fact is they never were because those games never held the potential to become a 'breakthrough' game like WoW did.

SW:TOR does.

it has an IP that is almost universally recognized (Star Wars), has great 'lore', well defined factions and extremely well received predecessor game (KOTOR) is being created by two of the worlds greatest games companys (Bioware and LucasArts) and has the full backing of Lucas family of companys.

it also, just like WoW, is being created with cartoon like stylized graphics which will not date as a result and will run on an 'everymans' system and will be the first fully voiced (and acted ofc) MMO the effect of which will be much like being in an 3D interactive Star Wars cartoon when played.

to dismiss that offhand is not smart because no previous MMO in WoWs lifetime thus far has come close to the 'breakthrough' potential this game has.

oh and before anyone attacks me for this reasoned opinion i would just like to point out that i'm not a fanboy of the game and have no intention of ever buying or playing it.




there seems to be talk of WoW at the current time being handled by the 'B' team and i get the feeling the company, although enjoying the cash wants to do other things.

there is also the fact that many 'Classic' Warcraft fans may leave the game as the lore becomes more and more diluted and divergent from what they recognise as 'Classic' Warcraft and that the 'MMO players' may well move away from a game which is going to be made even easier looking for a fresh challanges (and i'm not necessarily talking about SW:TOR when i say that btw)

that leaves a game built around 'Gamers' and 'the everyman' both of whom are rather fickle as far as their loyalty to products and for that matter fads goes (and yes i believe within certain circles WoW is a fad at the moment)

EverQuest has lasted 10 years mostly because those still playing it are basically the core group of hardcore fans.

ask yourself this simple question: do you think the vast majority of the people playing this game are hardcore enough to be playing essentially the same game in 6 years time ?

i don't.

at that point WoW will probably still exist but for all intended purposes it will just be ticking over as an adjunct to Battle.net

[Dorque]

I don't think WoW will make it to 2015 (maybe the servers will still be up but the population will be way down). I'd like to see Blizzard take it to the level it needs to be at for a serious run for that long, but I doubt it will happen. They'll move on to bigger and better things... unless this new MMO they're designing is World of Warcraft 2.

[Grozz]

imho we'll have 3 more expansions - that would be Cataclysm(85), than Emerald Dream(90) and at last Burning Legion (100) ... After that I think WoW will stop producing new content ... We should than have Warcraft 4, that would end up the story of Azeroth. So my bet is, that last expansion will hit in 2013 !!

[Dannyd534]

sigh...the world is gunna end in 2012 DUHHHH
;D

[Tweep]

It will probably last another 5-7 years till we kill good ole Sargeras himself

And then we get to engage the hardmode...

[mypally]

sigh...the world is gunna end in 2012 DUHHHH
;D

this is the easy answer

but in the end, it will continue to get new patches and new expansions as long as it turns a profit, and I see it turning a profit for at least another 5 years.

Hell, i play aion, one of the 20 supposed "wow killers" and still keep my wow account active, ive spent more time leveling toons in wow then i have aion....

[zalz]

WoW isn't going to die any time soon.

Just look at everquest, that's still going and it never was as big as WoW. So if out of all the WoW players that there currently are (11+ million, it's the only statistic we can go by, so don't QQ about "personal experiences") playing, if the same % can be considered hardcore fan then the game will remain profitable for a good time to come.

Sure sooner or later WoW player numbers will begin to dwindle but even then that doesn't mean it will die. Die implies that it is no longer profitable and will thus be killed. As long as Blizzard is making a profit that they consider worthwhile off WoW then they will continue to run it, that's the essence of business. I think it's ridiculous to say that Blizzard would turn off the game, preventing paying customers from playing a game that they want to play.

Look at most of the MMO's out there, WAR is still online with less then 300.000 players.

If you think it's stupid to say that WoW will have 20 million players in let's say 2015, then you must also agree that it's just as retarded to say that WoW's numbers would plumet to under 300.000 by that time.

WoW might not be as alive as it is today in the future, but i doubt it will drop to such numbers that it is no longer profitable any time soon.

[Daginni]

There hasn't been a "WoW Killer" yet, there may never be one, stop looking and just play the game, or settle for a lesser MMO that suits your interests.

If you are tired of WoW, go ahead and quit the game, play a FFS, read a book, go outside, join the Navy, go to college, go crazy. Just don't make another "WoW Killer Thread".

[Imbashiethz]

Wow losing some of it's populating will be a good thing! The casuals will cba to play it anymore because of some other MMO and the hardcore people will be left, and the obvious thing then is to make the game like it was pretbc! Remove badges, free epics and that noobshit. Wow will be great again.