Comments on: What we might be playing after WoW

By: spinks

spinks — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:43:25 +0000

I am not yet convinced that non-sub games will actually work out cheaper for someone who is interested in competitive endgame (I don’t mean hardcore players, just wanting to do it without large disadvantage).

Guild Wars seems to be an outlier in that respect. And I haven’t seen any of the F2P games using their model.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:18:27 +0000

Meh. FFXIV looks like it might be interesting and do some cool things for MMO game design, but I’m still not ponying up for any subscription game. I wish them well, and hope that what changes they bring to the table wind up profitable, and I would actually enjoy playing with their mechanics… but not at that price.

I guess I’ll settle for being happy with innovation in game design.

By: Dblade

Dblade — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:15:00 +0000

Yeah FFXI was never known for its PvP at all, and it’s hard to see FFXIV following suit.

By: spinks

spinks — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:50:30 +0000

5 minutes of sympathy and about 3 years worth of subs And I’m not done with it yet.

I also think you can swear loyalty to a new brand without totally abandoning an old one. (I know I’ve stopped playing WoW for months at a time to do something else and come back to it later, for example.) And in some ways, a lot of these new games are also relying on brand loyalty to their predecessors to get some buzz out there. WoW did that too, by appealing to fans of Warcraft. Final Fantasy is a great example of this — part of their selling point is going to be to people who like Final Fantasy games.

By: spinks

spinks — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:45:06 +0000

The cool thing about the trailer to my mind is that the thing is actually in an alpha type playable state (or at least enough to make a demo showing actual play).

By: spinks

spinks — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:44:35 +0000

I’m not saying that any of these will be WoW-killers, that would be silly.

But for people who might be getting bored with WoW in the next year or so, there are some neat next gen fantasy MMOs on the way, from experienced teams, that will have something to offer.

By: spinks

spinks — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:42:51 +0000

That’s how it sounded from the interview. He said they might have some PvP but it would be more of a smallscale arena-type thing and optional.

By: Hudson

Hudson — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:48:51 +0000

There were so many trailers I didn’t know where to start.

I picked games that might appeal to a large audience.

By: Rem

Rem — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:57:45 +0000

Admittedly, I am extrapolating from my own history here, but, I think, the continued growth of WoW happens, in no negligible parts, thanks to those very “WoW-killers”. Those games do a great job in plumbing new corners of potential audience, luring people into MMOs with some special feature (like being based on a specific IP).

After a while, people may tire of that particular feature, or find other flaws impacting their experience. And then they hear of that big behemoth everyone and their pet is playing, give it a try, and, huh, it’s not that bad. And while zealots write rants about “WoW tourists” (it needs to be someone’s FAULT, after all, right? Someone needs to be GUILTY!), Blizzard adds another million to their subscription numbers, and another “killer” settles for mediocrity.

By: Shy

Shy — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:18:24 +0000

From this trailer you got more interested in FFXIV? o_O

He’s fighting overweight chicken on a mainly boring green background..

So yeah, while they might one day be interesting, that trailer did not do anything for me but say, “Uhm, no thanks”.