The numbers don't lie... MMO gamers want World of Warcraft template games...

What has always confused me is why people think they can't make their own content in a theme park game. It's not like you're ONLY allowed to participate in the rides created by the developers.

Then again, that's what makes the RP servers so amazing to play on. We make our own events, our own fun, our own world PvP instead of sitting around and complaining about there not being any

see i can fix that you just put in mini theme parks and dungeons and raids but most of all you keep the content flowing events like dragons attacking citys thalmar advances yearly calendar events and so forth give them something to do and they will play

I still can't get past the first village, I think it is that boring. Obsidian is probably to blame, I can't get that amount of suck out of my mind to give it a chance.

try dead island i swear i have lost count of the amount of times my keborad and mouse has flew across the room and there was a brown mess in my pants, they literly come out of no where. the weapons you can make are good as well, and you can play with up to three other's on line or over LAN

You bean counters are so lacking in vision its not even funny. There was a whole heck of allot of things that happened that helped wow go be successful. Very little of it had to with the type of game. So for the noobs that think ti does ill try to explain. World of warcraft was a dream come true for a large warcraft fan base. Point two world warcrafts design made sense for that universe. Point three the whole swg mess happened just about the time wow needed to grow, so that helped out there numbers. Point four at the time wow did not have nearly as many contenders for large mmos like there is today. Take all these events away wow would have struggled.

Actually, the numbers tell that a bad game will always be a bad game.

There is some truth in what you say, but in a different way : "The players that want to play WOW.. are doing it already".

What is needed is actually a new game . And SWTOR proved that one new game can still make it, as long as it is actually good enough. It failed in everything it claimed it`ll do, but it DID sell 2.4m copies and DID have 1.7 mil subs.

This.

WoW's biggest selling point has always been it's IP.

If you would have said this three years ago I would agree, but lets look at the other facts, last quater wow lost 1.1 million subs in fact they have lost subs every quarter of last year expcept 1, they have had lay offs and thier stock has gone way down and Blizzard/Activision is for sale also.. Yes it was a huge game and still is, but the shine is wearing off for allot of people it seems.

The whole mmo genre has grown stale because to many games copy wow and there is no diverse game play, just copy an past from game to game, every game tries to put thier own spin on the game like TOR with the Story Telling.

MMo's today lack the feel of your toon living in the world, just feels like playing through it, untill some company comes up with a good Theme park\ sandbox hybrid, we are going to see new games that copy wow fall by the way side far to often.. Times and players have changed since wow launched, and the wow model is not cutting for allot of veteran mmo players.

I think the fact it was damn fun to play is it's biggest selling point. Unfortunately people become jaded over time but it's still the MMO people fall back too.

The trouble for MMO's that deviate from the WoW template now is many of todays MMO players grew up with WoW, therefore they expect/want a game that is familiar despite what they might say to the contrary. Those of us from earlier MMO's still remember when there was a different way. Unfortunately for us, and maybe some might say for the newer generation, not many companies will want to take risks particularly in the current financial climate. I think our best hope is for smaller, independent studios to innovate and give the genre the much needed kick up the *** it needs.

Pretty much true actually, and is indicative of the craziness that is the MMO community. Any given MMO player is sane and rational for the most part, but the collective community as a whole is freaking scooters.

However, the subscription side of WoW (not Asia pay to play, but Western subscriptions) have really bled out over the last year. They are down 2M subs in a sub base of ~5M. That's 40% attrition in one year for the god of all gods in the MMO market.

So there is a force shift in the market, mostly influenced by single player games and mobile gaming. People want actual MMOs less and less each year. Which is why Freemium is taking strong hold in MMOs (including Blizzards upcoming MMOs, which will not be sub based). It is a business model that can go toe to toe with mobile gaming and single player user economics viewpoints.