Massively

I think I'm throwing in the towel with Warcraft. I was chugging along on an alt the other day, and I realized that I had wasted over 1200 hours of my life on this game. Doing the same things. Over, and over. I go to work and do the same things over and over for 10 hours a day... why am I doing it at home, on my own free time!?

The only objectives in WoW seem to be to look the coolest, do the most crap over and over, and be the biggest dick about it. I'll be damned if I spend another 4 hours in Naxx, mindlessly killing mobs to get gear that only drops from a few bosses, only to down said bosses and get nothing. Great. I just wasted 4 hours standing around listening to some self-centric asshole talk on Vent about an impending encounter as if we were going up against terrorists in some Iraqi town, and be a dick about it because he's a whiny loser in RL and this is his only chance to boss people around. I'm tired of being called a n00b or a loser because I don't spend every waking hour farming gold to get an epic flyer. I like flying at 60% speed at level 80, thanks.

I'm going back to games that reward skill, as opposed to games like WoW that reward time investment.

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People keep talking about wow like its getting bigger and bigger - the truth is - these new players are joining new servers and you'll never see them. New players won't fix the crippling tank/healer shortage (most death knights apparently want to dps, and paladins just want to dps these days).

Game feels about as big or small as it always has been since I've played it.

Lately too - the game seems somewhat poorly tuned as far as pvp and the boss encounters.

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I think spending 1200 hours in a MMORPG is a lot more interactive then spending that time watching TV. Entertainment takes many forms and really if you boil it all down is the same thing over and over. Just different shows with different characters with the same problems as in that other show.

If you enjoy something do it be it watching TV or playing Wow. If you don't enjoy it go find something else to do.

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Who knows for how much longer WOW will continue to grow, but I would expect that we won't see it plateau yet this year.

There are a host of reasons (some even admittedly attributable to luck) as why this particular MMO was initially successful. Yet, had this formula no longevity, surely its player base would've dropped off in late-05, or in 06, 07, or 08. The mere fact that it hasn't, means that there is something inherently captivating in its mix. - something that holds the vast majority of its players' interests for durations that other games almost never do. In fact, WOW's most staggering accomplishment is not so much that it has garnered 11.5 million active subscriptions (Lord knows how many game sales that has equated to), but that it has done this 4+ years after its initial lauch. That achievement does not at all discount the importance of its two expansions TBC and WOTLK (which only serve mutiply the impressive sales figures guessed at above). As any player might tell you, these are simply ravenously desired continuations of what they are already enjoying. Moreover, given the critcal success and continued refinement of the game, through these expansions (and to a lesser extent, the regular patches), fans have come to expect not just more, but better experiences each time new content is released.

For every post like the one above, be-moaning some quibble, that they have with the game... a quibble that is compelling enough for the poster to cancel their subscription (assuming they actually go through with it), Blizzard has managed to replace them many times over. In no way is there the slightest of signs that instances, like these, suggest a downturn in the volume of subscriptions.

Similarly, the other contention that the success of WOTLK will be short lived, simply because its current sales and subscription increases are attributable mostly to old players returning to the game, after having previously canceled their subscriptions, also seems to ignore all data published to date. While, there may be some of this going on, had so many players left the game, certainly subscription's figures would have taken a noticible dip or would have shown a more conclsive plateau. For the charts to read as they do, a million +/- players (recent WOW gains over the last 3 months) would've had to stop subscribing, while being replaced by almost double that number. This simply doesn't stand to reason.

I also doubt that any other MMO competition (including Blizzard's own rumored next MMO) will be poised to usurp a noticible amount Blizzard's WOW momentum within the next 2+ years (factoring in time for the titles to hit the public and time for them to accrue popularity).

In truth Blizzard's biggest, near term, competition is likely themselves. Is their formula one that they can keep alive - can they continue to hold players interest and happiness the way they have over the past 4 years? Can they continue to reach new markets that haven't yet become hooked on the game? Time will tell.

I will say this however, should Blizzard find another way to enter the focus of the mainstream, you can count on WOW becoming vastly more popular - i.e. what would a WOW based, massively successful, major motion picture do for current subscription numbers?

At any rate, certainly there is potential for a few missteps or even a severe one, that could halt the game's growing popularty, but Blizzard hasn't made them yet.

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