Then they'll patch in a progressively worse memory leak while trying to fix said memory leak.

Also, all armor wont actually work. :D

I don't think it's impossible that we'll see a success on WoW's scale again... though it may not happen for another decade, when that thing finally dies. But the number of gamers will only continue to swell in the future as markets expand and game-friendly demographics expand. In ME2, at the game store on the Citadel, one of the lines of the merchant is that their game has like a billion players. I don't think we'll ever get there, but eventually numbers will win.

The Secret World actually gets significantly better as it goes.

Ok, cool. I didn't play that far into The Savage Coast yet, I do like the higher tiers of skills, much more interesting mixes.
I still haven't done a pre-order as I want to wait to see what people think with a couple weeks of consecutive hands-on time.

I also think it is possible for an MMO to be bigger than WoW, it just needs to be multiplatform and most importantly.. not be "WoW + X" it would need to be something new. Maybe a really good F2P iphone/Android/PC/Console game with a world and systems that are workable on some level on ALL the devices.

But yeah, I guess the stigma of F2P is going away with games that are fair to end-users such and not Pay2Win games.

I wouldn't be shocked if soon after launch, Secret World has lots of clothing items for sale in Real Money, and things like inventory expansions, things that currently cost in-game currency that are cosmetic and ease-of-use, but there is a difference between letting players buy a HUGE inventory and giving players a too-small inventory and basically forcing them to buy a big space.

I could see SWTOR go F2P quite easily, as the way the Galaxy is divided up, it would be very easy to say "$2 to unlock Hoth" or sell storylines. In fact, I wish they would do $5 DLC stories, 3-4 hour long plot/decision intense missions that can be played over again.

He returns.

I missed him too.

It's clear to me the future lies heavily with F2P multiplayer titles like LoL, WoT and other upcoming titles.

subscription-based MMOs will disappear completely eventually.

I'm not convinced that sub-based MMOs are dead, but I'm pretty sure those following in the EQ-WoW mould are. As a big MMO fan who is happy to pay a sub, I haven't played a MMORPG worth bothering with past the first month, if at all, in years. I haven't seen a huge shift in people saying that they can't or won't pay a sub for a MMO. In fact, there are loads of people still saying that they'd prefer to pay a sub for a MMO they enjoyed.

Pretty much everyone who is interested in MMORPGs has played WoW. They've either got tired of it or are still playing it. In neither case are they going to be attracted to a game that is pretty much like WoW, but vastly deficient in a number of areas because it hasn't been going for over seven years.

Making a game like WoW is not the only way to make a MMORPG. Look at Ultima Online, a perfectly decent and successful model for a MMO that is in desperate need of someone taking it apart and updating for the modern market.

I agree WoW will likely end up a F2P, but this comment is a bit silly.

Ofc WoW is going to be slowly losing players, it's a 7 year old game. It's hardly comparative to show a 7 year MMO against the newest ones and claim its bleeding numbers like thats a problem.

WoW has made it's money back, likely many many times over. Many of the MMO's in the last few years have been fortunate to break even. Every other MMO above 1 million subs combined doesn't even come close to WoW.

WoW could afford to lose numbers on the rate it has been for another 5 years before it even becomes a issue to the bottom line.

It doesn't really need to stay in the public eye anymore, it's reached as much awareness as it will ever be, and unless Titan ends up being an MMO it'll still hang around for as long as they keep producing expansions.

I imagine WoW is only going to really die when Blizzard decide to stop the expansions and move onto the 'next big thing'. Whether that will repeat the WoW sucess I don't know, as I've said before, WoW had a number of factors that made it this successful, and some were timing based and aren't easily, if at all possible, to repeat.

Titan is an MMO.

Ah, I thought they had said Titan was an MMO before, but I wasn't 100% sure.

See, now given the IP's of Blizzard (I dunno if they have said it's a new IP or not and I'm lazy) I imagine they will want to create a new IP, not to leech right off the WoW players, but more pass the torch to a lot of them that are tired of WoW and looking for something fresh.

One of the issues I feel people have with new MMO's is they are often part of a community in WoW or somethign else, and unless you can move a vast chunk of that community, many return to WoW etc as they miss the people they talk to etc.

If Titan manages to pull off a big move of the WoW audience, allowing them to phase WoW out over a few years and start another successful run with Titan for 7+ years, they'll be laughing.

But it's incredibly tricky.

For years it was up against newer titles and still GROWING. Of course losing players at a significant rate is a problem.

None of that contradicts or even addresses what I said.

I was never disparaging WoW, so you can cool off on the defense. :) The point I was making was that the subscription model is looking more and more like a dinosaur. When even the 800-pound gorilla is looking weak, the market is in trouble. When Ultima Online, EQ and WoW were the new games, there was very little competition, and everyone was charging a subscription.

Now that $15 a month premium is looking like a harder and harder sell to an audience that has lots of other options.

Since "Titan" was brought up, I'll prognosticate: if Blizzard goes subscription on it, it will fail.

The solution to this problem is to transition WoW to a F2P model just before launching the new MMO. That way people can still play WoW and talk to their friends, but also pay the subscription fee of the new game. Even linking the two subscriptions together for the same price (let's call it a Battle.net subscription or something) would be better than trying to run both as a pay-to-play games individually, because as you said, WoW would cripple the next game. That is what happened to EQ2.

I was disagreeing the losses are significant though. Losing 1 million players in a year is the whole fan base of many of the competitors, it's not even a 10th of WoW's subs. It could still afford to lose players at that rate for some time, and giving a quick google shows me the trend seems to have slowed, you're assuming it's going to continue on that trend.

None of that contradicts or even addresses what I said.I'm not being defensive, I even agreed with your point that WoW may likely end up a F2P at the end of it's lifecycle, as it will draw a few last pennies out the fanchise as it dies.

I just don't believe the monthly sub will die, granted you provide a quality of game that keeps people engaged, even if it is just covering a grindtastic MMO. That type of content addition is what keeps people coming back, and it requires more money than I believe a F2P model will bring in.

I'm not saying F2P doesn't work, it does, but it doesn't provide the funds for huge support of a game like WoW.

I played EQ, and then WoW when it first came out and quit after 18 months when I tired of the grind and realised I could play 6 new games a year for the subs. The only MMO I've touched since was STO when it went F2P.

Sub models will work, providing the quality of the game. When WoW dies, if Titan doesn't pick it up, you're going to have 10 million players, even if onley half are looking for a new home, who will be wanting WoW level of content out of a game. F2P MMO's don't offer that, they all seem to suffer from lack of end game and continued frequent updates.

I'd say if Titan meets the requirements, it'll be a success as a sub model too.

Hell, I'll throw down if any MMO manages it when WoW dies it will suceed, that way you could not focus on grinding that axe for Blizzard. :)

I imagine this is something they will do.

Also, bnet has been working on including a lot of cross game friends functionality.

I wouldn't be surprised if WoW and Titan have a similar system set up.

Imagine your playing WoW and your friend bought Titan and is telling you how great it is etc...

They know WoW will die, but putting it on F2P and somehow passing over the sub players to your next 'big thing' is a good way to work around a few of the issues.

Other MMO's have a problem with breaking apart the WoW community. Before attempts seem to be focused more on making your game 'like WoW' which has proven not to be successful, or attracting new player bases, which has worked in some cases, but F2P seems to work the best as it attracts those people who don't want to pay a sub, but the problem is those pepople don't tend to stay overly long. Hence it has limited success.