There is nothing for perfectionist-style players. That’s the player group I fall under. We’re the kind of people who have to play our class perfectly or we’re not having fun. Being a solo-intensive game, I rarely got an opportunity to fully use my class (60 rogue). Soloing I can’t use my stealth because I have no tank or because the mob is just dead too quickly. Now that I’m doing MC and that jazz, it feel it’s even more constricting to the already choked gameplay. Classes have a cut and paste role which is generally mind-numbingly boring. Ok rogues, focus on the marked guard John is tanking, priests focus heals on me I’ll hold him, mages AoE here…. boring.

The final thing that crushes it compared to other games is how loot is done. Grinding to 60 I could do Maraudon 5 times max and have every single good drop, but some people have to do UD strat over 20 times just for their pants to finally drop. It’s frustrating to run the same boring instances over and over for a 10% drop.

And that’s my take on what the fanboys consider their life’s meaning.

The numbers to me are dubious. “Subscribers” in asian markets seem to be counted as “anyone who played at an internet cafe and may come back and play tomorrow”.

I think Subscribers are counted by the ammount of active accounts. You have to register an account to play, so its fairly easy to count the number of subscribers.

Now WoW isnt the end-all of MMO’s. Eventually, a better game will come along. And already you can see there are different type MMOs still holding their own, like EVE Online. WoW is not the master in anything. This is what I hear from people in my WoW guild, some of whom have played basically every MMO there is. It doesnt have the elaborate crafting of SWG, or the expansive PvE experience of EQ. It doesnt have the thrilling PvP experience of DAoC.

However, it also doesnt have the weaknesses of those games (the grind in EQ and its absolute lack of PvP, the bugs and inbalances of SWG, etc). It may not be a master at anything, but its damn good across the board, and this is what many people look for.

I’m hooked and until a better game comes along, you can find my Gnome Mage in Molten Core

But anyway, onto more mature posts. I totally agree with you Doc. WoW has killed off the next few MMO’s in the future. I would be sad for those games, but WoW does have me addicted.

After all the time and friends made ingame, I really don’t think I would want to leave and start a whole new game. Many people have hit kind of an endpoint in WoW. They are still getting new gear and PvPing. Now to quit after all the effort, what is the point? I’ve just started getting my Earthfury (Tier 2 Shaman armor) from Molten Core and I have no intention to give up on how many hours I’ve spent/wasted getting this.

Now, in a few years, WoW will lose its appeal. Will new games come out that offer gameplay like WoW in a few years? Most definantly. But as Hardflip has said, Blizzard isn’t stupid. There is still Universe/Galaxy of Starcraft to be released. Hell, maybe even a whole new franchise. Blizzard is in position to keep a stranglehold on this market and as long as they keep up the good work they will have no problem keeping it.