I'm not sure if anything would ever kill WoW (apart from blizzard its self), but to me, ashes seem to be a more niche game, An excellent and exciting game, but I don't think it will ever be as mainstream like WoW and to be honest, I like that. I may sound elitist but games have died looking for that magical wider audience and it so hard to keep everyone happy if you do find it.
I like the way ashes is going and I'm glad Steven and intrepid are doing what they want and not just making a clone. To me this is why we backed ashes not because it will be the best MMO ever(which I hope it will) but because its something new and interesting.
WoW has already been killed, lol . I mean there are games now who surpass their subscription base. :-)
Yeah WoW has been killed.. with still about 5 million subs. Joking right?
If we talk about MMORPGs WoW is still at top. Trend has been down for long, but some statistics still predicts only 1 million more losses within next 4 years. Next expansion and later upcoming classic are keeping fans within the game.
I have not seen the latest statistics of MMORPGs subs and could not find it either, so if someone can link this kind of list, it would be actually nice. I guess only FF14 is something which can be more popular than WoW.
I swear the biggest hit to World of Warcraft at this point are the fan boys still trying to enforce it's popularity. . . there is a reason they stopped releasing subscriber numbers; just sayin'.
FF14 was total shit show at launch, and I've heard it's better, and I played it again about 3 yrs ago and it was pretty bland, but ok. I've played both these games and the remake of FF14 shares alot of concepts with Wow, just in another skin.
People assume it's way more popular than it really is. According to this, there are only around 500k active characters in the world. And that's just characters , many of whom could be on the same accounts, so subs would probably be lower.
Wow has about 5mil subs still. Subs, not just characters. To be fair, this is an estimate, but it an estimate by using similar process to get the FF14 numbers.
The FF14 numbers are based on a crawl that hits a loadstones every 3hrs or so and counts the number of unique characters that interact with it. I've seen numbers thrown around that FF14 has 10 mil subs, which this census show is probably true, but over 9mil are inactive, ergo, not playing. So 10mil accounts made. Not 10mil active players. Wow had 11mil active accounts in Wrath of the Lich King and peaked at 12mil.
The WoW numbers are also community made, based on estimates from the 5.6 mil number Blizzard last released during Warlords of Draenor. Plus websites that track guild progression, and other data on characters. Again, it's an estimate, but one backed by data.
Even if the numbers are off, the FF14 number is probably accurate to within half a million since they continually count and update. No way it miscounted by 4mil let alone 9. And if Blizzard had lost half their player base in 2yrs, we'd see action, such as server merges most likely, not to mention players noticing.
So in short, I'm always perplexed when people put FF14 up against Wow.
Edit: I also found this article from 2017 that says in Q4 of 2017 (Oct-Dec) Blizzard had 40mil active accounts across all their games. This is down from 2016 number of 41mil and 42mil earlier in 2017. Now we can't be sure where the losses came from, but let's say all 2mil are from WoW, that still means they have around 3mil active accounts. And we know not all of them came from WoW.
I'm not sure if anything would ever kill WoW (apart from blizzard its self), but to me, ashes seem to be a more niche game, An excellent and exciting game, but I don't think it will ever be as mainstream like WoW and to be honest, I like that. I may sound elitist but games have died looking for that magical wider audience and it so hard to keep everyone happy if you do find it.
I like the way ashes is going and I'm glad Steven and intrepid are doing what they want and not just making a clone. To me this is why we backed ashes not because it will be the best MMO ever(which I hope it will) but because its something new and interesting.
I have to agree. Hopefully Ashes will fulfill our expectations of something new and interesting.
Only time has hurt WoW. I have not played for years but you have to give Blizzard credit for making a smooth and optimized game. I loved Vanilla WoW and even the Burning Crusade expansion but I just became bored overtime. But it sucked many years away with its entertainment. I would be curious what they could make if they ever come out with a new MMO.
I hope Ashes can be built to play as smooth and optimized as WoW...but with their own unique gameplay and style.
WoW-killer is a pretty crappy goal, imo. I'd much rather have a smaller game that does what it wants perfectly. I don't need a game that is appealing to millions of players. I want a game that will get me logging in every single day. I want a game where I can chill out in and chat with people instead of feeling obligated to do something.
Also, every game that was a self-proclaimed wow-killer, failed horribly or just became a bland/mediocre wow-clone.
So yeah, just focus on the style and gameplay that you want instead of worrying how many millions of players will be like HURDUR this did the wow thing and I liked it.
Comments
I like the way ashes is going and I'm glad Steven and intrepid are doing what they want and not just making a clone. To me this is why we backed ashes not because it will be the best MMO ever(which I hope it will) but because its something new and interesting.
If we talk about MMORPGs WoW is still at top. Trend has been down for long, but some statistics still predicts only 1 million more losses within next 4 years. Next expansion and later upcoming classic are keeping fans within the game.
I have not seen the latest statistics of MMORPGs subs and could not find it either, so if someone can link this kind of list, it would be actually nice. I guess only FF14 is something which can be more popular than WoW.
People assume it's way more popular than it really is. According to this, there are only around 500k active characters in the world. And that's just characters , many of whom could be on the same accounts, so subs would probably be lower.
https://ffxivcensus.com
Wow has about 5mil subs still. Subs, not just characters. To be fair, this is an estimate, but it an estimate by using similar process to get the FF14 numbers.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/
The FF14 numbers are based on a crawl that hits a loadstones every 3hrs or so and counts the number of unique characters that interact with it. I've seen numbers thrown around that FF14 has 10 mil subs, which this census show is probably true, but over 9mil are inactive, ergo, not playing. So 10mil accounts made. Not 10mil active players. Wow had 11mil active accounts in Wrath of the Lich King and peaked at 12mil.
The WoW numbers are also community made, based on estimates from the 5.6 mil number Blizzard last released during Warlords of Draenor. Plus websites that track guild progression, and other data on characters. Again, it's an estimate, but one backed by data.
Even if the numbers are off, the FF14 number is probably accurate to within half a million since they continually count and update. No way it miscounted by 4mil let alone 9. And if Blizzard had lost half their player base in 2yrs, we'd see action, such as server merges most likely, not to mention players noticing.
So in short, I'm always perplexed when people put FF14 up against Wow.
Edit: I also found this article from 2017 that says in Q4 of 2017 (Oct-Dec) Blizzard had 40mil active accounts across all their games. This is down from 2016 number of 41mil and 42mil earlier in 2017. Now we can't be sure where the losses came from, but let's say all 2mil are from WoW, that still means they have around 3mil active accounts. And we know not all of them came from WoW.
I guess WoW still lives. I don't know anyone who has played it in years except when they were real bored.
nagash said: I have to agree. Hopefully Ashes will fulfill our expectations of something new and interesting.
I hope Ashes can be built to play as smooth and optimized as WoW...but with their own unique gameplay and style.
Also, every game that was a self-proclaimed wow-killer, failed horribly or just became a bland/mediocre wow-clone.
So yeah, just focus on the style and gameplay that you want instead of worrying how many millions of players will be like HURDUR this did the wow thing and I liked it.