Every time a new MMO is announced speculation begins, hearts beat rapidly as players wonder- could the day have come? Is it the chosen one? Shall we truly be raised to a greater plane of existence? Can we even truly give up all we have for this perfect glory? Will there be free cheese? Is it… THE WOW KILLER! From HG:L to Tabula Rasa, LotRO to CoH, and even most recently AoC to WAR all these are not proclaimed so much as their own game but an anti-WoW. And nearly half of them are either clones or at least built from the same template as the dreaded favorite! Sure each has their own brand and flavor, but is that really what they are focusing on?

It is every game for itself against the big guy nowadays. Sometimes this means looking just like him. Many of them will get their own posse or gang supporting them, but all they are is more of the same and how could they, even if they merged together, really beat WoW’s armies by offering them more of the same?

I think what they fail to realize is that instead of trying to market their games as similar to WoW because, well, obviously if they like WoW they will like your game if it is like it. This could very well be true, they very well may like it. They may even try it. But the real breaker is… if it is just the same gameplay style what NEW feature, content, or look will make them give up their hours, no days or months of time dedicated to WoW. Maybe some people like Tolkien’s lore better than that of Warcraft. Maybe they like sci-fi better or are just desperate for anything besides the same old orcs and elves. Very little really seems to be different between the number of MMOs pumped out today than their specific landscapes and world settings.

The most dynamically new feature I can think of in a MMO since WoW is outright gory-goodness of AoC. What has everyone else done with their lives? (Feel free to mention some of your favs.) I would like to see developers think past quick money making clones that can maintain a decent following but innovate nothing. Of course often they do not because it is an even greater risk to ask the masses to give up their time dedicated to WoW not even for something they know they like on a different world, but something totally new and foreign to them.

This is what has pushed me from MMOs in general and back to some single player games. Well, that and the other flaws I see with MMOs. There is also the issue of college, work, family, a girlfriend, friends, and more college to keep me from playing more of the same game endlessly instead of keeping up to snuff with the latest games… Somewhere along the line I feel like I’ve kinda lost my freedom in the matter…

It looks like the only MMO that will pull me from the single-player and Valve online shooters (KZ2/LittleBigPlanet are quiet nice too) world could be Darkfall Online (check it out, darkfallonline.com), if it ever releases here in properly... Anyway. Innovation is rare and hard to find in a world where the evil WoW still needs slaying, how long till something new replaces it? At least Blizzard is a kind master…

O when the revolution comes… And by that I mean Diablo 3. Ha.

PS: Check out this guy, NegGamer mentioned him in a post and I'd like to do the same, he is rather quiet brilliant! He has some posts of animations which are good but I'm talking about his game design ones, obviously. Hopefully I'll stop complaining about MMOs after this and will move onto more interesting things like this guy has.

http://www.youtube.com/user/kirithem 

Its called Star Wars the Old Republic.  That one will have a more intense fan base with the star wars but maybe not as big since a lot of these fat housewives who play Wow wont start a new character.

Yeah, I'm a huge Bioware fan so I'm waiting on that too.

If The old republic fails, i really dont think anything else can do it

I'm sure The Old Republic has a chance, I have so much trust in Bioware, they can definitely pull it off.
I waited for Darkfall for so long, but eventually lost interest. Why did they change their website, the old one was much better?!
 
Also, I can't wait for FFXIV. My PC is a POS, so being able to play on on PS3 is a dream come true.
That game is fucking beautiful, man.

I guess when I think of MMOs, with a few exceptions it tends to be all of a piece.  I guess a lot of people get into MMOs because they assume a lot of the elements are going to be there no matter the setting and the company involved; I mean, it's not like WoW was the first to have crafting, leveling, quests, all that.  But I don't think these all have to be so samey.  I'm not even really tempted because I feel like the time I should have gotten into this was when I was a little kid and could learn the rules and nuances that people take for granted now.  Games that interest me aren't going to be the WoW killers --although it's always nice to see someone bring down a financial titan just so there's a bit of a change--  it's going to be the niche MMOs that try something comepletely new.
 
Tale in the Desert is a bit weird, as are other projects out there, but weird stuff at least holds my interest.  If I want to stick with the same old formula I'll just keep doing what i've been doing and play pen-and-paper games :) 

The only one I can see that could maybe sort of have a half decent shot is that Star Wars thing.
 
But as I have said in other threads, MMO's always ship completely broken this was true for WoW aswell but it came out in a time when there was no MMO's worth shit out. Now however its a different story, you are basically telling consumers to pay 60 bucks and a monthly fee for a broken game when you can basically pay the same amount for a MMO refined to almost perfection, am I the only one that think that is a bit unreasonable?

I think the only way we're gonna find a WoW killer is through innovation. And I think its gonna be much harder to innovate and not make your MMORPG just a crappy clone of World of Warcraft. But I'd like to see new MMORPGs based around any of the following concepts:
 

• Huge worlds. Remember how big the world was in games like WoW, Runescape, Oblivion, Morrowind etc? Multiply that by a huge number and have almost continent-sized worlds.
• User-generated content. I am talking elaborate user created spells, abilities, locations, dungeons, bosses, and not just a level of character customisation.
• Player run economies. I mean turn from a nobody to the ruler of a huge ingame clan/guild/city.
• Huge scale PvP wars. I am talking almost on a world war scale.
  

Anybody setting out to 'kill' WoW is doing it wrong and is destined to fail.  It'd be smarter if they set out to make an MMO that appeals to those of us who aren't already playing WoW, and just tried to make a realistic profit - don't worry about the fate of WoW.
 
TOR isn't ever gonna get anywhere near WoW's peak numbers, but if they can deliver on the story element there's no reason they can't carve out a couple million subscribers.  The question is, can they create proper story-led game content as quickly as people will get through it?  I doubt it.  There's a reason WoW's (and every other MMO's) quests are what they are.