swtor

Wow is wow and will continue to be a force in MMO's for a while to come but i think AION will give it a run for it's money...I've played Wow for years and was GM of the same guild for most of that time (only recently did i hand it over to an officer). Blizzard has another patch coming up and an expansion in the works, my problem with wow is a common one i believe with most of it's gamers that have been with it for the long haul. Original wow was amazing, with each expansion it loses some of what made it great. This is only my opinion but when u can easily skip through all of the original wow and TBC in a relatively short amount of time with lil or no real group contact or playtime it hurts the endgame. Wow is indeed wow and it will be around for a long time, but then again..EQ is still around too.

Overall, I just don’t see Aion pulling in numbers that compete with WoW fo pretty much the same reason I didn’t see WAR doing it. Gameplay mechanics aside, the setting is just not as appealing. WAR was grim, dirty, and had a twisted sense of humor whereas Aion, albeit beautiful, is very strange looking and has no ties to any preexisting IP.

WoW, on the other hand features an incredibly diverse and flexible setting for its players that is vibrant and familiar. Yet it is also a setting that reinterprets and puts a spin on traditional high fantasy elements. There's a safety zone there but also enough room for thematic exploration.

MMO veterans and adventurous players will certainly seek out Aion, but I don’t see million of people giving up their precious elves, gnomes, and orcs to play as something as bizarre as a “Deva”. The big competitor we're going to see is TOR, having an IP with a footprint so deep and beloved in our culture that its lasted for decades. Now that's something to look out for.

@ Amstrup
Sorry, but you really are ignorant. Wow isn't wow, a rose by any other name would still be a rose... But the issue here is that WoW is only WoW now days because of its name, hence it isn't WoW anymore. It has changed so much over the years that you can hardly call it WoW anymore.

Actually TBH, past vanilla, WoW has totally killed Warcraft lore. And yes, I am a long time fan of Warcraft. As well as the fact that Warcraft lore was NEVER unique or epic, it is just copy/paste from a whole lot of more original ideas (LOTR lore, Warhammer tabletop lore, Lovecraft's work [Cthulhu + Emerald Dream], Norse mythology, and many many more)... Of course if you were an honest Warcraft fan you'd know already that Warcraft is just blatantly using pretty much ALL other resources for their backstory instead of actually convincing yourself that it is actually epic.

And still calling WoW epic is rich, because 90% solo content and 10% easy mode is totally EPIC. Old WoW, was epic, it was hard, it forced you to group up yet at the same time had enough room for new players and wasn't as hard/grindy as EQ. Blizzard went too far towards the easy-side.

Honestly it looks to me that you are only trying to justify yourself, seems like you don't believe what you are saying otherwise you wouldn't feel the need to post.

Sarcasm detected. Engage shields.