WoW has maybe 2 more “AAA” expansions, IMO of course, if they keep losing players and their chunk of the MMORPG market continues to shrink. The usual suspects will be out here, of course, screeching all the while that WoW is best ever forever and it can do no wrong… you know them: those guys who spent two years shilling BFA and then another 2 years shilling Shadowlands.
It’s not going to die but I would assume the next phase would be lower budget yearly expansion drops and going Free to Play while doubling down on their in game shop… as happens with basically every other MMO. I would assume it would follow essentially the path laid out by Everquest.
And so, the curse of the Jar of Ashes would at last be fulfilled.
I dont think ANY MMO will ever reach that level again. Unless the landscape of gaming makes a sharp left turn and a number of thing outside of gaming swing in that same direction. The changing focus to commitment , lack of patience, and diversity of distraction all speak to a different time we are living in today.
I think it just became about repetitive grinds which were easier to program then turned mandatory by gating key aspects for performance and, ultimately, stopped people from progressing to the funner aspects of the game. You can’t gate keep fundamentals, like BGs now are turning into power matches when they’re supposed to be there to gear but you need to gear to gear.
Well, people use other ways to gear then run BGs for enjoyment making it hard for people trying to gear through them. It’s not their fault, Blizzard could have limited power differences but wanted people to grind. I don’t mean to just complain, I apologize. I stopped playing and am waiting for my sub to run out and I’m not real positive right now about the game. May be my last xpac, I just came back not too long ago and am leaving for the same reason.
Honest answer? Blizzard has and is hiring more developers for WoW than ever before. Why invest all the money and time to get a whole bunch of new developers up to speed just to shut down the game. Plus, again, EverQuest is still making new expansions.
At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if WoW will be there to greet us in the next century.
DF is probably their best expansion yet. There’s always something to improve, but it’s better than anything before it so far.
But I’ll likely be dead by then and might miss out on the expansion in the year 2100…
Sylvanas was right. Life isn’t fair.
Death isn’t fair.
Though in all honesty, it’s probably not that bad that most of my folk from the Silent/Traditional generation are now dying out or dead already, mine loved the Star Treks of the 1990s but they would consider shows like Star Trek Discovery too ‘gay’ if they were still around…so maybe death is fair.