Wow's Not Number 1 mmorpg Any More? What Happened?

Community General Discussion
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For years Wow has been the number 1 mmorpg. I recently came across several lists of the Top mmorpgs in 2023. All of them were identical to this list:

  1. Final Fantasy XIV
  2. Guild Wars 2
  3. World of Warcraft
  4. World of Warcraft Classic
  5. Original Runescape
  6. EVE Online
  7. Albion
  8. V Rising
  9. Runescape 3
  10. Black Desert Online
  11. Star Wars The Old Republic
  12. New World
  13. Lost Ark
  14. The Elder Scrolls Online

Wow is listed as number 3 ??? What Happened?

Edit: I noticed after reading some of the replies that people have been pointing out that these lists I read on the internet may not be correct. So in all fairness I would pose this question:
What would this list look like if you made it? How would you rank the Top mmorpgs at this time?

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elder scrolls being #14 is the biggest story

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LA is better than most on the list, being top doesnt mean being the best.

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EvE Online even on the list is criminal

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The scandals + shadow lands didn’t help

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Cut content, bad content, horrible story lines, game burnout since this game is almost 20 years old. The cash shop/wow token to some people that matters. Lack of good casual player content anymore.

Only a strong focus on endgame. The 500 currencies to upgrade gear. All the way down to things that have nothing. To do with the game like the office drama at blizzard. I’m sure someone else can add a million more things to my list.

For me wow is still #1.

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  1. Final Fantasy XIV
  2. Guild Wars 2

You are kidding right? No way that can be possible.

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GW2 is a solid game with an amazing amount of replay value. Content from almost a decade ago is still relevant and relatively active. They’ve had some balance issues with the new expansion when it was released last spring - looking at you mechanists - but before I left I think it was much better balanced in PVE.

I miss the “holy trinity” when I play GW2- they have more DPS and offensive support and defensive support and then healers for raids there.

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What are the criteria for these rankings?

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how ethical the game journalist is

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If that were true WoW would be much lower than #3.

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so many innocent lives have been lost in the “are video games art” war

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

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FF had a surge in popularity due to how bad the borrowed power was during SL plus the cubical crawl scandals that hit blizz etc. That being said, most of the people who tried FF bailed and came back to wow once they realised how absolutely terrible the interface and gameplay of FF was.

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its a conspiracy that dark age of camelot is not on that list

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15

It has gotten bad… I expect it to slide a lot more.

What did Ion say? No king last forever!

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days of our lives has been running for 60 years

you would be surprised at the legs that pulp fiction can have

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The gimp?

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Came back to WoW he says lol

Have you looked around lately? How far does it have to dip before you notice? Even the dark times of 9.1 had like 50x the concurrent users we have right now. Something has gone catastrophically wrong this patch.

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What is your source for that listing? And what is their criteria?

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WoW use to also have great world building, deep thought-provoking quests with memorable stories - Some of which would link up with various dungeon experiences, and fantastic lore.

Now there’s those that may argue that the above don’t matter, however they’re key aspects at what make MMO’s very memorable. When I started WoW, it was merely to play with some cousins who played the game too & it looked kinda cool – but what truly got me hooked in was the story - It made the world feel so much more MASSIVE & adventurous.

Y’know who has great world building, more thought-provoking quests and memorable stories with fantastic (and most of all - respected) lore? You guessed it:

FFXIV

People tried to warn the community & the developers back in BFA and again more fervently in Shadowlands → that if Blizz kept going in the path they were going that FFXIV was gonna overtake them, and people on these very same forums called them all sorts of names & laughed at them … Yet here we are. :person_shrugging:

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