Games affected by GW2 launch

[Redgiant]

After getting an idea of GW2's gameplay and scope in the BWE, despite a lot not shown yet, I thought about which games would take the biggest hits when it launches. This assumes that by launch (or future BWEs even better) they fix eggregious issues, really up the zerg perf, tune for a non-raping cash shop stance, and polish the game up unlike some of the stupid missing/borked SWTOR features at launch.

If GW2 launches in a superior polished state aross-the-board, it will hurt.

DAoC
What's left on the Ywain cluster with WvW? There will always be hardcore fans, but enough to keep that running?
If WvW is de facto christened as DAoC RvR - part III (better than WAR's part II), this is its biggest threat of a real shutdown.
The more WvW covers the full RvR experience (perhaps RvR dungeon/DF motivations, RAs later?), the more quickly death will come.
WvW will generate a ton of RvR nostalgia for "the good ole days", but almost no one will act on it and actually go back to DAoC.

Prediction: No parent should have to watch their child die - well, you will. DAoC will shutdown in 2013, but after out-living WAR.

WAR
People still play this? Not for long. DAoC will outlive WAR, if just barely.
GW2 was tailor-made to kill off WAR more than any other game.

Prediction: WAR shuts down in 2012, maybe early 2013 if stubborn.

SWTOR
Will a AAA monthly sub single-player space game with broken open world PvP lose people to a AAA f2p massive cooperative fantasy game with significant open world PvP?
How many will follow the new shiny, dropping their SWTOR sub to offset their GW2 client purchase?
Anyone not a hard-core space fanatic in love with pew-pew PvP instances, and esp. those pissed with Ilum, will try it and possibly maintain their SWTOR sub until expiration to make sure they want to focus on GW2.
Much rides on (a) GW2 perf grapevine, (b) SWTOR patch missteps, and (c) how much they pay attention to/care about cash shop math

Prediction: SWTOR will lose more accounts than WoW or Rift. It will go f2p hybrid in 2013.

Rift
Well-made, technically solid, smooth launch - but feels too small to compete, despite some loyal fans.
Many PvE'ers migrate for a bigger population pool, much grander world scale and actual cities.
GW2's improvements on Rift staples like dynamic events that don't just take place in a circle and have complex chains will attract interest to go try it.
No real world PvP to speak of, so WvW will attract those who wish there was.
How invested is sPvP in Rift anyway. Will they jump to try new settings and gameplay, and no waiting for teams?

Prediction: Rift loses fewer paying subs than SWTOR, but a larger active population % despite Rift Lite.

WoW
How many will return and buy MoP after thier D3 and/or Gw2 "break"?
How is that WoW annual pass/get D3 free doing?
PvE sick of same ole' art style will certainly give GW2 a look.
How alive will GW2 feel compared to all the scripted wonders that is WoW? (the gameplay is why WOW got away with being a cartoon, imo)
No open world PvP to speak of, with Wintergrasp being closest. WvW will definitely pull on those with nostalgia for it.
Those not tied to heavy ladder PvP investment may prefer a fresh, even start in WvW and sPvP.
MoP may see the biggest permanent departure yet for those with the escape velocity caused by pandas and pet battles. Will new additions that love that stuff and Asia more than compensate?

Prediction: WoW aggresively pursues Asian markets and kiddies for MoP, to offset some older crowd losses. Probably the only game out there not worried about shifting to a f2p model.

[Ingmar]

Eh. All of these games will live/die/shrink/grow on their own merits, nothing to do with GW2. People said all the same things you are saying about DAOC, EQ, and UO when GW1 came out, and ultimately it didn't have anything to do with what happened to those games.

I mean especially DAOC. At this point the only people playing DAOC *really fucking want to be playing DAOC*. They're not going to switch to the new shiny because they've never switched to ANY new shiny - and there have been shitloads of them over the years. DAOC may very well shut down in 2013, but it will have nothing to do with GW2 and everything to do with EA just deciding they don't want to bother anymore.

[Redgiant]

I actually agree about DAoC being resilient due to its unique RvR 3-way aspects, and fan devotion (I was one too).

But WvW is by far the closest incarnation to some of those sacred fundamentals - like an open 3-way ongoing resource war - that I have seen to-date. The 3-way fighting alone is a big deal and has long been touted as a main failing of other attempts.

Some of those DAoC people will try and like WvW. The question is will enough leave to put them under their profitabliity threshold (which is admittedly pretty low compared to newer games).

[Sjofn]

It's like saying GW2 is going to kill UO. It's just ... it's just not.

[Ingmar]

WvW misses the #1 sticky factor of DAOC pvp though, which is the ongoing rivalry against specific opposing players. And at this point those people have been killing each other in DF for what, a decade? I think that anyone who was going to game hop at this point from DAOC already did.

EDIT: Going further I think you'll see that people in general will treat GW2 not as a competitor to sub games so much as they will treat it as just another one-time purchase game (unless the cash shop is truly egregious). I saw this with GW1 a lot, nearly everyone I knew who played a sub-based game and tried GW1 kept their sub game and just played GW1 alongside it. The only people I know who didn't weren't playing sub-based games in the first place. GW2 for me fits into the same mental category as any single player game I'd pay $60 for or whatever. I'll only keep 1-2 sub games going (at this point in my life anyway) but something like this doesn't 'count'. (Again, unless the cash shop is evil.)

[Redgiant]

WvW misses the #1 sticky factor of DAOC pvp though, which is the ongoing rivalry against specific opposing players. And at this point those people have been killing each other in DF for what, a decade? I think that anyone who was going to game hop at this point from DAOC already did.

Agree. But the combination of WvW being similar coupled with the game as a whole being new, is powerful reason to try it. f2p or not, it will seriously dent someone's playtime if they get attached.

I completely agree that said attachment to the game will heavily depend on how social a home server becomes, esp. since it also has to make up for the loss of permanent enemy rivalry. MMO track records on establishing this lately are not good.

[Furiously]

I'm going to guess after a couple months the rivalries become almost permanent as rvr scores normalize.

[Kageru]

DAoC, War : Reservoir populations and game in maintenance mode anyway, minimal change.

Rift, SWTOR : Decline hastened, SWTOR especially, now that there are alternatives.

WoW : Will continue it's slow decline given its age. But it's still the dominant raiding and gear-centric PvP game, plus the "game my friends play", so I think it's fine. GW2 isn't competing with either of those and it's sub free nature encourage it as an "extra" MMO.

[Redgiant]

I'm going to guess after a couple months the rivalries become almost permanent as rvr scores normalize.

This will be interesting to see, if brackets stabilize to repeat your enemy servers amongst only a handful that you face.

Or even face the same 2 servers back-to-back.

I wonder what criteria would push the winner of the 4-5-6th best to supplant one of the 1-2-3rd best. How do they decide that the winner of the 2nd trio is more worthy than either loser in the first trio?

[tazelbain]

I think it should do a better of highlighting which server you are fighting all the time.

[Furiously]

Well... It should eventually normalize to four servers you face against. Two every other week if all things are equal. I'm guessing at the top and bottom end it will be pretty static.

[Feverdream]

A few of my diehard DAOC friends actually do intend to make a complete switch to GW2 based on their experience during the beta weekend.  I wasn't thinking they'd make that decision...at least not yet, if ever.  So hearing them say that has been interesting to me.

But the feedback I am getting from them is pretty consistent -- that as much as they love DAOC, it's aged and pretty clunky, so a more polished and updated game with the classic DAOC RvR sensibility is very appealing to them.  In addition, they are really disgusted with Mythic, but that isn't the main reason they are leaving DAOC.

I'm not trying to make any big generalization about DAOC here; my sample size is only 5 players, so I can hardly assume that every current DAOC player will agree about GW2.

Still, it IS interesting.  These are folks I was convinced would play DAOC until EA pulled the plug.  They even used to say that about themselves.  Now they are planning what they want to do about shutting down their accounts (when you leave DAOC, you give your bot accounts to your friends staying behind =P).

[Nevermore]

Yeah, but 5 people is like 10% of the remaining population. 

[Furiously]

A few of my diehard DAOC friends actually do intend to make a complete switch to GW2 based on their experience during the beta weekend.  I wasn't thinking they'd make that decision...at least not yet, if ever.  So hearing them say that has been interesting to me.

But the feedback I am getting from them is pretty consistent -- that as much as they love DAOC, it's aged and pretty clunky, so a more polished and updated game with the classic DAOC RvR sensibility is very appealing to them.  In addition, they are really disgusted with Mythic, but that isn't the main reason they are leaving DAOC.

I'm not trying to make any big generalization about DAOC here; my sample size is only 5 players, so I can hardly assume that every current DAOC player will agree about GW2.

Still, it IS interesting.  These are folks I was convinced would play DAOC until EA pulled the plug.  They even used to say that about themselves.  Now they are planning what they want to do about shutting down their accounts (when you leave DAOC, you give your bot accounts to your friends staying behind =P).

I dunno...My DAOC guild still has a forum people rarely post on. A couple are looking forward to GW2.

[Falconeer]

In my experience those who still play DAoC in 2012 don't really do it for the threeway pvp anymore, but mostly because they are addicted to that kind of combat. They perceive any other kind of combat as "stupid" due to the lack of /face and blame "modern players" for doing nothing else than "strafing around you", which they consider silly and just bad.

It won't be impacted by GW2 much since DAoC core players will think its combat is an aberration.

[Ingmar]

In their defense, circle strafing/bunny hopping *is* pretty stupid.

[Kageru]

It still amazes me that DAOC is even still running, especially with EA owning it after having detonated mythic, doubly so they are still charging a sub fee for it.

Even that video on their front page is cringe-worthy.

[Falconeer]

Bunny hopping is disgusting, makes me want to smack people in real life. Circle strafing on the other hand makes sense, it's the closest thing you have in these games to "actively dodging". Especially cause you don't just circle strafe, you keep strafing left and right in order to outmaneuver your opponent, break his/her rhythm, and get behind them. If you simply circle strafe in one direction your movement pattern is so predictable that you might just stand still.

[Murgos]

MMO population is not a zero-sum game.

[Tmon]

I'm still surprised by the number of folks that talk to who play MMOs who haven't even heard of Guildwars 2.  I think it's going to be a big game but I don't see it crushing any of the existing games.  If for no other reason than it's free to play so other than justifying a box cost there's no reason to cancel a subscription to pick this up and play for as long or short a time as you feel like.  I think a lot of the player base will come from GW1 and people like me who no longer find a monthly sub a value proposition.  In my case my World of Tanks play time will take a hit and I'll probably buy $10 worth of gems instead of gold the quarter GW2 launches but the nice thing is putting either game on the shelf for a while and coming back will be pretty much pain free.

[Nebu]

Bunny hopping is disgusting, makes me want to smack people in real life. Circle strafing on the other hand makes sense, it's the closest thing you have in these games to "actively dodging". Especially cause you don't just circle strafe, you keep strafing left and right in order to outmaneuver your opponent, break his/her rhythm, and get behind them. If you simply circle strafe in one direction your movement pattern is so predictable that you might just stand still.

There is a difference between circle strafing in most games and circle strafing in DAoC.  The circle strafing in DAoC was broken and needed to be removed. 

[Falconeer]

Oh, sure. But the DAoC players I know that hate circle-strafing hate it in all the other games, and claim DAoC is the one with the better combat cause "you can't do that shit there".

[kildorn]

I'm always amused by the X will kill Y kind of discussions in MMO turf. I don't expect GW2 to have a huge sub impact because of it's pricing model. What I'm curious about is how sticky a monthly fee is in getting people to actually log in. WvW sort of requires a base population engaged on a regular basis in order to work. Most folks I know who play GW1 do so in bursts completely randomly since there's no real loss for not playing.

Sort of the idea behind dailies in MMOs now: they try and hook you into the idea of logging in, which makes the servers populated, which makes people not log out as quickly because they have friends or people to group with online.

[Zetor]

WOW will kill WOW. You heard it here last. And yeah, I don't think too many people will 'omg quit' a sub game just because GW2 came along... wasn't the case for GW1 either.

Also, eff dailies (needed to be said )

[Nebu]

Oh, sure. But the DAoC players I know that hate circle-strafing hate it in all the other games, and claim DAoC is the one with the better combat cause "you can't do that shit there".

I hated circle strafing in DAoC, but did it like a mad man in WoW and SWTOR.  Different mechanics, different affect on latency and combat, and not nearly as lame.  I'd still like to see it removed in place of a viable dodge mechanic though.

[Mavor]

God bless the GW2 gem buyers, for they let the rest of us gamers get free constant dlc.

God bless them 

[Spiff]

If a new shiny comes along around the time I'm sort of seeing the cracks in my current toy, I might stop playing/subbing a month or 2 early.
Beyond that I don't think 'a new brilliant MMO is coming out!' has ever been my main motivation to stop playing another one.

As far as the sub vs no-sub models; it isn't such a big factor to me here.
I doubt I'll sub to anything for at least the first few months after this comes out; mostly because of time invested, not money. However casual friendly a lot of their systems are, I know myself well enough to say that semi-persistent PvP like this will suck my spare time away like a black hole.

Not sure how usual this is, but at the same time most of the people I know in gaming don't spend time or money on more than one MMO either (barring small overlaps), so they must affect each other somehow.

More specifically: I'll be keeping a wandering eye on TSW, because Funcom is always worthy of my interest, but it's highly doubtful they'll see my money in 2012.
If GW2 hadn't been pulling me in the way it is? I'd have to exert a lot more self-control not to let FC sucker me into another launch.

P.S.: Yes I imagine TSW will launch well before GW2, but the mere glimmer of hope that A-net is shining on us all will sustain me I'm sure. And I can't commit to 3 hypes in one year; I'm still recovering from SWOR for Pete's sake!

[Numtini]

Provided it is successful and I'm guessing it's going to be, I'd say the games most affected by GW2 launch are ones in the pipeline. WoW-clones, not just diku's, but 95-99% wow clones, have had a stranglehold on the market for a long time and if something is new and different and successful, there's a real potential for anything that's "wow in XXX" to need a big rethink.

I think GW2 will pull from around the industry. I see SWTOR as having the most potential for loss because it had the potential to be the next big thing and it's not. If GW2 turns out to be wildly successful, it's going to be make SWTOR look even more shabby by comparison.

[Falconeer]

Oh, sure. But the DAoC players I know that hate circle-strafing hate it in all the other games, and claim DAoC is the one with the better combat cause "you can't do that shit there".

I hated circle strafing in DAoC, but did it like a mad man in WoW and SWTOR.  Different mechanics, different affect on latency and combat, and not nearly as lame.  I'd still like to see it removed in place of a viable dodge mechanic though.

Nebu, I know you are DAoC lover, but we both know you are not the dunces I'm talking about.
Anyway, my point is that lots (not all) of people is still playing DAoC more for the combat (!) than for the threeway PvP. I could be wrong.

[Ingmar]

Bunny hopping is disgusting, makes me want to smack people in real life. Circle strafing on the other hand makes sense, it's the closest thing you have in these games to "actively dodging". Especially cause you don't just circle strafe, you keep strafing left and right in order to outmaneuver your opponent, break his/her rhythm, and get behind them. If you simply circle strafe in one direction your movement pattern is so predictable that you might just stand still.

I'd rather it wasn't possible in any game, I prefer a slower non-twitchy pace in MMO combat. So I guess I'm one of those people, but I don't PVP much anyway so I don't treat that as a major component of whether I'll play a game or not. Mobs don't circle strafe after all.

[Nevermore]

I'd rather it wasn't possible in any game, I prefer a slower non-twitchy pace in MMO combat.

Then you will hate GW2 since the dodge mechanic is pretty much required to play.

[Sjofn]

He did loathe the block mechanic in Champions Online, if I remember right.

[Zetor]

It's kinda like block, but the main difference is that champions block was fucking terrible and GW2 dodge is mostly ok (especially if playing a ranged class). Think I posted the main differences in one of the threads in here.

[Phred]

Eh. All of these games will live/die/shrink/grow on their own merits, nothing to do with GW2. People said all the same things you are saying about DAOC, EQ, and UO when GW1 came out, and ultimately it didn't have anything to do with what happened to those games.

I believe we had a former UO staffer here confirm that they lost a ton of subs to EQ actually. That's the only one I can think of for all your examples though, and it was a very different time back then.

[Phred]

I thought I asked this already but I can't find it or any answers so I will try again. Is there any plans in GW2 for a dungeon finder? I sure hope so because that's what killed SWToR for me.