I swear to Mog if they call the new MMO WoW2 Im gonna beat the EQ2 developers with a dead skunk.

Seriously, Dumbest name..ever..

I know MMORPGs pretty well and mechanics as well that is why I say that WoW does not have a winning formular it just kind of keeps itself alive from people like you that repeat all the time that they use the winning formular.
I mean it is ok for you to love the game and all I just want to explai the mechanics why it creates a big collectuiion of people while missing a lot of great features.
For the same reason counterstrike was pretty long liked. It is to big parts about group pressure and own created hype or the fear to quit and leave friend behind ( which in many cases ironically think the same thing)

You make it sound like WoW is on life support or something, isnt their numbers still like 8+ million subs? Name one mmo thats even got 3 mill, and tell me they did NOT get the winning formula right. Dont get me wrong I dont really like the game that much but with numbers like they have seen its hard to argue who got it right, weather you like the game or not.

winning formula in terms of fun AND (if you want.. especially) in success.
that said... yes i still think WoW currently is the best mmo out there, its not the perfect mmo, just the best one out there and .... yes.. i want to see something really new as well.

hype doesnt make games at all if you look at warhammer and ***, hell, even ****.
they basically just try the same formula with little changes in its variables like xp gain ( ****=grindfest) and so on.... the next BIG hit in the mmo scene needs a completely new revolutionary IDEA, and my guess is that it is coming from blizz again.

to offer more facts, here are the actual sub numbers of most mmos:

http://www.mmodata.net/

if you look at the wow curve, its just proves that its the winning formula. its residing at 11,5million currently.

if you look at *** and warhammer, you see what a hype curve means.

Partly it is they loosed for example their whole china maket temprorarly and currently try to sell anything and make massive pr for their services and all. WoW itself caught a lot of customers for the MMORPG Genre and sure printed a lot of desire for their gameplay and similar gameplay. Blizzard actually make s partly a fun with number game with their real subscribe people and addional does have a massive PR program working for their favor. No worries about the game it sure will not die my point is just that the reason that the game runs is a kind of selfrunner. It is like when you see on TV WoW xx Millions people are playing it is more likly you will buy it and look a bit longer in the game, since tehre must be something great and all tell you about the endgame and so on...

An example for what I mean is maybe the Movie Avatar. I like it personally a lot but from a story side it is not exactly innovative even no great story and for the Xenophopic nearly catlike furry Avatars that all despite many seem to hate.
Anyway it managed to outrun Titanic on ticket sells.

Edit: As for the other games that try the same formulars with some changes, well tehre is the problem. Someone from the Kotor team stated it well, or was it a blizzard worker it is when you make a copy ind esign of ******** you propably fail becaus ethe people have all their friends and successes in ******** already and have not the motivation to do all the things again. To actually create something that runs ******** out in numbers you need something totally differnet to ********.

Oh and sorry talking about that topic in this thread.

LOTRO got 9

6 is still above average; and potentially if the devs keep tuning things; and adding contents; STO should earn a solid 8.

But numbers are meaningless. Each one of us has a different 1-10 scale; it's not because we play the same game that we see it exactly the same way; that our play style is similar; or anything. So depending on our expectations, past experience personality we will all rate it differently.

Same game; different reviewer... different rating. It's not an accurate benchmark mesuring exact data; its a purely subjective number.

I take company reviews with a grain of salt just like movie reviews had almost always bashed trek in some way, does the game have issues? yes it's new and we all should know that.

I play it and love it, now about the WoW talk, I liked ******** yes WoW no, EQ1 yes EQ2 no, CoH yes CO no.

So we all have our preferred but if one person doesn't like it that doesn't mean everyone else dislike it either.

yes, but whats the number you are questioning ? i am sure i can deliever you a more "official" source to every game you ask.