Hello again all fellow Total War gamers...I hope this thread finds you well

As I'm sure some of you have seen, I had a lengthy thread going this past week. In this thread I was seeking guidance/advice on hardware due to the fact that I was in the process of customizing/ordering a new gaming PC. This thread reached it's conclusion with me purchasing a new Vigor Hornet NE with high end customization. I couldn't be happier (well, I'll be happier when it arrives heh). I owe a great bit of gratitude to everyone who offered me advice and assistance in that thread. That's why I came to the .org for help...It never goes unanswered around here.

Now that my search and purchase is over and I'm just awaiting the arrival of my system, I've spent the last few days researching software/games that are available now, and ones releasing in the near future. With my new system I can basically max anything on the market including Crysis...so I am looking for the absolute best of the best out there now. This is the first time in my life I've been within 500 miles of falling into the "high end hardware" category as a PC gamer. So, I'm quite excited...naturally.

To get to the meat and potatoes of this thread: When you sit in my position for a moment and can scour the PC gaming software market with no limitations on what you can purchase due to your hardware...you expect to have a gigantic variety of games available to you. I know for certain that just a few years ago, there would be at least 10 amazing games that would all have me drooling over them. The decision over which ones to buy would be extremely difficult. But that was then, we're talking about now. That said- What did I find this week? Not too much. As a matter of fact- Considerably less overall quality and selection that I've ever seen in the gaming world. We're specifically talking about PC games here but do not for a second think that things are any greener on consoles. They're worse. So the automatic assumption that perhaps the console world is beginning to garner all of the "top titles" can be thrown out immediately. This is not the case...the console world has even less variety and innovation with it. Back to the PC.

Let's look at the top titles of this past year...ratings wise:

1) Crysis
2) World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
3) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
4) The Orange Box
5) World in Conflict
6) Medieval 2 Total War: Kingdoms

Let's just qive a quick "where things stand" on these titles...I'll list WOW:TBC last, and you'll see why in a moment.

1) Crysis- Considered the new benchmark standard in graphics and special effects. Gamespot gave it a 9.5 overall score. That said, we're talking about a 10 hour or so single player experience in total. Further, the multiplayer experience is considered sub par by many, and is apparently in a total shambles due to hackers and an overall...lack of core online structural interface and organization. It's just not a top online title with longevity. Definitely not the MP experience we're used to seeing out of the top FPS of the year.

2) COD4:MW- This I played extensively on the Xbox360, but have yet to even see on a PC. That said, it's a phenomenal game IMO. My personal shooter of the year. Still...we're talking about a 10-15 hour single player experience tops, very few mods available right now, and an online experience that for both the PC and 360 (won't even delve into the PS3 experience) is just subpar. Hackers, constant disconnects from servers, and an all around "bare bones" feeling (like Crysis) about the entire online interface. It's a FPS with MMO elements and there are NO lobbies, NO clan organization, NO chat rooms, not much of anything other than individual, 5-15 minute round firefights. Further, for the PC edition- There is a horrible lack of organization for friends/players to find eachother. It's a multiple year step back in the community category. And this game, is probably the best online shooting experience in a couple of years. Once again, more a case of where the industry stands right now as opposed to a subpar product. This is about as good as it's going to get for FPS players right now. It's pretty skinny once you've been playing for a week or so.

3) The Orange Box- Not a ton to say here. It's a great value/package. You get to play Half Life 2 and all of it's expansions, including Ep2 in completion. Further you get Portal and of course, Team Fortress 2. That said, I don't think we're talking about anything ground breaking or innovative here, and TF2 is definitely not an online title that is going to garner mass popularity for years. Basically, this is just another FPS on the market. Nothing new here folks.

4) World in Conflict- This is rather innovative. An RTS that incorporates similar teamwork/roles during the battles that you would normally find in other genres. Graphics, sound, special effects, AI- All are considered to be fairly top notch. Once again though, the online community is not anything to write home about (as far as it's size goes) and it's a very straightforward, "run and gun" strategy game. There is no "faction building"- It's just an RTS. There are NO economics involved. It is simply an all combat oriented RTS. The single player experience is relatively the same old same old for fans of the genre and the multiplayer experience is nothing new other than for the mechanics of the game (again, roles on the field of battle for teammates). Overall however, this is not a title to knock. Perhaps this franchise sticks around for a little while.

5) M2TW:K- Obviously I don't need to write much about this one here. We all know what's good about it, we all know what's bad about it.

6) WOW:TBC- Here we go...By far, the best selling title in the last 2 years. Expands upon the already ridiculously popular (12 million subscribers+ as of Feb 2008) MMORPG experience, World of Warcraft. Has the least amount of current, and foreseeable (we're talking the next 40+ months) competition. The MMO industry has began 2008 with admitting that there is basically no reason to even try to release an MMO in the next 5 years because it's going to garner very, very few subscribers. Activision, right before it just merged with Blizzard (Yes, it's Blizzard-Activision now) stated that it would take "$500 million dollars PLUS" (minimum) to develop an MMO that had ANY chance of even catching up to World of Warcraft. To surpass it? Labled as mathematically impossible. This is probably an accurate assessment. In approximately 7-9 months, the 2nd expansion pack for WOW, titled "Wrath of the Lich King", will release. It is estimated that the Beta for this may eclipse 3 million players. Further, many industry "think tanks" predict that within a few months of WotLK's release, the total subscription count for WOW will eclipse 15-16 million. WOW is right. Do the math...subscriptions are roughly $15 a month in the United States. This juggernaut is obviously not going anywhere ANY time soon. We're talking many, many years of WOW ahead of us.

Now what's the point of all of this? The point is that we have an MMO giant out there like we've never seen before. At the same time, if you removed World of Warcraft from gaming entirely right now...we're looking at arguably the driest period of gaming in a very, very long time. Developers themselves are flat out stating that they don't know what to do next, as they know a large part of the market will just NOT buy their product no matter how good it is. Further, even if they do buy it, they're not sticking around. They'll be back to raiding with their guild in a week. Yeah, even the casual guy (especially...and that's part of the whole problem). The real kicker here is that we're not just talking about a borderline monopoly on the MMO market. We're talking about an industry wide borderline monopoly. Every genre is suffering from a lack of sales and development.

So the question I pose you is this...for discussion and opinion: Is World of Warcraft the main contributor to all of this? We obviously can't say that World of Warcraft is "hurting or killing gaming". It's expanding the pc gaming market exponentially. It's simply, bringing people into the fray that would never be here otherwise. However, is it hurting individual genres? Is it taking the ambition of developers and immediately throwing their vision into the "ah, just not worth it/why even bother" department?

The other question is: If this really is a side effect of WOW's success, how will this path the industry is on change in the next 5-10 years? We've already established that WOW is not going to slow down (it's not...that's just a reality). So the "problem" for other devs is not going to simply just roll over and go away given ample time. If anything, it may become more widespread.

So...discussion/opinions welcome.

I'm almost tempted to go scour all the top games on the market again to see if I've missed anything, but I already know I haven't. Once I look past the World of Warcraft (which I purchased the BattleChest for this week) I'm just not going to find any top tier title with an enormous community and guaranteed multi year life span, as well as reliable service.

It makes me happy and sad guys. Happy that we have a phenomenon and game like WOW (I can fall into heavy addiction with it when I allow myself to). But also a bit sad that the entire rest of the market just...keeps...thinning...out. We have Empires: Total War to look forward to and in my gut I believe that with it we're going to revisit the days of 9.5+ total war scores and a frothing, rabid, large community. It will be THE strategy game for the next several years. Other than Empires though, I just don't see what's "next" to look forward to with any level of excitement. I mean, 24 months from now- There's still just almost nothing.

Thanks for taking the time...and I look forward to seeing your opinions and thoughts on this.