What MMO had the most potential to compete with WoW?

I always thought a well-executed Elder Scrolls MMO would be able to hold it's own against World of Warcraft because it would be a similar situation like the Warcraft 3 - WoW transition; a franchise peaking in popularity, genre change while staying true to lore.

Except, the MMO we're going to get will be very underwhelming.

I like your point... taking a franchise peaking in popularity (Elder Scrolls certainly qualifies) and making an MMO out of it. That is exactly what Blizzard did with Warcraft. Sadly I agree with your guess that this game is going to be underwhelming. I feel that one under lining main reason why a lot of MMO's fail is because of the lack of $$ and man power. Blizzard is a power house. Even before WoW they were. A lot of these MMO's are created from much smaller developers. Developers with much less assets. MMO's are extremely hard to create.

"wow killer"... what a misnomer. the biggest problem with the term was that people expected an MMO to dethrone an MMO that changed the genre, then swelled up to massive size during its genre's peak.

the term wow killer is like the term quake killer. you expect an arena shooter to dethrone an arena shooter after the decline of arena shooters? not gonna happen.

the real wow killer are mobas, Dota and lol. tens of millions of players, levelling up, getting items, every match is a hundred times more intense than raids and has just as many noobs with the wrong gear. we can even blame them for the casualizing of the genre.

MMOs are declining in popularity. you're only fooling yourself if you're waiting for the wow killer, and you're depriving yourself of good MMOs if you think that's the only one you can enjoy.

there will never be a wow killer.

This is 100% spot on.

I disagree, comparing this to the arena shooter syndrome. makes it sound like WoW was more complex and harder for people to get into which gave way to s*it modern military shooters like CoD... which is not the case... WoW is a joke. EQ and Ultima were far more their core.

Problem is people are trying to compete with WoW ... by trying to remake Wow... whats the point in these theme park mmos when I could play wow with 10 years of content? why do we need 100 diablo spanks with a 3d lobby.

something that beats WoW in that genre... will be something that does something entirely different YET RIGHT.

i can't say it was a perfect example, but to put things in perspective, that's what people say about league of legends, when compared to dota. of course, dota 2 is a proper successor, which once again makes me say this wasn't a perfect example.

something that "beats" wow in that genre? what does that even mean?

people only judge "beating" by number of subscribers/players because they haven't yet realized that just because it's enjoyed by 900 billion players doesn't mean it's the right game for them, much less the right MMO for them. which is never gonna happen. when wow came out and hit its peak, diablo games could be played offline, there was no minecraft, the survival genre hadn't spawned, indie games were garbage, mobas were in their infancy and hadn't taken the world by storm which also happened to be free to play games, which until after wow's peak subscriber base, were absolute crap.

so that's never gonna happen realistically. the next $15 monthly subscription game to hit 13 million subscribers probably won't happen this decade. hell, blizzard's diablo 3 couldn't beat blizzard's diablo 2 in the minds of gamers (pun intended). exactly what godlike developer do you expect to come and "beat" world of warcraft?

Its easy to say these things.... as if it was set in stone. but I bet people thought the same thing about pre-wow. new game sub-genres will be born over time. you mention Diablo .... yet Diablo III sold over 10 million faster than anything else... it was insanely successful in that department. too bad it failed at gameplay/core mechanics... which is another story entirely.

There may never be another mmo that has 14 million subscribers you maybe correct, but that isn't the only thing to BEAT... quality, critic reviews ... and well, something actually taking over CURRENT WoW is enough to beat.

but sadly, free2play easy mode games that kids buy in flocks are the future. nobody is going to make a sub based super awesome ultima online in modern glorius graphics with an enphasis on play driven worlds like EVE ... only fun and in a fantasy setting.

just like leage of legends remains ridiculously more popular than anything else despite its friggin engine being a pile of w*ank it takes forever to load, its so far behind DoTA in features for "quality of life" and "compeition" /.. ye t"omg its free, all the female characters look like super models and asian anime acharacters" "and you can level up! SOO COOL".

These are the flagship genres of PC gaming... I'm starting to see it as a major rut.