Aion was going to do it. Then maybe Rift. Star Wars: The Old Republic? You better believe it. Guild Wars 2? The final nail in the coffin. And if that doesn’t do it, The Elder Scrolls Online will.

Seems like we’ve been talking about the game that will kill World of Warcraft for as long as we’ve been talking about… well, World of Warcraft. Many MMOs have been heralded as the fabled WoW Killer, and while some have achieved a fair level of success on their own, none have quite fulfilled their murderous prophecies.

The entries below are not necessarily from top-notch prognosticators or even people who can spell properly. Most respectable game journalists and halfway literate bloggers have rightly stopped trying to predict the dreaded “WoW Killer.”

Instead, keep in mind these fabulous glimpses into MMO history the next time a friend or semi-anonymous troll/commenter on the Internet tries to convince you that a game will kill or has already killed WoW.

Oh, and feel free to point and laugh.

2007: Otherland could be a WoW killer!

Tad Williams‘ Otherland series of cyberpunk novels are an underrated, though much-adored, literary triumph. In 2008, the MMO was announced and is currently in closed beta.

One fan, however, was on the bandwagon nearly a year earlier, posting the idea on the official forum in 2007, which even elicited a response from Williams himself, which you can see in the thread.

That being said: Had you heard of Otherland before reading this piece? And if you had, did you know there was an MMO in the works? Seems to me that in order to be a WoW Killer, people should, I don’t know, have heard of your game a few months before it’s set to launch?

2005: Will this be the WoW killer?

At least Dungeons & Dragons Online was known to be in development when this voice in the wilderness popped up. And hey: Dungeons & Dragons is a major property; without it, it’s safe to say there would be no fantasy RPG market, and hence no World of Warcraft in the first place!

His favorite feature?

“DESTRUCTABLE ENVIRONMENT WITH HIDDEN ITEMS IN IT!!!!!!”

Which sounds good until you realize how much time you spend in DDO whacking innocent barrels hoping to find a few copper coins. Whee.

2010: Ensemble Studios spent three years developing a WoW killer

One of the few cases we can find of a “professional” – OK, someone writing for Gamespot – declaring the “WoW Killer” is for a game that was never made. Hey, great way to never be proven wrong, huh?

A Halo MMORPG – which we’ll assume would be more accurately called an MMOFPS – certainly sounds appealing, but we have several MMOFPS titles in the works, like PlanetSide 2, Firefall, and DUST 514, that, while potential hits, aren’t looking to topple WoW any time soon.

Could the Halo license have changed all this? Doubtful. But wait! It had a $90 million budget! Microsoft was behind it! The only thing that could beat that would be if Electronic Arts was behind an MMO with more than twice the budget!

2009: This game will be a WoW killer

The OP in this thread is clearly a troll, but several later respondents insist, with all sincerity, that Age of Conan could have been a WoW Killer if only it had been more polished – or simply finished – at launch.

Whether that’s true or not, we’ll never truly know, but even with a “perfect” launch, the game’s M rating would have likely kept it out of the hands of too many people. Complain all you want about “WoW kiddies,” but their – or, more accurately, their parents’ – money enriches Blizzard’s coffers just as well as yours does.

2008: Finally a WoW killer

With an evangelist like this guy, how could you not have loved Darkfall‘s chances?

“You can loot anything from the people you kill, no more care bear gameplay for the noobs

You actually aim in first person to shoot your bows and swing a sword in third person no auto attacks in this game

Guilds can attack castles and steal everything from there bank so you must buy guards to play while your offline

This game will be the greatest game ever.

ive never been hyped about anyother mmo so trust me.”

And that’s just on the first page. The marketing team should have hired him.

2010: APB the WoW killer

RealTime Worlds really made a mess of things, but even if APB had launched “perfectly,” it’s hard to imagine how anyone could have seen it as the WoW Killer.

There’s that whole M-rated thing we talked about earlier. And the part about MMOFPS games not being especially huge hits. And… well, do you need much more? Oh yeah, you can drive, too!

Maybe if they’d put in corpse looting and castles, they could have snared that Darkfall fan.

2005: RF Online, DAOC/WoW killer?

Why kill just World of Warcraft when you can also take out Dark Age of Camelot? And the second respondent also wants it to put the nail in the original PlanetSide‘s coffin, too! It’s a bloodbath!

RF Online lasted about two years in North America, running from 2006 to 2008, but re-launched in August 2012. We’re betting you all noticed.

2012: “Eve Online can become a genuine WoW-killer”

Here’s a good one. A game that was released in 2003 – before WoW – can become its killer in 2012. Huh?

“I seriously believe that, done right, EVE Online can become a genuine WoW-killer.”

Ah, there’s the rub: “done right.” So, when EVE Online fails to topple WoW, the poster can claim it was because CCP Games didn’t “do it right,” and not because he was talking out of his exhaust port.

Look, EVE is a good game. It also has about 4% of the active playerbase of WoW. For someone who plays EVE, you’d think this guy would have a better grasp of math.

2008: WoW killer! Play it here!

Now this one I can believe. WoW, your days are numbered!