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World of Warcraft Reaching Record MMOG Sales

Posted by Zonk on from the go-dwarfs-go! dept.

Drac8 writes "Blizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft has reached record sales in the first day, selling over 250,000 copies, and 200,000 accounts have been created. As of 5:00PM PST tuesday the game had over 100,000 people playing."

27 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. You ain't kidding by jayhawk88 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Tuesday night they had freaking wait lines just to join certain servers. The starting newb zones were a crush.

  2. What about the other 50,000? by SammyJ · · Score: 5, Funny

    Were they just waiting for the servers to come back online? ;)

  3. Blizzard one of the few left.... by MBraynard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not surprising the launch is going so well. Blizzard is proving that developer reputation does matter. This is one of the few developers that I can count on getting my $$s worth with. For me it started with Warcraft 2 and then Starcraft which I played somewhat competitively. The only other PC devs I'd put on their level are MS Games, Id, and maybe Epic.

    1. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by katanan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'd rank Bioware and Valve in that kind of category as well though. Both companys have a penchant for producing great quality games and both have released games that have helped define their specific genres. I have great confidence when I get a game by some companies and I respect the amount of effort Bioware, Blizzard and Valve put into making their games great.

    2. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by peripatetic_bum · · Score: 2

      Valve, yes
      Id no.
      Id has pretty much proven they make great engines but lousy gameplay.

      Actually Valve has given ID a one-two knockout punch by making a great game *AND* a great engine. I think Id Software may have seens it glory days

      --

      Sigs are dangerous coy things

    3. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's not surprising the launch is going so well.
      - Launch going well? You have a very weird definition of "well". 5 minutes to loot a corpse is not "well". 20 min wait on 700+ queue is not "well". Regular server reboots is not "well".

      Blizzard grossly underestimated the number of people that will buy the game, also their database architecture is pure crap. Plugging many servers on the same database is just asking for trouble. Especially with 200k+ accounts.

    4. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by The+Evil+Couch · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maybe he means going well, by the perspective of the guys raking in the cash.

      --
      The World's Worst Webcomic!
    5. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Uh? Valve makes two good games, and you suck their dick. ID makes 8 or 9 and you get all pissy because your machine wont run doom3?
      ID made it so sidescrolling games are possible on the pc (they invented the buffer swapping trick you can see in commander keen)
      ID made it so First Person Shooter games are possible at all (too many tricks to name, all thanks to John Carmack)
      ID made it so games based on their engines are both possible and the norm, lowering the devel cost
      ID made a ton of great games. Commander Keen, Wolf3d, Doom1/2, Quake 1/2/3, RTCW, and Doom3 really isnt that bad.

      Valve took Quake1 and modded it a little.
      Valve took their modded Quake1 engine and modded it a little more (HL2). Everyone is praising them for their great physics -- Its not theirs, its the Havok engine that they licsened. Exact same as Painkiller or Max Payne2. The only thing thats valves in that engine is the facial expression engine, and frankly I think thats some licensed NVidia code.

      Valve also took a bunch of third party mods and took the fun out of them. Compare Counter-Strike beta5 to CS1.6 -- They turned a skilled action game into a strategic newb-friendly game (aiming doesnt matter anymore, bullets are random even on the first shot). They screwed up DoD in a similar way, and TFC is an abomination on TF/q1.

      Valve would not be here were it not for ID.

      ID opensources their games when they have new ones out(usually we get new sourcecode every 3 years or so). Long before they, they create linux and mac binaries. John Carmack personally even contributed greatly to linux gaming, not just by porting his games but by going so far as to write drivers and other such hard tasks.
      Valve doesn't even have an openGL renderer, no linux binaries, and has buggy anticheat that will BAN YOU FOR LIFE if you catch it on a bad day in winex.

      HL2 might be fun, but don't kid yourself, ID is a better company.

    6. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by FozzieCDN · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I honestly wouldn't get too excited about the source "engine". Any company that can afford to add in Shader support and most importantly the Havok Physics engine can produce something that is along the lines of the Source "engine". With that said though its not the engine that matters but how you use it and Valve was able to do a lot with it which is why every "joe gamer" thinks that its the greatest thing since free internet porn :)

    7. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by MBraynard · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, yes, that's what I mean. I suppose CoH had a near flawless launch but this sort of thing issomewhat expected.

    8. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by Quikah · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, considering I just logged into a high population server with no queue and no loot lag, yeah I think it is going great. The problems have been mostly solved.

      --
      Q.
    9. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by Zork+the+Almighty · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've been playing Blizzard games since Warcraft I (PC) and Blackthorne (SNES). I haven't played them all, but I can't think of a single "bad" game they've ever released. Flawed or unbalanced gameplay, sure. That's bound to happen in multiplayer games. Blizzard puts in the time to correct the problems though, and that's what really sets them apart (sad comment, I know).

      --

      In Soviet America the banks rob you!
    10. Re:Blizzard one of the few left.... by CountBrass · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Valve is way ahead of Id in two regards:

      Firstly releasing a game that takes 3 hours to install and get running, and requires you to re-install practically every driver on your system. In contrast Doom3 ran smoothly out of the box.

      Secondly in intrusive copy protection: CD Key *and* online authentication every time you play *and* you still have to keep the DVD in the drive.

      Bugs. Doom3 never stuttered, it ran first time and it never crashed to the Desktop. HL2 does all 3.

      --
      Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
  4. Play WOW for free here! by darylp · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://www.leagueofpirates.com/sirvival/queuedance .html

    1. Re:Play WOW for free here! by Quikah · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually it is a Gwen Stefani solo projet song.

      --
      Q.
  5. What about Europe? by Red_Deth · · Score: 2, Insightful

    250,000... and thats 2 months before Europe even gets a look in. :(
    How about SKorea? Do they have WoW yet?
    /me counts the days untill he can play WoW again.

  6. only 100,000? by darkmayo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So what happened from open beta where they where stating they had 500,000 signups and for the most part (with less servers) had very little problems (I only recall a few times where there was a queue to get into a server but that was when other servers were down)

    Now they have more servers but the queues are really bad to get into alot of them.. what happened, did the open beta numbers of people playing online at one time never hit 100,000?

    --
    "I am a kernel in the linux army"
    1. Re:only 100,000? by Slime-dogg · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't think that all of the open beta accounts were created at near the same time, nor were they all trying to get on-line all at the same time.

      The DB is probably chugging to create the user accounts, but then you have close to 5,000 users in all the same area... it probably causes problems. Even in the stress test, I don't remember seeing more than 200 or 300 people in a newb zone.

      Thank goodness that my copy isn't arriving until December.

      --
      You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
    2. Re:only 100,000? by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Interesting

      One thing to keep in mind is that you never actually had to download the open beta client in order to create an account during open beta. I suspect that a whole lot of people have crappy connections that severely throttled their client download, and before they had a chance to download the entire thing, the open beta closed, and they never had a chance to log in.

      What with installing from CDs now, everybody who buys the game is (obviously) able to create an account and log in within minutes of cracking open the box seal. So, rather than having 500k accounts and 100k people playing (strewn throughout the day), you have 250k accounts and 100k playing at any one time.

      Much of the lag on Tuesday and Wednesday was caused by a database issue, where anytime an action occurred that caused a new slot in your inventory to become occupied, you'd lag out for up to several minutes waiting for the database to catch up. During OB, this seemed to be a "threshold" issue - that is, once the server had more than a certain threshold of people logged in, the problem quickly became bad. Wednesday night they brought down most of the servers, and after they came back up this problem seemed to be mostly solved (though this may be because the threshold wasn't met afterwards due to people going to bed).

      Supposedly there was also an issue with insufficient bandwidth at the east coast data center. That'll learn AT&T not to underestimate the power of the nerd.

  7. Servers have been better since last night by prator · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ever since they restarted the realms last night, I haven't had a problem. I'm sure that the people with characters on the 4 servers with extended downtime are upset, but they can start alts while they wait.

    This launch is still better than any MMO launch I've played in.

    -prator

  8. Re:Torrent-style downloading. by Fr05t · · Score: 4, Informative

    "downloading the patches" - They do.. it's call the Blizzard Updater

  9. Linux petition by debrain · · Score: 3, Informative

    Anyone interested in passively promoting development of World of Warcraft on Linux through a petition can have a look at this site. With a Mac port already, they're more than halfway there.

  10. Re:And so... by code-e255 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    World of Warcraft runs very well on older systems, so the first part of your post is totally irrelevant. Saying WoW isn't worth the money because the first two days after launch weren't smooth is irrational. Even if Blizzard could've forseen the high demand for the game, they would've needed way more servers than (later) necessary for the thousands of newbies. Once people level up and people spread out accross the world, the game's going to be fine.

  11. you can run it on linux by 7-Vodka · · Score: 2, Informative
    Just wanted to say that you can run it on linux using the latest cedega.

    However there are a couple of bugs, they're not that bad:

    1. Mouse cursor not visible in direct x mode, must use -opengl flag
    2. crashes when under roofs with minimap open in opengl mode: just close it when going under a roof.
    3. crashes when you die and leave your body in opengl mode: Don't die : )
    If you get stuck inside a building with map open or in a cemetary after death you have to start it in normal mode (direct X, not opengl) move outside/reclaim body, then restart in open gl mode.
    --

    Liberty.

  12. Not surprising in the least by couch_potato · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why am I not surprised? I played in the open beta, and it was, hands down, the most impressive MMORPG that I've played, ever.

    Everything in the game smacked of polish, polish, polish. Making a character was super-easy, pretty, and fun to do. From there, getting into the game is a snap, and your first mission is placed right in front of your face. I barely had time to experience any of the multi-player aspect of the game before the beta was over, because I was so busy doing missions.

    As I'm sure you've heard by now, it's hard to feel like you're on a level treadmill in this game. The mission system gives the game the feel of a single-player RPG, and the amount of polish/smoothness that Blizzard put in helps retain that feel, but you can't ignore all of those other players running around killing. Despite the hordes of beta-testers, I never once had to wait for a spawn or do any 'spawn-camping' or anything mind-numbing of that sort.

    All in all, a great game, and I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't have any other priorities (job, family, politics, etc), because once you start playing, all of those other not-so-important things in your life (like eating, bathing, and face-to-face socializing) will suddenly not be so important anymore.

    Get your free Nintendo DS! No BS! http://www.ds4free.com/default.aspx?r=64402

  13. Got my collector's edition by Sentry21 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I picked up my collector's edition today (knowing the guys at EB pays off - I got a cancelled preorder). Now the debate becomes 'do I sell it or keep it?' - as much as I'd like to have it, it seems like I could make some good cash selling it off... I mean, it only cost me $90 or so for something very rare, but opportunity cost dictates that if I can sell it for $200, then keeping it costs me $200, and I don't think it's worth that much to me.

    Sigh. The tragic life of a geek.

    Still, judging from the absurd lag and inability for the servers to keep up, it gives a chance to find out - I don't want to try it now anyway, it'd be too much of a pain.

  14. Re:WOW in Europe by megan_of_wutai · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, Preorders start/started on the 26th, it comes out some time "early 2005".