2 Million Azeroth Citizens

Gamasutra (and everyone else) has the news that World of Warcraft has hit 2 Million subscribers, making it the first U.S. based commercial MMOG to do so. From the article: "The most popular current MMORPGs in Asia are generally developed locally, but if World of WarCraft proves popular in China, as well as other soon to be launched territories such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, it could quickly become the most globally popular online game in history. "

Comments

Maybe they can spend some of that money

[Xenopax]

to add some horsepower to the Alterac Valley instance servers. Right now on the server I play on there is never more than 2 instances going at any one time, even though both sides have over 40 people standing around waiting to get in.

Re:Maybe they can spend some of that money

[JVert]

you need 40 people within the level bracket on each side. Instance counts are not being held back by their server count, they just need more map locations where you can join the list without having to travel around the world.

Re:Maybe they can spend some of that money

[_xeno_]

Alterac Valley has only one level bracket, 51-60. Warsong Gultch has multiple brackets.

Re:Maybe they can spend some of that money

[The Analog Kid]

Are you totally sure you have 40 on both sides? If so it could be that people have themselves in line for one specific instance rather than any instance. If that's the case it won't start a third instance.

Re:Maybe they can spend some of that money

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe Blizzard could spend some money on a faster server for the official forums to accommodate people posting all those complaints about the battlegrounds, so people won't have to bring their complaints to Slashdot.

Korea

[alvinrod]

That's where a lot of the MMORPG players are at. Lineage has had a lot of popularity there and accounts for a lot of business.

The numbers might be skewed because a lot of Asian MMO gamers play online in cyber-cafes or something similar. I guess you could still count the number of accounts that are created, but what about the people who create and account, play for an hour and then never come back. If the internet cafe is the one being billed per hour of play time, that account will stick around forever. This makes it a little more difficult to accurately guage the number of actual subscribers.

I've never played either Lineage, but I'm going to guess that a lot of people in these countries are going to try WoW and a lot will probably like it and switch to playing it. The numbers will still be a little funny though.

China will ban it.

[elasticwings]

China will probably ban it like Google.

Re:China will ban it.

[knight37]

Nah. The goverment likes their subjects to waste their energies on pointless things like an MMORPG rather than spending their efforts trying to free themselves from the shackles of tyranny.

Re:China will ban it.

[Nutcase]

Wait... are we still talking about China here?

Re:China will ban it.

[faloi]

Nah. They won't ban it because then the massive gold farming industry would collapse!

WoW = World of Waiting

[Jack Comics]

In addition to World of Warcraft, WoW also stands for World of Waiting.

Waiting to log on... waiting for instances to open up... waiting for Battlegrounds... waiting for patches...

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Or, in your case, World of Whining. On Stonespire (or spirestone, whatever it is) I have none of these issues. Low population pvp server. The longest wait I've ever had for the BG was 30 minutes on a saturday at 1pm.

You're complaining about issues that were addressed already. If your server is so full you have to wait to log on, you can transfer your character to another server.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you can't. They haven't allowed that for months. Go ahead, try it. (You need a WoW account for that.) You'll get told:

The Character Move feature is currently closed. We are continuing to monitor realm populations, and are keeping the option in mind to re-open Character Moves in the event any realms become overpopulated. In addition, we are looking into the possibility of allowing customers more freedom in transferring to realms of their choice in the future. No further details are currently available concerning this feature, but any new information (regarding this or similar services) will be posted on www.worldofwarcraft.com as soon as it is available.

Battleground queues are insane on most servers. People have been waiting 15 hours on some servers just for the chance to play! Blizzard really needs to find a way to reduce the wait time, but so far, we've been hearing nothing.

What's even better is that sometimes an AV instance will start, and then all the Horde will randomly up and leave, killing the instance, so the Alliance who have been waiting 8+ hours get screwed. GG, Blizzard!

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Methlin]

Battleground queues are insane on most servers. People have been waiting 15 hours on some servers just for the chance to play!

Only for Alliance. It's not Blizzard's fault you selected Easy Mode. For the Zerg!

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[theantipop]

Someone mod this asshole into oblivion. The concept of Easy Mode was invented by whiney low level hordes who thought they were the only ones getting ganked. If anything, horde is easy mode with your vastly overpowered racial abilities and completely useful hybrid class (shaman).

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Methlin]

As opposed to Fear Ward, sure makes: Onyxia, Magmadar, The Beast, and mass-pvp easier (yes it's dispellable, but no one dispells in mass-pvp its all about tagging as many people as possible to farm that CP) and you can bet it'll be plenty usefull in future raid/instance content. WotF has nothing on that when it comes to PvE, three dwarf priests completely nullifies the best anti-tank/de-aggro ability mobs have.

Then there's Cleanse which frees up priests, mages, and druids from secondary duties, resist Auras that are more powerful than equivelent totems and are MOBILE, Blessing of Wisdom where rank 1 returns more per tick than the top rank mana totem at same tick rate.

Then there's the quest and zone disparities that allow Alliance characters to level at a faster rate. That's not easy mode? Sorry you're in such denial.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Anonymous Coward]

I've played both sides. Horde is easy-mode, not alliance.

Basic reasons include easier travel, safer zones to level in, stronger racial abilities, and better quest rewards.

Don't bother arguing. Blizzard is terribly biased in favor of the Horde. The three main CMs that communicate with the players (Caydiem, Eyonix, and Fangtooth) all play Horde mains.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're saying that the majority of people should be denied content because they chose, at launch, the side that wound up being the most popular?

Sorry, I don't buy that. I don't care if the population is imbalanced. I don't care what Blizzard has to do to give every player the fair chance to use the new content they've added, but they have to do something.

It isn't fair that the majority of players should be locked out of content that the minority of players have easy access to, soley because they picked the "wrong side" back when no one knew what the populations of the sides were going to be like.

I suppose I could have guessed that more people were likely to play the Alliance, but I honestly assumed that there were going to be an equal number of people interested in playing the Horde. I suppose next time I should look six months into the future and decide how to play based on that.

Seriously, Blizzard must come up with a solution for this. I don't care what, I don't care how. They just have to solve it.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Damvan]

Guys like this is why it is called World of Whining, like mentioned above. My guess is that you play an Alliance warlock. Mellow out, warlocks are screwed for both sides, only difference is WOTF, and that ain't the end all and be all that Alliance seem to think it is.

If the horde is so damn easy, why don't you reroll?

I totally disagree with you, having played both, Alliance is easier. I find that players are generally better on the Horde side, though.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

They may play Horde, but I bet they don't play as hunters.. (I'm an unloved Tauren Hunter)

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Methlin]

Basic reasons include easier travel, safer zones to level in, stronger racial abilities, and better quest rewards.

Obviously you haven't played both sides. The only part of the above that is even remotely close to being true is "stronger racial abilities", everything else is biased torwards Alliance, number of quests, quest rewards, number of zones to level in (10-40, post 40 both sides are in the same zones with a few exceptions). This is mostly because Alliance was "finished" (read: developed) first durring beta.

As for the "stronger racial abilities" Horde have, as of last patch which fixed Orc passive, three out of the eight traits are actually usefull (WotF, War Stomp, Stun Resist), Alliance's only really good racials are on their least popular races, gnomes (Escape Artist) and dwarves (Stoneform), both of which are good for pvp. So yeah 3:2 for the horde when it comes to racial traits, everything else: Alliance ftw.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, warlocks, one of the most powerful classes in the game, are screwed. Sure.

They have survivability like a Paladin, nukes like a Mage, and pets like a Hunter. And they're "screwed".

Whinelocks are fine, they're just played by the largest group of whiners I've ever seen. Ignore the complaints, a good warlock is next to unkillable.

I've played both sides, Horde is far easier than Alliance. Alliance is more fun, though. (Since I play games for the challenge and not to be handed everything.)

As for "better players on the Horde", that's a freaking myth. There are just as many idiots on the Horde side as the Alliance side. In fact, most of the good guilds seem to be Alliance side, so I'd say you probably have that reversed.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Methlin]

So, you're saying that the majority of people should be denied content because they chose, at launch, the side that wound up being the most popular?

No I'm saying they're paying for their previous free ride. And stop trying to make "the side that wound up being the most popular" sound like some kind of accident, it wasn't. It was pure self-interested easy mode seekers who were in beta or followed it that caused it. It was well known in beta that the easy way to 60 and defeating the available end-game content was to be Alliance, and it was not a secret from those not in the beta.

Sorry, I don't buy that. I don't care if the population is imbalanced. I don't care what Blizzard has to do to give every player the fair chance to use the new content they've added, but they have to do something.

Like what? Turn all Night Elves, which on most servers usually outnumber all of horde by themselves, into Horde? The problem with access to the new pvp content IS the population imbalanced. A problem created by the players as a result of WoW's Alliance bias in leveling and end-game content that existed at launch and still exists today. Fortunately for at least the leveling aspect this is starting to become more balanced with the recent patch (additional FPs/quests), but not much can be done about the PvE advantages Alliance has and will continue to have unless Shaman get a cleanse equivelent and Tuarens can be priests with a fear ward equivelent, both of which are not going to happen.

no one knew what the populations of the sides were going to be like.

There you go again making it sound like some sort of accident.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Methlin]

They have survivability like a Paladin, nukes like a Mage, and pets like a Hunter. And they're "screwed".

Here let me fix your typos... They have survivability like a Hunter, nukes like a mage half their level, and pets like ones bought from the crazy cat lady.

All by one of their common pets are killed in just a few hits, the extra health from demonology basically upgrades them to a mail wearing class, and their nukes are only half as potent as a mage's, even with curse of shadows up for the .5 seconds before it's removed. But that's ok since in WoW's version of pvp ranking you don't actually have to kill very many people (only 25 lucky shadowbolts per week), all you have to do is damage them then run away while some other class (hunter/mage/rogue) gets around to killing them for you.

I've played both sides, Horde is far easier than Alliance.

Examples? Oh that's right, you have none because there aren't any that hold up.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a first. Someone is speaking nerd and I don't understand a word of it. :(

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Robmonster]

People seriously wait 8-15 hours just to play this?

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[unclethursday]

As for the "stronger racial abilities" Horde have, as of last patch which fixed Orc passive, three out of the eight traits are actually usefull (WotF, War Stomp, Stun Resist), Alliance's only really good racials are on their least popular races, gnomes (Escape Artist) and dwarves (Stoneform), both of which are good for pvp. So yeah 3:2 for the horde when it comes to racial traits, everything else: Alliance ftw.

And let's not forget that trolls get a 10% health regeneration bonus outside of combat, and 10% of their health regen while in combat; undead can breathe underwater 4x as long as other races; and Tauren have 5% higher hit points than anybody else of the same class at the same level.

Even if you say that longer breath holding under water isn't an advantage (because it can be overcome depending on situations), or that a 5% hp bonus isn't that much (5 hp for every 100)... the fact that trolls can regen in combat and have a better regen outside of combat makes your 3:2 ratio become 2:1 in favor of the Horde. If we have the others, then it's 3:1 for racial bonuses favoring the Horde (well, 5:2 because Gnomes get a 5% increase to intelligence if we count the 5% hp bonus of the Taurens).

Since I've yet to play a Horde, I can't say for areas of leveling or quests and quest rewards. But, I've leveled my char pretty fast (level 24 Night Elf Druid in my 10 day trial, which expires tonight, I'll re-up when I get a little extra money)-- but being on long term disability means I was able to power game it, with about 10 hours a day, sometimes more, of playing.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Methlin]

And let's not forget that trolls get a 10% health regeneration bonus outside of combat, and 10% of their health regen while in combat;

Ok then you have NE 1% dodge > 10% regen in combat. Totaling avoiding all damage is better than 2-3hp every tick. Out of combat is irrelevent as food/bandages/heals are far faster than passive regen. Gnome 5% int > Tauren 5% hp, bigger mana pool and higher crit rate with spells that completely ignore armor vs taking one extra melee hit from a non-leet. BTW I did say "actually usefull" traits.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[mconeone]

You don't really have to wait, as in sitting there doing nothing. You have to go to a certain area to enter the line, but after that you can go wherever you want to and do anything while waiting. Once its your turn to enter, you are automagically teleported to the battlegrounds.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[unclethursday]

Ok then you have NE 1% dodge > 10% regen in combat.

With how many times I've died and had my enemy just a few hp away from death themselves, I think you over estimate how much better that 1% bonus to dodging is. If I was regenerating a few hp every tick, I'd have lived through at least some of those encounters.

I try and pelt my foe from afar with spells, especially trying to keep them entangled as much as possible... but you can't keep them away from you forever at all times (especially when they suddenly teleport right in front of you, still entangled, for some reason-- when they were 20 yards away half a second before hand). 1% better dodge is nothing. I don't know what controls your dodging ability in WoW (assuming agility), but my base percentage must not be very high, even with that extra 1%, because I don't dodge and avoid damage as much as you might think.

If we say that the base dodge percent for everyone is 5%, then Night Elves get 6%. Woooo! That means a whole one more time out of 100 attempts made, the Night Elf will dodge when the others fail. Statistically, it's still essentially a 1 in 20 chance to dodge using these numbers; the chance to roll a 6 out out of 100 is not substantially higher than rolling a 5 out of 100.

Meanwhile, the troll is regenerating his HP, 100% of the time, even if it is only 10% of his normal regen [(spirit regen+10%)/10]. If he has a high spirit, that can still be substantial. With the right equipment and buffs, at high levels, the troll could be regenerating as much as 10 hp or more each time he regens during combat. 10 hp at certain times can mean the difference between life and death.

Hell, I regenerate like 30-40 HP out of battle, or somewhere around there... I'd have to log in to check... and getting 3-4 hp back a tick during battle could have saved my life more than a few times. Besides, I'd say the Night Elf 25% faster ghost is better than their 1% to dodge, being as if the foe dies anyway (say from Thorns, or residual MoonFire effects), and the graveyard isn't half the land away, you can normally get back to your body before the enemy respawns.

Gnome 5% int > Tauren 5% hp, bigger mana pool and higher crit rate with spells that completely ignore armor vs taking one extra melee hit from a non-leet.

For a spell caster, like me, I would agree. And for PvP, I could see this as extremely useful. But in PvE, they balance out. In PvE, the spell caster has to worry about casting and being interrupted... but in PvP the spell caster can try and sit back if in a group (and in PvE as well, but aggro seems to draw the enemies to the spell casters) and let the warriors tank up front. And, in reality, this part of the discussion is about PvE, not PvP.

BTW I did say "actually usefull" traits.

I think a 10% regen rate during combat is actually useful. Have a troll warrior tanking up front, with a druid able to cast Regrowth or Rejuvenation on him, and he's nigh near un-killable, both in PvP and PvE.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[buffer-overflowed]

Only if you're alliance, or horde on the ONE server where Horde outnumbers alliance.

Reroll horde. I've NEVER waited longer than 30 minutes to get into a BG, and the wait is generally 1-3 minutes. This is Stormreaver BTW, not a low pop server by any stretch. Warsong Gulch is generally a shorter wait than Alterac as well(because you don't need 30+ people to queue up into first available to spawn a new one).

Cry more. Seriously. OH NO! THINGS HAVE TO BE BALANCED! I NO LONGER GET TO PLAY ON EASY MODE! EVERYONE PICKED MY SIDE SO I HAVE TO WAIT! CRY CRY CRY!

You picked the level/PvE easy-mode side Galstaff, Warrior of Light. You outnumber us, so you HAVE to wait. Or we can have blizzard nerf you into oblivion so we can actually fight you guys with the horrible imbalance. Which would YOU prefer?

Oh and give cleanse to priests. It's fuckin' lame that the best all-around support class is Alliance only.

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[devnull17]

You really think there was some sort of conspiracy at work here?

I play a level 60 human mage on Thunderhorn, and I'm in an endgame guild. I did not participate in the beta, and didn't know anything about the game before I bought a copy at Best Buy and installed it. A number of my guildmates were in the beta, but a larger number were not.

The fact that Alliance outnumber Horde by such a large number is probably better attributed to psychological factors--people identify with humans more readily (go figure), people tend to like playing the "good guys," etc.

And if it's so bad, and you knew it was coming, why did you roll Horde?

Re:WoW = World of Waiting

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen some awesome PvP warlocks. Just because you suck at playing your class doesn't mean that the class is inherently flawed.

Quick Opinion Wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

If WoW content remained basically the same, but did not have the Warcraft specific brand or Blizzard label, would it be as successful?

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[wuie]

Questions like this are loaded, but I'll bite anyway.

I speculate that the initial success wouldn't have been as large, since company and brand recognition go a long way in marketing. Past successes usually help out the initial reaction of a company's game, and if the company continues to put out quality games, this reaction will only continue to grow higher (id and Blizzard are the best examples of this).

We also have the success of the actual game: those who choose to play it will naturally tell others to buy/try it if they think it's awesome, or criticize it and tell others not to buy it if it's horrible. This is done in many avenues, such as game reviews, gaming websites/forums, and word-of-mouth. These *should* be free of bias of the Company's reputation, and instead focus on the merits/flaws of the game in question. However, this isn't a perfect world, so bias will be present.

Overall, it would be less successful if it didn't have a brand or company name to publicize it, but that's just the nature of merchandising (where the real money from the movie is made).

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[white1827]

Star Wars Galaxies was not a huge success. Why? The game was not fun - even though it had a huge franchise to build off of. Making games that people ENJOY playing will sell titles over name recognition, branding and marketing anyday.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[Yhippa]

I personally tend to make judgements based on a few factors: graphics, UI, and fun factor. WoW graphics are OK, but there is a nice variety of locales and the graphics are bright in general. I personally wish it were more like FFXI.

The UI is great I think from the start. Plus Blizzard has given us the ability to modify the UI pretty extensively and the company even supports it.

I thought the game was pretty fun until I hit level 40 with my Paladin. I've been trying other classes though and I think there's still quite a bit of replayability. I find I do much less "grinding" than I do in console-based RPG's or other MMORPG's.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW graphics are OK, but there is a nice variety of locales and the graphics are bright in general. I personally wish it were more like FFXI.

Ugly and bland? WoW's graphics are 10 times better than FFXI's "anime water color" graphics.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

"I personally wish it were more like FFXI."

You want aliased textures, repetitive terrain and boring gameplay?

Wow. You're pretty bright.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[rohlfinator]

Still, there's no denying that the Warcraft franchise was a large factor in WoW's success. My roommate who had never considered playing an MMORPG in his life bought WoW simply because he was a big Warcraft fan. I'm positive that many others did the same. Maybe it would have gained popularity by word of mouth as time went on, but a large percentage of the initial surge of subscribers was probably long-time Blizzard fans.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[theghost]

Yes. The Warcraft/Blizzard brand means nothing to me, but i love WoW . . . when i'm not busy hating the bugs. But it's definitely more love than hate.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[cazbar]

Short answer: no

Long answer: no

Next question.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[cazbar]

I should explain myself slightly further before the flamebait gods attack.

I don't doubt that it is a good game. I played it for a while. I liked it. However, the popularity of this game most likely would not have reached this level this quickly if Blizzard's name was not on it. 1 million subscribers, sure. But 2 million within a year of release? I have my doubts.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[PurpleFloyd]

Short answer:

In the long run, there would very little difference.

Long answer:

Sure, the Blizzard name almost certainly helped the initial takeoff. However, the fact remains that the WoW developers really have distilled the essence of what many people want in an MMORPG. It provides easy access for casual gamers (including a biggie, decent graphics without a $300 video card), good content, and enough high-level content that hardcore gamers stay happy.

In short, WoW probably would have had many subscribers buy the game and leave after a few months had it been a poor game with the Blizzard name; conversely, if it had been released by someone other than Blizzard, it probably would have taken some time to "build up steam." However, if name recognition was truly a major factor in MMORPG success, Everquest 2 would have creamed WoW; after all, when WoW was released, the only MMORPG many casual gamers were familiar with was Everquest (at least in the US). Instead, WoW was able to spread to the casual-gamer market and has not only eclipsed Everquest but is reaching subscriber numbers that approach Lineage, the 900-pound gorilla of MMORPGs.

Although the Blizzard and Warcraft associations certainly helped sell WoW, it never would have reached its current numbers without being recognized by both casual and serious gamers as an excellent game worthy of a large time investment. While the Blizzard name undoubtedly helped, there is simply no way it could have pushed a basically mediocre game to WoW's current subscriber numbers. Similarly, the reason for WoW's success lies mainly in its broad appeal, a factor that isn't affected by the name of the developer. After all, only a small subset of the gamer population even cares who developed their game - they only want to have fun. These are the people who have propelled WoW to 2 million, not the Blizzard fanboys.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[kiddygrinder]

No, of course not. If, however, it was released by another company with starcraft and warcraft 3 under it's belt then of course it would. Basically it's the rep that blizz has built that allow people to go out on release day (Like I did) and buy a game knowing that it's gonna be good.

I'm interested in Guild Wars, but i have made no moves to purchase it or even download the Beta, simply because it might suck.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[will_die]

First off I was one of thoses that had WoW preorderded months in advance, I later quit and have been happily playing EQ2, and only went with that because of the bad experiences I had from WoW and EQ2 was the other newest thing on the block, and from the public beta is was actually good.

WoW initial sales and pumping was all fanboies and based on Blizzards reputation, even after warcraft III. You don't sell out like they did from the casual person who sees the new box in the store and decides to purchase it, you get it from people going to the store for the purpose of buying it. WoW had the MMORPG market word of mouth that it was ready to be released, was fast, and had excellently balanced classes.
then one you start getting the press releases of it selling out, that helps fuel the game. You get a lot of impuse buy from the "I heard it sold out it must be good, lets purchase it." people where not looking at EQ2 because of sony on-line, the experience of SWG. For all purposes at release it was the underdog that had to release early in order to advoid the big name recognition of WoW. However its population is nicly increasing without the current expansions into new countries.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

He asked whether it would be as popular, not whether or not you would have played it still. Read more carefully.

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[theghost]

I can only speak for myself, but if i would still be playing the game with or without the Blizzard/Warcraft names, then there are probably a lot of other people who would be doing the same.

When answering the question according to my own perspective i was assuming the readers of my answer would be smart enough to infer that i thought my answer was generalizable. Clearly i overestimated at least one person's intelligence.

Think more carefully.

(I feel slightly lame for taking the time to respond to your pointless comment, but i'm a little prickly today about being called an idiot by anonymous jerks and i'm willing to wade into the mud on occasion just for the hell of it. This is the thing i'm really curious about: Why did you think it was worth your time and effort to point out that you thought i was stupid? Did it make you feel good about yourself? It certainly didn't take a significant amount of effort, but why did you feel compelled to even take that little bit of time out of your day? Me? I'm bored at work and feeling a little quarrelsome and curious. How about you?)

Re:Quick Opinion Wanted

[space_jake]

Definately been a Blizzard fan since Warcraft 2 came out. Had the original Diablo on pre-order for months in advance likewise for all of their games from then on. I had tried the MMO market before in Eve Online and I wasn't too impressed so I was skeptical on WoW and didn't get it until I knew a bunch of people that had and liked it. I started playing in February and have been loving it since. I really only considered it because of the Blizzard name and the Warcraft Universe, otherwise I'd still be playing Unreal 2004. Heres to another 10 years of good games from Blizzard (all two of them)

WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[pezpunk]

If anything, World of Warcraft's huge success has been understated. It is now four times the size of Everquest at its peak. That's monstrous, for a game that charges a monthly subscription.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[falcon5768]

actually no, its more than 4 times the size of EQ at its peak (EQ never broke 400,000)

BUT WoW also has the highest turnover rate. So the question remains how many of these 2 mil ACTUALLY play the game still, or just bought it played for a month and then dumped it.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you with absolute certainty that less than 5% of all accounts have cancelled.

The message boards are filled with idiots complaining and creating their own drama, yelling how they're cancelling, but they're not doing it.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I can tell you with Absolute Absolute 200% certainty that 500% of the subscribers have cancelled their accounts.

Yeah its that bad, 10 million people who haven't even bought the game called up to cancel their accounts.

Your post is stupid and baseless. At least post logged in so you can get modded down.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd scan the report we just got breaking it all down, but then I'd lose my job.

Nobody is cancelling.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[falcon5768]

sorry, but Blizzard would WANT us to see people arnt leaving and thus that report would be out for all to see, the fact is by all accounts people are leaving, their numbers are just being replaced by new players and the ones leaving are still getting counted as active.

If SE and SOE where to use the same scheme to report their numbers odds are there would not be a huge gap between WoW, and its next runner up FFXI.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I was going to point and laugh at the FFXI weenies because WoW is now 4 times as popular as their crappy game, but it appears that they really are living in another world and have an answer for that, too.

Of course, if I were playing in a game that has kept a static subscriber figure for the past eight months or so, I'd probably be trying to make stuff up to pretend that my game wasn't in dire straights.

Heck, S-E has already pulled the dev team off FFXI to do more useful things. Face, Mr. Rabid S-E Fan, FFXI is dieing, and WoW absolutely killed it.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Pizzop]

It's not just people stop playing. Blizzard has consistently banned people for "exploits" that haven't happened. Because of the shitty customer support, those people have no choice to either completely quit, or fork over more money to the company that banned them to get a new account.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[falcon5768]

um no the DEV team is gearing up the third expantion pack as we speak as well as setting up to add new stuff mid july.

And no FFXI isnt dying, FFXI is still got a higher user base than most MMORPGs out there minus WoW and Korean MMOs

Likewise the point that Im making is Blizzards numbers dont match up, the user base from all accounts are NOT that big.

the fact is, Blizzard doesnt have 2 mil active users, it has 2 mil users. Big difference.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

And FFXI doesn't have 500,000 active users, it has 500,000 users. About 1/4 the size WoW has.

And most of those are people who don't play but can't cancel because Square-Enix deletes canceled characters, while WoW keeps them around.

If the numbers are inflated either way, they'd be inflated in favor of FFXI.

So, suck it, Square-Anus. WoW is now four times more popular than FFXI, reaching that figure in less than a year while FFXI reached 500,000 over two and a half years. And has yet to really increase from that mark.

Just repeat after me: "I play a lousy game by a lousy, non-responsive company, but I've wasted so much time in it I don't want to admit it."

FFXI was a neat experiment, that ultimately FAILED. It'll be interesting to see what the next-gen consoles allow, but I doubt we'll be seeing any MMORPG as good as WoW on them this generation.

The figures don't lie. FFXI isn't attracting new customers. That spells doom for an MMORPG. (Hell, they don't even sell it around here any more. You can't buy it.)

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[EvilMagnus]

If these are active, current subscribers than Blizzard doesn't care if they're actually logging in - it's still $15x2MM dollars a month revenue for them.

Now, if this is 2MM subscibers total, over the history of WoW, then that's not as impressive. :)

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[falcon5768]

ast time Im feeding the troll but

1) you cant buy it cause they are rereleasing it in a new set with the two expansions included

2) You CAN close your account for 3 months and you can get a canciled account back now and have been able to for months

3) FFXI is twice as popular as EQ at peak, last I saw EQs still going strong, its not a popularity contest, hell UO is still around and thats years old and only has 100,000 users MAYBE.

4) Figures do lie and a lot of people have been looking into Blizzards and seeing that too many people are leaving to jib with their numbers.

Numbers are UP on FFXI since today was yet another server reshuffle to take care of the rising numbers on 8 of the servers. I started there where 2000-3500 on my server, there is now over 4500.

The only fanboy here is the one who cant admit that its not a popularity contest. if it was there would be no NA MMORPGs since WoW numbers are 1/4th that of most Korean MMOs.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Dachannien]

Care to offer any proof of that? I mean actual proof, going beyond anecdotal reports of a few people posting on the WoW forums that "my friend got banned so I'm posting this for them", which are often easily debunked as "my friend broke the rules and got banned, and instead of owning up to his wrongdoing, I'm making this post on his behalf to make Blizzard look like the bad guys".

Or are you referring to the old BBB report on Vivendi Universal, which discusses large numbers of account bans (130k of them), which has also been consistently debunked on the WoW forums as actually being account bans from battle.net for massive cases of item duping in Diablo II?

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, WoW's numbers now put it on par with Lineage and Lineage II. Lineage is now behind it (making FFXI in fourth place) and Lineage II is ahead of it.

FFXI's numbers barely even make the chart.

The server reshuffles are attempts to move people off overpopulated servers and on to underpopulated servers. WoW did it too. Note that they are not adding new servers. This is because they don't actually have any new users, just an uneven spread across all servers.

FFXI died when Square-Enix announced that the XBox 360 version would contain no upgrades beyond a higher resolution. People already know how to get higher resolutions on the PC version and it really isn't all that impressive.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[falcon5768]

actually Lineage is far far ahead of WoW sorry to say, as is Lineage 2.

Sorry thank you for playing Blizzard fanboy. BTW for someone who only posts AC its so easy to track youyr posting record about this stuff its pointless to remain AC. I looked through my past history and found at least 20 of your comments all dispelled as false as well by others.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

Lineage II: 2.1 mil
WoW: 2.0 mil
Lineage: 1.9 mil
FFXI: 0.5 mil

Actual figures.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

what is your source for the turnover rate ?

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you believe the numbers at http://mmogchart.com/ or not?

The WoW numbers have been going up very steadily since release.

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[rhuntley12]

Those are ACTIVE on lineage 1. And that is more then likely total subscribers on WoW. I currently play Lineage 2 and it's funny the hoards of people coming back from WoW to play, we're talking huge amounts. But who really cares?

Re:WoW's success has been UNDERstated

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite. Read the FAQ on MMOGChart.com to understand how Lineage counts accounts.

Simply put, if anything, their numbers are inflated.

Insightful article ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> but if World of WarCraft proves popular in China, as well as other soon to be launched territories such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, it could quickly become the most globally popular online game in history.

Let me rephrase this as:

"but if World of WarCraft proves popular in [every country] it could be the most popular online game in history"

We can build quite a lot of story here:

"if $thing proves $property in $everywhere else, it could be the most $property $category in history"

Like in:

"If slashdot proves boring in europe and china and south america, it could be the most boring weblog in history".

Cool.

Re:Insightful article ?

[patio11]

Crazy Perl hackers. Who needs dollar signs -- what we need here is LaTex! If Sy(WoW) > Sy(x) (S = sales, y = country, for every x in the set of MMORPGs other than WoW), then for every x in that set Sigma(Sy(WoW) over all the y's) > Sigma (Sy(x) over all the y's). CS102: Proving WoW is the Best Game Ever* * #include : Proves the lemma which gets you from "sells most" to "best". Mostly by brainwashing you with the prospect of large amounts of cash money if you master the concepts presented in class. Hey, it worked for Blizzard :)

Capitalization of the mmo market...

[fierYice]

As a former Blizzard employee I can attest that I did not see very much innovation in the hallways. Passion is spewing from the halls and dedication to the utmost fun experience is what holds that ship together; maybe one day they will try it with brand new ideas...

I have no doubt that World of Warcraft will become the usurper of the throne and easily claim the #1 MMO spot globally but what I have not yet seen much of is "Who will dethrone the new king in years to come?"

You know it is an inevitable. I ACTUALLY know it is inevtiable, hell I've worked on the code and tools. You can feel it in your soul and you can know it just by the fact that technology always expands to such a point that games are antiquated and no longer "Stunning."

Gaming industry, when oh when are you braking out your next stunners?

A true 'Killer Application' mmo has not been created, and world of warcraft is not it. Killer apps force consumers to go out and buy hardware just for the expience being so damn 'killer fun.' In other words, I can't wait for the mmo that breaks out and makes people go out and buy computers or consoles (ps3, xbox360 would be nice...)

That's the game I am interested in playing.

(and making, as a game developer. :D)
-Daniel

Re:Capitalization of the mmo market...

[pezpunk]

nothing new here ... any outsider can tell you that Blizzard's magic comes from a ridiculous amount of polish on existing concepts. more specifically -- nice cinematics, charming characters, fluid and attractive UI, and the elimination of genre X's most annoying bits. none of that's in dispute.

but hey, good luck on your current projects and i wish you all the luck in the world at unseating the king! =)

Re:Capitalization of the mmo market...

[JVert]

You think you will rule the market by making uber graphics and a game thats unplayable on standard machines? I'll give you one more guess who this "killer" app is going to kill. Its no wonder why you didn't feel the innovation while you were pushing your mail cart down the hallways. You saw regular old PC's playing this game and just couldn't understand.

Re:Capitalization of the mmo market...

[llevity]

While I'm not arguing with you that Blizzard's games are more evolutionary than revolutionary, I don't understand how to be a killer app, it requires someone to go out and buy new hardware.

You're saying that games that are a boatload of fun to play, addictive, revolutionary, and polished, can't scale to support older PCs?

Re:Capitalization of the mmo market...

[Anonymous Coward]

So Doom3 was the killer ap?

Re:Capitalization of the mmo market...

[Danny Rathjens]

Perhaps he was just using it as a scale for how great it should be. Trying out a copy of Thief on my dad's computer(yes, my dad is a warez d00d) is why I went out and bought the game along with my first 3d graphics card.

Re:Capitalization of the mmo market...

[fierYice]

Senior server engineer, not mail pusher to half-wit...
and why does "killer" make you all immediately think dollar signs.
Did not one of you ever think I meant next-generation in fun, on a mass-communication effort that has yet to be done in mmo's. As a server programmer I can tell you the player density issues alone on seamless mmo's haven't been exploited to thier full potential and anybody who thinks a fucking 'RPG' is going to be the kind needs to wake up and realize that other genre's have way bigger markets; just no one has made thier mmo, yet.

Re:Capitalization of the mmo market...

[fierYice]

this has nothing to do with the hardware itself, but the emotional state that people just 'fucking have to fun out any buy the god damn game because thier soul is aching for it'. That killer app... pay attention hardware ($) monkeys.

When is the last time you FELT you had to have a game or you would die? .killer.app

Is that current paying subscribers?

[Banner]

In WOW they never delete a character or an account. So is that current paying subscribers? Or all subscribers ever?

I'm just curious

Re:Is that current paying subscribers?

[pudding7]

My inside source tells me over 95% of accounts are still active. Don't know if they're playing, but they're definitely still PAYING.

Re:Is that current paying subscribers?

[KDR_11k]

Few MMOs delete the accounts because they hope the user will come back. FFXI is the only one that has a regular policy of deleting unsubscribed accounts, all the others hope the user might feel the urge to come back one day and doesn't want to start from scratch.

Re:Is that current paying subscribers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod the parent up!

Out of 8 people who went out to get WoW ...only one plays it. The other two went BACK to City of Hero's. Other three started to play Guild Wars, and two more doing planetside. Only one is holding out for DOTA (wow rip off someone's idea off and make it your own) style of game called Battle Grounds.

On the side note, I am very happy, as most blizzard Qa people I met were assholes.

Re:Is that current paying subscribers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of the 3 people I know who went out to get it, all are still playing. See how fun it is to draw conclusions from insufficient samples?

New subscribers != more players

[BrookHarty]

There might be more subscribers, but there are less people playing online now. People are getting burnt out of the same old instances, and waiting for poorly designed PvP.

Your wait in queue in 3 hours, have a nice day.

Re:New subscribers != more players

[ThePolkapunk]

Nobody logs onto WoW anymore because the queue's of people waiting to play are too long.

Monstrously disapointed

[Anonymous Coward]

I cant even begin to express how diaspointed I've become with Blizzard. All due to this particualr game adn the rumors leaking out about Ghost. I've canceled two subscriptions in the last week, both mine and my fiance's.

The customer service is, hands down, the worst I have ever personally experienced from a game developer. And I've experienced some pretty atrocious handling of the customer. At times it seems as if the disdain for the player base is so heavy as if to be almost tangible.

I wonder then, how many of those 2 million subscribers are actually active accounts. I know for a fact that I am not alone in my sentiments towards what was once a great devloper.

Re:Monstrously disapointed

[dapcook]

I'm not renewing my account. The game is great, but after 6 months, it's rather dull.. The game is great from level 1-59, but one you get to 60, I think Blizzard droped the ball a bit. This isn't to rant and rave about how stupid they are, etc.... but I personally don't have the time to invest in organizing and running raids. So for me the game pretty much ended at level 60. I got an alt up to 36, then decided to go back to SWG for a while till more content comes out that doesn't require 40 people groups. :|

Re:Monstrously disapointed

[theantipop]

Have you ever played any of their games before? This "disdain" has always been there, but not in the way you seem to see it. Their stance has always been to produce challenging games. When people raise their skill levels, Bliz will patch it to make the game tougher. Diablo2 is a prime example. It was really hard until the expansion. Then when the playerbase got good they released 1.10, hit every class with a nerf and buffed up monsters tremendously. I'm curious what support issues you had... was it loot?

Re:Monstrously disapointed

[Damvan]

I always read posts like this with a smile on my face. Anyone who played EQ, and was repeatedly punched in the face by SOE probably feels the same way. Blizzard has had their share of problems, but they in no way show the kind of contempt for their customers that SOE had. I know it isn't the best arguement to say that "Hey, at least they are not the worst!" But, hey, at least they are not the worst!

Nice milestone, but...

[Evro]

With so many of its customers being non-US, so what if the game's "US-based"? If it had 2 million US-based customers it would be more impressive.

Math

[MBraynard]

Est Sales Revenue Percentage: 50% Upfront Sales Revenue: $50,000,000 Monthly Sub Revenue: $30,000,000 Annual Sub Revenue: $360,000,000 Total Revenue over 5 year period for WoW 1,850,000,000. This does not take into account expansions, new subscribers gained or loss in subscribers.

Re:Math

[Morinaga]

Not really.

If you really want an inside look at the finances of how MMOs work I'd suggest you read a thred commented on by the owner of Meridian 59 here at slashdot. Explore the parent thred and you will find several posts from him discussing this subject in detail.

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=140914&c id=11811417

He does talk about revenue calculations as you have but I found the expenses more interesting...

Okay, now we come to bandwidth. Here's some numbers for you: Meridian 59 uses 1 kilobyte per player per second. Remember, this is for a game designed to be played on 14.4k modems on the client side; a game like WoW is going to require much higher rates. But, let's assume that players play an average of 10 hours per week (quite low, "hard core" players usually go 20-30 hours per week), there's 4 weeks per year, and use the numbers from Dave Rickey above, rounded to 500k to make my math easier. 1 kilobyte/s/player * 500k players * 40 hours/month * 60 minutes/hour * 60 s/minute = 67 Terabytes per month. M59 currently spends about $3/GB per month. That puts bandwidth costs closer to $200,000 per month, four times your number. Keep in mind that 1) WoW probably uses more bandwidth per player per second , and 2) this bandwidth usage is constant, not bursty like most network traffic is. This means you're going to be filling up fat pipes easier and longer than most other server types will. A T3 isn't going to cut it for this type of bandwidth usage. Keep in mind that you cannot skimp here; saturating your bandwidth will result in lag which will irritate your customers. You're going to have to routinely oversubscribe in order to keep the game playable...

Re:Math

[Dachannien]

The snippet Morinaga quoted is interesting, but there's even more to the story than that. I really recommend that everyone follow the link and read the entire post.

Re:Math

[MBraynard]

What do you mean, 'not really' you tool? I was talking srictly about revenue.

Re:Math

[MBraynard]

Besides, WOW is probably getting a lot better rate on bandwidth than some chumpy Meridian 59 game. They are probably sitting right on one of Level3's fiber optic lines. I don't know their server IPs but I'm sure someone can tracert it who does know.

Re:Math

[Morinaga]

Troll me all you like but the facts are it isn't 50% of the retail take, it's closer to a third (RTFA). Also, you make a broad assumption that all subscribers pay $15 each month. That's not accurate either considering there are lower pricing options for 3 and 6 month subscriptions. You also fail to account for the weak dollar and the subscription numbers of overseas customers. If you make a large leap of faith that they too are at the same price point as North America you still need to account for the exchange rate to the US dollar.

You label me a 'tool' yet go in to yet another post despariging my examination of expenses because M59 is "chumpy", whatever that means. Tell you what, as soon as you can discover the vast mystery of DNS resolution and simple whois inquiries I'll take all your assumptions more seriously.

Where can you find better graphics?

[kjkeefe]

I have seen comments posted on slashdot several times saying that the graphics in WoW or mediocre at best. I personally think that they are excellent. Where are folks seeing better graphics than what is available in WoW? Just curious...

Re:Where can you find better graphics?

[pezpunk]

any first person shooter, first of all. also, Everquest 2. honestly, WoW uses some pretty low poly-count graphics, low rez textures (especially on scenery like trees) and pretty simple lighting technology.

luckily, all the greatness in the game is in how this non-cutting edge tech has been leveraged to render things in a very charming and accessible way.

Re:Where can you find better graphics?

[CaptMonkeyDLuffy]

Eh... I think the graphics issue boils down like this:

The actual technical feats of the graphics engine in the game are decent, but not amazing(however, in their defense they do a damn good job of running on lower end hardware...). There are people who's opinion of the graphics in a game are derived almost solely from the technical specs of the game's engine... Badly designed levels, clashing colors all over the place doesn't matter if the poly count is high with lots of sparkly effects. These sorts will not like WoW.

Second, Blizzard has a very distinctive art style. Some people simply won't like WoW because the particular style to it isn't to their liking(there's definitely a vocal group these days who want their graphics as 'realistic' as possible, and Blizzard's style definitely won't appease that group).

Attractiveness of graphics is a very subjective matter... personally, I agree with you that WoW does a really good job overall(they definitely have slipped up a little when it comes to some of the equipment for players, but everything else is really great). Different people will have different takes, and in my experience most of the complaints about WoW tend to follow the two lines I mentioned above...

Re:Where can you find better graphics?

[llevity]

Technically, the graphics aren't all that great. There's no fancy reflections, and bump mapping, and vertex shading. But I agree that it's a fantistic looking game, without all those things. It's not the poly counts and resolution of textures that do it, it's the overall cohesive art design. Every area you go to looks significantly different. There is atmosphere. And while it does not look realistic, it looks believable in the sense that there is nothing to jarringly pull you out of your immersion.

Re:Where can you find better graphics?

[snuf23]

"Some people simply won't like WoW because the particular style to it isn't to their liking"

I for one would like a slider on the character creation thing so I could adjust the size of my elves freaking huge ears.
My friend named his elf Dawnkey as a reflection on the state of elf ears in WoW.

Re:Where can you find better graphics?

[Dachannien]

They're probably referring to EQ2, which has graphics that are technologically more impressive than in WoW. (Whether they make for more compelling gameplay is another matter altogether that I won't get into, never having actually played EQ2.)

TES: Oblivion will knock the socks off of both of them when it comes out within the next year (hopefully by the end of 2005), but it's a single-player RPG, not a MMOG.

Re:Where can you find better graphics?

[PakProtector]

I played EQII starting the day it came out for about three months till I lost my job and had to cut back on non-vital expenses. The graphics are absolutely amazing. I mean AMAZING. My computer is an Athlon XP at 1.94 GHZ with 512 MB DDR RAM and a Radeon 9600 XP card, and I had to run the game at the lowest detail setting to make it playable (say, 40 FPS it seemed to be, unless in a hugely populated zone, like a cityscape) and it still looked good.

I can't wait till next year or the one after that when there will be graphics cards available that can actually play it on High.

Note: The game itself in the configuration settings for video quality says to the effect: There is nothing available to the home user at this time that can play on Highest Detail. It requires atleast 512MB of RAM for Textures on the Card.

Also, the gameplay was pretty neat-o too.

Mod Parent Stupid!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wait that isn't a moderation option.

Mod parent blizzard fanboi apologist! oh..hmm doesn't have that either.

I guess flamebait will have to suffice

WoW is amazing

[Xlipse]

With 2 million accounts... for every unhappy customer, I'm sure there's 10,000 happy ones - myself included. Some people are simply unreasonable (while other DO have valid complaints).

WoW is the best MMOG "experience" since UO/EQ and AC1, hands down.

It has issues and waits in a queue (on busy servers or if you are playing Alliance), lag, yes.. but I'm still impressed - and I've played a dozen MMOG's in the past 8 years..

Considering in games like EQ where you had to schedule end-game raid with "uber guilds" who basically controlled the high-end dungeons...

or farmers who ruin economies in Final Fantasy Online (and who are TRYING in WoW)...

or totally UNPLAYABLE launches like Anarchy Online...

or people who get KILLED in RL over the game (Lineage)...

I think the problems with WoW are par for the course - honestly. Do they have money to throw at the issues? Sure.. but this is corporate America here guys! The basic economics are to keep it up and running RELATIVELY smoothly, while maximizing your profit in every area possible... ... and I'm no Blizzard fanboi either, I'm simply giving credit where credit is due.

"Kraxis"
Feathermoon

Re:WoW is amazing

[1001011010110101]

That shows that you are a bit out of the loop, either because you are very low level or only play from time to time.

For instance:

Considering in games like EQ where you had to schedule end-game raid with "uber guilds" who basically controlled the high-end dungeons...

There are two world bosses that spawn once a week and usualy are owned by the uberguilds on each server. Molten Core and Onyxia requires Uber Guild tactics and dedication to get to and beat. All of this is the current end game (which in Wow comes fast as the leveling is so easy).

or farmers who ruin economies in Final Fantasy Online (and who are TRYING in WoW)...

Most "farmable" world zones are owned by the farmers atm. The prices in the Auction House are inflated by them. Doesn't that qualify as ruining the economy?

or totally UNPLAYABLE launches like Anarchy Online...

Every new patch the game becomes more and more laggy. I'm playing on a mid-high population server , and I just dont go to Ironforge to avoid the lag. The mail everywhere takes like 10 seconds to open, and like 10-20 seconds to detach an item. Trying to use the AH is almost pointless and require a lot of patience.
There are queues for everything. Battlegrounds have 6-8 hours queue for alliance (Blizzard said that all servers were balanced, bullshit). On weekends I have 10-15 minutes of queue to join the server. If I happen to disconnect for any reason, I have at least that wait. They dont give me the oportunity to move to a lower population server, and I'm not going to start a 3rd char to 60.

I agree the game's nice...but their infrastructure kinda sucks. And their customer service its a crap.

Re:WoW is amazing

[Xlipse]

Hmm I don't think so.. I am the Guild Leader of a mid sized guild and play a level 60 Rogue as my "main".. I play quite a bit (4-5 days a week). I was just in Stratholme last night, getting wiped in a "comedy of errors" style pick-up group in the Scarlet side of the instance. lol I also follow the forums and community sites on a daily basis - thank you! Not really sure what you've been inhaling, but pass some my way! :P One thing you might not realize about WoW (because you are out of the loop, perhaps?) is that each sever really has it's own community and runs a bit differently, especially the RP servers. You play on a heavily populated server - sucks to be you, sorry. I have seen what it's like on busy servers, and you are right, it does SUCK bad. The lag is TERRIBLE in IF and the BG queues are ridiculous. My close friend plays Alliance on one of the original two dozen servers, so I know what it's like and I stated those issues in my first post. If it REALLY bothered you that much, you'd either have quit by now, or transferred your character to another server using Blizzards's transfer tool. There's what, a flippin hundred other servers to play on?? The fact that you still play is a testiment to the game's creative design, current playability and future potential... or you're jus a stubborn bastard and don't want to leave your friends/guild who are too stubborn to change servers ;) And as far as the economy goes - it sucks your server, not on mine (but it's slowly getting there). PPS. Yes, their CS IS non-existent.

Re:WoW is amazing

[phxbadash]

As someone already stated....you CANNOT transfer characters to another server at this time. So no, he doesn't have that option.

Re:WoW is amazing

[superpulpsicle]

These are the little things the back of the box don't tell you. It's also the same reason why I have avoided WoW for the time being. The sad part is, when they are done working out the kinks, the game is probably no longer popular.

Re:WoW is amazing

[Winterblink]

... for every unhappy customer, I'm sure there's 10,000 happy ones - myself included

What exactly are you basing that statistic on?

Re:WoW is amazing

[Xlipse]

Nothing, I pulled it out of my ass!

Geez.. have you never posted on ./ before!?

It's called an educated, logical, guess... based on what I know to be true from past years of experience and community involvment.

Re:WoW is amazing

[Xlipse]

"As someone already stated....you CANNOT transfer characters to another server at this time..."

Well, he had his chance. He can always re-roll on a better server.. it's not like it takes a long time to level up. Switch sides too (Horde/Alliance).

Besides, reading the site, it's possibly they will re-enable the character moves (I had forgotten they turned it off weeks ago).

Re:WoW is amazing

[Winterblink]

If you'd bothered to check, you'd find I've been on Slashdot for a long time now. But that's besides the point.

You made your statement as a statement of fact, when in fact we know it's NOT fact, it's just a guess. Which is what most statistics are, but statistics are usually gained by going out and actually taking polls, or counting heads, whatever. You probably DID pull that number out of your ass. And it's not based on years of experience with a game that's only been out less than a year.

Now back to the topic, I can only speak for my own experience and that of quite a few friends who have all played WoW since launch, and there's about two of them left playing the game. The rest of since found WoW to NOT be "amazing" as you put it. It's fun, for a while, but the gloss tended to wear off quite rapidly with the people I know of.

Admittedly, around 10-15 people is not a wide statistical sample by any means, but when 8-10 of which find a game to be the antithesis of amazing, it's possible to look at that as more accurate than 1 in 10000.

Re:WoW is amazing

[Damvan]

Man, can't believe someone would pay $15 a month to play a game they obviously hate so much. BTW, I have experienced none of the problems you mention above...with the exception of a small, 15 minute wait for the BG...

Re:WoW is amazing

[Rallion]

Okay, I play on Arthas. High-pop, but one of the more balanced in numbers.

Every new patch the game becomes more and more laggy. I'm playing on a mid-high population server , and I just dont go to Ironforge to avoid the lag. The mail everywhere takes like 10 seconds to open, and like 10-20 seconds to detach an item. Trying to use the AH is almost pointless and require a lot of patience.

Here, I don't know what you're talking about, honestly. I get mail in two or three seconds during primetime. I actually haven't seen AH lag for months.

Battlegrounds have 6-8 hours queue for alliance (Blizzard said that all servers were balanced, bullshit).

It's not just about the total balance actually. There are other factors that come into play. Example...my current favorite character is a low-level priest, so I play a lot of CTF. Despite the fact that my server does have more Alliance, I have been outnumbered by at least 2 (and usually more) in all but 1 of my 14 games. Location matters, as well.

On weekends I have 10-15 minutes of queue to join the server.

Mid-high pop, you say? I don't think so. Last time I saw a queue was in November.

Re:WoW is amazing

[DeadlyDonkey]

Blizzard DO offer character transfers. When a server gets too full (as in, hour long queues to join in peak times) a news item appears on the main site and you can transfer characters from the high pop. server to one of the newest low pop servers, FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY.

It's not blizzard's fault that you missed the transfer window for your server.

Re:WoW is amazing

[DeadlyDonkey]

I suppose you could make an educated guess from the official forums. There are over a million players of WoW at the moment (assuming that some of the two million have cancelled), and there tends to be around a thousand users on each of the regional WoW community boards constantly whining and screaming NERF. Now, either a lot of people are silently complaining, or a lot of people are pretty satisfied.

Re:WoW is amazing

[1001011010110101]

Okay, I play on Arthas. High-pop, but one of the more balanced in numbers.

Is it PvP? Because those tend to be the better balanced ones.

Here, I don't know what you're talking about, honestly. I get mail in two or three seconds during primetime. I actually haven't seen AH lag for months.

Lucky for you. I see it a lot in Proudmoore.

Mid-high pop, you say? I don't think so. Last time I saw a queue was in November.

Well, Proudmoore might be one of the higher population ones.

Re:WoW is amazing

[1001011010110101]

It's not blizzard's fault that you missed the transfer window for your server.

Its blizzard's fault that there wasn't any on the server (Proudmoore).

And...1 hour queue??? WTF is that? 15 minutes is an eternity. If I load the game to play it, I dont want to wait 15 minutes, much less an hour, to be able to. And its worst when you are doing something, like an instance, and get dropped for some random reason (it happens). No comming back to the group.

Re:WoW is amazing

[1001011010110101]

Well, he had his chance
Nope, I didn't.

He can always re-roll on a better server..
Well, I'm not a solo player, I have friends and a guild. I'm not interested in loosing that. The whole point of playing a MMORPG is the social part, otherwise I'd be playing another RPG solo.

Besides, reading the site, it's possibly they will re-enable the character moves (I had forgotten they turned it off weeks ago). Try months. And only for some specific servers (2 or 3).And only for a week or two.

My point is, the guys had some serious planning problems with their infrastructure. They didn't plan for the initial rush. Then they didn't plan for faction balance. They cant support the kind of population that their own community creates.

Re:WoW is amazing

[Winterblink]

You could in fact make a whole lot of assumptions based on forums, but here are a few that usually serve me well:

1. Not everyone uses forums
2. Not everyone who likes/disikes a game speaks out on the forums
3. Cancellations aren't advertised by developers, and infrequently advertised by players in the forums

Those alone are usually enough to make the educated guess that official forums are the worst way to assess how well a game is actually doing. That being said, I find there's usually a certain percentage of players who end up knowing the ins and outs of a game more than the developers do, simply because they play so much and track the numbers. Those players usually have opinions that are worth listening to, as opposed to the ones that whine because their characters are more important than anyone else's.

Re:WoW is amazing

[phxbadash]

I have no issues with the server that I'm on, which is Mannoroth, one of the busiest PVP server and one of the most highly populated WoW servers out there. I have never had need or desire to request a character transfer, I was just pointing out the incorrect assumption by the parent that it was possible to transfer your character to another server on a whim, which it is not. As for the whole server overpopulation issues, it would have been easily avoided had blizzard released the server names before release day, then they could have avoided the whole "well my friends already started characters on this server so I will too" syndrome. My main problem with Blizzard (besides their shitty CS and their virtually non-existant presence on their own message boards) is how it seems that they have not learned anything from previous MMO's that have come out. They are needlessly making the same mistakes that other, earlier MMO's have made in the past. It's like they've been locked away in a cellar while the rest of the MMO world has been advancing.

WoW

[hugerobot]

WoW upside down is MoM, and MoM upside down is Dad's favorite thing!

ducks...

Macau?

[mindstormpt]

I don't really get the macau reference. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful place but it's population is less then half a milion, and of course most of them won't play Warcraft. I just can't see what difference it would/will make.

Two million dollars... er, players

[Anonymous Coward]

50% are playing Night Elves
80% are playing Alliance
10% are playing on Bleeding Hollow
100% of those hate something (or someone) about Bleeding Hollow
80% of Horde are playing Forsaken .00001% of all players are playing Trolls

100% or these statistics were made up on the spot because I am bitter. When are we going to have a PVPRP server?

nnooiissee

Re:Two million dollars... er, players

[DeadlyDonkey]

.00001% of all players are playing Trolls

Well that's very wrong, at least where I play. I play Horde on Daggerspine (EU), and I see about as many trolls as I do Orcs, which is quite a lot (although not as many as Taurens).

Good for Blizzard, but good for the player?

[SillyHatsOnly]

The first thing that should concern people who play WoW is that Blizzard was surprised and caught off guard by it's success. I've never played the game, but would wonder if the design scales to this size player base. Also sounds like their infrastructure is shaky at best and I can't believe you are paying for a game that makes you wait (how long?) to play it. If anything, this feels like WoW lowered the standard on MMOs out there in terms of service.
However, if you find the game fun, by all means play it. I can't help but think expanding the market will bring on more localization/design/infrastructure work that will be passed on as delays to the customer in some form. Blizzard is being rewarded financially for this so they are happy. Just hope that other companies don't follow suit. I can go without such innovations as wait queues in games, especially MMOs.

Re:Good for Blizzard, but good for the player?

[Rallion]

I'm not denying the existence of problems, but I have characters on four servers and never have any problems. I never have queues or even enough lag that in annoys me.

When you look at the massive number of players, and compare it to the number of people complaining, then it should become obvious that the issues are not as major (certainly not as universal!) as they make them out to be. The vast majority of players have been coasting along, infrastructure-related-problem-free, basically since launch -- though, even since then, great improvements have been made for everybody.

Re:Good for Blizzard, but good for the player?

[kongjie]

You're a few months late with this kind of post...players have already had to deal for some time with growing pains. When you typed "I've never played the game..." you should have caught onto the problem with your post and deleted it right then.

Wait queues aren't standard in WoW and no one at Blizzard expected them to be crowd favorites or an innovation: at times they are a necessary evil because of the unexpected numbers. Yeah they suck when you get stuck in one and yeah I wish Blizzard had been ready for the massive number of players, but since they weren't, I'll take the queue rather than a crashed server, if I have that choice.

Some people think Blizzard lowered the level of service, some people don't; but in any event since you have no experience with it, what is the value of your post?

From the point of view of a Mac player, I can tell you that Blizzard's response to problems was superior to that I received from Mac EQ and Sony On-Line.

Re:Good for Blizzard, but good for the player?

[SillyHatsOnly]

majority of players have been coasting along infrastructure-related-problem-free, basically since launch
It's good to hear that things have greatly improved since the horror stories usually associated with WoW. Player's pay for the service and in return should receive a playable game with minimal issues.

You're a few months late for this kind of post...caught onto the problem with your post and delete it right then.
That's a nice snap judgment and all, but you're missing the point. Here's a quick summary:
Wait queues are a patch for game design that is difficult to scale. Consumers lose out, acknowledged in your post. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wait queues surfaced around launch and now with the expansion. Let's hope for your sake this doesn't happen with every new popular feature.
Crashing servers is worse than wait queues, but they both point to Blizzard not being prepared, which was the purpose of the post. You paid for a complete game and you should get one. This goes for all MMOs, not specifically WoW.

since you have no experience with it, what is the value of your post
The value is that 2 million people have bought and a game that has design features to intentionally stop the user from playing normally accessible areas. In addition, you pay for it monthly. Maybe some people enjoy traffic jams. Perhaps it builds anticipation.

I suppose all the years I spent working in the game industry have been for nothing. Not being prepared for a user base and actively making them wait based on demand is a good thing. Seeing the success of WoW, that's why I ask if it's good for the player.

Re:Good for Blizzard, but good for the player?

[DeadlyDonkey]

How many times to people have to be told before they get it?! Unless you go on one of the high population servers, THERE ARE NO WAIT QUEUES TO JOIN THE GAME. I think it's mainly because people believe they get a more epic experiance on larger servers, which isn't actually true. There are loads of mid/low pop servers, just look here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/serverstatus/ [worldofwarcraft.com]

The only feature that has regular queues is the BG, and that isn't because of server infastructure, it's because of lack of interest on the players part. It probably doesn't help that most of the areas for the BG are miles away from anything else, I bet queues would be a lot shorter if they enabled you to join the BG queue at any capital city.

Re:Good for Blizzard, but good for the player?

[Moraelin]

Well, any MMO conceivable sorta scales by just adding more servers. MMOs are not really _one_ world, but several copies of one world. (In UO lingo, "shards".) Your character basically exists on such copy of the world.

This doesn't just help with scaling issues for software (how many characters per second can the software handle), but also with the finite size of the world itself. By spreading the load between more servers you basically keep the world from becoming overcrowded.

Additionally any server is usually divided into zones, handled by different physical servers. E.g., to use another game I'm familiar with as an example, if I started a new level character in COH and were to happily hunt Hellions in Atlas Park, while you're a mid-level char doing the respec trial in Terra Volta, we're very separated from each other. A character in Terra Volta can't do much to or with a character in Atlas Park, other than send tells.

That kind of thing helps spread the load between servers and greatly helps with scaling issues. Any synchronization issues or such, can be split into distinct chunks for each zone.

Additionally, most games nowadays support instanced dungeons or missions. You can get a mission which takes place in a special separated zone created just for you and your team.

E.g., dunno about WoW, but in COH I can tell you first hand that most action happens in such instanced missions. At any given time more than half the players will be in such temporary zones of their own, which can be spread among the clustered physical servers as needed.

So basically rest assured that there are plenty of ways to scale any MMO as much as you need or want to. I don't play WoW either, but basically I'm sure Blizzard isn't stupid. If their servers scaled enough to accomodate 2 million subscribers (as was said, about 5 times more than EQ at its peak), I'm sure they already know how to write software that scales.

Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

Going offline any day now.

Killer App

[SillyHatsOnly]

He's right, a "killer app" is a game that you want to play so badly, you purchase new hardware to do so. Maybe describing it in terms of consoles will provide a better picture. Take Halo 2, exclusive to xbox. The game is considered so good that people bought xboxs over other consoles just to play that game.
For PCs, it's not that a killer app game can't be played on an old computer, but the masses would need to go out and buy new computers(or parts)to play it to make it one. It can be seen that a killer app raises the technology standard because it has a new advanced design, graphics, or whatever IMO. Personally, I've never played WoW and I find nothing inspiring about it. The graphics style is nice though. Otherwise, WoW seems like a cookie cutter MMO.

Re:Killer App

[CFTM]

To be slightly pedantic and trollish, Halo was the killer ap. Most people who bought Halo 2 already had the XBox. I don't know of many people who bought an XBox because of Halo 2 but I know a ton of people [myself included] who bought an xbox because of the original Halo.

Halo 2 sucked balls in my opinion, something just feels off to me but that's not really the point of this post :)

the sidebar

[jlstyle]

"In a related story, Sony Online Entertainment President, John Smedley, was found dead in his home due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the face."

Give WoW players a place to talk and they Bitch...

[aka_big_wurm]

Why is it when ever you read a post about WoW here or anywhere else you have so many people complaining?

Its a good game and if you really dont think so save some money and delete your chars. And when you make a post about the game say something meaning full just dont bitch.

I am not a total fan boy of WoW there are some things in the the game that are a pain but I live with them and make Suggestions on how they could be fixed.

For the wait thing the big problem is about balance and not having the same amount of horde to fill the match.

Now you can mark my post flamebate and offtopic but someone had to say it...

Most popular game ever? Erhm, perspective...

[jonadab]

> if World of WarCraft proves popular in China, as well as other soon to
> be launched territories such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, it could
> quickly become the most globally popular online game in history.

Not likely. Perhaps the most popular MMORPG, or *possibly* the most popular commercial paid-subscription-based online game. But no game that requires a paid subscription to play is going to be the most globally popular online game in history. That's solidly locked in by popular pay-for-free-online games, especially the standard sort that you can play on a lot of different sites, because the rules are well-known and simple. My bet would be on hangman, actually, although checkers and euchre are pretty popular also, and tic-tac-toe, and reversi...

Even a relatively erudite game such as chess has *WAY* more online players (in the US alone, much less worldwide) than World of Warcraft can dream about.

Counter-Examples

[Moraelin]

If you think having a brand name is everything, there are _plenty_ of counter-examples to prove that wrong.

E.g., "The Sims Online" was banking on the brand name of _the_ most sold PC game ever, by a wide margin. If you think Warcraft was a brand name to bank on, The Sims outsold that by a ludicrious margin. And Maxis itself is as big a brand name as Blizzard.

Yet TSO flopped. EA didn't even bother releasing it in Europe after seeing the abysmal sales in the USA, and that an alarming majority of the people were cancelling their

E.g., "Ultima Online" was banking on the brand name of the Ultima series. It was one of the biggest brand names at the moment. A lot of us had grown up on Ultima and then Ultima Underworld, and generally were Origin-a-holics.

UO invented the genre too, something which put other companies safely at the top of the pyramid.

Yet UO, well, didn't actually "flop", but lost players hand over fist by ignoring the players' wishes and complaints. It launched massively unbalanced too. (E.g., could you even do anything but traps as a Tinker? And were they even useful for anything but killing defenseless newbies?)

So UO ended up way behind EQ and AC... in the genre it invented. Both EQ and AC didn't have the brand name that UO had. They were completely unheard of titles that noone had heard about. But they stole the majority of UO players anyway.

E.g., EQ2 was banking on the name of the very successful EQ, and WoW still ended up ahead.

Etc.

Basically brand names help, yes, but they're not the alpha or the omega. Brand or marketting can make people join your game in the beginning, but if the game sucks, those people won't stay for long. And after a short while people start hearing from each other "this game sucks, avoid it" or "woohoo, this game rules, and playing my Shaman/Warrior/whatever is the most fun I've had with my pants on." And very quickly the sales start to reflect that instead of the launch hype and brand name.

See what happened with TSO for a textbook illustration of that. A couple hundred people bought the game right at launch, because of the brand name. Then most of them quit before even that first month was over, and the population settled at a lower value. And sales tappered too, reflecting a very quick decline in people relying on brand name and hype to make an uninformed decision.

Meh, answered to wrong message

[Moraelin]

You can probably tell I'm half-asleep when I click the wrong "Reply To This" link. I meant to answer to the "would it still be big if it didn't have the Blizzard name?" thread, one position below.

You've never played AO, then?

[Moraelin]

Believe me, if you can say with a straight face "Yeah, but this game gets laggy too" when comparing _any_ game with Anarchy Online, then you've never actually played Anarchy Online. Just the mention of the launch of AO made me cringe there.

Go read the Anarchy Online review on Something Awful and I can personally attest that that's 100% accurate, and that's what the game was like _after_ the devs had "fixed" it and claimed it was 110% stable and working as designed. Before that, it was far far worse.

I can personally attest to problems, again after the devs said it was 110% fixed, like:

- graphics glitches. Chances were 50-50 that an _open_ door would become a swirl of smeared colours that you can't actually see through.

- collision detection glitches. You'd run on flat ground and then suddenly you'd be falling to your death from stratosphere. Or you'd fall through the floor and start _swimming_ (yep, swimming animation) in the ground, or under the ground. Or you'd have enemies going through solid walls.

- instanced dungeon generation glitches. You could walk through one of those swirly doors and fall 4m deep into a hole you can't get out of.

- massive design problems. E.g., a fist had the same range as a snipe rifle. Yes, no kidding. If you picked a ranged combat class for the "ranged" part, e.g., trading the superior damage of melee for the safety of range, you'd basically get neither. Someone could punch you or stab you from 1000 ft away.

- massive balance problems. Not just class balance, but the three factions were so utterly unbalanced that one of them didn't even have shops above the newbie level. And the class balance was a sick joke too.

- massive AI problems. It wouldn't be uncommon to be attacked through walls and closed doors, because the AI couldn't tell it can't reach you. And various other AI problem.

- stupid mission design. E.g., you'd get a stealth mission, and be told it's a stealth mission, yet... you wouldn't get the token unless you killed everyone in that building.

- stupid design that actively discouraged grouping for missions

Etc. And yes, lag too. For some events people were told to look at the ground to avoid their machine crashing or getting disconnected. Yeah, that soo makes sense... you surely went to some big event to look at a patch of ground instead of at what's happening there.

So, well, trust me: AO at launch was in a class of suckiness of its own. Removing spyware off a machine was more fun than playing AO.

Re:You've never played AO, then?

[1001011010110101]

I'm not saying this game is worse of AO, as I never played it. I was saying that its far from perfect.
The fact that there are/have been crappier games out there is no excuse to make a crappy game :).

Guild Wars outsold WoW this week.

[Anonymous Coward]

NCSoft's Guild Wars no-subscription fee online RPG outsold WoW in this week's PC Games Chart.

WoW's good, but how much momentum will Guild Wars manage to pick up?

Re:Guild Wars outsold WoW this week.

[DeadlyDonkey]

Guild Wars is picking up a totally different market from those who play WoW, due to it's lack of a monthly fee. Additionally, I know many people who own and play both, because of GW's lack of a month fee.

Re:Guild Wars outsold WoW this week.

[Bigthecat]

Gee, a game that only recently came out is outdoing a game that came out over 6 months ago in sales in a single week? That's INCREDIBLE! Stand back WoW, those 2 million subscribers now mean nothing!

Blizzard should stop being cheap with service.

[JavaLord]

I've been playing WoW now for 6 months. I'm amazed at it's success, because 2 million subscribers is quite an accomplishment. It is the most fun mmorpg I've played.

That said, they need to work on their customer support. If they have 2 million subscribers paying 15 dollars a month, they could at least hire one community manager for each class. As of now, on their forums feedback from developers funneled through their community managers (I believe there are 5) is extremely rare.

With the recent addition of battlegrounds which gave a set place for PvP, the lack of balance between the factions is showing. There are two 'faction only' classes, the Paladin and Shaman. The Shaman is the most powerful character in the game, while the Paladin is the weakest. When you combine this with the fact that the Horde has the better racial traits, battlegrounds is lopsided. People have been bringing this to blizzards attention for months with minimal feedback. Maybe now that battlegrounds are around they will do something to balance out the classes and races.

If they would hire a community manager for each class, then they could have the current ones moderate the other boards, such as PvP, RP, General, etc.

Overall, they need to get their act together before people notice they were never ready for this kind of userbase. The latest thread of doom in their forums is about someone with cerbral palsy who was banned for using '3rd party programs' which allowed him to play world of warcraft even though he was disabled.

They can't let PR disasters like this go on for too long. It is a game, but it's also a service. Blizzard needs to wake up and realize that.

Re:Blizzard should stop being cheap with service.

[Macgrrl]

But then we'd have to duel to the death over who gets Cay and who gets Fangtooth?

Beware - don't slashdot the Murloc

Re:Blizzard should stop being cheap with service.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have Caydiem and her yellow green teeth. Look at it as a value, there is a lot more of her than there is of fangtooth and she is expanding like the universe.

Re:Blizzard should stop being cheap with service.

[Anonymous Coward]

Paladins going since launch without attention (other than bug fixes, but almost no bug fixes to ones that harm the class!) is unnacceptable, especially considering they won't even be looked at for another 3-4 content patches... that's almost or possibly more than a year of boring gameplay. It's why I quit. I had great fun with my warrior, but I was more attached to my paladin and wanted to play that character more than my warrior.

Mind you, the paladin is not underpowered for all situations... but playing buff bitch for 4 hours with the tedium broken only with cleanse spamming or flash of light spamming is not *fun*.

They say that they won't buff blessing timers from 5 minutes because they'd have to raise the mana cost proportionately... someone did the math and it costs roughly 3x the mana for a paladin to keep a raid buffed that it does for a mage or a priest, and almost 9x the cost for a druid, all of whom have *more* valuable buffs (with the exception of blessing of salvation)!

The devs need to get over their ego and realize that their paladin design is not fun.

1) Increase interaction
2) Increase control over dps (not raise overall dps, but increase the control over it)
3) Allow paladin talents to focus in one direction (like every other class in the game - yes, this includes shamans and druids, so don't whine about the paladin being a hybrid!)
4) Reduce pointless, unfun busy work (ie increase blessing length by at least 2x, possibly 3x, or make an extra rank that has the same effect but 6x the length and 6x the cost)
5) Give the paladin a speed boost or a snare (I'd say speed boost). This is necessary for a paladin to be viable solo.

Re:Give WoW players a place to talk and they Bitch

[unclethursday]

I play on a low pop server, and find that my only real problem is Iron Forge. Other than that, I can seem to lag while flying, as my 1GHz iBook only has a Radeon 9200 Mobility with 32 MB VRAM and 640 MB system memory, so it's more my machine than the game. My ping has never been over 190, and normally is between 29-35... but I get little spurts of choppiness in highly crowded areas, which I assume is my system trying to keep up.

And, since I'm a n00b at WoW, I don't go and do battlegrounds.

You mis-understood him

[Moraelin]

When he says "killer app" that makes you buy new hardware, don't necessarily think "the game is too slow, gotta upgrade the PC".

Think Gran Turismo or Final Fantasy 7 for which some of us went and bought a Playstation. It's not that the game was non-optimized or anything. In fact, it ran at a clean 60 FPS if I remember right. It was just that good that it worth buying a whole console just to play one game.

This is a good game

[agtwilight]

I have played:
DSO, Realms, EQ1, AC1, AC2, UO, SQG, AO, Planetside, MxO, HC D2, Horizons, Lineage 1 &2, CoH, GW, and im in a closed beta for Auto Aussault.

Let me say that anyone who is making a game right now better be using WoW as the base or their design goals. I dont mean engine, but features like XML interface, auction house, instancing and things like that.

When I get into game without an auction house I feel the game is inferior as an example.

WoW is quickly becoming a game of haves and havenot (especially on pvp servers) but I guess that's the way to goes.

If you havent played and you want to play a fantasy game its the best $50 bucks you can spend in a MMO and a great ride. Don't forget about your spouse though...

Twilight

Re:Give WoW players a place to talk and they Bitch

[DerWulf]

1.999.000 are too busy playing and enjoying the game to post on forums. The thousand that aren't saturate the most popular boards with their crap. Vocal minority for you.

Re:Give WoW players a place to talk and they Bitch

[Xentor]

Hear hear...

Yes, the Ironforge lag is a pain

Yes, I've been trying to get into Alterac Valley for a week with no success

Yes, the game has its fair share of bugs

But yes, It's a damn fun game... Yes, the lag is about as good as could be expected with the insane number of players in close proximity... Yes, my server (Argent Dawn) is hideously imbalanced towards the alliance... And yes, every program has bugs, and Blizzard is fixing them one by one.

As long as I continue to see gradual improvements, I'm satisfied.