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.

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

[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!

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?

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

[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.

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

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

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.

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.

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...

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.