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World of Warcraft Tops 5M Subscribers
jkdove writes "In a press release today, Blizzard announced that it 'has surpassed five million customers worldwide.' GamerGod had an opinion article on why exactly so many people are playing, back when the four Million player mark was reached." From that article: "Thus, if you want to produce the next smash hit MMORPG, is it enough to make the game easy to solo and to level? I don't think so, although I'm pretty certain that there will be some game developers trying this strategy. World of Warcraft has a secret weapon, which isn't that easy to clone..."
How about: 5 million unique users, or different accounts? "Soloing" is alot easier when you're manually controlling 5 maxxed warriors :)
Instead, they chose the loosest term possible - 'customer' - that number probably means bought retail game box.
I've been playing WoW for a few months now. I'm not very far along because I wanted to play with some real life friends, and getting together is proving to be harder than I'd hoped. I created a new character and began soloing it when my friends weren't online, and I made faster progress that way. It didn't take me long to realize that soloing is a boring waste of time in an MMORPG. Why pay a monthly fee to play a massively multiplayer game by yourself?
Obviously, I didn't solo the whole time. I joined a few groups here and there, but some of them were some real whiners who would abandon the group halfway through a dungeon or somesuch nonsense I'd say the people I met were nicer than not on average, but I don't have much fun playing with random strangers, regardless. I recently joined a guild along with a friend, but he hasn't been in the game since. I'm about ready to just start playing my main character with the guild and leave him behind just so I can actually have some fun with this game. Hopefully it'll be enjoyable. Otherwise I don't think I'll renew my subscription.
My point is, soloing is killing WoW for me. The entire game is designed around it. All the missions are about you, personally. No NPCs want to hire a group for a difficult quest. They all hire individual players who can then choose to do it together or not. I'd rather play a single-player version of the game, really.
Now that I've cut my teeth on WoW, I'm starting to look for an MMORPG that'll suit me better. I wonder how many of the subscribers are in a similar situation. I find the limited number of classes and silly armor sets result in most player characters being the same. I'd rather start with a mostly blank slate and grow into a class I enjoy as I develop skills, learning class-specific abilities as I advance, which further influence my development. I like the gameplay of WoW, but its fixed development paths and encouragement of solo play are boring me. It's a difficult spot to be in since as far as I can see no other current MMORPG has a similar quest system to WoW, or anything else I'd actually enjoy doing. I keep looking at other titles in development, but I have yet to spot something that really appeals to me.
Responding to the "4 million" article, it's simple, really:
Take a quick analysis of the people criticizing the game in blogs, in forums, and on the web....what do they all have in common? Surprise! They're on their computers and, to judge by the amount they write, they have AMPLE spare time.
No wonder these particular people (self-evidently overrepresented in forums, etc) are bored with the game. If you have 500 hours of spare time in as little as 2 months (I've heard of people levelling to 60 in less than a month, which is conceivable, I guess), then YES, THE GAME DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH CONTENT FOR YOU.
But the secret is no secret. *Most* people don't have this sort of time. *Most* people work for a living, 50+ hours per week, and with home, family, and community commitments can spend something like 10 hours per week online. That means for most people, getting to 60 takes something under a year.
Plus WoW really excels at giving the player a huge variety of experiences - from the many different races and classes with totally different skills and tactics, to the zones. There are an AMPLE number of zones that really FEEL different - Tanaris, Winterspring, Burning Steppes all come to mind, but even very similar places 'feel' unique - Feralas, Ashenvale, Felwood...all deciduous forests but each somehow interesting in their own way. Levelling up a Tauren hunter in the Barrens is 1000% different from the experience of a Gnome Mage in Dun Morogh. So every time the player gets slightly bored, they can amuse themselves with a totally different 'alt' experience.
WoW keeps it very fresh for the bulk of the experience of the average player. Yes, the uberl33ts find it goes too fast, and I will admit that I personally am a little bored at 60 since there is absolutely no solo content for a topped out player. I came to WoW because WW2OL was fun, but required 3-4 hour blocks of time to accomplish anything. Now, at 60 in WoW, it's the same story. So I have a couple of alts I'm working on levelling, and despite having played the game almost exclusively for nearly a year, the adventures with these new alts are really quite fun.
Plus, the expansion pack will then once again open advancement for us 60s sick of bumping against the glass ceiling. I for one will certainly buy 2 of them - Blizz, just sign me up.
So if other companies want to mimic WoW's success, they should IMO take note of a few salient points:
- realize that your clientele are NOT the diehard gamers whinging in your forums.
- test, test, test. Because your most lucrative market is not those hardcore gamers, your game *MUST* *MUST* be stable as a rock. Force them to reboot a couple of times, or have a game that locks up, and the casual player will simply return it or give up. They won't struggle with complex patches and system settings. It must play smoothly and entertain right out of the box.
- test, test, test. Again, make sure that UI is dead-simple. Not simplistic, people do want to be engaged by what they are doing, but simple. Frankly, most people at this user level like clicking the mouse. Key commands are useful shortcuts, but let them do almost everything with their mouse, and they'll have fun.
- content. ironically, it's the casual gamers that will be the sharpest critics of your game and content. Hardcore players will put up with goofy graphics, etc while casual players, if it's ugly they simply will grow tired of it soon. Variety is the spice of life, even virtually. Killing rats forever is BORING. Running through the same endless forest is BORING. There are a wonderful variety of quests in WoW (admittedly, ony a fairly small % are really creative), enough to always keep you wondering what's next. THAT'S WHERE YOU MAKE YOUR $$$.
-Styopa
Is this going to be the first billion dollar game? 5 million people paying monthly subscription fees... over the course of five years, that's gonna be a billion dollars.
Philosophistry
According to general consensus on game sites, World of Warcraft is too short, too easy, too dumbed down, and has horrible problems with the end-game.
Which is exactly correct.
Blizzard managed to woo the 14-yr olds off of their X-Box's...which is worth noting, but most veteran fantasy gamers find WoW to be hollow and short-lived. The interface is brilliant, some of the gameplay mechanisms are awesome...but they drop the ball huge on the end-game.
Just like Diablo was the fast-food version of single player RPGs, WoW is the fast-food version of MMORPGs.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
WoW is definately _NOT_ the best MMORPG. (I've been playing since the Beta.)
So, which one is the best?
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!