5.5 Million WoW Players, Lunar Festival

Gamasutra reports that World of Warcraft has hit another milestone in subscribers, with One Million European players and 5.5 Million players worldwide. From the article: "The figure of 1 million customers is more than four times the previously estimated size of the entire European MMORPG market. According to data from Media Control and GFK panels, plus internal studies and account data from Blizzard itself, the company is also claiming that World of WarCraft was the best selling full price PC game in Europe last year." All those players will have a new world event to look forward to at the end of the month, as RPG Vault gives a preview on the Lunar Festival due to be released on January 27th.

Comments

Number of unsubscribers?

[bradbeattie]

I'd be interested in seeing statistics on the number of people that have unsubscribed from WoW as well. I doubt Blizzard would be willing to share that information, but it would certainly satisfy my statistical curiosities.

Re:Number of unsubscribers?

[BloodAngel_Au]

either way, 5.5 Million copys sold is still a huge aceivment for MMO games... I suspect that EA can say the same thing about UO, but thats only because they have released an update to purchase every year, and sometimes twice yearly.

WoW probably stil has the biggest currently running subscriptions for a Western (non-asian) MMO.

Omen the Chinese New Year Monster?

[biocute]

Omen sounds like the Chinese New Year Monster which comes out every year on new year's eve to terrorize villages, who would have to set off firecrackers to scare the monster away.

Chinese New Year is on 29 Jan this year by the way.

Good God that's alot of money!

[ZephyrXero]

It's kinda funny that Vivendi-Universal is doing so poorly with that kind of userbase on one of the products they publish...perhaps they aren't getting a very big cut of the service profits or maybe none at all? If so...good for you Blizzard ;D

5.5 million users * between 12.99-14.99 per month * 12 months = A shit-ton of money! And that's not even counting the box cost... sure there are development and maintenance costs...but I'm sure they don't even compare... WOW indeed.

Slightly bothered by this

[falcon5768]

Despite playing the game myself I cant help but be slightly bothered by the potential dumbing down of the MMO market this could possibly cause. One of the reasons I loved UO and play FFXI now is because its NOT easy, its infact somewhat hard to play. WoW though I just jumped in and without much effort make a lot of gold and have really nice equips to the point there is really nothing seperating me from the rest of the 5 mil.

WoW did a lot to make MMO's accessable to the masses, but Im starting to wonder, do we really want L337 Sp34k asshats and just about everyone getting the best armor possible with little to no effort? A great example of this is SWG. Even SE is making its next expansion much more accessable to the masses after making what I thought was the best expansion to a MMO, one where you actually had to put a little effort into playing it to get the most out of it.

Maybe Im just too oldschool I guess, I miss the days of when you died it really ment you where dead, your body was looted and you started from scratch.

Re:Slightly bothered by this

[patio11]

Play Vanguard. You can be as masochistic there as you want. You just don't get to have the sadistic glee of seeing others suffer with you just because they have no choice of playing a game that better suits their own play style. I played old school UO for years and old school EQ for a while, and I'm glad that WoW gives me the option to be a (little, virtual) hero on a mere two hours a night a couple of times weekly instead of a sheep to be slaughtered by the self-annointed elite. (Granted, after I hit sixty I joined the raid game and my play sessions are now longer than two hours twice a week, but a raid in WoW still takes less time than getting a bubble of experience in EQ did around level *15* or so where my interest in the game died its final death.)

Re:Slightly bothered by this

[supabeast!]

If you don't like MMO's designed for people who aren't losers with nothing better to do that play MMO's 40+ hours a week, play games like UO and FFXI, and leave WoW to people who just want to game a little and spend the rest of their lives doing something worthwhile.

Re:Slightly bothered by this

[bradbeattie]

That's why I'd like Blizzard to make a few "hardcore" servers. If you die, you're dead. Make a new character. Instead of seeing about half of the population at level 60, we'd see fewer and fewer high level characters. Travelling alone or unprepared would be death. Just one or two servers like that. Please?

Re:Slightly bothered by this

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

That's why I'd like Blizzard to make a few "hardcore" servers. If you die, you're dead. Make a new character. Instead of seeing about half of the population at level 60, we'd see fewer and fewer high level characters. Travelling alone or unprepared would be death. Just one or two servers like that. Please?

That is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. Forget PVP on a server like that - you just know that a group of asshats would team up to prevent any progress at all. And forget the challenge of instances/zones/mobs that stand a chance of killing you - everyone would just grind on characters that are 5 levels low and don't pull.

A good player still takes at least 4-5 days of playtime (or more) to hit level 60. Try playing that long while avoiding situations that could involve death. Eliminating the huge penalty for mistakes is what allows rock climbers to push themselves to the limit. And it's what allows you to challenge yourself in WoW. In a game where death is catastrophic, no one will take risks. How challenging is that?

-- 53 Night Elf Shadow Priest, 11 days playtime

Re:Slightly bothered by this

[MMaestro]

A good player still takes at least 4-5 days of playtime (or more) to hit level 60.

On a PvE server, maybe. On PvP servers, most players generally spend weeks (or even months if you play 'casually') just getting through levels 20-40. I hit level 60 in about 20 days playtime on my first character on a PvE server, on a PvP server? I still haven't broken level 30 yet and I'm nearing the 15 day playtime cause I get randomly interrupted/ambushed/ganked/corpse camped in contested territories (why is the Horde Shaman totem quest right outside of an Alliance town?) Oh and god forbid you set your Hearthstone to a town thats being seiged by the enemy faction. A level 60er can one shot anyone under level 30, let alone run them down with their mounts.

Level 60 players in WoW need something to do besides run oversized instances, gank low level players and constantly do Battlegrounds. Death is a joke (gee wow, you have to walk back to your death and/or pay some gold to repair your gear), instances have long been complained about being boring and Battlegrounds STILL suffers from the unequal Alliance : Horde ratios on some servers. The parent post is right, WoW is a TOO easy for a MMO. Other than time, theres absolutely no risk or real penalty in the game for anything. Even 'dishonorable' kills are somewhat of a joke given how few Civilian NPCs there are.

Re:Slightly bothered by this

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the reasons I loved UO and play FFXI now is because its NOT easy, its infact somewhat hard to play.

I never played UO, but I have played both FFXI and WoW. WoW is much harder to play well than FFXI. FFXI is easy. You mindlessly use the same three abilities. (Basically, FFXI is like WoW endgame all the time - mindnumbingly easy, and mindnumbingly boring. Except unlike WoW, there's no need for Teamspeak, because it's easy.)

WoW did a lot to make MMO's accessable to the masses, but Im starting to wonder, do we really want L337 Sp34k asshats and just about everyone getting the best armor possible with little to no effort?

Gee - this reminds me of - drumroll - FFXI. Try collecting the PvP armor if you want a real challenge. Nothing in FFXI comes anywhere close to the challenge of getting a PvP armor set.

Maybe Im just too oldschool I guess, I miss the days of when you died it really ment you where dead, your body was looted and you started from scratch.

And senile, there was no PvP in FFXI. (And, no, their ball game version of Battlegrounds doesn't count.) When you died in FFXI, you were teleported back to your bind point. No corpse run or anything. In fact, it became known as "Warp 4" (the Warp magic spell did the same thing, but without requiring death) because there was so little penalty for death.

From what I've heard about UO, you might have a point about UO. But FFXI is an easier game than WoW in all aspects - especially because there's no PvP, so the only danger comes from mobs.

Re:Slightly bothered by this

[hab136]

Maybe Im just too oldschool I guess, I miss the days of when you died it really ment you where dead, your body was looted and you started from scratch.

Old school hardcode people liked that, yes - and they complain constantly about WoW. They still play, though. Do you complain that everyone has the same weapons/levels in Counterstrike or Warcraft 3?

Other people, like myself, never played any of the other MMORPGs precisely because they were so hardcore. I didn't want to be uber, I just wanted to have a fun game to play. Guess where most of WoW's population comes from?

Fun > a (very slim) chance at being uber

Be bothered by this

[SmallFurryCreature]

The other big MMO company SOE has seen the light and dumbed down both SWG and EQ2. SWG used to have decay when you died wich could be a nuisance since repair was risky. Off course a player run economy meant that none of your items were irreplacable. Just expensive.

EQ2 had only the punishement of having to go get your spirit shard while suffering reduced stats. The XP debt was no problem, fighting your way back to your spirit usually took care of it. There is no decay or other penalty, now even the shard has been removed. Neither do team members share in your xp debt anymore.

WoW has been a real wakeup call to the MMORPG industry. Do you know that pre-wow people talked about the market having been saturated and that any new game could only hope to lure existing players away from other games? Kinda proved that wrong. WoW showed that instead a good game can create its own market.

Of course smedley seems to think this means that the way to be successfull is to make every game into a WoW clone. I predict that the same will happen as with PC games in general. A over abundance of simple FPS games with more specilist titles surviving in the margins. There are still hardcore flightsims to be found, just not on the shelves, you gotta search the net for them.

Same with hardcore MMORPG's, they will continue to be produced but they will be a niche market. The mass market will go for the WoW angle. It is what sells. You can hardly blame game publishers from wanting to make a profit.

So it is not for you

[SmallFurryCreature]

Some people actually do like a real challenge and taking real risk.

How can you challenge yourselve if there is no risk?

Of course the real problem with MMORPG games is that it is often no fun to be a low level character as you don't want to repeat the tutorial level. If I have to go the Trial Isle of EQ2 once more I am going to scream!

But imagine a game that has lots and lots of content at low level. Where if you have to start over you do not have to redo the same quest you already did a 100 times but can start in a new town with new quests and new skills.

Then dead would matter less. Yes it would be difficult to do in a game especially since most players can't get their head around the idea that it is not the levelling up that matters but having fun.

If you can have as much fun in a game at level 1 as at level 1000th then what does it matter if at level 800 you buy the farm. As long as the fight was good.

Without risk there is no challenge.

Totally Impractical.

[Shivetya]

Until a guarantee can be made that technical issues beyond the player's control are fully addressed this type of scenario isn't going to fly.

Now how it could be done and impart some of the same "thrill" and "consequence" is to have rules where characters don't start off as lower level but midway through the game progression. Limit the number of characters that the account can use during a set period, perhaps 30 days.

This would reduce the investment but not to the point of making it meaningless. The reason why "hardcore" servers don't exist in MMORPGs of this scale is that players put a considerable amount of time into their characters and will not give that up. Not in a world where internet problems can crop up anywhere at anytime.

I also find the calls for "hardcore" servers to be pretentious simply because most of those making the calls are implying they are better players when its usually just a case of jealously that drives it.

There is NOTHING preventing players who want to play this way from imposing this rule upon themselves. Yet this is the last action these same people will ever take. Lead by example or shut up

Not dumbing down, accessibility is the word

[Shivetya]

These games aren't being dumbed down. They are becoming more accessible to a greater number of people. WOW succeeds because more people can do well in the game. Regardless of what game you play you will always find "asshats" and the like. UO not easy? Ah, come on now. The only time it wasn't easy was when it was first released and even then the biggest impediment to playing the game was the stability of the servers. There were asshats galore the first year and still are.

There is nothing wrong with games where when you die you get looted. The problem is that those games attract the very same or worse "asshats" you claim to dislike. Throw in perma-death and you will find a whole new world of asshats - roving gangs of them who will seek no other purpose other than to destroy the play of others. They won't do it for any in-game reason, they will do it because they can. I know, the argument is that the risk will keep them in check but that is never the case. They will find every little exploit that prevents their loss leaving the victim to fight with the game company to prove they didn't deserve the loss they suffered.

That is too hostile of a game world to expect players to stick around in. There have been many "PvP" centric games and if they truly did offer better game play then why haven't they succeeded? WOW succeeds because not only do they offer a world full of adventure they offer a controlled PvP that doesn't become unfairly hostile to the people participating.

As I replied to another, there is nothing preventing YOU from imposing the same restrictions you espouse for others on yourself. If you want perma death then do it! Otherwise your nothing more than a X-wing politician pontificating about the evils of the other side while blithely brushing over your same transgressions.