WoW - The Game That Seized the Globe

The New York Times reports on the global appeal of World of Warcraft. An unmitigated success world-wide, the article examines why the title's U.S. roots haven't stopped it from succeeding abroad. From the article: "Perhaps more than pop music or Hollywood blockbusters, even the top video games traditionally have been limited in their appeal to the specific regional culture that produced them. For example the well-known series Grand Theft Auto, with its scenes of glamorized urban American violence, has been tremendously popular in the United States but has largely failed to resonate in Asia and in many parts of Europe. Meanwhile many Japanese games, with their distinctively cutesy anime visual style, often fall flat in North America. One of the main reasons Western software companies of all kinds have had difficulty in Asia is that piracy is still rampant across the region. Games like World of Warcraft circumvent that problem by giving the software away free and then charging for the game service, either hourly or monthly." Keep in mind that distribution and access rates are different in Asia than they are here in the states. The majority of WoW players pay an hourly fee, and didn't have to buy the box.

Comments

Instance whoring at level 60

[Thalagyrt]

Once you hit 60... What's the point... Honestly.

Scholo Scholo Strat Strat LBRS Scholo Strat UBRS Strat LBRS Strat Scholo Scholo Strat UBRS BRD Strat Scholo BRD (MC Attunement) Scholo Strat AQ20 MC BWL ZG MC MC BWL ZG AQ40 Scholo (maybe)

Repeat ad infinitum. It got boring for me after about the 15th Scholo run.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Incoherent07]

Get quest to find 15 grue spleens
Find grues
Kill 15 grues and loot 15 grue spleens
Return
Repeat 20 times
Ding
Repeat 59 more times

You act like repetition is a new thing with the level 60 game. And I still play WoW.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Thalagyrt]

Nah, I know it's true in just about every MMORPG. That still doesn't change that it got boring for me after the first few instance runs. I'll probably play again in a few months after it's regained some freshness for me, but for now it just doesn't seem worth my time.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Tenareth]

That's when the fun starts... 20/40 man raids are the fun part...

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Kagura]

Sometimes I like to think that if they had WoW back then, that WW2 never would have happened.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[BenjyD]

I just started on WoW (lvl 15) - please tell me the quests are going to get more varied? I'm not expecting epic storylines with pages of exposition for every quest, but something beyond Trogg hunting would be nice.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[eepok]

Once you hit 60... What's the point... Honestly.
It got boring for me after about the 15th Scholo run.

Well, you gotta remember that they're shooting for a different audience than exists in Everquest. Blizzard, to make as much as possible, has to keep WoW developed so as to appeal to as large an audience as possible. This particularly includes the more youthful, instant-gratification-oriented typed. They want to hit 60 and kill lots of stuff easier.

Everquest on the other hand is about to release its 12th expansion and, even without being anywhere near the mythical "end-game", is constantly housing 24, 54, and 72-person raids. I will doubt that WoW will ever develop to the point that Everquest has simply because it must keep all rewards attainable by the majority of the audience within a relatively short amount of time.

Thus, you grind to 60, get some nice gear... then... make some alts. Try out another class and wait for the next expansion. Do some raids where available. Get into a more mature guild (not necessarily in language, but in tactics and goals).

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Webz]

No, the quests don't get more varied. That's why the jab is that there are only three (or so) types of quests. It's literally true.

Find. Loot. Kill. Report back.

There's only so many things you can do to make a quest interesting or different, in terms of the mechanics. Sometimes you have to interact with a doodad or just explore a location...

The only difference in quests ends up being the storyline, which Warcraft is full of. Some people tend to forget that. Sure, kill 10 troggs, but troggs are people too. With wants and needs...

It's what you make of it. Try partying with others or role playing to help emerse yourself in the experience.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Anonymous Coward]

While there are many such hunting quests, there are multilayered, lengthy series of quests that have enjoyable (scripted) payoffs. I find them neat, at least.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[huguley]

Wait till you have to do the onyxia key quest. You will be wishing
for the go kill x number of troggs quest. Then when you get to
kill Onyxia and find out it takes a half hour and you can only do it
every 3 days you wonder...

But I still play and have several level 60s on 2 accounts. Once you
get sick of UBRS it is either PUGs or join a better organized guild.

Angels Wrath on Alleria ftw!

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[blinder]

unless of course you are on a server filled with little twerps who are more interested in scooping, ninja'ing and generally acting like total idiots simply because they can. why on earth would you ever want to team up with 40 of them at a time?

meh, no thanks.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some varied solo quests: beating lazy peons, stealing pumkins, kodo herding, using a mechanical yeti to scare a goblins friends, beating money out of deadbeats, etc. There are actually a fair number of intersting scripted events in the dungeons too, but you can only do those so many times before they are old hat - also people tend to do those at too high a level and just power right through them.

Really there is only so far the quest mechanic can be taken and retain mass appeal. Pretty much every raid encounter has started hard - really hard, and then been toned way down in difficulty.

If you are looking for epic and involved quests then single player games and muds are really your only options.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Wornstrom]

yeah that Ony chain was a pain in the ass. I find it fun still with 39 days /played on my main over the past year. We took a pretty bad hit when several of our key well-geared people decided to /gquit and start their own guild, but part of the fun was rebuilding our team and getting back up to full MC clears in ~4 hours. Hopefully soon we'll be back in BWL

Powerlamers of Alleria / Horde WUT!

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Anonymous Coward]

let me guess... you play alliance side?

there are plenty of mainly adult guilds horde side, at least on my server. I immediately leave the Looking for Group and guild recruitment channels... cuts down on a lot of the annoyances. What annoys me is the 'panhandlers' in the game who make a mini game out of begging for money. They tell you it's for a sword or something and they only need a little bit, you feel charitable and give it to them, only to get whispered "suker" afterwards. LRN2SPELNUBS

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Jartan]

"No, the quests don't get more varied. That's why the jab is that there are only three (or so) types of quests. It's literally true."

Oh please that is a flat out lie.

Rescue a knight from a dungeon. Then you walk through the alliance capital with said knight while every soldier you see salutes him. Several cutscenes happen. A certain political figure is revealed to be something very bad and a huge fight ensues after which you are charged to seek out said very bad person and kill them.

There are lots of examples like this. The quests in WoW are very varied. The problem is you finish them and WoW's end game doesn't really even have anymore quests it's just raid dungeon running over and over.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Necroman]

You are trivializing the idea of the game. Anything can be trivialized to the point where it seems pointless.

Videos in general:
It's an environment that I can interact with using my computer. There are normally tasks that I have to complete, and once it's all over, I haven't accomplished anything in Real Life.

Computers in general:
I used input devices (ie: keyboard and mouse) to interact with a program someone else wrote.

Life:
Wake up every day, eat, work, sleep, and repeat. Looking at life without taking in account the details of what goes on; it is a fairly trivial process.

Just because you didn't enjoy the type of entertainment that the game was providing doesn't mean it is pointless. Video games are a form of entertainment to help us relax and enjoy ourselves. If you don't enjoy, or stopped enjoying, a video game, you can replace it with another. Or you can go read a book, or rob a bank... something that entertains you.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Jartan]

"That's when the fun starts... 20/40 man raids are the fun part..."

Yes because I want to be in voice chat with 40 guys who I probably don't even like while listening to some power tripping guild leader try to micromanage everyone for 6 hours every night.

Your statement vaguely reminds me of college days where several friends would attempt to insist to me that going to a party and getting drunk off my ass followed by puking and waking up with a huge hangover was "the fun part".

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Gr8Apes]

Your statement vaguely reminds me of college days where several friends would attempt to insist to me that going to a party and getting drunk off my ass followed by puking and waking up with a huge hangover was "the fun part".

It is the fun part for everyone but you! If you puke and/or wake up with a hang-over, you've done it wrong and need more practice.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Edgewize]

If you have a power tripping guild leader and you don't like the 39 other people you're there with, maybe that's a sign to find a new guild, hmm? There are good ones out there where people have a great time, eveb occasionally meet up in real life to have drinks and hang out. They're just harder to find because they don't have the huge burnout rate that crappy guilds do, thus they don't need to advertise so blatently.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[EnderGT]

I wish I had mod points to give you. This is a fantastic answer to the people who whine about not liking WoW, and who wonder why we like playing it so much.

Personally, I don't do many quests these days. If I do any, they are usually related to the instance that I'm at the appropriate level to run. I spend my time running that instance, usually with people I've played with before but sometimes in PUGs. We try out different tactics, mix up the group makeup (e.g. try it without a main healer, try it with 3 mages, etc) to challenge ourselves. I also enjoy trying out the different combinations of race and class, exploring the different abilities and play styles.

Sure the hunting/gathering quests can be boring, but there's so much more to do - the game is so much more than the quests.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[huguley]

Don't forget about saving sharpbeak!!! His parents seemed so happy to see him. Except when the
quest was bugged and his corpse just layed there like a boneless chicken.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Anonymous Coward]

You never visit Dire Maul?

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Doug-W]

I like to think that if they had WoW back then, that Apollo mission never would have happened.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Dark_MadMax666]

Well try to answer these questions honestly :

1) Is it worth spending your real life hours on meaningless records in a database?
2) Can you seriously equate real life achievement to that record?
3) How spending best hours of your life on MMORPGs treadmill is different from being hooked on drugs ,alcohol, TV, other kinds of pointless entertainment ?

    I am guilty of same those things .And I feel hours of my life lost irrevocably (and I keep losing them as this addiction is something I can not defeat completely (well at least I got off of mmorpg crack, which I think is one of the most destructive kinds). Difference is to not seek excuses and try to combat it -there is no excuses . Do you want achieve something or be a rat pressing this pleasure button forever(sex/entertainment/food /sleep)?

  Entertainment IS POINTLESS."Relaxing and enjoying yourself" is as meaningful as the subject it revolves around . -As long as you doing something productive in RL (inventing ,engineering , building business, - anything having real impact on the world outside) it is all good, but as soon as it start revolving around fake things (consumerism and not production) it becomes waste of resources ,whether your consume movies, videogames, music, drugs, food, goods.

  See there are real games out there (for money ,power, influence, scientific achievement etc) , yet people try to substitute them for instant gratification surrogates (drugs, TV, fiction , computer games). -Those surrogates are made to be addictive and provide pleasure without any real work involved. You have to see trough it or you will waste your life building air castles and being a king in a pointless fantasy .

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[C0rinthian]

I highly recommend reading quest text. Most people just skip it and look at objectives, and then complain about the repitition. A lot of effort went into the background, and it makes things alot more entertaining.

One example is the 'Ancient Egg' quest chain. It starts in Tanaris, goes through Zul'Farrak, the hinterlands, and the Sunken Temple. The whole time you believe you are trying to prevent the ressurection of the Blood God, Hakkar. If you complete the chain, you find out at the end that you have been manipulated by Jin'do the Hexxer into helping him bring Hakkar back.

Basically, you're the reason Zul'Gurub is there.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Look up the legend of stalvin on thottbot. It's like a 7 or 8 tier quest that has a bit of story to it. There are many quests like that but the cumulative rewards are mediocre at best.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Johnny O]

You have just perfectly described Fallen Samurai Dynasty on Garithos. Nice job!

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Necroman]

Are you defined by what you think of yourself or how others perceive you? Do you really think because you died with a gross income in your life of 10 million dollars, you will be remembered more than someone that only made $500,000 through their entire life? Are you going to have a book written about it? And even if you did, does that make a difference now, if you would be dead when it is written?

I could be spending my time helping less fortunate people, or maybe working on an Open Source program that would benefit thousands of people. I may receive praise for such things, but what does this really do?

I think it's really a matter of what you want to do with your life. Do you care that in 20 years, you can look back and be like "Wow, I designed this amazing program that filled a need for 100,000 people." You will have this memory to satisfy yourself. You will be able to tell stories and brag about doing something "productive" for society.

Or, in 20 years, you can look back at the time when you played only video games. You can remember you had fun doing it, but did not accomplish anything with your life. You will have the memories of those games still, and the fun that you can while playing them.

Though it's not the same thing, I played one MMO for 12 months pretty hard-core. I stopped playing that game about 3 years ago. I can look back at the time I see some things where it hurt my social life. But at the same time, there were parts of the game that really provided pure fun and entertainment. You could say I get a warm-fuzzy thinking about the events and things that went on it the game. Not so much the facets of the game, but the people I interacted with in the game.

Some people feel that they have to help others, and do things beneficial to society, so they can be defined by society as being a productive member. And the only way they can satisfy themselves is to think that what they've done with their lives has made a difference (no matter if it really did or not).

Just because you think something is wrong, doesn't mean it is. Even if laws say that something is wrong, doesn't mean it is. I feel that psychology hasn't fully caught up with the concepts of MMOs, so they tend to be compared to drugs or other bad addictions.

Some work has been done to study the MMO trend, but it will be years before we can really know the effects it has on the world. It will be interesting to see how research projects like The Daedalus Project pan out over the coming years.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Lisandro]

No, the quests don't get more varied. That's why the jab is that there are only three (or so) types of quests. It's literally true.

Find. Loot. Kill. Report back.

    That holds true for 99.9% of MMORPGs out there. I honestly still don't know what people find so appealing about them.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[XenoRyet]

1) Yes

2) Yes

3) Drugs and Alchohol are physcaly addictive, and physicaly harmful to your health. Gaming in and of itself is not. Gaming is more interactive than TV, but some would consider that a minor point, so we can call them practicaly the same.

I think the crux of the matter is how you define "meaningful" and "real." What is the fundimental difference between a feeling generated from the real world, and one generated from an artificial source? Does the fact that I have an emotional attachment to a virtual character make the attachment any less real than if it was to the neighbor down the street. True one is finite, and the other may not be, but that could be counted as a benefit.

Life, as seen from the inside of this skull of mine, is a series of impressions, senses, and feelings. I don't see a great difference in value in what the source of these things is. In fact the virtual sources for these feelings generaly allow for greater freedom than the real world games you mentioned. There is also the fact that three out of four of your examples generaly come at the cost of exploiting others, a moral dilemma generaly not present in games.

Entertainment, non-productive though it may be, is a nessisary thing for human beings. If you become overly fixated on making your entertainment productive, then you have lost the value in it, at least as entertainment. If you happen to like something that is also productive in terms of sociaty at large, then that's great. However, there should be no guilt in enjoying entertainment that is not so.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[IsoRashi]

The only "varied" part about the ony chain is the story behind it. The quests themselves fall easily into the few quest archetypes.

If you look at the entire ony chain, it's composed of kill quests (both killing numbers of creatures and killing specific creatures to get specific quest items), and running around talking to NPCs. The only "twists" in the chain are 1) after you initially track down Windsor, you have to go back into BRD and find the crumpled note (there is no other indication that you have to complete other quests to make the note available, but this quest mechanism is by no means unique); and 2) knowing before-hand that you aren't supposed try to help when the guards turn into wyrmkin.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Anonymous Coward]

PVP is the point. It is a continuous challenge to be able to melt faces.

Plus, Burning Crusade is coming.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[danielaborg]

Bless you!

Oh wait, I see - those were NAMES. Nevermind.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[hpavc]

key quest is easy, just need a group that isn't all doing it at the same time with the limited eyes/blood drops. You can basically do the hatchery event with father flame and get your eyes for a whole group if the people that need the eyes loot.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Austerity Empowers]

You will soon hunt orc, they will drop flags. Return 20 of them to me. I will give you a sword that makes you strongish. Oh, only one in fifty orc have flags, although they all appear to carry them.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[hpavc]

Agreed, the back story for some stuff is cool.

This is very true of the quests in scholo and strat itself where people just go there to get a tier0 item or skins when there are actual quests there. Though unfashionable now, the trinket to see the dead people and what not has been useful. Especially to get trade stuff from the blacksmith outside of scholo.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[hpavc]

DM is probably the best instance in the game as far as depth goes and most under played I am thinking. Very few people go there (minus your mages and locks, tier0.5 people, and boutique item looters, etc).

However just like people complained when the capacity was dropped for various instances, those same people never saw the point in DM. They just wanted to zerg: EPL and BRS I am guessing.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[hpavc]

I am not buying that at all. You hear alliance vs hoard community statements like this all the time. My experience is that is varies from server to server greatly.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Carewolf]

Sleep. Eat. Fuck. Tell your friends about it.

I honestly don't know what people find so appealing about it.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Lisandro]

Sleep. Eat. Fuck. Tell your friends about it.

Exactly. Isn't life chore enough chore?

My peeve is that those games turn awfully quickly into chores - where you spend time with them not because it's fun, but only because you have to. There's a (fake) sense of accomplishment. That people like this and feel okay about paying for the privilege just blows my mind.

By the way, all of the above holds true for fucking aswell - i just happen to find it healthier! ;)

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the only interactions the game mechanics allow are going places, talking to people, using or picking up things and hitting stuff! Of course all the quests will only involve doing those things, that's all you can do.

It's like complaining that all you do in Mario is run and jump... it's the imagination behind the scenarios and level design that counts, so long as the basic interactions are also fun to you. So, if you like the idea of a +2 helm, play WoW. If you'd rather jump on a Goomba, play Mario. If you think plasma rifles are cool, play Quake 3.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[sgbett]

Heal. Random Encounter(s). Move Location. Character Build.

FF defines repetition. I wouldn't change it for the world.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[BluRBD!E]

Fuck. Why can't I play WoW and create a cure for cancer? Jesus man where's the rule that says to do no evil and save the world you aren't allowed to have fun?

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[dbIII]

I played one MMO for 12 months pretty hard-core. I stopped playing that game about 3 years ago. I can look back at the time I see some things where it hurt my social life

I look at it a different way - all those wasted hours in the workplace hurt my social life so much that I've never even played WoW!

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[C0R1D4N]

I can understand the draw of WoW myself, having sunk 5 years into Everquest starting way back in 99.

What I really can't get is it's mass appeal. Why are so many people playing it? As far as MMOs go (and I've played every fantasy one and a couple non-fantasy ones) it's relatively bland in gameplay and immersion. It's a lot more game than it is "immersive world".

Maybe what made MMOs so great 7 years ago and appealing isn't what the majority of players actually wanted?

I'll go back to waiting to get into the Vanguard beta I guess :(

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Z34107]

Contrary to posters, the quests do get more varied. Granted, most of the hundreds you'll do on your way to 60 follow the kill/loot pattern, but there are several genuinely interesting quezts out there.

• A Warrior's Training - To gain some of your first Warrior talents, you beat up a drunk for his prized mug. Classic.
• Messenger to Westfall - Begins to unravel some intrigue as to why the capital city of Stormwind withdrew all it's troops from the outlying provinces. Starts to tie the player in to some world events.
• A Dark Threat Looms - You discover a plot to flood the dwarven capital city by detonating a dam. In this quest chain, you get to *save* the largest Alliance city in the game (as much as something in a static MMORPG can be saved).
• The Defias Brotherhood - You discover a similar plot against Stormwind by some of the disgruntled architects who originally built the city. Involves a fun instance raid, intrigue between NPCs, and the creepy/funny quest to disguise a gnomish robot as a female politician of sorts using two apples and silk cloth to arrange a false meeting with a nobleman involved in the conspiracy. Kinda original.
• Brother Carlin - Has you consorting with a Gnomeish mage of sorts that can mess with time to repair deliberate attacks on historic events to benefit the undead scourge. Towards the end of this chain, you get The Battle of Darrowshire which has you fighting to change the outcome of an epic battle in the past.

And so on. World of Warcraft is known for making questing one of the most efficient (and fun) ways to advance to the level cap than unstructured grinding. In the end-game, raiding is truly fun if you get in with the right guild - which doesn't require being an uberhardcore-life-sacrificing-nerd stereotype. There are lots of casual, friendly guilds that get 40 people together once a week or so to fight some of the more spectacular bosses. Fighting with 40 other people in and of itself (and getting loot for it) is great fun.

Don't give up on the game quite yet. There is a reason millions of people are playing it, after all. If it's not fun, you're only at level 15 - try playing a different character class, or with Alliance instead of Horde, or vice versa. Get involved with professions, too - you're missing out on a huge part of the game if you're a warrior that can't craft a breastplate, or a warlock that can't sew a robe of the void.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[nml]

That the parent is currently at +5, and the grandparent at +1, speaks volumes about the people reading this story.

Are you defined by what you think of yourself or how others perceive you? Do you really think because you died with a gross income in your life of 10 million dollars, you will be remembered more than someone that only made $500,000 through their entire life?

the GP didn't suggest that you should devote your time to making money. They suggested that you should try to achieve something meaningful. And most people's self-perception is profoundly affected by their achievements, whether they like it or not.

I could be spending my time helping less fortunate people, or maybe working on an Open Source program that would benefit thousands of people. I may receive praise for such things, but what does this really do?

Your question is ridiculous, since you've just stated what those things achieve, and most people would agree that they're worthwhile objectives. What exactly do you consider worthwhile? A cure for cancer? People who hope to achieve that do not spend all of their time playing WOW.

Or, in 20 years, you can look back at the time when you played only video games. You can remember you had fun doing it, but did not accomplish anything with your life. You will have the memories of those games still, and the fun that you can while playing them.

Sure, you'll remember that you had fun, but you may also regret that you didn't spend your time more productively. Most people have goals that they'd like to achieve throughout their life, like buy a house, or achieve a certain level of education, play some kind of sport, or raise a family. Something that's nice about these goals is that, once achieved, they represent a tangible reminder of your effort, and that the skills required to accomplish them can help you in other areas in your life. In most cases, they'll also raise your quality of life, and allow you to do things that you otherwise couldn't. Playing WOW doesn't seem to advance you toward any of those things. Once you walk away from your computer, you are no better off than when you started. 20 years down the track, you may want a house, wife, job, or degree, and wonder why you played games instead of trying to achieve them.

You're ignoring the idea that maybe, if you use your time wisely, you can play games and achieve other things. No-one is suggesting that you can't take time out to have some fun sometimes. If you start trying to achieve something, you might also discover that things other than video games are fun too! (Shocking, i know.)

Some people feel that they have to help others, and do things beneficial to society, so they can be defined by society as being a productive member. And the only way they can satisfy themselves is to think that what they've done with their lives has made a difference (no matter if it really did or not).

Things that are other people admire are typically things that they'd like to achieve themselves. The point of being productive is not to gain other people's good opinion, but to satisfy your goals in life.

Just because you think something is wrong, doesn't mean it is. Even if laws say that something is wrong, doesn't mean it is. I feel that psychology hasn't fully caught up with the concepts of MMOs, so they tend to be compared to drugs or other bad addictions.

This is getting off-topic, but what exactly is wrong, then? Also, I think psychology is precisely right in comparing MMOs to drugs, in that using them is a lot of fun, but ultimately pointless. The tragedy of bad addictions is that you waste your life on pointless activities, when you could have been doing something worthwhile.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[KDR_11k]

It seems to me that most games are more successful at using their limited repertoire of possible player actions to create puzzles or areas with different rules. E.g. SMB1 had those castles where you had to find the right path or get reset to the start and SMW had Ghost Houses and bosses that required pushing into the Lava despite Mario's ability to interact with enemies being limited to jumping on them or dying (or using a powerup). Granted, static puzzles won't do much in an MMORPG since everybody plays with a game guide anyway but you could add dynamically created puzzles that follow a certain ruleset.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[geminidomino]

That's why the jab is that there are only three (or so) types of quests. It's literally true.


It is not.

#. FedEx quest - Take $QUESTITEM from $NPC[0] to $NPC[1]
#. Terminix Quest - Kill $NUM[0] $TARGET[0], $NUM[1] $TARGET[1],...$NUM[n] $TARGET[n]
#. Fetch Quest - Go get [$NUM] $QUESTITEM and return to $NPC
#. Assassin - Kill $NAMED_MONSTER for $NPC

See? FOUR Types of quests! Not three!

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[geminidomino]

PVP is the point. It is a continuous challenge to be able to melt faces.

Hardly. Winning in WoW's "stat vs stat" PvP is about as much of an indication of skill as writing a "Guess the number" game in Visual Basic is an indication of programming skill.

Plus, Burning Crusade is coming.

Yay! Pay an extra $35 for even MORE of the same.

I'll pass.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[somersault]

I've not played many RPGs, but all of them give a sense of 'it doesn't matter how crap I am at this game, given enough time I can level up against really crappy characters'. Most other types of game you get better over time sure, but it's actually your own skills improving - everyone's character is equal, but their skill makes the difference. RPGs are fun too, and obviously some people can play more skillfully than others, but when it comes down to it I think that games where you can start kicking ass based on your skill level, rather than however many hours you've spent levelling up, are probably more rewarding. I spent hundreds of hours MUDding a couple of years ago, but it just came down to doing repetetive quests and levelling, and knowing that the only way I had any kind of chance against any of the decent players was by getting the same level of equipment they had, it didn't matter how good a player I was myself. I guess RPGs are for people with no reaction times? :p

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[somersault]

sorry, I guess I should have said poor reaction times, as no reaction time is a good thing!

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[EastCoastSurfer]

I guess the definition of 'skill' is the problem. Is the fast twitching required to win in FPS considered 'skill'? To win in mmo pvp you need to show up prepared (highest stats you can get) and know when/how to use your abilities. Would that be considered 'skill'? I always hear 'skill', or lack thereof, thrown around but no one ever defines it.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Rhone]

20/40 man raids (and especially the fact that you have to do them to get the best equipment, which ruins PvP for non-raiders) is what nudged me into giving up on WoW. With an inconsistent work schedule that prevents me from being able to commit to any particular day and time to raid, and most of my playing time being in the morning when no one is raiding anyway, raids were not an option for me. And, even if I could have raided, that simply isn't what I enjoy. I want to do PvP, solo content, and some small group stuff, but I hate being just one of 40 people.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Jartan]

You are mistaken in assuming I'm describing the situation I'm currently in. Not all of us are extreme extroverts who want to get along with 39 other people in such an intimate fashion. You talk about what you think is good in a guild but I don't agree. A guild that you describe is no more worth playing with than the kind of burnout guilds you seem to scorn.

I simply do not want to play with 39 other people no matter how "cool" they are.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[k_187]

then why are you playing an MMO? not that your stance is wrong, but it seems counter-productive to play a massively multiplayer game and shun the massively multiplayer part.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[Lord Kestrel]

The problem with wow pvp is that it's unbalanced equipment wise. While one player might have more "skill" (ie, knowledge of the game, mechanics, tactics, etc), the other player might have better equipment, and can outdamage, outtank, outheal, etc.

Take a look at Guild Wars pvp sometime. Actually, take a look at the Guild Wars Guild vs Guild battles. In those, everyone has access to the same gear, and the same skills (in game skills like heals, spells, etc), making the battles actually about player "skill" and not about who has spent the most time grinding to get better gear.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[blinder]

i agree with this completely. on my server there are as many rotten apple horde players (just last night... a level 43 torren tried to come in and scoop about half the mobs i tagged first -- which is stupid since i was playing my level 45 ne druid -- did this person think they could draw more threat???)

yeah, on the server i play on (gilneas) -- there are plenty horde players who behave like jack-assed little kids thinking that ninja'ing, scooping, begging and generally being a stupid pain in the ass is okay.

what really frustrates me is, that i go out of my way to be a "good person" in the game. like i said, i'm a ne druid, and i've focused on balance and healing spells... so i'm always quick with the MoW buff, healing when i can, and debuffing mobs if its needed without being asked (debuffing mobs rarely draws threat away anyway, but gives the player a slight edge)... only be be shat upon by some jack-off a minute later. ugh.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[hpavc]

I can sort of sum things up with 'lfm ubrs, need healer and key' how many guilds, entire guilds don't have a key. How many people don't know what the 'key' everyone is whining about is used for or what it does (how many don't know when to use it during the rend event). Its just a place to blast through, get your tier0 stuff, deflector and get out. How many people won't touch BRD or LBRS without being 60 and have the same basic group they would to take down the Baron.

The game has a population that at many times can be a PITA to deal with.

I had hopes for the meeting stones, as soon as I heard about it I imagined something quite different. My mental jacking off to how it would fix WoW was a terrible let down. I assumed from one sentence that a 'ebay/karma' like system would evolve "A++ tanking" "knows scholo pulls"

I quit the game a while ago during the Nax testing. I have been a healbot (with a warlock for kicks) and had the displeasure of seeing it all on various servers first hand.

The game needs a social order to it. The ezbuild tyrannt guild system is broken. People do so much and spend so much creative energy in their guilds blizzard isn't making it easy for them.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[geminidomino]

Bingo. You know where I'm coming from.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[EastCoastSurfer]

What you're describing isn't really an mmo anymore. It's more of a TF type of game where every side/person has easy access to all the same items/skills. You can't give item rewards for running long quests or quests that take lots of people in the game you're describing. Anything that could create disparity between a new player and old player also must go. Pretty soon your back to quake except you have different classes, a la TF.

Re:Instance whoring at level 60

[pezpunk]

by the way, that's the alliance version of the Ony key quest. the horde side doesn't have anything remotely approaching that level of coolness. it's just kill a, kill b, kill c, kill d, collect widget e. report to npc f. report to npc g. report to npc h. kill i. report back to j. collect 25 of mob drop k. report back to l. kill m, kill n, kill o, kill p. report back to q. kill r. report to s. report to t. kill mob u (which requires re-killing mob j. shouldn't he still be dead? oh well. report back to someone. report back to someone else. grats.

WoW fits both markets

[the computer guy nex]

MMO's are huge in Asia. Games like Lineage have been hitting huge numbers (not WoW numbers, but not far off) for awhile now.

Warcraft and Blizzard are 2 of the biggest names in gaming in the US.

The combination hits a sweet spot for both markets.

p.s. when is someone going to make a Grand Theft Auto MMORPG!!!

Re:WoW fits both markets

[cheese-cube]

p.s. when is someone going to make a Grand Theft Auto MMORPG!!!

Multi Theft Auto

Re:WoW fits both markets

[IAR80]

There are also web based MMORPGs. Primitive but still fun.

-----
http://world4.monstersgame.co.uk/?ac=vid&vid=47010 693

Re:WoW fits both markets

[Durrill]

p.s. when is someone going to make a Grand Theft Auto MMORPG!!!

http://www.webzengames.com/Game/APB/default.asp APB is under development.
Reading up on this, it seems that you can either play a criminal or the law. So its along the lines of a combined GTA/True Crimes MMO. Its not out yet, but i might actually give it a try when it does.

What Oh What is WOW?

[__aaclcg7560]

Never played the game. So much for a game that seized the globe.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Desolator144]

everyone I talked to in my IT classes at my college said something to the effect "it's okay" or "it's not that great of a game." I think the only reason it's popular is because it combines Warcraft fans that will play anything Warcraft with MMORPG gamers. That's a lot of people but it doesn't make it a great game. I don't think it has anything to do with the price because Silkroad Online is pretty similar in many ways but completely free and there's only like 10,000 or so people playing that.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Usekh]

And of course you are the only determiner of a games sucess? 6.5 million active subscribers...

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[77Punker]

Last I heard, WoW has six million active subscribers. I've never played it either, but that's still lots of people. 6 million people is about 2% of the American population. I know that there's plenty of players outside of the USA, but when you look at it that way it really puts it into perspective.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Jack9]

Soap has also siezed the globe. The fact you don't use it, doesn't affect that statement.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, golly, aren't you just a special, little snowflake...

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[terrahertz]

That comment is so insightful it needs a forum of its own.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, who the hell is rating this troll Insightful?

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Webz]

To see its perspective compared to other MMOs, check out this chart:

http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart1_files/Subscription s_8846_image001.gif

It pretty much beats every other popular MMO out there combined. That's impressive.

Also, considering the expansion coming out, I'm sure that will attract either new players or players who quit before and then want to see what the Burning Crusade is about (new content, new characters, new spells, bug fixes, enhancements, etc).

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[__aaclcg7560]

Not everyone wants to see "Snakes On A Plane", young grasshoper.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[xouumalperxe]

Just because you haven't played it doesn't mean that it hasn't taken a very large portion of the market that is MMORPG players, or that it hasn't expanded that market, or that it hasn't greatly influenced game design since. I'm pretty sure you can find a few people in the US that think that they'd be better off as a british colony. That doesn't make the american revolution any less valid.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[drsquare]

McDonalds gets a lot of customers. Windows has a lot of users. Lots of people went to watch War of the Worlds.

Popularity is about marketing and dumbing down, not quality.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think "plenty of players outside of the USA" is an understatement in this context. Both Europe and USA have a bit over 1 million subscribers, the rest are in Asia.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[HaloZero]

Retention is a function of quality. Exposure is a function of marketing. If I'm exposed to a quality product, I'm more likely to become their asset. If World of Warcraft weren't a) fun, b) distracting, c) amusing, I wouldn't be playing it still after over two years.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I never played GTA: San Andreas. So much for it being called such a popular game.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[thatguywhoiam]

Popularity is about marketing and dumbing down, not quality.

Yes - because we all know there is no such thing as a sleeper hit like Ico. Not ever.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[drsquare]

People like it because it's easy and dumbed down. You can play it whilst half asleep just by banging your head on the keyboard. It'll soon be forgotten like Everquest was as there is no depth do the gameplay, just point and drool.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Jack9]

I sure didn't.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[HaloZero]

You're right, it is easy. It's much easier than my job, classes, and dealing with the rigors (the downside portion) of a relationship.

This is coming from someone who historically works way too hard, and just got out of a very dissatisfying relationship. YMMV.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Overloadplanetunreal]

That makes me want to find out what Runescape is. It seems to be the only game on there besides WoW that's increasing in subscriptions...

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Anonymous Coward]

since when are you the globe?

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[Ifni]

People like it because it's easy and dumbed down.
Just like movies, television, music, console games, and most any other popular form of entertainment. It hasn't stopped them from making bazillions and remaining relevant for many years. If you want a challenge, do the NY Times crossword, or take up extreme sports, or, I don't know, cure cancer. If you want to relax and have fun, easy and dumbed down is the preferred way to go. Personally, I prefer things that engage the mind (unlike much of the drek on TV), but they don't have to tax it. I enjoy WoW because I can relax and play it (with my wife, no less) and have fun. I can also turn it into a challenge if I choose. Try two manning a 5 man raid instance (at the appropriate level, without uber gear) and I doubt you'd be calling it easy. By being able to set my own challenge, I can either coast or put significant effort into it, depending on the mood I am in.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[__aaclcg7560]

You have obviously not seen my website to understand that your question is redundant.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[geminidomino]

Crappy "payment optional[0]" Java-based MMO.

[0]You don't have to pay to play, but what you can do is limited if you don't.

Re:What Oh What is WOW?

[KDR_11k]

From what I understand it's the least bad of the MMORPGs which automatically makes it the most popular one.

Sad to see this a success.

[B5_geek]

While I congratulate the developers for creating a game that keeps money pouring in at a rate to make the oil companies proud; I am sad to see subscription based games survive.

Everquest (afaik) started the trend and now with WOW pullings in Millions of $ each month, I know that it won't go away. I watch my friends throw money at all these games, one in particular had active accounts in: City of Heroes, WOW, and Everquest all at the same time! He let me try his account (in an attempt to get me hooked) and while the game and MMORPG aspect was fun, I dind't think it was worth the monthly fees.

So now, I stick to classics and Mame. I will never pay a monthly fee for a game.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[TheSHAD0W]

I'll have to disagree with you; while having to pay money every month, rather than at the onset of the game, may be t3h 3vi1 to you, games requiring servers need those servers paid for. And although I do think the prices demanded are rather high ($5/mo or lower seems to be more in line), I'm hoping eventually all the games themselves will be distributed for free, much like EVE Online is now.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[merreborn]

I am sad to see subscription based games survive. Everquest (afaik) started the trend...

You missed the early nineties, when people payed by the hour, and in some cases by the minute, to play games like Legends of Kesmai. People ran up bills, some as high as hundreds and even thousands of dollars per month.

$15/month is a steal compared to that.

Even more, your average (non-MMO) gamer probably buys one boxed game a month, at least -- which runs about $50, these days.

Again, $15/month is a steal.

There are very few services out there that give you "All you can eat" for $15. And most of these games feature regular content updates -- so you're getting a little more than just the privalege of playing, for your money.

Running an MMO costs money. Constantly producing more content does too.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[brkello]

The only way a game like this can exist is through monthly rates. If they just sold the game for an initial price, the game would not be able to afford the massive amount of hardware, bandwidth, customer support, etc. Additionally, you are getting new content added every few months. You have to pay the developers. Subscription based games will never go away. It's fine if you don't want to spend the 15 a month...but...it isn't very expensive. Considering the game pretty much consumes your free time...it actually saves a typical gamer money since they don't need to buy any other games. People spend 100s a month for cable/internet. You certainly get more bang for your buck in WoW then you would going to a movie theater.

Disclaimer: I quit WoW and couldn't be happier about it.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[CrazyJim1]

Ah yes, the era of the ,"Oh no, I was on long distance when I was playing online?"

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[crabpeople]

"I will never pay a monthly fee for a game."

Enjoy your no gaming future gramps...

On the plus side I pay way less for game subscriptions than i do for the cable tv that i used to subscribe to, the weekly movies I used to go to...

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[grazzy]

Servers are cheeap.. ack.. so cheap.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[BenjyD]

Gaming in general has a monthly fee, unless you stick to replaying games you already own. I've just started on WoW, so I don't know how it's going to affect my buying habits, but I generally buy around 2 games a month. That's four months' WoW subscription.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[merreborn]

Ah yes, the era of the ,"Oh no, I was on long distance when I was playing online?"

Nope. Islands of Kesmai, for example, charged up to $12/hr, in addition to compuserve's access fee. That doesn't include any long distance, either.

100 hours of gaming in a month (not at all uncommon for today's "hardcore MMOers") would cost you about $2,000, if you include compuserve's hourly fee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islands_of_Kesmai#Pri ce_to_Play

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Jartan]

"I will never pay a monthly fee for a game."

You make that sound like some sort of stand you are taking against evil. You also act like people who pay these subscriptions are making some sort of mistake.

What if they stop charging a monthly fee and start charging $150 up front flat fee? Is that going to somehow make it better for you even though numerically it's probably more?

I've got a lot of bad things to say about WoW but so far it's the only MMO to every actually deliver fifteen bucks worth of content every month.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[astanley218]

FWIW, Ultima Online was the first major game in the genre. I have played MMORPG's since UO, although I never had overlapping accounts. I have a full-time job, a wife, a house, and 2 children. Needless to say my entertainment time and my money are very valuable to me as I don't have much "extra" of either of them. IMHO, games like UO or WoW cannot be compared with games like San Andreas or Madden '07 for various reasons. Some of the major ones off the top of my head would have to be:

- Blizzard spent 5 full years developing the game before launch (ROI on this must be overwhelming to consider for Bliz).
- Blizzard admins currently maintain 174 "realms" around the globe (Very expensive leased lines, hardware maintenance, secured facilities, etc.)
- WoW requires constant attention from paid employees (ie: game masters who are constantly investigating hacked accounts, assisting players, banning farmers, responding to abuse/complaints, etc).

This new game model absolutely requires some type of recurring income. It is obviously not viable to take $50 (less the distribution costs) one time from a customer and then allow that customer to play for the next 4 years without recovering any of the above costs. In my opinion the $15 monthly cost (3 packs of cigarettes?, 2 fast food meals?, 1 date at the movies?) is very easy to justify considering the infrastructure in place, and the entertainment value of the game. I don't know about the rest of Slashdot, but I have never been able to enjoy a single $50 game for more than a month or two. By that time I've either beaten it (seen all the content), or am frustrated/bored with it. At which point I would be back at the store laying down another $50 for the next few months entertainment. MMORPGS are in constant development, new content simply "appears" in the game via routine patches. Expansion packs and other major changes sometimes cost a little extra, but I still see this model as far superior to single purchase (ie: Madden) video games.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Bhasin_N]

... The life I used to have. (coudnt resist adding that )

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Yvan256]

Enjoy your no gaming future gramps...

So far I haven't paid any additionnal fees to play Metroid Prime: Hunters, Animal Crossing: Wild World or Tetris DS online...

And given all the press releases and statements by Nintendo officials, I don't expect to pay monthly fees for the Wii either (aside from some MMORPG, if any).

Enjoy your fees-infested gaming world with Microsoft and Sony.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Jack Sombra]

The genre to which WoW belongs, subcription, internet based, graphical, massive multiplayer , persistant world game was not started by EverQuest (March 99), nor by Ultima Online (Sept 97) but rather by Meridian 59 at the end of 1996.

To the poster above who refuses to play subcription based games, best get ready to quit gaming, many of the gaming companies were looking at the model before WoW, now that they have seen how much the buisness is worth they have all gone into overdrive to start developing their own subcription based service (imo the next big leap will be doing one that works well with consoles as well as pc's), many people are predicting that sooner rather than later all games will be subcription based, even non MMO's, not only because the profits can be greater, but because by keeping a lot of the game content on servers they totally eliminate pirateing and in the long term the studios will also be able to cut out the middle man, the distributers

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Anonymous Coward]

But the problem with subscription-based games is that you must keep paying for months even if you are not playing it or playing very little. And you gotta keep paying or else they delete your char which is what, 1Kbyte worth of data stored away in some disk sector. Usage-based pricing would be much fairer and also lower pointless and/or compulsive play.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[__aazuyo6398]

So far I haven't paid any additionnal fees to play Metroid Prime: Hunters, Animal Crossing: Wild World or Tetris DS online..."

I think the point of some people is the statment: "So far I have paid additionnal fees for WoW and played nothing else."

The point being that while you've bought all those games at $50 or so a pop, these folks(myself included) have only purchased one. Three extra games at $50 a pop is $150...that's 10 months of Wow subscriptions. Starting to see the point?

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Omeger]

Don't pay and you use MAME? Hmm... I wonder why you don't have to pay to play your games. ;-)

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[EnderGT]

I stopped playing for about 4 months. Didn't pay a dime (I use the 2-month time cards, so no credit card being billed). When I came back, all my characters were still there with all their items and equipment. I did lose some items (or the money from them) that had been in the auction house or in the mail, but i'd say that's my own fault.

I do agree with you, however, that I would be much more willing to give Blizzard my money if they offered usage-based pricing. I would feel less driven to play every night (and get my money's worth), and i'm sure my wife and kids would be less annoyed by me playing the game every night.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Yvan256]

The point being that while you've bought all those games at $50 or so a pop, these folks(myself included) have only purchased one. Three extra games at $50 a pop is $150...that's 10 months of Wow subscriptions. Starting to see the point?

I've seen the point since fees started to appear. Enjoy your lack of gaming in 10 months, I'll still be playing with the three games I've bought. And given the fact I'm talking about Nintendo here, I know the games will still be worth playing for years, not to mention the fact that they'll cost me 50$CAD at most except for a handful of titles.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[B5_geek]

I am not a demographic that these companies can target. The last game that I bought was Moo3. (yes I am still scarred from that) Before that: UT2004 (just to support the Linux playability.) and NeverWinterNights before that.

So in 13 years I have bought 3 games. I am not taking a stand against evil, just a business practice that I do not agree with. My entertainment budget is happily at the $50/month internet access.

Movies? no
Eating out? not much
TV? free over-the-air RF is fine for me.

What is/was wrong with Charging $50 for a game and let the community host their own servers? I still play Starseige Tribes, and I love it!

I use Linux. I have zero interest in the new games for Windows. Like I said, I am not a demographic that these companies can target. IMHO I do think my friends are wasting their money, they do not think it's a waste. For them; they are right. For me; I am right.

Between the free Linux games that come around, MAME, and my old collection of games; I am content.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Anonymous Coward]

Web servers are. Game servers, which need lots of CPU and wide-open bandwidth, are not. And one server may only be able to host a hundred or so gamers at a time.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Databass]

$15 a month is about $.50 cents a day. That's like putting two quarters in and then playing for hours. By that reasoning, coin-op arcade machines are the real rip-off by comparison. Put two quarters in those and play for one or two minutes? Movies in theaters, even rental movies, buying books from Amazon and then reading them, going to an amusement park, drinking in a bar, going to a strip joint... almost no other form of entertainment you can pay for is as cheap as subscription-based MMOs. Even buying a game off the shelf, if it's $40 and it entertains you for 40 hours, you're paying a dollar an hour. If WoW entertains you for "only" two hours a day (and it goes FAR beyond that for many), you're paying only $.25/hr for entertainment, or one fourth the price of retail stand-alone computer games.

The only game-related alternative that comes to mind at the moment that is cheaper is buying a bargain bin classic like Master of Orion 2 for $5 and playing that for many excellent hours. But bargain bin prices aren't sustainable for developers, while MMO subscription models can rake in truckloads of money or at least break even for smaller titles and ARE sustainable.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[C0rinthian]

What is/was wrong with Charging $50 for a game and let the community host their own servers?

Most members of the community don't have funds for a high end server cluster to run the game. Can we use your data center for free?

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[C0rinthian]

MMO's rarely delete characters. Keeping them around keeps you tied to the game, and more likely to start paying again.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[bubkus_jones]

$12 an HOUR????? Fuck, I don't even earn that much at my job (part time, student).

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[bubkus_jones]

The boxes are cheap, yeah. You can build a game server for your home for under $300. However, I would expect that those WOW uses are a little more high-end than a homebrew system. Then, there's also the sheer number of servers they have for their userbase (of what, 5 million subscribers?). Then, add in the cost of maintenance (security patches, hardware fuckups, idiots hacking into the network to bring down servers, etc.), electricity to power the servers, and don't forget bandwidth (the big companies don't get it for free, either, you know).

That adds up. $15 a month isn't THAT much if you like the game. Of course, if you don't play it at all, it's probably not worth the cost (but that goes for anything).

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[grazzy]

Top of the line quad boxes comes for 10 grand .. add hosting.. say 1k / year in total per server.. = every server needs 66 accounts to make it financiable viable over the span of a year. I wouldn't say thats very expensive.

No. The real cost is probably those support, service and designers blizzard are paying salaries too. I'm not saying 15 is expensive at all.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[f4hy]

Then wouldn't it be nice to see blizzard constantly producing more content....

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[asylumx]

I decided to reply here because the parent has a great point of view. UO was the first "Big Dog" MMO pay-to-play game. Games like Diablo were a bit of a pioneer even for the MMOs since they got people online with somewhat persistant characters. UO was great, full featured, worked (well) on DIAL-UP and was a bargain at 9.95/mo. They opened the door. EQ made MMOs a household idea... they put it in 3D for roughly the same price (9.89/mo) and this is what POPULARIZED the genre. There have been lots of other games since then but WoW is probably the first to draw in new players at a decent rate since UO and EQ. I don't know if I'd say WoW has taken over the world.... 6 million users.... so what, there are 6 BILLION people in the world. Numbers aren't an advantage anyways because the servers are limited to such a small chunk of those 6 million players at a given time. And as for 6 million people "can't be wrong"... how many votes did George W. get in this last election? There are those who would argue that those voters were wrong. Anyway. As for the costs. The $50 or less that you pay to get the game in the first place goes towards the debt that the company has incurred in design, development, production and distribution of the game. The company makes very little, if anything, from that initial $50 in the MMO genre. The $15/mo or whatever the fee is for a given game is intended to help cover the maintenance costs of the game such as servers, admins, everything listed by the parent, but it is also where the company is going to make their profit. Let's face it, if the companies aren't making a profit, they wont produce the games anymore.... which means no more MMOs and remember there are at least 6 million people who must like MMOs because they are playing them. Bottom line is... if you don't want to pay $15/mo for a game then don't do it. If you want to play the game, pay the $15/mo. You can justify all you want but the choice is up to you.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[JeTmAn81]

Judging by that rationale, MMO's are still a giant ripoff compared to something like Counter-Strike: Source for which you pay a one-time fee to play for hours every day. I played the original Counter-Strike for several hours a day for two years straight and all I paid for was the original Half-Life game (around $30 in 1999). The same amount of playing time in WoW would've cost me $360. Not so cheap now, is it?

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[drc500free]

Puzzle Pirates has been pretty successful (for an indie game) with a micro-payment model. Items, clothing, and badges that allow access to more advanced parts of the game cost a certain number of game tokens (in addition to their cost in in-game money), and eventually decay. There is an in-game exchange between the game token and the game currency, which makes it possible to play entirely for free or to buy everything for real life money or a happy medium. This payment model is actually the magic bullet that made Three Rings profitable after a couple years using a subscription model (legacy subscription oceans are still around for people who prefer an 'all you can eat' model).

The core gameplay doesn't actually require itemization for most players (though having a cheap sword is usually better than a stick). Gold farmers never get a foothold in the market because they're competing against legitimate free players - the exchange is on a free market which is settled somewhere near a value that makes you work twice as long to get an item for free as to pay half with game tokens. You can't cash out the tokens and the game is rather small, so no professional farmers have moved in (it's also a skill-based game rather than a time/item-based game, so it's not that easy to farm).

I don't know if it can be translated to something like WoW, which relies on leveling and item mechanisms that scale exponentially. It could certainly be lucrative, and allowing people to choose their time/money trade off without going through chinese gold farmers means more profit for Blizzard.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Anonymous Coward]

That all depends on your long distance plan. With Bell, they had a max. up to 20 dollars a month for long distance calls made after 6:00PM. Probably within the country (in my case, Canada) or the same province though, can't recall as this is going back aways.

Anyway, I stuck with my same ISP (based in London, ON) when I went on co-op for 4 months, and dialed in from another city (Toronto, ON). For two of the months which occured during the beta of EQ, my phone bills were totaled at 3800.00 and 4500.00 dollars before savings. After savings they were around 80.00 and 102.00 dollars respectively (logged on a few times before 6:00PM, but luckily for only brief periods). I never paid any more than the after-savings amounts. If only I had kept these bills and framed them :)

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[eulalie]

Just my two cents...

WoW is a fine game, but it's not the only MMORPG out there. Final Fantasy XI continues to provide more and more content. After reaching the highest level (75) you can merit which takes exponential amounts of xp to attain extra boosts in your jobs natural abilities. Not to mention the lasted expansion with loads of new areas and questions and mini games of sorts. I've been playing FFXI for two years now and I'm not even CLOSE to accomplishing everything there is to accomplish. They JUST introduced Chocobo Raising, opening a whole new aspect of the game. I've hatched an egg, and I'm raising a chocobo. I can manipluate its characteristics based on care and good and attention and physical activity. This is all a prelude to chocobo racing, which my choco will be prepared to in a months time (earth days). And to add another facet to the whole thing, I can attempt to find my choco a mate, and if theirs a "choco love connection", breed my chocobo. And thats just one aspect of the game. These games are involved and require some level of intelligence and responsability not only to your character etc, but to the other people you play with be it linkshell members from FFXI or guild members from WoW. For 15$ a month in almost all MMORPGs you get some sort of bond with these players from around the world. To me it's priceless. OK, so I got distracted.. \0/

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[munrock]

I think the subscription based model has a lot of merits and it deserves to survive. What's missing is a rival in the genre that is pushing the others. A decent rival game that either reduces the subscription fees or invests more into regular, fresh, original content would force Blizzard to compete a little more, giving even better value to the gamers. Given Blizzard's profits, I'm sure they could afford to compete. The trouble is can any new contenders compete without first getting a decent market share?

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[snuf23]

"So now, I stick to classics and Mame. I will never pay a monthly fee for a game."

Keep in mind those MAME games you are playing used to cost $.25 a play. No matter whether you lost the game in 30 seconds or could keep it going for an hour. The $15 someone spends on WoW a month is equivalent to 60 quarter drops in an arcade machine. Back in the '80s I would definately spend upwards of $10 during a single night at the arcade.
I love MAME too but in general unless you have a stack of arcade boards lying around keep in mind that you are violating copyright law to play most of those games. Your ride is only free because of this. You would spend a couple hundred dollars just to pick up all the latest console arcade collections and still only have a fraction of a total MAME collection.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[MynockGuano]

Thankfully, they do. And yes, it is quite nice.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[manno]

I can see where you're coming from, and I understand that a lot of people here agree with your mentality. I think some people, myself included, don't get the same enjoyment out of these games that other people here do. I see MMORPG's as time spent away from dating, friends, and family. I'd much rather catch a game with the guys, spend $25-$100 on a good date, or $200 to fly home to see my family, than play an MMORPG free for a year. Does that make me right? Obviously not, but for me paying $15/month to play a MMORPG seems a waste.

My gameplay experience of choice is sitting on the couch with 10 or so friends playing some sort of "party game" Mario Cart/Smash Bros. ect. Taking turns handing off the remote, drinking beers, and chatting it up in between turns. That's what's fun for me.

Call me old fashioned but I personally find people are a hell of a lot more fun to be around than video games, TV, or movies. When I do any of those 3 things It's generally with friends. WoW, and those games seem to inhibit the kind of fun I like to have rather than enhance/encourage it.

Am I old fashioned?... I guess, a good portion of my time is spent talking to people I know about "How I'm worried about the way kids are growing up today." I heard that they were going to start putting TV's in shopping carts so ma's&pa's wouldn't have to talk to their kids while the shopped, and I was appalled at the idea... so maybe I am old/old fashioned... Maybe you're right maybe all games will be subscription based. I hope not though.

-manno

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Andy Somnifac]

I remember playing The Shadow of Yserbius on The Sierra Network in the early '90s. While the pricing went up over the years, check out what the charges were at the end of its life.

As others have said, $15 a month is a steal compared what we were paying then.

I'm sure there are more of us out there that played at this time. I wonder if there are any former KOY members out there.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[WhiteWolf666]

It depends on your budget, really.

I'm not (yet) wealthy by any metric, but I find Wow & Eve Online to be efficent usages of my entertainment budget (plenty of bang for the buck).

Before I started seriously playing MMOs, I found my self spending a huge amount on entertainment. Cable TV with 3 premium channels. 3-4 movies a month. $40 for a fancy dinner here and there, and the occasional $40-$100 night out drinking on the town.

Buy 1-2 CDs, and you hit the $15. Buy one DVD, and you hit the $15.

Now, think like a capitalist. You pay X dollars, and get Y hours of entertainment out of it. My girlfriend and I, instead of seeing a movie or going out to the clubs, we stay home and play WoW. On average, we probably put in 10-20 hours a month. That means approximately $1.15 per hour for my entertainment. Do you think you get 20+ hours of entertainment out of one DVD? What about one CD? What about 1 movie ticket?

Or even a moderately priced $10 meal. Do you get 8 hours of entertainment out of it?

I have MMO accounts. I purchased some gym passes. I get monthly salsa lessons. And I cut out the premium channels, reduced my phone minutes to a reasonable 600, stopped going to movies, and stopped eating out of house.

The result? More $$ in my pocket. And I get to play in this beautiful game world with live support, constantly updated content, and PvP that I really do enjoy. Now, maybe WoW is too simple for all the leet games out there, but my GF and I get quite a kick out of it. And when I really want to deal with something crazy sophisticated, I pull up Eve.

I don't understand your indignation at this idea of "subscription" gaming. Running WoW is expensive (tons of bandwidth). Updating WoW is expensive (a dedicated team of designers, GMs, network admins, etc. . .)

These are real costs associated with producing a game. Obviously, they turn a profit, but unlike, say, AT&T, or Comcast, Blizzard is pretty damn reponsive to its customer base, and doesn't bilk people using micropayments.

I guess some aesthetics may balk at the idea of paying $$ on entertainment at all, but I don't really get that. I'm not saying I spend all my cash on "fun", but there's safely room in my budget for $45 a month towards entertainment, without stopping me from buying a house, going to graduate school, or even *gasp* building up a meager savings account.

Of course, you seem to say that you are willing to purchase games, in which case I point you back at my $$ per hour question. My games of choice cost me $1.15 per hour of playtime. How many hours of play time do you get out of your $50-$60 Xbox/360/PS2/GC/Windows games? Do you average at least 45? And if so, by how much? Do you really believe I'm paying a significant premium?

Let's say I'm willing to pay TWICE what you pay for the online "experience", and for competing against thousands of players. The equivalent price point for you would be $0.67 cents per hour, or approximately 90 hours for a $50 game.

*shrug* I don't think I've played any console or PC game (except a few, choice, excellent strategy games) for more than that.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[snuf23]

They do but only in the high end game. Basically unless you are a heavy raider almost nothing has been released since launch top extend your game. There are a few faction based options which are poorly thought out and boring as hell. And of course there are the battlegrounds which may or may not interest you. Of course the PVP ladder means that unless you are a hardcore player you won't ever get the shiny purples from PVPing.
In terms of content added since launch at no extra cost the list I am aware of goes something like:

Mauradon (5 player instance)
Dire Maul (3 5 player instances)
Molten Core (40 player instance)
Black Wing Lair (40 player instance)
Zul Gurub (20 player instance)
Ahn Quiraj (world event, 20 player instance, 40 player instance)
Naxxramas (40 player instance)
Various holiday event quests (Halloween, Xmas, Chinese New Year, Valentines day)
3 PVP Battlegrounds
Revamped map, new quest lines and faction options in Silithus
Several Dragons on the world map suitable for raid killing
New world PVP options
Darkmoon Faire
Additional quests in Feralas, Hinterlands and Searing Gorge mid-level zones
And a bunch of smaller tweaks, revamps etc.

All in all, compared to other MMOs it is a decent chunk of new content. Unfortunately for the last few patches the majority of additions have focused on the high end raider or PVP player.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[BoberFett]

I'm sure all of the video game companies are crushed to have lost the potential business of a person who spends no money on entertainment. At all.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[basscomm]

MMO's rarely delete characters. Keeping them around keeps you tied to the game, and more likely to start paying again.

Final Fantasy XI deletes your characters once your account has been canceled for three months.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[C0rinthian]

Never played FFXI. I stand corrected.

Stupid policy though.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Shivani1141]

Throwing money away? No more than, actually, probably less than on other video games. For a game to pass on my budget, i'd like to get one hour of enjoyment out of it for every dollar I spend. Let's just say that to me wow's Ratio is far better than 1:1. I spend a good $60 on Saint's Row, and i got perhaps 30 hours of fun out of it. WoW is a great deal as an entertainment source.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[JeTmAn81]

This is the same specious argument I see used to justify charging $150+ for 26 twenty--five-minute episodes of anime. Just because something was far more expensive in the past, doesn't automatically make any price lower than that a fair price. If WoW was $100/month it would be cheaper than a lot of those games from the early 90's but it still wouldn't be fairly priced.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Anonymous Coward]

"On the plus side I pay way less for game subscriptions than i do for the cable tv that i used to subscribe to, the weekly movies I used to go to..."

People always bring that up. The fact the cinemas are absolutely terrible value for entertainment purposes (you're mostly paying for somewhere to go) really shouldn't be used to justify other forms of entertainment.
Cable TV is a bit more reasonable, but how many people cancel their cable just because of WoW?

P.S. I'll bet anything you like that I've put more hours into Unreal Tournament 2004 (and mods) that you have into WoW, and it was a lot cheaper.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Breakfast Pants]

So now, I stick to classics and Mame. I will never pay a monthly fee for a game.

It is funny that you mention Mame, something you don't pay anything for. Quit pretending it is just monthly fees you don't like.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Snaller]

Running an MMO costs money. Constantly producing more content does too.


But only a tiny amount compared to what they rake in. Its a great scheme, something like 1000000% profit.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point being that while you've bought all those games at $50 or so a pop

Who the hell pays $50 for a video game? I have a stack of 67 unopened current gen games next to me here of which I haven't paid more than $8.96 or so for any one (and as little as $.96 for some (yes, current gen)). 8 of them are DS games, 3 are GBA and the rest are a PS2/XB/GC mix I'm too lazy to count. Shop around, wait for deals, watch deal sites like CAG. I have such a backlog of stuff to play I doubt I'll ever get to it all. That's an average of $6 per game from any and all genres that might interest you.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Anonymous Coward]

add hosting.. say 1k / year in total per server

I can assure you that their bandwidth costs alone for a single box would be well in excess of 1k/*month*.

High availability hosting is very expensive too.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[dfenstrate]

High availability hosting is very expensive too.

Well, we can tell one place blizzard saves some money....

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[jiipee]

I played WoW since release and canceled my account couple of months ago.

Even though I paid monhtly fee, it actually saved me money. I usually burned >50/month to games. During my WoW subscription, I didn't buy single game.

Tried EVE for couple of months or so, but it didn't hit me. Stunning environment and huge lack of game content. And for those that say it's community that matters, I say, that I find better player community in NationStates.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Tsagadai]

I'm sorry but you sir no very little about coding. The engine in WoW has changed substantially over the last 2 years which equates to a massive development cost. Please don't just look at "new" areas as all that is done because your ignorance is showing.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Angvaw]

The Oracle bill alone can't be cheap. They use the Oracle Database with Real Application Clusters (RAC), which comes to, I believe, $40,000 per CPU for the database and another $20,000 or so for RAC. Then there's the annual support fee, which is a percentage of that total (I think 20% or so, but don't quote me on that)...

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Meridian 59 started the graphical trend, and MUDs like Gemstone have been doing it for decades...

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[snuf23]

I was responding to a complaint that there was no new content from Blizzard. Code changes to the game engine may add to stability or improve the system in other ways but they are NOT content. You will notice I didn't list weather effects in the list of content because while they are pretty you can't PLAY weather effects. They aren't CONTENT.
Glad to see you got modded flamebait, you deserved it.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Dark_MadMax666]

I bet the do not pay the prices you quoted .- Oracle contracts for big customers are all very special things ,and for blizzard which has probably thousands of servers I bet the licenses per server do not cost too much.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Angvaw]

Good point. Thousands of servers times $60,000 or more = too ridiculous even for Blizzard. Still I'm sure they've sent Oracle a good seven figures.

Re:Sad to see this a success.

[Magius_AR]

Enjoy your no gaming future gramps...

You appear to be under the illusion that one-player games do not exist.

Slashdot finally learning to cash in...

[Claws Of Doom]

...on the millions of U.S. WoW players unleashed on the internet when WoW is down for maintenance. gg Blizz *cough* Zonk.

Re:Slashdot finally learning to cash in...

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Oh yeah, it's Tuesday not Monday!

Link & Thoughts

[eldavojohn]

Sorry for the karma whoring but here's an RSS link to the site that doesn't require registration and the no-ads no pictures version.

Pretend you're a news feed or printer and you too can read stories without inhibiting log-ins or advertisements!

Now, for my two cents, I like WoW. But I loved Star Wars Galaxies pre-CU. I had two accounts in that game. It had this special kind of social aspect to it where people were dependent on even the most mundane professions. On top of that, you could level by dancing in a cantina all day, simply chatting with people. The fighting classes had to come in to relieve fatigue and wounds. It was a great system that, in my opinion, could have been more popular than WoW.

In WoW, fighting is the only thing that gains prestige. All the best weapons are looted, there is no dependence on non-fighting classes nor is there such a thing. I think that if anything is going to surpass WoW at this point, it has to be something that so far out there that it's not even well defined yet.

One thing is sure, it needs to accomodate both fighting classes and socializing classes and keep them equally important.

Re:Link & Thoughts

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

One thing is sure, it needs to accomodate both fighting classes and socializing classes and keep them equally important.

. . . and not "improve" that feature out of it once they do have it :)
Unfortunately, I was one of the people to try Galaxies out after the improvements. Unfortunately aswell, I was one of the people who wanted to make my living mining resources and building cool stuff (I wanted to Pimp your TIE, like xzibit). Unfortunately the trader classes were so nerfed I couldn't survive outside for Mos Eisley, not even with the help of my jedi friend.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that nerfing the people who don't want a mindless shooting game isn't the most productive move to make.

Re:Link & Thoughts

[ultrajazz]

Actually, there are plenty of quests on WoW that you don't require any battling to complete. But, I do agree with your post. Maybe I'll check out Galaxies.

Re:Link & Thoughts

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

owned by html tags. . .

Re:Link & Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

I liked pre-cu swg too, but come off it. There was NOTHING to do once you mastered a profession except pvp (or buy another account), and that was a damn mess (as fun as it was at times).How much fun was it to follow around the same Jedi Knight to pvp? How about those Bounty Hunters killing same faction Jedi? Yea tons of fun there. There is way more to do in WoW, and anyone that has played both games knows it. WoW is so popular because it's easy, and SWG wasn't that easy to learn (the subscription numbers prove that. both ways).

SWG had empty planets, and they ended up with a cybersex industry once player housing went live. There are plenty of NE females playing that dancing for money scam in WoW. And AFK dance macros in cantinas don't equal fun or being social to me. I remember before I quit SWG, the only reason myself and friends bothered with a cantina was to go overt or get mind buffs, from an AFK dance bot. Hardly anyone bothered with nonbot dancers because it was a waste of time, and all most of us wanted were buffs to go pvp with.

Crafting? That was a great timesink and yes, in WoW the loot is mostly drops and you have to be social. You have to group to get ahead. Once WoW went live, people got the hell out of SWGSOE land, because the game was boring even pre-screw up.

Re:Link & Thoughts

[Tsagadai]

In WoW, fighting is the only thing that gains prestige. All the best weapons are looted, there is no dependence on non-fighting classes nor is there such a thing. I think that if anything is going to surpass WoW at this point, it has to be something that so far out there that it's not even well defined yet. With a name like WARcraft is this actually surpising?

Gaming as a service

[Anonymous Coward]

And this in spite of laggy servers, buggy software, frequent outages... At least we are getting a feeling for what the next great game will look - and work - like.

Error in article text

[dc29A]

Games like World of Warcraft circumvent that problem by giving the software away free and then charging for the game service, either hourly or monthly."

Unless my memory failed me, I do remember paying 49.99$ for WoW. There is no free software given away.

Re:Error in article text

[Dutchmaan]

Unless my memory failed me, I do remember paying 49.99$ for WoW. There is no free software given away.

Maybe he was referring to Asia! Where it may very well be given away for free... or at least very cheap...

But yeah.. I wan't my initial $50 back!

Re:Error in article text

[Anonymous Coward]

"Keep in mind that distribution and access rates are different in Asia than they are here in the states. The majority of WoW players pay an hourly fee, and didn't have to buy the box."

GG.

Re:Error in article text

[Anonymous Coward]

that's the difference between Asia and America

Re:Error in article text

[meccaneko]

yeah I really dont get this idea of getting a free trial, downloading the client at 1.2Gb(?), then if you decide "hell yeah this is for me", Blizzard makes you go out a buy a box with a disc and a manual in it to continue playing? I just wanted to add a subscription to my trial and keep going.

EA have the right idea for a change, when Special Forces came out for BF2, you could just pay for and download the expansion pack...

------------
  There is no such thing as global warming. Chuck Norris was cold, so he turned the sun up.

Re:Error in article text

[Jarnis]

You are not chinese.

WoW has different pricing model in some parts of Asia.

Re:Error in article text

[Anonymous Coward]

The free game and hourly fees only applies to the Chinese market. They make far less per user in China (though many more users, of course) than they do here, even with the hourly charges.

Re:Error in article text

[teloric]

You didn't actually pay for the software. you paid for the key. you could have borrowed any friend's CDs to install, but without the key you can't actually sign on. Here in the US they usually pair the keys to CDs in a box, but it is the key you are really buying.

Re:Error in article text

[greeze]

Here in Korea, players tend to go to internet cafes (pc bangs) where WoW is already installed. They pay an hourly fee for playing there and never have to purchase the box. The Korean WoW website even has a special section devoted to pc bangs.

Re:Error in article text

[tokennrg]

Actually, if you go to their site and sign up for the free 10 day demo you can download the client for free. Then when/if you want to switch over to a full fledged account you can do so for $39.00.

Re:Error in article text

[Snaller]

Yeah if you live in asia you've really been had.

Re:Error in article text

[neminem]

I never paid for it... I thought I was going to have to resort to using a friend's install, but no: I just downloaded the trial client, and used my account info, and everything worked fine. This only works if you have a connection that lets you reasonably download a couple gigs, but still. The client was entirely free, as far as I was concerned.

Re:Error in article text

[sandsurfer]

cheaper you say..?

I purchased my legal copy of WoW in Malaysia, back in 27 December 2005 for RM269.00. Which is equivalent to USD$70 with the exchange rate back then. Prices have since come down to a cool USD$52.

When the BC expansion comes out, given the high appeal and low supply, how much *cheaper* do you think it will be in Asia?

Another WoW article 'stubbed' on the front page?

[Gropo]

Oh, it must be Tuesday Morning.

Free software?

[Krokus]

Games like World of Warcraft circumvent that problem by giving the software away free and then charging for the game service, either hourly or monthly.

They don't give the software away for free (like they should). They make you buy it just like any other game. When the expansion comes out, they'll make everyone buy that, too.

Re:Free software?

[Anonymous Coward]

from summary:

Keep in mind that distribution and access rates are different in Asia than they are here in the states. The majority of WoW players pay an hourly fee, and didn't have to buy the box.

Re:Free software?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was clearly refering to the Asian market.

Learn some damn reading comprehension.

Current adoption?

[Lord_Dweomer]

Yeah, we all know WoW is a huge hit, but I'm curious...now that there is a very significant portion of their player base who is level 60...and many players have become disallusioned with the grind that is on par with EQ, does anybody have any numbers regarding their current new subscriber rate?

The reason I ask is that when WoW first took off, they had a large number of new players constantly joining the game...but I have a hunch that they are starting to approach their plateau as the game matures and new games come out. Yes, the expansion will help, but its primary customers will be existing players, not new ones.

Anybody have any figures as to what games new players are flocking towards these days?

Re:Current adoption?

[b1ad3runn3r]

Happens a lot that players who reach level cap often hold the accounts open, even if they don't want to play very often or are bored, because of the "But I worked so hard on him..." mentality. You may not see as much of a sharp decline as you would when a new game (Vanguard) came out and all those 60s who were irked with the quick-leveling and boring post-60 game AND those who havent canceled their accounts yet find something new...

Re:Current adoption?

[Lord_Dweomer]

I'm interested in how many NEW players are currently signing up for the game. Not players who are leaving accounts open, since I realize that yes, plenty of players just keep their accounts sitting around. That is why it is important to measure the influx of new customers otherwise its like when AOL counted all their old customers in their total subscriber base number.

Re:Current adoption?

[KazerSoza]

I have my 60 and do not like the raid / rep grind. So .. I start alts .. lots of them. Find a class / prof that is fun and start to play that alt. Got it narrowed down to my main 60 (Mage) and two alts (Warlock and Shammy). I promised myself NOT to try to hit level 70 too fast when the xpat comes out. I want to enjoy the game more.

Re:Current adoption?

[edremy]

One data point; I'm a WoW noob. Most MMOs have a trial period you can play for free, so for fun I tried out a bunch over a couple of months (WoW, EVE, Auto Assault, Planetside, Anarchy Online, A Tale in the Desert, EQ2.)

The only two that impressed me were EVE and WoW. EQ2 and ATITD had technical problems, Planetside and AO just didn't click at all and Auto Assault needs serious work. Given that I'm a fairly casual gamer (wife and two kids) i didn't think I had the time to spend learning the complexities of EVE only to lose everything to a bored 12-year-old waiting to gank me the instant I enter anything lower than 0.5 space, so I play on a new, PvE (carebear) WoW server. (Anvilmar)

I'm not the only noob by a long shot on Anvilmar- you can tell from general chat that a lot of folks have never played before. The WoW package came down in price recently and there was a tax free day in Virginia, so I thought "why not?"

Given that WoW has gone from 6 to 7 million accounts in the last few months I suspect that there's still a lot of expansion left

Re:Current adoption?

[SirAnodos]

As a casual player who can never get more than an hour or two block of time to play WoW (per week), WoW lost its appeal to me when I started to have to team up with other players to finish quests. This is because you must dedicate at least two hours, often more, of contiguous time in order to be fair to everyone involved. I couldn't keep it up and was forced to quit.

Re:Current adoption?

[Anonymous Coward]

I only started playing WoW about 3 months ago. Just this past weekend, I turned a friend onto it. Even my girlfriend thought it was cool and will install it.

It may not be attracting a boatload of new users, but it's still attracting new users.

Of course, none of us pay the monthly fee. Not when there's been an increase in reliable, non-Blizzard servers at 1.11 readily available.

Re:Current adoption?

[Katnap_Devikat]

WoW is okay, but i still prefer basic 8 people lan parties on diablo 2 or NWN. If WoW was free to get (the software) i wouldn't mind paying monthly fees for a fairly good game. At the moment my friedn is trying to convert me, and in turn get others to play it also. (methinks he is lonely)

Software given away for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want my $40 back!

Re:Software given away for free?

[thepacketmaster]

My thoughts exactly. I was just recently considering a second account to assist in alliance-horde item transfers, and to help with some reputation grinding. Rather than allowing me just make a second subscription, I was appall to find out that I was expected to pay another $40 to get an activation key. There are no discounts because it is a second account. The scary thing is, if WoW is so successful in its current setup, imagine how much more success it would have if you could just download the software for free (as the article suggests). It makes you wonder what Blizzard's marketing department is thinking, when they're making millions a month, does the initial $40 really add that much to the bottom line (keeping in mind that they don't get all $40 either, some would go to distributors and retailers)?

Re:Software given away for free?

[njfuzzy]

Looking at the first few weeks of open play, it's obvious why they charged $50 a box. They had more players than they knew what to do with, and almost all of them were in starting areas and early instances. Remember performance back then?

If they didn't have a high bar to entry, then the game would be flooded with new players. The signup rate would be huge, but the renew rate would be minimal. This would be a nasty hit to the server load, without the corresponding revenue gains.

Re:Software given away for free?

[weave]

If I recall correctly, the game box fee also included two months of access. So it's more like $10, which is about the cost of the CD, box, and distribution I'd say.

It is cheap

[everphilski]

Instead of going to a movie once a month, play a MMO. Or, instead of going out to eat once or twice, play a MMO. A music CD will cost you about the same...

$15 doesn't buy much nowadays in the entertainment world, a whole months worth of entertainment for $15 is a deal! (And if you play Everquest 1 year is $100! Less than $10 a month.)

Re:It is cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not how much money they cost, but how much TIME you need to play them. Going out eating or for a movie may be more expensive in the short term but these are activities that don't take over your life like a MMO can.
At the beginning MMO's are fun but after a while they become something more like a full time job. At some point you have to realize that free time is better spent on other activities that don't lead to this kind of extremely addicting and self-perpetuating behavior.

Re:It is cheap

[Thansal]

this is the key to it all I live in NYC, the movie prices are ABOVE $10 now, then factor in about $4 for my metrocard, the price of eating out (or god forbid buying movie theater priced stuff, though I have SERIOUSLY missed the buttery buttery joy that is movie theater popcorn), etc etc etc. And look, there is a month of WoW! I ussed to be dead against monthly fees, and then I graduated from HS and started working regularly and realized that $10-15 is NOT much. At one of my old jobs I had a coworker who was still in HS, he sat there anr just couldln't get the concept of paying a monthly fee. One day I decided to point out that the shakes he was so fond of, and drank atleast 3 a week, cost about $5 a pop (Hagendaz), and were contributing to him being over weight. He, being the easily impressionable type, instantly stoped drinking his shakes and picked up WoW and got horribly addicted :P /pro-monthly-fee OTOH, any one that tells you "well, they need the $$ to keep the servers running/pay for BWidth/pay for updates" is a sucker and/or a fanboy. it does NOT take $15*subscribers/month to keep those tihngs rolling, the $$ is there because it is a GREAT way to make proffit.

Re:It is cheap

[puddpunk]

the price of eating out

You shouldn't really be paying for that...

The Game that Seized My Time

[Webz]

I just recently quit wow... I mean, I didn't full on cancel my account or delete my character, so it's still there should I ever wish to go back... But I did uninstall and plan on keeping away from it, at least for a while.

You know what did me in though? /played

Thanks to the glory that is mathematics, I found out that on average, I played for three hours a day. Worst part about averages, I don't even play on the weekdays that much (which means very VERY loaded weekends).

What a waste. Three hours of my life. Every single day! I could be learning how to juggle or searching for a significant other or reading a book or hacking! Something!

If you're like me... On the verge of quitting... And trying to look for that extra push... Look at /played. Find out for yourself what large, large portion of your life you're throwing away at this game.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, and I loved playing it. But it's a lot. Moderation, please.

PS - I just bought Civ 4 (crack for crystal, I know). I don't get it.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[GundamFan]

I honestly hope you didn't uninstall without first canceling your account payments.

Just think of what you could do with $15 a month...

P.S. I have never seen an MMO delete inactive charecters, I think you would be safe.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[briggsb]

I did the same exact thing. The time played was just too much, and I reached a point where I had to say enough is enough. I took two characters to level 60 in a relatively short amount of time. And was working on my third and fourth when reality set in. I don't know if the expansion will bring me back though. Here's a way for all you addicts to celebrate hitting level 60 though.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[merreborn]

What a waste. Three hours of my life. Every single day! I could be learning how to juggle or searching for a significant other or reading a book or hacking! Something!

I quit, and found an SO. After all the intense fling stuff, she went back to doing what she used to do with her free time -- role playing (in the colaborative fiction sense, not the MMO sense).

I found myself spending a lot of time with her at home during which her attention was directed at her laptop.

So, with nothing better to do, I bought myself a laptop and started playing MMOs again :p

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[mmdog]

I recently canceled my WoW account although my /played realy wasn't the influence that did it, it was the people. When I quit EQ it was really the same thing.

The problem with WoW and EQ for me was the people I found myself hanging around with in game. Once you reach max level and get into the 'end game' making progress takes longer and longer at each step. Eventually you find yourself in a position where the only people really progressing in the game are basically no-life losers whose lives revolve around the game. I quit after an MC raid when people were comparing /played times.

So, maybe I'm wrong about /played not ending things for me, but it wasn't mine it was the people I was hanging around with. I have ONE level 60 char who I shared with my cousin while I leveled up and between us we had just over half the amount of time on our character as the next closest person on the raid. I also happen to know that most of those people have multiple level 60 characters as their alternate characters are on the guild roster. I had always felt like a bit of an oddball in my guild, never really grasping why people would get so worked up over every little thing - well I guess when it's all you do then playing WoW becomes very important.

I don't have a problem with people playing WoW all day if that's their thing, anymore than I have a problem with people watching television all day. In fact, I think if you are going to sit on your ass that much you are probably better off playing just about any computer game instead of watching TV. I don't hang around people who watch TV all day either though.

I'd love it if I could keep playing the game, but the problem with all MMORPGS is this: most of the people with the who achieve the greatest end game accomplishments are the ones who do the least with their real lives. I don't hang around a bunch of do nothing no life losers in the real world and I don't want to do it online.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[Chuu]

Or . . . you could be playing WoW!

Seriously, entertainment is entertainment. The grouping of it into "Good" and "Bad" categories is pointless.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[MaineCoon]

Save yourself the money and stop payment, at least; your account and characters are never deleted. I cancelled payment for about a year then went back, picked up right where I left off for a couple months.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[Azureflare]

I had the exact same thing happen to me. I actually probably didn't log as many hours as you (maybe a month in the course of a year of playing) but I went through periods of very intense playing followed by breaks. I just came off of a very intense period (where I was playing every raid that was scheduled for every night, AQ40, BWL, MC, AQ20, ZG...) Since I was a healer they always needed one so I felt needed. The game lost all the fun it used to have after a few weeks of this; my family was pissed that I wasn't talking to anyone else in the evening, that I wasn't doing anything at night to help around... and eventually I just said, sod it, and didn't log in. I followed my guilds raid status for a while. A week after I left they had a replacement for me. So at least I don't feel guilty for leaving.

I think the social aspect of World of Warcraft is what keeps so many people playing. They are so used to the people there that they can't imagine what it's like without them.

IMHO, real life is a hell of a lot better. YMMV.

(BTW: 30 days today of no WoW :) )

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[_xeno_]

WoW has a policy not to delete inactive characters. If you want to resume paying them money, they want to make it as easy as possible.

Final Fantasy XI deletes inactive characters after 3 months. It's the only MMORPG I know of that doesn't want to try and regain customers who left, but it's an MMORPG and it deletes inactive characters. But it's an exception.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[Glamdr1Ng]

I decided to quit for good and made a nice $750.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[Gervaze]

It's especially horrifying if you take into consideration the monetary impact. I played from 11/04 til 07/06. So you've got $49.95 for the game and $284.05 in fees. But what really did it for me was the realization that if I had been doing productive work during my /played time, I could have held a full-time job. When I quit playing, I had approx. 2880 hours /played; spread over my 19 months playing, I was playing on average 38 hours a week. If you consider even a minimum wage job, that's still $19,440 that I could have earned! Obviously this isn't entirely true since I wouldn't be working at 2:00AM on a Saturday, for example, but nevertheless I found it quite shocking when I did the math. Even if you sell your account and get maybe $2000, you still are coming out far behind in the big picture.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[GundamFan]

You learn something new every day I guess...

I learned I have even less reason to try playing Final Fantasy XI today.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[Ubergrendle]

I've just started playing Wow in since last April -- so I'm a late bloomer. Of course, I have the benefit of most of the game balance and most eggregious broken parts fixed by the time i joined.

I play an average of 8-10hrs a week, not alot but not chicken feed. I'm in my mid-50s now. The big question is what happens at the end of the game for me -- raiding? unlikely. Rep grind? Boring. at this point i think I'll focus on tier 0 and .5 items.

The big problem with MMORPG is that they have no 'end game' component. In Baldur's Gate, or Ultima VII, or Wizardry, or even Rogue there is a definitive conclusion to the game. But with MMORPGs, they're deliberately open ended. Its part of their appeal, but also part of hteir curse.

I ahve to admit though, aside from maybe House or Deadwood (which I haven't watched yet), mainstream TV hasn't offered anything as compelling to me in the past year. And movies are even worse, although now the 'summer blockbuster' season is over and I can look forward to some more nuanced films worthy of my attention.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[Twopher]

See I havent played WoW as long as you probably but I must comment on this. For me, I am a video game fan. I play video games now and I probably will for the next few years. For me WoW is the main game I play. I do log some hours of NCAA 07, but mostly WoW. If I cancel WoW, I'm sure I'd find some other game to fill that void. So yes you could say you wasted money on WoW, but lets look at my stats: Before WoW I would buy 1 new xbox/pc game every 2-3 weeks about $50/each Since WoW I have bought one game for xbox/pc, the ncaa game which $50 and ninja gaiden black, which cost $20. WoW cost me $40 to buy and so far $82 in subscriptions in the 7 months I've played so before WoW 7 months would have cost me ~ $400 on video games with WoW in 7 months I have spent $120 (including the intial purchase) on WoW and $70 on non WoW games for a total of $190 WoW has saved me money.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[quietlysubversive]

Well, I was surprised at /played too when I first looked at it, but then I remembered that I very rarely manually exit the game. I usually just hearth to IF and let it log me out automatically. If you take that into account, and you played approximately 3 hours a day, it takes about 30 minutes to automatically log out, so you can take ~20% off your total

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[JeTmAn81]

To people who find themselves performing the inexplicable act of buying new titles every month I present...the used games market. If you haven't played it, it's new to you. Have at it, boys and girls!

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be X hours of time per day, but can you honestly say that you'd be doing something productive with those hours if you weren't playing WoW? Odds are you'd be a) playing another game, b) watching TV, or c) sleeping more.

The last one, at least, is beneficial to your health.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, you played WoW while I talked to your future Wife who you did not meet 'cause you did not go play Tennis which prevented your 50 year old future self from having a heart attack. Yea, try sitting at a dinner table and bring up WoW with people who do not use a computer much. So much time wasted on something you can't even talk about. Sort of like sitting in a dark corner jerking your mind off fantasizing about real life.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[daniel.figueira]

What a waste. Three hours of my life. Every single day! I could be learning how to juggle or searching for a significant other or reading a book or hacking! Something!

Some people consider work, searching for a significant other or reading a book a waste of time. Entertainment and spending time doing what you like is probably the best thing you can do with your time.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[snuf23]

at this point i think I'll focus on tier 0 and .5 items

Good luck with that. I played until I had 6/8 tier 0 and then just couldn't stomach logging in for another frickin UD Strath or UBRS run to try for the last two pieces. I did over 20 UD Stratholme raids alone. It just gets so mind numbing. The dungeons are great, the first 5 times but after that it becomes painful. Maybe it's better now that they are 5 man only, but of course now if your one healer drops you're done.
I had more fun manipulating the AH to get cash for a couple epic items and my epic mount.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[dennison_uy]

Forgive me for my ignorance but what is /played a website or something? URL please.

Re:The Game that Seized My Time

[Webz]

/played is a slash command in the game (you type it in the chat box)

it tells you how long you've played the character you're currently logged on to since it got created, and also how long you've been playing since you last logged on

Happy to see this a success.

[Grimwiz]

As a parent, and generally suspicious net-user, I am glad that there is a fee and associated paper trail back to a real breathing human. That way, if legal recourse is required then it is available. I have noticed that games that allow anonymous entities are often full of cheaters, griefers and I believe they are more of a danger to vulnerable people (e.g. children). Anonymous means of expressions may be required for a democratic society but they can stay in their relevent forums.

On a gaming front I'm glad that the servers stay running, new content is added and that there are support staff available to fix problems - all of which require money.

Re:Happy to see this a success.

[flink]

You do know you can buy a month's worth of access to WoW in an EB or many other gaming stores for cash, right? I don't know if you can create an account without a credit card, but you could certainly buy and maintain one without.

Re:Happy to see this a success.

[thopkins]

You could also probably use one of those prepaid disposable credit card type things.

The mechanics aren't the problem.

[Rowan_u]

There's only so many things you can do to make a quest interesting or different, in terms of the mechanics.

I disagree with you here. There are plenty of things you can do with mechanics even with AI in RPGs being as primitive as it is. I'll mention a one of many possible examples. In one of the first Fighters Guild Quests for Oblivion you are sent next door to "take care of" a rat problem. Turns out that you are defending the rats, not killing them. You learn from the owner of the house that someone or something is killing her pet rats, you don't learn the who or the why. After a bit more chatting up the locals, you end up staking out a hole in the back of the house trying to determine the real source of the problem. The point is that even a quest with this much complexity is still done with dialog trees and map markers. The problem isn't with the game mechanics; it's with the design mentality of WOW.

Re:The mechanics aren't the problem.

[Donjo]

Well how am I supposed to look up the spawn points on thottbot.com if it changes for each person??

Re:The mechanics aren't the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh "kill panthers" that are killing the rats isn't a much different quest from "kill rats"

Nah, Don't Bother

[Anonymous Coward]

But, I do agree with your post. Maybe I'll check out Galaxies.

Please, don't bother. They made changes that destroyed what was to love in that game. Maybe try the free month of A Tale in the Desert or look forward to an obscure one that satisfies you?

eldavojohn

It really has taken siezed the world

[moore.dustin]

WoW really has seized not only the MMO world, but the gaming world. The fact that WoW is still in the news almost 2 full years since going gold is the biggest feat. For a game that is 2 years old with a _pending_ expansion to still get as much press and hype is truly remarkable.

Also, to look at it from a different angle. When Blizzard can mask the disastrous news of Ghost pretty much having the plug pulled with piles of good news about WoW numbers, that is also a feat. Ghost was a huge project for Blizzard and would have hailed their return to console games. It not being released is huge as it was in production for several years. They even acquired a company because of Ghost!

Though the game suffered from some obstacles that Blizzard has not had to deal with it was still a major blow. The success of Halo made them change directions, pushing back times. Those times then landed in the middle of the next gen battle, which made developing for either systems hard at the time. Also, they are determined to get Battle.net into the console multiplayer world which has surely ruffled some feathers around the console world.

Got off topic a little, but still it goes to the point tha when the overwhelming good news can all but cover up the bad news of Ghost being canned-- That is big statement to the might WoW carries in the gaming world.

Re:It really has taken siezed the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. EverQuest was still in the news several years (IE, more than two) after release.

You have to understand that MMOG != the gaming industry as usual.

Halo 1 (as a random example) is not in the news, because it's a dead game. People still play it, sure - but it's dead. It's in the bargain bin. The developers have moved on to bigger and better things. Halo 2 is out, Halo 3 is coming out, whatever.

MMOGs, on the other hand, last for years - and can theoretically last for decades, really. It's just a matter of player interest, developers not being asshats (See SWG - changing game mechanics into a completely different game is a good and almost the only way to abort an MMOG), et cetera. Thus it comes as no real surprise that these 'old' games continue to be topical news subjects.

Ghost's failure being masked by WoW's numbers isn't much of a feat, either. The raw numbers of WoW are a feat, mind you - something not seen outside of the Korean/Asian MMOG markets. But the idea that Blizzard is saying, "Who cares about Ghost - LOOK! LOOK AT THE PROFIT!" should come as no surprise. Mankind will always trumpet their triumphs and hide their failures. :P

Not so sad

[Programmer_In_Traini]

I wonder why you are so sad to see this model survive. 6 millions users cant be wrong. MMORPG are doing something right to survive for so long. The fact that it does not appeal to you is one thing but you should at least respect the fact that 6 millions other gamers actually like the game. Here... let me list a couple of things you will not get from a mame....

Social activities
-----------------
- Get online with your friends and go kill mobs as a gang (PvE).
- Make a party of player and wage war on another party (PvP).
- Dress your male character with a robe while getting drunk on the beach ... ok that's rather unorthodox but you *can* do it if/when you ever feel inclined to that sort of endeavour.

Updates
-------
- Interact with the developers to have your game customized to your need. Tell them what you like and what you dont. They'll do everything they can to improve the game.
- They'll also add content, quest, weapons, armors on a fairly regular basis.
- Events! They can decide that on december 25th, the grinch is gonna come and kick everyone's ass in a WoW-kinda way.

But of course, you know that already, you've read it yourself just as much as people trying to convince you have told you. So again.... that type of interactivity may or may not appeal to you, but you have to admit it offers a gameplay widely different than that of a mame or snes game for instance.

Sure there's a fee but i don't think its overly priced. Based on a monthly fee of 15$ I can honestly say that I spend 3 times the price of that on a single date with my girlfriend, I spend 5 times that price on a monthly basis to go to the movies or buy CDs, I spend more than 100 times that price for a week in the south and yet ... all of those do not offer me an entertainment as sustained as being able to log with my friend after a long day of work and just have fun with them.

The fee required can also be justified to buy the thousands of top-of-the-line servers required to support all the players, pay the developers and of course, lets not be blind, make a profit.

But all in all, I believe that MMOs do offer a value, a style, that offline games cannot offer.

When you say that your friends "throw money at all these games" I say they found a style of gaming that suits them. As long as everyone finds they own style, then all is good right ?

Re:Not so sad

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

You BUY CDs...

That is so weird...

Re:Not so sad

[SpeedyG5]

C'mon millions of users bought pet rocks and I say they were idiots! I don't see paying this much for a game. This is the subscription model you folks are buying into and your going to pay for it over and over and over.

Re:Not so sad

[Breakfast Pants]

"C'mon millions of users bought pet rocks"

Is this a reference to crack? I think you mean 'consumers', not 'users'.

Re:Not so sad

[Snaller]

Interact with the developers to have your game customized to your need. Tell them what you like and what you dont. They'll do everything they can to improve the game.

Yeah right, get real. They'll do what they want, and you don't like it you can leave.

Deleting the character

[topgan1]

I was consumed by WoW at 60lvl. I was in a guild that were doing BWL/MC/AQ and willing to go to Naxxramas at the time i quited WoW. Here is a video that I made of me deleting my tier 2 priest. It was the only way of me stopping WoW for good! I wasnot willing to sell him as I couldn't thought a noob walking around with my priest at Ironforge :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSjyQwMEIAc

The thing is about this game...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same as all the others... do a little bit of fighting and a lot of wandering around gathering.

Not only is it boring, but it's ironic... people that would whine about working an hour overtime to actually do something useful are playing a game that is inherently wasting time about collecting items in a game...

And it's a really a spectacularly mediocre game that costs a lot of money to play.

Enough about this already.

NY Times Journalists Don't Get it

[Cheefachi]

Did anyone see the picture of a screen showing what they claimed to be WOW? It was Starcraft! Hmm, I wonder if anyone in that office has even played WOW... They probably did a stock photo search for Blizzard and got that picture and probably thought Blizzard didn't exist before WOW came out so ofcourse the picture has got to be of WOW. Clueless journalists...

Wrong.

[rash]

Grand Theft Auto was not produced in the USA, it was produced in Scotland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_(ser ies)
Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a computer and video game series created and primarily developed by Scottish developer Rockstar North

Re:Wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't actually say it was produced in America, just that it has "scenes of glamorized urban American violence".

(Sad but true: I've often passed the entrance to the current offices)

Re:Wrong.

[rash]

You are wrong aswell:

Perhaps more than pop music or Hollywood blockbusters, even the top video games traditionally have been limited in their appeal to the specific regional culture that produced them. For example the well-known series Grand Theft Auto, with its scenes of glamorized urban American violence, has been tremendously popular in the United States but has largely failed to resonate in Asia and in many parts of Europe.

In other news....

[argStyopa]

Headline: WoW still dominates MMORPG market. Nothing else to write about. Game journalists thinking of getting real jobs.

Re:In other news....

[smbarbour]

Oddly enough, if you go to MMORPG.COM's game list and sort it by ranking in descending order, you will find that World of Warcraft is ranked 13th! (The real kick in the face though is that Space Cowboy Online, which is a completely free MMO and has been out of beta for about 3 months, is ranked 11th.)

Of course, there is always the argument of the number of subscribers. But I'll use a quote from a movie to refute that: "People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference."

There are better MMOs out there. The quality is not rated by the number of lemmings they have. (Sidenote: MMO Lemmings!)

Ever heard of Guild Wars

[alcmaeon]

"The only way a game like this can exist is through monthly rates. If they just sold the game for an initial price, the game would not be able to afford the massive amount of hardware, bandwidth, customer support, etc."

Guild Wars: MMORPG, initial cost of game same as non-MMORPG games, no monthly fee, release frequent updates, release expensions, appears popular. I assume you aren't familiar with it.

Re:Ever heard of Guild Wars

[theghost]

Amount of content in Guild Wars < Amount of content in World of Warcraft
Amount of Content in a GW update/expansion < Amount of content in a WoW update/expansion
Number of Servers needed for GW < Number of servers needed for WoW

Gee, how do they manage to keep costs so low?

While we're at it:
Number of players of GW < Number of players of WoW

Coincidence? I think not.

Re:Ever heard of Guild Wars

[thopkins]

Guild Wars is not an MMO. The developers even say this. The only part of the game that is fully "online" are towns. Only your group is in each 'world' during the missions and quests. This makes hosting the game very resource friendly.

This is coming from a Guild Wars player, it is not a knock on it.

eq2 vs wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I play eq2. Sometimes more than 10 hours in a day.

I probably wouldn't play without the station exchange. (someone else can paste a link if they want) However, a while back I tried out WoW. I managed to play about an hour before the absolute disgust finally forced me to quit and delete the software.

I honestly don't understand why anyone would play that game. The graphics are a joke. Everything seemed so watered down and uninteresting.

Is eq2 better? I don't know. While I believe it probably has more content, both games are the same in the endgame. Raid raid boring raid.

It's only a matter of time before WoW loses it's top status. All it will take is a game with some originality that gets away from raids.

Some look to vanguard as the next coming... but I figure it will be more of the same.

Re:eq2 vs wow

[x-kaos]

Not everyone thinks "realistic" graphics are nice and pretty. I was so sick of seeing that in every MMOG (eq,swg,eq2, matrix online..ect)that was coming out. They all looked the same and they mostly played the same too. WoW doesn't look like any of them, and since they blow away every other MMOG now I would say most of the playing population agrees, and is to the game's credit.

Apollo

[weierstrass]

which of course it never did.

Re:Apollo

[outsider007]

but maybe if they had WoW back then it would have.

Re:Apollo

[Sillygates]

It's all about Starcraft, but WoW, they are making a lot of money now!

Meanwhile, in the real world...

[NilObject]

There exists, somewhere, a list of every current WoW subscriber. This list is also known as the "People not to hire because they'll sit and browse WoW forums all day at work." list.

Be appalled

[Anonymous Coward]

It is to keep asshats like you from ruining the game; the primary users are single use and designed that way. Getting a mule and killing yourself for 'honor' is fudging the system. I hope you rot.

Play Eve-Online instead

[PopeRatzo]

WoW got old for me after about a week. Tried Eve-Online and can't get enough. Besides it's incredibly complex, persistent universe adn challenging play, it's exceptionally beautiful to look at.

World of Warcraft is to Eve as Pong is to Half-Life 2.

Re:Play Eve-Online instead

[C0rinthian]

The beauty of Eve is the player interaction. If you don't get involved with the community, the game is boring as all hell. Alliance politics kept me entertained for the better part of two years.

The downside is that two weeks is just not enough to really see what is possible in the game. If all you did was go back and forth from station to roid, you havn't really touched 99% of what the game has to offer.

Re:Play Eve-Online instead

[pitdingo]

I tried Eve Online and was so bored i could not stand it. I tried really hard to like the game but there was just no content. Fly this package here. Fly this package there. Oh, go ahead and cook yourself dinner and eat it because it is going to take 30 mins to jump 12 times to get to your destination.

Combat is a total snooze. Click Orbit at 2500km. Click auto fire. yawn....

If there is anything worth while in that game, the developers sure do not know how to get you into it. The 3+ day tutorial is WAY too long. I almost quit after just that. Where was the interesting stuff?

Re:Play Eve-Online instead

[some damn guy]

Eve is the most interesting mmorg because it is the closest to being an entirely player versus player experience- and the closest to a player-determined world. The missions and crap are just a sideshow. So whether you're just trading or making war to control systems or even regions- the most rewarding stuff, you are competing against real people. Rarely do games bring out your inner Machiavelli so well.

For me, it had the excitement of being of being a commodities broker, except that right after I take delievery of my porkbellies, someone tries to kill me :)

Most importantly, I felt rewarded for being smart, instead of just putting in long hours. Thats priceless IMHO.

Re:Play Eve-Online instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Eve sucks. I cant believe you mention that game. PVP is a complete lag fest. I joined an alliance after countless hours of mining for them in asteroid belt and actually went to a battle. Guess what I warp in and could not do anything for 2+ minutes. My screen just froze and by the time I saw movement I'm dead.

Obviously devs at CCP dont know how to program "massive" online RPGs. There were like 200 people in a zone and the server node couldnt handle it. Put some restrictions on numbers and quit falsely advertising with the word "massive" or this big joke of a "one shard". Dont even talk to me about the new "Dragon" code that supposed to fix this because it made it worse. I have cancelled my 2 year account after I saw how bad Dragon client is.

You want TRIVIAL? I'll give you TRIVIAL.

[JoshDM]

• A lock is a concept and a key is a concept.
• Your challenge is to open the lock.
• The lock opens with a particular key, which you must locate and use.0
• Said key may be located behind other locks.
• No key is located behind the lock it needs to open.
• Locks may not be bumped unless bumping is the appropriate concept representing the lock's key.

WoW saves me money!

[Anonymous Coward]

To all those complaining about subscription fees in gaming - I hear ya. In the good old days, I swore I'd never pay for a game - I just downloaded them all from IRC. Then they got "good enough" that I started paying for the ones I felt were worth it - and swore that I'd never pay subscription fees. Then WoW came along and I tried it - now I'm paying subscription fees and swearing I'll never buy into episodic content...wonder what game will finally make me decide episodic content is worth it.

Anyway, here's something to consider. I save money because I play WoW - no joke. WoW is so fun and engaging and has new things for me to experience every time I sit down and play it...to such a degree, that I really don't play other games. I canceled my GameFly subscription, I don't buy games anymore - haven't bought a console in ages. I spend less money on games per year with my subscription to WoW than I did without it. I'll get to a point with WoW where I'm tired with it, and want to go back to my other games - but for right now, a subscription-based game is a money-saver for this gamer.

Carpe Diem...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Seize The Day.

Carpe Dictum - Seize THIS!

WoW !== Whip'em Out Wednesday

[ThatsNotFunny]

That's the game that SHOWS your "globes". Easily confused.

Wow....

[CFBMoo1]

Its adicting... way more so then most other MMO's I think for it's simplicity. The expansion is coming around the corner. They're addressing a lot of issue players have had with the game as it currently is. One of the biggest things is shortening the number of people needed for end game content. Originally to do anything signifigant beyond hitting 60 you had to get 40 people together. Now that number will be down to 25. Also with the level cap going to 70 existing 40 man content will be 20-25 manable.

Some of it's biggest problems:

* Lag.. it's a huge problem though they're working on it slowly.

* PvP. The honor system is setup such that some people actually go 6-8 hours or more a day, 7 days a week to make rank. This can get very unhealthy. They're addressing that with the expansion by removing the existing honor system and making it more people friendly.

* PvP survivability. Right now a decked out character can pretty much kill a person so quick that healing isn't an option. You basicly have level 60 characters running around with gear that should be for people 60+. Highest I think is around level 90 gear that only requires 60. One side of the coin says anyone can get it if they put the time in, other side is not everyone has the time. Either way it's easy for pick up groups to get totally steamrolled. Some are calling for normaling damage more so things arn't as whacked out as can be. The other thing is its neat to one shot someone but after a while that can get boring and you want something more challenging.

* Healers.. right now there's a signifigant lack of healers or high healer rotation. Thats most likely typical with any MMO. Who wants to stare at peoples health bars and fill them all day, every day? Very few. They need to set the end game class gear so for healers so it's not just good at the PvE but also PvP. Yeah you got huge healing bonuses but if your not damaging someone it's kinda prolonging the inevitable. A lot of people say, "Oh great, another heal set to grind for. Whoopie." and burn out.

* Epic gear isn't so epic anymore. Its to the point where gear thats suposed to be rare is actually everywhere practiclly. Take a walk through each factions heavly populated cities and you'd have a hard time not seeing druids that look like moose or deer with their suits. Warriors that look like pin cushions or axe heads. Still to some extent that can be a good thing in that more people get to see end game content to some degree.

* Customization.. you can't dye or paint your armor. It's as it always will be till you get a new piece. You also can't change your hair style or color. There are a lot of choices but your looking at static ones mostly.

* Twinking, botting, gold farming, it's all in there.

Some of it's biggest benefits...

* $15/month unlimited access gets you on any server with like 8 character slots per server. Server types range from PvP, PvE, RP, and RP-PVP.

* Little things. You don't just have epic dragons to slay, you have a wandering faire that travels between two factions cities. Fishing contests in neutral towns, some other factions hold festivals like the Lunar Festival from the druids common faction. These events have some nifty quests and rewards that are neat outside of the regular grind.

* RP... yes AAARRRPEEEE! There seems to be a very health RP community on the RP servers. You definatly have your share of arse-hats, catgirl and vampire wannabe's but it's there. Some people actually post some great stories and content about their characters. Why bother when you have PnP D&D, etc? Why not? You actually get to meet more people outside of your neck of the woods and get to hear some great stories and you don't have to give up the PnP D&D, etc.

* Cow people.. tell me it's not cool to be a cow, especially a cow with a big gun. You get to be part of the secret cow level. It's a playable race inspite of them telling you there is no cow level. ;)

There's a lot of other pro's and co

NY Times Paper

[NotRangerJoe]

The online version of the article is missing a picture and caption that the paper version had. The paper version had a picture of Starcraft with the caption: "In World of Warcraft, thousands of players can simultaneously occupy one of the hundreds of virtual universes online. Players can explore on their own or team up with others for the more difficult challenges."

Oops.

FFXI better than WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, flame me.. but if you do, you're just admitting that you're {Too weak} and can't hack a real MMORPG like FFXI.

Some observations

[curtlewis]

Firstly, this statement is incorrect:
    "The majority of WoW players pay an hourly fee, and didn't have to buy the box."

The majority of WoW players pay a MONTHLY fee and HAD to buy the box for $40-$60 retail.

About the what's the point when you hit (insert maximum level here):

This view always comes up in any online game. Ding 60, now what? Uh, WoW, like any other online game has plenty of content designed just for level 60 players. There is better gear to get, raids with big bosses to kill and there's always the Hoarde (or Alliance) to kill. There's plenty to do! It's not just about grinding your way to the top level. If that's all you view the game as, you're missing the whole point of a persistent character style game.

In WoW, it's very common for a 60 to help out lowbies. Either run them through a dungeon they can't get a group for or help guide them through dangerous PvP territory, help them wrap up a few quests real quick or get a little better equip. It takes little time, the 60 is usually capable of doing all the work themselves and it gives a nice leg up for the struggling lowbie. It's a gesture of good will and I find it encouraging that, despite having a reputation for potty mouthed kids, there are many who won't go out of their way to gank you or who will spend 40 minutes or so helping out a stranger just for the heck of it.

You get out of a game what you put in. I've always been able to find things of interest to do when others burned out long ago. Sure there are days where I feel like there's nothing I feel like doing so I don't log in, but then that allows me to do other things outside the game (novel concept).

One problem with RPGs is they're designed to keep you playing forever. This protects the revenue stream of the publisher. To do this, they make things take a long time to do so that you're always working on something. I'd be perfectly happy playing the game, slaying the dragon and saving the princess and then taking a short break of a month or two before some new content came out. Only the cheapest of people will cancel their $15/mo for that period and it's not like I wouldn't log in and do some smaller things or help friends during that interim period. But instead, these games are designed so that even the most hardcore gamer will have to put in months to slay that dragon and save that princess. Someone working full time would spend years trying to get to the same point.

WoW is better at this than others but it still takes too long to get stuff done, IMO. A 12hr/week player should be able to do all the raids, dragon slaying and princess boinking. The first company to get this and deliver in a game that can deliver content at an adequate rate to keep the game moving forward is going to make WoW look like a minor player, at least if they do a good job with the background and mechanics/etc.

The next 5-10 years will be interesting to see how the genre develops...

Re:Some observations

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the "Top 100 games for the PC" article quotes 1.4-ish million boxes sold for Wow.

That leaves 4.5 million-ish accounts unaccounted for.

Asian accoutns perhaps? That didn't pay for the box?

Jsut thinkin'...

Re:Some observations

[curtlewis]

Well, everyone I know paid for the box. No, I don't know 5 million WoW players.

I consider the Asian market an aberration, although it's a huge market for MMOs.

In either case, AFAIK, the only fee Blizzard charges is monthly, not hourly. And even if everyone got the game for free, the monthly charge of $15 * 5 million surely more than pays for the servers, bandwidth and development costs. Clearly WoW is a huge cash cow for them. They've done a fantastic job of leveraging their success with prior Warcraft titles and Diablo.

Re:Some observations

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, everyone I know paid for the box.

Blizzard has a different pricing model in Asia. You don't know many Asians. There's nothing wrong with that, but your sample isn't representative.

In either case, AFAIK, the only fee Blizzard charges is monthly, not hourly.

No, their 3million+ Asian subscribers pay hourly. It says so in the article. What's so hard to understand?

Dodged That One!!

[zerosix]

Fortunately for me I got my MMORPG fever taken care of when EQ was big.

Well

[afz902k]

I would never pay a monthly fee for a game, because: a) I'm already paying for my internet connection. b) There are cheaper ways to entertain myself.

Never played it;I am waiting for Star Trek Online.

[master_p]

I never considered playing WoW because not only I don't like the fantasy/medieval setting...but I am holding my breath for Star Trek Online...

HMP.

[Ms.Maus]

Whenever I get that MMO itch, I just play Kingdom of Loathing. :P

haha

[uberCHIEFTAIN!]

I read this article in the NY Times in the morning. They had a picture of someone playing Starcraft and labeled it as WoW. haha

One more thing about WoW...

[CFBMoo1]

I realize how much of a customer base WoW has but their site is regularly down every tuesday during the maintenance time. That time usualy lasts most of the day. They are very lucky because I think most companies would loose customers if their sites were down regularly one day every week like Blizzards WoW site.

This shows me why I hate publishers.

[Benaiah]

In the article description it says that wow is given away and then charged for by the month. How come for us they still make us buy the damn box? No matter what you still have to buy the original box to get an original key which is still up around $49AU. Then we still have to pay our $20 a month. They get the same game for free and then 4c an hour. What a rip. It just reminds me how they put region encoding on DVD's so they could sell them in asia for $4 and Aus for $30.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The global appeal of World of Warcraft?!

[genuineXeal]

I have yet to find a Japanese guy (and I'm working in an IT company in Tokyo) that knows about WoW. The only MMORPG they know about - *if* they are into games - is Final Fantasy XI. But we all know that Japan is another planet so "global" is still not enough ... Waiting for WoW to have "galactic appeal"...

Seems worth it to me

[Uhhhh oh ya!]

I would have to say I dont mind paying the $15 a month, I used to stay away from the MMO's because of that reason but then i tried Guild Wars and WoW, man I am hooked, i couldnt stick with Guild Wars and as you may know it is now free. I used to play games on XBox GameCube all those things and was buying a new game very mounth because of how fast i would beat them, that was about $50 every month. Now with WoW for the small price Im paying I get and Update roughly every month. Now with an expansion coming out Im trying even harder to lvl my char so i can try the new stuff. Aside from that I have seen all the people that complain about blizzard and how the servers are slow, and Im ussually one of the people compaining, but do you know how hard it is to keep that many servers and updates running that smoothly. WoW is obviously doing something right because i dont think i have ever seen an advertisment for them and if I didnt play Warcraft3 I might not have known about it. When I get home however I find it fun to sit at the computer and while talking to my freinds over Vent kill them in the game. Like others have said if you dont like it read a book or stop complaining about the $15 a month and go buy a game for $50. As for me i could never get into a book and so i will stick with this, I might sound dumb when I feel I acomplished something and yell I GOT LVL 60! but i think it sounds better than, I FINISHED READING HARRY POTTER!

Re:Another WoW article 'stubbed' on the front page

[Samah]

Tuesday Night in Aus/NZ :(
Means I have to find something else to do after 9:30pm. Sucks even more when they have extended maintenance.
You yanks have it easy since most of you are either in bed or heading off to work/school/whatever, not primetime like other regions of the globe.

At least get the facts right..

[HyperJ]

even the top video games traditionally have been limited in their appeal to the specific regional culture that produced them. For example the well-known series Grand Theft Auto, with its scenes of glamorized urban American violence, has been tremendously popular in the United States but has largely failed to resonate in Asia and in many parts of Europe

That's a nice theory, shame GTA is made by a Scottish company, Rockstar North(formally DMA Design Limited).

Re:At least get the facts right..

[Anonymous Coward]

When did they claim it was made in the US? Read your own quote, and think twice before posting next time.

As opposed to any other RPG?

[Moraelin]

As opposed to any other RPG? How many fundamentally different quest _types_ were in Oblivion? Kill X, or find Y, or deliver Z, then report back. That was it.

And don't get me started on other game types. FPS? Kill, kill, kill, find key, kill some more. Action-RPG? See FPS, but in a third person view and with melee weapons. RTS? Build X peons/harvesters/whatever, build a factory, click on build zergling/dwarf/infantry/whatever factory 20 times, rush. The only competition is finding the exact number of those to build for a win, then apply that mindlessly online. Adventure? One single action: click on everything, try to use everything on everything. The only difference being to what ilogical extremes the designers went with those item combinations to slow you down. Etc.

So if the mere repeating the _type_ of action you perform is turning you off, you might as well quit gaming completely. Seriously.

What makes an RPG good, though, are gameply, story, setting, etc. E.g., in Oblivion technically the Fighters' Guild quest with the goblin village is just another "Find. Loot. Kill. Report back." quest, but in practice it was one spooky experience and it gave you a part of the story. E.g., the Dark Brotherhood quests in Oblivion again were, after all, techically "Find. Loot. Kill. Report back." quests all right, but that was one spooky story arc towards the end. If anyone could look at that disembowelled guy hanged upside down and think only "ok, quest delivered", then they just lack the imagination for an RPG. (I'd get into more details, but it's already bordering on major spoilers.)

And so it is with MMOs too. Just lumping action types into categories is like saying "wtf, there are only 2 tree types here" and missing the forest completely, as you're busy categorizing the trees. Admittedly, _most_ MMOs are full of mass-produced crap (EQ2's or SWG's quests come to mind, for example), but WoW actually gives you a piece of story with a logical reason why you're doing that stuff.

Especially at low levels it's actually better in that aspect than a lot of single-player RPGs. See, about half the SP RPGs took Hollywood's whole "hero's journey" recipe literally (beats using their own brains to come up with something new) and stretched it to fill anywhere between 10 and 100 hours with it. But that means that the "looky, he's an everyman just like you" part that might have took 10 minutes in an action movie, becomes hours of doing mundane non-interesting crap that has nothing to do with the story later. Not so in WoW. Sure, the newbie quest arcs aren't world-saving class, but they're at least logical, make sense on their own, and do make you feel like being a part of something and doing something useful. And they tell you a bit of the world's story too.

Nothing better to do?

[Robmonster]

There are SO MANY things better to do!

Then you're not raiding at level 60

[Moraelin]

Then you're not at the level 60 raids if you still _can_ try something new or do an instance with a PUG. See, WoW is a great game at level 1 and goes only gradually downhill from there. But the endgame is a boring repetitive farming exercise. You'll be squeezed in one role. (Try explaining to most guilds that your Priest's role concept at level 60 is damage dealing for a change, then tell me how many laughed their ass off and how many had a tantrum.) You'll spam one icon over and over again in raids. You'll do the same instance 100 times, in the same role, with the same tactics, pulling (or watching someone pull) the same enemies in the same order, spamming the same icon over and over again.

Most other things don't even work, or aren't easy to get to work when you need 40 people to cooperate. Try doing the endgame grind, like in your example, without a main healer and a main tank, and you'll get your ass handed to you in no time.

Or yeah, try doing a tier 2 instance in a PUG. Tell me how it felt to wait for 5 hours until you got the 40'th PUG member, by which time 10 of the first had left because it's midnight already. Then tell me how well it worked when half of them don't actually have the equipment to be anywhere near there, and getting them to work together was like herding cats.

The game basically changes massively at that point. And, sad to say, not for the better. That is why people are bitching about it.

Admittedly, some get really sour about the whole game at that point, as it was basically the bait that got them head-first into that unholy grind. So they'll start hating WoW as a whole, and every single mechanic or quest it ever had. Can't really blame them too much, but it does have the side-effect of making it hard to have a rational and informative discussion about the game. Someone seeing the whole game, from the Deadmines to MC painted with the same brush will get the wrong ideas, often along the lines of "wtf, these people whine about everything indiscriminately. I bet it's no worse than the Deadmines."

Re:Then you're not raiding at level 60

[EnderGT]

This is why I'm not too worried about reaching 60. I'm a casual player, so I won't have the time for the raids anyway, but why would you keep playing your character if it gets so repetitive and stressful and boring? There is a lot of other content to be experienced, even if it does mean suffering through low levels again. Play Alliance instead of Horde. Roll an Orc Warlock instead of Undead. Find zones you haven't been to and explore. For my main charater, I know there are quite a few zones I should have been through by now but have never seen, and I'm continuing to play hoping that one day I'll get to check them out.

Sure, I may never get even my tier 0 set, but who cares, really. Almost every night I have a fun experience with my mid-level character, even if I am running the same instance over and over and over again - it's never boring because at that level you can still have variation, and it can still be a challenge.

If you reach the point where the game is no longer fun and entertaining - THEN STOP PLAYING!

oh ffs - lazy lazy article

[goldcd]

"or example the well-known series Grand Theft Auto, with its scenes of glamorized urban American violence, has been tremendously popular in the United States but has largely failed to resonate in Asia and in many parts of Europe."

Would that be Grand Theft Auto, the game (every single version of which) has been made in the UK (a part of Europe).

Re:oh ffs - lazy lazy article

[Anonymous Coward]

As above ^^ when did they claim it was made in the US? And since it's made in the Europe, does that mean it's necessarily popular in Europe? Honestly - you're taking the time to argue a point, quoting the text you're arguing about, and you haven't even read it?

1. They never claimed the game was made in the US, simply that it has "scenes of glamorized urban American violance" and "has been tremendouly popular in the United States"
2. They never claimed it "wasn't made in Europe" but rather it wasn't popular.

Geez, how do these people learn to use keyboards? Let alone breathe?

OK, to expand that quote:

[goldcd]

"Perhaps more than pop music or Hollywood blockbusters, even the top video games traditionally have been limited in their appeal to the specific regional culture that produced them. For example the well-known series Grand Theft Auto, with its scenes of glamorized urban American violence, has been tremendously popular in the United States but has largely failed to resonate in Asia and in many parts of Europe.

They're taking GTA as an example of a game that hasn't appealed outside it's 'regional culture' - it quite clearly has, it was made in the UK and appeals to the US.
A better point would be that some cultures just don't 'like' contemporary settings for their games - I can't think of a single Japanese game that attempts to 'simulate' modern day Japan - they prefer more escapism.
Also if we're going to say 'games don't travel' - then what about the entire Mario series?
I *think* what the article meant to say was that WOW is one of the very few western produced games that's taken off in the East.

MMORPGs give me more time than ever with friends

[Sesticulus]

The funny thing is that I absolutely agree with you and MMORPGs let me spend more time than ever with my friends. My friends and I + spouses are in our mid 30s to early 40s, we've moved all over the country, got real jobs, and some kids. I can't go to the movies with those folks any more, have a barbeque, or meet for drinks, but every Tuesday and Thursday night for a few hours we're all back together again. It's a load of fun.

Re:MMORPGs give me more time than ever with friend

[manno]

That makes sense.

Mud:Sad to see this a success.

[bobs666]

Before the MMO was the MOO and MUD.

Sure it was text,
but it was the same online fun.

As for the fee, The Internet is not free.
Art and content to not grow on trees.

Perhaps you want to see posters for Coke and Fritos all over.
Oh and buy a Vegematic on line and get your monster slicer sword.

Bingo

[Moraelin]

Bingo. I'll have to wholeheartedly aggree with everything you wrote there, even if in retrospect it wasn't that obvious at the time. Still, in my own defense, I did manage to eventually figure out that I needed a break, and went on to play something else.