Slashdot Mirror
World of Warcraft Hits 9 Million Users
Wowzer writes "Blizzard today announced that their MMORPG World of Warcraft is now played by more than 9 million gamers around the world. From the article: 'That's half a million more than the number of monthly players WoW had back in March five months ago. — It's interesting to note that if the World of Warcraft were a nation, CIA's World Factbook says that out of 236 listed countries it would be the 90th most populated country on Earth above Haiti, but behind Sweden.'
Also revealed this week was that DC Comics are creating World of Warcraft Comic Books based on the MMORPG, with the first issue appearing on November 14th. The ongoing monthly series will be written by industry veteran Walter Simonson (Thor, Orion) and feature art by Ludo Lullabi and inker Sandra Hope."
...but what did it hit them with.
80% of them are farming gold for the upper 20% :)
That just proves the realism of the game.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Each issue of the WoW comic's gripping storyline will be interrupted by the characters running around shouting misspelled racist and homophobic epithets at the reader for two solid pages.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules. Source: http://www.blizzard.com/press/070724.shtml
Apologies on behaf of the poster you replied to. He shouldn't expect anybody to actually click through to the Blizzard press release. This is Slashdot, after all.
I get amused by the people that claim WoW is "inferior" because of its friendly environment and no-penalty PvP. Well it's not, that is actually what makes it superior to most people, and is the reason they have 9 million players. Most people aren't hardcore, they don't want a game that punishes them for failure, they don't want to have to deal with keeping up with those who make a game in to a life and so on.
If you want games like that, they are available. I'm made to understand EVE is such a game. Extremely hardcore, real loss, etc, etc. That's great if that's what you like, but don't pretend like it is "superior". One of the reasons WoW is so great is it treats things more like a single player game. When I die in a SP game I don't lose anything but time, I am set back to whatever my last save point was and must replay from there. The nearest MMORPG experience, since you can't reload, is to just have you have to wait a bit as you head back to your body. No loss of anything but time.
That's what has kept me interested in WoW. It is the 5th MMORPG I've tried (EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE, Starwars Galaxies) and the only one that has lasted more than 6-9 months or so. All the rest got boring fast for various reasons. For example in EQ the problem was it felt like they hated you. The game was setup to punish you severely for failure, and to be very unhelpful.
WoW gets it right for me, and for many others because it is extremely easy to get in to (I've never seen a more friendly start than WoW's newbie quests), doesn't punish you, and has lots to do for whatever it is you like doing. I realise that's not for everyone, but you need to realise that if a more hardcore experience is your preference that is a different preference, not a superior one. There is nothing wrong with wanting an easier, more friendly experience. After all, the whole point of games is to be entertaining. They are not for proving or accomplishing something, they are there to make you happy and let you have fun. Whatever it is that does that, that's what you should play. For 9 million of us (and counting) WoW is that kind of game.
There are only 9 million players but 11 million night elf hunters. Go figure.
Many aspects of UO were ahead of its time. It could have been a fantastic MMORPG that would have reached millions of players, but too many factors prevented that from occurring.
- Garriott's vision of a dynamic online world never reached fruition. The ecology system never really worked (animals preying upon other animals to keep the spawn rate down). It does work in WoW, and it's fascinating to watch monsters fight each other.
- Garriott (and Raph's) vision was too dependent upon players "playing nice" and wanting to be a moral, socially upright group. What they didn't count on was how some people feel they have the right to be complete and total a-holes because they're hidden behind the anonymity of a game character.
- The economy was ruined... by players. Greed, immorality and the desire to simply ruin the experience for others drove exploiters to imbalance the money system. Granted WoW has its share of gold exploits and problems with people selling their gold farming "services," but it's not nearly as skewed as UO was after the first two years.
- The PvP system was ruined... by players. Instead of a fair playing field where everyone has an equal chance, it turned into a predator/prey system where crafters gathered resources and fighters took it away. I despise PvP, but WoW is so well balanced and has such few penalties I'm considering participating. If it's attractive to a pacifist like myself, I imagine it's remarkable to those that enjoy PvP. If someone kills another player for gear, they're playing and killing for the wrong reason, IMO.
- The classless system was unique and allowed some flexibility, but still you ended up in a niche of "warrior, caster or crafter." I knew of numerous players who started out going one direction only to discover they had wasted their time and needed to go a different direction. I lost count of how many times I "respecced" my main character. Having grown up playing D&D, I prefer the class style.
- EA prevented UO from reaching it's potential numerous times. 1)Pushed Garriott out. When you get rid of the person with the vision, how do you know where you're going? 2)Lost the "Ultima" in "Ultima Online." I'm sure you probably played the series, too. Didn't you want to see more correlation with the series stories? There were two major attempts to bring that content to UO, but EA killed them. Then they brought in Todd McFarlane to add his touch. Another major mistake there. 3)There were also multiple attempts to overhaul the game entirely, but EA wouldn't hear it because it might endanger their constant cash flow if some players decided to jump ship if they had to start over. I would have stayed because there was nothing better than UO for several years (tried DAoC, AC, AO. EQ sucked from the outset, so I never needed to try it.)
To your points:
- Crafting skills in WoW are just as separated from fighting as they were in UO. In order to gather resources, you must be able to face the wilds and at least fight enough to defend yourself from roving monsters. Otherwise a crafter can stay in town safe from harm.
- WoW also has a few rares, but they are not exchangeable which I prefer. My pets from my Collector's Editions make my account fairly valuable. Since I cannot foresee my future of not playing WoW, I have no intention of cashing in.
- I do hope WoW implements housing, but I hope they do it correctly. I despised how UO just allowed players to ruin the landscape and affect the monster and resource spawns. I had even sent the designers several suggestions of having housing servers with teleporters to keep the land pristine. If WoW does add housing, I'm sure it will be a separate server that would not affect the current world.
- I liked having my vendors sell my wares while I was away, but I did not like having to keep them stocked and paid whether they sold anything or not. I much prefer the Auction House in WoW.
- WoW has a very similar, and I think more robust, soc
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