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World of Warcraft Hits 9.3 Million Players
Gamasutra is reporting that, along with Vivendi's ever-increasing earnings, recent information has been released updating the current player stats for World of Warcraft. Despite suspicions of falling numbers due to the long wait between now and Rise of the Lich King, Blizzard's Massive title is larger than ever, with some 9.3 million players. "Vivendi has chalked up the increase not only to its WoW subscriber base, but the release of its The Burning Crusade expansion, which saw release in China in the latter part of the third quarter ... The company also noted that its subscriber base has continued to grow from the 9 million mark it celebrated in July to more than 9.3 million, which it says is up more than one million subscribers since December 31 of last year."
If you take this news and add it that one
It's the biggest botnet in the world.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
You never forget your first 9.3 million subscribers.
Except even if Blizzard is horribly invading the privacy of their users, that doesn't make it a botnet. I assure you we won't be seeing anything like a DDoS attack from WoW subscribers any time soon.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I believe that they've said in the past that it means active accounts.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
It's the number of active accounts.
Direct from the site: World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
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. Keep that in mind the next time you see people talking about people "leaving WoW in droves" or talk about how some MMORPG with 100,000 subscribers is so much better than WoW. WoW is, by and far, the most popular MMORPG ever created. Now popular doesn't necessarily mean best, but if they weren't on to something you'd expect that number to be falling.
But it won't stop people from trying to dump on the leader. What's really pathetic are the people talking about how their fantasy MMORPG is sooo much better than WoW, despite the numbers clearly proving it isn't.
In all likelihood it means 2 million active player accounts, 1 million mule accounts, and 6.3 million gold farming accounts.
5.9907 billion people STILL don't give a fuck.
someone has this craptacular comment ready every time they put out these figures. they always mean the same thing: the number of people who give them money every month.
Having the most customers does not mean you have the best product. Theres an example to prove this but it has been beaten to death before.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
But it won't stop people from trying to dump on the leader. What's really pathetic are the people talking about how their fantasy MMORPG is sooo much better than WoW, despite the numbers clearly proving it isn't.
Why aren't you making this argument every time that someone "dumps" on Windows, WalMart, Coors Lite, Britney Spears, McDonalds or a Chevy Cobalt?
Despite anything you might think anyone's favorite MMORPG or whatever is based on their opinion. Can someone come up to me and say that WoW is the best and I can say EQ2 is the best and both of us still be right? Absolutely. We choose what's right for ourselves in any particular place and time. Media like games, books and movies cater to target crowds. Maybe I'm just happier with EQ2's vision of the Drow? I don't know.
By the way.... 50,000,000 Elvis fans are wrong... at least for my tastes.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The mac client is in Open GL, which isn't everything.
As the owner of several Macs over the past 8 years, I truly appreciate their in-house mac dev team.
Open standards with WINE? You do know that WINE is getting DirectX 10 to work right? Anyway, this talk is off-topic. I don't want to be one of those how-does-linux-fit-in-this-thing posters.
Sent from my desktop computer
Who are these people.
Everyone I know is quitting the game.
Even I haven't played since this summer.
I just don't have the time to devote to something like this and still lead a meaningful life.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Most likely 9.3 million current subscriptions, at least that was the definition when Blizzard last announced a milestone. Keep in mind that this includes all the subscription/payment types, which vary by country.
For example, even if you attribute fully 50% of their sales revenue to ongoing WoW subscriptions only (no other games, no initial cost of expansions, no new purchase sales, etc), that's only $17 per subscriber per quarter, or $5.65 a month. So most of those subscriptions are outside the US, and with terms netting much less $ for Vivendi than the US subscriptions. When you start thinking about subscriptions as, say, $1/month, it's not hard to see how they could accumulate them to inflate their subscription numbers by just lowering the price.
A meaning number would be revenue from ongoing WoW subscriptions compared to previous quarters. Good luck getting them to show you that downward trend, though.
I knew I should have been more clear on that last part.
I wouldn't take issue with it if it weren't that all the fantasy MMORPGs are basically identical. There's really no innovation in the fantasy MMORPG genre, and that includes WoW. Everything WoW does has been done elsewhere.
What WoW brings to the table is that it has the best selection of elements from the various MMORPGs. It has the best overall elements.
Now I have nothing wrong with EVE players preferring EVE to WoW because it's a completely different game style. The same with people who would rather play a space game than a fantasy game.
But the fantasy MMORPG is SO over-done, and they're all so similar, that trying to argue that WoW isn't the best when the numbers are so clear that it is just strikes me as absurd.
You're right, not everyone will like the same thing. But trying to argue that more people should like EQ2 despite clear evidence to the contrary is ridiculous.
Now I know why my shares in Coppertone tanked.
For those of you keeping track at home, that's approximately one account for every mile between the Earth and the Sun...
*ahem...*
--RIAmAses! Let my MP3ople go!
Nobody plays WoW anymore, the servers are just too crowded.
But trying to argue that more people should like EQ2 despite clear evidence to the contrary is ridiculous.
Not to string this on because I really find your "point" not only to be pointless but also incorrect...
If you wanted something valid when making a real comparison of MMORPGs you'd have to find players that played each game for a significant period of time and at that point find out who's still playing what or who prefer what game if they're not playing either anymore.
Do you know how many people play Game A over Game B simply because their friends play it? Sure, they'll read about Game B and when asked why they don't like Game B some will be honest and say that they've never played Game B but others are just as likely to just rattle off some crap about Game B that they read in PC Gamer.
My nephew is a WoW'er. He's never played another MMORPG aside from RuneScape. Do you really want to take his opinion of what game (WoW vs. EQ2) is best? Hell, he's never even demoed EQ2 let alone played it long enough to get a real handle on the game. My guess is that's true of most other WoW'ers.
It's simply the way I see it. I think that judging the popularity of a product to equal it's value is extremely short sighted. And don't get me wrong, if I were a MMORPG n00b (like most WoW players probably were) I'd likely try WoW first but that doesn't mean it's the best.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Being a fan Elvis is like liking being a fan of the Atari.
Wouldn't be as popular today but deserves respect for what it did in it's day because everyone's standing on the shoulders of giants.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Considering that new content was known to be coming with the release of the 2.3 patch (which happened two days ago), I seriously doubt that WoW has been suffering any major 'waiting for the next expansion' subscriber losses yet. If the pre-BC timeframe is any indicator, that should happen in the final months before the WotLK release when the bulk of Blizzard's software engineering staff is concentrating on finishing the polish on it.
You're both silly! Everyone knows that Meridian 59 is teh bestest mmo EVAR! (followed somewhat closely by EQ).
And yes, I played WoW for a while. Although it's nice being able to solo with just about any class, it gets boring quite fast as it has nowhere near the depth of EQ and (as pointed out above) millions of kids that can't type or spell 'you', 'are', or 'later'.
EQ2 i must admin, I've never messed with as I just didn't see the point after having invested so much time into EQ.
Oh, btw, the first line is a joke.... breath..... calm down.... no need to have a heart attack!
> WoW is, by and far, the most popular MMORPG ever created.
Wrong.
This would be probably MapleStory, with currently about 50 million players.
Why not just alert us when it hits 10 million? Am I missing some significance to 9.3 million, other than the Earth-Sol distance? .1 million? Should this number impress me especially? I much prefer to hear when they hit 9.475 million. Wake me up when they hit that.
Are we just getting updates every
"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything."
Disclaimer, I have multiple WOW accounts, one LOTRO account, and have tried about every damn MMORPG to come down the pike.
Frankly, the majority of these companies other than Blizzard just don't get it. There was an article linked here from a MMORPG developer of high standing who did a talk about what gamers want, who they are, and the games they play. He then went into a point by point discussion about what makes a good game.
The real problem, the game designers who are failing are designing games for people like them. They are not designing for the market, let alone new markets. A great example is Turbine. They had Asheron's Call and then followed it up with a sequel which failed miserably and was shut down. The primary reason was, it wasn't what the players wanted. It was more of a tribute to the developers (cities that if nothing else where monuments to Turbine). It had lots of great ideas but horrible execution. It forced player cooperation in areas where people never expect nor will cooperate (like crafting). Then comes D&D Online. A group centric game which for some reason people put huge unrealistic expected subscriber numbers on. Why didn't it generate the numbers? Simple, group mechanics require coordination out of game to experience properly in game. With your gaming population spread across time zones and such that coordination breaks down over time; usually not a long time. This title probably would have excelled with a Guild Wars model where the players could take NPCs along. Then comes along LOTRO, another game of great expectations hit by implementation and perceived need to group to trudge through higher levels (mostly unfounded but still it was a very pretty game that just felt empty - turbine's problem with having buildings you have to zone in breaks immersion and combined with walking dead human npcs doesn't help)
WOW's churn numbers are probably greater than most of the top twenty game's current playing population. But why? Simple, you can log in and accomplish something in a short time without ever having to wait for others. Friends can pop in for brief periods and play along, you can pick up with others as you go, but for the most part you don't have to rely on others to enjoy the bulk of the content.
There is also the major fact that none of the wow-killers has lived up to their hype or haven't released. Every time one of these games comes along and fails the blame game starts but always ignores the fact. The game isn't polished, the game is bug laden, the game requires a lot of grouping, or the game's hardware requirements are too high for the real MMORPG desiring player base.
WOW is only going to lose a large number of people to the next Blizzard game. Blizzard set a very high standard and continues to keep their own game at that level. This provides enough satisfaction and enjoyment for many people. Why should the majority of them even care what else comes out?
Too me it seems too many developers are actively relying on dissatisfied WOW players to swell their subscription numbers. If your looking for people who don't like such a successful and executed game just what in the hell are you aiming for?
Oh well, WOW will persist for years because Blizzard has learned that you cater to the needs of the individual player and build up from there. You keep the individual happy and then provide then avenues for more fun with opportunities that reward grouping and playing with others. You never require that as the price of just playing.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Who are these people?
None of my friends play any more.
I've not played since summer.
Hell yeah. Their simultaneous releases go back to around 2001 or 2002 or so, with the release of Warcraft 3, which for me brought a feeling of "it's about time". I still remember how much I hated waiting forever and ever for the Mac release of Warcraft 2 (Dec 1995 for DOS/Win, Sept 1996 for Mac OS). By the time the game came out for Mac OS, most of my friends were already long since onto other games. So much for modem multiplayer games with my friends!
;)
Either way though, I'm really glad that Blizzard has, since WC3, maintained consistent simultaneous Mac/Win releases. Actually, it seems kind of funny to say, but being able to say "WoW runs on OS X" is a strong positive aspect when explaining to friends some of the advantages of using a Mac.
Did you stop reading after the first sentence?
Did you not see this at the end?
"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."
So if your account expired or was cancelled, it is not counted.
WoW. You couldn't even read the whole paragraph. It listed exceptions. However, I must concede on the number of servers. I haven't looked at the total number of servers they have.
So you don't play games... except maybe TuxRacer or similar garbage.
Not Rise
W:ET,ETQW,DOOM3,QUAKE4. Limited but enough to please me.
Sent from my desktop computer
Not ever wow player pays with a subscription fee. In china and most other asian countries, you get the game and account for free, but you pay for playing time, eg 20 bucks for a 100 hour card.
Just think of it, 9.3 million possible guild members to deposit gold for my Squirrelly Wrath guild bank!
But, the big question is, if I need 1000 gold to buy 96 slots for the guild bank, how many of those 9.3 million accounts are on my server and aren't gold farmers who will try to join so they can siphon gold out of the guild?
And how many will be online when I am?
And will they all help me in my mythical quest for coffee, nuts, and Foamy the Squirrel?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No, it's not. There's a difference between being better than something, and being far better than something.
If other MMORPGs were really much better than WoW, people would be leaving to play them in massive numbers.
They're not. No other MMORPG (in the US at least) can claim even 0.5 million subscribers, let alone 9 million.
In a free market economy, that's proof enough that WoW's competitors are, at best, only slightly better than WoW, and not greatly better like people like to claim.
This portion makes up a huge amount of the "subscribers" and they generate a lot less income. WoW is indeed making ooodles of money but nothing like the equivalent of 9 million normal subscribers.
But from the top of the mountain there is no longer anywhere to go but down. And the air may be so thin at that altitude that it makes thinking clearly about the future difficult.
I've been playing WoW since beta (blah, blah), but I predict that in a few years we'll look back on the announcement of the forthcoming expansion as the peak in the life of WoW.
Note that in the past they announced subscriber numbers in even millions but now we have this 9.3 number. What's gone wrong that they didn't hit 10 million? After all, they've been continuously releasing the game into new markets over the last few years, so there has been a constant source of new players to help inflate the subscriber numbers.
WoW in the U.S. has been in decline for several months now. While there are many die-hard players who have been there for three years or more and will likely be playing WoW five years from now, there are also many many player who have gotten bored and have either moved on, or are now ready for a "next big thing" to come along at which point they'll jump so fast it will make Blizzards' heads spin.
There is an enormous potential opening in the market resulting from Blizzard's stumble. The window will likely last a year or two until Blizzard realizes they're in trouble and does something about it. It will be interesting to see if any of next year's big challengers is able to capitalize on this. Games like Age of Conan or Warhammer have a big opportunity, but will they be able to take advantage of it?
One of the biggest problems with new games (Lord of the Rings Online is a perfect example) is that in many cases they copy so much from WoW as to be almost indistinguishable from it. Someone who has gotten tired of WoW is unlikely to be inspired by a poor clone of it.
Blizzard has all the talent required to get back on track, but I think a significant shakeup in their design group will be needed. They can't just keep pushing another identical 10-level grind + new endgame raiding content on people every 18 months and expect them not to notice that it's just the same thing all over again.
The announcement of the new forthcoming expansion turned a lot of people off as simply being more level and gear inflation that will invalidate everything they've accomplished so far and make them go through the whole process again. Especially those people who were brought into gaming for the first time by WoW.
More of the same is no longer a recipe for success, and the new subscriber numbers suggest that the engines on the high-flying Blizzard ship have flamed out. Whether they can recognize this and get themselves restarted by coming up with something NEW will have to be seen.
If there's one thing that WoW suffers from it's the word "static". Everything is fixed, very little is dynamic. Dungeons are exactly the same every time you run them, and you need a fixed number of people and skills to beat them. Imagine if the dungeon layouts were randomly generated each time and the monsters and rewards automatically scaled to the number of people in the party and their abilities? In my opinion, it's only through major changes like this that Blizzard has any hope of returning to a growing subscriber base.
G.
222 by my count
http://crummysocks.com
"Natively"? I think the T is a typo. WoW works just fine under Wine.
The numbers prove popularity, not quality. You say "...popular doesn't necessarily mean best" but then contradict that with "...the numbers clearly proving..." The two statements can't be reconciled.
It's okay to dump on the leaders. Sometimes there's good reason, and sometimes they will be forced to improve.
(For the record, I'm a WoW player, and while I do have fun, there are elements I find weak or entirely missing. An example is the trade-off made that allows all players to complete important quests, but the world remains the same. The static nature of the world means that there can be no advancement of story, it's a snapshot in time and nothing more. Another example is the profession system being tied to player level. Why can't a tailor reach 375 in tailoring while staying in Stormwind at level 1? Some people would prefer to make things than kill things, but the game discourages that preference. The reason is probably to keep players 'out there' in the world, interacting and all that, but I find this a poor decision. The game's a lot of fun, but it deserves criticism in many places.)
That's a lot of virgins. It makes you wonder if WOW has more virgins than Slashdot, but I'm sure there's some overlap.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Not that you don't have a point about the "slag the big guy just 'cause he's the big guy" mentality common among critics of $CURRENT_MARKET_LEADER_IN_SOME_FIELD, but that doesn't mean that their preferences are somehow factually incorrect.
I believe that when Wrath release,the number of wow players will hit 10 Million. Thus i put the forecast in my blog: http://www.igolg.com
You're forgetting that WoW operates in a different market than burgers do.
All the various fantasy MMORPGs operate in essentially the same market for the same price point on the same systems. As such the cost of playing them is essentially identical.
Because the costs to obtain them are identical, the market share each fantasy MMORPG has can be used to directly correlate how good they are. In a free market, with all else being equal, the best will win.
Well, in the fantasy MMORPG market, everything is essentially equal. And WoW is winning.
Now it's not completely equal so there are so differences, but WoW is winning by such a majority that it's safe to say that the market is correct. WoW is clearly the best fantasy MMORPG by its subscriber numbers. No other fantasy MMORPG even comes close, to a degree where if there was a better MMORPG you'd think it would get more subscribers.
This doesn't mean everyone will like WoW better, but it does mean the an overwhelming majority of players do like WoW better.
The thing is, most, if not all MMORPGs out there are that static for a reason. It allows everyone the chance to do that quest, get that special item, whatever.
I don't know if you've ever logged onto a new WoW server the day it goes online, but people race to be the first to level 20, level 30, and so on. They want to be the first on that server to down Ragnaros (well, okay, honestly, I'm not sure they even bother with that any more...), or the first player in the Outlands, or whatever goal they set for themselves. And that's why WoW is that static. Do you want to lose out on ever even starting a huge quest because some guy who lives in his mom's basement and stayed up for 48 hours straight beat you (and everyone else) to all the goals in the game? I think you'd rightfully be a little pissed that you're paying the same fee as everyone else, but because someone beat you to Quest X, no one else can ever do it.
And yes, WoW doesn't allow the whole "level 1 with max profession skill", but I honestly can't think of a game that does allow it. Did EQ? Perhaps they did (it's been years since I played), but I remember that they made it cost so much to raise any profession that it wasn't worth trying to do it as a level 1 unless you had a couple sugar daddies supporting you. DAOC might have let you, but it was so much more cost effective to go out and level and melt down the loot you got to save costs.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Guys I actively play WoW (on my Ubuntu 7.10) and I can say that there are a lot of players that use Linux to play. With OpenGL the game looks great as Direct3D counterpart and you don't have any decrease in frame rate.
One thing is sure. As seen as many payers play only that game if this game runs good on Linux they are willing to switch to Linux. Basically WoW is helping to grow the Linux users.
Not only. Even considering that you need good drivers to play, both nVidia and ATi are forced to release some good pieces of software.
When I had some game issues (about the game policies not the program) and a Game Master contacted me I told him I was using wine. His reaction? He was prepared to that.
Do you know that thanks to wine Blizzard fixed a huge bug before releasing 2.2?
And most of all when I post screenshots on my guild's forum or WoW eu official forum, there's always at least one guy surprised that asks me if that is Linux (or Ubuntu) and how the game runs and how to start using Linux+WoW.
It's strange to state, I would never thought these things like 1 year ago, but WoW is beneficial for Linux.
As seen as stated before, WoW is the best agme at the moment, so no need to play other games, and considering that it runs perfectly in Linux many guys are trying the jump.
And once they feel the power of Linux they'll start actively using it.
Maybe they'll keep dual boot, but still is a good start.
Cheers,
E.
That's a little bit bigger than the population of Sweden (see Wikipedia). I found this fact rather amusing.
Of the 9.3 million how many subscribers are actually profitable?
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
I'm grateful to Blizzard for the Mac version, since it required supporting an OpenGL version of the WoW client, which made getting it to run under Wine a far easier task for those who did so. I'm pretty sure it will run in DirectX mode under Wine, but not as well as the OpenGL version does.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
Considereing they spent 100 Million $ building it I don't think there's much of a reason being suprised. Blizzards is the only software company that I recall forcefully resisting the urge of releasing to early. Starcraft is to date the most popular RTS and they playtested it for *two years* before releasing it. It has a resolution that was considers low even back then. WoW runs fine with my Geforce 4.
Resist pushy releasing, playtest, build for mid-range machines, playtest, see that the game is fun after 30 seconds the latest, playtest, build it so that a total newbie can understand the game in 5 minutes flat, build top-notch art for the low end tech-specs, playtest, playtest and don't forget to playtest. If all publisheres followed these simple rules we'd have much more games that would be as much fun as WoW or other Blizzard stuff.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
As a windows user I'd wish there was more OpenGL games again. Carmack seemed to push OpenGL back in the day and OpenGL (and Glide2x, MiniGL) seem to set the standard that seperated you from a regular PC with a 2D card or a "gaming PC" that had a 3D Accelerator, e.g. Voodoo 2 and all that jazz. DirectX is good and all but I'd rather see more things developed on OpenGL again. Perhaps if iD licenses iD Tech 5 enough it'll make a decent comeback.
The market can't be "correct", because there is no correct answer. The quality of each game is 100% subjective. WoW is clearly the game with the most mass-market appeal, but that makes it the best investment, not the best game. Which game is the best is purely a matter of opinion, and cannot be proven on a spreadsheet.
In the US. Add in the European servers plus the rest of the world and the number of servers will likely be close to the magic 1000 number.
I've played both WoW (recently) and EQ2 (the first year after release).
Overall, WoW is definitely the better game. Where EQ2 was about 7/10 or 8/10, WoW scores at 8/10 to 9/10. There's a lot of things that WoW still does wrong, but there's also a lot of things where WoW is definitely more polished and friendly then EQ2 was. I spent the first two weeks in WoW constantly thinking "this is a nice spin on that idea or that gameplay mechanic".
I still miss the rich graphics of EQ2 - but the EQ2 world at release was a tiny shoebox compared to old Norrath or Azeroth.
There's also some interesting concepts in the gameplay that I hadn't seen before in EQ or EQ2 (or EVE):
- Talent trees that allow you to essentially reclassify your character in later levels without having to roll up an alt. For some classes, it's a dramatic difference for others it's more of a flavor change. It helps turn a limited 6 possible classes into 12 to 18 classes.
- Paladins use seals and judgments. Basically, you cast a 30-60 second buff that you can use, or you can "judge" the mob which will convert that buff into a debuff or damage on the mob. Then you can cast a second buff and use that for the rest of the fight (or judge again for the damage effect). Not to everyone's tastes, but no other class in WoW operates that way.
- Warriors work off of a "reverse mana" or "reverse energy" system. At the start of the fight, they can't use their extra abilities until they deal/take damage (unless they still have some leftover from the previous fight). As they take/deal damage, their rage pool fills up and they can fire off abilities. After the fight, their rage slowly dissipates.
- The rogue class uses "combo points" where firing off certain abilities uses up energy (that refills quickly during battle) and builds points. Once they have a few points on the target, they can fire off an advanced ability that will do additional damage for each point. It's an interesting twist (not one that I care for, so I haven't played a rogue past 10).
- Priests who can solo. Or they can respec using talent points into a shadow priest which is a high-DPS spec.
- Summon stones outside of instances (dungeons). Which allows two players to summon a 3rd person from anywhere (assuming that they meet the level requirements of the stone). That makes setting up a group and collecting everyone together a good bit easier. Or you can use a L20+ warlock and two others to summon a 4th player.
- Travel costs. Gryphon/bat flights cost a few copper to a few silver. And the prices go up based on the destination zone (higher level zones are more expensive) or if the flight is longer. There are also a few free methods of travel, but it helps to spread out the population.
- Quest XP that matters. While I haven't done a detailed examination, in the first 40-50 levels, quest XP can end up as half of your total XP earned. So if you play smart, always chase quests, you can level a lot faster then someone who just grinds out mobs. Plus you gain standing (discounts at merchants, other benefits) from performing quests.
But there are also things that WoW does wrong or not to everyone's tastes (not as much grouping in the outdoor areas).
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
This is fine. You like what you want but also note that EQ2 has changed since you've played it and some of the things that you have as points about gameplay in WoW are also in EQ2.
But again, it comes down to personal desires from what you want from a MMORPG. I will admit that there are things that have changed for the worse in EQ2 and seem to have dumbed the game down a bit. I was happier with the game when it was a bit more of a struggle because I felt that it kept the economy fresh and made it a bit more solo friendly, especially outside of the scope of a guild.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I completely agree with the reasons you've listed and it's too bad more companies don't copy their design philosophies instead of just trying to copy their designs. I just wanted to chime in to say that their budget in the neighborhood of $65 million. I'm not trying to be a fact nazi, but I just wanted to mention it because in the world of MMOs $35m is a huge difference. $65m is just over double the second highest budgeted MMO that has been released to date which speaks volumes about the kind of quality Blizzard was willing to put into their game. Unfortunately a sad fact of the industry is everyone's funding has to come from somewhere. The people responsible for that funding are often the ones making the decision whether or not a game gets pushed out early. Even after a game company becomes self-sufficient, the people who originally gave them achieve that success retain a stake in the company.
The developers can say they need more time, but whether they get it is not necessarily up to them. Blizzard has been extremely lucky in that the company which owned them up until Vivendi bought them allowed them the necessary time to polish their games and I'm sure it was apparent that doing so was well worth it.
Replying to a post does not mean you have read it. There's an example to prove this, but you've already written it.
I've thought about the whole static world problem, and I agree with you. My issue is that I can't work out a way to allow players to actually make an impact on the world (driving a story) when you need to allow all players to have the same experiences. Maybe there could be weekly or monthly resets, but then it's a race to complete the big, world-changing quests and the winners will be the people playing for 48 hours straight.
The decision to have a static world means that players won't compete with each other as much, and that allows slower players (like myself) to have some fun experiences along the way. It also means that no player can affect the world or story in any meaningful way, which detracts from the game in my eyes.
I can't reconcile the two. If I could I'd probably be working for Blizzard!
The second part (skills linked to level) is one of those many game decisions that doesn't make sense in the real world, but is made to help drive players forward in the game. Why can't a smart player buy raw materials in the auction house, make and sell items and get to the maximum skill level in a profession while remaining at level one? It'd be interesting to see if someone could do this, but the option isn't there in WoW (and the others you mention). The restrictions tying skill to level seem pretty arbitrary. When I was moving up in leather-working I hit the skill limit about ten levels too early in the last two skill 'buckets' and that brick wall seemed incongruous then and still does now.
I know that expecting real-life experiences to play out in the game is never going to work, but why can't we have (for example) great tailors who aren't supremely powerful characters as well? I'd be amazed if I walked into a tailor's shop in real life and the tailor was a powerful, confident person exuding an air of utter capability and majesty. But that's what we get in the game.
Ah, game decisions. Some seem brilliant, some not so much. I guess they're all made for good reasons, even if they seem odd to us.
Generally true of course, still there is a major difference: How many people play a Massive Multiplayer Online Games is one of the basic factors of how enjoyable it will be to play. And if we define "good" as "enjoyable" (which for an entertainment product is a very natural thing to do), the fact that WoW has (by any possible means) managed to concentrate so many players, automatically boosts it's value and makes it a "better" game.
One could argue that since the population is broken into multiple realms (some of which experience serious balance issues), WoW has long reached the threshold over which more players does not necessarily mean more fun, but for the most of the alternative MMOG that I know of (Eve Online excepted), no matter how technically superior they are, underpopulation (always in relation to how the game was designed to be played, of course) is a major problem.
Honestly, what I'd like to see a game company try (to see if it works) is to have a dual leveling system. Have one set of levels for combat and one set for professions. So, you could have a character who is a 14th level dwarf warrior but he's also a 32nd level armorsmith.
As for making a game world more dynamic... I don't know... I've had some ideas on that, but I'm not sure if they're easily workable in a MMORPG setting. (What I mean is the coding could be a real bitch to do.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Fair enough... i guess i just noobed out.