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WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Release Date Announced
Mini-Geek and many others tipped news that Blizzard has announced the release date for Wrath of the Lich King , World of Warcraft's second expansion. It will be in stores on November 13th in the US and Europe. They've also released details about the contents of the Collector's Edition. Wrath will be preceded by a large content patch, which will expand the talent trees and include many of the gameplay changes set for the expansion (including the consolidation of spell damage and healing into 'spellpower,' achievements, and a new profession). The patch was installed on the public test realm yesterday, and the current patch notes are available.
Burning Crusade was a great add-on, and I expect that this new one will be just as good. Sure, some people will complain that they have to buy content AND pay a monthly fee, but I only have to buy it once. If they skimped on the content I'd be upset too, but they don't. I'll get far more playing time out of this add-on than I have gotten out of any other recent game purchase.
Where is the "It was fun but now I've moved on." option? Both praising it as a milestone in MMO gaming but at the same time suggesting there is more out there. If this is your way of evangelizing a WoW content patch then you forgot your [sarcasm] tags.
Here I am, here I remain.
"On that note, I'm a total fucking loser."
Fixed that for you.
That "fixed that for you" thing is getting really, really old. I know the best you can do is ape other people's wit, but at least let the old guard die.
"LOL, loser."
Anybody who uses LOL in a forum that doesn't limit responses to the length of a cellular text message is most certainly a loser.
Just think of how pathetically sad it would be if there was a insanely long uncut movie of your retarded ass sitting there for day after day after day after day wasting your useless life away in front of the absolute bottom of the barrel/mass market/Brittany Spears of MMORPGs, WoW.
LOL, loser.
Versus say...trolling slashdot all day?
"19.99 + 29.99 + 29.99 = 79.97 so that gets you WoW, WoW:BC, WoW:WOTLK November 23, 2004 - November 23, 2008 @14.99 per mon = 719.52 for 4 years $799.49 grand total. Yeah, I mean that's a totally reasonable price for 1 game and 2 expansions.... or not."
Or you could look at it this way. The add-on will cost you about what... 3.9% of what you've paid so far?
I said that if you play WoW the add-on is a good deal, and it is. You're arguing that WoW itself isn't a good deal. You might believe that, but that's not what I said.
For further reference: Straw Man
Then embrace sheer joy in the starting zone with interesting game play, a good storyline and the pleasant experience of phasing.
Then set foot into Outland, feel your heart sink as you realize that you and thousands of others exactly like you have to do the grind to 70 in same content you've been playing for the last year, while all your friends tell you how great Northrend is.
So basically...
You are in the Private Beta right now and once it launches in two months, I'll be part of the 10 million player Open Beta?
OK! Sign me up!
How many of these announcements are being made before, not at, blizzcon, and how they all line up to be made within days of Warhammer Online's release. While it's normal to try and steal the spotlight from a competitor, this does seem awfully reactionary by Blizzard's normal standards of pr.
Yep, and we all have mod points today somehow... but seriously... I'm starting to wonder if the only people getting mod points and zealots and trolls...
Help test the
For over a year now we have been grinding reputation, grinding gold, and grinding gear. Tier 4, Tier 5, Tier 6, Sunwell, Endless wipes on Kalecgos... And now, back to square one.
Now with "improved" talents, more level grinding, more rep grinding, special attention to things like _hair cuts_.
Completely ignore things that are really important to some people. A self sustaining economy, a trade system that is GOOD or even marginally good... Those who have played Eve KNOW a good trade skill system, and economy...
Professions that actually make money for the player instead of being an endless pit for us to wastefully throw gold at to the the 2-3 really good items that get replaced in a couple months when we clear Naxx...
I digress... I will buy the expansion, and I will play, and grind, etc. I will not be happy about it. I just cannot leave because there is nothing better yet. When there is, I and may others will just go elsewhere. Why? Because Blizzard is tuning the game to people who only play an hour a day.
Remember when "Epic" meant something? When they didn't just drop from the last boss in a 5 man?
if I were able to see further, it was because I stood on the shoulders of Giants -Newton
I think it's probably an emergent property of the nature of the game.
WoW has three advantages that make it uniquely poised to flood slashdot with news. 1) It's monstrously huge. 2) It's online. 3) It's social.
For the first point, it's fairly obvious that having a large player base inherently means you have a lot of people interested in news about the game.
Second, we can assume that everyone who plays the game has a basic modicum of internet skills. All WoW players are potential readers, while the same can not be said of everyone who plays Mario Galaxy.
Third, the social nature of the game further pushes the demographic toward sites such as Slashdot. The people who play WoW don't just want to read about it, they want to talk about it even if it's with people who don't play WoW.
The only other game bearing those three attributes is Spore. Incidentally, the only other game with as much Slashdot coverage is also Spore.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Fourth point, with 10 million subs do think Blizzard cares what Mythic does?
Why do people keep saying this? What planet do you live on where company executives and shareholders do not care about their revenues?
Complacency is not a laudable attribute for a company. If they do in fact think "we have 10 million subscribers, what do we care?" then they are setting themselves up for failure. They have other projects in the works that require funding, infrastructure costs, payroll costs, and shareholder expectations to uphold (regardless of them being publicly traded or not). If their revenues go down, they have to answer questions and run the risk of not having the funding to uphold their budget. Do you really think Blizzard doesn't care about that?
Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that 1 million people leave wow for warhammer and cancel their accounts (numbers completely made up). $10/month for each customer, that's $10 million/month gone, $120 million/year. Do you really think they're not going to notice or care about that? I can tell you anyone who's invested with an expectation of return upon that investment is going to care and ask a lot of uncomfortable questions. Wall street has destroyed companies for failing to meet projected earnings by $120 million over a year. I don't see how blizzard is magically immune to that because they make WoW and have 10 million subscribers currently.
Or to make a bad analogy: imagine telling your spouse you got docked 10% of your paycheck for the next year.