http://www.gamespot.com/news/6141517.html
Quote:Recent launch in new regions pushes number of World of Warcraft users to another milestone mark.
Blizzard's World of Warcraft has been a pleasant surprise to the PC market, proving that the platform isn't dead and establishing itself as the benchmark for massively multiplayer online role-playing games. In late August, VU Games reiterated the game's success with the announcement that WOW had reached 4 million customers.
The game was first launched in North America, Australia, and New Zealand in late November of 2004, and it has slowly spread across the globe, tallying impressive numbers in Europe and Asia. The Irvine, California-based developer announced today that the game has netted 5 million customers worldwide.
Blizzard defines a "customer" as one who has "paid a subscription fee or purchased a prepaid card to play World of Warcraft," or someone who "has purchased the installation box bundled with one free month [of] access." The company also counted "Internet Game Room players [who have] accessed the game over the last seven days" as paying customers.
"World of Warcraft's growth continues to exceed all our expectations," said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard. "We want to reiterate our thanks to the millions of players worldwide and to all the retailers who have enthusiastically supported the game over the past year."
The latest regional launch in early November introduced Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong to the game that allows players to roam a persistent virtual world populated with orcs, magic, and other fantasy subjects. Though this latest launch marks one of the final territories to get its WOW on, Blizzard isn't planning on relaxing.
"Our commitment to continue growing World of Warcraft is stronger than ever, with development on future content patches and on our 2006 expansion, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, well underway," added Morhaime. The Burning Crusade expansion is expected to be released sometime in 2006.
By Tim Surette -- GameSpot
Posted Dec 19, 2005 2:36 pm PT
Wow, seems like WoW is going stronger and stronger as compare to EQ2.
Quote: Wow, seems like WoW is going stronger and stronger as compare to EQ2.
Blizzard has good name attached already. Warcraft + Blizzard enough to attract anyone. I don't think EQ2's subscription numbers crossed 400k yet. Plus SOE were a bit slow to globalize EQ2. I don't recalling seeing any EQ2 "launch" in Singapore either. I remember Singapore has quite a big launch?
SOE slow lah. They got a good potential, but a little slow on getting things done. See SWG? How many years into launch and they still revamping the whole damn system? SWG had such good potential for a cool MMOG.
I also met the EQ2-dev team before. They were excited and enthusiastic. But a little ...unorganized. In most areas, they know a lot. But in certain areas, they almost seem unprofessional/inexperienced. Compared that to Blizzard who has almost 0 experience creating MMO.
Quote: SOE slow lah. They got a good potential, but a little slow on getting things done. See SWG? How many years into launch and they still revamping the whole damn system? SWG had such good potential for a cool MMOG.
SWG, sigh. Really full of
Either they never learn from mistakes or they dun bother.
Quote: SWG, sigh. Really full of
Either they never learn from mistakes or they dun bother.
Though I have to say... when in the early stages of fresh entrance into SWG, it was really good MMOG. Especially when we only notice the positive things about the game. I though this is one heck of a cool game with such fun open-ended system. Then once the content stayed stagnant for a long long time....then we start seeing the negativeness!!!
Quote: Though I have to say... when in the early stages of fresh entrance into SWG, it was really good MMOG. Especially when we only notice the positive things about the game. I though this is one heck of a cool game with such fun open-ended system. Then once the content stayed stagnant for a long long time....then we start seeing the negativeness!!!
Yeah, SWG give me a very good experience about MMORPG. Never compare the new MMORPG with an old MMORPG during the early stage of the new MMORPG.
The biggest push effect for our guild from EQ2 to WOW is tat we are the "minority", so kena the sucky almost-daily-1-hr downtime. Imagine pple like us, come back from work start playing already 8-9pm, those with family have to mez them 1st b4 playing, almost 10pm liao. Previously the down time is 10pm, which means we can only start playing at 11pm but the long raids need 2-3 hrs, from 11pm can easily raid to 2am, how to tahan?
Now with the day light saving thing, the svr down 11pm. So login 10pm, play till 11pm (1 hr do simi sai???), then 12midnight start again, how to raid till 3pm???
In the end we decided to move to WOW, no daily downtime and only Tue off (at least can spend all the time with family or do RL stuffs, besides weekend).
So far the feeling abt WOW is very good. I would say gameplay and concept both games are good, but gears wise, EQ2 got like 1-2 more yrs to catch up, sigh. Every player from same class look alike, worse when some plate/chain player start using leather armor coz the plate/chain is too exp, u end up seeing alot of pple look alike, lol.
Quote: The biggest push effect for our guild from EQ2 to WOW is tat we are the "minority", so kena the sucky almost-daily-1-hr downtime. Imagine pple like us, come back from work start playing already 8-9pm, those with family have to mez them 1st b4 playing, almost 10pm liao. Previously the down time is 10pm, which means we can only start playing at 11pm but the long raids need 2-3 hrs, from 11pm can easily raid to 2am, how to tahan?
Now with the day light saving thing, the svr down 11pm. So login 10pm, play till 11pm (1 hr do simi sai???), then 12midnight start again, how to raid till 3pm???
In the end we decided to move to WOW, no daily downtime and only Tue off (at least can spend all the time with family or do RL stuffs, besides weekend).
So far the feeling abt WOW is very good. I would say gameplay and concept both games are good, but gears wise, EQ2 got like 1-2 more yrs to catch up, sigh. Every player from same class look alike, worse when some plate/chain player start using leather armor coz the plate/chain is too exp, u end up seeing alot of pple look alike, lol.
Man, i posted so many SS to lure you guys over and all resisted! Thank god for EQ2 to screw up and all you guys come to the "right choice" :P but on "wrong" server!
I just PL my new friend with 4x16 slots bag to his lvl 7 shaman. I have never seen so cheap is a 16 slots bag in a server. 3~4 gold per bag! In Silvermoon it was like 16 gold and now is around 10 gold.
Quote: I just PL my new friend with 4x16 slots bag to his lvl 7 shaman. I have never seen so cheap is a 16 slots bag in a server. 3~4 gold per bag! In Silvermoon it was like 16 gold and now is around 10 gold.
No money to buy 16 slot bags yet, but doing well with 4x14 slots too. :)
Quote: Man, i posted so many SS to lure you guys over and all resisted! Thank god for EQ2 to screw up and all you guys come to the "right choice" :P but on "wrong" server!
Posting screenshots of WoW after a bunch of EQ2 fans looked at high-polygon count of EQ2 graphics won't attract us to WoW. Since WoW's technical graphics are ... quite bad, but good lower PC requirements for everyone. Artistically it is very good though.
EQ2 has great technical graphics, but bad artistic. So only when you play EQ2 a long time, then you realize, everyone has the same armor looks. And only when you play WoW, could you know that WoW is a good game.
My friend and I who played WoW for 3 days, aren't appealed immediately cos the jaggedy and single layer-textured armor. EQ2 armors are on different texture layers. So EQ2 has higher initial graphical appeal. Of course it gets boring later cos the art very bland. That's when WoW's art take over cos they have higher variation.
Quote: Quote: Man, i posted so many SS to lure you guys over and all resisted! Thank god for EQ2 to screw up and all you guys come to the "right choice" :P but on "wrong" server!
Posting screenshots of WoW after a bunch of EQ2 fans looked at high-polygon count of EQ2 graphics won't attract us to WoW. Since WoW's technical graphics are ... quite bad, but good lower PC requirements for everyone. Artistically it is very good though.
EQ2 has great technical graphics, but bad artistic. So only when you play EQ2 a long time, then you realize, everyone has the same armor looks. And only when you play WoW, could you know that WoW is a good game.
My friend and I who played WoW for 3 days, aren't appealed immediately cos the jaggedy and single layer-textured armor. EQ2 armors are on different texture layers. So EQ2 has higher initial graphical appeal. Of course it gets boring later cos the art very bland. That's when WoW's art take over cos they have higher variation.
So deep! ^^!
Anyway, For the Horde~~~~!!! I mean For World of Warcraft~~!!
Quote: good read.
Read the comments even
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/103/13
Good posts.
But these guys forget 1 thing. WoW is still a business, Blizz can totally ignore them and still making lots of money.
My-bro-law guild mate is 1 of the classic example. He got all the characters in alliance to lvl 70. And now he's trying to go to Horde to level other classes. There are so many 1st timer playing mmo because of WoW and still in there paying. Those 10 years~50years+. 1st timer to mmo. I used to have a guild mate, a mother in US playing WoW because of her 2 sons. She want to monitor them as well as to build up the relationship. By playing WoW and questing together, they have grown closer.
To blizz as long as these grp of ppl still paying. They are laughing all the way to bank. The old school hardcore MMORPG fan can reason whole day and saying WoW is not a typical MMO and bla bla..., Blizz will not care. Just like iPhone is not a phone, will Steve Jobs cares? Another good example is Sony/Aiwa. These 2 were the giant in portable music device arena aka walkman. Now, no 1 talk about walkman. Everyone talking about iPod. iPod has become the name of portable music device. At the end of the day it's about brand loyalty, marketing and creating a product that's appealing to the mass market.
At this moment WoW is Evil!
Whether it's a black cat or a white cat, as long as it can catch all the rats it's a good cat.
I personally find the arguement given by the hardcore fans regarding the game is different from the original concepts or the usual mmorpg is pointless. Same happens in DDO, some pple complaint why certain spells from PnP D&D are not released in the game or some of the concepts are different from the PnP version.
Let be realistic, not everything from the original concepts can be adopted into the game. Whatever "out-of-spec" ideas now may become the "actual concepts" in the coming year, it all depends whether the players or most of the players like them or not.
Same in RL, everyone has a diff definition for pretty and sexy gals. During the Yang Gui Fi generation, they see fat gals as "pretty and sexy" but now pple see otherwise.
I personally love most of the concept for WOW. If most of the raids can be done with 1 grp (BC raids need 2 grps?), I will love to go back coz only need a grp of kakis to slowly grind and enjoy the game till end-game raids.
In fact, I recently met a ex-classmate and he's thinking of going into WOW but like me, he's not into PvE and he ask me to find out if there is any local active raiding guild in PvE server so he can join. He even jio me to go back to duo with him (he used to be hardcore EQ1 raider too but different svr as me) coz he prefer to play melee class and he know I used to play a druid.
In TBC, those heroic instance can be way harder than Karazhan itself lol. It drop epic gem/armor too :P
Like all MMORPG, WoW still need u to invest time to be uber. There are still time sinks. The question is, do you actually need to be uber to enjoy WoW?
Comparing WoW and other traditional MMOs, it gives u the choice not to invest in those time sinks and still enjoy a certain level of fun and success. It is still ok to login and mingle around, clear some quest or run a short instance when u have limited playtime.
Another point is the addtional contents. Now, they have added daily quests, which are essentially repeatable quests for u to make enuff gold for your investment in items/enchants to make yourself function better. You no longer need to farm like siao for the materials. Just do 4 quick quests a day and you have close to 50gp to spend. You won't feel helpless when you need gold.
Also, you can choose to grind rep to get special netherdrake mounts if u feel like it. Honestly, who doesn't like to ride drakes around like those Nazguls in LOTR? And all these give options to players who doesn't really raid much.
Then there is the Arena. Personally I'm not a PvP fan. But I can see these PvP gears are as good as raid loot, if not better. If u choose to invest the time, go ahead and you will be rewarded w/o going to raids.
In short, there's something to do for everyone. Of coz, players will become bored after a while, and that's the time when Blizzard will think of something else for them to do. The cycle is on-going. I've taken a few breaks in between due to boredom and everytime I come back, I have new things to do. This is a positive sign.
I tried to play other MMORPG, including LOTRO. End up I'm back in WoW after 2 weeks in Middleearth.
spend 1.5hr or less per day to do 10 daily quest and u can easily earn close to 100g or more per day. This has allow me to get my epic flying mount recently :) Positive sign imo.
Wow, all the positive feedback makes me bery gian, lol.
Resistance is furtile, come join the dark side of WoW. Join me at blackrock and be a goody goody guy as in the Alliance :P
100 gold per day !! used to took me ages to trade in AH to get that much :P
Quote: Resistance is furtile, come join the dark side of WoW. Join me at blackrock and be a goody goody guy as in the Alliance :P
Blackrock is PvE or PvP? If PvP I might as well go back Dragonmaw, save all the L1-60 grinding, hehe.
Quote: 100 gold per day !! used to took me ages to trade in AH to get that much :P
Err, I think my total wealth is only 100+ gp b4 I MIA. 1 day 100gp is solo or grping? Can do 10 quests in 1.5 hrs?
Quote: Quote: 100 gold per day !! used to took me ages to trade in AH to get that much :P
Err, I think my total wealth is only 100+ gp b4 I MIA. 1 day 100gp is solo or grping? Can do 10 quests in 1.5 hrs?
Now gold is easy to get. 1 day you can do the quest 10 times or something like that. My bro-in-law got 2 flying epic mount and the Drakes flying mount which you need to farm reputation and go thru "flying test"!
So gold is not an issue now.
pvp but you never played the alliance side anyway :P
Ashuras, if you remember from AO time, just join us recently :P
Quote: pvp but you never played the alliance side anyway :P
Ashuras, if you remember from AO time, just join us recently :P
Ya I remember Ashuras, ask him to come here leh, so can convert him to another pervert. :P
As for Alliance PvP, while I dun mind play Alliance, but I really dun enjoy lvling up in PvP environment. Old uncle like me, cannot take the blood pressure when kena gank anymore, LOL.
At least back to Dragonmaw, my L60 is high lvl enuff to protect himself - con't win but at least can siam.
Thanks for the offer though.
Quote: pvp but you never played the alliance side anyway :P
Ashuras, if you remember from AO time, just join us recently :P
Yeoea is whom from AO time?
Ashuras has account here liao I think.
Me? I join AO about 1 week after most of you left AO. lol
I join SWG but you guys picked the dark side :P