Haha, I love it GameLoading when someone says something about WAR or it being the next big thing. You think its an attack against WoW. Something could be the next big thing without topping something like WoW. Take the movie industry for example. And since when did people spout that "WAR will reign supreme over all MMOs"? Cause thats just ridiculous. (besides one simply can't rule over all MMOs that just doesn't even make sense. Something can be popular, but doesn't mean its the best or rules over anything) People who I talk to are like "OMG! I can't wait. It sounds like fun." Nothing even commenting close to WoW. Cause really; they just don't care same with everyone looking forward to WAR we don't care if WAR will beat WoW cause we don't want it to be the new WoW. Right now it seems you're making mountains out of mole-hills. If someone says something that isn't even attacking wow you don't need to be "Nope you're wrong cause wow is so great.. ect ect ect." Nobody was saying anything about it so you don't need to bring it up.
Thats like if I said Orange soda is good and you go "No, you're wrong root-beer is good and nothing can come close to it." Don't say you're not; cause everyone can see you are doing that.
Okay, lets get this right.
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
also, comparing it to movies is silly. a movie is something people watch for an hour or two and thats it. but MMORPG's are what people playing now. When WAR will be released, WoW won't be past, WoW will be here, now, present, and directly competing with WAR.
Haha, I love it GameLoading when someone says something about WAR or it being the next big thing. You think its an attack against WoW. Something could be the next big thing without topping something like WoW. Take the movie industry for example. And since when did people spout that "WAR will reign supreme over all MMOs"? Cause thats just ridiculous. (besides one simply can't rule over all MMOs that just doesn't even make sense. Something can be popular, but doesn't mean its the best or rules over anything) People who I talk to are like "OMG! I can't wait. It sounds like fun." Nothing even commenting close to WoW. Cause really; they just don't care same with everyone looking forward to WAR we don't care if WAR will beat WoW cause we don't want it to be the new WoW. Right now it seems you're making mountains out of mole-hills. If someone says something that isn't even attacking wow you don't need to be "Nope you're wrong cause wow is so great.. ect ect ect." Nobody was saying anything about it so you don't need to bring it up.
Thats like if I said Orange soda is good and you go "No, you're wrong root-beer is good and nothing can come close to it." Don't say you're not; cause everyone can see you are doing that.
Okay, lets get this right.
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW?
It has more to do with customers being bored of current gen MMOs than it does with Blizzard. If people are tired of the game they will leave it. They can add new things and create new races for the game but if people just want a change of scenary it does not matter what bliz does. The reason I left WoW was because it became too repetative, too fast. PvP just comes down to I have tier 4 while you are in blues and greens.
Age of Conan is trying something different and if you head to their forums they have already built up quite the fan base. This alone leads me to believe that 500k won't be difficult for them to reach soon after launch. Especially if you pre-order it, you get a new fresh MMO with a different style of combat for 10 bucks a month instead of your typical 15.
It has more to do with customers being bored of current gen MMOs than it does with Blizzard. If people are tired of the game they will leave it. They can add new things and create new races for the game but if people just want a change of scenary it does not matter what bliz does. The reason I left WoW was because it became too repetative, too fast. PvP just comes down to I have tier 4 while you are in blues and greens. Age of Conan is trying something different and if you head to their forums they have already built up quite the fan base. This alone leads me to believe that 500k won't be difficult for them to reach soon after launch. Especially if you pre-order it, you get a new fresh MMO with a different style of combat for 10 bucks a month instead of your typical 15.
I am no longer subbed with WOW due to sheer boredom. Our entire guild left. We play BF21142 just to stick together til AOC and or WAR is released. And ill be Subbing both! Now if Blizzard said We are releasing Starcraft Universe the newest MMORPG from Blizzard I would hop on in with a quickness. To me Starcraft is still the best game ever made by Blizzard and I still play it to this day! But as far as MMOS go its AOC and WAR!
I'm sure Blizzard doesn't worry about Warhammer. why would they? Blizzard is going 8,5 million subscribers strong, and its STILL growing. Why would they fear a company that peaked at 250k subscribers with its game?
But I too am confident that the next WoW expansion will be well worth it. I'm satisfied with Burning Crusade so far.WAR is a great challenger no discussion there. The winner isn't the one with the most amount of subscribers, WoW is the biggest bomb on that front ever. But WAR I know will be the next big thing that people will talk about.
I don't expect all too many to switch from WoW to WAR because WoW is a game on it's own and there are sooo many fanboys playing it who have put too much time in it they wouldn't ever dream of leaving it. No matter what game that comes.
No matter what happends WAR will not have a positive impact for Blizzard. Since they indeed are going to loose subscribers.Ofcourse the winner is the one with the most subscribers. when talking about the "Big thing" in a franchise, it means the game that is the most popular, the most played, and the one that received the most media attention, and WAR will be neither of those. WAR is not a challenger. Fantasy Warhammer setting isn't that popular among video gamers. WAR doesn't have the franchise of Warhammer, and Mythic doesn't have the company recognition of Blizzard. Millions of gamers were actually VERY excited about the announcement of the new alliance race in the Burning Crusade. Loads of gamers were waiting for blizzard to open its mouth and say which race will join the alliance. Only very few people cared when Mythic announced the races.
WAR will do fine, no doubt about that. I'm sure they will reach a nice 150k~250k subscribers, if not a few more. But it will always live in the shadow of World of Warcraft, just like every other MMORPG out there.
I'm sorry Gameloading, but I think you're wrong on this one. You underestimate the power of good PvP. WoW's pvp = completely meaningless shit. Warhammer's PvP should be awesome coming from the makers of a great PvP game (DAoC). I'd be willing to bet a paycheck Warhammer will grab at least 1 million subscribers and you can quote this later if ya want.
But what games do we actually consider good PVP? Ultima Online and Dark age of Camelot were both considered good pvp games, and neither of them ever got above 250k subscribers. Only Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 were very successfull pvp games, and thats because of the success in asia. to my knowledge, Mythic doesn't even have plans for a WAR in asia. I don't really understand why you predict WARHAMMER will grab 1 million subscribers, you (and many others, not to just pick on you) act like its completely normal for an MMORPG to reach 1 million subscribers. Out of all those MMORPG's, only 3 of them ever made it above 1 million subscribers. thats WoW, Lineage and Lineage 2. No other. Even a game like Everquest back then, only capped at 400k ~ 500k subscribers. Your fully free to disagree with me, many people do.
You must be new to MMO's because back when DAoC was in it prime 250k subs was a huge amount of people for a PvP game, consider the number game at the time was EQ with 500k sub, coming in as the second largest MMO with 250k subs wasn't a bad thing. Your comparing Apples and Oranges please next time made a valid argument instead of just talking out of your ass.
Did you actually read my post or did you just felt the need to make a rediculous reply? Guess what: 250k subs and 500k subs is still a big amount for an MMORPG. that number hasn't changed. Apart from WoW, Lineage and Lineage 2, no other MMORPG is above the 1 million mark. in fact, no other mmorpg is above the 500k subscriber mark. it is a VERY valid arguement, maybe you should re-read it again.
Getting 1 million subs ISN'T HARD, all you need to do is appeal to the Asian market, which WoW did and is the ONLY reason WoW hasbecome so poplar. Most of those 8 millions subs WoW fanboi's love to pull out of their asses when bashing a game come from Asia. The rest come from new ignorant MMO players, and B.net kiddies.
IRVINE, Calif. – January 11, 2007 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that World of Warcraft®, its subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is now played by more than 8 million gamers around the world. World of Warcraft has also achieved new regional subscriber milestones, with more than 2 million players in North America, more than 1.5 million players in Europe, and more than 3.5 million players in China.
only 3,5 million of those players are in China, and 3,5 million people are in NA and Europe, that leaves 1,5 million spread across the rest of the world (because the current subscriber base is 8,5 million, this is an old press release). While I'm sure most of those 1,5 million are from Korea, we see here that the amount of people in the east playing WoW isn't that much bigger then the ones in the west. While I'm sure many players are completely new to the genre, I am also sure many of them are from other MMORPG's. I say this because I see a big decrease in most other MMO's subscriber after the release of WoW, especialy Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2
Originally posted by DuraheLL
Originally posted by Gameloading
I doubt WAR will receive the same score as WoW. Mythic has never been able to rival Blizzard in terms of quality.
Maybe in your opinion Mythic has a greater reputation then blizzard, but the general gaming community doesn't agree with you by a long shot. Blizzard has always been known for its high quality RTS games. Starcraft and Warcraft are considered the national sports in Korea for crying out loud, and Blizzards reputation went through the roof with World of Warcraft.
Also, I wat not talking about the fantasy genre, I was talking about Warhammers fantasy setting.
I may sound like a Mythic hater, but honnestly, I'm not. I'm also curious the direction which they are going with WAR. but at the same time, I will also stay realistic.Warhammer is extremely popular. The tabletop game. So was WarCraft the strategy game.
Warhammer is said to have sold about 90 million units per year! You can imagine how many people who play it then.
I don't really understand why you go on and say stuff like "Mythic has never been able to rival Blizzard in terms of quality". Does that mean that they cannot succeed now? And I truly think DAOC is an extremely well done game and for it's time it was pretty advanced indeed.
WAR will be a huge bomb, and a success to that. Nothing indicates otherwise IMO. I doubt that when it comes, it's gonna be seen as a "worse game than WoW". I think that when people will ask which game they're gonna play people will mostly responce with WAR and WoW.
Exactly. TABLETOP game. not Computer or Video game. Dungeons & Dragons is also a widely popular tabletop game, yet we don't see D&DO reaching 1 million, or even 100k, subscribers either. and that really isn't because D&DO is such a horrible game. D&DO received pretty good ratings.
Ofcourse it doesn't mean that they cannot succeed now, But the past of Mythic is good, but not as good as Blizzards. DAOC is fine game, but it can't match the quality of World of Warcraft.
If you consider 150k~250k subscribers a huge bomb, then sure. But I doubt it will be much bigger then that. I can give you some indications that will show you that WAR won't be super successfull. Most MMORPG's released after the release of WoW is doing "bad" to "okay". Look at Auto Assault. ArchLord. Dungeons & Dragons Online. the only one that is really doing okay after the release of WoW is Vanguard. A lot of MMORPG's lost subscribers after WoW. Everquest. FFXI. DAOC, and especialy Lineage and Lineage 2 received a heavy downfall in subscribers.
Then there are a whole load of MMORPG's comming out, splitting up the Non-WoW MMORPG players even further.
WoW is hurting the mmorpg market. badly.
Quality of Warcraft? I consider that an insult to MMO dev's everywhere Mythic made there game from the ground up, and I have a lot of respect for them because of it. All WoW did was rip off other games! WoW did nothing new, or special they just copied everyone elses work.
That was exactly the goalof World of Warcraft. Remove everything that wasn't fun in the developers eyes, and the result is an extremely well made game. Also Mythic didn't build the game from the ground up, Mythic was inspired by Everquest, but wanted to focus more on PVP.
Indications that WAR won't be super successfull? because crappy games like Vanguard and D&DO failed? I'm sure it had nothing to do with the games or there content or there developers! WoW made those games crappy! Show me ONE game that failed with a decent amount of hype and a good game company behind it? Oh wait you can't because it hasn't happend yet.
They are only crappy in your opinion, but most reviewers are going to have to disagree with you. Vanguard was one of the most hyped games. the game company behind Vanguard had Brad Mcqaid and ex-Everquest developers on them.
Haha, I love it GameLoading when someone says something about WAR or it being the next big thing. You think its an attack against WoW. Something could be the next big thing without topping something like WoW. Take the movie industry for example. And since when did people spout that "WAR will reign supreme over all MMOs"? Cause thats just ridiculous. (besides one simply can't rule over all MMOs that just doesn't even make sense. Something can be popular, but doesn't mean its the best or rules over anything) People who I talk to are like "OMG! I can't wait. It sounds like fun." Nothing even commenting close to WoW. Cause really; they just don't care same with everyone looking forward to WAR we don't care if WAR will beat WoW cause we don't want it to be the new WoW. Right now it seems you're making mountains out of mole-hills. If someone says something that isn't even attacking wow you don't need to be "Nope you're wrong cause wow is so great.. ect ect ect." Nobody was saying anything about it so you don't need to bring it up.
Thats like if I said Orange soda is good and you go "No, you're wrong root-beer is good and nothing can come close to it." Don't say you're not; cause everyone can see you are doing that.
Okay, lets get this right.
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW? I believe a big number came from Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2, as those are all mmorpg that lost a lot of subscribers after the release of WoW. Many of them are new players, because Blizzard already had a very established user base with its other pc games, which Warhammer fantasy setting does not have. And ofcourse the very high quality of the game caused some worth of mouth hype.
You need to talk apples and oranges with respec to subscribers from NA/EU and China. Two completely different types of players. Who has a good number for NA/EU? 2.5 million? From what I have read the Asian market does not pay $15 per month. They pay as they play at a relatively lower rate than us westerners.
I gave BC a shot and it really fell short on the fun meter after a month. Faction grinds, excessive reliance on consumables, and pretty much the same MOBS with pretty new colors that have more hit points and hit harder doesnt cut it for me.
Even with all the bugs in Vanguard I am enjoying it way more than I would in WoW. Such a massive world with very fun classes and real crafting. Please never consider WoW crafting anything more than kiddie crafting. It offers no challenge.
I dont see WoW becoming any more challenging. The expansions will offer pretty much the same with new levels and new pretty colors. It will still be the best family MMO for awhile and offer a considerable entertainment value. Hopefully Blizzard has started work on its newest MMO. Upcoming MMOs like AoC and WAR are going to put a dent in NA/EU WoW, but boredom will probably take a big toll. Before BC release I gave the expansion 6 months of enjoyment. Having gotten bored in one month says alot for my hopes and expectations.
Personally I am going to stick wtih Vanguard for the near term. I like the community I have found there and the massive world. WoW had no community beyond guilds for the most part and I think that is what keeps my long term interest. The added benefit is we have very few leet wow kids there I think AOC and WAR will have too many. Maybe LOTR will become better, but when I played it the classes were just missing something and the crafting is the same as WoW.
Haha, I love it GameLoading when someone says something about WAR or it being the next big thing. You think its an attack against WoW. Something could be the next big thing without topping something like WoW. Take the movie industry for example. And since when did people spout that "WAR will reign supreme over all MMOs"? Cause thats just ridiculous. (besides one simply can't rule over all MMOs that just doesn't even make sense. Something can be popular, but doesn't mean its the best or rules over anything) People who I talk to are like "OMG! I can't wait. It sounds like fun." Nothing even commenting close to WoW. Cause really; they just don't care same with everyone looking forward to WAR we don't care if WAR will beat WoW cause we don't want it to be the new WoW. Right now it seems you're making mountains out of mole-hills. If someone says something that isn't even attacking wow you don't need to be "Nope you're wrong cause wow is so great.. ect ect ect." Nobody was saying anything about it so you don't need to bring it up.
Thats like if I said Orange soda is good and you go "No, you're wrong root-beer is good and nothing can come close to it." Don't say you're not; cause everyone can see you are doing that.
Okay, lets get this right.
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW? I believe a big number came from Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2, as those are all mmorpg that lost a lot of subscribers after the release of WoW. Many of them are new players, because Blizzard already had a very established user base with its other pc games, which Warhammer fantasy setting does not have. And ofcourse the very high quality of the game caused some worth of mouth hype. Most of WoW's Players came from no MMOs at all. Looking at MMOGchart.com (which isn't the most reliable source of course) no game lost significant subscriptions due to WoW coming out. When WoW came out both Everquest 1 and FFXI were at 550K. 1 year later FFXI (and this is 1 year after WoW being out) was at 650K and EQ1 was at 450K (6 years after the game came out). Actually the only games that had a decrease in their Subscriptions (other then EQ2) were 2-3 years old or more already. So out of the 8.5 Million people WoW has maybe 1-2 million of them total world wide were previous MMO players and that is really being generous.
What makes you think that another game can't pull in another 1-2 million non mmo players to their game? Just to approximate, 69 % of just american Households play video games. There are over 300 million people in just the US. So a lot of people are playing video games that are a potential customer of these games. After WoW making MMO games more mainstream (showing up on the news, southpark, etc) there is a good chance more of these people will be interested in playing a MMO. The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. So that means that your average gamer is going to know a lot about more games and companies then just blizzard. Most of them will know of EA more then Blizzard since they are console gamers and in the Console gaming world EA has a good reputation. Forty-four percent of game players say they play games online one or more hours per week. That is a significant number of potential MMO players. Given the correct MMO game with the right casual and engaging play and instead of us talking about how WoW is so huge with 8.5million players world wide we will be talking about how game "X" is so huge with hundreds of millions of players worldwide.
Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%).
So I guess we can put to rest that Video Games are for Kids and also that video games are not for Women.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Haha, I love it GameLoading when someone says something about WAR or it being the next big thing. You think its an attack against WoW. Something could be the next big thing without topping something like WoW. Take the movie industry for example. And since when did people spout that "WAR will reign supreme over all MMOs"? Cause thats just ridiculous. (besides one simply can't rule over all MMOs that just doesn't even make sense. Something can be popular, but doesn't mean its the best or rules over anything) People who I talk to are like "OMG! I can't wait. It sounds like fun." Nothing even commenting close to WoW. Cause really; they just don't care same with everyone looking forward to WAR we don't care if WAR will beat WoW cause we don't want it to be the new WoW. Right now it seems you're making mountains out of mole-hills. If someone says something that isn't even attacking wow you don't need to be "Nope you're wrong cause wow is so great.. ect ect ect." Nobody was saying anything about it so you don't need to bring it up.
Thats like if I said Orange soda is good and you go "No, you're wrong root-beer is good and nothing can come close to it." Don't say you're not; cause everyone can see you are doing that.
Okay, lets get this right.
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW? I believe a big number came from Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2, as those are all mmorpg that lost a lot of subscribers after the release of WoW. Many of them are new players, because Blizzard already had a very established user base with its other pc games, which Warhammer fantasy setting does not have. And ofcourse the very high quality of the game caused some worth of mouth hype. Most of WoW's Players came from no MMOs at all. Looking at MMOGchart.com (which isn't the most reliable source of course) no game lost significant subscriptions due to WoW coming out. When WoW came out both Everquest 1 and FFXI were at 550K. 1 year later FFXI (and this is 1 year after WoW being out) was at 650K and EQ1 was at 450K (6 years after the game came out). Actually the only games that had a decrease in their Subscriptions (other then EQ2) were 2-3 years old or more already. So out of the 8.5 Million people WoW has maybe 1-2 million of them total world wide were previous MMO players and that is really being generous.
If you further follow the line, you will see the more popular WoW becomes, the more subscribers FFXI,Everquest and Everquest 2 lose it didn't happen RIGHT AWAY, which is no surprise as rome wasn't build in 1 day, but the more popular WoW became, the more subscribers those games lost. 1 ~ 2 million of them could be people that played other MMO's before, its no secret that WoW brought in a lot of new players. even still, there is no mmorpg besides WoW that currently has more then 1.5 million subscribers. that would mean that WoW roughly has 1,5 million veterans playing, which is more subscribers then any other mmorpg,
What makes you think that another game can't pull in another 1-2 million non mmo players to their game? Just to approximate, 69 % of just american Households play video games. There are over 300 million people in just the US. So a lot of people are playing video games that are a potential customer of these games. After WoW making MMO games more mainstream (showing up on the news, southpark, etc) there is a good chance more of these people will be interested in playing a MMO. The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. So that means that your average gamer is going to know a lot about more games and companies then just blizzard. Most of them will know of EA more then Blizzard since they are console gamers and in the Console gaming world EA has a good reputation. Forty-four percent of game players say they play games online one or more hours per week. That is a significant number of potential MMO players. Given the correct MMO game with the right casual and engaging play and instead of us talking about how WoW is so huge with 8.5million players world wide we will be talking about how game "X" is so huge with hundreds of millions of players worldwide.
Because I don't see MMORPG's being mainstream at all. World of Warcraft is mainsteam, yes, but not MMORPG's. WoW has been out for over 2 years now. But WoW players had no intention to move to other MMORPG's in all that time. we don't see a significant growth in subscribers in other MMORPG's. in fact, they are decreasing (with the exception of EVE, which is doing very well). WoW players aren't intrested in other MMORPG's. over the years, they didn't move to other MMORPG's at all. What I find a good example are the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy is a mega popular console RPG serie, especialy after the release of Final Fantasy 7. People then also yelled "Ohh, Console rpg's are mainstream now!", Yet I have never seen millions of people rushing to the store to pick up Breath of Fire, or Suikoden. Final Fantasy was mainstream, not the RPG genre. I personally think that the same is happening here right now. Its not MMO's that are mainstream, its WoW that is.
The reason why I think Warhammer won't draw as many new people to the genre as WoW, is because WARHAMMER fantasy is a table top game, not a computer game. To draw people to the genre as much as WoW, you need a popular franchise among the people who play computer or video games. Warhammer fantasy does not have the same recognition among pc gamers as Warcraft did. Not only that, but every PC gamer knows Blizzard. Even people who aren't intrested in strategy games know what Warcraft is, have heard about diablo. and they also know the company behind it: Blizzard. How many non-mmorpg gamers know who Mythic is? I'm willing to bet: Nobody. nobody at all. to non-mmorpg gamers, Mythic is a no-name company. Dark age of camelot? never heard of it.
thats why I don't believe in the 1 million subscriber base of WAR. I'm sure the game will do just fine, and with a genre with this much competition, reaching even 150k subscribers is something to be damn proud of. but being the 3rd largest mmorpg in the world in terms of subscribers? Nah.
Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%).
So I guess we can put to rest that Video Games are for Kids and also that video games are not for Women.
I played MUDs back in the early 90s and my first real MMO was RO. I don't claim to be an old school MMORPGer, but
I've played quite a few MMOs over the past year.
I don't think you should give D2 players a bad name. Most of the WoW players in my guilds were either first time MMO players or their first MMO was CoH or DAoC. Most people that try MMOs will try WoW first, until something else with broad appeal comes along.
In the past MMOs were niche games. I think that MMOs will improve, but I don't think we will see a ground breaking MMO until 2010.
Haha, I love it GameLoading when someone says something about WAR or it being the next big thing. You think its an attack against WoW. Something could be the next big thing without topping something like WoW. Take the movie industry for example. And since when did people spout that "WAR will reign supreme over all MMOs"? Cause thats just ridiculous. (besides one simply can't rule over all MMOs that just doesn't even make sense. Something can be popular, but doesn't mean its the best or rules over anything) People who I talk to are like "OMG! I can't wait. It sounds like fun." Nothing even commenting close to WoW. Cause really; they just don't care same with everyone looking forward to WAR we don't care if WAR will beat WoW cause we don't want it to be the new WoW. Right now it seems you're making mountains out of mole-hills. If someone says something that isn't even attacking wow you don't need to be "Nope you're wrong cause wow is so great.. ect ect ect." Nobody was saying anything about it so you don't need to bring it up.
Thats like if I said Orange soda is good and you go "No, you're wrong root-beer is good and nothing can come close to it." Don't say you're not; cause everyone can see you are doing that.
Okay, lets get this right.
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW? I believe a big number came from Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2, as those are all mmorpg that lost a lot of subscribers after the release of WoW. Many of them are new players, because Blizzard already had a very established user base with its other pc games, which Warhammer fantasy setting does not have. And ofcourse the very high quality of the game caused some worth of mouth hype. Most of WoW's Players came from no MMOs at all. Looking at MMOGchart.com (which isn't the most reliable source of course) no game lost significant subscriptions due to WoW coming out. When WoW came out both Everquest 1 and FFXI were at 550K. 1 year later FFXI (and this is 1 year after WoW being out) was at 650K and EQ1 was at 450K (6 years after the game came out). Actually the only games that had a decrease in their Subscriptions (other then EQ2) were 2-3 years old or more already. So out of the 8.5 Million people WoW has maybe 1-2 million of them total world wide were previous MMO players and that is really being generous.
If you further follow the line, you will see the more popular WoW becomes, the more subscribers FFXI,Everquest and Everquest 2 lose it didn't happen RIGHT AWAY, which is no surprise as rome wasn't build in 1 day, but the more popular WoW became, the more subscribers those games lost. 1 ~ 2 million of them could be people that played other MMO's before, its no secret that WoW brought in a lot of new players. even still, there is no mmorpg besides WoW that currently has more then 1.5 million subscribers. that would mean that WoW roughly has 1,5 million veterans playing, which is more subscribers then any other mmorpg,
It is impossible for WoW to have 1.5 Million NA veterans playing their game. Unless those people are still subscribed to other MMOs currently. Which blows your WoW players love WoW and aren't interested in playing other games. There aren't enough MMO veterans to add up to the number of WoW players in NA. So yes the vast majority of WoW players are not MMO veterans. (Playing on Bnet does not make you a MMO veteran). WoW didn't steal away all the MMO players from other games. Time bored them of their current games. I am sorry that you can't see that WoW isn't anything new on the market. It has nothing that compels people to play it over any other game (talking about veteran MMO players) then other MMOs out there. Its biggest success was Advertising and pulling in non MMO players.
What makes you think that another game can't pull in another 1-2 million non mmo players to their game? Just to approximate, 69 % of just american Households play video games. There are over 300 million people in just the US. So a lot of people are playing video games that are a potential customer of these games. After WoW making MMO games more mainstream (showing up on the news, southpark, etc) there is a good chance more of these people will be interested in playing a MMO. The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. So that means that your average gamer is going to know a lot about more games and companies then just blizzard. Most of them will know of EA more then Blizzard since they are console gamers and in the Console gaming world EA has a good reputation. Forty-four percent of game players say they play games online one or more hours per week. That is a significant number of potential MMO players. Given the correct MMO game with the right casual and engaging play and instead of us talking about how WoW is so huge with 8.5million players world wide we will be talking about how game "X" is so huge with hundreds of millions of players worldwide.
Because I don't see MMORPG's being mainstream at all. World of Warcraft is mainsteam, yes, but not MMORPG's. WoW has been out for over 2 years now. But WoW players had no intention to move to other MMORPG's in all that time. we don't see a significant growth in subscribers in other MMORPG's. in fact, they are decreasing (with the exception of EVE, which is doing very well). WoW players aren't intrested in other MMORPG's. over the years, they didn't move to other MMORPG's at all. What I find a good example are the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy is a mega popular console RPG serie, especialy after the release of Final Fantasy 7. People then also yelled "Ohh, Console rpg's are mainstream now!", Yet I have never seen millions of people rushing to the store to pick up Breath of Fire, or Suikoden. Final Fantasy was mainstream, not the RPG genre. I personally think that the same is happening here right now. Its not MMO's that are mainstream, its WoW that is.
WoW is no more mainstream then other Everquest was. All it did was have better advertising and a better pool of potential customers. EQ was ahead of its time not alot of homes had internet much less broadband. I know people who don't play MMO games at all and don't play videogames at all but they have heard of Everquest. Everquest is like Google it has almost become a verb for the genre. And how do you know what WoW players are interested in? No compelling game has come out in the last 2 years that WoW has dominated the market. Vanguard? Please they priced themselves out of most WoW's player's price range. I would venture to say that the vast majority of WoW's players are looking for a new game. I am sorry but with any game after 2 years people are thinking about something new.
The reason why I think Warhammer won't draw as many new people to the genre as WoW, is because WARHAMMER fantasy is a table top game, not a computer game. To draw people to the genre as much as WoW, you need a popular franchise among the people who play computer or video games. Warhammer fantasy does not have the same recognition among pc gamers as Warcraft did. Not only that, but every PC gamer knows Blizzard. Even people who aren't intrested in strategy games know what Warcraft is, have heard about diablo. and they also know the company behind it: Blizzard. How many non-mmorpg gamers know who Mythic is? I'm willing to bet: Nobody. nobody at all. to non-mmorpg gamers, Mythic is a no-name company. Dark age of camelot? never heard of it.
Oh I am sorry EA Mythic, huh no one has heard of them? Having the name of EA infront of Mythic makes them part of the LARGEST Game Developer company in the World. Yes EA is number 1. Every single video gamer in the world has heard of EA. Blizzard can't say that. I am sorry but if we are comparing who has the largest name in the business and can pull people based on that name EA wins hands down. They have the potential to buy the best advertising spots in the Stores. They can advertise with all of their games. Where they sell Millions and Millions of copies of each year. The Madden series alone has sold more copies then 56 million copies. Actually if you combine just two EA games you have more boxes sold then all of Blizzards games ever. Madden and The Sims have sold over 125million boxes.
thats why I don't believe in the 1 million subscriber base of WAR. I'm sure the game will do just fine, and with a genre with this much competition, reaching even 150k subscribers is something to be damn proud of. but being the 3rd largest mmorpg in the world in terms of subscribers? Nah.
If EA takes a similar advertising campaign and advertises with all of their other games they will do a hell of a lot better then 150K subscribers.
Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%).
So I guess we can put to rest that Video Games are for Kids and also that video games are not for Women.
You keep talking about how Blizzard is so known. I am sorry but most gamers don't know who Blizzard is. (and when I say that yes they have prolly heard of Warcraft or Diablo or starcraft, but Blizzard itself doesn't have that name appeal like a Nike or Microsoft or Sony has) But I bet a significant portion of all gamers know who EA is. I would venture to guess in the 80-90% range of video game players know who EA is. Heck even non video game players know who EA is. They see it all the time when they show the Madden Bowl before the Super Bowl. They see the advertisements for the games on TV. They see the ads all over the place. I have never seen a Blizzard ad before WoW came out in a non gaming environment. And even after WoW came out I have never seen a Blizzard ad on Network television. I have seen EA commercials though.
You really underestimate the potential for new customers. It is not like all of the video game players in the world have tried MMOs and only a fraction of them actually enjoyed them. No, there are still hundreds of millions if not close to a billion potential customers in the World to play MMOs. Most of them have never heard of an MMO, much less tried one. Once we see MMO games on consoles more often (and good ones designed to work on the console) then you will see WoW's number as a paltry number.
Also, remember that at E3 WAR was being played behind the scenes and running just as well on an Xbox360. So if they end up releasing it on Consoles it will end up crushing WoW overall.
Lastly you seem to really underestimate the ability of a game like Lord of the rings online to pull in non MMO gamers. The game has a lot more advertisements and a better IP then DDO had so I could easily see it doing a lot better then DDO did. Plus it has the most positive Beta previews and hype of any MMO yet. It could easily pull in EQ1 numbers and I could see it surpassing that since it will pull in a lot of non MMO players. (yes people that WoW couldn't even pull in). I have seen countless posts across the internet of "hey I love Lord of The Rings, wow I can play in that world, sure I think im going to order it and give it a try".
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
They know their only worry is warhammer, AOC imo looks like a flop but hey i could be wrong. But warhammer looks like a fierce mmorpg and it looks it can knock WoW off its throne. I know blizzard has a trump card under their sleeve and that card is northrend. The burning crusade is a very nice and well done xpac they could have did better but the xpac was awesome nonetheless. I have a feeling when blizzard releases a northrend xpac its going to be beyond godly. A new xpac according to blizzard will be released every year so a new xpac would be released the same time war comes out.
Cant wait
I quit wow not long after tbc. It was a very lazy expansion and i felt cheated, i mean blizzard are supposed to have 8million+ subs at $14 a month. Think of the money they are making and all they could give us was more of the same, just another grind. Why didn't they implement a decent crafting system or create player housing or pvp castle sieges or something along those lines. Tbc was a big disappointment for me and they will have to do far better with a new expansion pack for me to re-sub.
Agreed. Probably Warhammer the next big hit. I also left WoW and the terrible feeling of not beeing a customer, just a wallet.
AoC did not keep their release date like planned for earlier this year, and is now expected to come in october. I think they lost alot just because of that. Now they have to compete against Warhammer. Good Luck Funcom. Delaying a game release would probably make your name less appealing to the mmorpg player base.
What we like in an mmorpg is Devs and Mods working close together with gathering information from the playerbase, and make good choices based on serious well put posts on for example a forum or ingame bug/idea poster.
Im so tired of getting screwed by gamecompanies who just want you to open your wallet, then hit you in the face.
They know their only worry is warhammer, AOC imo looks like a flop but hey i could be wrong. But warhammer looks like a fierce mmorpg and it looks it can knock WoW off its throne. I know blizzard has a trump card under their sleeve and that card is northrend. The burning crusade is a very nice and well done xpac they could have did better but the xpac was awesome nonetheless. I have a feeling when blizzard releases a northrend xpac its going to be beyond godly. A new xpac according to blizzard will be released every year so a new xpac would be released the same time war comes out.
Cant wait
I quit wow not long after tbc. It was a very lazy expansion and i felt cheated, i mean blizzard are supposed to have 8million+ subs at $14 a month. Think of the money they are making and all they could give us was more of the same, just another grind. Why didn't they implement a decent crafting system or create player housing or pvp castle sieges or something along those lines. Tbc was a big disappointment for me and they will have to do far better with a new expansion pack for me to re-sub.
Agreed. Probably Warhammer the next big hit. I also left WoW and the terrible feeling of not beeing a customer, just a wallet.
AoC did not keep their release date like planned for earlier this year, and is now expected to come in october. I think they lost alot just because of that. Now they have to compete against Warhammer. Good Luck Funcom. Delaying a game release would probably make your name less appealing to the mmorpg player base.
What we like in an mmorpg is Devs and Mods working close together with gathering information from the playerbase, and make good choices based on serious well put posts on for example a forum or ingame bug/idea poster.
Im so tired of getting screwed by gamecompanies who just want you to open your wallet, then hit you in the face.
I don't think it hurt AoC sales. The main fanbase is there still , just go check out their forums, and if anything it showed that they will not put out a game that is not polished or incomplete. They did the right thing instead of turning into a Vanguard, by releasing it far too early.
WAR is still far away and will likely get pushed back as well. Most MMOs do get pushed back.
You keep talking about how Blizzard is so known. I am sorry but most gamers don't know who Blizzard is. (and when I say that yes they have prolly heard of Warcraft or Diablo or starcraft, but Blizzard itself doesn't have that name appeal like a Nike or Microsoft or Sony has) But I bet a significant portion of all gamers know who EA is. I would venture to guess in the 80-90% range of video game players know who EA is. Heck even non video game players know who EA is. They see it all the time when they show the Madden Bowl before the Super Bowl. They see the advertisements for the games on TV. They see the ads all over the place. I have never seen a Blizzard ad before WoW came out in a non gaming environment. And even after WoW came out I have never seen a Blizzard ad on Network television. I have seen EA commercials though.
Let me assure you that Blizzard is a VERY WELL known company. very well known, there is no question about that. you can't compare it to Mike or Microsoft or Sony, thats an entrely diffrent league. but blizzard is very well known. EA is a big name, But just slapping on an EA Logo is not enough. You see, Blizzard won because it was a well know company comming with an mmorpg of a well known computer game franchise that people directly relate to Blizzard. When you hear Warhammer, nobody will think of EA. Nobody at all. the proof of this is the game Earth & Beyond. nobody bought it just because it said EA, because nobody could relate it to any of EA's existing franchises.
You really underestimate the potential for new customers. It is not like all of the video game players in the world have tried MMOs and only a fraction of them actually enjoyed them. No, there are still hundreds of millions if not close to a billion potential customers in the World to play MMOs. Most of them have never heard of an MMO, much less tried one. Once we see MMO games on consoles more often (and good ones designed to work on the console) then you will see WoW's number as a paltry number.
I think the problem here is that your overestimating the drawing power of WAR. those 1 million people that ignored WoW, why would they all of a sudden be attracted to WAR? Final Fantasy couldn't do it, Star Wars couldn't do it, The Matrix couldn't do it, why would they all of a sudden play WAR now?
Also, remember that at E3 WAR was being played behind the scenes and running just as well on an Xbox360. So if they end up releasing it on Consoles it will end up crushing WoW overall.
Yeah, because everybody knows releasing on consoles = instant win, just like Everquest online adventures completely crushed WoW, and just like Final Fantasy XI completely crushed WoW after it was released on Playstation 2 and Xbox360....
I'm sure Id on't have to tell you the above was sarcasm. Consoles is not an instant win.
Lastly you seem to really underestimate the ability of a game like Lord of the rings online to pull in non MMO gamers. The game has a lot more advertisements and a better IP then DDO had so I could easily see it doing a lot better then DDO did. Plus it has the most positive Beta previews and hype of any MMO yet. It could easily pull in EQ1 numbers and I could see it surpassing that since it will pull in a lot of non MMO players. (yes people that WoW couldn't even pull in). I have seen countless posts across the internet of "hey I love Lord of The Rings, wow I can play in that world, sure I think im going to order it and give it a try".
And what makes you say that I understimate the ability of a game like Lotro to pull non mmo gamers? I ask for serious evidence that hints games like Lotro and WAR will bring in a serious amount of gamers. Star Wars couldn't, The Matrix couldn't do it either. Dungeons & Dragons didn't do the trick either.
Because more people are getting into MMOs now and WoW is getting old and boring. How did Vanguard get 150k copies sold? The game is horrible but for some reason people went out and bought it, and WAR and LOTRO are way better known. Especially LOTRO with books and movies. Vanguard was not known at all just some internet hype. This leads me to believe that if 150k people went out and bought a copy of Vanguard with no story or original fanbase behind it, WAR, AoC, and LOTRO will have no problem bringing in subscribers.
I don't see many more people into MMO's at all. I see more people into WoW, yes, but not into MMORPG's at all.
Oh, and you forgot one tiny little fact...WoW is getting old and boring, FOR YOU. but not for other people.
and once more, Vanguard is horrible IN YOUR OPINION, but your opinion is not fact. just because you find it horrible, doesn't mean someone else finds it horrible. there is such a thing as thinking "Hey, maybe the game is just not for me?", you should try it.
Also, from what I heard, it was only around 100k copies sold. but that is just copies sold, not subscribers. nobody knows the current subscriber base of Vanguard. Everybody that wanted to play Vanguard already owns vanguard, now its just wait and see how the people who weren't part of the pre-release hype react to it. first month sales doesn't say that much about subscribers.
And let me assure you that the hype regarding vanguard easily rivals the current hype of WAR.
Nope, 150k copies sold, the problem was people on the Vanguard board thinking that it was 150k subs. Also, yes WoW got old to me. It is my opinion. Your opinion is that AoC WAR and LOTRO won't hit 1mil subs. You are just as wrong as me, and that was my point.
Your opinion is not a fact and you do not talk to all these people who play to know what they are thinking. When you stop stating opinions I will too. Notice how you are the only one defending WoW hardcore?
Does everyone go by hearsay these days? Vanguard is doing better then people said it would.. End of story. As to the topic of this thread, blizzard making an actual expansion that will be praised? Playing a troll really got to you didn't it? Going by reviews ect, ect, ect, does not make a game "good" one bit! Playing it for yourself does. WoW is old news and so are thier 2 year expansions. If you want to waste thread space, why not make it something of now; today.. not then. New job opening: Forum Therapist. Seems to be really needed now adays.
Nope, 150k copies sold, the problem was people on the Vanguard board thinking that it was 150k subs. Also, yes WoW got old to me. It is my opinion. Your opinion is that AoC WAR and LOTRO won't hit 1mil subs. You are just as wrong as me, and that was my point. Your opinion is not a fact and you do not talk to all these people who play to know what they are thinking. When you stop stating opinions I will too. Notice how you are the only one defending WoW hardcore?
You missed my point completely. Your arguement to "prove" Wow would be losing subscribers is that the game got old for you. makes very little sense. My opinion is indeed that AoC, WAR and Lotro won't hit 1 million subs, an arguement of which I'm 100% confident will be proven right once those games are out and running for a while.
Common sense is that if people find WoW old and boring, they will quit. nobody in their right mind pays 15$ a month for something they don't enjoy, thats rediculous. Ofcourse I'm the only one defending WoW hardcore, From my experience on this website for a number of years now, everyone will join at the same bandwagon. The current bandwagon is: WoW totally sucks, and WAR/AOC will be the next big things. since recently, now also Lotro has been added to the "Next big thing" list.
Playing WoW has been something to be ashamed of on this website, its rediculous.
I enjoy having a good debate, and if I enjoy defending the game I like in a debate, then what exactly is the problem?. if my posts annoy you, you are fully free to block me.
Those users are either just playing because they are close to their guild and/or they are wanting to playing something until other games come out. I do not see how you can honestly think that WoW will not lose some users to ANY MMORPGS coming out this year. It does not have to be LOTRO or WAR, but any mmo.
Comments
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
also, comparing it to movies is silly. a movie is something people watch for an hour or two and thats it. but MMORPG's are what people playing now. When WAR will be released, WoW won't be past, WoW will be here, now, present, and directly competing with WAR.
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW?
It has more to do with customers being bored of current gen MMOs than it does with Blizzard. If people are tired of the game they will leave it. They can add new things and create new races for the game but if people just want a change of scenary it does not matter what bliz does. The reason I left WoW was because it became too repetative, too fast. PvP just comes down to I have tier 4 while you are in blues and greens.
Age of Conan is trying something different and if you head to their forums they have already built up quite the fan base. This alone leads me to believe that 500k won't be difficult for them to reach soon after launch. Especially if you pre-order it, you get a new fresh MMO with a different style of combat for 10 bucks a month instead of your typical 15.
1: My house
2: My future wife
3: My future kids
4: My entire bank account
5: The rest that is left
That your wrong.
I'm sure Blizzard doesn't worry about Warhammer. why would they? Blizzard is going 8,5 million subscribers strong, and its STILL growing. Why would they fear a company that peaked at 250k subscribers with its game?
But I too am confident that the next WoW expansion will be well worth it. I'm satisfied with Burning Crusade so far.WAR is a great challenger no discussion there. The winner isn't the one with the most amount of subscribers, WoW is the biggest bomb on that front ever. But WAR I know will be the next big thing that people will talk about.
I don't expect all too many to switch from WoW to WAR because WoW is a game on it's own and there are sooo many fanboys playing it who have put too much time in it they wouldn't ever dream of leaving it. No matter what game that comes.
No matter what happends WAR will not have a positive impact for Blizzard. Since they indeed are going to loose subscribers.Ofcourse the winner is the one with the most subscribers. when talking about the "Big thing" in a franchise, it means the game that is the most popular, the most played, and the one that received the most media attention, and WAR will be neither of those. WAR is not a challenger. Fantasy Warhammer setting isn't that popular among video gamers. WAR doesn't have the franchise of Warhammer, and Mythic doesn't have the company recognition of Blizzard. Millions of gamers were actually VERY excited about the announcement of the new alliance race in the Burning Crusade. Loads of gamers were waiting for blizzard to open its mouth and say which race will join the alliance. Only very few people cared when Mythic announced the races.
WAR will do fine, no doubt about that. I'm sure they will reach a nice 150k~250k subscribers, if not a few more. But it will always live in the shadow of World of Warcraft, just like every other MMORPG out there.
I'm sorry Gameloading, but I think you're wrong on this one. You underestimate the power of good PvP. WoW's pvp = completely meaningless shit. Warhammer's PvP should be awesome coming from the makers of a great PvP game (DAoC). I'd be willing to bet a paycheck Warhammer will grab at least 1 million subscribers and you can quote this later if ya want.
But what games do we actually consider good PVP? Ultima Online and Dark age of Camelot were both considered good pvp games, and neither of them ever got above 250k subscribers. Only Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 were very successfull pvp games, and thats because of the success in asia. to my knowledge, Mythic doesn't even have plans for a WAR in asia. I don't really understand why you predict WARHAMMER will grab 1 million subscribers, you (and many others, not to just pick on you) act like its completely normal for an MMORPG to reach 1 million subscribers. Out of all those MMORPG's, only 3 of them ever made it above 1 million subscribers. thats WoW, Lineage and Lineage 2. No other. Even a game like Everquest back then, only capped at 400k ~ 500k subscribers. Your fully free to disagree with me, many people do.You must be new to MMO's because back when DAoC was in it prime 250k subs was a huge amount of people for a PvP game, consider the number game at the time was EQ with 500k sub, coming in as the second largest MMO with 250k subs wasn't a bad thing. Your comparing Apples and Oranges please next time made a valid argument instead of just talking out of your ass.
Did you actually read my post or did you just felt the need to make a rediculous reply? Guess what: 250k subs and 500k subs is still a big amount for an MMORPG. that number hasn't changed. Apart from WoW, Lineage and Lineage 2, no other MMORPG is above the 1 million mark. in fact, no other mmorpg is above the 500k subscriber mark. it is a VERY valid arguement, maybe you should re-read it again.
Getting 1 million subs ISN'T HARD, all you need to do is appeal to the Asian market, which WoW did and is the ONLY reason WoW has become so poplar. Most of those 8 millions subs WoW fanboi's love to pull out of their asses when bashing a game come from Asia. The rest come from new ignorant MMO players, and B.net kiddies.
http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml
IRVINE, Calif. – January 11, 2007 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that World of Warcraft®, its subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), is now played by more than 8 million gamers around the world. World of Warcraft has also achieved new regional subscriber milestones, with more than 2 million players in North America, more than 1.5 million players in Europe, and more than 3.5 million players in China.
only 3,5 million of those players are in China, and 3,5 million people are in NA and Europe, that leaves 1,5 million spread across the rest of the world (because the current subscriber base is 8,5 million, this is an old press release). While I'm sure most of those 1,5 million are from Korea, we see here that the amount of people in the east playing WoW isn't that much bigger then the ones in the west. While I'm sure many players are completely new to the genre, I am also sure many of them are from other MMORPG's. I say this because I see a big decrease in most other MMO's subscriber after the release of WoW, especialy Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2Originally posted by DuraheLL
Originally posted by Gameloading
I doubt WAR will receive the same score as WoW. Mythic has never been able to rival Blizzard in terms of quality.
Maybe in your opinion Mythic has a greater reputation then blizzard, but the general gaming community doesn't agree with you by a long shot. Blizzard has always been known for its high quality RTS games. Starcraft and Warcraft are considered the national sports in Korea for crying out loud, and Blizzards reputation went through the roof with World of Warcraft.
Also, I wat not talking about the fantasy genre, I was talking about Warhammers fantasy setting.
I may sound like a Mythic hater, but honnestly, I'm not. I'm also curious the direction which they are going with WAR. but at the same time, I will also stay realistic. Warhammer is extremely popular. The tabletop game. So was WarCraft the strategy game.
Warhammer is said to have sold about 90 million units per year! You can imagine how many people who play it then.
I don't really understand why you go on and say stuff like "Mythic has never been able to rival Blizzard in terms of quality". Does that mean that they cannot succeed now? And I truly think DAOC is an extremely well done game and for it's time it was pretty advanced indeed.
WAR will be a huge bomb, and a success to that. Nothing indicates otherwise IMO. I doubt that when it comes, it's gonna be seen as a "worse game than WoW". I think that when people will ask which game they're gonna play people will mostly responce with WAR and WoW.
Exactly. TABLETOP game. not Computer or Video game. Dungeons & Dragons is also a widely popular tabletop game, yet we don't see D&DO reaching 1 million, or even 100k, subscribers either. and that really isn't because D&DO is such a horrible game. D&DO received pretty good ratings.
Ofcourse it doesn't mean that they cannot succeed now, But the past of Mythic is good, but not as good as Blizzards. DAOC is fine game, but it can't match the quality of World of Warcraft.
If you consider 150k~250k subscribers a huge bomb, then sure. But I doubt it will be much bigger then that. I can give you some indications that will show you that WAR won't be super successfull. Most MMORPG's released after the release of WoW is doing "bad" to "okay". Look at Auto Assault. ArchLord. Dungeons & Dragons Online. the only one that is really doing okay after the release of WoW is Vanguard. A lot of MMORPG's lost subscribers after WoW. Everquest. FFXI. DAOC, and especialy Lineage and Lineage 2 received a heavy downfall in subscribers.
Then there are a whole load of MMORPG's comming out, splitting up the Non-WoW MMORPG players even further.
WoW is hurting the mmorpg market. badly.
Quality of Warcraft? I consider that an insult to MMO dev's everywhere Mythic made there game from the ground up, and I have a lot of respect for them because of it. All WoW did was rip off other games! WoW did nothing new, or special they just copied everyone elses work.
That was exactly the goal of World of Warcraft. Remove everything that wasn't fun in the developers eyes, and the result is an extremely well made game. Also Mythic didn't build the game from the ground up, Mythic was inspired by Everquest, but wanted to focus more on PVP.
Indications that WAR won't be super successfull? because crappy games like Vanguard and D&DO failed? I'm sure it had nothing to do with the games or there content or there developers! WoW made those games crappy! Show me ONE game that failed with a decent amount of hype and a good game company behind it? Oh wait you can't because it hasn't happend yet.
They are only crappy in your opinion, but most reviewers are going to have to disagree with you. Vanguard was one of the most hyped games. the game company behind Vanguard had Brad Mcqaid and ex-Everquest developers on them.
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW? I believe a big number came from Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2, as those are all mmorpg that lost a lot of subscribers after the release of WoW. Many of them are new players, because Blizzard already had a very established user base with its other pc games, which Warhammer fantasy setting does not have. And ofcourse the very high quality of the game caused some worth of mouth hype.
You need to talk apples and oranges with respec to subscribers from NA/EU and China. Two completely different types of players. Who has a good number for NA/EU? 2.5 million? From what I have read the Asian market does not pay $15 per month. They pay as they play at a relatively lower rate than us westerners.
I gave BC a shot and it really fell short on the fun meter after a month. Faction grinds, excessive reliance on consumables, and pretty much the same MOBS with pretty new colors that have more hit points and hit harder doesnt cut it for me.
Even with all the bugs in Vanguard I am enjoying it way more than I would in WoW. Such a massive world with very fun classes and real crafting. Please never consider WoW crafting anything more than kiddie crafting. It offers no challenge.
I dont see WoW becoming any more challenging. The expansions will offer pretty much the same with new levels and new pretty colors. It will still be the best family MMO for awhile and offer a considerable entertainment value. Hopefully Blizzard has started work on its newest MMO. Upcoming MMOs like AoC and WAR are going to put a dent in NA/EU WoW, but boredom will probably take a big toll. Before BC release I gave the expansion 6 months of enjoyment. Having gotten bored in one month says alot for my hopes and expectations.
Personally I am going to stick wtih Vanguard for the near term. I like the community I have found there and the massive world. WoW had no community beyond guilds for the most part and I think that is what keeps my long term interest. The added benefit is we have very few leet wow kids there
I think AOC and WAR will have too many. Maybe LOTR will become better, but when I played it the classes were just missing something and the crafting is the same as WoW.
Triston Master Carbine/Master Swords (SWG Eclipse)
Triston 29 Warden (EQ2 Permafrost)
Weland 70 Hunter (WoW Hellscream)
Suidan 36 Cleric (Vanguard Flamehammer)
Suidan 50 Champion (LOTR Gladden)
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW? I believe a big number came from Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2, as those are all mmorpg that lost a lot of subscribers after the release of WoW. Many of them are new players, because Blizzard already had a very established user base with its other pc games, which Warhammer fantasy setting does not have. And ofcourse the very high quality of the game caused some worth of mouth hype. Most of WoW's Players came from no MMOs at all. Looking at MMOGchart.com (which isn't the most reliable source of course) no game lost significant subscriptions due to WoW coming out. When WoW came out both Everquest 1 and FFXI were at 550K. 1 year later FFXI (and this is 1 year after WoW being out) was at 650K and EQ1 was at 450K (6 years after the game came out). Actually the only games that had a decrease in their Subscriptions (other then EQ2) were 2-3 years old or more already. So out of the 8.5 Million people WoW has maybe 1-2 million of them total world wide were previous MMO players and that is really being generous.
What makes you think that another game can't pull in another 1-2 million non mmo players to their game? Just to approximate, 69 % of just american Households play video games. There are over 300 million people in just the US. So a lot of people are playing video games that are a potential customer of these games. After WoW making MMO games more mainstream (showing up on the news, southpark, etc) there is a good chance more of these people will be interested in playing a MMO. The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. So that means that your average gamer is going to know a lot about more games and companies then just blizzard. Most of them will know of EA more then Blizzard since they are console gamers and in the Console gaming world EA has a good reputation. Forty-four percent of game players say they play games online one or more hours per week. That is a significant number of potential MMO players. Given the correct MMO game with the right casual and engaging play and instead of us talking about how WoW is so huge with 8.5million players world wide we will be talking about how game "X" is so huge with hundreds of millions of players worldwide.
All of those stats in there came from here:
http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php
An interesting side note:
Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%).
So I guess we can put to rest that Video Games are for Kids and also that video games are not for Women.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW? I believe a big number came from Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2, as those are all mmorpg that lost a lot of subscribers after the release of WoW. Many of them are new players, because Blizzard already had a very established user base with its other pc games, which Warhammer fantasy setting does not have. And ofcourse the very high quality of the game caused some worth of mouth hype. Most of WoW's Players came from no MMOs at all. Looking at MMOGchart.com (which isn't the most reliable source of course) no game lost significant subscriptions due to WoW coming out. When WoW came out both Everquest 1 and FFXI were at 550K. 1 year later FFXI (and this is 1 year after WoW being out) was at 650K and EQ1 was at 450K (6 years after the game came out). Actually the only games that had a decrease in their Subscriptions (other then EQ2) were 2-3 years old or more already. So out of the 8.5 Million people WoW has maybe 1-2 million of them total world wide were previous MMO players and that is really being generous.
If you further follow the line, you will see the more popular WoW becomes, the more subscribers FFXI,Everquest and Everquest 2 lose it didn't happen RIGHT AWAY, which is no surprise as rome wasn't build in 1 day, but the more popular WoW became, the more subscribers those games lost. 1 ~ 2 million of them could be people that played other MMO's before, its no secret that WoW brought in a lot of new players. even still, there is no mmorpg besides WoW that currently has more then 1.5 million subscribers. that would mean that WoW roughly has 1,5 million veterans playing, which is more subscribers then any other mmorpg,
What makes you think that another game can't pull in another 1-2 million non mmo players to their game? Just to approximate, 69 % of just american Households play video games. There are over 300 million people in just the US. So a lot of people are playing video games that are a potential customer of these games. After WoW making MMO games more mainstream (showing up on the news, southpark, etc) there is a good chance more of these people will be interested in playing a MMO. The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. So that means that your average gamer is going to know a lot about more games and companies then just blizzard. Most of them will know of EA more then Blizzard since they are console gamers and in the Console gaming world EA has a good reputation. Forty-four percent of game players say they play games online one or more hours per week. That is a significant number of potential MMO players. Given the correct MMO game with the right casual and engaging play and instead of us talking about how WoW is so huge with 8.5million players world wide we will be talking about how game "X" is so huge with hundreds of millions of players worldwide.
Because I don't see MMORPG's being mainstream at all. World of Warcraft is mainsteam, yes, but not MMORPG's. WoW has been out for over 2 years now. But WoW players had no intention to move to other MMORPG's in all that time. we don't see a significant growth in subscribers in other MMORPG's. in fact, they are decreasing (with the exception of EVE, which is doing very well). WoW players aren't intrested in other MMORPG's. over the years, they didn't move to other MMORPG's at all. What I find a good example are the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy is a mega popular console RPG serie, especialy after the release of Final Fantasy 7. People then also yelled "Ohh, Console rpg's are mainstream now!", Yet I have never seen millions of people rushing to the store to pick up Breath of Fire, or Suikoden. Final Fantasy was mainstream, not the RPG genre. I personally think that the same is happening here right now. Its not MMO's that are mainstream, its WoW that is.
The reason why I think Warhammer won't draw as many new people to the genre as WoW, is because WARHAMMER fantasy is a table top game, not a computer game. To draw people to the genre as much as WoW, you need a popular franchise among the people who play computer or video games. Warhammer fantasy does not have the same recognition among pc gamers as Warcraft did. Not only that, but every PC gamer knows Blizzard. Even people who aren't intrested in strategy games know what Warcraft is, have heard about diablo. and they also know the company behind it: Blizzard. How many non-mmorpg gamers know who Mythic is? I'm willing to bet: Nobody. nobody at all. to non-mmorpg gamers, Mythic is a no-name company. Dark age of camelot? never heard of it.
thats why I don't believe in the 1 million subscriber base of WAR. I'm sure the game will do just fine, and with a genre with this much competition, reaching even 150k subscribers is something to be damn proud of. but being the 3rd largest mmorpg in the world in terms of subscribers? Nah.
All of those stats in there came from here:
http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php
An interesting side note:
Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%).
So I guess we can put to rest that Video Games are for Kids and also that video games are not for Women.
I played MUDs back in the early 90s and my first real MMO was RO. I don't claim to be an old school MMORPGer, but
I've played quite a few MMOs over the past year.
I don't think you should give D2 players a bad name. Most of the WoW players in my guilds were either first time MMO players or their first MMO was CoH or DAoC. Most people that try MMOs will try WoW first, until something else with broad appeal comes along.
In the past MMOs were niche games. I think that MMOs will improve, but I don't think we will see a ground breaking MMO until 2010.
First of all, I'm sick of hearing "You only say that because you love WoW!". its rediculous. I wasn't even playing WoW anymore untill a few days ago, yet I have been saying this for weeks now. The reason I say these things is because I find many flaws in the "WAR will have 1 ~ 2 million subscribers!" arguement. The reason I bring WoW into this is because you can't talk about such large subscribtion numbers without bringing WoW, simple as that. If WAR reaches 1~2 million subscribers, they have to come from somewhere. and that somewhere is WoW, Because in the west, (and also the east, but as WAR won't have ane eastern service, I will leave it out) WoW rules the mmorpg scene right now. The whole MMORPG industry rests on World of Warcraft and Blizzard. if Blizzard makes a right move, other games will lose even more players, and it will be even harder for new MMO's to capture some ground. if Blizzard makes a bad move, WoW will lose more players, and other games will gain more players.
When debating something as big as a game reaching 1 ~ 2 million subscribers, you can't leave WoW out of it. its impossible.
what MMORPG did the 8+ million leave to come to WoW? I believe a big number came from Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage and Lineage 2, as those are all mmorpg that lost a lot of subscribers after the release of WoW. Many of them are new players, because Blizzard already had a very established user base with its other pc games, which Warhammer fantasy setting does not have. And ofcourse the very high quality of the game caused some worth of mouth hype. Most of WoW's Players came from no MMOs at all. Looking at MMOGchart.com (which isn't the most reliable source of course) no game lost significant subscriptions due to WoW coming out. When WoW came out both Everquest 1 and FFXI were at 550K. 1 year later FFXI (and this is 1 year after WoW being out) was at 650K and EQ1 was at 450K (6 years after the game came out). Actually the only games that had a decrease in their Subscriptions (other then EQ2) were 2-3 years old or more already. So out of the 8.5 Million people WoW has maybe 1-2 million of them total world wide were previous MMO players and that is really being generous.
If you further follow the line, you will see the more popular WoW becomes, the more subscribers FFXI,Everquest and Everquest 2 lose it didn't happen RIGHT AWAY, which is no surprise as rome wasn't build in 1 day, but the more popular WoW became, the more subscribers those games lost. 1 ~ 2 million of them could be people that played other MMO's before, its no secret that WoW brought in a lot of new players. even still, there is no mmorpg besides WoW that currently has more then 1.5 million subscribers. that would mean that WoW roughly has 1,5 million veterans playing, which is more subscribers then any other mmorpg,
It is impossible for WoW to have 1.5 Million NA veterans playing their game. Unless those people are still subscribed to other MMOs currently. Which blows your WoW players love WoW and aren't interested in playing other games. There aren't enough MMO veterans to add up to the number of WoW players in NA. So yes the vast majority of WoW players are not MMO veterans. (Playing on Bnet does not make you a MMO veteran). WoW didn't steal away all the MMO players from other games. Time bored them of their current games. I am sorry that you can't see that WoW isn't anything new on the market. It has nothing that compels people to play it over any other game (talking about veteran MMO players) then other MMOs out there. Its biggest success was Advertising and pulling in non MMO players.
What makes you think that another game can't pull in another 1-2 million non mmo players to their game? Just to approximate, 69 % of just american Households play video games. There are over 300 million people in just the US. So a lot of people are playing video games that are a potential customer of these games. After WoW making MMO games more mainstream (showing up on the news, southpark, etc) there is a good chance more of these people will be interested in playing a MMO. The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. So that means that your average gamer is going to know a lot about more games and companies then just blizzard. Most of them will know of EA more then Blizzard since they are console gamers and in the Console gaming world EA has a good reputation. Forty-four percent of game players say they play games online one or more hours per week. That is a significant number of potential MMO players. Given the correct MMO game with the right casual and engaging play and instead of us talking about how WoW is so huge with 8.5million players world wide we will be talking about how game "X" is so huge with hundreds of millions of players worldwide.
Because I don't see MMORPG's being mainstream at all. World of Warcraft is mainsteam, yes, but not MMORPG's. WoW has been out for over 2 years now. But WoW players had no intention to move to other MMORPG's in all that time. we don't see a significant growth in subscribers in other MMORPG's. in fact, they are decreasing (with the exception of EVE, which is doing very well). WoW players aren't intrested in other MMORPG's. over the years, they didn't move to other MMORPG's at all. What I find a good example are the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy is a mega popular console RPG serie, especialy after the release of Final Fantasy 7. People then also yelled "Ohh, Console rpg's are mainstream now!", Yet I have never seen millions of people rushing to the store to pick up Breath of Fire, or Suikoden. Final Fantasy was mainstream, not the RPG genre. I personally think that the same is happening here right now. Its not MMO's that are mainstream, its WoW that is.
WoW is no more mainstream then other Everquest was. All it did was have better advertising and a better pool of potential customers. EQ was ahead of its time not alot of homes had internet much less broadband. I know people who don't play MMO games at all and don't play videogames at all but they have heard of Everquest. Everquest is like Google it has almost become a verb for the genre. And how do you know what WoW players are interested in? No compelling game has come out in the last 2 years that WoW has dominated the market. Vanguard? Please they priced themselves out of most WoW's player's price range. I would venture to say that the vast majority of WoW's players are looking for a new game. I am sorry but with any game after 2 years people are thinking about something new.
The reason why I think Warhammer won't draw as many new people to the genre as WoW, is because WARHAMMER fantasy is a table top game, not a computer game. To draw people to the genre as much as WoW, you need a popular franchise among the people who play computer or video games. Warhammer fantasy does not have the same recognition among pc gamers as Warcraft did. Not only that, but every PC gamer knows Blizzard. Even people who aren't intrested in strategy games know what Warcraft is, have heard about diablo. and they also know the company behind it: Blizzard. How many non-mmorpg gamers know who Mythic is? I'm willing to bet: Nobody. nobody at all. to non-mmorpg gamers, Mythic is a no-name company. Dark age of camelot? never heard of it.
Oh I am sorry EA Mythic, huh no one has heard of them? Having the name of EA infront of Mythic makes them part of the LARGEST Game Developer company in the World. Yes EA is number 1. Every single video gamer in the world has heard of EA. Blizzard can't say that. I am sorry but if we are comparing who has the largest name in the business and can pull people based on that name EA wins hands down. They have the potential to buy the best advertising spots in the Stores. They can advertise with all of their games. Where they sell Millions and Millions of copies of each year. The Madden series alone has sold more copies then 56 million copies. Actually if you combine just two EA games you have more boxes sold then all of Blizzards games ever. Madden and The Sims have sold over 125million boxes.
thats why I don't believe in the 1 million subscriber base of WAR. I'm sure the game will do just fine, and with a genre with this much competition, reaching even 150k subscribers is something to be damn proud of. but being the 3rd largest mmorpg in the world in terms of subscribers? Nah.
If EA takes a similar advertising campaign and advertises with all of their other games they will do a hell of a lot better then 150K subscribers.
All of those stats in there came from here:
http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php
An interesting side note:
Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%).
So I guess we can put to rest that Video Games are for Kids and also that video games are not for Women.
You keep talking about how Blizzard is so known. I am sorry but most gamers don't know who Blizzard is. (and when I say that yes they have prolly heard of Warcraft or Diablo or starcraft, but Blizzard itself doesn't have that name appeal like a Nike or Microsoft or Sony has) But I bet a significant portion of all gamers know who EA is. I would venture to guess in the 80-90% range of video game players know who EA is. Heck even non video game players know who EA is. They see it all the time when they show the Madden Bowl before the Super Bowl. They see the advertisements for the games on TV. They see the ads all over the place. I have never seen a Blizzard ad before WoW came out in a non gaming environment. And even after WoW came out I have never seen a Blizzard ad on Network television. I have seen EA commercials though.
You really underestimate the potential for new customers. It is not like all of the video game players in the world have tried MMOs and only a fraction of them actually enjoyed them. No, there are still hundreds of millions if not close to a billion potential customers in the World to play MMOs. Most of them have never heard of an MMO, much less tried one. Once we see MMO games on consoles more often (and good ones designed to work on the console) then you will see WoW's number as a paltry number.
Also, remember that at E3 WAR was being played behind the scenes and running just as well on an Xbox360. So if they end up releasing it on Consoles it will end up crushing WoW overall.
Lastly you seem to really underestimate the ability of a game like Lord of the rings online to pull in non MMO gamers. The game has a lot more advertisements and a better IP then DDO had so I could easily see it doing a lot better then DDO did. Plus it has the most positive Beta previews and hype of any MMO yet. It could easily pull in EQ1 numbers and I could see it surpassing that since it will pull in a lot of non MMO players. (yes people that WoW couldn't even pull in). I have seen countless posts across the internet of "hey I love Lord of The Rings, wow I can play in that world, sure I think im going to order it and give it a try".
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Agreed. Probably Warhammer the next big hit. I also left WoW and the terrible feeling of not beeing a customer, just a wallet.
AoC did not keep their release date like planned for earlier this year, and is now expected to come in october. I think they lost alot just because of that. Now they have to compete against Warhammer. Good Luck Funcom. Delaying a game release would probably make your name less appealing to the mmorpg player base.
What we like in an mmorpg is Devs and Mods working close together with gathering information from the playerbase, and make good choices based on serious well put posts on for example a forum or ingame bug/idea poster.
Im so tired of getting screwed by gamecompanies who just want you to open your wallet, then hit you in the face.
Agreed. Probably Warhammer the next big hit. I also left WoW and the terrible feeling of not beeing a customer, just a wallet.
AoC did not keep their release date like planned for earlier this year, and is now expected to come in october. I think they lost alot just because of that. Now they have to compete against Warhammer. Good Luck Funcom. Delaying a game release would probably make your name less appealing to the mmorpg player base.
What we like in an mmorpg is Devs and Mods working close together with gathering information from the playerbase, and make good choices based on serious well put posts on for example a forum or ingame bug/idea poster.
Im so tired of getting screwed by gamecompanies who just want you to open your wallet, then hit you in the face.
I don't think it hurt AoC sales. The main fanbase is there still , just go check out their forums, and if anything it showed that they will not put out a game that is not polished or incomplete. They did the right thing instead of turning into a Vanguard, by releasing it far too early.
WAR is still far away and will likely get pushed back as well. Most MMOs do get pushed back.
Oh, and you forgot one tiny little fact...WoW is getting old and boring, FOR YOU. but not for other people.
and once more, Vanguard is horrible IN YOUR OPINION, but your opinion is not fact. just because you find it horrible, doesn't mean someone else finds it horrible. there is such a thing as thinking "Hey, maybe the game is just not for me?", you should try it.
Also, from what I heard, it was only around 100k copies sold. but that is just copies sold, not subscribers. nobody knows the current subscriber base of Vanguard. Everybody that wanted to play Vanguard already owns vanguard, now its just wait and see how the people who weren't part of the pre-release hype react to it. first month sales doesn't say that much about subscribers.
And let me assure you that the hype regarding vanguard easily rivals the current hype of WAR.
Nope, 150k copies sold, the problem was people on the Vanguard board thinking that it was 150k subs. Also, yes WoW got old to me. It is my opinion. Your opinion is that AoC WAR and LOTRO won't hit 1mil subs. You are just as wrong as me, and that was my point.
Your opinion is not a fact and you do not talk to all these people who play to know what they are thinking. When you stop stating opinions I will too. Notice how you are the only one defending WoW hardcore?
Common sense is that if people find WoW old and boring, they will quit. nobody in their right mind pays 15$ a month for something they don't enjoy, thats rediculous. Ofcourse I'm the only one defending WoW hardcore, From my experience on this website for a number of years now, everyone will join at the same bandwagon. The current bandwagon is: WoW totally sucks, and WAR/AOC will be the next big things. since recently, now also Lotro has been added to the "Next big thing" list.
Playing WoW has been something to be ashamed of on this website, its rediculous.