Just want to chime in because even though you make a good point, there is a flaw as well. BWP profited $140 million (we'll just ignore the costs) but it still isn't as successful as the super big budget movies like say The Dark Knight that just broke $500 million. Even taking away the production costs, TDK made a bigger profit. Significantly bigger. And that's what we're talking about. No one is saying you can't be profitable but if you want to compete with WoW, then you have to see where the bar it set. WoW is the Titantic and TDK of MMOs. You won't beat it with a low budget, no matter how good the hype. At the same time a large budget doesn't guarantee success. We're not talking about other MMOs. Jacobs used WoW specifically as a comparison. 500K subs is great but it doesn't compare to 11 million. Blair Witch was great but no one compares it to the Titanic in terms of success because they are in totally completely different leagues. That being said, I still think the only MMO that can beat WoW is WoW. It has to self destruct.
WoW only really has 5 mil subs. 6 mil are Asian, and once WAR becomes a fad in China, they'll all immigrate there.
And no, if enough people wake up from their addiction to WoW and realize that it's not all that great, i'm sure we'll see millions flooding over to WAR. It's all a matter of advertising. If all people knew as much as I did about WAR, they'd all switch like myself.
Just want to chime in because even though you make a good point, there is a flaw as well. BWP profited $140 million (we'll just ignore the costs) but it still isn't as successful as the super big budget movies like say The Dark Knight that just broke $500 million. Even taking away the production costs, TDK made a bigger profit. Significantly bigger. And that's what we're talking about. No one is saying you can't be profitable but if you want to compete with WoW, then you have to see where the bar it set. WoW is the Titantic and TDK of MMOs. You won't beat it with a low budget, no matter how good the hype. At the same time a large budget doesn't guarantee success. We're not talking about other MMOs. Jacobs used WoW specifically as a comparison. 500K subs is great but it doesn't compare to 11 million. Blair Witch was great but no one compares it to the Titanic in terms of success because they are in totally completely different leagues. That being said, I still think the only MMO that can beat WoW is WoW. It has to self destruct.
ok, lets say Warhammer is Dark Knight, it had a budget of $185,000,000, and its on the way to earn more gross than Spiderman 3 (wow) which was the most expensive movie ever with a budget of $258,000,000. See where im going?
Jurassic Park had a budget of 63 million, and earned almost a billion $, btw
Sadly, the more it costs to "compete", the more likely well see more Orcs and Elves in the future.
Until KOTOR mmo comes out, most of these newer mmo's are based on licenses that have already been developed over time and featured orcs and elves and the "natural" fantasy settings... Even if they would have went with the 40k universe, it features orcs and elves..lol..
Just want to chime in because even though you make a good point, there is a flaw as well. BWP profited $140 million (we'll just ignore the costs) but it still isn't as successful as the super big budget movies like say The Dark Knight that just broke $500 million. Even taking away the production costs, TDK made a bigger profit. Significantly bigger. And that's what we're talking about. No one is saying you can't be profitable but if you want to compete with WoW, then you have to see where the bar it set. WoW is the Titantic and TDK of MMOs. You won't beat it with a low budget, no matter how good the hype. At the same time a large budget doesn't guarantee success. We're not talking about other MMOs. Jacobs used WoW specifically as a comparison. 500K subs is great but it doesn't compare to 11 million. Blair Witch was great but no one compares it to the Titanic in terms of success because they are in totally completely different leagues. That being said, I still think the only MMO that can beat WoW is WoW. It has to self destruct.
ok, lets say Warhammer is Dark Knight, it had a budget of $185,000,000, and its on the way to earn more gross than Spiderman 3 (wow) which was the most expensive movie ever with a budget of $258,000,000. See where im going?
Jurassic Park had a budget of 63 million, and earned almost a billion $, btw
What I am saying is, if you are going to do comparisons, you need to use the appropriate comparisons. WoW is the king of the hill when it comes to MMOs. WoW is Titanic, the biggest grossing movie ever. In the world.
WoW wouldn't be classified as Spiderman 3. It's Titanic. To beat Titanic, you're gonna need a ton of money and great work. The context of the story isn't about how to make a good game. The context of the story is how you can compete or beat WoW.
And as much as Jurassic Park made, it still falls in the shadow of Titanic.
I also want to add, Titanic is a great comparison to WoW. Not the best movie. Mediocre at best but it knew its audience and gave them what they wanted with polished production values.
Every company there have tired somthing new with there mmo's have fallen so far. Take a look on these mmo's!. - Age of Conan
- Auto Assualt
- Fury
- Hellgate: London
- Tabula Rasa All of these have fallen within a year. Then you can ask why?.
What would you speculate about LOTRO?
LOTRO has as far as I seen got good to very good reception both in reviews and on forums. Ok that there are people that whine about LOTRO. I would say that LOTRO is that geek, nice and all, every mother in laws dream. That gets the shortest draw from girls.
It is a welldone game but still it is not competing with WoW.
Just want to chime in because even though you make a good point, there is a flaw as well. BWP profited $140 million (we'll just ignore the costs) but it still isn't as successful as the super big budget movies like say The Dark Knight that just broke $500 million. Even taking away the production costs, TDK made a bigger profit. Significantly bigger. And that's what we're talking about. No one is saying you can't be profitable but if you want to compete with WoW, then you have to see where the bar it set. WoW is the Titantic and TDK of MMOs. You won't beat it with a low budget, no matter how good the hype. At the same time a large budget doesn't guarantee success. We're not talking about other MMOs. Jacobs used WoW specifically as a comparison. 500K subs is great but it doesn't compare to 11 million. Blair Witch was great but no one compares it to the Titanic in terms of success because they are in totally completely different leagues. That being said, I still think the only MMO that can beat WoW is WoW. It has to self destruct.
ok, lets say Warhammer is Dark Knight, it had a budget of $185,000,000, and its on the way to earn more gross than Spiderman 3 (wow) which was the most expensive movie ever with a budget of $258,000,000. See where im going?
Jurassic Park had a budget of 63 million, and earned almost a billion $, btw
What I am saying is, if you are going to do comparisons, you need to use the appropriate comparisons. WoW is the king of the hill when it comes to MMOs. WoW is Titanic, the biggest grossing movie ever. In the world.
WoW wouldn't be classified as Spiderman 3. It's Titanic. To beat Titanic, you're gonna need a ton of money and great work. The context of the story isn't about how to make a good game. The context of the story is how you can compete or beat WoW.
And as much as Jurassic Park made, it still falls in the shadow of Titanic.
I also want to add, Titanic is a great comparison to WoW. Not the best movie. Mediocre at best but it knew its audience and gave them what they wanted with polished production values.
Actually this is a rather bad comparison, because while some people may play both games. WAR or some other game can take subs away from WoW or whoever else is on the top of the heap.
Movies don't work that way even ones that release at the same time are often seen by many of the same people.
500 mil to compete with WoW is complete BS. Heck if AoC wasn't managed by retarded monkies it probably would have competed well with WoW and it was like what 50 mil? Even though it was hyped up to pure craziness it still sold 700k boxes.
If they had done the content and had real QA in AoC (even with its, IMO, serious design flaws) which 50 mil could easily have done under better management. They could have sold 1 mil boxes.
500 mil is seriously complete BS. MJ is probably pretty close. Plus people have been really tired of WoW for 2 years. You could probably compete very well with WoW for 50 mil with good mangement and a bit of luck.
Oh, you're an authority on the cost of MMO's are you?
Remind us of your previous titles made, and costs involved..
Ah ad hominen the last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.
Jesus im so tired of this arguement about wow vrs warhammer.
I played wow from beta until sunwell came out. Everyone I knew when I was playing all the time has quit now. Burnt, bored, done with the game.
I recently beta'd for war and im telling you right now w/e they spent was fine. The game is a huge improvement from wow. Everything I liked in wow and nothing I didnt. Lots of other little improvements all over the place. In Europe alone they will make more than enough to cover any subscription need (the guys in europe actually play the table top game in bars and clubs) It has a huge following. What did wow have? A couple RTSs? Warhammer is going to stomp all over wow and only the die hard "im not willing to learn a new game" wow fans will stay. Just like EQ. Wow wil be the next eq, accept it.
Actually this is a rather bad comparison, because while some people may play both games. WAR or some other game can take subs away from WoW or whoever else is on the top of the heap.
Movies don't work that way even ones that release at the same time are often seen by many of the same people.
Whenever you make comparisons from different genres or industries, of course you don't compare them literally. But when you do, you compare similarities.
If WoW were a movie, it would be Titanic. In order to beat Titanic, you're gonna need a big budget, a story that caters to the general populace and great production values. A movie with a $100K budget will have no chance to topple Titanic. How is that a bad comparison?
And I'll even use your comparison. Movies do compete with one another and not all movies are seen equally. People make logical decisions on whether to spend their $10 on this movie instead of that movie. Sometimes they watch both (we can presume many WoW players will try out WAR). But in the case of popular movies, people see it more than once. Repeat business is probably the closest analogy we can make to MMO subs.
frankly u can do a MMORPG with $10 million. you dont necessarily need upwards of a $100 million. i think that is false to believe that in order to compete you need craploads of money. yeah it helps, but the net return is very little if the game isnt innovative, interesting, has a good backstory/lore, good gameplay elements/mechanics. does it have to be scifi? truthfully, not really, but it would help since everything has been done under the sun and then some.
we are all waiting for a good scifi to release us from the grips of high fantasy. something that is fun, interesting, has long term gameplay in it. right now there hasnt been any MMO's indie or mainstream (e.g. ea, mythic, bliz, or THQ etc) that has some good scifi elements, has good backstory, has good gameplay. and on top of that isnt assed out buggy and unfinished.
TR, hellgate was those that had a chance to intrigue us, but let us down. hopefully with the inclusion of STO, SGW, and even Earthrise looks moderately interesting. Hopefully we will get potentially something we will be wanting to play for a while. like i said, i dont believe you need $100 million, it only gives you "options" with $10 mill youll have less to work on the game, but if the core game is good, has gameplay features that are likeable to alot people, has beneficial aspects and promotes interaction with the community as well as interaction with the game. i think that is a major step in the right direction.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
Originally posted by gestalt11 Actually this is a rather bad comparison, because while some people may play both games. WAR or some other game can take subs away from WoW or whoever else is on the top of the heap.
Movies don't work that way even ones that release at the same time are often seen by many of the same people.
Whenever you make comparisons from different genres or industries, of course you don't compare them literally. But when you do, you compare similarities.
If WoW were a movie, it would be Titanic. In order to beat Titanic, you're gonna need a big budget, a story that caters to the general populace and great production values. A movie with a $100K budget will have no chance to topple Titanic. How is that a bad comparison?
And I'll even use your comparison. Movies do compete with one another and not all movies are seen equally. People make logical decisions on whether to spend their $10 on this movie instead of that movie. Sometimes they watch both (we can presume many WoW players will try out WAR). But in the case of popular movies, people see it more than once. Repeat business is probably the closest analogy we can make to MMO subs.
Actually I think the closest comparison is the Night club scene, but whatever. I don't really care. I just would avoid using movies if I were you and the others who are because its pretty flimsy and won't be persuasive.
Pretty much what I've been saying all along. It doesn't take billions of dollars, just a developers that are willing to match Blizzard's high standards of quality.
Actually I think the closest comparison is the Night club scene, but whatever. I don't really care. I just would avoid using movies if I were you and the others who are because its pretty flimsy and won't be persuasive.
500 mil to compete with WoW is complete BS. Heck if AoC wasn't managed by retarded monkies it probably would have competed well with WoW and it was like what 50 mil? Even though it was hyped up to pure craziness it still sold 700k boxes.
If they had done the content and had real QA in AoC (even with its, IMO, serious design flaws) which 50 mil could easily have done under better management. They could have sold 1 mil boxes.
500 mil is seriously complete BS. MJ is probably pretty close. Plus people have been really tired of WoW for 2 years. You could probably compete very well with WoW for 50 mil with good mangement and a bit of luck.
Oh, you're an authority on the cost of MMO's are you?
Remind us of your previous titles made, and costs involved..
Ah ad hominen the last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.
I think you'll find the term is 'ad hominem', which is quite ironic, n'est pas?
And of course, by attempting to make a clever retort you are able to reiterate the fact that you know absolutely ZERO about the subject matter.
Currently, on the Western hemisphere, there is only one big MMO and that's (obviously) World of Warcraft. The individual gamer can love it, hate it, be indifferent towards it but it doesn't change the fact that this single game is so much more successful than anything else released on the MMO market in the Western world. It is the market leader, it is the natural reference point for all discussions relating to MMO success, number of subscribers, level of public knowledge, and every other market parameter you can set up.
It is meaningless to use it as a benchmark for quality since that touches on elements that are way too subjective to be anything but personal bias but it can (in some ways) be used as a sort of 'most widely appealing business and implementation model'. Just remember to use a pretty wide definition of the term.
The 500 million mark is a statement and it is propably both meant as a sort of warning as well as a slight indication of the kind of money it takes to make the MMO scene into a duopoly instead of a monopoly, ie a market where there are two major players instead of the current situation with only one.
What is not discussed in the two flat statements ("You need 500 million" vs "100 million is enough") is that where the real cave-eat lies is in how those money are spent and how they are managed along the way. So far World of Warcraft has been without serious competition because of all developers, Blizzard has a major reputation for not releasing anything until it is ready to their level of satisfaction, and so far I would deem that they have lived up to their reputation or at least made obvious efforts to do so.
In this day and age, what is important is not only launch (although a bad launch can mean that nothing else really becomes important since the proverbial ship has then set sail and you're stuck with a failure) but the state of your game after 6 months. The 6 month benchmark is where most producers would expect a relatively reliable indication of the possibility of a game's success or failure.
What is important for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is not to make the same mistakes of other recent games. Have a solid launch with an absolute minimum of server trouble, have lots of content for all levels, no game-breaking bugs or instabilities and servers that keep running flawlessly for the first week. If they can manage that, they will dodge most of the flak from the MMO community, if they don't they will be put in the same box that is now reserved for Age of Conan. Potential was there, execution in orderly fashion was not.
I believe Mythic can defintely compete with Warcraft. I know so many people who are burned out on playing WoW that the innitial subs for Warhammer will be through the roof. It also won't be like Funcom's flop because the innital subs will only increase, maybe dip a little when WOTLK comes out, but rise again steadily a few months later. Great job as always Mythic on being honest and realitic with your community.
the game mechanics in WAR are better and hold a better structure for longevity. The war effort makes since in warhammer. in wow you are thrown into an instanced battlefield that has no effect on the real game world. in WAr all levels and tiers contribute to the overall war effort of your faction in the real game world. basically WOW pvp is just thrown in, and only rewards you with gear. if war comes out with a tier 5 expansion shortly after realease, blizzard should be worried.
this game will be sweet and ill think it will be able to compete with wow. and yes warhammer 40k sounds so godly to me. i follow that universe more closely than warhammer so it woulf mak me very happy to see 40k come out
And he is right. It is about delivering a game that appeal to a large crowd for a number of reasons, which is uncommon for a MMO, but hardly unique as more and more people have been exposed to the "genre", it is only a matter of time before WoW' enormous playerbase begin to decline and this is already happening.
Currently, on the Western hemisphere, there is only one big MMO and that's (obviously) World of Warcraft. The individual gamer can love it, hate it, be indifferent towards it but it doesn't change the fact that this single game is so much more successful than anything else released on the MMO market in the Western world. It is the market leader, it is the natural reference point for all discussions relating to MMO success, number of subscribers, level of public knowledge, and every other market parameter you can set up.
It is meaningless to use it as a benchmark for quality since that touches on elements that are way too subjective to be anything but personal bias but it can (in some ways) be used as a sort of 'most widely appealing business and implementation model'. Just remember to use a pretty wide definition of the term.
The 500 million mark is a statement and it is propably both meant as a sort of warning as well as a slight indication of the kind of money it takes to make the MMO scene into a duopoly instead of a monopoly, ie a market where there are two major players instead of the current situation with only one.
What is not discussed in the two flat statements ("You need 500 million" vs "100 million is enough") is that where the real cave-eat lies is in how those money are spent and how they are managed along the way. So far World of Warcraft has been without serious competition because of all developers, Blizzard has a major reputation for not releasing anything until it is ready to their level of satisfaction, and so far I would deem that they have lived up to their reputation or at least made obvious efforts to do so.
In this day and age, what is important is not only launch (although a bad launch can mean that nothing else really becomes important since the proverbial ship has then set sail and you're stuck with a failure) but the state of your game after 6 months. The 6 month benchmark is where most producers would expect a relatively reliable indication of the possibility of a game's success or failure.
What is important for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is not to make the same mistakes of other recent games. Have a solid launch with an absolute minimum of server trouble, have lots of content for all levels, no game-breaking bugs or instabilities and servers that keep running flawlessly for the first week. If they can manage that, they will dodge most of the flak from the MMO community, if they don't they will be put in the same box that is now reserved for Age of Conan. Potential was there, execution in orderly fashion was not.
Only a couple of more weeks, then we'll all know.
The irony with WoW, is Blizzard didn't introduce anything new to the genre. By their own admittance they took the best features from the then current competition, and moulded them into a single game.
Kudos to them for doing that, because they recognised the marketplace and nailed it. They made the game simple, colourful, cartoony, extremely solo friendly and dumbed down enough to appeal to folk with limited play time <casuals>, limited attention spans <kids>, and folk with an IQ smaller than their shoe size <most of the above>.
Like it or not, this covers the large majority of PC gamers and they hooked most of them in. After this the rest of the gaming companies were playing catch up - and losing in their panic.
They rushed their games out unfinished and made fools out of Joe Public. All this succeeded in doing was push people back to their comfort zone <WoW> and make them deeply suspicious of any MMO which tried to force its way into what has now become 'WoWworld'.
The 2nd irony is that fact that a lot of folk are looking to get away from WoW. Every time a new game gets ready for release, mass hysteria breaks out as to whether it will be the 'WoWkiller' or not. As the dude above me alludes to, if War can get the basics right during the initial phase of release, they have more than a good chance of grabbing a fair chunk of the MMO playerbase.
WoW has peaked many moons ago, and is on a slippery downward slope. It is dated in graphics and gameplay. Blizzard have recognised this already, hence they have something new in production and have had for a while.
WoW is easy money for them whilst ever it has servers. I admire Blizzard as a company, but I wish they would push the bar up next time and not just create something to appeal to the also-ran. They have the know how and the funds to create something really outstanding, ground breaking, challenging and thought provoking.
Comments
WoW only really has 5 mil subs. 6 mil are Asian, and once WAR becomes a fad in China, they'll all immigrate there.
And no, if enough people wake up from their addiction to WoW and realize that it's not all that great, i'm sure we'll see millions flooding over to WAR. It's all a matter of advertising. If all people knew as much as I did about WAR, they'd all switch like myself.
Exactly.
ok, lets say Warhammer is Dark Knight, it had a budget of $185,000,000, and its on the way to earn more gross than Spiderman 3 (wow) which was the most expensive movie ever with a budget of $258,000,000. See where im going?
Jurassic Park had a budget of 63 million, and earned almost a billion $, btw
Exactly.
Kind of like the fall of Rome , cant appease people with the same old crap for to long.
No such thing as luck, just believing in it is what makes it real to you and really...thats all you need.
Im on nobodies' side but my own.
I for one played WoW for years.
Haven't played WoW now for over a year, and the reason it bored the shit outta' me.
I will never go back or buy WotLK.
Blizzard will never get another cent from me for their MMO.
I'm sure I am not the only one in the world who thinks this way.
Until KOTOR mmo comes out, most of these newer mmo's are based on licenses that have already been developed over time and featured orcs and elves and the "natural" fantasy settings... Even if they would have went with the 40k universe, it features orcs and elves..lol..
ok, lets say Warhammer is Dark Knight, it had a budget of $185,000,000, and its on the way to earn more gross than Spiderman 3 (wow) which was the most expensive movie ever with a budget of $258,000,000. See where im going?
Jurassic Park had a budget of 63 million, and earned almost a billion $, btw
What I am saying is, if you are going to do comparisons, you need to use the appropriate comparisons. WoW is the king of the hill when it comes to MMOs. WoW is Titanic, the biggest grossing movie ever. In the world.
WoW wouldn't be classified as Spiderman 3. It's Titanic. To beat Titanic, you're gonna need a ton of money and great work. The context of the story isn't about how to make a good game. The context of the story is how you can compete or beat WoW.
And as much as Jurassic Park made, it still falls in the shadow of Titanic.
I also want to add, Titanic is a great comparison to WoW. Not the best movie. Mediocre at best but it knew its audience and gave them what they wanted with polished production values.
What would you speculate about LOTRO?
LOTRO has as far as I seen got good to very good reception both in reviews and on forums. Ok that there are people that whine about LOTRO. I would say that LOTRO is that geek, nice and all, every mother in laws dream. That gets the shortest draw from girls.
It is a welldone game but still it is not competing with WoW.
Yep that is precisely LOTRO's problem.
ok, lets say Warhammer is Dark Knight, it had a budget of $185,000,000, and its on the way to earn more gross than Spiderman 3 (wow) which was the most expensive movie ever with a budget of $258,000,000. See where im going?
Jurassic Park had a budget of 63 million, and earned almost a billion $, btw
What I am saying is, if you are going to do comparisons, you need to use the appropriate comparisons. WoW is the king of the hill when it comes to MMOs. WoW is Titanic, the biggest grossing movie ever. In the world.
WoW wouldn't be classified as Spiderman 3. It's Titanic. To beat Titanic, you're gonna need a ton of money and great work. The context of the story isn't about how to make a good game. The context of the story is how you can compete or beat WoW.
And as much as Jurassic Park made, it still falls in the shadow of Titanic.
I also want to add, Titanic is a great comparison to WoW. Not the best movie. Mediocre at best but it knew its audience and gave them what they wanted with polished production values.
Actually this is a rather bad comparison, because while some people may play both games. WAR or some other game can take subs away from WoW or whoever else is on the top of the heap.
Movies don't work that way even ones that release at the same time are often seen by many of the same people.
Oh, you're an authority on the cost of MMO's are you?
Remind us of your previous titles made, and costs involved..
Ah ad hominen the last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.
Jesus im so tired of this arguement about wow vrs warhammer.
I played wow from beta until sunwell came out. Everyone I knew when I was playing all the time has quit now. Burnt, bored, done with the game.
I recently beta'd for war and im telling you right now w/e they spent was fine. The game is a huge improvement from wow. Everything I liked in wow and nothing I didnt. Lots of other little improvements all over the place. In Europe alone they will make more than enough to cover any subscription need (the guys in europe actually play the table top game in bars and clubs) It has a huge following. What did wow have? A couple RTSs? Warhammer is going to stomp all over wow and only the die hard "im not willing to learn a new game" wow fans will stay. Just like EQ. Wow wil be the next eq, accept it.
Whenever you make comparisons from different genres or industries, of course you don't compare them literally. But when you do, you compare similarities.
If WoW were a movie, it would be Titanic. In order to beat Titanic, you're gonna need a big budget, a story that caters to the general populace and great production values. A movie with a $100K budget will have no chance to topple Titanic. How is that a bad comparison?
And I'll even use your comparison. Movies do compete with one another and not all movies are seen equally. People make logical decisions on whether to spend their $10 on this movie instead of that movie. Sometimes they watch both (we can presume many WoW players will try out WAR). But in the case of popular movies, people see it more than once. Repeat business is probably the closest analogy we can make to MMO subs.
frankly u can do a MMORPG with $10 million. you dont necessarily need upwards of a $100 million. i think that is false to believe that in order to compete you need craploads of money. yeah it helps, but the net return is very little if the game isnt innovative, interesting, has a good backstory/lore, good gameplay elements/mechanics. does it have to be scifi? truthfully, not really, but it would help since everything has been done under the sun and then some.
we are all waiting for a good scifi to release us from the grips of high fantasy. something that is fun, interesting, has long term gameplay in it. right now there hasnt been any MMO's indie or mainstream (e.g. ea, mythic, bliz, or THQ etc) that has some good scifi elements, has good backstory, has good gameplay. and on top of that isnt assed out buggy and unfinished.
TR, hellgate was those that had a chance to intrigue us, but let us down. hopefully with the inclusion of STO, SGW, and even Earthrise looks moderately interesting. Hopefully we will get potentially something we will be wanting to play for a while. like i said, i dont believe you need $100 million, it only gives you "options" with $10 mill youll have less to work on the game, but if the core game is good, has gameplay features that are likeable to alot people, has beneficial aspects and promotes interaction with the community as well as interaction with the game. i think that is a major step in the right direction.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
Whenever you make comparisons from different genres or industries, of course you don't compare them literally. But when you do, you compare similarities.
If WoW were a movie, it would be Titanic. In order to beat Titanic, you're gonna need a big budget, a story that caters to the general populace and great production values. A movie with a $100K budget will have no chance to topple Titanic. How is that a bad comparison?
And I'll even use your comparison. Movies do compete with one another and not all movies are seen equally. People make logical decisions on whether to spend their $10 on this movie instead of that movie. Sometimes they watch both (we can presume many WoW players will try out WAR). But in the case of popular movies, people see it more than once. Repeat business is probably the closest analogy we can make to MMO subs.
Actually I think the closest comparison is the Night club scene, but whatever. I don't really care. I just would avoid using movies if I were you and the others who are because its pretty flimsy and won't be persuasive.
Pretty much what I've been saying all along. It doesn't take billions of dollars, just a developers that are willing to match Blizzard's high standards of quality.
Fair enough.
Oh, you're an authority on the cost of MMO's are you?
Remind us of your previous titles made, and costs involved..
Ah ad hominen the last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.
I think you'll find the term is 'ad hominem', which is quite ironic, n'est pas?
And of course, by attempting to make a clever retort you are able to reiterate the fact that you know absolutely ZERO about the subject matter.
Btw - pwned
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Currently, on the Western hemisphere, there is only one big MMO and that's (obviously) World of Warcraft. The individual gamer can love it, hate it, be indifferent towards it but it doesn't change the fact that this single game is so much more successful than anything else released on the MMO market in the Western world. It is the market leader, it is the natural reference point for all discussions relating to MMO success, number of subscribers, level of public knowledge, and every other market parameter you can set up.
It is meaningless to use it as a benchmark for quality since that touches on elements that are way too subjective to be anything but personal bias but it can (in some ways) be used as a sort of 'most widely appealing business and implementation model'. Just remember to use a pretty wide definition of the term.
The 500 million mark is a statement and it is propably both meant as a sort of warning as well as a slight indication of the kind of money it takes to make the MMO scene into a duopoly instead of a monopoly, ie a market where there are two major players instead of the current situation with only one.
What is not discussed in the two flat statements ("You need 500 million" vs "100 million is enough") is that where the real cave-eat lies is in how those money are spent and how they are managed along the way. So far World of Warcraft has been without serious competition because of all developers, Blizzard has a major reputation for not releasing anything until it is ready to their level of satisfaction, and so far I would deem that they have lived up to their reputation or at least made obvious efforts to do so.
In this day and age, what is important is not only launch (although a bad launch can mean that nothing else really becomes important since the proverbial ship has then set sail and you're stuck with a failure) but the state of your game after 6 months. The 6 month benchmark is where most producers would expect a relatively reliable indication of the possibility of a game's success or failure.
What is important for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is not to make the same mistakes of other recent games. Have a solid launch with an absolute minimum of server trouble, have lots of content for all levels, no game-breaking bugs or instabilities and servers that keep running flawlessly for the first week. If they can manage that, they will dodge most of the flak from the MMO community, if they don't they will be put in the same box that is now reserved for Age of Conan. Potential was there, execution in orderly fashion was not.
Only a couple of more weeks, then we'll all know.
The original post is soooo easy to score against.
It would be a shame not to mark the open goal with no keeper in sight.
But I guess it will be even more fun to see this goal scored by the playing boys themselves in about ...5 weeks time.
))
Have fun. Cut.
the game mechanics in WAR are better and hold a better structure for longevity. The war effort makes since in warhammer. in wow you are thrown into an instanced battlefield that has no effect on the real game world. in WAr all levels and tiers contribute to the overall war effort of your faction in the real game world. basically WOW pvp is just thrown in, and only rewards you with gear. if war comes out with a tier 5 expansion shortly after realease, blizzard should be worried.
this game will be sweet and ill think it will be able to compete with wow. and yes warhammer 40k sounds so godly to me. i follow that universe more closely than warhammer so it woulf mak me very happy to see 40k come out
XXX
And he is right. It is about delivering a game that appeal to a large crowd for a number of reasons, which is uncommon for a MMO, but hardly unique as more and more people have been exposed to the "genre", it is only a matter of time before WoW' enormous playerbase begin to decline and this is already happening.
Just beacuse WAR has signed up for the fight does not mean that it will be any competition for the last 4 years in a row champion.
The irony with WoW, is Blizzard didn't introduce anything new to the genre. By their own admittance they took the best features from the then current competition, and moulded them into a single game.
Kudos to them for doing that, because they recognised the marketplace and nailed it. They made the game simple, colourful, cartoony, extremely solo friendly and dumbed down enough to appeal to folk with limited play time <casuals>, limited attention spans <kids>, and folk with an IQ smaller than their shoe size <most of the above>.
Like it or not, this covers the large majority of PC gamers and they hooked most of them in. After this the rest of the gaming companies were playing catch up - and losing in their panic.
They rushed their games out unfinished and made fools out of Joe Public. All this succeeded in doing was push people back to their comfort zone <WoW> and make them deeply suspicious of any MMO which tried to force its way into what has now become 'WoWworld'.
The 2nd irony is that fact that a lot of folk are looking to get away from WoW. Every time a new game gets ready for release, mass hysteria breaks out as to whether it will be the 'WoWkiller' or not. As the dude above me alludes to, if War can get the basics right during the initial phase of release, they have more than a good chance of grabbing a fair chunk of the MMO playerbase.
WoW has peaked many moons ago, and is on a slippery downward slope. It is dated in graphics and gameplay. Blizzard have recognised this already, hence they have something new in production and have had for a while.
WoW is easy money for them whilst ever it has servers. I admire Blizzard as a company, but I wish they would push the bar up next time and not just create something to appeal to the also-ran. They have the know how and the funds to create something really outstanding, ground breaking, challenging and thought provoking.
Will they do it? Probably not..