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The forty day wait.
MrVicchio
Member Posts: 598
When a new MMO hits the market, you have about a 40 day wait to see the real effects of it's launch.
This is a phenomenon I have noted since playing EQI. When AO launched, 40 days later you saw a number of people had returned (actually, for AO it was quicker 
) DAoC not as many returned, after 40 days, that was that. Same with SWG, if they weren't back after 40 days, chances are, they were gone for good.
Then WoW launched, and sucked many older games dry, so I was wondering if this would hodl true, and pretty much it has. LoTRO, if someone left at that games launch, if I didn't see them after the 40 day mark... they were gone. There were a few. CoH, V:SoH, and even Conan. Most people don't stay gone if they paid for that next billing cycle.
Now comes war, 18Sept08 is the full launch day, I know there is a Head-Start, but let's go with the general launch eh? So any of your WoW buds that go off to WAR and aren't back by, we'll be nice and say Halloween. Chances are they will not return.
What I am wondering is, will WoTLK break this time tested, if ancedotal model? Is WAR the big "DRAW" or just a 30 day break before the X-PAC
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Comments
Im going to wait on warhammer untill i get some feedback on the endgame content. Beta was a blast but i didnt get to see anything past rank15.
If i hear that endgame content is buggy or lacking (judging from the huge amounts of content i saw i dont think it will be lacking) or if endgame is just plain old boring, ill go back to eq2 or wait for aion.
I agree with your 40 day theory, takes about a month of gameplay past realease for a game to show its true colors...just about every p2p game is great for at least a month (f2p have less milage)
Time will tell if any of these new games are going to be hits, but for now war's beta has been the most fun ive ever had in an mmo, probably because i could jump right into the fun at lv1...no grinding to get to the good stuff.
War is fun, its a new flavor to try that's not so unfamiliar you don't like it...
Its not as buggy as Vanguard
Its not as AWFUL as AoC (in terms of management)
SO ... yeah it may be the next "niche" game. Will it top WOW? certianly not.
In the same manner, will BurgerKing ever top McDonalds? No. But ppl still love the king!
Well your kind of right...wow is the mcdonalds of mmos....its quick easy and for the lazy..
war is more like a typical resturaunt...more content and complexity...sure it may never reach the subscriber numbers of wow, but i would take a complex game with content over the fast food of mmo's anyday...
I don't think WAR is going to take out WOW, that's a tall order, even for a game I find as promising as WAR.
The two appeal to completely different, and opposing player bases. I think, and I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty darn sure, that Mythic and EA will ensure a relatively smooth launch, and proper support, both technical and customer to alliviate the initial hiccups any MMO releases with. That along with an actually solid launch product will finally give WoW a real test.
All others before WAR with the sole expection of LoTRO suffered from either piss poor launches, poor clients and support or lack of finished product. LoTRO's greatest strength was and is it's biggest weakness. They are going for the same kind of player that WoW goes after.
We'll have to wait and see. And I love that analogy, WoW = McDonalds and WAR=BK. That was worth a laugh.
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here is my theory, you know how WoW is pretty much just made for little kids (9-15), well if you didnt know that is their biggest playerbase in the US (not sure on asia) anyways little kids dont stay informed AT ALL, 50% of the US wow playerbase has never heard of WAR there is the problem with WAR know one will ever here of it if they dobnt leave their tiny circle of WoW.
the only way WAR will ever get ahead of WoW would be in 3 possible ways
1. WoW collapses on it self
2. with the support of EA WAR has the best and the most advertising for an MMO (it might just take the best advertising for any game) because if they can get you realed in with a flashy comercial you pretty much know that they will think it looks cooler than WoW.
3.WoW players mature and leave it
WoW was made to appeal to fans of their previous Warcraft games which have been around since 1994. Now back then the game may have appealed to kids (but it certainly wasn't targetted to them), but this is 14 years ago. People that are strangers to the Warcraft universe, such as yourself, obviously, mistake the art style of the game as cartoony, and assume it is manufactured to appeal to kids.
In fact the game is mostly played by people in there 20s, and of course, far older. The people in my guild have children of their own, and the oldest person I know and regularly plays is 52.
But don't let facts get in the way of your ignorant babble, please.. continue.
The falsehood that WoW is enjoyed by mostly children is usually construed by those who don't appreciate the Warcraft art style, or feel somehow embittered that their game of choice is not as popular.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
90% of WoW's playerbase is over the age of 18. Please don't go around spewing random, made-up numbers.
WAR is a decent game, but to say WoW is for kiddies?
Prehaps it is, if WoW for you is just leveling 1-70, normal instances and arena under 1400 rating, but you really need to be decent to do something good in WoW(Yes, those bosses ain't really tank and spank and that CC does need a brain to sync it perfectly between 2/3/5 players).
90% of WoW's playerbase is over the age of 18. Please don't go around spewing random, made-up numbers.
Pot? Kettle?
WoW was made to appeal to people of ages 12 and above.
the thing is most of us going to WAR WANT the vast majority of the WOW playerbase to stay right where they are.
I will take quality over quantity anyday.
the thing is most of us going to WAR WANT the vast majority of the WOW playerbase to stay right where they are.
I will take quality over quantity anyday.
One day on the WoW Forums told me that.
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I can say from being an elder tester and playing the game in beta for a year that the endgame is not buggy and is the best part of the game imo. I agree that if you are on the fence about this to just wait, but the city sieging, dungeons, open rvr, keeps, and pve are the best the game has to offer at levels 35+.
I agree with the OP. This phenomenon has been there since I was playing UO and beyond. If you don't see them back in a month or so, they usually never return (or only do so on a whim and usually dont stick around much longer). I really do not think that WoW will suffer that much. In the end I believe that WoW will mainly just lose a large portion of their pvp community, but still retain its core pve community. Ah well we shall all see soon eh!
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
the thing is most of us going to WAR WANT the vast majority of the WOW playerbase to stay right where they are.
I will take quality over quantity anyday.
And those leaving wow i will be happy to see them go. I don't like all the self hating wow haters go to WAR make it popular and then hate it too, cause thats what your good at
Hype is my nemesis. i will fight it til the day i die whether i take it down or it takes me down. So depressing, Yes?
Probably 80% of my guild had aready entered the vacation mode (where they aren't logging more than a few hours a week), and it's completely independent of WAR. They are just taking a break waiting for the expansion. I imagine many will try WAR. The test won't be 40 days, it will be whenever the WoW expansion is released. Even if WAR wasn't being released, WoW logins are only going to decrease leading up to the expansion. When you have 3 or 4 or 5 or more level 70's all pretty well geared, there really isn't much reason to keep farming the same instances for some random gearpiece you still don't have - at least not when they are going to end up as shards with the new expansion.
I wanted to like WAR, but for me the combat feel just wasn't good enough. This goes doubly for anything that is PvP based. I haven't played WoW in over six months, but I will be picking it up again with the expansion. I played the Open Beta for WAR and wanted to love it, but the combat fell short.
I wanted WAR to be Alterac Valley when first released. Large fights with lots of NPCs involved as well. In some areas it is, but again if the combat doesn't feel right what's the point. I am hoping the the world PvP introduced in WotLK gives that early AV feel. I have always envisioned a world that can be controlled by a faction/guild and towers bases and what not change to their NPCs when they control it.
Oh well good luck to WAR and hello to WotLK, I hope I like it. I have searched for something to replace WoW, but I have yet to find something with combat that is as fluid and fun. Apart from exploring, that is the most fun for me.
I miss my old Asheron's Call days of PvP when guilds fought over towns and dungeons. I also had a blast with Planetside (MMOFPS) for a few years.
WAR Combat lacking to WoW?
My wife and I spent the first three hours almost soley leveling in scenario's... cause it freaking ROCKED.
Dunno what Beta you were playing.
WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Always change your signature.
That explains alot.
WoW was made to appeal to fans of their previous Warcraft games which have been around since 1994. Now back then the game may have appealed to kids (but it certainly wasn't targetted to them), but this is 14 years ago. People that are strangers to the Warcraft universe, such as yourself, obviously, mistake the art style of the game as cartoony, and assume it is manufactured to appeal to kids.
In fact the game is mostly played by people in there 20s, and of course, far older. The people in my guild have children of their own, and the oldest person I know and regularly plays is 52.
But don't let facts get in the way of your ignorant babble, please.. continue.
The falsehood that WoW is enjoyed by mostly children is usually construed by those who don't appreciate the Warcraft art style, or feel somehow embittered that their game of choice is not as popular.
You are totaly wrong, Most WoW account are from asian by a large margin . Theres like 6 million ppl in asia playing wow and there about 2.5 million in US and 2 million in europe .
That explains alot.
Huh? I married cause she owns about 90% of every Punisher comic every written, every punisher collectable... She owned more gaming consoles then I did. She's smart, hot and will KICK YOUR REAR in RVR.
Always change your signature.
I can say from being an elder tester and playing the game in beta for a year that the endgame is not buggy and is the best part of the game imo. I agree that if you are on the fence about this to just wait, but the city sieging, dungeons, open rvr, keeps, and pve are the best the game has to offer at levels 35+.
I agree with the OP. This phenomenon has been there since I was playing UO and beyond. If you don't see them back in a month or so, they usually never return (or only do so on a whim and usually dont stick around much longer). I really do not think that WoW will suffer that much. In the end I believe that WoW will mainly just lose a large portion of their pvp community, but still retain its core pve community. Ah well we shall all see soon eh!
Cheers!
That's something that i've found very confusing about WAR's design. If the "actual game" is at 35+ why did they ever create the 1-34 content.
While playing WAR I kept wondering why are they making me play this? It's fun, it's pretty, but i've got another 150 hours of playing until I get to see the good stuff. I know I could get to the level cap, but i'm afraid that most of the people who buy this game will abandon the effort.
Racing to the level cap is actually a really bad thing. For a while, very few will be at the top for open RvR, so Tier 4 will go to Tier 3 where the action is and will destroy the lower level players trying to progress.
I hope it works out. I don't have a crystal ball, but to keep the players happy will most likely require some big changes later on.
On the Destruction side it took between 1/2 hour and 2 hours to get into one. Which sucked. However we could win easily against the other team, which was awesome.
On the Order side it took between 30 seconds to 1 minute to get in, which was awesome. However, our side never had a chance of winning. Which sucked.
I don't think that's completely true, I think they both appeal to pretty much the same player base. The games are not as different as the folks over there in the other forums claim. I have been playing the open beta every night for 7 straight days and what struck me more than anything was how close the games were related rather than how different they are.
Look at some comparisons:
Graphics: They are nearly identical. War has an advantage in some places, like the water effects and mobs themselves tend to be a bit less pixelated, but I think WoW has an advantage in some spell and skill effects. Cities and landscapes look very similar. Overall the graphics are very similar.
PvE: Most of the quests are very similar in nature in both games except for the public quests which add a bit to the leveling process, but since PQ's are mainly done for the influence, not the XP, you'll still find yourself doing a lot of the same types of things from the PvE side in War that you do in WoW.
PvP: The scenario's are almost indentical in nature to battlegrounds. Sure there are quite a few more of them and the objectives are different, however if you have been in a BG, then you pretty much know what to expect from a scenario. I never really participated in any of the PvP zones enough to comment on them, but I suspect that after the expansion, Wintergrasp at least will be very similar to what War offers although War focuses on it a bit more. It's 6 of one and half dozen of another.
All in all, the games are more similar than they are different. Certainly one will appeal more to one person than the next, but overall they are very similar products in a lot of ways.
Pappy, the point of WoW is to grind for gear against nominally the PvE enviroment. Even the PVP (AV being prime) is geared around this.
WAR is about the WAR. The end game of both is as wildly diferent as you can get. The end objectives are as different as they come.
And your wrong about the graphics, I was running in T2 Scenario today, and I felt like I was playing DAoC 2 rather then anthing WoW like. If you played DAoC for long enough, you'll see it's ghost in WAR, and it's a beautiful thing to see.
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Okay so you're saying the end game is different. I'll concede that a little, however how you get to the end game is virtually the same.
Okay so you're saying the end game is different. I'll concede that a little, however how you get to the end game is virtually the same.
If by that you mean you do things to gain gear and level, yes.
Both have quests, both have "grind", both get you to the "end game".
There are two differences.
1. You can PvP, PVE, or mix the two to get to 40 in WAR (You HAVE to pvp to get to rr80)
WoW, you basically have to PvE.
2. The reason you reach the end game is different.
In WoW you reach 70 (soon 80) to run the high end scripted events to get a shot at a peice of random gear.
In WAR you reach the high end raids on the enmy capitol and taking down the enemy. Nto gearing yourself up.
Taht to me, makes the two as different as Pancakes and Waffles, only my Pankakes have blueberries in them, your pancakes are jsut plain.
Always change your signature.