TBH, I think it was not fair idea to revamp WoW at cost of customers as it was done with Cata.
I left as i found they added like 10% of new content but charged for 100%.
To me they should to it at 2 steps: revamp classic for free & make Cata full content game as it was any previous campaign.
As for Panda joke, I think it not very attractive for players and as such, will fail. Again 5 more levels means you0ll get all efforts for nothing or for short use, leak of content again, IMO.
I can be wrong but seems like Blizzard took direction of short extensions which will cost too much for users, plus WoW sub is already not cheap, so I guess financial reason is also behind quitters.
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises. Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
The nickel & diming via cash shops, redundant content updates, and constant "sassy" changes will generate bad rapport. I personally started to REALLY dislike Blizzard once they got in bed with Bobby Kotick. It just doesn't feel like "for the love of the game" anymore. It feels like, "do whatever we can as cheap as possible to generate bucks."
For those saying that a 1 million drop in subs is nothing to a game like wow your living in cloud cooco land.
They have now 10 million subs, they also have the staff thats required to handle and manage 10 million subs, when their subs drop by 1 million and they have staff for 10 million, and only 9 million subs, then a lot of people are going to lose their jobs, blizzard are a company there to make money they will not maintain staff thats required for an 11million sub game when they only have 10 million in subs.
As a side note, blizzard has already laid off a ton of people including people working on their new mmo titan, and we still dont even know what that is.
You see killing wow is not just about dropping its susbs, as its subs drop blizzard will be forced to sack staff and cut back their hardware to match the decline, so even though they had 11 million, and only lost 1 million, its still a massive deal, HUGE MASSIVE DEAL, and if you dont think so, just check all those employee's that just lost their jobs a few days ago.
That is funny, Under 10MILLION..... Yes MILLION Subs. Is there any other MMO that has had 10million Subs? Hardly Dieing is it?
I can't wait for SW:TOR, But it will take a lot of hard hard work and years to build up to 10 million (IF it ever does).
You make a good point. Even if the game plummets by several million subs in the next few months, it's still ahead of everything else by miles and miles. Blizzard got a lot of things right, even I can admit that, and I'm someone who isn't that excited about the fantasy genre and really despises relentless quest based progression.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
I do not believe that releases of new MMOs have anything to do with the lowered number of WoW subscriptions.
I repeatedly have read comments here and elsewhere that WoW, with its last expansions and changes, has serious quality problems now. So yeah, the only company that can kill WoW is Blizzard and it seems they are currently doing just that.
Originally posted by afropuff420
I can't help but laugh when I hear an MMO's stock is going down because they might go under 10 million subs lol! Even if SWTOR ends up being a good game (which I have my reservations about) - I seriously don't even think it will ever hit 10 million subs. GL!
Err ... under what tree did you hide that you still havent mentioned that the stock markets are a horde of completely hopeless bat*** crazy people ? They even recently had a really funny scientific study that got the result that banksters behave WORSE than the average psychopath.
And no, SW:TOR cant have 10+ Mio. Not without having asian servers and/or having console versions of their MMORPG as well.
I am completely baffled why, when they did it for Dragon Age, a pure roleplaying game like they didnt do it for a long time (the last one was Neverwinter Nights 1), they wouldnt make a console version for SW:TOR, the "MMORPG for people who dont usually play MMORPGs". Is it just me, or wouldnt such people often only own a console, instead of a full blown gaming PC ?
Originally posted by afropuff420
Originally posted by Metentso
It's good to know 1 million players won't take anything thrown at them.
Wow is a shadow of what it was. I don't understand why developers do that to their own games. Same happened with EQ and SWG. At some point they start making the game easy and absurd and that's the end of it.
Did you actually just compare WoW to SWG?...
A: It doesnt matter if you drive a modern Porsche or an old Volkswagen, if you are out of gas, you wont get anywhere.
B: Did you actually just compare Porsche and Volkswagen ?
Originally posted by Metentso
Yes, totally.
:-D
Originally posted by Naral
[...] People really expect a new golden age with these two upcoming games. [...]
Anything but.
I dont care much for GW2. None of the improvements over GW1 matter much to me, and GW1 is just dead boring.
I expect SW:TOR to be the last Bioware game that is still a Bioware game. ME2 and DA2 already have shown what Bioware will produce in the future. SW:TOR will be the first and last MMO with really massive story content. It has many obvious weaknesses, but I expect it to be good in that one quality, and in some others. For example, a nice userfriendly interface never was much of a problem with Bioware, either, albeit Dragon Age was surprisingly weak on that front. Still not such a mess as NWN2.
That is funny, Under 10MILLION..... Yes MILLION Subs. Is there any other MMO that has had 10million Subs? Hardly Dieing is it?
I can't wait for SW:TOR, But it will take a lot of hard hard work and years to build up to 10 million (IF it ever does).
You make a good point. Even if the game plummets by several million subs in the next few months, it's still ahead of everything else by miles and miles. Blizzard got a lot of things right, even I can admit that, and I'm someone who isn't that excited about the fantasy genre and really despises relentless quest based progression.
Yeah thats not actually true, as I said above as blizzards subs fall they need to at the same time or shortly after start sacking employee's and pulling hardware selling off assets that are no longer required and scaling back the development team, this isnt speculation this is how the industry works, their not going to keep the staff needed for a 10 million sub game, if the subs drop again to bellow 9 as is predicted by the current trend.
While I do not think it will die, I do think that the current trend were seeing with the game will continue over the next few months, I think in the end the subs will settle at around 6 million, even after pandaren, and I suspect the drop will only take another 4 or 5 months, a shit economy, combined with the state of the game and growing dislike for its expansions and item shop stuff means that players are losing interest and focus in the game.
I suspect that if WOW drops to bellow 5 million subs the game will be shut down, they simply have to much global infrastructure in place, to many jobs would have to be cut , and to much hardware would need to be sold off to keep the game in the black, that they would end up calling it a day and waiting for their next project.
Some of you people are seriously disturbed. I have never understood this whole, "my game needs to be number 1" attitude and a complete hatred for a video game. Why would anyone benefit from WoWs numbers dropping? It makes me so sick that people are quick to throw Blizzard down a flight of stairs given what they have done for the mmo industry. Yeah, it existed before them, but they took it to the next level bringing players AND INVESTORS to the mmo market who couldn't have given a shit about it prior. If you don't like it or play it fine, but at the minimum, give Blizzard the god damn respect they have earned.
Previous to WoW, developers still got investment money to make their game... that's how they got them made.
Yes, like I said.. there were games out there for sure... but no one outside of computer gaming new of them. There was money being made, but it obvioulsy wasn't that profitable or popular given the market at the time. I played eq1, and no one ever knew what the hell I was talking about when I mentioned it. WoW was the first game to become really pop culture and arise a lot of attention to mmo gaming.
The difference is quantity. Most investors - as in many cases - won't touch something 'til it demonstrates an absolute ability to make them a return on their investment. WoW did that in a big way, and so everyone and their grandmothers jumped on the "Me too!" bandwagon to cash in as much as they could. Just like they did for FPSs when Doom took off, etc...
This may be true.. but it shouldn't negate Blizzard's acheivement in anyway. It's not their fault that people wanted to make money also. It's called capitalism and in America, we kinda use it. Besides, the cream rises. There can be a million games out there, if they suck, they suck and no one will play. Games rise to the top for a reason.
Personally I would argue the games - for the most part - were much better prior to WoW. Developers back then sought to make massive worlds with tons of options, things to do, ways to progress, ways to interact/compete/cooperate and didn't guide players along clearly marked roads, connecting clearly marked quest hubs containing animated quest dispensers (aka 'NPCs') with giant !'s giving out quests with their locations clearly marked on the map ('cause heaven forbid people have to read 5 lines of text, their heads might explode).... lest the helpless soul be hopelessly lost and demoralized.. in a video game.
This is your argument and completely a personal opinion. I also think there's a bit of Rose colored glasses deal going on. I've been playing games over the past 12 years since my early 20's and I often think back to Shadowbane, which was my favorite for a while. I think back to the good times I had with friends and make believe the game was good. It really wasn't. If was afwul.. good concepts horribly executed, bad performance, no quests, just a pure grind and laggy during pvp, which was the whole reason we played. The point is, it may not be that the games were actually, better, just the rose colored glasses of looking into the past.
There's a reason why the older MMOs still have people playing them after 10+ years in some cases, while all but a handful of newer and supposedly "better" MMOs see their populations peaking and dropping months after they release, because players are burning through them, getting bored, and moving on to the next one to repeat the same routine and bore themselves all over again.
I would agree here to a point.. there is a reason the some of the older mmo's still have people playing there after 10 years... Not much different then the reason WoW has so many players after 7. Not a hand full of players, the most players. I get your point here with the "new" mmo's. I've been there. That's why I return to WoW for that "same routine" you speak of. Also, after 10 years or so.. none of those "older" mmo's even have a tiny bit of a fraction that WoW has after 7 years - guess they're doing something right.
Developers - for the most part - don't even seem to be trying to make them any more interesting or engaging. And frankly, why should they? Anytime they do anything to engage or involve players any more than "chase the yellow !'s, kill the mobs and get your reward", people throw hissy fits and insist "it's too slow!". Of course, they're also wondering why MMOs have become so shallow, predictable, derivative and boring.
This is just a pure generalization. And why do you assume that other don't like questing in WoW and chasing that yellow ! ? Last I recall, questing and more specially the kill and return type was not brought forth by WoW... as I did it in Everquest also. It's a formula that most, almost all mmo's use. And the rest about games becoming shallow and what not is just another opinion of your which I do not share.
There was nothing wrong with the MMO genre before WoW came along. There were developers making them, and people were playing them.
I never said there was anything wrong with it. But it wasn't unitl WoW that a lot of players took notice of it. And trash talk the flood gates all you want. Without players wanting mmo's, no one would be making them. With a demand for mmo's and better products, the industry moves forward. It would have without WoW I agree, but not at this pace. And just because you see this as "bad" doesn't mean everyone does. There are people playing the games you may think are crap and they're as happy as can be.
Of course there are the "hipsters" who hate change -
What WoW has "done for the genre" is opened the floodgates for corporations who only understand and care about $$$ to sweep in and destroy what made MMOs appealing to people - like the very people who made WoW, for example - to begin with. Instead of developing games designed to appeal to those who enjoy the type of experiences MMOs were originally designed to create, they instead pander to that ever-coveted "least common denominator", their most profitable demographic.
Here's were we get into it. This is one of the most closed minded statements I've read in a while. You can only speak as to what makes a MMO appealing to YOU. Not to everyone. I find WoW and it's mechanics very appealing for my playstyle, so if another game comes along and copies it, it didn't destroy anything for me. How can you honestly sit here and act like YOU are the keeper of knowledge as to what MMO's were originally designed to create? Really? I though MMO's were designed for massive groups of people to play a game together. I do that in WoW every night. People do that in LOTRO every night. People do that in Eden Eternal every night. People do that in Rift every night. But damn all these games because YOU don't feel they are holding true to the MMO creed? Which is what?
The basic, nutshell difference between pre-WoW and post-WoW MMOs is this:
- Pre-WoW developers, for the most part, sought to create epic adventures for players by crafting massive worlds with myriad ways to play, interact, compete and cooperate. Pre-WoW MMO developers sought to earn revenue by entertaining and engaging their players.
- Post-WoW developers, for the most part, seek to create epic profits from players by creating games that are as simplified and streamlined as they can get them. Post-WoW MMO developers seek to earn revenue by monetizing the hell out of their players in any way they can get away with.
I couldn't disagree more. You are generalizing to a point of embarassment. There are a lot of good post WoW games out there that developers have worked hard on. Just like people shit on WoW, you shit on these developers for having anything in common with WoW. LIke I said in my post above.. I don't understand the hatred for MMO's and developers and why people have to shit on everything they're not playing.
So in your opinion from above, TOR, GW2 and all these new games people are drooling over and just made to create epic profits from players by creating a simplified and streamlined experience? Good to know. I guess we call all write them off now. I'm really glad I didn't waste my time trying them and experiencing what the developers were trying to create.
So I assume you are playing a mmo that was made before WoW?
That is funny, Under 10MILLION..... Yes MILLION Subs. Is there any other MMO that has had 10million Subs? Hardly Dieing is it?
I can't wait for SW:TOR, But it will take a lot of hard hard work and years to build up to 10 million (IF it ever does).
You make a good point. Even if the game plummets by several million subs in the next few months, it's still ahead of everything else by miles and miles. Blizzard got a lot of things right, even I can admit that, and I'm someone who isn't that excited about the fantasy genre and really despises relentless quest based progression.
Yeah thats not actually true, as I said above as blizzards subs fall they need to at the same time or shortly after start sacking employee's and pulling hardware selling off assets that are no longer required and scaling back the development team, this isnt speculation this is how the industry works, their not going to keep the staff needed for a 10 million sub game, if the subs drop again to bellow 9 as is predicted by the current trend.
While I do not think it will die, I do think that the current trend were seeing with the game will continue over the next few months, I think in the end the subs will settle at around 6 million, even after pandaren, and I suspect the drop will only take another 4 or 5 months, a shit economy, combined with the state of the game and growing dislike for its expansions and item shop stuff means that players are losing interest and focus in the game.
I suspect that if WOW drops to bellow 5 million subs the game will be shut down, they simply have to much global infrastructure in place, to many jobs would have to be cut , and to much hardware would need to be sold off to keep the game in the black, that they would end up calling it a day and waiting for their next project.
You..... wow... just wow.... I'm kinda taking this as a joke... cause I hope it is. If not...
World of Warcraft subscriptions also took a hit, dropping by around 800,000 to 10.3 million. Morhaime said most of the losses were in “the East”, but said World of Warcraft remains the most popular online game in China and the most popular subscription MMO in the world.
On the game’s future, Morhaime said the team is “looking forward to” World of Warcraft’s Brazilian launch, and said Blizzard has “other aggressive marketing plans” in addition to the Online Pass, but is not ready to share details.
Some of you people are seriously disturbed. I have never understood this whole, "my game needs to be number 1" attitude and a complete hatred for a video game. Why would anyone benefit from WoWs numbers dropping? It makes me so sick that people are quick to throw Blizzard down a flight of stairs given what they have done for the mmo industry. Yeah, it existed before them, but they took it to the next level bringing players AND INVESTORS to the mmo market who couldn't have given a shit about it prior. If you don't like it or play it fine, but at the minimum, give Blizzard the god damn respect they have earned.
Previous to WoW, developers still got investment money to make their game... that's how they got them made.
Yes, like I said.. there were games out there for sure... but no one outside of computer gaming new of them. There was money being made, but it obvioulsy wasn't that profitable or popular given the market at the time. I played eq1, and no one ever knew what the hell I was talking about when I mentioned it. WoW was the first game to become really pop culture and arise a lot of attention to mmo gaming.
The difference is quantity. Most investors - as in many cases - won't touch something 'til it demonstrates an absolute ability to make them a return on their investment. WoW did that in a big way, and so everyone and their grandmothers jumped on the "Me too!" bandwagon to cash in as much as they could. Just like they did for FPSs when Doom took off, etc...
This may be true.. but it shouldn't negate Blizzard's acheivement in anyway. It's not their fault that people wanted to make money also. It's called capitalism and in America, we kinda use it. Besides, the cream rises. There can be a million games out there, if they suck, they suck and no one will play. Games rise to the top for a reason.
Personally I would argue the games - for the most part - were much better prior to WoW. Developers back then sought to make massive worlds with tons of options, things to do, ways to progress, ways to interact/compete/cooperate and didn't guide players along clearly marked roads, connecting clearly marked quest hubs containing animated quest dispensers (aka 'NPCs') with giant !'s giving out quests with their locations clearly marked on the map ('cause heaven forbid people have to read 5 lines of text, their heads might explode).... lest the helpless soul be hopelessly lost and demoralized.. in a video game.
This is your argument and completely a personal opinion. I also think there's a bit of Rose colored glasses deal going on. I've been playing games over the past 12 years since my early 20's and I often think back to Shadowbane, which was my favorite for a while. I think back to the good times I had with friends and make believe the game was good. It really wasn't. If was afwul.. good concepts horribly executed, bad performance, no quests, just a pure grind and laggy during pvp, which was the whole reason we played. The point is, it may not be that the games were actually, better, just the rose colored glasses of looking into the past.
There's a reason why the older MMOs still have people playing them after 10+ years in some cases, while all but a handful of newer and supposedly "better" MMOs see their populations peaking and dropping months after they release, because players are burning through them, getting bored, and moving on to the next one to repeat the same routine and bore themselves all over again.
I would agree here to a point.. there is a reason the some of the older mmo's still have people playing there after 10 years... Not much different then the reason WoW has so many players after 7. Not a hand full of players, the most players. I get your point here with the "new" mmo's. I've been there. That's why I return to WoW for that "same routine" you speak of. Also, after 10 years or so.. none of those "older" mmo's even have a tiny bit of a fraction that WoW has after 7 years - guess they're doing something right.
Developers - for the most part - don't even seem to be trying to make them any more interesting or engaging. And frankly, why should they? Anytime they do anything to engage or involve players any more than "chase the yellow !'s, kill the mobs and get your reward", people throw hissy fits and insist "it's too slow!". Of course, they're also wondering why MMOs have become so shallow, predictable, derivative and boring.
This is just a pure generalization. And why do you assume that other don't like questing in WoW and chasing that yellow ! ? Last I recall, questing and more specially the kill and return type was not brought forth by WoW... as I did it in Everquest also. It's a formula that most, almost all mmo's use. And the rest about games becoming shallow and what not is just another opinion of your which I do not share.
There was nothing wrong with the MMO genre before WoW came along. There were developers making them, and people were playing them.
I never said there was anything wrong with it. But it wasn't unitl WoW that a lot of players took notice of it. And trash talk the flood gates all you want. Without players wanting mmo's, no one would be making them. With a demand for mmo's and better products, the industry moves forward. It would have without WoW I agree, but not at this pace. And just because you see this as "bad" doesn't mean everyone does. There are people playing the games you may think are crap and they're as happy as can be.
Of course there are the "hipsters" who hate change -
What WoW has "done for the genre" is opened the floodgates for corporations who only understand and care about $$$ to sweep in and destroy what made MMOs appealing to people - like the very people who made WoW, for example - to begin with. Instead of developing games designed to appeal to those who enjoy the type of experiences MMOs were originally designed to create, they instead pander to that ever-coveted "least common denominator", their most profitable demographic.
Here's were we get into it. This is one of the most closed minded statements I've read in a while. You can only speak as to what makes a MMO appealing to YOU. Not to everyone. I find WoW and it's mechanics very appealing for my playstyle, so if another game comes along and copies it, it didn't destroy anything for me. How can you honestly sit here and act like YOU are the keeper of knowledge as to what MMO's were originally designed to create? Really? I though MMO's were designed for massive groups of people to play a game together. I do that in WoW every night. People do that in LOTRO every night. People do that in Eden Eternal every night. People do that in Rift every night. But damn all these games because YOU don't feel they are holding true to the MMO creed? Which is what?
The basic, nutshell difference between pre-WoW and post-WoW MMOs is this:
- Pre-WoW developers, for the most part, sought to create epic adventures for players by crafting massive worlds with myriad ways to play, interact, compete and cooperate. Pre-WoW MMO developers sought to earn revenue by entertaining and engaging their players.
- Post-WoW developers, for the most part, seek to create epic profits from players by creating games that are as simplified and streamlined as they can get them. Post-WoW MMO developers seek to earn revenue by monetizing the hell out of their players in any way they can get away with.
I couldn't disagree more. You are generalizing to a point of embarassment. There are a lot of good post WoW games out there that developers have worked hard on. Just like people shit on WoW, you shit on these developers for having anything in common with WoW. LIke I said in my post above.. I don't understand the hatred for MMO's and developers and why people have to shit on everything they're not playing.
So in your opinion from above, TOR, GW2 and all these new games people are drooling over and just made to create epic profits from players by creating a simplified and streamlined experience? Good to know. I guess we call all write them off now. I'm really glad I didn't waste my time trying them and experiencing what the developers were trying to create.
So I assume you are playing a mmo that was made before WoW?
Damn man I wish I could clone you as much as these pessimist say WoW is being cloned and flooding the market. Saying that WoW has lead to decline of mmos is like saying MMORPG.com has lead to the decline of forum posters and my good sir you have proved both theories wrong by at least tenfold.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I love watching a group of people who aren't educated in business or actually invest themselves talk about investments and impending doom.
It's like hearing a bunch of fat kids tell me they work out by doing push ups before they sleep lol
With the way investments for professional investment firms hae been going the past few years, the professionals don't seem to be in a position to claim what the market is going to do anymore than the average person.
But when the flagship product for a company reports a 10% hit in subscriberbase, it's usually enough to shake up investor confidence, which means a drop in the valuation of the stock.
Some of you people are seriously disturbed. I have never understood this whole, "my game needs to be number 1" attitude and a complete hatred for a video game. Why would anyone benefit from WoWs numbers dropping? It makes me so sick that people are quick to throw Blizzard down a flight of stairs given what they have done for the mmo industry. Yeah, it existed before them, but they took it to the next level bringing players AND INVESTORS to the mmo market who couldn't have given a shit about it prior. If you don't like it or play it fine, but at the minimum, give Blizzard the god damn respect they have earned.
Previous to WoW, developers still got investment money to make their game... that's how they got them made.
Yes, like I said.. there were games out there for sure... but no one outside of computer gaming new of them. There was money being made, but it obvioulsy wasn't that profitable or popular given the market at the time. I played eq1, and no one ever knew what the hell I was talking about when I mentioned it. WoW was the first game to become really pop culture and arise a lot of attention to mmo gaming.
The difference is quantity. Most investors - as in many cases - won't touch something 'til it demonstrates an absolute ability to make them a return on their investment. WoW did that in a big way, and so everyone and their grandmothers jumped on the "Me too!" bandwagon to cash in as much as they could. Just like they did for FPSs when Doom took off, etc...
This may be true.. but it shouldn't negate Blizzard's acheivement in anyway. It's not their fault that people wanted to make money also. It's called capitalism and in America, we kinda use it. Besides, the cream rises. There can be a million games out there, if they suck, they suck and no one will play. Games rise to the top for a reason.
Personally I would argue the games - for the most part - were much better prior to WoW. Developers back then sought to make massive worlds with tons of options, things to do, ways to progress, ways to interact/compete/cooperate and didn't guide players along clearly marked roads, connecting clearly marked quest hubs containing animated quest dispensers (aka 'NPCs') with giant !'s giving out quests with their locations clearly marked on the map ('cause heaven forbid people have to read 5 lines of text, their heads might explode).... lest the helpless soul be hopelessly lost and demoralized.. in a video game.
This is your argument and completely a personal opinion. I also think there's a bit of Rose colored glasses deal going on. I've been playing games over the past 12 years since my early 20's and I often think back to Shadowbane, which was my favorite for a while. I think back to the good times I had with friends and make believe the game was good. It really wasn't. If was afwul.. good concepts horribly executed, bad performance, no quests, just a pure grind and laggy during pvp, which was the whole reason we played. The point is, it may not be that the games were actually, better, just the rose colored glasses of looking into the past.
There's a reason why the older MMOs still have people playing them after 10+ years in some cases, while all but a handful of newer and supposedly "better" MMOs see their populations peaking and dropping months after they release, because players are burning through them, getting bored, and moving on to the next one to repeat the same routine and bore themselves all over again.
I would agree here to a point.. there is a reason the some of the older mmo's still have people playing there after 10 years... Not much different then the reason WoW has so many players after 7. Not a hand full of players, the most players. I get your point here with the "new" mmo's. I've been there. That's why I return to WoW for that "same routine" you speak of. Also, after 10 years or so.. none of those "older" mmo's even have a tiny bit of a fraction that WoW has after 7 years - guess they're doing something right.
Developers - for the most part - don't even seem to be trying to make them any more interesting or engaging. And frankly, why should they? Anytime they do anything to engage or involve players any more than "chase the yellow !'s, kill the mobs and get your reward", people throw hissy fits and insist "it's too slow!". Of course, they're also wondering why MMOs have become so shallow, predictable, derivative and boring.
This is just a pure generalization. And why do you assume that other don't like questing in WoW and chasing that yellow ! ? Last I recall, questing and more specially the kill and return type was not brought forth by WoW... as I did it in Everquest also. It's a formula that most, almost all mmo's use. And the rest about games becoming shallow and what not is just another opinion of your which I do not share.
There was nothing wrong with the MMO genre before WoW came along. There were developers making them, and people were playing them.
I never said there was anything wrong with it. But it wasn't unitl WoW that a lot of players took notice of it. And trash talk the flood gates all you want. Without players wanting mmo's, no one would be making them. With a demand for mmo's and better products, the industry moves forward. It would have without WoW I agree, but not at this pace. And just because you see this as "bad" doesn't mean everyone does. There are people playing the games you may think are crap and they're as happy as can be.
Of course there are the "hipsters" who hate change -
What WoW has "done for the genre" is opened the floodgates for corporations who only understand and care about $$$ to sweep in and destroy what made MMOs appealing to people - like the very people who made WoW, for example - to begin with. Instead of developing games designed to appeal to those who enjoy the type of experiences MMOs were originally designed to create, they instead pander to that ever-coveted "least common denominator", their most profitable demographic.
Here's were we get into it. This is one of the most closed minded statements I've read in a while. You can only speak as to what makes a MMO appealing to YOU. Not to everyone. I find WoW and it's mechanics very appealing for my playstyle, so if another game comes along and copies it, it didn't destroy anything for me. How can you honestly sit here and act like YOU are the keeper of knowledge as to what MMO's were originally designed to create? Really? I though MMO's were designed for massive groups of people to play a game together. I do that in WoW every night. People do that in LOTRO every night. People do that in Eden Eternal every night. People do that in Rift every night. But damn all these games because YOU don't feel they are holding true to the MMO creed? Which is what?
The basic, nutshell difference between pre-WoW and post-WoW MMOs is this:
- Pre-WoW developers, for the most part, sought to create epic adventures for players by crafting massive worlds with myriad ways to play, interact, compete and cooperate. Pre-WoW MMO developers sought to earn revenue by entertaining and engaging their players.
- Post-WoW developers, for the most part, seek to create epic profits from players by creating games that are as simplified and streamlined as they can get them. Post-WoW MMO developers seek to earn revenue by monetizing the hell out of their players in any way they can get away with.
I couldn't disagree more. You are generalizing to a point of embarassment. There are a lot of good post WoW games out there that developers have worked hard on. Just like people shit on WoW, you shit on these developers for having anything in common with WoW. LIke I said in my post above.. I don't understand the hatred for MMO's and developers and why people have to shit on everything they're not playing.
So in your opinion from above, TOR, GW2 and all these new games people are drooling over and just made to create epic profits from players by creating a simplified and streamlined experience? Good to know. I guess we call all write them off now. I'm really glad I didn't waste my time trying them and experiencing what the developers were trying to create.
So I assume you are playing a mmo that was made before WoW?
Damn man I wish I could clone you as much as these pessimist say WoW is being cloned and flooding the market. Saying that WoW has lead to decline of mmos is like saying MMORPG.com has lead to the decline of forum posters and my good sir you have proved both theories wrong by at least tenfold.
Thanks, lol. I do what I can. I really is a battlefeild out there if you like WoW...
Blizzard announces: "The good news is that the company has whooped expectations by nearly tripling its profit for the quarter over this time last year.
During this past quarter, Activision Blizzard raked in $627 million worth of sales, of which $148 million is pure profit. A majority of the revenue -- 62% -- comes from its digital sales." (wait.. they tripled their money? wtf?)
Yearly total: ACTIVISION BLIZZARD, INC. 1 Year Change: +17.26% (ohhhh. Their stock is up almost 20% for the last year? ok, gonna go get a sandwich now)
The world yawns at unsensational threads while Blizzard continues to take laps in it's money filled swimming pool.
If subs drop they might lay off staff/dev, but we dont know how low subs need to drop before this happen. If they still make a profit at 9 mill or 5 mill subs they will merges servers and stuff. The remaining 9 or 5 mills needs updates and expantions too. Everquest 1 still gets an expac a year and updates. But surely the quality will suffer if some of the staff is fired and the time frame for expacs and updates shall stay the same.
Originally posted by Fessor111 If subs drop they might lay off staff/dev, but we dont know how low subs need to drop before this happen. If they still make a profit at 9 mill or 5 mill subs they will merges servers and stuff. The remaining 9 or 5 mills needs updates and expantions too.
They lost 800k subs, now down to 10.something million (yawn)
Their stock dropped almost 5% (yawn).
They have a new expansion coming out, with updates coming. (Pandas!)
They made triple their money in sales. (surprise!)
If subs drop they might lay off staff/dev, but we dont know how low subs need to drop before this happen. If they still make a profit at 9 mill or 5 mill subs they will merges servers and stuff. The remaining 9 or 5 mills needs updates and expantions too.
They lost 800k subs, now down to 10.something million (yawn)
Their stock dropped almost 5% (yawn).
They have a new expansion coming out, with updates coming. (Pandas!)
They made triple their money in sales. (surprise!)
/end thread.
Activision-Blizzard tripled it's sales, not Blizzard. I point you to over 9 million Modern Warfare 3 pre-orders.
And a 5% drop in stock price in a single day is actually pretty significant.
But I guess I'll just be labeled a hater for pointing out reality.
Over half of sales ($427 million) were generated from digital channels, Edge reports. Call of Duty: Black Ops was the top-selling console game in the US and Europe for the nine months to the end of September, while consumers have now bought 20 million Black Ops map packs.
Activision also said it expects premium Call of Duty Elite subscribers to hit one million by the end of 2011, and confirmed a new Call of Duty game for 2012.
It's good to know 1 million players won't take anything thrown at them.
Wow is a shadow of what it was. I don't understand why developers do that to their own games. Same happened with EQ and SWG. At some point they start making the game easy and absurd and that's the end of it.
Eh, changing their game is risky. Not changing is riskier.
With change, you might eventually evolve the game to something players don't like. Without change, you definitely won't be something players will like for more than a couple years.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
They made triple their money in sales. (surprise!)
Blizzard didnt make triple - Activision did
alot of those digital sales came from Call of Duty http://www.computerandvideogames.com/325540/activision-profits-almost-triple-in-q3/ Over half of sales ($427 million) were generated from digital channels, Edge reports. Call of Duty: Black Ops was the top-selling console game in the US and Europe for the nine months to the end of September, while consumers have now bought 20 million Black Ops map packs.
Activision also said it expects premium Call of Duty Elite subscribers to hit one million by the end of 2011, and confirmed a new Call of Duty game for 2012.
It's called "Blizzard/Activision" on the stock ticker for a reason Nadia, lol. Notice who's doing the talking? Yep, it's Bobby Kotick.
If Activision made the money, Blizzard did as well as people like to say.. it's the same company. Now if you want to argue WOW didn't make that money, that's a different story.
Remember to keep the title of the thread in mind when responding:
Activision stocks slip as WoW set to fall to under 10 million subs soon
Originally posted by Ceridith Activision-Blizzard tripled it's sales, not Blizzard. I point you to over 9 million Modern Warfare 3 pre-orders. And a 5% drop in stock price in a single day is actually pretty significant. But I guess I'll just be labeled a hater for pointing out reality.
Nope, you're not a hater. But you're missing the point of the title of this thread as well.
Comments
TBH, I think it was not fair idea to revamp WoW at cost of customers as it was done with Cata.
I left as i found they added like 10% of new content but charged for 100%.
To me they should to it at 2 steps: revamp classic for free & make Cata full content game as it was any previous campaign.
As for Panda joke, I think it not very attractive for players and as such, will fail. Again 5 more levels means you0ll get all efforts for nothing or for short use, leak of content again, IMO.
I can be wrong but seems like Blizzard took direction of short extensions which will cost too much for users, plus WoW sub is already not cheap, so I guess financial reason is also behind quitters.
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
First Netflix.
Second Bank of America
Third World of Warcraft.
The nickel & diming via cash shops, redundant content updates, and constant "sassy" changes will generate bad rapport. I personally started to REALLY dislike Blizzard once they got in bed with Bobby Kotick. It just doesn't feel like "for the love of the game" anymore. It feels like, "do whatever we can as cheap as possible to generate bucks."
For those saying that a 1 million drop in subs is nothing to a game like wow your living in cloud cooco land.
They have now 10 million subs, they also have the staff thats required to handle and manage 10 million subs, when their subs drop by 1 million and they have staff for 10 million, and only 9 million subs, then a lot of people are going to lose their jobs, blizzard are a company there to make money they will not maintain staff thats required for an 11million sub game when they only have 10 million in subs.
As a side note, blizzard has already laid off a ton of people including people working on their new mmo titan, and we still dont even know what that is.
You see killing wow is not just about dropping its susbs, as its subs drop blizzard will be forced to sack staff and cut back their hardware to match the decline, so even though they had 11 million, and only lost 1 million, its still a massive deal, HUGE MASSIVE DEAL, and if you dont think so, just check all those employee's that just lost their jobs a few days ago.
You make a good point. Even if the game plummets by several million subs in the next few months, it's still ahead of everything else by miles and miles. Blizzard got a lot of things right, even I can admit that, and I'm someone who isn't that excited about the fantasy genre and really despises relentless quest based progression.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
good observation, maybe their pandas will save their business?
Wow should have been dead before it started hopefully developers who go back to making good mmos now.
I do not believe that releases of new MMOs have anything to do with the lowered number of WoW subscriptions.
I repeatedly have read comments here and elsewhere that WoW, with its last expansions and changes, has serious quality problems now. So yeah, the only company that can kill WoW is Blizzard and it seems they are currently doing just that.
Err ... under what tree did you hide that you still havent mentioned that the stock markets are a horde of completely hopeless bat*** crazy people ? They even recently had a really funny scientific study that got the result that banksters behave WORSE than the average psychopath.
And no, SW:TOR cant have 10+ Mio. Not without having asian servers and/or having console versions of their MMORPG as well.
I am completely baffled why, when they did it for Dragon Age, a pure roleplaying game like they didnt do it for a long time (the last one was Neverwinter Nights 1), they wouldnt make a console version for SW:TOR, the "MMORPG for people who dont usually play MMORPGs". Is it just me, or wouldnt such people often only own a console, instead of a full blown gaming PC ?
A: It doesnt matter if you drive a modern Porsche or an old Volkswagen, if you are out of gas, you wont get anywhere.
B: Did you actually just compare Porsche and Volkswagen ?
:-D
Anything but.
I dont care much for GW2. None of the improvements over GW1 matter much to me, and GW1 is just dead boring.
I expect SW:TOR to be the last Bioware game that is still a Bioware game. ME2 and DA2 already have shown what Bioware will produce in the future. SW:TOR will be the first and last MMO with really massive story content. It has many obvious weaknesses, but I expect it to be good in that one quality, and in some others. For example, a nice userfriendly interface never was much of a problem with Bioware, either, albeit Dragon Age was surprisingly weak on that front. Still not such a mess as NWN2.
Yeah thats not actually true, as I said above as blizzards subs fall they need to at the same time or shortly after start sacking employee's and pulling hardware selling off assets that are no longer required and scaling back the development team, this isnt speculation this is how the industry works, their not going to keep the staff needed for a 10 million sub game, if the subs drop again to bellow 9 as is predicted by the current trend.
While I do not think it will die, I do think that the current trend were seeing with the game will continue over the next few months, I think in the end the subs will settle at around 6 million, even after pandaren, and I suspect the drop will only take another 4 or 5 months, a shit economy, combined with the state of the game and growing dislike for its expansions and item shop stuff means that players are losing interest and focus in the game.
I suspect that if WOW drops to bellow 5 million subs the game will be shut down, they simply have to much global infrastructure in place, to many jobs would have to be cut , and to much hardware would need to be sold off to keep the game in the black, that they would end up calling it a day and waiting for their next project.
You..... wow... just wow.... I'm kinda taking this as a joke... cause I hope it is. If not...
wow loses 10% of its subs -- its a loss but its not failing
mentioning that it could continue to 50% is needless
Morhaime on the topic
http://www.vg247.com/2011/11/08/activision-blizzard-q3-digital-revenue-up-25-ytd/
World of Warcraft subscriptions also took a hit, dropping by around 800,000 to 10.3 million. Morhaime said most of the losses were in “the East”, but said World of Warcraft remains the most popular online game in China and the most popular subscription MMO in the world.
On the game’s future, Morhaime said the team is “looking forward to” World of Warcraft’s Brazilian launch, and said Blizzard has “other aggressive marketing plans” in addition to the Online Pass, but is not ready to share details.
EQ2 fan sites
Damn man I wish I could clone you as much as these pessimist say WoW is being cloned and flooding the market. Saying that WoW has lead to decline of mmos is like saying MMORPG.com has lead to the decline of forum posters and my good sir you have proved both theories wrong by at least tenfold.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
With the way investments for professional investment firms hae been going the past few years, the professionals don't seem to be in a position to claim what the market is going to do anymore than the average person.
But when the flagship product for a company reports a 10% hit in subscriberbase, it's usually enough to shake up investor confidence, which means a drop in the valuation of the stock.
Thanks, lol. I do what I can. I really is a battlefeild out there if you like WoW...
Lol, WOW haters must be happier than pigs in @!#$.
I self identify as a monkey.
Awww my heart just bleeds for them ........ but seriously who cares ?
Title: "Activision stocks slip as WoW blah blah blah" (oh my, it's scary!)
Activision Stocks: Activision Blizzard
NASDAQ:ATVI
Reaction: Down -4.59% (omg... run! It's falling!)
Blizzard announces: "The good news is that the company has whooped expectations by nearly tripling its profit for the quarter over this time last year.
During this past quarter, Activision Blizzard raked in $627 million worth of sales, of which $148 million is pure profit. A majority of the revenue -- 62% -- comes from its digital sales." (wait.. they tripled their money? wtf?)
Yearly total: ACTIVISION BLIZZARD, INC. 1 Year Change: +17.26% (ohhhh. Their stock is up almost 20% for the last year? ok, gonna go get a sandwich now)
The world yawns at unsensational threads while Blizzard continues to take laps in it's money filled swimming pool.
"TO MICHAEL!"
If subs drop they might lay off staff/dev, but we dont know how low subs need to drop before this happen. If they still make a profit at 9 mill or 5 mill subs they will merges servers and stuff. The remaining 9 or 5 mills needs updates and expantions too. Everquest 1 still gets an expac a year and updates. But surely the quality will suffer if some of the staff is fired and the time frame for expacs and updates shall stay the same.
Zoos the Slacker
Their stock dropped almost 5% (yawn).
They have a new expansion coming out, with updates coming. (Pandas!)
They made triple their money in sales. (surprise!)
/end thread.
"TO MICHAEL!"
The markets, and ATVI, being down has to do with Italy. Not WoW.
Yeah and Blizzard probably have more money than Italy !
Activision-Blizzard tripled it's sales, not Blizzard. I point you to over 9 million Modern Warfare 3 pre-orders.
And a 5% drop in stock price in a single day is actually pretty significant.
But I guess I'll just be labeled a hater for pointing out reality.
Blizzard didnt make triple - Activision did
alot of those digital sales came from Call of Duty
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/325540/activision-profits-almost-triple-in-q3/
Over half of sales ($427 million) were generated from digital channels, Edge reports. Call of Duty: Black Ops was the top-selling console game in the US and Europe for the nine months to the end of September, while consumers have now bought 20 million Black Ops map packs.
Activision also said it expects premium Call of Duty Elite subscribers to hit one million by the end of 2011, and confirmed a new Call of Duty game for 2012.
EQ2 fan sites
Eh, changing their game is risky. Not changing is riskier.
With change, you might eventually evolve the game to something players don't like. Without change, you definitely won't be something players will like for more than a couple years.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If Activision made the money, Blizzard did as well as people like to say.. it's the same company. Now if you want to argue WOW didn't make that money, that's a different story.
Remember to keep the title of the thread in mind when responding:
Nope, you're not a hater. But you're missing the point of the title of this thread as well.Activision stocks slip as WoW set to fall to under 10 million subs soon
"TO MICHAEL!"
What, stocks dropped after bad news? What is this blasphomy?