I got my roommate to try WoW. He's addicted now.. and he plays 4 hours a day on weekdays and 10-12 on weekends. He has multiple level 70's. WoW is his other Job. It all starts out innocently enough.. I got him to play so that I'd have soemoen to talk to WoW about.. But.. The thing is.. I quit a month after I got him started. .. right around TBC. WoW isn't innovative. they show things on TV.. people watch them.
The comparision of WoW VS McDonalds..
McDonalds is easy to get into. You don't need anything more than money. Everyone knows what it is, so it's not a big surprise when you order. Same thing with WoW. Look at games like VG (high end resturants) it requires a high end computer.. same with AoC.. But.. if you are hungry.. the best bang for your buck will be WoW... all the staples are there.. and you'll always have someone else to play with.
Yes, I do wanna bet. I bet WoW will stagger at it's 11M mark and may possible lose around 10% by end of year when Aion is finished with it
Listen, I absolutly LOVE W.o.W. as a very fun game, but when people get the real scoop on Aion in 2009.....well it will be a harder fight for W.o.W.
But ofcourse this is all just my opinion, but yeah I'm willing to place such a bet
The thing is. many many people were saying the same things about AOC and Warhammer. I mean, since WOW has such terrible pvp, surely those two games would suck away all of WOW's pvpers. But those games didn't live up to the hype, and even though they are supposedly focused on pvp.. the pvp was not better than WOWs. Since May, WOW has gained more subscribers than AOC and Warhammer have combined.
Aion may be the one that does dent WOW's subscription numbers. The biggest reason is because it's focused in Asia where AOC and Warhammer didn't try. However, it is very very unlikely that Aion will do anything in NA/EU.... it just doesn't have anywhere near the hype or name recognition that Conan or Warhammer do. It will just be the replacement to Lineage (which is not big in EU/NA).
You know AION is different.
it will probably affect the numbers of WoW but only Asian servers will feal it, i think Aion is a big threat to the Asian WoW players.
the other two games as far as i am aware where never released in Asia
No Bladin, I don't play Eve. At the moment I don't play any MMO's.
I play each one that comes out for a couple months, but then they just bore me. That's just me. The only two MMO's I've played longer than that have been Asheron's Call and City of Heroes. Both of which because I had friends that were 'into' them and would push me to play more than I actually wanted to.
On the other hand I've played games like KOTOR, and Fable, and now Fable 2 for long periods of time because in those games the world actually reflects the choices you make as does your character. Until MMO's can capture this feeling of involvement in more than just the most rudimentary of fashions, they will continue to lose my interest after a short period of time.
I don't understand people who can do the same thing day after day after day and still have fun doing it. Especially when nothing changes as a result. There are probably 6 or 7 million people playing WoW to make up those 11 million subscribers, and there are hundreds of different servers with different population numbers and different ratios of good and evil, yet the worlds on each of those servers are exactly the same.
That doesn't make sense to me. That's what needs to change in MMO's as far as I am concerned. I want to play a hero, and a hero changes the world for the better, not just for himself, but for everyone.
I know that is a hard concept to involve in a Massively Multiplayer expirience, but I think it can be done.
The moron comment was incondign, and I appologize for it. I just have difficulty understanding the rampant fanboyism for these games which leave, in my opinion, so much more to be desired.
WOW still only ranked 21st in user rating so many subs but so few rate it better than other games. Maybe the WOW guys can do like the darkfall guys did.
I know when I am looking for a new game I go for the user ratings not the number of subs. Same goes for any product user ratings will always have a much larger influence on me personally then how many people purchased it.
Playing- Guild Wars 2, SWTOR SWTOR Referral Link Get a free Server Transfer and lots of other free stuff for your SWTOR account! Works for both new and previous players.
Yeah and if you have not been paying attn: latly pretty much every stock in the world has been goin down,yet we still get folks posting stuff about stocks are clueless.
WOW still only ranked 21st in user rating so many subs but so few rate it better than other games. Maybe the WOW guys can do like the darkfall guys did. I know when I am looking for a new game I go for the user ratings not the number of subs. Same goes for any product user ratings will always have a much larger influence on me personally then how many people purchased it.
Yes, but that's the thing. The majority of the WoW players are not people who necessarily come to websites to discuss games. Some of them are Blizzard fans, some just regular people. Heck, there is a woman who works in our marketing department who plays WoW and she really isn't a gamer.
Die Hard MMO players seem to think that there are millions of mmo players who are just waiting to see the light. But the reality is that these WoW players aren't really cut from the same cloth. Just regular people who are enjoying themselves.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
WOW still only ranked 21st in user rating so many subs but so few rate it better than other games. Maybe the WOW guys can do like the darkfall guys did. I know when I am looking for a new game I go for the user ratings not the number of subs. Same goes for any product user ratings will always have a much larger influence on me personally then how many people purchased it.
You Have to be a huge tool to only buy/play a game based on Other peoples opinion I.e use rating.
*Pro-Tip*-Try playing a game beacuse you like the game not beacuse others like it.
Anyone who hates wow are one of two things.
1)bad at the game.(wellfare epics and being able to clear Kz does not make you good)
2)Really bad at the game.
I know what your all thinking and yes you can be bad at wow.
Heh ... I'd rather use my own judgement than rely upon 'ratings' from sites like this. Admittedly if I had taken my own advice I wouldn't have bothered with WAR; oy ... buyer's remorse kind of sucks.
Ico Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
Anyone who hates wow are one of two things. 1)bad at the game.(wellfare epics and being able to clear Kz does not make you good) 2)Really bad at the game. I know what your all thinking and yes you can be bad at wow.
Or people might just not like it, thought of that one? didn't think so...
Yes, I do wanna bet. I bet WoW will stagger at it's 11M mark and may possible lose around 10% by end of year when Aion is finished with it
Listen, I absolutly LOVE W.o.W. as a very fun game, but when people get the real scoop on Aion in 2009.....well it will be a harder fight for W.o.W.
But ofcourse this is all just my opinion, but yeah I'm willing to place such a bet
The thing is. many many people were saying the same things about AOC and Warhammer. I mean, since WOW has such terrible pvp, surely those two games would suck away all of WOW's pvpers. But those games didn't live up to the hype, and even though they are supposedly focused on pvp.. the pvp was not better than WOWs. Since May, WOW has gained more subscribers than AOC and Warhammer have combined.
Aion may be the one that does dent WOW's subscription numbers. The biggest reason is because it's focused in Asia where AOC and Warhammer didn't try. However, it is very very unlikely that Aion will do anything in NA/EU.... it just doesn't have anywhere near the hype or name recognition that Conan or Warhammer do. It will just be the replacement to Lineage (which is not big in EU/NA).
You know AION is different.
it will probably affect the numbers of WoW but only Asian servers will feal it, i think Aion is a big threat to the Asian WoW players.
the other two games as far as i am aware where never released in Asia
I agree that this may be the case in the first year or two, but the way they customized Aion it puts me under the impression that they arent leaving any stones unturned. Honestly I think W.o.W. is at the point now where it will never really die, because there are so many die-hard W.o.W. fans But NCsoft is about to pull and ace out their sleeves on this round, and pull in a vas majority that may make a good dent in the numbers within the next 2 years. I know I said Aion will smash W.o.W. but honestly it will never really kill it, I don't think there will be any mmo that actually kills it. It seems as if they are taking the game a step above the norm, the interface seems friendly from what I've noticed, seems like I can play it like W.o.W. but on another lvl, don't seem like they want the typical grinder genre nor a W.o.W. one for that matter.
Let me not get too much into details about Aion in this thread though, cause it's a W.o.W. thread. I love playing my druid and no way in heck I'm just gonna abandon it over night . W.o.W. has the new WoTLK expansion coming out, yes W.o.W. may grow even more with even old players signing up again like a couple of guys I know, but I have a feeling that with the release of such games as WAR and then Aion, then with all the upgrades/update they will make, W.o.W. will dwindle or top off by end of 2009-mid 2010.
Of course I may be saying all this because of my own selfish desires for a new gaming experience and a fresh start.
Everyone knows that Warhammer killed WoW. Of course, it was only finishing off the victim after Vangaurd, Age of Conan, TR, etc. etc. cripple it to begin with.
</sarcasm>
Have we moved past Warhammer as the hyped WoW-killer, and on to the next scheduled release in the lineup? How lame. Everyone needs to face it. The only WoW-killer will be Blizzard. Either due to suspending maintenance on it one day in the VERY distant future, or by replacing it with another title. Nobody has come close to creating what Blizzard has now, and every failure, or dissappointment after WoW continues to shore up that assessment, and thier subscription numbers.
Many people play WoW for months or year, then leave, and come back for months and years. Very few games are worthy to come back to after you give it up that initial time...especially if you give it up in the first two months or so (opinion, obviously). In my personal experience, which doesn't translate to fact or majority opinion, I have never returned to a game I dropped in the first free month of subscription. WoW is doing something right, whether poeple like it or not.
I don't think Aion will kill WOW.. but it will be the first game that puts a noticable dent in that 11M number. Warhammer and AOC did nothing noticable to wows population. In fact, WOW grew from 10.7 to 11M players from July to October, which was 'peak' time for warhammer, which is now dying a fast death.
The reason I think that 11M number will be hit by Aion is because of Asia. NCsoft is as big in Asia as Blizzard. Lineage was a very popular game in Asia, and this is the successor to it. Out of 6M Asian WOW players, it's not hard to imagin 1M of them going to Aion. AoC and Warhammer have probably combined caused 200-300k subscribers to temporarily quit WOW (most came back within a month). That 1M is a substantially bigger number.
<sarcasm> This thread is pointless, and patently false! Everyone knows that Warhammer killed WoW. Of course, it was only finishing off the victim after Vangaurd, Age of Conan, TR, etc. etc. cripple it to begin with. </sarcasm> Have we moved past Warhammer as the hyped WoW-killer, and on to the next scheduled release in the lineup? How lame. Everyone needs to face it. The only WoW-killer will be Blizzard. Either due to suspending maintenance on it one day in the VERY distant future, or by replacing it with another title. Nobody has come close to creating what Blizzard has now, and every failure, or dissappointment after WoW continues to shore up that assessment, and thier subscription numbers. Many people play WoW for months or year, then leave, and come back for months and years. Very few games are worthy to come back to after you give it up that initial time...especially if you give it up in the first two months or so (opinion, obviously). In my personal experience, which doesn't translate to fact or majority opinion, I have never returned to a game I dropped in the first free month of subscription. WoW is doing something right, whether poeple like it or not.
Man WAR will never be the game to kill WoW your right about that. WoW thought about it all when it comes to each individual player, the one thing I hated about WoW was that it seemed way too cartoony for me, but that was me coming from playing FFXI for four years straight before I got bored with grinding each job to 75. After I got over the downgraded graphics (compared to FFXI) I enjoyed it and still do. I am looking for a game that has what WoW has and FFXI out together, I got stuck on Aion because I believe it will answer that call. WoW will always be there yeah, but there will always be something another game will offer that WoW dont have and people will try it out. Personaly I am open minded to mmorpg's trying new ways to plaes us so I can't wait.
I don't think Aion will kill WOW.. but it will be the first game that puts a noticable dent in that 11M number. Warhammer and AOC did nothing noticable to wows population. In fact, WOW grew from 10.7 to 11M players from July to October, which was 'peak' time for warhammer, which is now dying a fast death. The reason I think that 11M number will be hit by Aion is because of Asia. NCsoft is as big in Asia as Blizzard. Lineage was a very popular game in Asia, and this is the successor to it. Out of 6M Asian WOW players, it's not hard to imagin 1M of them going to Aion. AoC and Warhammer have probably combined caused 200-300k subscribers to temporarily quit WOW (most came back within a month). That 1M is a substantially bigger number.
I never realized that WoW had grown that much in such a short time, now that you mention it I do remember the 10.7m census some months back. I blame that large increase on the news about the new expansion thats about to release and all the hype it got. People came on early to lvl toons to the appropriate lvl (55?) so they can experience the new class and areas by the time it releases, this adds to the hype because the census tells everyone "hurry up and get in on this now!" -very clever blizzard.
I know this may sound far fetched right now but I think WoW will take a hit in the NA/EU as well and not just the Asian markets because of how the blue prints of the game (Aion) was designed, I think they built this game to specificaly call out the WoW players. They added the things we are use to and then enhanced pvp, and visually made this thing better than any mmorpg I've seen sofar among other things, best of all it's not "point and click" to move like "lolswords of the new world" which failed my personal expectations.
All this is just talk though, after Aion and WoW is placed side by side for all to see, then boards like this are going to hurt one and enrich the other.
The thing is.. there has been no marketing whatsoever for Aion. You have to be a real forum geek like myself to even have heard of it and even the people on these forums don't know much about it. I honestly heard the name a lot, I know its from NcSoft etc... but I don't know a single thing about it's gameplay.
It's hard to imagine it making any impact at all in NA/EU with so little information out there about the game. Warhammer and AOC had huge amounts of name recognition as well as marketing, and they still failed to even make a dent in WOW in NA/EU.
If it is really good, it could gradually grow like EVE did. IMHO, Eve is the second best game on the market, yet it isn't even a blip on the WOW radar. A really great game, with no marketing can probably muster 200,000 cultists but that's about it.
The thing is.. there has been no marketing whatsoever for Aion. You have to be a real forum geek like myself to even have heard of it and even the people on these forums don't know much about it. I honestly heard the name a lot, I know its from NcSoft etc... but I don't know a single thing about it's gameplay. It's hard to imagine it making any impact at all in NA/EU with so little information out there about the game. Warhammer and AOC had huge amounts of name recognition as well as marketing, and they still failed to even make a dent in WOW in NA/EU. If it is really good, it could gradually grow like EVE did. IMHO, Eve is the second best game on the market, yet it isn't even a blip on the WOW radar. A really great game, with no marketing can probably muster 200,000 cultists but that's about it.
Hmm, i dunno know if I agree totally. Look at FFXI, it didnt get really good marketing but it did get up there for a while (I forgot the census numbers). I THINK NCsoft has not placed much into marketing Aion for two reasons mainly; they don't want to drown out the attention Guild Wars is getting or trying to get by introducing both games at the same time, they know Guild Wars is not doing as well as they would expect so allowing Aion to over expose itself right now would hurt them in that area. Another reason I would suppose they arent marketing it so much is because I believe I read some time back that the company itself is have some dificulties financialy? not sure how true that is but w/e. I think they could market more if they wanted to but it would kind of cut their own throats a bit with fans jumping from one place to another and all this while still making expansions for Guild Wars wouldn't be a good idea. If I were them I would lay low too until I know the game is ready for a big launch, then flood the markets (doubt they will though).
Comments
The reason a lot of people play WoW..
is..
Because a lot of people play WoW.
I got my roommate to try WoW. He's addicted now.. and he plays 4 hours a day on weekdays and 10-12 on weekends. He has multiple level 70's. WoW is his other Job. It all starts out innocently enough.. I got him to play so that I'd have soemoen to talk to WoW about.. But.. The thing is.. I quit a month after I got him started. .. right around TBC. WoW isn't innovative. they show things on TV.. people watch them.
The comparision of WoW VS McDonalds..
McDonalds is easy to get into. You don't need anything more than money. Everyone knows what it is, so it's not a big surprise when you order. Same thing with WoW. Look at games like VG (high end resturants) it requires a high end computer.. same with AoC.. But.. if you are hungry.. the best bang for your buck will be WoW... all the staples are there.. and you'll always have someone else to play with.
Currently playing Real Life..
http://i36.tinypic.com/2uyod3k.gif
For all your stalking needs..
http://www.plurk.com/Random_
When Wotlk releases..i bet it will then be 15 million subscribers!!
Yes, I do wanna bet. I bet WoW will stagger at it's 11M mark and may possible lose around 10% by end of year when Aion is finished with it
Listen, I absolutly LOVE W.o.W. as a very fun game, but when people get the real scoop on Aion in 2009.....well it will be a harder fight for W.o.W.
But ofcourse this is all just my opinion, but yeah I'm willing to place such a bet
The thing is. many many people were saying the same things about AOC and Warhammer. I mean, since WOW has such terrible pvp, surely those two games would suck away all of WOW's pvpers. But those games didn't live up to the hype, and even though they are supposedly focused on pvp.. the pvp was not better than WOWs. Since May, WOW has gained more subscribers than AOC and Warhammer have combined.
Aion may be the one that does dent WOW's subscription numbers. The biggest reason is because it's focused in Asia where AOC and Warhammer didn't try. However, it is very very unlikely that Aion will do anything in NA/EU.... it just doesn't have anywhere near the hype or name recognition that Conan or Warhammer do. It will just be the replacement to Lineage (which is not big in EU/NA).
You know AION is different.
it will probably affect the numbers of WoW but only Asian servers will feal it, i think Aion is a big threat to the Asian WoW players.
the other two games as far as i am aware where never released in Asia
March on! - Lets Invade Pekopon
No Bladin, I don't play Eve. At the moment I don't play any MMO's.
I play each one that comes out for a couple months, but then they just bore me. That's just me. The only two MMO's I've played longer than that have been Asheron's Call and City of Heroes. Both of which because I had friends that were 'into' them and would push me to play more than I actually wanted to.
On the other hand I've played games like KOTOR, and Fable, and now Fable 2 for long periods of time because in those games the world actually reflects the choices you make as does your character. Until MMO's can capture this feeling of involvement in more than just the most rudimentary of fashions, they will continue to lose my interest after a short period of time.
I don't understand people who can do the same thing day after day after day and still have fun doing it. Especially when nothing changes as a result. There are probably 6 or 7 million people playing WoW to make up those 11 million subscribers, and there are hundreds of different servers with different population numbers and different ratios of good and evil, yet the worlds on each of those servers are exactly the same.
That doesn't make sense to me. That's what needs to change in MMO's as far as I am concerned. I want to play a hero, and a hero changes the world for the better, not just for himself, but for everyone.
I know that is a hard concept to involve in a Massively Multiplayer expirience, but I think it can be done.
The moron comment was incondign, and I appologize for it. I just have difficulty understanding the rampant fanboyism for these games which leave, in my opinion, so much more to be desired.
World of Warcraft: Serving 11 million morons and counting.
WOW still only ranked 21st in user rating so many subs but so few rate it better than other games. Maybe the WOW guys can do like the darkfall guys did.
I know when I am looking for a new game I go for the user ratings not the number of subs. Same goes for any product user ratings will always have a much larger influence on me personally then how many people purchased it.
Playing- Guild Wars 2, SWTOR
SWTOR Referral Link Get a free Server Transfer and lots of other free stuff for your SWTOR account! Works for both new and previous players.
Yeah and if you have not been paying attn: latly pretty much every stock in the world has been goin down,yet we still get folks posting stuff about stocks are clueless.
Yes, but that's the thing. The majority of the WoW players are not people who necessarily come to websites to discuss games. Some of them are Blizzard fans, some just regular people. Heck, there is a woman who works in our marketing department who plays WoW and she really isn't a gamer.
Die Hard MMO players seem to think that there are millions of mmo players who are just waiting to see the light. But the reality is that these WoW players aren't really cut from the same cloth. Just regular people who are enjoying themselves.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
You Have to be a huge tool to only buy/play a game based on Other peoples opinion I.e use rating.
*Pro-Tip*-Try playing a game beacuse you like the game not beacuse others like it.
Anyone who hates wow are one of two things.
1)bad at the game.(wellfare epics and being able to clear Kz does not make you good)
2)Really bad at the game.
I know what your all thinking and yes you can be bad at wow.
Heh ... I'd rather use my own judgement than rely upon 'ratings' from sites like this. Admittedly if I had taken my own advice I wouldn't have bothered with WAR; oy ... buyer's remorse kind of sucks.
Ico
Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.
Or people might just not like it, thought of that one? didn't think so...
There will never ever be any game that lives up to the 'hype'! Ever!
Yes, I do wanna bet. I bet WoW will stagger at it's 11M mark and may possible lose around 10% by end of year when Aion is finished with it
Listen, I absolutly LOVE W.o.W. as a very fun game, but when people get the real scoop on Aion in 2009.....well it will be a harder fight for W.o.W.
But ofcourse this is all just my opinion, but yeah I'm willing to place such a bet
The thing is. many many people were saying the same things about AOC and Warhammer. I mean, since WOW has such terrible pvp, surely those two games would suck away all of WOW's pvpers. But those games didn't live up to the hype, and even though they are supposedly focused on pvp.. the pvp was not better than WOWs. Since May, WOW has gained more subscribers than AOC and Warhammer have combined.
Aion may be the one that does dent WOW's subscription numbers. The biggest reason is because it's focused in Asia where AOC and Warhammer didn't try. However, it is very very unlikely that Aion will do anything in NA/EU.... it just doesn't have anywhere near the hype or name recognition that Conan or Warhammer do. It will just be the replacement to Lineage (which is not big in EU/NA).
You know AION is different.
it will probably affect the numbers of WoW but only Asian servers will feal it, i think Aion is a big threat to the Asian WoW players.
the other two games as far as i am aware where never released in Asia
I agree that this may be the case in the first year or two, but the way they customized Aion it puts me under the impression that they arent leaving any stones unturned. Honestly I think W.o.W. is at the point now where it will never really die, because there are so many die-hard W.o.W. fans But NCsoft is about to pull and ace out their sleeves on this round, and pull in a vas majority that may make a good dent in the numbers within the next 2 years. I know I said Aion will smash W.o.W. but honestly it will never really kill it, I don't think there will be any mmo that actually kills it. It seems as if they are taking the game a step above the norm, the interface seems friendly from what I've noticed, seems like I can play it like W.o.W. but on another lvl, don't seem like they want the typical grinder genre nor a W.o.W. one for that matter.
Let me not get too much into details about Aion in this thread though, cause it's a W.o.W. thread. I love playing my druid and no way in heck I'm just gonna abandon it over night . W.o.W. has the new WoTLK expansion coming out, yes W.o.W. may grow even more with even old players signing up again like a couple of guys I know, but I have a feeling that with the release of such games as WAR and then Aion, then with all the upgrades/update they will make, W.o.W. will dwindle or top off by end of 2009-mid 2010.
Of course I may be saying all this because of my own selfish desires for a new gaming experience and a fresh start.
<sarcasm>
This thread is pointless, and patently false!
Everyone knows that Warhammer killed WoW. Of course, it was only finishing off the victim after Vangaurd, Age of Conan, TR, etc. etc. cripple it to begin with.
</sarcasm>
Have we moved past Warhammer as the hyped WoW-killer, and on to the next scheduled release in the lineup? How lame. Everyone needs to face it. The only WoW-killer will be Blizzard. Either due to suspending maintenance on it one day in the VERY distant future, or by replacing it with another title. Nobody has come close to creating what Blizzard has now, and every failure, or dissappointment after WoW continues to shore up that assessment, and thier subscription numbers.
Many people play WoW for months or year, then leave, and come back for months and years. Very few games are worthy to come back to after you give it up that initial time...especially if you give it up in the first two months or so (opinion, obviously). In my personal experience, which doesn't translate to fact or majority opinion, I have never returned to a game I dropped in the first free month of subscription. WoW is doing something right, whether poeple like it or not.
I don't think Aion will kill WOW.. but it will be the first game that puts a noticable dent in that 11M number. Warhammer and AOC did nothing noticable to wows population. In fact, WOW grew from 10.7 to 11M players from July to October, which was 'peak' time for warhammer, which is now dying a fast death.
The reason I think that 11M number will be hit by Aion is because of Asia. NCsoft is as big in Asia as Blizzard. Lineage was a very popular game in Asia, and this is the successor to it. Out of 6M Asian WOW players, it's not hard to imagin 1M of them going to Aion. AoC and Warhammer have probably combined caused 200-300k subscribers to temporarily quit WOW (most came back within a month). That 1M is a substantially bigger number.
Man WAR will never be the game to kill WoW your right about that. WoW thought about it all when it comes to each individual player, the one thing I hated about WoW was that it seemed way too cartoony for me, but that was me coming from playing FFXI for four years straight before I got bored with grinding each job to 75. After I got over the downgraded graphics (compared to FFXI) I enjoyed it and still do. I am looking for a game that has what WoW has and FFXI out together, I got stuck on Aion because I believe it will answer that call. WoW will always be there yeah, but there will always be something another game will offer that WoW dont have and people will try it out. Personaly I am open minded to mmorpg's trying new ways to plaes us so I can't wait.
I never realized that WoW had grown that much in such a short time, now that you mention it I do remember the 10.7m census some months back. I blame that large increase on the news about the new expansion thats about to release and all the hype it got. People came on early to lvl toons to the appropriate lvl (55?) so they can experience the new class and areas by the time it releases, this adds to the hype because the census tells everyone "hurry up and get in on this now!" -very clever blizzard.
I know this may sound far fetched right now but I think WoW will take a hit in the NA/EU as well and not just the Asian markets because of how the blue prints of the game (Aion) was designed, I think they built this game to specificaly call out the WoW players. They added the things we are use to and then enhanced pvp, and visually made this thing better than any mmorpg I've seen sofar among other things, best of all it's not "point and click" to move like "lolswords of the new world" which failed my personal expectations.
All this is just talk though, after Aion and WoW is placed side by side for all to see, then boards like this are going to hurt one and enrich the other.
The thing is.. there has been no marketing whatsoever for Aion. You have to be a real forum geek like myself to even have heard of it and even the people on these forums don't know much about it. I honestly heard the name a lot, I know its from NcSoft etc... but I don't know a single thing about it's gameplay.
It's hard to imagine it making any impact at all in NA/EU with so little information out there about the game. Warhammer and AOC had huge amounts of name recognition as well as marketing, and they still failed to even make a dent in WOW in NA/EU.
If it is really good, it could gradually grow like EVE did. IMHO, Eve is the second best game on the market, yet it isn't even a blip on the WOW radar. A really great game, with no marketing can probably muster 200,000 cultists but that's about it.
Hmm, i dunno know if I agree totally. Look at FFXI, it didnt get really good marketing but it did get up there for a while (I forgot the census numbers). I THINK NCsoft has not placed much into marketing Aion for two reasons mainly; they don't want to drown out the attention Guild Wars is getting or trying to get by introducing both games at the same time, they know Guild Wars is not doing as well as they would expect so allowing Aion to over expose itself right now would hurt them in that area. Another reason I would suppose they arent marketing it so much is because I believe I read some time back that the company itself is have some dificulties financialy? not sure how true that is but w/e. I think they could market more if they wanted to but it would kind of cut their own throats a bit with fans jumping from one place to another and all this while still making expansions for Guild Wars wouldn't be a good idea. If I were them I would lay low too until I know the game is ready for a big launch, then flood the markets (doubt they will though).