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I predict a rapid exodus of players from WoW in early 2009
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There is always an exodus of players in WOW. The difference with WOW and other games is that WOW actually MASS PROMOTEs their game and gets new subscriptions to replace their old ones. I remember when it first came out and my local movie theater was selling the game there. At a friggin movie theater! You don't see that kind of promotion from other games. I wouldn't know if some of these other games existed had it not been for this website. That's the first problem with these games. They don't promote their product enough.
Second problem with these other games is they're not polished. I can understand having one or two issues when launched but after a certain point it should be more polished. I've been playing WOW for a couple months and have yet to run into a single bug. Maybe I'll reach one at a higher level who knows? But at this point in other games I usually have broken missions or buttons not working.In SWG, I ran itno them constantly for the 2.5 years I played. That's real frustrating and inexusable when I'm paying $15.00 a month for a game.
Do I prefer a more skill based game with a player run economy? Yes I do. But until other games do a better job of promoting their product and releasing a more polished game, WOW will continue to be the king of MMOs.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
If you talk about worldwide subs, then Lineage I and II will be NR 2 and 3 with each around 1mill subs
If you talk about subs in the West, I think that EVE Online is on number 2 atm, with 250k paying subs, so unless WAR releases some new numbers, I have to assume they have less then 250k.
I think that if WAR would have more then 250k subs, it would be newsworthy and they would release their subs as they would be the NR 2 in the West.
And also we are talking about premium mmorpg's here, you also have the 5 euro / month games like Dofus ( +/- 450k paying subs ) and Runescape ( +/- 1,2mill paying subs ).
Oh and almost forgot Final Fantasy XI with +/- 500k subs, most of them in Asia I believe.
Many of these numbers come from http://www.mmogchart.com/charts/ and while it has not been updated lately, it still gives a good view of various mmorpgs and their sub numbers.
I wish Bruce would update his site again
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
Just not on the whole Britney Spears type crazyiness talk of losing 500k subs a month, each month in 2009, right?
I think you know what I mean due to my addition of 'kind of'. I do not believe in his number predictions but I do have the same feeling that WoW has peaked (Right or wrong? This thread is about that speculation).
Just not on the whole Britney Spears type crazyiness talk of losing 500k subs a month, each month in 2009, right?
I think you know what I mean due to my addition of 'kind of'. I do not believe in his number predictions but I do have the same feeling that WoW has peaked (Right or wrong? This thread is about that speculation).
Kind of.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Wow GG.. you're as dangerous as Dick Cheney with a shotgun!
Don't mind him, he's just "fanboi hunting" a bit using feelings as ammo. Millions of people think Wow is fun while.. about 100k think Warhammer is (the other half think the game is busted and aren't having much fun right now).
When the game you absolutely HATE more than anything else puts four (4) of its boxed versions of that same game in the Top 20 of PC Sales for Nov/Dec 2008, and the game you LOVE more than life itself cannot even sniff the same Top 20 list during that time, its gotta hurt bad... like you got gut punched. I bet it would hurt 2x as bad if they counted Blizzard's digital downloads, lol. This is just plain old box sales.
He'll get over it by going over to the DF forums and joining the "Order of the White Border" crusade. I think he knows there's no win here.
Oh right, mentioning the PC Sales for November and December 2008 to show that four versions of WoW are in the top 20 -- precisely when WotLK released -- is like saying that there are more victims of frostbite in January than in August (unless you live on Tierra del Fuego).
The list of best-selling PC games of 2008 has Age of Conan at #4 and Warhammer Online at #5.
I haven't checked for Age of Conan, but in the case of Warhammer Online, the list for September has WAR at #2 (behind Spore) and its collector's edition at #4. And in October, the regular WAR was down to #5 and the collector's edition was out of the top 20. By November -- the list you mention -- WAR was out of the Top 20 altogether. Same for December.
Yet by the end of the year, Warhammer was at #5. It indicates a problem which WoW doesn't have -- staying power, which for all its faults WoW demonstrated by making regular appearances in the middle of the top 10 for the months before the WotLK release. However, it also indicates that there is a market for games like Warhammer and Age of Conan, since they performed very well on those lists. What they failed to do is either to deliver what they promised (Conan) or attract players outside of their core following (Warhammer). A further point to consider is how some WAR players complained that the game had tried to imitate WoW -- if anything, a clear indication that some of those players want something different than WoW instead of a carbon copy.
A few more points to consider:
Direct downloads. We have no evidence to go either way on this, but I would assume that the average WoW player is a lot less tech-savvy than the average WAR player, simply because of system requirements. Don't get me wrong; I myself tired of WAR because the game crashed to desktop all the time, so as far as computing is concerned, I'd probably be part of WoW's captive market -- those who can't play those more recent MMO's at an optimal level because they don't have the equipment for it. So I'm assuming that WoW has far less direct downloads (in proportion to its number of players) than a game like WAR.
Likewise, let's consider how much of a wasteland that year's-end list is. Expansions, sequels and spinoffs (or worse, expansions to sequels of spinoffs like The Sims 2), bundles of same, or otherwise major projects created by star developers like Will Wright. I wouldn't consider it a badge of honour to be on that list, much less to hog more than one slot -- if anything, it speaks of the creative bankruptcy of the industry, and can only go on fuelling it. The games on that list were either hyped or advertised to death (and usually, both), and were probably available in every store in the Brazilian rainforest. Any sleeper hit? Not there. A good game imported from Germany with a minor release in North America? You wish...
As a result of Steam and direct downloads, PC gaming seems to be dying in stores; last week, I went to an EB Games store downtown, and the PC games were all confined to a small dual-sided portable rack near a corner, not even organized alphabetically but showing every sign of having been thrown on there and duly forgotten. That nice, spacious rack on the wall that used to display them a few months ago was now filled with Wii or Xbox titles. But you can bet that WoW was prominently displayed, complete with those WotLK strategy guides next to the cash register.
WoW is ubiquitous and accessible -- that's the secret of its success, not whatever quality it might possess. Do you know many MMO's that advertise on television?
The points you made have been echoed in this thread already, and I would agree with quite a lot of them.
But someone doesn't really need to be "tech-saavy" to go buy a new rig to play WAR, so system requirements don't really figure into intelligence, if I think that's what your saying. (kinda confusing)^^
First, there are more people tech savvy in Wow than any other MMO running today. That part is a fact. "Less technical player" is another popular fantasy haters (not you) make up all the time to justify their own games and put down Wow. ("Wow is kiddie camp with people who don't know anything about gaming.")
Wow has 11 million people playing it, games like WAR have 200k. If WAR had 100% of its subscriptions all "tech-saavy" superbrains and Wow had only 1% of its subscriptions as the same, guess which game has more "tech-saavy" people? I see you left yourself a little leeway by saying "average", but what you really should say is "There are more tech-saavy people in Wow than other games have overall as an average." One could even argue, based on sheer subscription numbers that, "There are more tech-saavy people playing Wow, than all of the top 10 MMOs on the market combined."
There's way more evidence to suggest that there are considerably MORE tech savvy people in Wow than any other MMO on the market today. But it really doesn't take a tech savvy individual to click "Download Here", and fill out a email to the company if it doesnt work.
If youre saying that Wow takes a lesser comp to run, yeah everyone knows that. But the Direct downloads would have no difference at all for either WAR or Wow. They would be tailored to each game obviously.
Your definitely mistaken about the proportion numbers/direct dowload sales. Wow has most of its sales outside the US/EU. The main bulk of their subscriptions come from direct downloads. Take a look at how it's distributed in China:
Most people in any country would go with the free download instead of a costly box or because they simply can't go buy it. If you figure in the number of people US/EU that direct download in addition to all the free downloads in China and other places, I would bet the "average" Wow user might be using the direct download vs the box hands down.
"TO MICHAEL!"
How many threads have we seen like this? The problem is people exit then come back. I've quit countless times for months and then either new content or my own boredom get me back. Until the next great mmo comes out people will keep going back, a few will leave for good, and they'll keep picking up new players so I don't know how you can predict an exodus unless you know when Diablo 3 is coming out.
Let me just go on record and say that I didn't buy the box, I downloaded it.
And as far as graphics go, I think they're fine. Maybe it comes from growing up with an Atari 2600, but I'm not that anal about graphics because most games look pretty believable to me. The game play and fun factor is what's important. Take AOC. AWesome graphics, but you need a super computer to run it.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Was very upset they did not make new graphic patch for Druids. Was hoping for big change for new computer Graphics Card I have but no change. New area looks very fine but no new texture and cat form still so bad for Tauren.
I don't think dungeon crawler like Diablo is going to be next wow or even get so close to wow.
I think they most definitely care. WoW collects a monthly fee from its millions of subscribers, the other games are in essence, one shot sales.
Multiplayer Games!
I completely agree with the OP, but not necessarily as to where WoW players will go. The reason: WotLK expansion is horrible. The content can be cleared quite quickly. Death Knights are stupidly over powered making PVP not very much fun, since everyone and their brother made one.
Patch 3.0.8 will be the final straw for many players. Several melee classes got buffs while holy priests got the shaft. There seems to be a shortage of healers since this bumbling move by Blizzard.
The boards are full of angry and upset customers and it's not looking good for Blizzard at this time. The only thing that can save them is to put down the nerf bat, undo what they have done, put out content instead of nerfing, and pray that those who have had enough will come back.
I too, predicted the demise of AoC. From the moment I hit level 80 and realized there was absolutely nothing to do except grief lower levels, I knew they were in trouble. When customers started complaining on the the forums, the moderators got really nasty and started banning people right and left, for very small infractions. It was then I knew that this game was over and done with. You can't treat your customers like that and expect them to stick around. Not in this day and age - no game is that good, especially with new ones being rapidly developed.
Yes, I think WoW has reached its end. The Devs are getting cocky, the programmers are second rate and soon I suspect, forum moderators will start banning people for voicing their opinions about a game they used to love.
No one wants to see WoW die like this, but unfortunately, that looks to be the case. I've been playing since game launch and I've never seen them swing a nerf bat around to replace content, like I have with the patch. It's piss poor.
Must have did it on another forum. You have one post that you just made that above claim now with, lol.
You completely agree with the OP except one point? Hmm... another person here thinks 500k people are leaving Wow each month this year. It must be true... that's three! haha
Don't worry, we believe you as well.
"TO MICHAEL!"
WOW made several major mistakes, IMHO.
---Twinks. Twinks make level 70 BG's suck. players with major level armor and weapons can run into a crowd of fairly new 70's and mow them down like level 65 NPC drink sellers.
--The new Honor systems is such that fight for an hour against a crowd of honor starving twinks and leave with 25 points of honor.
It use to be if you put in a decent effort and your team lost there was 200 or 300 points Honor to their 500 or 600..
The other night I was in the upper reaches of my faction's stats and leave with 20 to 30 points for 3 games straight. Yes we were facing a mob of twinks.
---This means the time spent versus honor gained to gain competitive Armor has been raised astronomically.
Listen, only MMO that have no twinks are Guildwars because it's system. It is not possible to make a game like Wow and not get them, all the devs can do is lessen the impact on them.
If you want a game where your skill is a lot more important than the gear, games like Wow and EQ2 is the wrong way to go. On the other hand Raiding in one of these games is kinda pointless. In guildwars you just get a bit cooler looking armour for the hardest instances, even though the green weapons are slightly better than the rest.
Some games like AoC try to balance between gear and skill, but the RAID community in Wow would probably be very upset about something like that.
Any game must have a certain % of how much a tougher you get and how much more damage you make, and the higher that is the easier it is to make a twink. But the PvE crowd usually like it and Wow are trying to make everyone happy so either you live with it or start playing a game with less gear dependence.
I wanted to post that I stand by my prediction and recent data confirms it.
Activity numbers for WoW are dropping fast (around 30%) on all servers over the month of January and those "dead" servers which already had low population (which is over a dozen in the US) will likely need to be merged or closed/transferred.
Even high population servers are seeing a large drop in numbers at all times except some peak times (around raiding times) and even then only during half the week - the cancellation wave has already started and it will start becoming more and more immediately obvious in-game.
The first sign of lower in-game activity is already here, the cancellations will start piling up fast as people look for other games to play that offer fresher content. The MMO crowd moves fast, and the momentum swing is going to be pretty huge.
Sorry but this man above = the OP
and ....
here are the stats for the last weeks of Xfire:----> http://www.xfire.com/games/wow/World_of_Warcraft/
THE NUMBERS of Players were NEVER bigger in the last 2 months for WOW-WotLK.
Never ever before were there more Wow players in 2009.
As a matter of fact the ratio between Wow players on Xfire and WAR is now come to a staggering 27.6 to 1
And that used to be 6/1 back at the end of Sep 2008.
So your prediction FAILED already guy and B I G. Because as Xfire is a Western tool divide 5.000.000 players by 27.6 and you get .... WAR now on an estimated ... 182K subs base. (just give or take a few thousand).
You predicted that game would grow and the ratio between that game and WOW has gone from 6 to 27 to 1.
Which means you failed.
----
PS.... I have time now to type this since I am already waiting 23 minutes to log in on my server ....
And 58 English servers locked at the moment in EU alone (not even counting the German, French, Spanish and Russian ones (ok they added another one of that too and it is .... locked). 8 PM ...on Sunday.
{ Mod Edit }
Don't worry.... with the scenario you laid out against Wow in this forum, I doubt this post will go away anytime soon.
As I said before, most people hate braggarts. But all people love incorrect braggards.
"TO MICHAEL!"
Yeh hey look the reason your locked out or were locked out is there is this Raid bug going on since the current patch. You should be able to logg on after awhile though.
Oh but be careful going into instances today, it could crash WoW.
LOLlollloll
Yeh hey look the reason your locked out or were locked out is there is this Raid bug going on since the current patch. You should be able to logg on after awhile though.
Oh but be careful going into instances today, it could crash WoW.
LOLlollloll
The reason for the instance crashes is that the instance servers of wow are old and a bit slow. The instance servers are separate to the main world servers, so those crashes are not related to the overall queues on many servers.
However those queues are due to lower server capacity, not increased population numbers compared to tbc, they have simply put more servers on the same hardware, causing queues but saving money in the process.
Population numbers are dropping extremely fast and it soon WoW will be under 3 million in the EU and US combined. Chinese subs are only estimated as most of them are temporary rented accounts that are discarded and recycled (mostly by gold sellers), but still are taken as full accounts for the "11 million" total, which is currently already below 9 million worldwide compared to 11 million immediately after the WOTLK launch.
hehe.. this just gets funnier as the thread grows. You do realize that January is almost done, and 500k people have not left yet, don't you? There are two days left so there is hope, I guess.
I'm assuming you are of the belief that if you say something enough times, you can just "will" it to happen. The power of positive thinking? Lol.
Please feel free to continue to bump this thread all year long. In these bad economic times... you my friend, are the gift that just keeps on giving.
"TO MICHAEL!"
hehe.. this just gets funnier as the thread grows. You do realize that January is almost done, and 500k people have not left yet, don't you? There are two days left so there is hope, I guess.
I'm assuming you are of the belief that if you say something enough times, you can just "will" it to happen. The power of positive thinking? Lol.
Please feel free to continue to bump this thread all year long. In these bad economic times... you my friend, are the gift that just keeps on giving.
You don't even play wow and have admitted it before and there's no proof at this point if it's growing or not. On the other hand the low happiness factor would seem to indicate a reverse in growth not a gain.
Saying something enough times on a topic you obviously only intend to Troll is truly trying to will something together.
Your the one who Necroed this thread so really your only giving to yourself to be honest.
Perhaps you can go back to trolling the WAR forums, a popular pastime for you.
hehe.. this just gets funnier as the thread grows. You do realize that January is almost done, and 500k people have not left yet, don't you? There are two days left so there is hope, I guess.
I'm assuming you are of the belief that if you say something enough times, you can just "will" it to happen. The power of positive thinking? Lol.
Please feel free to continue to bump this thread all year long. In these bad economic times... you my friend, are the gift that just keeps on giving.
You don't even play wow and have admitted it before and there's no proof at this point if it's growing or not. On the other hand the low happiness factor would seem to indicate a reverse in growth not a gain.
Saying something enough times on a topic you obviously only intend to Troll is truly trying to will something together.
Your the one who Necroed this thread so really your only giving to yourself to be honest.
Perhaps you can go back to trolling the WAR forums, a popular pastime for you.
What is this, why of not to just let topic on forum die? Many of us have already seen topic so much now lol.
You are going to just be assaulting on each other.
So because someone doesn't play Wow, they can't post about it? Is that your logic?
I don't know why you are defending the OP on this one. He already said 500K subs would be lost this month and that didn't happen. Why aren't you using your logic on him? Do you hate Wow that bad not to call a spade a spade?
I don't think you know what the word "troll" really means. But if you'd like to get a clearer understanding, you should reread all your posts in this thread. People have responded to you intelligently and with facts, and you tell them to "eat crap" as a enlightened rebuttal. You are worse than a troll; you are a troglodyte.. a troll before trolls ever existed. The OP has responded several times with as much crazy talk as you have, even though January subs have not fallen by 500k. That is trolling.
He's also predicted the same for each month the first quarter of 2009 and pops in to assure everyone its still going to happen, as he 'predicted'. You fail badly at reading what's written, friend. Your insane comments on advocating cheating using mods which make Wow easier then claim Wow is too easy is absolutely fruitcakeable.
You still are bumping the thread, aren't you? ^^ You are a WAAAAGH fan here doing.. what?
And as far as anyone trolling WAR.. with MJ'sofficial "announcement of a coming announcement" today, WAR is now officially trolling itself.
"TO MICHAEL!"
So because someone doesn't play Wow, they can't post about it? Is that your logic?
I don't know why you are defending the OP on this one. He already said 500K subs would be lost this month and that didn't happen. Why aren't you using your logic on him? Do you hate Wow that bad not to call a spade a spade?
I don't think you know what the word "troll" really means. But if you'd like to get a clearer understanding, you should reread all your posts in this thread. People have responded to you intelligently and with facts, and you tell them to "eat crap" as a enlightened rebuttal. You are worse than a troll; you are a troglodyte.. a troll before trolls ever existed. The OP has responded several times with as much crazy talk as you have, even though January subs have not fallen by 500k. That is trolling.
He's also predicted the same for each month the first quarter of 2009 and pops in to assure everyone its still going to happen, as he 'predicted'. You fail badly at reading what's written, friend. Your insane comments on advocating cheating using mods which make Wow easier then claim Wow is too easy is absolutely fruitcakeable.
You still are bumping the thread, aren't you? ^^ You are a WAAAAGH fan here doing.. what?
And as far as anyone trolling WAR.. with MJ'sofficial "announcement of a coming announcement" today, WAR is now officially trolling itself.
Ugh again you show that you don't know what your talking about again, wow UI addons are not cheats they are sanctioned by the game itself. See why not knowing what your talking about is a bad thing?
I just responded to your bump, can't have a know nothing spreading false claims that don't exist or responding to number he or she does not simply understand.
As I have said before wow can be fixed, I have toons there so I have an Interest in what happens or what is going to happen. The way things are now I don't see a rise in subs, or project it. I can say that because I have CLUE what I'm talking about not just trying to congradulate myself by harassing posters on a game I never play.
Im sure glad the OP doesnt work for the stock market, those predictions would make our economy fail (if thats even possible).
Its obvious the OP has no clue what she is talking about, much less the state of MMO's. WAR is a prime example of "to little to late" and AoC was same.
10 print "go home"
20 goto 10