Kristin Southey - Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer
Robert A. Kotick - President, Chief Executive Officer
Thomas Tippl - Chief Financial Officer
Michael J. Griffith - President & Chief Executive Officer of Publishing Unit
Michael Morhaime - President and Chief Executive Officer of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Analysts
Ralph Schackart - William Blair
Jeetil Patel - Deutsche Bank
Tony Gikas - Piper Jaffray
Mark Wienkes - Goldman Sachs
Colin Sebastien - Lazard Capital Markets
Page 6
I put in the part of Mr Morhaime too:
"Michael Morhaime
Thank you, Mike. On today’s call, I would like to talk about our performance for the March quarter and highlight some of the milestones we are looking forward to this year.
As you know, back in November we launched the second World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, which achieved record-breaking sales. As mentioned on the last call, Wrath of the Lich King sold more than 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours, to become the fastest selling PC game of all time.
We followed up on that success in the first quarter with strong sales of World of Warcraft and both expansions. According to NPD, Wrath of the Lich King was the best-selling PC game for the first quarter and six of the top 20 best-selling PC games through March were Blizzard games. This includes every World of Warcraft title as well as our Warcraft 3 and Diablo Battlechest.
More than 11.5 million paying subscribers around the world continue to play World of Warcraft, which is a significant increase compared to the same quarter last year. ..."
I would still like to see an updated report as many of those subscribers are bound to be people buying WoW for the expansion or resubbing for it. I would like to see how many of them actually stayed.
Irrelevant since the Q results and official transcripts are there for the grabs and show no significant decline.
So OR Blizzard is into illegal Columbian drug dealing or WOW generates around 1.2 billion dollars revenu through selling .... subscriptions.
BTW Morhaime stated in his last report that China accounted for 9% of the WOW's revenus and in their second and third quarter 2009 there was no significant decline, meaning the subscription income grew in that period in "other parts of the world" that compensated for the hic-up in China between June and Sep 2009.
Eventually wow will have its decline and most likely they will keep wows doors open for a while , the perfect example is EQ and UO they were huge powers that eventually met the end and i know eq is still playable UO is too i believe but many don't even know those games, When will this happen? only time can tell but it will
Titanic is the highest grossing film of all time. Therefor, it is the best movie of all time. (that's what i think of WoW).
Not so good statement.
Because Titanic didn't have 20 times MORE grossing than the second movie.
1.2 billion dollars yearly revenu (times 5 years) for WOW only ...., compared to the usual 10 -20 million dollars revenu for the other ones. And it goes way further than MMO's...
Look at it this way/ COD2 broke ALL past records because they could break 500 million dollars on the launching week. Never seen before and a nice add on to the 3 billion US dollars .... the COMPLETE franchise of COD across ALL platforms (from handhelds to consoles to PC's) had in 6 years time.
WOW brings in 1.2 billion dollars ... each year only on ONE platform (PC/Mac) Do the count: 5 years and still running...
So IF Titanic made 20 times more money than other films and 3 times more money than ALL other movies of the past 5 years together,....
Yep ... if this would occur it would be clear that X was indeed the undisputed King product by a long shot.
Originally posted by Zorndorf
On page 36 you see a growth to 939 million dollar in the first 9 months of 2009 compared from 828 million dollar for the first 9 months of 2008
This despite the fact the hic-up in China between June and Sep 2009.
I just had to point this out since I thought it was funny! You contradicted yourself with the two statements I highlighted in red. You first state that WOW has made 1.2 Billion x 5 years, then in a later post you go on to say that WOWs Gross profits rose from 828 million to 939 million in the last year over the first 9 months. So how can there income be 1.2 X 5 years when there income is increasing yearly? Sorry to be so picky, I just thought it was funny. (Ok so I am warped)
Its a public company, he isn't legally allowed to lie. And anyways World of Warcraft is the best fantasy game released right now. Maybe not to you, but objectively it is.
Being a major success and being "the best" is a huge jump. I would never deny that WoW is the biggest success in gaming history but that does not make it the best.
I dont think something is the best for me because it has the most subs, I think its the best for me because its the game I enjoy the most. It just so happens that WoW has a ton of people that its the best for them..
WoW is the most POPULAR mmo not the BEST, there can only be a best for you. Because saying something is the best will always be subjective and it don't even matter if bagillionfamillionzillion people play a fucking game, if I don't like it , IMO its still not the best to me. If WoW was truly the best everyone would be playing it. That would be the only way to prove it is the best mmo.
The only thing that can kill WoW is WoW. Only when blizzard decides it's over will it be over.
Steve Jobs said in Sept '97. "For Apple to win Microsoft does not have to loose."
12 years later Apple is making nearly 40 billion a year. For Apple to win Microsoft did not have to loose.
For "Place Up and Coming MMO name here" to win World of Warcraft does not have to loose. There is enough of a market out there to support many successful Online games. Look at LOTRO, EVE Online, FF!X, EQ2, Aion, City of Heros, etc... All are successful games in their own right, some have been around as long as WoW or longer and are still going strong. WoW will be around for a very long time, even if you don't like it.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison
Their is always the possibility that everyone could get sick of the game all at the same time. Stuff like that happens often in life. In order for Blizzard to prolong this from happening. They will forever have to add content, and change things around every few months to keep the momentum going. Even with this, their bound to eventually make some bad mistakes (so far they are doing well, without screwing up) but their will come a day when it would be inevitable anyway, or people will just give up. As for now, it still looks good for the medium or long term future that they will stay miles ahead of the competition. In order to take out WoW All things below will have to happen simultaneously : 1) release a full game from the start, with end game in place. 2) very very large game from the start. 3) 100% open world, with minor instances, from the start. 4) full crafting, side quest, lore, great auction, PvP, social hubs, and lots more, ALL FROM THE START. I know my examples sound like a mirror image of WoW,but that's what people are accustom to at this point. New fresh ideas are a deff. + but not required. As it stands right now their are about a hundred or so mmo's listed. BUT we have only a handful of releases that meet the criteria. They are : EQ2 Lotro Eve Vanguard ( in theory ) D&D Online City of Heroes Daoc ( old ) EQ1 ( old ) UO (old ) SWO (old) Even with this smaller list of full games, most all were not full from the beginning, with the exception of Lotro. I'm not sure how they managed to pull it off, but they did. So to make a long story short WoW is like a snowball rolling down hill, just getting larger, it's almost impossible to fund a new game to catch up, so it's up to the public to get sick of it all at the same time, no matter what Blizzard develops. HOWEVER, If Guild Wars 2 does what I think they may try. With a much better game but for FREE ( No monthly fee or cash shops), this could change everything, but GW 2 is still a mystery.
Sorry I had to bump this, but everyone was on a stupid rant, with quots, inside of quots.
This is exactly how World of Warcraft will play out !
Michael Jackson remain number one even after he died. The question is just who care?
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration ______\m/_____ LordOfDarkDesire
I really don't see wow being F2P for a looong, long, long.... looong time to come. Even when Blizzard's next MMO hits, I doubt wow will die. People won't just pack it together and leave when they have so much time invested. It's been said before, when Blizzard stops putting out new content for Wow, that's when it's going to decline.
I really don't see wow being F2P for a looong, long, long.... looong time to come. Even when Blizzard's next MMO hits, I doubt wow will die. People won't just pack it together and leave when they have so much time invested. It's been said before, when Blizzard stops putting out new content for Wow, that's when it's going to decline.
WoW is perfect for F2P and my personal opinion is that Blizzard will make much more money from that. Maybe I just give them that brilliant idea? Too sad if they make it as I will not play it even for a few months as I currently do after every expansion.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration ______\m/_____ LordOfDarkDesire
I don't give a shit how much money a developer makes.
Ya exactly, I could care less myself.
When you think about the endless possibilities of our beloved genre, it's just a shame that a game like WOW hogs the majority of the revenue/players. Not saying the game is all bad, but holy shit let's move on. And I know people are going to follow up with "if so many people are playing it has to be the best." Hell no!
The reality is most WOW folks don't know about or even care to look into other mmos.
1. Because all of their RL friends are playing, so they keep on truckin'.
2. They simply don't know any better. (I'm not trying to be offensive, I didn't either until I spread my wings so to speak).
People try to tell me all the time that WoW is the best because more people play it.
I honestly just don't see it that way. WoW is nothing but a Hunt for items/armor sets.
I started playing MMOs with UO where a player had complete freedom to live out an existence in a world simulator.
I see my brother everyday playing WoW, like a rat chasing a dangling piece of cheese. Only playing for that next item.
How did we go from playing in Worlds with an amazing amount of gameplay options to playing games that consider content to be a new colored armor set?
Well I want more god damn it! When i come home from a hard days work I don't want to farm freaking armor.
I want to have an experience, I want a world or universe that I could relax in.
Nothing anyone says in or out of this forum will change the fact that WoW is as deep as a puddle to me and Blizzards profit means jack shit when all they offer is a piece of shit item hunt.
I think your missing the point. Wow has items yes like armors but what mmo doesn't have armor sets to progress your char? Why keep playing an mmo where you never upgrade anything? People play mmos for 2 main reasons. For good content and character progression. This is WoW success they have a lot of content you can do bgs , do wintergrasp, go farm mats, daily quests, 5 man dungeons , raids , craft etc. WoW is successful becuase it keeps opening peoples option to do whatever they want whenever they want.
About the #2 reason armor sets. Well thats character progression. When you create a char you dont expect to keep him in the same armor for the rest of the mmo existence. You play to keep upgrading your character constantly.
Those reasons above is why WoW is successful it picked 2 key items and worked hard on them and their profits show their great success.
I would give you a guest pass to SWOTR, but then I wouldn't be able to find a way to live with myself afterwards....
To metal and the host of noisy people. Can you provide an objective assessment of quality of WoW as a game, apart from your personal subjective view expressed in simple adjectives or unsubstantiated words. Ok you call the game shallow? How is the game shallow, in terms of aspects of gameplay? in terms of complexity in the maths behind the damage mitigation hit regenerations and other aspects? How about crafting, how many dimensions can be supplemented with crafting, compared with other games? How about design of boss fights, do you have any idea how to compare this across games? Ok you call it gear chase. So? That automatically makes it a bad game? Reasons? So ganking or camping a portal in EvE makes it a superior game? Any reasons apart from your own view?
A game that completely revolves around Items is very shallow your view, which I need not agreed with. Having Armor sets as "New content" is bad enough but pile on the fact that you need to run dungeons over and over and over again to get gear off the same vendors you can craft it, you can buy it, you can kill boss to get it, do you know of any other ways to get it from other games? Oh yeah you want to loot it from other gamers. Sorry not all people want to be that sinister, I do not. If that's not enough the entire playerbase is in an instance, either a dungeon/raid or pvp map.
Seriously why have a game world if everyone is going to sit in a major city and waiting on Lfg invites and pvp queues says who? I never sit in a city waiting on lfg, we have group calendar invites, we organise activities on our own and apart from banking or crafting, I seldom sit in cities, you need to learn how to play. PvP is another issue, as those major pvp events took place every few hours.
Might as well make the game like Phantasy Star Online with a city hub and the ability to run missions and dungeons together it would be the same. Really? A sweeping statement ignornat of every details involved. The character development, skills sets, counter skill sets, gearing/gemming/enchanting options, matching talent trees, professional supplements, all these are so complex and different in each game and you blindly conveniently swept them aside and say they are the same? If you cannot see the difference, yes, you can saying playing any ball game is the same as all balls are round. Oh dear, learn to play the game.
It doesn't matter what you do in WoW, It all boils down to what items you have and which items you want. It does not matter to you because your simple minded eye is only looking at the items. I play to enjoy, I do not need to be so bothered with gear. They come naturally as I play and when I log out the gear does not go to bed with me. So learn to rethink about a game, a game is a game, not the pixels, its enjoying during the game.
Play other games that don't have a 100% Item focused mechanic and you see how limited WoW is. Oh really? You see how limited WoW is, because you only see gear in WoW. But ... do you see that gearing in WoW is an art of balancing and minimaxing for alternate playstyle, do you know how each of the follow statistics work: hit, dodge, block, parry, spell penetration, resilience ... . If you do not, go learn the game, or tell us how another game is more complex and allows as much dimensions in minimaxing.
You need to give people options these days and not ram Items up there ass. In Eve I don;t even have to fly my ship I can spend all my time just trading or mining in empire space and to the playerbase that would be considered a legitimate way to play try some bullshit in WoW and see what happens. Try to just stay in the starting areas and work the market and see how much you matter to the overall picture of WoW. In WoW I have built alts that are naked but specialises in crafting, alts that never see action, just tag along to get xp enough to hit max crafting needs. Fact is, I can max skinning without levels, just park him where people kill animals for quests and skin all the leftover beasts. I have 3xlevel 65 alts that do a lot of crafting everyday for friends, for guildes and to me that is enough matters. EvE is a game in which everything is built, that is a very striking example of crafter based economy. In that aspect EvE is a great example. WoW, on the other hand, provides much deeper and complicated character skill customisation, which is another aspect of gameplay. I do not see why I must praise EvE for one aspect and deplore WoW for a different aspect of gameplay. I play both games.
Seriously i'm shocked that people don't see how pitiful WoW is when it comes to gameplay options. Seriously I am shocked you need to worry how people see another game.
Edit: You know if Blizzard wanted to they could replace all of WoWs gameworld and just toss everyone in a giant room with nothing but portals and gear vendors and the majority of those players would still happily play WoW forever.
You know nothing about the gamers in WoW, just keep forging out insults as if that makes you a better person.
Do you seriously know WoW? What is the relation between hit, parry, dodge, spell power, attack power, block, spell penetration, resists, resilience for each class. Pick a class, tell us how each talent tree modifies each of those above. Tell us about global cooldowns, how does strength, agility, wisdom, intellect, stamina contributes to each of the above for the class you picked to discuss. How does haste work? What are softcaps, hard caps, for each and every skill.
Without knowing or telling us details about that, you dare beast your chest and throw comments as if your views about WoW is final? Learn to play the game. Failing to see how the game goes =/= you are bigger than me.
Hell, there are only 16 pieces in chess and a very small map. So chess must be a simple game for 3 years old. This sentence makes as much sense as all those you wrote.
A game that completely revolves around Items is very shallow. Having Armor sets as "New content" is bad enough but pile on the fact that you need to run dungeons over and over and over again to get gear off the same vendors. If that's not enough the entire playerbase is in an instance, either a dungeon/raid or pvp map. Seriously why have a game world if everyone is going to sit in a major city and waiting on Lfg invites and pvp queues. Might as well make the game like Phantasy Star Online with a city hub and the ability to run missions and dungeons together it would be the same. It doesn't matter what you do in WoW, It all boils down to what items you have and which items you want. Play other games that don't have a 100% Item focused mechanic and you see how limited WoW is. You need to give people options these days and not ram Items up there ass. In Eve I don;t even have to fly my ship I can spend all my time just trading or mining in empire space and to the playerbase that would be considered a legitimate way to play try some bullshit in WoW and see what happens. Try to just stay in the starting areas and work the market and see how much you matter to the overall picture of WoW. Seriously i'm shocked that people don't see how pitiful WoW is when it comes to gameplay options.
Edit: You know if Blizzard wanted to they could replace all of WoWs gameworld and just toss everyone in a giant room with nothing but portals and gear vendors and the majority of those players would still happily play WoW forever.
It's time that you start playing WOW again.
Before talking about "OPTIONS".
Let's see what "options" are in WOW 2009 purely on a PvP basis. So called "added as an afterthought".
---- > Ok Here we go:
Have a choice between 2 BG's with 80 people (AV and ISle), have 3 BG's with 30 people and have a 20 people BG.
Have a massively played 240 people Siege system every 2.5 Hours in a world PvP zone where people fight 24/7 for resources and mats on PvP servers and that give acces to shard drops and vendor and a 3 raid bosses.
Have hi end world PvP daily quests throughout Northrend (because we talk end game here).
Have multiple Arena formats in numurous setting from 2vs2, 3vs 3 to 5 vs 5 in a ladder based COMPETITION giving hi end dragon mounts and world rankings. So forget 'grinding". Not possible: only skill.
Have an out of the game PvP competition with EQUAL to choose gear and ... 200.000 dollars price money.
And in Cata: a new guild leveling PvP system, a new rated PvP system (ladder based) in the BAttlegrounds, a new open world PvP zone and at least one new Battleground.
City Raids that give achievements and awards.
So Mr .... OPTIONS. Not bad for a PVE game isnt it? )) . Having to fight to get a ladder based ranking is something other than meaningless zerg fests you can't control anyway.
And hear hear : not a gear discussion in sight....
I play PvP to get me a Justicar title or Battlemaster Title or those other prestigious PvP titles (ranking from Conqueror to Gladiator and others in between).
Others play for even other titles and achievements.
OLD wow was all about gear.
WOW 2009 is ALL about options and achievements with prestigious mounts. Gear is just a means to an end these days.
Apparenly you don't even know it. (by not playing it and see the evident facts).
You ask for a game with options; here they are and you don't even see them.
Edit: To anwser your question: I have a new lvl 14 chararcter I am gonne level through all of Azroth a last time. Started naked on a new server and ...16 Hours played on lvl 14 and 22 gold by playing the auction house and crafting and of course all other professions at 80 or higher.
First learn to play the game as it should be (or as in just another "OPTION" of play). It is SOOOO nice to sell those beginners swords. Yep it ALL works in WOW. I was proud in wearing my new self crafted maces and I level in.... ADVENTURING instead of leveling. ))
Your choice.
Bullshit! It's all about gear and you know it. Stop blowing smoke up peoples ass dude. people play to gear up characters.
You wanna talk about achievements and titles? it means nothing
What do meaningless options matter when the entire game revolves around item farming?
Why do u arena? items off a vendor how about b/c I want to do it for 30 minutes?
Why do u run BGs? Items off a vendor how about b/c I want to do it for 30 minutes?
Why do you run dungeons? Item drops
Why do you farm heroics? Tokens for items off a vendor
Why do you raid? Item Drops and Tokens for items off a vendor
Why do you farm rep? Items off a vendor
Why do you run wintergrasp? Items off a vendor
Why do level to cap? So you can collect pretty item drops and items off a vendor
ITEMS OFF A VENDOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
might as well go play Diablo.
Why have options if the goal is always the same?
The goal is not why you play, the enjoyment of gaming is. If you say so, the only reason to play soccer is to score, if you cannot score and win you do not want to play? Open your mind a bit, and enjoy gaming. Why do you want to go hiking? There is no vendor or loot. Why do I BBQ with friends or family at my backyard? Is there a vendor somewhere?
With your gear focused little mind, nothing is worth nothing, and gaming is just a waste of time.
Ghowstcrawler stated LAST month that the wow sub was INCREASING.
So a guy who's job is to talk to the community wouldn't lie? Show me cold hard facts that it is INFACT increasing. WoW has reached it's peak. Cataclysm is a PERFECT title for their next expansion. WoW can either start gaining back the tons of people who have found it boring or they can die. The reason why they're revamping starter areas is b/c players like pretty and good animations. So by them revamping alot of the biggest areas in the main world. This is so that they can get more players. Now a player can supposedly just buy the original game and level to the top w/o ever having to go to Outland or Northrend. Or atleast that's how they were making it out to be. Truth be told, you'll still have to go out there but leveling's just going to get easier. And they'll have more end game content. It's only 5 levels. There's not much you can do with 5 levels so they're going to of course make those five levels seem entirely like end game content.
I'll believe that WoW has 11mil subs when they release their tax records to the public. Show me that and i'll believe them.
either that or when blizzard release thier official subscription numbers . which they hav nt done in nearly a year now . the subs hav nt gone up this year its pretty obvious they wont have been static so they most likly have gone down in numbers given theres been no xpax this year to boost them again . they ll proberbly pick up next year with cataclysm and around this christmas because WoW is so cheap to buy now its a good stocking filler for the kids . i ve actually brought a copy for my 12 year old neice . its a nice game for someone of her age . it ll proberbly never again be able to boast 12 million players again but even if it does nt its decline will be so slow that even in 10 years it ll still be able to boast having a couple of million players .
Yeah but why do I care if WoW has 12m or 5 m? Matters not to me.
So long as I find enough nice people to play with in the game its ok for me. I typically interact with 100 or so people in the server and that is all I care for. 5m means nothing to me as I never have enough time to talk to each of them once. Talk to 5m people once, will cost me all the gaming time in my lifetime.
i just compare WoW to the Wii. The Wii is not the best system BY FAR, but yet it sold INSANE amounts of consoles...why?
well its becuase they did somthing first, not the best, but first. WHat that is was cater to the larger crowd that wasnt really tapped into yet, the casuals. They made a game thats easy to play, any piece of junk can run it, and people who only have an hour to play a day can get stuff done. They also have huge name recogniction.
IS the Wii the best console becuase it has the most players? hell no. Is it the worst ever...hell no. It has last gen graphics, tons of shovelware and runs off a cheap gimmic basicly, but if feeds to the larger audience wich is the people who DONT play games.
personaly i dislike WoW and how it basicly set every company on this pointless "quest" to be just like them(like wii made Sony and MS make motion controls...they may be better but they werent first, so it probly will never be as succesful) and try and rake in their huge #s. But being someone whos played EQ then FFXI and knowing somthing like FF14 is on the way next year...im Ok with it, il just stick to that like il stick to just playing the very few more hardcore titles on wii and playing my hardcore titles on my X360 and ps3.
Also the gear thing is silly since every fantasy MMO could be labelled the same way. I do not play an MMO for the end game gear grind. In fact, thats when I reroll or cancel. I play to explore a class and the world... once. Once I've seen it all, and I want to see it all, I'm out.
This paragraph right here folks is exactly what I was talking about earlier in the thread. Sorry to centre you out Solude, but you have only demonstrated your lack of experience with other mmos.
No, every fantasy game cannot be labelled the same way. I'm sorry the ones you have had the opportunity to sample have been all focused on gear, but that is not the reality with all other games. The whole point is though, many of us have no desire to continue to see game after game being released with the intention of taking on WOW. Or at the very least copy as much as they can from the damn thing. You have to understand that those of us that have played WOW and have grown tired enough with it not to return, are desperate for some innovation.
All forms of entertainment will shrivel up and die eventually without any innovation. Music, TV, and Video Games included.
The WOW mentality actually reminds me of something from Physics...
inertia n. Physics . The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line.
Sounds spot on to me.
The early days of city of heroes is the best example. There is no gear, just enhancement you can buy to enhance individual spells, and some better enhancements you need to get from bosses. No gear, and the enhancements are not game breaking.
That does not stop me from enjoying CoH thoroughly for half a year.
#1 to whom? imo WoW is outdated and stale now so its far from #1 for me. The graphics alone are enough to make me not want to return. Tons of content isnt enough to keep me happy. I enjoy experiencing new MMOs and sadly WoW doesnt do it for me anymore...so ya, WoW is far from #1 in my eyes
A game that completely revolves around Items is very shallow. Having Armor sets as "New content" is bad enough but pile on the fact that you need to run dungeons over and over and over again to get gear off the same vendors. If that's not enough the entire playerbase is in an instance, either a dungeon/raid or pvp map. Seriously why have a game world if everyone is going to sit in a major city and waiting on Lfg invites and pvp queues. Might as well make the game like Phantasy Star Online with a city hub and the ability to run missions and dungeons together it would be the same. It doesn't matter what you do in WoW, It all boils down to what items you have and which items you want. Play other games that don't have a 100% Item focused mechanic and you see how limited WoW is. You need to give people options these days and not ram Items up there ass. In Eve I don;t even have to fly my ship I can spend all my time just trading or mining in empire space and to the playerbase that would be considered a legitimate way to play try some bullshit in WoW and see what happens. Try to just stay in the starting areas and work the market and see how much you matter to the overall picture of WoW. Seriously i'm shocked that people don't see how pitiful WoW is when it comes to gameplay options.
Edit: You know if Blizzard wanted to they could replace all of WoWs gameworld and just toss everyone in a giant room with nothing but portals and gear vendors and the majority of those players would still happily play WoW forever.
It's time that you start playing WOW again.
Before talking about "OPTIONS".
Let's see what "options" are in WOW 2009 purely on a PvP basis. So called "added as an afterthought".
---- > Ok Here we go:
Have a choice between 2 BG's with 80 people (AV and ISle), have 3 BG's with 30 people and have a 20 people BG.
Have a massively played 240 people Siege system every 2.5 Hours in a world PvP zone where people fight 24/7 for resources and mats on PvP servers and that give acces to shard drops and vendor and a 3 raid bosses.
Have hi end world PvP daily quests throughout Northrend (because we talk end game here).
Have multiple Arena formats in numurous setting from 2vs2, 3vs 3 to 5 vs 5 in a ladder based COMPETITION giving hi end dragon mounts and world rankings. So forget 'grinding". Not possible: only skill.
Have an out of the game PvP competition with EQUAL to choose gear and ... 200.000 dollars price money.
And in Cata: a new guild leveling PvP system, a new rated PvP system (ladder based) in the BAttlegrounds, a new open world PvP zone and at least one new Battleground.
City Raids that give achievements and awards.
So Mr .... OPTIONS. Not bad for a PVE game isnt it? )) . Having to fight to get a ladder based ranking is something other than meaningless zerg fests you can't control anyway.
And hear hear : not a gear discussion in sight....
I play PvP to get me a Justicar title or Battlemaster Title or those other prestigious PvP titles (ranking from Conqueror to Gladiator and others in between).
Others play for even other titles and achievements.
OLD wow was all about gear.
WOW 2009 is ALL about options and achievements with prestigious mounts. Gear is just a means to an end these days.
Apparenly you don't even know it. (by not playing it and see the evident facts).
You ask for a game with options; here they are and you don't even see them.
Edit: To anwser your question: I have a new lvl 14 chararcter I am gonne level through all of Azroth a last time. Started naked on a new server and ...16 Hours played on lvl 14 and 22 gold by playing the auction house and crafting and of course all other professions at 80 or higher.
First learn to play the game as it should be (or as in just another "OPTION" of play). It is SOOOO nice to sell those beginners swords. Yep it ALL works in WOW. I was proud in wearing my new self crafted maces and I level in.... ADVENTURING instead of leveling. ))
Your choice.
Bullshit! It's all about gear and you know it. Stop blowing smoke up peoples ass dude. people play to gear up characters.
You wanna talk about achievements and titles? it means nothing
What do meaningless options matter when the entire game revolves around item farming?
Why do u arena? items off a vendor
Why do u run BGs? Items off a vendor
Why do you run dungeons? Item drops
Why do you farm heroics? Tokens for items off a vendor
Why do you raid? Item Drops and Tokens for items off a vendor
Why do you farm rep? Items off a vendor
Why do you run wintergrasp? Items off a vendor
Why do level to cap? So you can collect pretty item drops and items off a vendor
ITEMS OFF A VENDOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
might as well go play Diablo.
Why have options if the goal is always the same?
I had written a huge post on why most of those points are wrong, but Firefox decided to have a nice crash on me.
Anyway, I'll just say the TL;DR version of it:
Achievements and titles are not meaningless.
A Gladiator or a guild with Death's Demise will be famous server-wide or even battlegroup-wide. People will go "Oh shit" when they see one in BGs,WG or WPvP.
You cannot get those titles without having an extremely skilled and dedicated team and this is a fact. The amount of coordonation you need for Yogg Saron 0 25man, even post nerf, is rather extreme..
That little title can and change your gameplay itself. People will respect you more, they'll look for you more, they'll talk with/talk about you more and you'll genrally have higher priority over people without them(for example, what do you think a current season Gladiator is gonna choose for high-rated arena. A player with great gear and only 1800 or a Gladiator from BC with average gear. I guarantee you 100% that it will be the BC gladiator).
If this doesn't have a meaning...
Also, if you don't raid, do WG and play arena for fun...then you might as not play it at all. Gear is very easy to get and the difference between hardmode/normalmode and 1800/2200 arena items is rather insignificant(but still noticeable).
People who attempt hardmodes/try to get gladiator will not do it for gear. They'll do it for the "meaningless titles", challenge and fun.
You really seem to be burnt out with WoW, but that doesn't mean we all share the same "ITEMS OFF A VENDOR!!!" ideology.
If you took the nice items out of hardmode 25 mans noone would do them, not even just for titles/achievements.
Sure there might be a few random people that want the title but overall its for items. The 10 and 25 man hardmodes give better gear so people do them, shit like titles and achievements are just extras but the main focus has and always will be gear.
For a person that's played MMOs for a very long time I want more.
You don't. B/c your simple narrow mind only looks at items. Actually the more I read about your writing, the more I am convinced you know nothing about WoW gameplay. What hardmodes are you talking about? which boos? What title or achievements are there. Be specific. Which title or achievement no one care about any more. Don't bluff, tell us the specifics. Also tell us what gear there is from which 10 which 25 which hardmode, and which gear is good for which class. Don't bluff tell us specifically. I challenge you, do you know what you are talking? What does hardmode drop differs from normal mode drops? For which class it matters, which boss?
I am fully geared in ilvl245 or BiS ilvl232. But I still do Ulduar hardmodes, where the drops are all inferior. Our guild does that too, regularly, every week, even though we do not need most of the gear from ToC25 any more, and none about ulduar. B/c we want to improve, to test out and try out the ultra hard mode achievements. Oh yeah, another challenge, what does Ulduar and ToC and ToGC means when it comes to gear, what does hardmode mean for each when it comes to gear, to achievement? Are there other ways to get just as good gear, is gear alone all that matters any other ways to enhance 'statistics'.
DON'T BLUFF, BE SPECIFIC.
So start exercising imagination. People play with imagination, for fun, not just for gear. Actually when I log out, the gear stays in game, it does not follow me to my bed or my grave.
So start exercising imagination. People play with imagination, for fun, not just for gear. Actually when I log out, the gear stays in game, it does not follow me to my bed or my grave.
Good for you, but you and a few people are alone in doing so. Many people that play your precious game play for loot. The tiers in the game look hideous though so I really don't understand the mentality of the WoW fans.
I play EVE and gonna go play Mortal Online whenever it comes out. Wow is #1 no doubt and many of my friends play it on a full time frame, they go for kills, epics and all of it. But listen to me, for me #1 is EVE, for the freedom and fun that it undoubiously brings to the players (along with some maths) Dont get me wrong, I think WoW is able to surpasse its competitors by adding new features, as it did with WAR, but it has nothing to do with the features EVE & Mortal Online present straight on. So it is WoW is great, but not that great.
Very much agree. If I want to play WoW style I log on WoW, as I found few other titles now that provides that kind of gameplay as well. I sometimes play CoH just for the sake of fast pace combat.
If I want some dogfights, I will log on EvE, just about the only game worth that. But I admit I am a poor gamer, and I keep losing the ship may mate work so hard to build. More likely he log on and I watch him play.
I have not been playing much about EvE lately, I kinda forgot the very little my mate taught me. We both are out of town, and without him around I have very little mood to play EvE alone.
For the record, I have sub for WoW, CoH/V, LOTRo and EvE. Looking at Aion now, and waiting on SW:ToR.
So start exercising imagination. People play with imagination, for fun, not just for gear. Actually when I log out, the gear stays in game, it does not follow me to my bed or my grave.
Good for you, but you and a few people are alone in doing so. Many people that play your precious game play for loot. The tiers in the game look hideous though so I really don't understand the mentality of the WoW fans.
Now that many people play WoW just for one aspect of it is not a fault of the developer.
WoW allows everyone to find something in the game. Some gamers settle for just part of the whole game, just like some clients, they only eat one plate out of a thick menu, that is not the fault of the chef.
WoW allows gamers of very diversed gaming style to stay interested. Burger eaters, steak lovers, chinese food goers and vegetarians all find some love from a restaurant, I will call that a good restaurant in terms of span of appeal.
But the single most important point for me, personally, is, do I feel happy during the hour I log in, if NOT, then nothing in that game however well praised, matters to me any more. I log out. If the game have me logging in because I can think of something to do for the next hour, that is all that matters to me for the next hour. I do not need to worry about how the game appeals to me next year. Gaming is for today, and is a fire and forget issue.
#1 in the only thing that matters on this earth revenue.
LOL.
So there profit is what you are using to determen the quality of there product?
really?
you must be joking, no?
So by this logic then
Walmart produces and sales the finest products?
Microsoft software is the best to be had?
Dell makes the best PC anyware?
em I do belive your logic is flawed.
Yes more people shop at Walmart than most any other store does that make them best store? em HELL NO. it makes the easiest not even the cheapest most of the time just the easiest.
Yes the mass majority of OS and business solutions are Microsoft is theirs the best OS? well just like MMOs it depends on what your looking for i.e. the sub genre if you will, Desktop wise there are few other options so we will given them that though OSX and various flavors of Linux are up and coming they are just not commonly supported well enough to be considered "Desktop PC" OS; Server wise Windows OS is the worst OS I have ever seen o how I loath it; Mobil OS windows is pure crap don't even bother thinking about it. Business software wise the Dynamics family is one of there main lines and though I have seen worse I have also seen better . . . a lot better (I wont go into details) productivity software well MS Officer is prity well the norm for most but iWork is a much better quality while Open office has more flexibility don't really know why MS Office is favored, integration is not as good as either of the other 2 cost is higher than both the other 2 and flexibility is lower as well
Yes Dell makes PCs and they are pure junk I say this as a software developer and former desktop support tech with several years exp on the subject do not buy Dell, typically I tell people a system is not the name on the case and that is true but Dell is known for there crap components, corner cutting and suspect ethic charging just stupid prices for dated systems with 2nd rate hard ware.
#1 in the only thing that matters on this earth revenue.
LOL.
So there profit is what you are using to determen the quality of there product?
really?
you must be joking, no?
So by this logic then
Walmart produces and sales the finest products?
Microsoft software is the best to be had?
Dell makes the best PC anyware?
em I do belive your logic is flawed.
Yes more people shop at Walmart than most any other store does that make them best store? em HELL NO. it makes the easiest not even the cheapest most of the time just the easiest.
Yes the mass majority of OS and business solutions are Microsoft is theirs the best OS? well just like MMOs it depends on what your looking for i.e. the sub genre if you will, Desktop wise there are few other options so we will given them that though OSX and various flavors of Linux are up and coming they are just not commonly supported well enough to be considered "Desktop PC" OS; Server wise Windows OS is the worst OS I have ever seen o how I loath it; Mobil OS windows is pure crap don't even bother thinking about it. Business software wise the Dynamics family is one of there main lines and though I have seen worse I have also seen better . . . a lot better (I wont go into details) productivity software well MS Officer is prity well the norm for most but iWork is a much better quality while Open office has more flexibility don't really know why MS Office is favored, integration is not as good as either of the other 2 cost is higher than both the other 2 and flexibility is lower as well
Yes Dell makes PCs and they are pure junk I say this as a software developer and former desktop support tech with several years exp on the subject do not buy Dell, typically I tell people a system is not the name on the case and that is true but Dell is known for there crap components, corner cutting and suspect ethic charging just stupid prices for dated systems with 2nd rate hard ware.
Well you have strong personal views about what is good and not good of a product. That is your view. Unfortunately that is not a commonly acceptable or agreeable definition, and even among the haters of say walmart, every hater have his own reason to hate.
Business revenue, number of clients or profits are other measures of "success". Whether that means good depends on the person making evaluation, goodness is 100% subjective. People who use these yardsticks for measurement are just as valid in presenting their arguments as you bringing up your own agenda. No more no less.
Comments
That report is from March 7th. Like I said I've seen those before. Where's your proof they still maintain 11 million players? You can't.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/136299-activision-blizzard-q1-2009-earnings-call-transcript
Activision Blizzard, Inc. (ATVI)
Q1 2009 Earnings Call
May 7, 2009 4:30 pm ET
Executives
Kristin Southey - Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer
Robert A. Kotick - President, Chief Executive Officer
Thomas Tippl - Chief Financial Officer
Michael J. Griffith - President & Chief Executive Officer of Publishing Unit
Michael Morhaime - President and Chief Executive Officer of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Analysts
Ralph Schackart - William Blair
Jeetil Patel - Deutsche Bank
Tony Gikas - Piper Jaffray
Mark Wienkes - Goldman Sachs
Colin Sebastien - Lazard Capital Markets
Page 6
I put in the part of Mr Morhaime too:
"Michael Morhaime
Thank you, Mike. On today’s call, I would like to talk about our performance for the March quarter and highlight some of the milestones we are looking forward to this year.
As you know, back in November we launched the second World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, which achieved record-breaking sales. As mentioned on the last call, Wrath of the Lich King sold more than 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours, to become the fastest selling PC game of all time.
We followed up on that success in the first quarter with strong sales of World of Warcraft and both expansions. According to NPD, Wrath of the Lich King was the best-selling PC game for the first quarter and six of the top 20 best-selling PC games through March were Blizzard games. This includes every World of Warcraft title as well as our Warcraft 3 and Diablo Battlechest.
More than 11.5 million paying subscribers around the world continue to play World of Warcraft, which is a significant increase compared to the same quarter last year. ..."
Etc
The audio tape can be heard on http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm
And see the Q reports and their income for 2009.
So you are checkmate m8.
I would still like to see an updated report as many of those subscribers are bound to be people buying WoW for the expansion or resubbing for it. I would like to see how many of them actually stayed.
Irrelevant since the Q results and official transcripts are there for the grabs and show no significant decline.
So OR Blizzard is into illegal Columbian drug dealing or WOW generates around 1.2 billion dollars revenu through selling .... subscriptions.
BTW Morhaime stated in his last report that China accounted for 9% of the WOW's revenus and in their second and third quarter 2009 there was no significant decline, meaning the subscription income grew in that period in "other parts of the world" that compensated for the hic-up in China between June and Sep 2009.
TY ----> YW.
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ACTI/756262882x0x311407/1d20a7b0-59e7-4e3c-ab4b-909628ee8e94/Press_Release_Tables_Q2_CY09_Aug_5_Final_v2.pdf
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ACTI/756262882x0x329747/d28bc5fa-28b4-4dea-ac11-d6d0b26e9476/PressReleaseTablesQ3CY09.pdf
Seocnd and Third quarter of 2009 included....
Thanks i guess? Seems more like your mocking me when i was just interested to know.
So I repeat from the latest report (Nov 2009), we saw that: for WOW:
'On page 36)
you see a growth to 939 million dollar in the first 9 months of 2009 compared from 828 million dollar for the first 9 months of 2008
This despite the hic-up in China between June and Sep 2009.
YW.
On page 36 you mean you see a huge decline in revenue from first 9 months of 2009 compared to 2008. Your not tricking no one fanboy.
Eventually wow will have its decline and most likely they will keep wows doors open for a while , the perfect example is EQ and UO they were huge powers that eventually met the end and i know eq is still playable UO is too i believe but many don't even know those games, When will this happen? only time can tell but it will
Not so good statement.
Because Titanic didn't have 20 times MORE grossing than the second movie.
1.2 billion dollars yearly revenu (times 5 years) for WOW only ...., compared to the usual 10 -20 million dollars revenu for the other ones. And it goes way further than MMO's...
Look at it this way/ COD2 broke ALL past records because they could break 500 million dollars on the launching week. Never seen before and a nice add on to the 3 billion US dollars .... the COMPLETE franchise of COD across ALL platforms (from handhelds to consoles to PC's) had in 6 years time.
WOW brings in 1.2 billion dollars ... each year only on ONE platform (PC/Mac) Do the count: 5 years and still running...
So IF Titanic made 20 times more money than other films and 3 times more money than ALL other movies of the past 5 years together,....
Yep ... if this would occur it would be clear that X was indeed the undisputed King product by a long shot.
Originally posted by Zorndorf
On page 36 you see a growth to 939 million dollar in the first 9 months of 2009 compared from 828 million dollar for the first 9 months of 2008
This despite the fact the hic-up in China between June and Sep 2009.
I just had to point this out since I thought it was funny! You contradicted yourself with the two statements I highlighted in red. You first state that WOW has made 1.2 Billion x 5 years, then in a later post you go on to say that WOWs Gross profits rose from 828 million to 939 million in the last year over the first 9 months. So how can there income be 1.2 X 5 years when there income is increasing yearly? Sorry to be so picky, I just thought it was funny.
(Ok so I am warped)
Its a public company, he isn't legally allowed to lie. And anyways World of Warcraft is the best fantasy game released right now. Maybe not to you, but objectively it is.
I dont think something is the best for me because it has the most subs, I think its the best for me because its the game I enjoy the most. It just so happens that WoW has a ton of people that its the best for them..
WoW is the most POPULAR mmo not the BEST, there can only be a best for you. Because saying something is the best will always be subjective and it don't even matter if bagillionfamillionzillion people play a fucking game, if I don't like it , IMO its still not the best to me. If WoW was truly the best everyone would be playing it. That would be the only way to prove it is the best mmo.
The only thing that can kill WoW is WoW. Only when blizzard decides it's over will it be over.
Steve Jobs said in Sept '97. "For Apple to win Microsoft does not have to loose."
12 years later Apple is making nearly 40 billion a year. For Apple to win Microsoft did not have to loose.
For "Place Up and Coming MMO name here" to win World of Warcraft does not have to loose. There is enough of a market out there to support many successful Online games. Look at LOTRO, EVE Online, FF!X, EQ2, Aion, City of Heros, etc... All are successful games in their own right, some have been around as long as WoW or longer and are still going strong. WoW will be around for a very long time, even if you don't like it.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison
Sorry I had to bump this, but everyone was on a stupid rant, with quots, inside of quots.
This is exactly how World of Warcraft will play out !
Michael Jackson remain number one even after he died. The question is just who care?
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
______\m/_____
LordOfDarkDesire
I really don't see wow being F2P for a looong, long, long.... looong time to come. Even when Blizzard's next MMO hits, I doubt wow will die. People won't just pack it together and leave when they have so much time invested. It's been said before, when Blizzard stops putting out new content for Wow, that's when it's going to decline.
WoW is perfect for F2P and my personal opinion is that Blizzard will make much more money from that. Maybe I just give them that brilliant idea? Too sad if they make it as I will not play it even for a few months as I currently do after every expansion.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
______\m/_____
LordOfDarkDesire
I don't give a shit how much money a developer makes.
Ya exactly, I could care less myself.
When you think about the endless possibilities of our beloved genre, it's just a shame that a game like WOW hogs the majority of the revenue/players. Not saying the game is all bad, but holy shit let's move on. And I know people are going to follow up with "if so many people are playing it has to be the best." Hell no!
The reality is most WOW folks don't know about or even care to look into other mmos.
1. Because all of their RL friends are playing, so they keep on truckin'.
2. They simply don't know any better. (I'm not trying to be offensive, I didn't either until I spread my wings so to speak).
People try to tell me all the time that WoW is the best because more people play it.
I honestly just don't see it that way. WoW is nothing but a Hunt for items/armor sets.
I started playing MMOs with UO where a player had complete freedom to live out an existence in a world simulator.
I see my brother everyday playing WoW, like a rat chasing a dangling piece of cheese. Only playing for that next item.
How did we go from playing in Worlds with an amazing amount of gameplay options to playing games that consider content to be a new colored armor set?
Well I want more god damn it! When i come home from a hard days work I don't want to farm freaking armor.
I want to have an experience, I want a world or universe that I could relax in.
Nothing anyone says in or out of this forum will change the fact that WoW is as deep as a puddle to me and Blizzards profit means jack shit when all they offer is a piece of shit item hunt.
I think your missing the point. Wow has items yes like armors but what mmo doesn't have armor sets to progress your char? Why keep playing an mmo where you never upgrade anything? People play mmos for 2 main reasons. For good content and character progression. This is WoW success they have a lot of content you can do bgs , do wintergrasp, go farm mats, daily quests, 5 man dungeons , raids , craft etc. WoW is successful becuase it keeps opening peoples option to do whatever they want whenever they want.
About the #2 reason armor sets. Well thats character progression. When you create a char you dont expect to keep him in the same armor for the rest of the mmo existence. You play to keep upgrading your character constantly.
Those reasons above is why WoW is successful it picked 2 key items and worked hard on them and their profits show their great success.
I would give you a guest pass to SWOTR, but then I wouldn't be able to find a way to live with myself afterwards....
A game that completely revolves around Items is very shallow your view, which I need not agreed with. Having Armor sets as "New content" is bad enough but pile on the fact that you need to run dungeons over and over and over again to get gear off the same vendors you can craft it, you can buy it, you can kill boss to get it, do you know of any other ways to get it from other games? Oh yeah you want to loot it from other gamers. Sorry not all people want to be that sinister, I do not. If that's not enough the entire playerbase is in an instance, either a dungeon/raid or pvp map.
Seriously why have a game world if everyone is going to sit in a major city and waiting on Lfg invites and pvp queues says who? I never sit in a city waiting on lfg, we have group calendar invites, we organise activities on our own and apart from banking or crafting, I seldom sit in cities, you need to learn how to play. PvP is another issue, as those major pvp events took place every few hours.
Might as well make the game like Phantasy Star Online with a city hub and the ability to run missions and dungeons together it would be the same. Really? A sweeping statement ignornat of every details involved. The character development, skills sets, counter skill sets, gearing/gemming/enchanting options, matching talent trees, professional supplements, all these are so complex and different in each game and you blindly conveniently swept them aside and say they are the same? If you cannot see the difference, yes, you can saying playing any ball game is the same as all balls are round. Oh dear, learn to play the game.
It doesn't matter what you do in WoW, It all boils down to what items you have and which items you want. It does not matter to you because your simple minded eye is only looking at the items. I play to enjoy, I do not need to be so bothered with gear. They come naturally as I play and when I log out the gear does not go to bed with me. So learn to rethink about a game, a game is a game, not the pixels, its enjoying during the game.
Play other games that don't have a 100% Item focused mechanic and you see how limited WoW is. Oh really? You see how limited WoW is, because you only see gear in WoW. But ... do you see that gearing in WoW is an art of balancing and minimaxing for alternate playstyle, do you know how each of the follow statistics work: hit, dodge, block, parry, spell penetration, resilience ... . If you do not, go learn the game, or tell us how another game is more complex and allows as much dimensions in minimaxing.
You need to give people options these days and not ram Items up there ass. In Eve I don;t even have to fly my ship I can spend all my time just trading or mining in empire space and to the playerbase that would be considered a legitimate way to play try some bullshit in WoW and see what happens. Try to just stay in the starting areas and work the market and see how much you matter to the overall picture of WoW. In WoW I have built alts that are naked but specialises in crafting, alts that never see action, just tag along to get xp enough to hit max crafting needs. Fact is, I can max skinning without levels, just park him where people kill animals for quests and skin all the leftover beasts. I have 3xlevel 65 alts that do a lot of crafting everyday for friends, for guildes and to me that is enough matters. EvE is a game in which everything is built, that is a very striking example of crafter based economy. In that aspect EvE is a great example. WoW, on the other hand, provides much deeper and complicated character skill customisation, which is another aspect of gameplay. I do not see why I must praise EvE for one aspect and deplore WoW for a different aspect of gameplay. I play both games.
Seriously i'm shocked that people don't see how pitiful WoW is when it comes to gameplay options. Seriously I am shocked you need to worry how people see another game.
Edit: You know if Blizzard wanted to they could replace all of WoWs gameworld and just toss everyone in a giant room with nothing but portals and gear vendors and the majority of those players would still happily play WoW forever.
You know nothing about the gamers in WoW, just keep forging out insults as if that makes you a better person.
Do you seriously know WoW? What is the relation between hit, parry, dodge, spell power, attack power, block, spell penetration, resists, resilience for each class. Pick a class, tell us how each talent tree modifies each of those above. Tell us about global cooldowns, how does strength, agility, wisdom, intellect, stamina contributes to each of the above for the class you picked to discuss. How does haste work? What are softcaps, hard caps, for each and every skill.
Without knowing or telling us details about that, you dare beast your chest and throw comments as if your views about WoW is final? Learn to play the game. Failing to see how the game goes =/= you are bigger than me.
Hell, there are only 16 pieces in chess and a very small map. So chess must be a simple game for 3 years old. This sentence makes as much sense as all those you wrote.
It's time that you start playing WOW again.
Before talking about "OPTIONS".
Let's see what "options" are in WOW 2009 purely on a PvP basis. So called "added as an afterthought".
---- > Ok Here we go:
Have a choice between 2 BG's with 80 people (AV and ISle), have 3 BG's with 30 people and have a 20 people BG.
Have a massively played 240 people Siege system every 2.5 Hours in a world PvP zone where people fight 24/7 for resources and mats on PvP servers and that give acces to shard drops and vendor and a 3 raid bosses.
Have hi end world PvP daily quests throughout Northrend (because we talk end game here).
Have multiple Arena formats in numurous setting from 2vs2, 3vs 3 to 5 vs 5 in a ladder based COMPETITION giving hi end dragon mounts and world rankings. So forget 'grinding". Not possible: only skill.
Have an out of the game PvP competition with EQUAL to choose gear and ... 200.000 dollars price money.
And in Cata: a new guild leveling PvP system, a new rated PvP system (ladder based) in the BAttlegrounds, a new open world PvP zone and at least one new Battleground.
City Raids that give achievements and awards.
So Mr .... OPTIONS. Not bad for a PVE game isnt it?
)) . Having to fight to get a ladder based ranking is something other than meaningless zerg fests you can't control anyway.
And hear hear : not a gear discussion in sight....
I play PvP to get me a Justicar title or Battlemaster Title or those other prestigious PvP titles (ranking from Conqueror to Gladiator and others in between).
Others play for even other titles and achievements.
OLD wow was all about gear.
WOW 2009 is ALL about options and achievements with prestigious mounts. Gear is just a means to an end these days.
Apparenly you don't even know it. (by not playing it and see the evident facts).
You ask for a game with options; here they are and you don't even see them.
Edit: To anwser your question: I have a new lvl 14 chararcter I am gonne level through all of Azroth a last time. Started naked on a new server and ...16 Hours played on lvl 14 and 22 gold by playing the auction house and crafting and of course all other professions at 80 or higher.
First learn to play the game as it should be (or as in just another "OPTION" of play). It is SOOOO nice to sell those beginners swords. Yep it ALL works in WOW. I was proud in wearing my new self crafted maces and I level in.... ADVENTURING instead of leveling.
))
Your choice.
Bullshit! It's all about gear and you know it. Stop blowing smoke up peoples ass dude. people play to gear up characters.
You wanna talk about achievements and titles? it means nothing
What do meaningless options matter when the entire game revolves around item farming?
Why do u arena? items off a vendor how about b/c I want to do it for 30 minutes?
Why do u run BGs? Items off a vendor how about b/c I want to do it for 30 minutes?
Why do you run dungeons? Item drops
Why do you farm heroics? Tokens for items off a vendor
Why do you raid? Item Drops and Tokens for items off a vendor
Why do you farm rep? Items off a vendor
Why do you run wintergrasp? Items off a vendor
Why do level to cap? So you can collect pretty item drops and items off a vendor
ITEMS OFF A VENDOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
might as well go play Diablo.
Why have options if the goal is always the same?
The goal is not why you play, the enjoyment of gaming is. If you say so, the only reason to play soccer is to score, if you cannot score and win you do not want to play? Open your mind a bit, and enjoy gaming. Why do you want to go hiking? There is no vendor or loot. Why do I BBQ with friends or family at my backyard? Is there a vendor somewhere?
With your gear focused little mind, nothing is worth nothing, and gaming is just a waste of time.
So a guy who's job is to talk to the community wouldn't lie? Show me cold hard facts that it is INFACT increasing. WoW has reached it's peak. Cataclysm is a PERFECT title for their next expansion. WoW can either start gaining back the tons of people who have found it boring or they can die. The reason why they're revamping starter areas is b/c players like pretty and good animations. So by them revamping alot of the biggest areas in the main world. This is so that they can get more players. Now a player can supposedly just buy the original game and level to the top w/o ever having to go to Outland or Northrend. Or atleast that's how they were making it out to be. Truth be told, you'll still have to go out there but leveling's just going to get easier. And they'll have more end game content. It's only 5 levels. There's not much you can do with 5 levels so they're going to of course make those five levels seem entirely like end game content.
I'll believe that WoW has 11mil subs when they release their tax records to the public. Show me that and i'll believe them.
either that or when blizzard release thier official subscription numbers . which they hav nt done in nearly a year now . the subs hav nt gone up this year its pretty obvious they wont have been static so they most likly have gone down in numbers given theres been no xpax this year to boost them again . they ll proberbly pick up next year with cataclysm and around this christmas because WoW is so cheap to buy now its a good stocking filler for the kids . i ve actually brought a copy for my 12 year old neice . its a nice game for someone of her age . it ll proberbly never again be able to boast 12 million players again but even if it does nt its decline will be so slow that even in 10 years it ll still be able to boast having a couple of million players .
Yeah but why do I care if WoW has 12m or 5 m? Matters not to me.
So long as I find enough nice people to play with in the game its ok for me. I typically interact with 100 or so people in the server and that is all I care for. 5m means nothing to me as I never have enough time to talk to each of them once. Talk to 5m people once, will cost me all the gaming time in my lifetime.
i just compare WoW to the Wii. The Wii is not the best system BY FAR, but yet it sold INSANE amounts of consoles...why?
well its becuase they did somthing first, not the best, but first. WHat that is was cater to the larger crowd that wasnt really tapped into yet, the casuals. They made a game thats easy to play, any piece of junk can run it, and people who only have an hour to play a day can get stuff done. They also have huge name recogniction.
IS the Wii the best console becuase it has the most players? hell no. Is it the worst ever...hell no. It has last gen graphics, tons of shovelware and runs off a cheap gimmic basicly, but if feeds to the larger audience wich is the people who DONT play games.
personaly i dislike WoW and how it basicly set every company on this pointless "quest" to be just like them(like wii made Sony and MS make motion controls...they may be better but they werent first, so it probly will never be as succesful) and try and rake in their huge #s. But being someone whos played EQ then FFXI and knowing somthing like FF14 is on the way next year...im Ok with it, il just stick to that like il stick to just playing the very few more hardcore titles on wii and playing my hardcore titles on my X360 and ps3.
This paragraph right here folks is exactly what I was talking about earlier in the thread. Sorry to centre you out Solude, but you have only demonstrated your lack of experience with other mmos.
No, every fantasy game cannot be labelled the same way. I'm sorry the ones you have had the opportunity to sample have been all focused on gear, but that is not the reality with all other games. The whole point is though, many of us have no desire to continue to see game after game being released with the intention of taking on WOW. Or at the very least copy as much as they can from the damn thing. You have to understand that those of us that have played WOW and have grown tired enough with it not to return, are desperate for some innovation.
All forms of entertainment will shrivel up and die eventually without any innovation. Music, TV, and Video Games included.
The WOW mentality actually reminds me of something from Physics...
inertia n. Physics . The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line.
Sounds spot on to me.
The early days of city of heroes is the best example. There is no gear, just enhancement you can buy to enhance individual spells, and some better enhancements you need to get from bosses. No gear, and the enhancements are not game breaking.
That does not stop me from enjoying CoH thoroughly for half a year.
#1 to whom? imo WoW is outdated and stale now so its far from #1 for me. The graphics alone are enough to make me not want to return. Tons of content isnt enough to keep me happy. I enjoy experiencing new MMOs and sadly WoW doesnt do it for me anymore...so ya, WoW is far from #1 in my eyes
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
It's time that you start playing WOW again.
Before talking about "OPTIONS".
Let's see what "options" are in WOW 2009 purely on a PvP basis. So called "added as an afterthought".
---- > Ok Here we go:
Have a choice between 2 BG's with 80 people (AV and ISle), have 3 BG's with 30 people and have a 20 people BG.
Have a massively played 240 people Siege system every 2.5 Hours in a world PvP zone where people fight 24/7 for resources and mats on PvP servers and that give acces to shard drops and vendor and a 3 raid bosses.
Have hi end world PvP daily quests throughout Northrend (because we talk end game here).
Have multiple Arena formats in numurous setting from 2vs2, 3vs 3 to 5 vs 5 in a ladder based COMPETITION giving hi end dragon mounts and world rankings. So forget 'grinding". Not possible: only skill.
Have an out of the game PvP competition with EQUAL to choose gear and ... 200.000 dollars price money.
And in Cata: a new guild leveling PvP system, a new rated PvP system (ladder based) in the BAttlegrounds, a new open world PvP zone and at least one new Battleground.
City Raids that give achievements and awards.
So Mr .... OPTIONS. Not bad for a PVE game isnt it?
)) . Having to fight to get a ladder based ranking is something other than meaningless zerg fests you can't control anyway.
And hear hear : not a gear discussion in sight....
I play PvP to get me a Justicar title or Battlemaster Title or those other prestigious PvP titles (ranking from Conqueror to Gladiator and others in between).
Others play for even other titles and achievements.
OLD wow was all about gear.
WOW 2009 is ALL about options and achievements with prestigious mounts. Gear is just a means to an end these days.
Apparenly you don't even know it. (by not playing it and see the evident facts).
You ask for a game with options; here they are and you don't even see them.
Edit: To anwser your question: I have a new lvl 14 chararcter I am gonne level through all of Azroth a last time. Started naked on a new server and ...16 Hours played on lvl 14 and 22 gold by playing the auction house and crafting and of course all other professions at 80 or higher.
First learn to play the game as it should be (or as in just another "OPTION" of play). It is SOOOO nice to sell those beginners swords. Yep it ALL works in WOW. I was proud in wearing my new self crafted maces and I level in.... ADVENTURING instead of leveling.
))
Your choice.
Bullshit! It's all about gear and you know it. Stop blowing smoke up peoples ass dude. people play to gear up characters.
You wanna talk about achievements and titles? it means nothing
What do meaningless options matter when the entire game revolves around item farming?
Why do u arena? items off a vendor
Why do u run BGs? Items off a vendor
Why do you run dungeons? Item drops
Why do you farm heroics? Tokens for items off a vendor
Why do you raid? Item Drops and Tokens for items off a vendor
Why do you farm rep? Items off a vendor
Why do you run wintergrasp? Items off a vendor
Why do level to cap? So you can collect pretty item drops and items off a vendor
ITEMS OFF A VENDOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
might as well go play Diablo.
Why have options if the goal is always the same?
I had written a huge post on why most of those points are wrong, but Firefox decided to have a nice crash on me.
Anyway, I'll just say the TL;DR version of it:
Achievements and titles are not meaningless.
A Gladiator or a guild with Death's Demise will be famous server-wide or even battlegroup-wide. People will go "Oh shit" when they see one in BGs,WG or WPvP.
You cannot get those titles without having an extremely skilled and dedicated team and this is a fact. The amount of coordonation you need for Yogg Saron 0 25man, even post nerf, is rather extreme..
That little title can and change your gameplay itself. People will respect you more, they'll look for you more, they'll talk with/talk about you more and you'll genrally have higher priority over people without them(for example, what do you think a current season Gladiator is gonna choose for high-rated arena. A player with great gear and only 1800 or a Gladiator from BC with average gear. I guarantee you 100% that it will be the BC gladiator).
If this doesn't have a meaning...
Also, if you don't raid, do WG and play arena for fun...then you might as not play it at all. Gear is very easy to get and the difference between hardmode/normalmode and 1800/2200 arena items is rather insignificant(but still noticeable).
People who attempt hardmodes/try to get gladiator will not do it for gear. They'll do it for the "meaningless titles", challenge and fun.
You really seem to be burnt out with WoW, but that doesn't mean we all share the same "ITEMS OFF A VENDOR!!!" ideology.
If you took the nice items out of hardmode 25 mans noone would do them, not even just for titles/achievements.
Sure there might be a few random people that want the title but overall its for items. The 10 and 25 man hardmodes give better gear so people do them, shit like titles and achievements are just extras but the main focus has and always will be gear.
For a person that's played MMOs for a very long time I want more.
You don't. B/c your simple narrow mind only looks at items. Actually the more I read about your writing, the more I am convinced you know nothing about WoW gameplay. What hardmodes are you talking about? which boos? What title or achievements are there. Be specific. Which title or achievement no one care about any more. Don't bluff, tell us the specifics. Also tell us what gear there is from which 10 which 25 which hardmode, and which gear is good for which class. Don't bluff tell us specifically. I challenge you, do you know what you are talking? What does hardmode drop differs from normal mode drops? For which class it matters, which boss?
I am fully geared in ilvl245 or BiS ilvl232. But I still do Ulduar hardmodes, where the drops are all inferior. Our guild does that too, regularly, every week, even though we do not need most of the gear from ToC25 any more, and none about ulduar. B/c we want to improve, to test out and try out the ultra hard mode achievements. Oh yeah, another challenge, what does Ulduar and ToC and ToGC means when it comes to gear, what does hardmode mean for each when it comes to gear, to achievement? Are there other ways to get just as good gear, is gear alone all that matters any other ways to enhance 'statistics'.
DON'T BLUFF, BE SPECIFIC.
So start exercising imagination. People play with imagination, for fun, not just for gear. Actually when I log out, the gear stays in game, it does not follow me to my bed or my grave.
Good for you, but you and a few people are alone in doing so. Many people that play your precious game play for loot. The tiers in the game look hideous though so I really don't understand the mentality of the WoW fans.
Very much agree. If I want to play WoW style I log on WoW, as I found few other titles now that provides that kind of gameplay as well. I sometimes play CoH just for the sake of fast pace combat.
If I want some dogfights, I will log on EvE, just about the only game worth that. But I admit I am a poor gamer, and I keep losing the ship may mate work so hard to build. More likely he log on and I watch him play.
I have not been playing much about EvE lately, I kinda forgot the very little my mate taught me. We both are out of town, and without him around I have very little mood to play EvE alone.
For the record, I have sub for WoW, CoH/V, LOTRo and EvE. Looking at Aion now, and waiting on SW:ToR.
Good for you, but you and a few people are alone in doing so. Many people that play your precious game play for loot. The tiers in the game look hideous though so I really don't understand the mentality of the WoW fans.
Now that many people play WoW just for one aspect of it is not a fault of the developer.
WoW allows everyone to find something in the game. Some gamers settle for just part of the whole game, just like some clients, they only eat one plate out of a thick menu, that is not the fault of the chef.
WoW allows gamers of very diversed gaming style to stay interested. Burger eaters, steak lovers, chinese food goers and vegetarians all find some love from a restaurant, I will call that a good restaurant in terms of span of appeal.
But the single most important point for me, personally, is, do I feel happy during the hour I log in, if NOT, then nothing in that game however well praised, matters to me any more. I log out. If the game have me logging in because I can think of something to do for the next hour, that is all that matters to me for the next hour. I do not need to worry about how the game appeals to me next year. Gaming is for today, and is a fire and forget issue.
LOL.
So there profit is what you are using to determen the quality of there product?
really?
you must be joking, no?
So by this logic then
Walmart produces and sales the finest products?
Microsoft software is the best to be had?
Dell makes the best PC anyware?
em I do belive your logic is flawed.
Yes more people shop at Walmart than most any other store does that make them best store? em HELL NO. it makes the easiest not even the cheapest most of the time just the easiest.
Yes the mass majority of OS and business solutions are Microsoft is theirs the best OS? well just like MMOs it depends on what your looking for i.e. the sub genre if you will, Desktop wise there are few other options so we will given them that though OSX and various flavors of Linux are up and coming they are just not commonly supported well enough to be considered "Desktop PC" OS; Server wise Windows OS is the worst OS I have ever seen o how I loath it; Mobil OS windows is pure crap don't even bother thinking about it. Business software wise the Dynamics family is one of there main lines and though I have seen worse I have also seen better . . . a lot better (I wont go into details) productivity software well MS Officer is prity well the norm for most but iWork is a much better quality while Open office has more flexibility don't really know why MS Office is favored, integration is not as good as either of the other 2 cost is higher than both the other 2 and flexibility is lower as well
Yes Dell makes PCs and they are pure junk I say this as a software developer and former desktop support tech with several years exp on the subject do not buy Dell, typically I tell people a system is not the name on the case and that is true but Dell is known for there crap components, corner cutting and suspect ethic charging just stupid prices for dated systems with 2nd rate hard ware.
LOL.
So there profit is what you are using to determen the quality of there product?
really?
you must be joking, no?
So by this logic then
Walmart produces and sales the finest products?
Microsoft software is the best to be had?
Dell makes the best PC anyware?
em I do belive your logic is flawed.
Yes more people shop at Walmart than most any other store does that make them best store? em HELL NO. it makes the easiest not even the cheapest most of the time just the easiest.
Yes the mass majority of OS and business solutions are Microsoft is theirs the best OS? well just like MMOs it depends on what your looking for i.e. the sub genre if you will, Desktop wise there are few other options so we will given them that though OSX and various flavors of Linux are up and coming they are just not commonly supported well enough to be considered "Desktop PC" OS; Server wise Windows OS is the worst OS I have ever seen o how I loath it; Mobil OS windows is pure crap don't even bother thinking about it. Business software wise the Dynamics family is one of there main lines and though I have seen worse I have also seen better . . . a lot better (I wont go into details) productivity software well MS Officer is prity well the norm for most but iWork is a much better quality while Open office has more flexibility don't really know why MS Office is favored, integration is not as good as either of the other 2 cost is higher than both the other 2 and flexibility is lower as well
Yes Dell makes PCs and they are pure junk I say this as a software developer and former desktop support tech with several years exp on the subject do not buy Dell, typically I tell people a system is not the name on the case and that is true but Dell is known for there crap components, corner cutting and suspect ethic charging just stupid prices for dated systems with 2nd rate hard ware.
Well you have strong personal views about what is good and not good of a product. That is your view. Unfortunately that is not a commonly acceptable or agreeable definition, and even among the haters of say walmart, every hater have his own reason to hate.
Business revenue, number of clients or profits are other measures of "success". Whether that means good depends on the person making evaluation, goodness is 100% subjective. People who use these yardsticks for measurement are just as valid in presenting their arguments as you bringing up your own agenda. No more no less.