There is something familiar and satisfying when it comes to Blizzard's new content pushes, infrequent as they are. Even before the patch, I still had things I could do and accomplish because of the shear amount of content the game has. And the tools provided allow group content to be easily accessible, as opposed to more recent games that just don't have the player base, or the mechanics or rewards to sustain group content.
If they can go from 7.4 to over 10 million, then yes, this will indicate that WoW is growing again, otherwise it's still declining over the long term.
WoW never had a "pre expansion bump", at least not one that was in a press release...all the numbers you are quoting are post expansion launch, except Today's (the xpac is still a month away).
Expect the number to jump a LOT once the xpac actually hits. Put your hopes of WoWs collapse on hold till then good sir
what? every pre-expansion is a bump in subs , to check the "incoming" updates , talent changes and preparing for expansions....
i always comeback in those patchs , but no this one tho :P , happy waiting for FFXIV 2.4 :P
(p.d will probably try the expansion on the long run but not on release >.>)
I am sure people come back every pre xpac patch, but the numbers reflected in the chart and quoted by observer are all post launch. The numbers are always way higher once the xpac actually launches. Hes taking the sub increase number post launch of each xpac and is comparing it to a 600k increase pre xpac in some weird attempt to imply that less people are coming back for WoD....otherwise there is absolutely no reason to compare post xpac launch numbers to pre xpac launch numbers.
Originally posted by Albatroes I'm sure I'm not alone for the reason of re-subbing last month. I only re-subbed to get credit for the horde mount and to test the changes of 6.0.2 (which I was hoping they would've implemented the restore deleted character option but looks like its on hold). However, I have no plans of re-subbing again until WoD goes on sale and after a few months of content have been put back out. Many people I have talked to are not comfortable with the stat-squish though and have no plans of returning as long as its in place. So only time will tell to see how well the game does after WoD but I don't think the numbers are going to go as well as Blizzard thinks.
I resubbed a few weeks ago(ends in a week I think and already cancelled) only to see if I can enjoy any part of the game again.
I can definitely get into LFR and some flex raiding. Pet battles are fun. I wish they would do more with the proving grounds, I like that style of content. But I dont think I can sub to a game that its endgame focus is raiding. Not anymore, Unsubbed to Wildstar because I quickly realized this, and I hold Wildstar in a much higher regard than WoW these days. Speaking of which, Carbines talks of short session gameplay/progression is of particular interest to me and I might resub to Wildstar if it happens.
But at this point with WOD, probably wont get it. Too much fun with Diablo 3 right now, might play around with Warframe again for a month or two here and there. thats about it.
Waiting on Skyforge or EQN(if they ever stop pushing landmark down our throats and work on EQN).
WoW never had a "pre expansion bump", at least not one that was in a press release...all the numbers you are quoting are post expansion launch, except Today's (the xpac is still a month away).
this is similar
11.5m were announced after the november release WOTLK, Dec 2008
Haven't played but it seems to hit a lot of my boxes; removal of a lot of the CC was like the biggest problem I had with the games PvP system. the clutter removal, stat squish, quest integrated into the world map, are big on my list as well.
I'm playing ArcheAge and I am enjoying myself. It does almost everything I want it to. I can't put a finger on ArcheAge and talk about anything that keeps me from having fun.. it's just that... outside of Guild Wars 2, I have not encountered a hand crafted world that truly immersed me in a MMO setting.
It also happened when Morrowind came out. But this combination of outstanding level, terrain, audio, music, and art direction all has to come together and make a compelling product that is fun to explore.
And no matter how you feel about the raids, the lack of frequent updates, the monthly fee or what else, it seems to me that it's impossible to deny just how compelling the world of world of warcraft is. Even with it's rudimentary quests, none of the themepark games have even gotten close.
And that's disappointing. Building an entire world is difficult, making vistas are difficult, but perhaps most difficult of all, is making a world that is memorable and immersive, because as we have seen, it has nothing to do with pretty graphics. Oblivion came out years after WoW, and that game got wayyyy longer in the tooth way sooner than WoW has. randomly generated or even procedualy generated world design simply doesnt have the same ommmpphh.
I am seriously debating re-installing WoW again. The new character models might make me want to start a new character and do the journey again.
I jumped back in by pre-ordering and getting the included level 90 bump, mostly because the Garrisons feature intrigued me. Weeks after I did that SWToR announced SoR expansion and 12x leveling on class quests so I couldn't resist that... now my attention is torn between the two. Meanwhile my Archeage account sits idle because I'm too frustrated with the land/house grab issues there!
I haven't purchased the expansion, but I expect I will. I am looking forward to checking out the new stuff in the patch, especially the inventory tweaks. I'm also looking forward to the Iron Horde invasions, though I'm not sure anything will top turning people into Zombies for the Lich King. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Yep, back in Wow, which is 100% better than beating my head against the wall in ArcheAge. You can mock Wow all you want, but even it's combat is far superior to what you find in AA.
LOL, apparently the stat squish wasn't fully tested in the 1-85 zones... and players are finding it more like the original WoW in terms of difficulty... peeps are close to death with just one mob pull. I'm tempted to download it and try it out from level 1-20 and see if it really is more difficult. Of course, Blizz will buff players to make it EZ-MODE soon enough, but for the time being, we may have a real challenge again!
Originally posted by Mr.SeriousGuy and LOL has 27 million active players at peak this month . sure LOL is a moba not a mmorpg but if your just going to throw numbers around like it means something it puts it into perspective . alternately 17 million people tuned in to watch amc's walking dead season 5 premier thats not counting any one who watched it on the amc web site for free or a pirated stream
and WoW still makes more than double the amount of revenue that LoL does. *golf clap*
SHOTS FIRED. LOL.
When all is said and done, more is always said than done.
Originally posted by FelixMajor I subbed, to see who was still active in my guild and didn't log back in. Still undecided if I will play WoD :S
Don't sub to find out who is playing... use the armory or hop on a free account toon and whisper your guildies. If you want to see how lively the server is, use the free account to check out the cities populations. Use /who. All this is free and at your disposal. Plus you get to see any talent tree changes, model changes, etc without spending a dime.
Originally posted by Mr.SeriousGuy and LOL has 27 million active players at peak this month . sure LOL is a moba not a mmorpg but if your just going to throw numbers around like it means something it puts it into perspective . alternately 17 million people tuned in to watch amc's walking dead season 5 premier thats not counting any one who watched it on the amc web site for free or a pirated stream
and WoW still makes more than double the amount of revenue that LoL does. *golf clap*
SHOTS FIRED. LOL.
yeah, everyone always brings up non-mmorpgs to compare to WoW when numbers are involved, and I think to myself the same thing. Blizzard probably makes more in a month than the other games make in an entire year lol
Originally posted by Mr.SeriousGuy and LOL has 27 million active players at peak this month . sure LOL is a moba not a mmorpg but if your just going to throw numbers around like it means something it puts it into perspective . alternately 17 million people tuned in to watch amc's walking dead season 5 premier thats not counting any one who watched it on the amc web site for free or a pirated stream
a moba is not a mmorpg hence the rpg meaning role playing mobas not the same thing but its ok wow can still stay ahead of the market they can fine tune there game more keep delivering content always add a new race or 2 and keep advertising the only game that matches wow is Rift but they need to tweak there game update the engine to run smoothly on all pc's go subscription and they will be a big contender and dont forget teek as well as add needed race additions the same character races is boring come on rift catch up but wow has everything we need as mmorpg gamers and is getting better they heard us and there working to keep us playing there game
i believe it was zigzag that said merge servers i totally agree that would be the best thing blizz could do now and also Blizz im begging you begging you make people watch tutorial videos in game when ever they go into a battle ground they have never played to teach them what to do im dying people are lost in bg's please nothing worse then random gameplay in a bg and then when you try to explain they get t'd ignore continue to do anything but the objective and you lose constantly and yes talking about alliance really its bad really bad i mean really screw the objective im going to kill the horde because thats how youi win a bg cough cough i mean arena cough no bg why cough idiots cough cough smh tutorials for the people who just dont know alliance player tired of losing from lack of people knowing what to do. smdh...........
Originally posted by mrbowser81 i believe it was zigzag that said merge servers i totally agree that would be the best thing blizz could do now and also Blizz im begging you begging you make people watch tutorial videos in game when ever they go into a battle ground they have never played to teach them what to do im dying people are lost in bg's please nothing worse then random gameplay in a bg and then when you try to explain they get t'd ignore continue to do anything but the objective and you lose constantly and yes talking about alliance really its bad really bad i mean really screw the objective im going to kill the horde because thats how youi win a bg cough cough i mean arena cough no bg why cough idiots cough cough smh tutorials for the people who just dont know alliance player tired of losing from lack of people knowing what to do. smdh...........
Punctuation, my friend...And they did merge servers.
The only thing I don't like so far about the patch, are the new healing mechanics. They arn't hard, just tedius IMO. I am waititng until I am lvl 100 to cast my final judgement, as I know lvl 90 stats are not what they are perfectly attuned for, by damn healing is bring now. Healing in 6.0.2 now basically amounts to the following: Spam your fast heal 15 times in a row in order to recover 10% of your target's health, all while never coming close to running out of mana. All it is now, is "spam spam spam spam spam spam spam".
I miss the healing days of Cata, where your cast choices actually ment somthing
If they can go from 7.4 to over 10 million, then yes, this will indicate that WoW is growing again, otherwise it's still declining over the long term.
I dont think the 600k jump in prelaunch player base will set off anything when the vast majority of the players arent happy about the massive Dumb down of the game.... Tanks got screwed, other classes got raked over the coals(except maybe rogues, arent they irrelevant now?)..
CC abilities... not that they have really been used in anything but pvp for a while get a lil kick in da balls... but lets be serious.. a complete removal of all silencing abilities from the game? and dot abilities from pets are removed... WTF?!?!
The list goes on... but honestly if you take what has already been done to the characters and then look at the stupid things they have done (Swifty warrior one shot macro ring any bells?), and in a month the rest of the shit comes down the pipe and its only going to get uglier...
Lore wise this could be a nice game, however all the changes they are bringing all at once in this launch give me very vague reminders of another game that made massive changes .... oh yeah SWG... look how well that did.
Players like moderate change, they make their characters and take an odd sense of pride in thier characters... there are far too many changes coming and not all of them are even slightly bad... they completely screw up the characters... The call from the player base during alpha and beta reminded me of the lashback from the Diablo 3 launch.. the massive recalls and refund requests...
I dont think this 600k boost is a drop in the bucket to how badly they are going to get hit from the rage of the characters getting screwed. Players arent happy with it.
Originally posted by Scypheroth Ill pass...no matter how much u beat a dead horse with a stick its still a dead horse......games crap since Cata and there is nothing that can save it...Blizzard needs to put the sick horse down and start something new....
Man, if I owned a "dead" horse that was a lively as wow...well, let's just say that's one mount I'd like to have in my collection.
Also, how do you know that it's crap since Cata? I'm truly curious at the method you use to come to this conclusion. Do you know a guy that knows a guy? Do you have a friend that plays? Have you played it since Cataclysm? Would like to hear your thoughts. Thanks in advance.
I dont think this 600k boost is a drop in the bucket to how badly they are going to get hit from the rage of the characters getting screwed. Players arent happy with it.
It would seem that at least 600k are happy with it, not to mention the millions that still subscribe.
I dont think this 600k boost is a drop in the bucket to how badly they are going to get hit from the rage of the characters getting screwed. Players arent happy with it.
It would seem that at least 600k are happy with it, not to mention the millions that still subscribe.
its kind of funny, as 600k is probably more than the entire playerbase of some of the games recently released
WoW sets its own rules, i think that truly gets some peoples goat, maybe also because WoW is even for an old game, its 'bucking' the so called F2P trend that we're supposed to be experiencing, that and the fact the game is constantly a reminder to the doom and gloomers that the game is not only, not dead, not dying but doing pretty well, if not better than so many more recent additions to the genre, thats got to be pretty annoying for some people
Comments
There is something familiar and satisfying when it comes to Blizzard's new content pushes, infrequent as they are. Even before the patch, I still had things I could do and accomplish because of the shear amount of content the game has. And the tools provided allow group content to be easily accessible, as opposed to more recent games that just don't have the player base, or the mechanics or rewards to sustain group content.
I am sure people come back every pre xpac patch, but the numbers reflected in the chart and quoted by observer are all post launch. The numbers are always way higher once the xpac actually launches. Hes taking the sub increase number post launch of each xpac and is comparing it to a 600k increase pre xpac in some weird attempt to imply that less people are coming back for WoD....otherwise there is absolutely no reason to compare post xpac launch numbers to pre xpac launch numbers.
I am sure you would agree, no?
I resubbed a few weeks ago(ends in a week I think and already cancelled) only to see if I can enjoy any part of the game again.
I can definitely get into LFR and some flex raiding. Pet battles are fun. I wish they would do more with the proving grounds, I like that style of content. But I dont think I can sub to a game that its endgame focus is raiding. Not anymore, Unsubbed to Wildstar because I quickly realized this, and I hold Wildstar in a much higher regard than WoW these days. Speaking of which, Carbines talks of short session gameplay/progression is of particular interest to me and I might resub to Wildstar if it happens.
But at this point with WOD, probably wont get it. Too much fun with Diablo 3 right now, might play around with Warframe again for a month or two here and there. thats about it.
Waiting on Skyforge or EQN(if they ever stop pushing landmark down our throats and work on EQN).
this is similar
11.5m were announced after the november release WOTLK, Dec 2008
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21654
12m were announced Oct 2009 (two months before Cata released)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/121565/World_Of_Warcraft_Reaches_12_Million_Subscribers_Worldwide.php
EQ2 fan sites
This new patch is amazing. That is all I have to report.
Bout frekkin time. One of the silliest moves Blizzard ever made with expansions.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Haven't played but it seems to hit a lot of my boxes; removal of a lot of the CC was like the biggest problem I had with the games PvP system. the clutter removal, stat squish, quest integrated into the world map, are big on my list as well.
I'm playing ArcheAge and I am enjoying myself. It does almost everything I want it to. I can't put a finger on ArcheAge and talk about anything that keeps me from having fun.. it's just that... outside of Guild Wars 2, I have not encountered a hand crafted world that truly immersed me in a MMO setting.
It also happened when Morrowind came out. But this combination of outstanding level, terrain, audio, music, and art direction all has to come together and make a compelling product that is fun to explore.
And no matter how you feel about the raids, the lack of frequent updates, the monthly fee or what else, it seems to me that it's impossible to deny just how compelling the world of world of warcraft is. Even with it's rudimentary quests, none of the themepark games have even gotten close.
And that's disappointing. Building an entire world is difficult, making vistas are difficult, but perhaps most difficult of all, is making a world that is memorable and immersive, because as we have seen, it has nothing to do with pretty graphics. Oblivion came out years after WoW, and that game got wayyyy longer in the tooth way sooner than WoW has. randomly generated or even procedualy generated world design simply doesnt have the same ommmpphh.
I am seriously debating re-installing WoW again. The new character models might make me want to start a new character and do the journey again.
I haven't purchased the expansion, but I expect I will. I am looking forward to checking out the new stuff in the patch, especially the inventory tweaks. I'm also looking forward to the Iron Horde invasions, though I'm not sure anything will top turning people into Zombies for the Lich King. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
LOL, apparently the stat squish wasn't fully tested in the 1-85 zones... and players are finding it more like the original WoW in terms of difficulty... peeps are close to death with just one mob pull. I'm tempted to download it and try it out from level 1-20 and see if it really is more difficult. Of course, Blizz will buff players to make it EZ-MODE soon enough, but for the time being, we may have a real challenge again!
Originally posted by Arskaaa
"when players learned tacticks in dungeon/raids, its bread".
SHOTS FIRED. LOL.
Don't sub to find out who is playing... use the armory or hop on a free account toon and whisper your guildies. If you want to see how lively the server is, use the free account to check out the cities populations. Use /who. All this is free and at your disposal. Plus you get to see any talent tree changes, model changes, etc without spending a dime.
yeah, everyone always brings up non-mmorpgs to compare to WoW when numbers are involved, and I think to myself the same thing. Blizzard probably makes more in a month than the other games make in an entire year lol
a moba is not a mmorpg hence the rpg meaning role playing mobas not the same thing but its ok wow can still stay ahead of the market they can fine tune there game more keep delivering content always add a new race or 2 and keep advertising the only game that matches wow is Rift but they need to tweak there game update the engine to run smoothly on all pc's go subscription and they will be a big contender and dont forget teek as well as add needed race additions the same character races is boring come on rift catch up but wow has everything we need as mmorpg gamers and is getting better they heard us and there working to keep us playing there game
Punctuation, my friend...And they did merge servers.
The only thing I don't like so far about the patch, are the new healing mechanics. They arn't hard, just tedius IMO. I am waititng until I am lvl 100 to cast my final judgement, as I know lvl 90 stats are not what they are perfectly attuned for, by damn healing is bring now. Healing in 6.0.2 now basically amounts to the following: Spam your fast heal 15 times in a row in order to recover 10% of your target's health, all while never coming close to running out of mana. All it is now, is "spam spam spam spam spam spam spam".
I miss the healing days of Cata, where your cast choices actually ment somthing
I dont think the 600k jump in prelaunch player base will set off anything when the vast majority of the players arent happy about the massive Dumb down of the game.... Tanks got screwed, other classes got raked over the coals(except maybe rogues, arent they irrelevant now?)..
CC abilities... not that they have really been used in anything but pvp for a while get a lil kick in da balls... but lets be serious.. a complete removal of all silencing abilities from the game? and dot abilities from pets are removed... WTF?!?!
The list goes on... but honestly if you take what has already been done to the characters and then look at the stupid things they have done (Swifty warrior one shot macro ring any bells?), and in a month the rest of the shit comes down the pipe and its only going to get uglier...
Lore wise this could be a nice game, however all the changes they are bringing all at once in this launch give me very vague reminders of another game that made massive changes .... oh yeah SWG... look how well that did.
Players like moderate change, they make their characters and take an odd sense of pride in thier characters... there are far too many changes coming and not all of them are even slightly bad... they completely screw up the characters... The call from the player base during alpha and beta reminded me of the lashback from the Diablo 3 launch.. the massive recalls and refund requests...
I dont think this 600k boost is a drop in the bucket to how badly they are going to get hit from the rage of the characters getting screwed. Players arent happy with it.
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
Man, if I owned a "dead" horse that was a lively as wow...well, let's just say that's one mount I'd like to have in my collection.
Also, how do you know that it's crap since Cata? I'm truly curious at the method you use to come to this conclusion. Do you know a guy that knows a guy? Do you have a friend that plays? Have you played it since Cataclysm? Would like to hear your thoughts. Thanks in advance.
"I am handicapped...I'm psychotic."
It would seem that at least 600k are happy with it, not to mention the millions that still subscribe.
"I am handicapped...I'm psychotic."
its kind of funny, as 600k is probably more than the entire playerbase of some of the games recently released
WoW sets its own rules, i think that truly gets some peoples goat, maybe also because WoW is even for an old game, its 'bucking' the so called F2P trend that we're supposed to be experiencing, that and the fact the game is constantly a reminder to the doom and gloomers that the game is not only, not dead, not dying but doing pretty well, if not better than so many more recent additions to the genre, thats got to be pretty annoying for some people