DailyTech - World of Warcraft Reaches 10 Million Subscribers

At what point

By GhandiInstinct on 1/22/2008 7:27:07 PM , Rating: 2

Will Blizzard make this game free and just do in-game ads?

10 million fricken users, largest base in the world.

This game is no where near the $15/month.

Everything is unbalanced and the graphics look like dog carp.

RE: At what point

By Warren21 on 1/22/2008 7:29:16 PM , Rating: 5

I think it's more along the lines of catfish.

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RE: At what point

By Fenixgoon on 1/22/2008 7:31:09 PM , Rating: 5

trout! =D

that said, WoW may not have godly graphics, but its art direction is superb.

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RE: At what point

By Schadenfroh on 1/22/2008 7:32:38 PM , Rating: 5

They apparently do not have much of a problem keeping their existing user base paying the industry standard (for MMOs) $15 a month. I doubt they will make it free to play anytime soon.

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RE: At what point

By headbox on 1/23/08, Rating: 0

RE: At what point

By Nik00117 on 1/23/2008 4:21:56 PM , Rating: 2

I agree, I mean if you think about each one of those users paid for the game and ad additonal 15 a month. Right now they are racking in 150,000,000 a month. They'd be morons to make it for free, a 5 dollar price drop would do nothing either.

I think this is because the gaming industry is getting older, I mean i'm to the point where I no longer have to ask my folks for money to fund my hobby, and I think the industry is seeing alot of poeple willing to shell out more nowadays since more of them are postions to where they can.

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RE: At what point

By DontAskMe on 1/22/2008 7:35:22 PM , Rating: 5

WoW! All those people with no lives!!
like me

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RE: At what point

By EODetroit on 1/23/2008 9:22:13 AM , Rating: 2

I have two accounts, you have twice the life I do! WTB more stamina!

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RE: At what point

By GhandiInstinct on 1/22/2008 7:35:40 PM , Rating: 3

I meant to say "worth $15/month"

DAILYTECH YOU CAN AFFORD TO IMPLEMENT AN EDIT BUTTON I KNOW YOU CAN!

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RE: At what point

By daftrok on 1/22/2008 9:57:36 PM , Rating: 2

I agree to an extent. Yes there should be an edit feature but it should be limited. If you make an error, you should be able to edit it within 10 minutes of posting. If you got a -1 rating for saying something dumb and you see that an hour later you should not have any right to edit it because at that point you are just trying to undo what you wrote entirely. That's why its important to read before you post.

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RE: At what point

By WileCoyote on 1/23/2008 12:46:50 AM , Rating: 3

There is an edit button except it's called "Preview"

If they changed the name of it to EDIT then people would stop complaining.

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RE: At what point

By BladeVenom on 1/23/2008 4:27:57 AM , Rating: 5

Then people would complain that there's no preview button.

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RE: At what point

By aharris on 1/23/2008 10:22:07 AM , Rating: 2

I actually had a double post on this page. Submitted once, showed up twice.

WTB Edit Button.

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RE: At what point

By OblivionMage on 1/22/2008 8:23:49 PM , Rating: 5

The graphics are purposely not as high quality as, say, Crysis for example, but the whole point is for the game to be very scalable and playable on slightly older machines. Not all people buy new, top-end systems every 2-3 years, and WoW came out in 2004, and considering they cannot really say "Oh, sorry, you computer can't play our game anymore after our latest graphics patch", they can't upgrade the graphics very much. TBC included some new shaders and updates textures, and the Wrath of the Lich King will add another array of new graphical enhancements.

If you think that it does not look pretty enough, then simply don't play it. The game is not designed to be eyecandy, it is designed to be an MMORPG that focuses around multiplayer systems more then graphics.

I will admit that the Role-Playing servers are very spammed full of idiots and that the storyline has ground to an unrealistic halt, but the games quality is not really diminished that much by such as thing.

As for inbalance, I agree that Blizzard changes around alot of things as per the frequent patches, but if you look at tournement/high-end play, all classes have their advantages. I would gladly pay 15$ a month for the very good servers, call support, in-game support, and forums.

Saying that, I don't even like the game all that much, I just think that you have to back up your claims a little bit, and don't throw in "Bad graphics zomg!", when the game is four years old.

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RE: At what point

By EODetroit on 1/23/2008 9:26:13 AM , Rating: 2

Except hunters and shamans have no role in high end arenas.

But yeah, Everquest could have had these kind of numbers too, there was no serious competition to EQ pre-WoW. But unfortunately, EQ sucked far too much and failed to get a tenth of what WoW now has despite being the only game worth a damn in town.

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RE: At what point

By LeftSide on 1/22/2008 8:37:23 PM , Rating: 2

10 mil x $15 = 150 million dollars a month. $150,000,000 X 12 months = $1,800,000,000 a year!

I need to invest in blizzard.

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RE: At what point

By OblivionMage on 1/22/2008 8:47:16 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I need to invest in blizzard.

You mean Vivendi, right? And their profit is a great deal lower then that, I highly doubt that internet cafe's in China charge 15$ per account, and they have very large server maintenance costs and tech support costs. Saying that, they still do pull in a TON of money.

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RE: At what point

By StevoLincolnite on 1/23/2008 7:39:36 AM , Rating: 2

Don't forget the sale of the Discs also, but I'm pretty sure they are still making a killing compared to what they did with StarCraft and Diablo 2 though, they still have those servers up and running - which is an added cost. (Plus they still make updates for said games)

Rock on Blizzard! At least we can rely on patches and multi-player support for 10+ years after the game is released!

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RE: At what point

By kinnoch on 1/22/2008 9:14:31 PM , Rating: 2

Half of the customers are in Asia and those countries don't get charged $15/mo. I don't know the actual fee, but blizzard had mentioned that its lower (correct me if i'm wrong).

But yah they are bringing in bank. Why do you think its Blizzard Activision and not Vivindi Activision? :P

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RE: At what point

By themadmilkman on 1/22/2008 11:18:20 PM , Rating: 2

They pay by the hour.

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RE: At what point

By epsilonparadox on 1/22/2008 11:25:52 PM , Rating: 3

Its actually activision blizzard.

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RE: At what point

By jonmcc33 on 1/23/2008 2:21:57 AM , Rating: 2

And most MMO freaks (I mean fans) will say that's all for "server maintenance".

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RE: At what point

By poweruserx83 on 1/22/2008 9:07:32 PM , Rating: 3

It's a good thing fools like you don't run Blizzard. Graphics don't make a game. They can sure break a game (if they are too demanding).
WOW's graphics aren't demanding, but the game is one of the best looking games when it's run. Examples of demanding games that look like crap: NFS Prostreet, CMR DIRT etc..

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RE: At what point

By BladeVenom on 1/23/2008 4:34:11 AM , Rating: 2

That's part of the reason it's more popular now then when it first came out. You needed a pretty good PC to play it when it first came out. Now any midrange, and most low end PCs can play it.

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RE: At what point

By meepstone on 1/22/2008 9:32:49 PM , Rating: 2

They have said they could of made the game look better graphics wise but then not everyone would of been able to play the game because their PC's couldnt handle it.

Makes sense, why make a game that looks like bioshock for instance when most ppl cant meet the requirements to play it, your only ruining your own consumer base.

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RE: At what point

By djkrypplephite on 1/23/2008 2:29:23 AM , Rating: 2

why would they ever do that? in-game adverts would ruin the novelty of entering a new world, and they're already making $150,000,000/month on subscriptions alone, not to mention disc sales. at $150,000,000/month, why in the hell would they ever change it? i mean they must be doing something right.

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RE: At what point

By mondog on 1/23/2008 4:31:49 AM , Rating: 2

"10 million fricken users, largest base in the world."

Sorry but thats not quite correct. Lineage I and II both individually have a larger userbase than WoW. You could probably add up all the other MMO's out there including WoW and they still wouldn't add up to the number of subscribers the Lineage games have.

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RE: At what point

By Akazar on 1/23/2008 11:39:36 AM , Rating: 2

Actually your wrong.

http://mmogdata.voig.com/

Lineage and Lineage 2 added together are still a smaller base than wow.

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RE: At what point

By eye smite on 1/23/2008 8:59:24 AM , Rating: 1

Umm, it's $11 a month if you pay 6 months at a time. The graphics are cartoonish and I like Guild Wars better that I've played for 3 yrs. They don't charge a monthly fee, but what got me started in Wow this past november and has kept me going is content. Once you've gotten through Guild Wars or other MMO's, it's just the same grinding stone, where as in WOW you can keep going and change pace. It fulfills my gaming needs and wants just fine, and unless you've played it, your negative comments here are just close minded sarcasm, thanks for playing.

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RE: At what point

By PWNettle on 1/23/2008 4:47:25 PM , Rating: 2

I think WoW's graphics look great, it's the best MMORPG of all time, one of the best games of all time period, and nothing coming out anytime soon is going to dethrone it.

$15/month is some of the cheapest entertainment or anything else you could buy, considering most players are playing hours every day they can.

How much per month do you pay to watch commercials via cable or satelite? How much do you pay per month for overpriced cellphone service? How much do you pay for 1 crappy fast food meal? How about 2 tickets to the latest garbage out of hollywood? And so on.

WoW haters crack me up - when they spew it's like "look at me, I'm an idiot!"

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RE: At what point

By afkrotch on 1/24/2008 5:28:13 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Will Blizzard make this game free and just do in-game ads?

10 million fricken users, largest base in the world.

This game is no where near the $15/month.

Everything is unbalanced and the graphics look like dog carp.

Lineage 2...14 million ppl. Thanks, but you're wrong.

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Define Subscribers

By inighthawki on 1/22/2008 9:49:48 PM , Rating: 2

What exactly do they mean here. Is it meaning "People who have at any one point in time subscribed and have had an account", does it include those who are inactive but still pay? or does it maybe even include demo users? Because certainly if 10 million people subscribed to date but a great deal have by this time stopped playing, its a very inaccurate statistic.

RE: Define Subscribers

By SavagePotato on 1/22/2008 10:33:04 PM , Rating: 1

The chances of there being creative thinking in that 10 million number are quite good.

Look at second life, they claim to have 2 million subscribers but that's just everyone who has ever created an account ever. Including those that made duplicate accounts.

I doubt very much that 10 million individual people are playing WoW in a 24 hour period.

Even still, selling 10 million copies at a game at $40 is considered a huge success. Doing that and keeping most of them on the hook for $15 a month, well that's a roaring success. The one thing you can bet on, is the fact they are making no end of money on it.

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RE: Define Subscribers

By archdale on 1/22/2008 10:33:11 PM , Rating: 3

http://www.blizzard.com/press/080122.shtml
World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition
World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.

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RE: Define Subscribers

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 1/23/2008 8:42:44 AM , Rating: 2

Yes, I have little doubt there is 10 million active WoW players.

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RE: Define Subscribers

By eye smite on 1/23/08, Rating: 0

RE: Define Subscribers

By helios220 on 1/23/2008 9:24:27 AM , Rating: 3

quote:
Also if you haven't played the game and are downplaying it with comments, that's really a fine example of close minded sarcasm.

I don't have to have played the game to insult it. I've seen more friends fail classes, fail out of college even, lose girlfriends, or otherwise start the slow drift to complete social rejection from excessive WoW playing that I have any other game in my life. People who should have been spending time trying to better themselves unable to get past anything that isn’t bettering their characters.

Yes, I have played WoW before (beta & subscribed at one point) but even if I never had I'd still have more than enough reason to despise its very existence.

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RE: Define Subscribers

By eye smite on 1/23/2008 9:37:16 AM , Rating: 3

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience too. Did you ever think that maybe people are becoming so addicted because there are other things in their life that make life just suck? Wow is a great escape from the total BS life can sometimes be. You have a better solution now's the time, all I see is close minded sarcasm again.

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RE: Define Subscribers

By Vanilla Thunder on 1/23/2008 12:35:16 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
maybe people are becoming so addicted because there are other things in their life that make life just suck?

So instead of investing some time in making your life suck less, you hole yourself up in your basement and slowly recede from society all together? Everybody's got problems. The bottom line is there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with them. 18 hours a day of WoW, IMO, is the wrong way.

Vanilla

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RE: Define Subscribers

By borismkv on 1/23/2008 12:42:19 PM , Rating: 2

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means"

Close minded sarcasm?

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RE: Define Subscribers

By SavagePotato on 1/23/08, Rating: 0

RE: Define Subscribers

By helios220 on 1/23/2008 10:30:38 AM , Rating: 1

I make no effort to defend the individuals who I've seen become addicted to WoW as poor and helpless victims. No one puts a gun to your head and tells you to play WoW, players have all of the opportunities in the world to reduce their play time or simply stop playing all together.

I'm not saying you can't play WoW or that anyone who does play it will become the equivalent of some cyber-evlven-crackwhore. All I'm saying is that it shouldn't be too hard to understand why the friends and spouses of individuals who seemingly care about a video game far more than they care about anything in real life would start to think "yo, f-ck that game".

Anyway though, I gotta get out of here. Heroine Hero is calling me and damn it if it's the last thing I do on this planet I'm going to catch that dragon.

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RE: Define Subscribers

By eye smite on 1/23/2008 11:34:59 AM , Rating: 2

Man, where were you opinionated SOB's when Diablo2 was played by large numbers of people online on battlenet. In fact, there's still a large number of people playing D2 on battlenet.

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RE: Define Subscribers

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 1/23/2008 1:09:02 PM , Rating: 1

They were playing D2 with the rest :P

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RE: Define Subscribers

By Master Kenobi

(blog) on 1/23/08, Rating: 0

Last year was 6 million, right?

By knowyourenemy on 1/22/2008 7:38:42 PM , Rating: 2

Last year was their 6-million mark, right? This rate of growth is scary.

RE: Last year was 6 million, right?

By walk2k on 1/22/2008 7:57:23 PM , Rating: 2

Hard to say, the last MMOG Chart (the only numbers I trust) was updated in summer 2006, and it had WoW at about 6 million.

Of course, 1 million was in Europe, and 1.5-2 million in the US, with the balance in China (*cough* gold farmers).

If we extrapolate to 10 million, that means about..

2-2.5M in the US
1.5M in Europe
6 million goldfarmers in China.

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RE: Last year was 6 million, right?

By rsasp on 1/22/2008 8:18:33 PM , Rating: 2

lol wow "6 million goldfarmers in China"?
Where you get that from? the area near your upper thigh?
goldfarmers are nearly a fraction of that number presented. beside if people dislike "goldfarmer" why are people still buying gold? I don't really get it.

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RE: Last year was 6 million, right?

By aharris on 1/23/2008 9:40:28 AM , Rating: 2

There are three types of people in WoW: Those who understand what makes the WoW economy work, those who don't, and those who are self-centered enough to not care.

With 10 million subscribers it's inevitable you're going to have some users who simply don't care, but the majority of people who purchase gold (which amounts to a minority of the WoW players) do so because they don't realize how damaging it is to the game for everyone else.

Oh, and he picked up that number from the Blizzard announcement that there are 5.5 million east Asian WoW players. The stereotype is that all Asians are involved in that line of work.

"World of Warcraft now hosts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and approximately 5.5 million in Asia."

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RE: Last year was 6 million, right?

By aharris on 1/23/2008 9:40:28 AM , Rating: 2

There are three types of people in WoW: Those who understand what makes the WoW economy work, those who don't, and those who are self-centered enough to not care.

With 10 million subscribers it's inevitable you're going to have some users who simply don't care, but the majority of people who purchase gold (which amounts to a minority of the WoW players) do so because they don't realize how damaging it is to the game for everyone else.

Oh, and he picked up that number from the Blizzard announcement that there are 5.5 million east Asian WoW players. The stereotype is that all Asians are involved in that line of work.

"World of Warcraft now hosts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and approximately 5.5 million in Asia."

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RE: Last year was 6 million, right?

By Lonyo on 1/22/2008 10:23:50 PM , Rating: 3

6 million in Asia includes Japan and Korea, which probably make up a large amount of that 6 million.
Koreans are gaming fanatics.

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WoW and people

By BF04 on 1/23/2008 6:21:37 AM , Rating: 1

Ok, this is mainly to the person stating he hates MMORG. The 10million mark I must say includes my wife and I as we started playing the week of Christmas. We played EQ2 for 3yrs and wanted something different. We also play with a couple of friends of our's.

Please see the post the person below you stated about addictive personalities. Their are addicitive personality and general "bad" people in every part of life.

I hold a full time job which I do very well at. I am an adjunct Professor and finishing up my Masters degree. I enjoy spending time playing, as it gets me away for a bit. My wife plays with me and we have a number of friends around the country that play. It is an easy medium to get a number of us together and have fun. The cost of $15 a month is easily done compared to the amount of time you can play if permitted. Try and see a movie with your GF for $15, good luck.

As for "seeing" more single women out because all of us guys are home playing WoW. Well, I can only laugh at that comment since it is so far from the truth.

If you do not like the game, do not play. It is simple as that.

RE: WoW and people

By layerd on 1/23/2008 8:57:29 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Please see the post the person below you stated about addictive personalities. Their are addicitive personality and general "bad" people in every part of life

I agree with most of your post, but I think that to say that people with addictions are general "bad" is at least wrong. You don’t know may be some relative to you will be involved in some addiction in the future and you are not going to think that he/she is a “bad” person for that, instead they are people that need help, to need help is not to be a bad people.

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RE: WoW and people

By seamonkey79 on 1/23/2008 9:24:22 AM , Rating: 3

If you read what he posted, he didn't say that people with addictions are bad, he said that there are people with addictions AND there are bad people in every part of life.

People with addictions in the real world

AND

Bad people in the real world

Not "People with addictions are bad people in every part of life"

This has been a public service announcement.

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RE: WoW and people

By eye smite on 1/23/2008 9:34:21 AM , Rating: 2

No man there's bad people in wow. hehe Watch wow funeral on youtube. The horde were having an in game funeral for a girl that died in real life, she was young. They made the mistake of having it in a contested zone and published he date time and location on the wow forums. About 50 Alliance characters showed up and ganked the funeral, it's horrible to do that but funny as hell to watch. lol

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RE: WoW and people

By EODetroit on 1/23/2008 1:19:35 PM , Rating: 2

A similar thing happened on my server, I don't think there's Youtube of it at least. The act was dispicable but some blame lies with the deceased's guild as well, since they should have known better.

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RE: WoW and people

By layerd on 1/23/2008 9:36:25 AM , Rating: 2

Ops! Now I see what you see, you are right! My apologies for fast-reading :-) and to justify a bit myself it is now much clearer :-).

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You can play WOW for free

By eye smite on 1/23/2008 9:47:37 AM , Rating: 2

There are servers you can redirect the game client to that are free. These are companies that bought a wow server, wow maintains them and you can donate to them, but no monthly fee is required. Funserver.cc is one of the servers and I do play there occasionally.

RE: You can play WOW for free

By Aikouka on 1/23/2008 10:21:03 AM , Rating: 1

Please do not advertise illegal servers. These servers are not licensed/supported by Blizzard in any way. Also, anyone wanting a "true World of Warcraft experience"... I would suggest to never waste your time on a private server (what these servers are called) as they are quite different and tend to be more for doing things like getting gear you'll never get or messing around. The databases are incomplete for the most part and they are not fully functional.

The only "gray" use of these servers I can think of would be that some machinima people* use private servers to accomplish some of the scenes in videos.

*Note: The best definition I can give for Machinima are videos using game engines/objects... the South Park WoW episode featured machinima for example.

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RE: You can play WOW for free

By eye smite on 1/23/2008 11:32:36 AM , Rating: 2

And you can prove that funserver.cc is an illegal server that was not purchased from blizzard and maintained at a blizzard datacenter. Don't tell me not to advertise if you don't have links to back up your claim. I don't consider it advertising furthermore, this is a blog and I was simply pointing out that people can play without a monthly fee. You not liking my comments is your problem as I have and will post here anything I'd like to. In other words when the clue train comes by, why don't you hop on.

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RE: You can play WOW for free

By Aikouka on 1/23/2008 12:06:05 PM , Rating: 1

A simple Google search on the site provided showed that the server is running TBC version 2.1 (i.e. patch 2.1). This is very typical of private servers to not be at the latest patch (2.3.3). If it were hosted as a Blizzard center (kind of how you can purchase Ventrilo servers), it would be updated to full. Although the site mentioning 2.1 could be out of date information, the question is then if they are running the patch that was released yesterday (2.3.3)?

Also, the Google search showed that the server has a max level of 255, boosted EXP and boosted looted gold. If it were a Blizzard ran server, it would most likely be set to normal rules as letting a disparity exist would be harmful to their own servers.

Not to mention, I don't have to actually provide proof if I'm declaring that your statement of it being a legit server is false. The burden of proof is on you, my friend, to prove that your claim was right to begin with. But anyway... if you'd like, I'd be more than happy to send an e-mail to Blizzard asking them if this "funserver" is a legitimate server (even though I already know the answer). But don't be surprised if the server goes down sometime later.

Also, there's nothing wrong with talking about the existence of free servers or even the fact that you've played on one. The issue is with posting links to attaining these things. It's akin to me posting a URL to download a latest Hollywood movie or the latest video game. You don't do it.

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RE: You can play WOW for free

By EODetroit on 1/23/2008 1:23:08 PM , Rating: 2

Blizzard is very protective of their property, you can bet that the funserver.cc will disappear in short order and the owners will be prosecuted if caught. What they are doing is not a grey area, its blatantly illegal.

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Diablo

By wordsworm on 1/23/2008 8:39:25 AM , Rating: 2

The reason I don't like WoW the most is that I was a big fan of the Diablo series, and WoW effectively took all of their attention.

RE: Diablo

By eye smite on 1/23/2008 9:42:20 AM , Rating: 5

Well go play Guild Wars, there's no monthly fee and some of the ex diablo developement team is who created it. There's 3 million people playing it since it's launch in 2005.

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sales + subsciption fee

By strafejumper123 on 1/22/2008 9:43:37 PM , Rating: 2

I remember years ago an article saying that WOW (World of Warcraft) was one of the highest grossing games of the year. At the end of the article was a little note: this is just based on game sales, it does not take into account the $15 subscription fee.

However the $15 a month subsciption fee is a HUGE factor in the profits for WOW. They probably make more off subscriptions than on just the game sales because people pay month after month after month!

I wonder how WOW compares to other games if you actually factor in not only sales but also, and maybe more importantly, you factor in that 10 million people are paying $15 a month for many months - if it was already in the top 5 without factoring in the subscriptions maybe it is far and away #1 most profitable game every year with them.

RE: sales + subsciption fee

By mcturkey on 1/23/2008 12:26:22 AM , Rating: 2

Considering that Blizzard accounts for 50% of the profits for Activision Blizzard, and nearly all of that comes from WoW, there's not even a competition - it's far and away the most profitable game of all time.

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RE: sales + subsciption fee

By aharris on 1/23/2008 9:51:54 AM , Rating: 2

It's most definitely a billion dollar/yr game. Consider that maybe .25% of the current subscribers are on a demo account, then consider the rest of the subscribers are split into those who pay monthly ($15/mo) and those who pay for 6 month blocks at a time ($11/mo). With those numbers you end up at Blizzard making a whopping $129,675,000 per month, or $1,556,100,000 per year.

What's even more amazing is they keep generating interest in their 3 year old game. Of all the gaming companies, they manage and use their resources the best - they're always releasing new content, they're constantly developing new products (The upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King; the new Blizzcasts), and they still for the most part manage to maintain good faith of their consumers.

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The pay model is different in Asia

By eze on 1/23/2008 10:19:48 AM , Rating: 2

Using the $15/month x subscribers isn't the best calculation. Unless I've been misinformed, Asia players don't pay monthly. They pay for game cards that give them X hours of playtime. Therefore the 5.5 Million from Asia might be what would be inactive accounts that still have game time left on there accounts. And the amount of revenue from Asia is difficult for non blizzard people to gauge. In the US because its a monthly rate players who have lost hardcore interest and play maybe 3 or 4 times a month will likely choose to let there account expire. If its the per hour of gametime rate Asia gets, there will be more likelihood that a casual every now and then player will keep logging in a few times a month.

RE: The pay model is different in Asia

By eye smite on 1/23/2008 11:38:24 AM , Rating: 3

You can also pay with a CC and pay $11 a month for 6 months at a time. What the hell is with you techno junkies that can't do a bit of research before you post dis-information.

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Ding!

By Schadenfroh on 1/22/2008 7:30:47 PM , Rating: 2

Just hit level 10,000,000 !!!!

WOW

By Bioniccrackmonk on 1/22/2008 10:41:44 PM , Rating: 2

That's a lot of bed pans and hot pockets.

/duck

I know some others were thinking it. :)

pathetic

By MangoSRT8 on 1/23/2008 7:48:07 AM , Rating: 2

It's pretty pathetic that all of those people play WoW, they must have no life!! Oh wait...I did lose 2 years of my life to Star Wars Galaxies...I guess I can't talk.... =P

WoW is good though, I can see why there are so many players. It's great to see that MMO's have taken off to such an extent.

Go Blizz!

By Ramshambo on 1/23/2008 8:42:05 AM , Rating: 2

I'm glad to see a company get rewarded for all thier hard work and dedication. They always give me a great experience and great support. They deserve every penny!

My Problem with MMO

By Setsunayaki on 1/25/2008 1:30:32 AM , Rating: 2

WoW and other games with the online subscription fee have always gotten to me. Nevermind that we all pay for our PCs, our internet connections, our games...but now to pay to play the game as well.

What annoys me is that instead of the game being focused on "fun" and "enjoyment", these games are built around a dangerous model which accounts for a lot of loss time.

A game is designed in a way that concentrates itself around making as much money from each user as possible. The result is a game where it takes around 4 - 6 months on the average of grinding and questing for 8 hours a day to reach the maximum level, where the game finally begins and a character can access 50 - 60% of the intended content for maximum level characters.

The majority of such players don't make it past one quarter playing a game when they realize the money spent on the fees and the time requirements.

So, now that designers have intentionally slowed a game down and made everything time consuming and even unfair as one has to forfeit part of their lives to remain on par with friends in the game....A new problem occurs...

Since players spend money to play the game, groups like IGE use the economy of the game and their "BOTS" to actually hijack the economy and get players into spending real money for in-game money and items. When players in forumboards complain about this...the complaining players meet with poor customer support and worse case, the complainer gets banned.

The one MMO game that I play is Guild Wars....Not just because it doesn't have a subscription fee, but because in a short time, one character reaches the maximum level and doesnt have to worry about excessive grinding in comparison to other mmo games...Also the instanced maps mean that my party can be left in peace to play the game....away from any negative factor (except a moron in the party that gets us all killed.)

Guild Wars proved that business models exist where a game can become popular without an online fee. Other games exist with no subscription fees...

Now...in every P2P MMORPG I have ever played, the model revolving around players staying means, lots of wasted time...to the point that every major game that has had a free server..I have tried it and always had much more fun in the free server where I can be max level in a few hours and play with many players what it would take 6 months to a year to achieve in P2P live version.

I have tried many MMO games...and I have a busy life....and for someone like me...I can't forgive the way a company says "BUY ME AND PAY ME TO PLAY" and then you play for 8 - 16 hours a day.....then next thing you know a sequal comes out and you realize when the old game is phazed out that....you had wasted 5 years of your life playing a game and could have done other things....

While someone like me says "You spent 5 years and $900 in fees...I spent 2 - 3 months playing 2 - 4 hours a day accomplishing what it took you five years to accomplish in a free server"

All I can say about MMO games, is sure...they have nice graphics, good themes and all...but LET THE BUYER BEWARE....^_^

Lot of Money

By Shwanzig on 1/22/2008 8:31:25 PM , Rating: 1

That's almost 2 billion dollars a year, wow XD

10 million of the unskilled

By Belard on 1/23/08, Rating: -1

By Belard on 1/23/2008 4:33:22 AM , Rating: -1

Okay, I hate MMOGs... but hey, if someone wants to waste their life on it fine.

Why I don't like them:
1 - they hurt gaming in general. COD4 = 100,000- for PC vs 1.5million+ for consoles. Since all these people are spending years playing this same game, they don't have time or money to play other games.

2 - they suck the life out of people. Kids have been taken away from addicted parents. The fights I would have with an ex-gf had mostly to do with the stupid MMOG like WOW... "honey, ya got to go to work" - I pulled the power cord out on that one, that became a BIG FIGHT. My current main GF doesn't: play games, no IM, no texting, no MySpace... ah, nice.

3 - lack of skillz. Low quality graphics. I've come back days later and she's still killing little creatures to build up XPs, or whatever. Clicking clicking clicking over and over again to kill little creatures. In a FPS, 1-2 shots kills an actual online player... and you have TO AIM, at least there is skill involved. "oh wow! I got a +10 sword" - fine... go ahead. I'll go have sex with a girl or two... while you type "I got the sword of blah!"

The good thing about MMORG, I'm guessing that 80% are guys. And while I'm not ugly or anything (I'm in top shape), I see a lot of girls 19~28 that don't have guys on a fri/sat night when I go out... so thank you.

RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By cputeq on 1/23/2008 5:53:32 AM , Rating: 5

Your lack of insight, cavalier attitude and outright assumptions are astounding.

quote:
1 - they hurt gaming in general. COD4 = 100,000- for PC vs 1.5million+ for consoles. Since all these people are spending years playing this same game, they don't have time or money to play other games.

PC gaming in general is on the decline, so trying to pin COD4's weak PC sales on WOW is absurd. The developer has publicly exclaimed they're alarmed at how much the PC game was pirated. These can't be counted as sales, so there are definitely more people playing COD4 than 100K...it's just that they didn't pay for the game.

The large sales discrepancy, though, could be attributed to the fact the current consoles are powerful enough to give mid-range PC gaming a run for its money. COD4 on Xbox360 hooked up to my 50" DLP looks very, very nice. Add that fact in with complaints of COD4-PC cheating in multiplayer (which doesn't happen with the consoles), and you have several good reasons why the console variant would outsell PCs -- all while not considering WoW.

You're also wrongly assuming a WoW player plays no other games, which is entirely false. Sure, there are some players whos entire lives revolve around WoW; there are also many players who are just casual WoW players...most of my friends are (and I used to be). We had plenty of times for other games and didn't live on WoW.

quote:

2 - they suck the life out of people. Kids have been taken away from addicted parents. The fights I would have with an ex-gf had mostly to do with the stupid MMOG like WOW... "honey, ya got to go to work"

Yes, this has happened before...it's also happened to drug addicts, porn addicts, TV addicts.....see the trend here? People with addictive personalities tend to be just that....addicts. Without some insight on how one thing or another is running your life, bad things happen. WoW surely isn't the sole addictive 'home breaker' out there. And again, you're assuming WoW players are all addicts.

quote:

3 - lack of skillz. Low quality graphics. I've come back days later and she's still killing little creatures to build up XPs, or whatever. Clicking clicking clicking over and over again to kill little creatures.

Spoken like someone that's never played WoW to any great extent. Get to level 70 and play an arena match, or on a PVP server, and tell me how bad you get your ass kicked.

WoW is a gradual progression in difficulty and gameplay options as you level up.

The "low quality graphics" is purely subjective and is commonly not a complaint with WoW...as a matter of fact, their art direction is astounding.

Besides, I didn't realize graphics made a good game -- What about Tetris? Or Pac-Man? Or hell, almost any Wii game?

quote:

In a FPS, 1-2 shots kills an actual online player... and you have TO AIM, at least there is skill involved.

There is skill involved in WoW, but again, it ramps up in difficulty and options as you get higher level. WoW's difficulty comes in having to know how to *quickly* react to situations using the right skill at the right time...and also mentally tracking other timers, because you can't always do everything at once.

quote:

"oh wow! I got a +10 sword" - fine... go ahead. I'll go have sex with a girl or two... while you type "I got the sword of blah!"

Ah wow, I didn't realize you're so cool! So instead of someone enjoying a (mostly) non-destructive form of entertainment, you're going to be the "bigger man" and have casual pre-marital sex with multiple partners! Can I be you?

quote:

The good thing about MMORG, I'm guessing that 80% are guys. And while I'm not ugly or anything (I'm in top shape), I see a lot of girls 19~28 that don't have guys on a fri/sat night when I go out... so thank you.

Amazing. You make a baseless assumption (80% WoW subscriber base is male) and directly apply this situation to the fact you notice lots of (presumeably) single ladies when you go out.

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By porkpie on 1/23/2008 9:16:09 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
WoW is a gradual progression in difficulty and gameplay options as you level up...Get to level 70 and play an arena match, or on a PVP server, and tell me how bad you get your ass kicked.

There's always a certain amount of "skillz", in PVP, especially the fast-twitch kind, but speaking from the experience of two level 70s, the PVE portion of WoW requires very little skill (and yes, I include raiding in that).

But then thats true of most "modern" MMOs. They're all casual-oriented. I played WoW, DAOC, DDO, LOTR, SWG, EQ, EQ2, SB, and others, and the only one which really required any skill on the PVE side was EQ in the early days. When WoW came out, EQ watered itself down hard desparately trying to win some of those subs.

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By MrBlastman on 1/23/2008 9:52:31 AM , Rating: 3

I'm not sure about the original EQ even - I played that for a very short period of time and saw that it to was a glorified click/hunt/gather/do chores mmo. Morrowind or Oblivion are examples of a few single player RPG's that have gotten the user skill/combat performance right - there is some dexterity required (moreso in Oblivion).

The inherent problem with MMO's is pretty simple - at least in my mind, and are major reasons I choose to not partake in them. The fact that many people say they are for the "casual" crowd is pretty humorous as well if you consider the following flaws:

1. Time requirement - to succeed in an MMO you have to spend a LARGE amount of time farming your characters stats/skill/gold/items etc. You can not just hop on for an hour a night, play, kick behind and log off. You actually have to invest many many hours before you can become competitive.

2. Carrot on a stick concept. ALL MMO's follow the carrot-on-a-stick concept without fail. It is a simple concept really that the developer/publisher follows to keep the masses playing them so the revenue stream does not dry up. Basically, it boils down to you need to invest x hours at x place or doing x action to achieve y goal. The problem is it is a graduated carrot that continuously climbs higher and higher. This lures players to continue to play hour after hour, and concurrently month after month.

Basically, there is no end. The revenue stream continues. To MMO's credit, the content continues to roll in creating a dynamic persistent world. Blizzard at least does this which gives the players some value for their dollar. However, it creates a need to continue to pay to receive content and to try and catch the carrot.

3. Lack of freedom. Basically you are as free in the world as the developer decides you shall be. In other online non-pay-per month games, you, the player are typically free to decide through mods etc. If you want to conquer the game world in a MMO - you are confined to what the developer wants you to do. This is a big turnoff for quite a few people who are looking for further leeway.

4. Casual gamer - I'm sorry, but anyone who plays a MMO for 80+ hours a month is not a casual gamer. They're pretty hardcore in my eyes :)

For people who don't mind all of the above, WOW is a great experience I suppose. For the rest of us - some people like to just be able to freely log onto a server, dominate the crowd and go home without any time investment. If you've built up a great deal of manual dexterity over the years, a keen wit and good instincts, non MMO games will reward far more than the prior. Thankfully we have a choice between the two.

I don't remember the last time I was chasing a carrot though in QWTF/TFC/TF 2/Quake 1/2/3/UT 1/2k3/3/Duke 3d/Doom series etc. It is nice to log on for a couple minutes, relieve stress and move on without having to level up for days on end before I can do anything with any competitive value.

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By porkpie on 1/23/2008 10:55:36 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
I'm not sure about the original EQ even...it to was a glorified click/hunt/gather/do chores mmo

Then you didn't play early EQ. There was no "gather/do chores" at all. Quests didn't give experience and (since you lost huge amounts of exp from dying) you progressed only by hunting and (most importantly) staying alive.

In early EQ, if you saw a max-level player, they were either skilled or they bought the character. (OK, well, maybe the occasional druid slipped through, but that's it). Poor players got frustrated usually in their mid 30s, and either quit the game or just started a new twink.

quote:
"Time requirement - to succeed in an MMO you have to spend a LARGE amount of time...anyone who plays a MMO for 80+ hours a month is not a casual gamer"

Nope. If you define "succeed" as "having fun and seeing a majority of the content", even early EQ didn't require more than 15 hours/week. Most modern MMOs you can get by with about 5 hours or so.

If you define success as "being better than anyone else", then obviously you have to PLAY more than those people. Or else, play a lot smarter. And let's face it, there isn't a lot of room to play smart in modern MMOs. It's just too easy.

In WoW or any of the other modern MMOs you can easily be a top tier player world-wide with about 20-25 hours a week invested. Even early EQ only took 30-40 hours. Again, that wasn't to "succeed". That was to become the "best of the best".

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By MrBlastman on 1/23/2008 12:49:06 PM , Rating: 2

Here

quote:
If you define success as "being better than anyone else", then obviously you have to PLAY more than those people. Or else, play a lot smarter. And let's face it, there isn't a lot of room to play smart in modern MMOs. It's just too easy.

and

quote:
In WoW or any of the other modern MMOs you can easily be a top tier player world-wide with about 20-25 hours a week invested. Even early EQ only took 30-40 hours. Again, that wasn't to "succeed". That was to become the "best of the best".

you mention the most important quandary of all in MMO games.
20 - 25 hours a week or 30 - 40 hours a week might seem like nothing to a college or high school student, or a single adult with no wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend etc. But, to someone with that or a family, it is A LOT OF TIME. 1-2 hrs a night might be more feasible, but according to your guidelines, far short of what is required to be a top tier player.

I can hop on Team Fortress 2, Doom 3, Quake 3 Rocket Arena 3, Quake 4 etc - you name it, and easily be a top tier player based on the merit of my personal ability alone while only playing 1 - 2 hours a night or less.

This is purely natural ability of the genre - not based solely on time spent in a persistant world. When I define success, I define it as the best of the best, in the top 99th percentile of ability. Consistently scoring #1 over and over. You do not have to play hours and hours week after week to do this in FPS games if you have skill that has been honed over time or innate ability. You don't even have to practice consistently to keep up with the joneses. You either have it, or you don't.

In an MMO, you have to play catch up all the time. To many of us, an MMO's model just does not fit.

Now, on the same vein of discussion - a hardcore FPS player does not neccesarily have to invest hours up on hours of time to be qualified as non-casual, they just have to have exceptional ability, much like your top tier athlete.

With all that said, obviously I agree with your comment about not having room to play smart on modern MMOs. To be top tier in an FPS though, you HAVE to play smart. There is no clicky-click win.

When you're thrown into an arena with equal equipment/equal abilities within the game, like in Rocket Arena, it then truely boils down to innate ability and skill as to who will win. Not what level you are or what weapons you've farmed off the land. Even pure Deathmatch style gameplay requires

a. innate manual dexterity for hitting the target and dodging/avoiding shots - or pulling out a win against a massively over-armed opponent (it CAN be done)
b. higher level tactical reasoning for situational decision making
c. higher level strategic thinking and planning for both weapon/item/health gathering
d. the occasional and small (very minute) amount of luck involved with player positioning/placement/timing - this is a small .0001% of the experience but it can occasionally play a factor.

All of these do not require hours a week invested to be good at if you have the right stuff. It doesn't become a second job, but a form of stress relief and competition akin to a weekly ALTA tennis match.

Thankfully as I mentioned before, we have both types of genres - the timesink type and the true player skill type. Everyone is happy :)

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By porkpie on 1/23/2008 12:57:25 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
you mention the most important quandary of all in MMO games.
20 - 25 hours a week or 30 - 40 hours a week might seem like nothing to a college or high school student, or a single adult with no wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend etc. But, to someone with that or a family, it is A LOT OF TIME.

So? That level of time is what's required (or used to be) to be BEST OF THE BEST. To play at what passes for "professionally" in these games. Why is someone with a job and family trying to play professionally?

You do NOT have to play anywhere near that much just to "enjoy" and "succeed" in these games. 10 hours/week or less in most modern MMOs is all you need for that.

quote:
o be top tier in an FPS though, you HAVE to play smart. There is no clicky-click win.

No. You have to have good reflexes and a (very) minor amount of tactical skill. There is no high-level strategy, logistics, encounter analysis, or any other cerebral activity required.

Early EQ required that. Intelligence. No matter how much time you sunk, you weren't going to see high-level content unless you had both skills and intelligence.

WoW (PVE rading) requires about 1/20 as much...but that's still a hell of a lot more than a FPS requires. That's the reason I play those games, and don't play the shoot-em-ups.

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By MrBlastman on 1/23/2008 2:15:58 PM , Rating: 2

What is the point of winning if you aren't the best? I'll leave it at that. Some people are content to be average, others are not. I don't want to be forced to play 40 hours a week to be the best. If I'm the best, I want to prove it in a couple of minutes, not over hours of gameplay. Thankfully FPS games afford us this luxury (the GOOD ones like I mentioned before).

Time should never be a dictator of your level of prowess or success in a game - at least in my eyes. Sure, they require an investment of time to hone your skills, but once you have them, they are directly transferrable to other FPS or RTS games out there. You don't start over every time.

quote:
No. You have to have good reflexes and a (very) minor amount of tactical skill. There is no high-level strategy, logistics, encounter analysis, or any other cerebral activity required.

You've never been top-tier in an FPS :) There is a great deal of thinking and decision making that goes on to be the best of the best especially in Deathmatch environments and in organized team games like Team Fortress 2.

And how about RTS games such as Supreme Commander or StarCraft. Both are highly cerebral games that do not require an absurd amount of time to be the best.

I've outlined the flaws of MMO's and I'm sticking with them. There is no way around them with their current design.

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By Belard on 1/24/2008 4:01:11 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
There is a great deal of thinking and decision making that goes on to be the best of the best especially in Deathmatch environments and in organized team games like Team Fortress 2. And how about RTS games such as Supreme Commander or StarCraft. Both are highly cerebral games that do not require an absurd amount of time to be the best.

Yep... when I play online FPS like Unreal Tournament (2004 or 3) I like to do teamplay... especially if its good players who know teamwork. We do require TACTICS to win some larger battles... Just having 2-3 skilled players killing everyone doesn't always win the battle.

I like playing SuCOM... but I don't have time to do multiplayer.

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By DirthNader on 1/23/2008 4:00:01 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Nope. If you define "succeed" as "having fun and seeing a majority of the content", even early EQ didn't require more than 15 hours/week. Most modern MMOs you can get by with about 5 hours or so.

Has Blizzard gotten better about releasing non-raid content?

I'd love to believe you that the game could stay new and fresh without a significant time commitment, but that'd be a big change from the "Raid or Quit" attitude Tigole and Furor expressed when I was playing. When I found out that there was going to be no new non-raid instanced content added until TBC I cancelled.

I've got a good "read life" friend that's still playing, but all I hear about is raiding.

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By Belard on 1/24/2008 3:48:00 AM , Rating: 2

Nice of someone to vote me down... no curse words, just a MMORG loser who doesn't like to hear an opinion.

quote:
ou're also wrongly assuming a WoW player plays no other games, which is entirely false. Sure, there are some players whos entire lives revolve around WoW

Refering to MMORG in general.

BTW: Addicts are addicts... and as long as they are only hurting themselves, I could care less... okay ;)

quote:
Spoken like someone that's never played WoW to any great extent. Get to level 70 and play an arena match, or on a PVP server, and tell me how bad you get your ass kicked. WoW is a gradual progression in difficulty and gameplay options as you level up.

I never played WOW or other MMORG period... I've chatted a bit with my ex-GF (was GF back then) fellow loser players... RPGs is about building up characters, so a "expert" player can make a newbie character better faster, but must still go through the growing pains. Hence, the character has artifical limted skill abilities. Mind you, the concepts of RPG/MMORG is very cool.

I think the idea of playing in a virtual world is facincating. A sci-fi book I read many years ago has the VR world so detailed that it can be pretty much no different (but actually bettter) than real life. I think when humans can live in VR, where there is touch, smell, sound that is equal or better than real life - people will kind of, well die. They'd just live in the VR world where they could be "perfect".

quote:
I didn't realize graphics made a good game -- What about Tetris? Or Pac-Man? Or hell, almost any Wii game

True... there are old games I play from time to time... But I can't go back to playing UT99... not when UT2004 and UT3 look so much better. Things do get out-dated, there is a reason we DON'T spend $50 for PACMAN 15/2008 whatever.

quote:
Ah wow, I didn't realize you're so cool! So instead of someone enjoying a (mostly) non-destructive form of entertainment, you're going to be the "bigger man" and have casual pre-marital sex with multiple partners! Can I be you?

??? I'm a bit confused. I'm not against ANYONE wanting to play MMORG (you're still stuck on WOW for some reason) - I've seen to many people waste their lives on it when there were more important things that needed to be done IN THE REAL WORLD. What does YOU playing WOW have to do with ME getting my tool used? Me having sex will not effect you playing WOW, ever. The proper way to phrase that "You could either spend hours playing ONLINE on a quest killing 1xp creatures, doing fake live stuff like marriage, etc... or have sex with a LIVING human being... especially if she's hot. So far in the USA, still - having sex before marriage is not ILLEGAL. If it makes you feel better, move to the middle east where it is illegal. Besides, you should always try before you buy ;)

Also, my main girl is a BABE, she's a 9 easy! And she loves running massaging oil on my body while lay in her bed. I love her, we dance, go out for dinner, gardens and more... Dancing in MMORG is waving your arms with sparkies flying around.. cute. Nothing compared to being on the dance floor with loud music with a woman in your arms ;)

I play games, even RTS like Supreme Commander - but what makes them differemt from MMORGs is that a person can jump in, play for 15mins, 50mins or a few hours and leave without having to worry about their status or where their clan is, etc.

Hmm.. I should play, its been weeks since the last time I played.

Oh... and NO, you can't be me. Its up to you to be like me, but sorry - I'm not intrested in having you in my girlfriend bed... nor she would want you ;)

quote:
Amazing. You make a baseless assumption (80% WoW subscriber base is male) and directly apply this situation to the fact you notice lots of (presumeably) single ladies when you go out.

Based on what I asked of my last GF about the ratio and others who I have talked. I admit, its an educated guess... and I will ADMIT - I was being silly about the girls going out being more available because of WOW. ;)

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By eye smite on 1/23/2008 9:10:48 AM , Rating: 1

I'm sorry he's had such a negative experience with the game and it's caused so much trauma in his life. Everyone has addictions of some kind. If his girlfriend developed an addiction to an online game instead of intercourse, I would suspect he's not doing something right, or unable to FULFILL certain fundamental parts of the female anatomy. His close minded sarcastic remarks are not surprising though with that level of trauma over a game.

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RE: 10 million of the unskilled

By Setsunayaki on 1/25/2008 1:44:35 AM , Rating: 1

You make a good point Belard...

Im in good shape myself...and I have someone special in my life who I wouldnt trade for anything in the world.

I have seen people decline from being "good people" to becoming very mean and basing their lives off a game. A lot of people lack something in the real world, so they try to find themselves online.

In regards to relationships. Its important for your partner to be allowed a life of her own...However if the relationship is that important to the both of you, the two of you would stick together and prefer each other.

The one I love plays games from time to time, likes IM....because to that person, they are merely tools to keep in contact with friends who lived in other states that the knew each other offline.

As for lack of skills. I do get upset at people trying to show off their size of their penis or breast by spamming the weapons that they have. It would be more mature to actually create a strategy and work within the group....

...but as much as I like FPS games, the poor attitude is there as well...With players winning a match in team deathmatch and spamming "I WIN" which happens a lot in UT III and Call of Duty 4 having a lot of hype on its side.

My opinion on life is that...while its everyone's choice on their lives....one should try for something meaningful. What gets me upset are the people who let 3 - 5 years of their lives fly by when they wake up, sit on a comp for the whole day...eat and go to sleep....

For whatever is worth.....if you wish to fight such things...the best thing to do is give some worth and meaning to your life by straying from the system that is in place in society...there are ways...but risky.

Good luck.

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